"Absolute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a Patti, a Kubelik, a Paderewski, the reflective hearer is struck by the absolute sureness with which such artists arouse certain sensations in their auditors. Moreover, subsequent hearings will reveal the fact that this sensation is aroused always in the same place, and in the same manner. The beauty of the voice may be temporarily ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... with the addition of battlements sometimes entering into the fortification. The whole of this day the work continued, and by the afternoon of the next the wall was all but completed, when the garrison in Nisaea, alarmed by the absolute want of provisions, which they used to take in for the day from the upper town, not anticipating any speedy relief from the Peloponnesians, and supposing Megara to be hostile, capitulated to the Athenians on condition that they should give up their arms, and should ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... unaided prove equal to the occasion, blast her way to any end she set before her, and, as she could not die, and for aught I knew could not even be killed,[*] what was there to stop her? In the end she would, I had little doubt, assume absolute rule over the British dominions, and probably over the whole earth, and, though I was sure that she would speedily make ours the most glorious and prosperous empire that the world has ever seen, it would be at the cost of ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... Christianity is hardly in revival, namely, Bible difficulties. The Prayer Book comes down to us from men who were held by a belief in the literal truth of the whole Bible. In so far as it has been an effective manual for ordinary people, it has been on the strength of an absolute dogma in their minds as to the "Word of God." That dogma has in a vague and somewhat insensible way lost its hold on the common mind. It has not the absolute and simple authority which in religion is a necessity for the little-educated. Few of the general public have thought very ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot
... in England we have the same thing too, touchingly, proudly and generously done. For the most part such tributes are mere records, but now and then they reconstruct; and the most remarkable example of such reconstruction—to the world at large, absolute creation—is the memoir of Charles Lister (UNWIN), which his father, Lord RIBBLESDALE, and some devoted friends have, with perfect biographical tact, prepared. But for CHARLES LISTER'S untimely death, leading his men ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... very certain that money is a commodity, no less than the articles it is employed to purchase, and like them, its absolute value is depreciated or lowered by abundance. Since the discovery of America, the quantity of gold and silver brought into general circulation, and of late, the general and extensive use of paper money which represents real specie, ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... the present, into which was born man in his present image, created of pollen, corn, white shell, turquoise, and rain by the Digi{COMBINING BREVE}n. These Digi{COMBINING BREVE}n were the animals which never assumed absolute material form on this earth, and the gods who perfected the creation. The creation of the world below, together with all food products, plant life, and animals known to the Navaho, is credited to First Man and First Woman, Astse Hastin and Astse Estsan; ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... Leslie, to whose judgment the mate seemed disposed to defer, decided upon a treatment, which they proceeded forthwith to act upon. It consisted in the administration of a draught, and the application of a blister; and owing to the absolute insensibility of the skipper and his consequent powerlessness to assist in any way it was a somewhat lengthy job; but they completed it at last, and then went ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... that our poet's laborious and nobly independent life, with all its lights and shadows, has been one to be envied. There is much in completeness—its rainbow has not been dissevered—it is a perfect arc. As I know him, it has been the absolute realization of his young desire, the unhasting, unresting life of a poet and student, beyond that of any other writer among us. Its compensations have been greater than those of ease and wealth. Even now he would not change it, though at an age when one might well have others stay his hands. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... of the regions which we have just traversed, have they not shown a courage a thousand times greater than mine, in giving up their country to the flames? My one hope is in the absolute need our enemy has of Gallic pilots to conduct his ships along the Breton coasts. Now especially, when the land offers not a single resource to his army, the way by sea is perhaps his only means of safety. You ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... dramatic force with which the story is told, the absolute originality of the underlying creative thought, and the strength of all the men and women who fill ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... his heart transfixed; Hassan's was pierced with as deep a wound; nor did the cadi's escape scatheless, but, even more deeply smitten than the two pashas, he could not take his eyes off the Christian's face. All three were seized at the same moment with an absolute determination to possess her; and without stopping to inquire how, or where, or when, she had come into the hands of the Jew, they bade him name her price. Four thousand doblas, he replied. The words were no sooner out of the Jew's mouth than Ali Pasha said he would give the price, and ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... with the restoration of the sheriffwick, usurped by the last three monarchs, but also the first formal recognition of the mayoralty. These favours, however, did not render them untrue to the general interests of the nation, or betray them into a corrupt acquiescence with the absolute tendencies of the Crown. At that time, as at all others, while duly reverencing the royal prerogatives, they resolutely opposed themselves to the undue aggrandizement of the kingly power at the expense of the other estates of the realm. It was within ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... within the heart stroke by stroke; within the craven's heart each new step resulting from a blow is temporarily an absolute severance. Her letter to Alvan written, she thought not tenderly of him but of the prince, who had always loved a young woman, and was unhampered by an old one. The composition of the letter, and the sense that the thing was done, made her stony ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... John. And before I begin, I must tell you that I rely on your keeping absolute silence as to what I am going to ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... Hence we have to proceed by INDUCTION—that is to say, to draw general conclusions, stage by stage, and with proportionate confidence, from the accumulation of detailed observations. These inductive conclusions cannot command absolute confidence, like mathematical axioms; but they approach the truth, and gain increasing probability, in proportion as we extend the basis of observed facts on which we build. The importance of these inductive laws is not diminished from the circumstance that they are looked ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... were my landlady and my laundress, two poor widows who never willingly distressed me, but who occasionally asked for 'that little amount' so piteously that my heart bled to lack it to give them. And as victuals and clean shirts were absolute necessaries of life, every week my debts increased. I could have faced a prosperous male creditor, and might, perhaps, have been provoked to bully such an one, had he been inclined to be cruel; but I could not face poor women who, after all, I believe, are generally the best ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... somebody else secure them, sent Valerie almost out of her mind. And it might happen any day—easily. The wares were so very attractive.... Moreover, if their recovery was to beggar her, by a hideous paradox, failure to repurchase the wares meant ruin absolute.... ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... the quiet persuasiveness of his presence and the charm of his personality. There are some persons in whom is inherent a certain magnetic mastery over numbers. He had this to an extraordinary degree. Merely by rising he could bring absolute stillness upon a cheering throng of students or alumni, and with a few words, quiet but distinct, he could rouse to a remarkable pitch that sentiment known as college spirit. His whole figure was expressive of a benign goodness, illuminated ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... explanations which I was in no wise prepared to give him. Instead I telegraphed to my lawyer in London, who negotiated a loan for me, mortgaging, so far as I could gather from his technical communications, my reversion of Hopton in case Isabella Gayerson should marry another than myself. The money was an absolute necessity, for without it Madame and Lucille could not leave France, and I took but little heed of the manner ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... in full force to his women. Di Vernon—who does not recall that scene where from horseback in the moonlight she bends to her lover, parting from him with the words: "Farewell, Frank, forever! There is a gulf between us—a gulf of absolute perdition. Where we go, you must not follow; what we do, you must not share in—farewell, be happy!" That is the very accent of Romance, in its true and proper setting: not to be ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... Thus, no absolute rights can be laid down even for men who share the same ideas in their private and social intercourse. The conception of the constitutional State in the strictest sense is an impossibility, and would lead to an intolerable state of things. ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... was something lonely and solitary about her great determined shape. She might have been Antigone alone on the Theban plain. It is not often given in a noisy world to come to the places of great grief and silence. An absolute, archaic grief possessed this countrywoman; she seemed like a renewal of some historic soul, with her sorrows and the remoteness of a daily life busied with rustic simplicities and the ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... on, of the autocratic rule of these leaders who possessed so absolute a domination over the men by whom they were followed. The fact of this absolute supremacy on the part of the chiefs is very curious, as theoretically in the confederacy of the Sea-wolves all were equal; we are, in fact, confronted with pure ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... Sovereign Director of the human multitude. Domini est terra et plenitudo ejus; orbis terrarum et universi qui habitant in eo. The first relation between the creature and his Creator is that of absolute dependence. The very being of the creature is dependent; dependent are his nature, his faculties, his acts, ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... withheld so severely in his waking hours, were inexpressibly sweet to her forlorn and hungry heart. If it had been to save her weary life she would not, by moving or struggling, have put an end to the position she found herself in. Thus she lay in absolute stillness, scarcely venturing to breathe, and, wondering what he was going to do with her, suffered herself to be borne ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... half way to Virginia Hilary had written back to Anna his inevitable rhapsody over that amazing performance of hers, taking it as patent and seal of her final, utter, absolute self-bestowal. And indeed this it might have turned out to be had he but approached it by a discreet circuit through the simplest feminine essentials of negative make-believe. But to spring out upon it in that straightforward manner—! From May to February her ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... was, if anything, more degrading to the soul. In fact, the Ultramontane French Church, resting for support on Rome, may be regarded by the friends of liberty, with a qualified complacency, as a check, though a miserable one, on the absolute dominion of physical force embodied in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... "It is absolute foolishness for us to prate of old-world castes when it is a part of our national creed that any one among us may rise as high as the best of us, provided he can grow the wings wherewith to soar. That little speech which almost broke your heart is a part of our creed, too. 'The hand of ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... The king composed their differences, bestowed the maiden on Gloucester, and parted the estate between him and Clarence; the countess of Warwick, mother of the heiresses, and who had brought that vast wealth to the house of Nevil, remaining the only sufferer, being reduced to a state of absolute necessity, as appears from Dugdale. In such times, under such despotic dispensations, the greatest crimes were only consequences of the economy of government.—Note, that Sir Richard Baker is so absurd as to make Richard espouse ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... Robert Moore's brother, we'll just tolerate his existence; won't we, Cary? You believe him to be intelligent, do you? Not quite an idiot—eh? Something commendable in his disposition!—id est, not an absolute ruffian. Good! Your representations have weight with me; and to prove that they have, should he come this way I will speak ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... observe that the Koranic prohibition is not absolute, with threat of Hell for infraction. Yet Mohammed doubtless forbade all inebriatives and the occasion of his so doing is well ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... confess that his faculty of obtaining favours of all sorts, was of a most extraordinary character; and he certainly never lost any chance of preferment for want of asking. In this respect, Jason was always a moral enigma, to me; there being an absolute absence, in his mind, of everything like a perception of the fitness of things, so far as the claims and rights of persons were connected with rank, education, birth, and experience. Rank, in the official sense, once possessed, he understood and respected; ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... of a hundred, the root of the evil is chronic inattention to food and raiment. It is a common thing to hear a singer say, 'I never touch such-and-such food on the days I sing.' My dear young friend, unless you are an absolute idiot, you would not partake of anything on the days you sing which might disagree with you, or over-tax your digestive powers; it is on the days you do not sing you ought more particularly to exercise your judgment ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... is absolute. It is not for man to depress himself by measuring himself against the eternities and the immensities external to him. What he has to do is to look inward upon himself, to fathom the eternities and the immensities in his own ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... of these incessant forces. No mere talent can accomplish such results. Behind all that kind of strength lies the fact of peculiar sympathies, relating the artist to this phase of Art-representation; and within certain limits, which should have been undebatable, his rule was absolute. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... could think of no better way of expressing their delicacy, than by comparing them to hairs. Very likely they thought even this a great compliment, but your delicate fair hairs, fine as they are, are absolute cables—and coarse cables too, believe me, compared to the capillary vessels which extend to every ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... lowest, Brahma's the highest; or it was driven back to become the life of a worm, a fly, a fish, or a brute. The reward for perfect observance was Beatitude, or absorption into the being of Brahm, which was not existence as much as absolute rest." ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... carrying with them the woven pictures of their ideals, their religion and their conquests. The weave is smooth and even, speaking for the work of the tapissier or weaver, although time has distorted the faces beyond the lines of absolute beauty; and ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... me, my Lord. This lady is a Princess absolute, As Prince he is who just saluted you, ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... to which his transactions on behalf of Grandcourt made no interruption worth reckoning. I cannot say that the same lengthened habit had intensified Grandcourt's want of respect for his companion since that want had been absolute from the beginning, but it had confirmed his sense that he might kick Lush if he chose—only he never did choose to kick any animal, because the act of kicking is a compromising attitude, and a gentleman's dogs should be kicked for him. He only said things which might have exposed himself ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... leave it behind. He did not pretend to reduce criticism to a science; he hoped that at length, as the result of numberless observations, something like a science might come into existence. Meanwhile he would cultivate the relative and distrust the absolute. He would study literary products through the persons of their authors; he would examine each detail; he would inquire into the physical characteristics of the subject of his investigation; view him through his ancestry and among ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... their fancies undisturbed. Now, amongst Pennie's listeners when she told her tales of what went on in the garret after nightfall, Ambrose was the one who heard with the most rapt attention and the most absolute belief. He came next to Nancy in age, and formed the most perfect contrast to her in appearance and character, for Nancy was a robust blue-eyed child, bold and fearless, and Ambrose was a slender little fellow with a freckled skin and a face full of sensitive expression. ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... parted. Her face swam before him, between the hemlock boughs, but he was not ready yet to forgive, not yet, not until he got to Roselands and she met him with her wistful eyes! He was not a fool; the Absolute within him knew where lay the need for forgiveness, but it was deeply overlaid with human pride and wrath. He was at the old, old trick of anger with another when the fault was all his own. As for ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... gone to fulfil another engagement, but was to return and play again. Some of the hot heads decided he should not; and though all precautions were taken, the feeling was that the better sense of the community would prevent any absolute disturbance. But the mob had grown larger and stronger in their narrow prejudice, and, before the play was half through, an onslaught was made on the opera-house. The rioters were in such force that the famous Seventh Regiment had to be called out. It was ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Godwin; but the latter could not alleviate his pecuniary distress, and the former was probably never fully aware of it. The diary contains a protracted record of privations, sometimes threatening absolute and hopeless want, but endured throughout with undisturbed and characteristic fortitude and gayety. He seems to have missed the attentions and society which he found on his first visit to London, and the following extract from his journal of 26th ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... friendly to wish an innocent girl to go down into her grave, leaving a name stained for all time by suspicion, if not absolute conviction ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... possession and his mother's dowry. But here, too, the same ill-fortune that had hitherto dogged his steps attended him. The lawsuit which he instituted, though it promised well at first, proved a will-o'-the-wisp, which lured him into the bog of absolute penury. His sister was dead; his mother's relatives, formerly hostile, were now, because of the lawsuit, doubly embittered against him. In his distress he sought refuge in the Benedictine monastery of Monte ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... it is necessary to make clear in describing this astral plane is its absolute reality. Of course in using that word I am not speaking from that metaphysical standpoint from which all but the One Unmanifested is unreal because impermanent; I am using the word in its plain, every-day ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... resembling many other marriages which masquerade as the decrees of Fate. It was in the midst of her secret great passion that she met him. He fell in love, as men are in the habit of doing, and pressed his suit with an earnestness and an ardor which left nothing to be desired. He pleased her; his absolute devotion flattered her. She fancied there was a sympathy of thought and taste between them, in which fancy she was mistaken. Add to this the violent opposition of her father and her sister Margaret to her marriage with a Catholic, and ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... improvising is thinking or composing while playing. But the greatest musical ideas are those which are conceived entirely in the mind, which needs no pen or piano mechanically to stimulate its creative power. Of this there can be no question, whatever. With an almost absolute unanimity we find that the greatest composers conceived their immortal ideas in the open air, where there was no possibility of coaxing them out of an instrument. And not only is the bare outline thus composed mentally, but the whole composition with all its involved ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... of some one among them whose judgment they consider superior: such a one is requested by the company to give his opinion on the propositions that have been made, and this opinion is minutely obeyed. They have no particular chiefs with absolute command, but they show honor to the older and more courageous men, whom they name captains, as mark of honor and respect, of which there are several in a village. But, although they confer more honor ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... well enough, and they are the very commonplace of the recollections of elders, of their rhetoric, and of what they think appropriate for their young ones. Shingle and sand are good playthings, but absolute play is not necessarily the ideal of a child; he would rather have a frolic of work. Of all the early autumn things to be done in holiday time, that game with the beach and the wave is the ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... absolute, sole Lord Of life and death. To prove the word, We'll now appeal to none of all Those thy old soldiers, great and tall, Ripe men of martyrdom, that could reach down With strong arms their triumphant crown: Such as could with lusty breath Speak loud, unto the face of death, Their ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... they had flung themselves on Brissenden's "Ephemera" and torn it to pieces—a wolf-rabble that fawned on him instead of fanging him. Fawn or fang, it was all a matter of chance. One thing he knew with absolute certitude: "Ephemera" was infinitely greater than anything he had done. It was infinitely greater than anything he had in him. It was a poem of centuries. Then the tribute the mob paid him was a sorry tribute indeed, for that same mob had wallowed "Ephemera" into the mire. He sighed ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... when a boat was near enough, they grabbed the baggage and trotted off with it, regardless of the remonstrances of the owners. At the custom house, the luggage was found; each native sitting stoically on whatever he had chanced to capture, with an air of absolute proprietorship. After it was passed by the custom authorities, it was carried to the hotel by the howling mob, where, with many kicks and cuffs administered by the landlord, it was reclaimed. Paul gave an exhibition ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... traits of resemblance between this hapless monarch and the present occupant of the German throne, for in both there exists and has existed the same exaggerated and narrow-minded religious beliefs, bordering on mysticism, and also an all-embracing faith in their absolute and unquestionable infallibility. ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... less than that of the plants in pairs, owing to the unfavourable conditions to which they were subjected from being greatly crowded. For our purpose, however, of the comparison of the crossed and self-fertilised plants, their absolute height signifies little. ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... not," interposes Harry Blew, "there be much; and for myself, as I've said, I object to spillin' blood, where the thing an't absolute needcessary. True, by leavin them aboard an' tied, as Mr Gomez suggests, they'll get drowned, for sartin; but it'll at least keep our hands ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... though it was in the middle of winter; and neglecting the welcome of the imperialists of North Italy, he ultimately tracked the Pope to the Countess Matilda's fortress of Canossa, in the Apennines, above Modena. But Gregory would listen to no mediation, and demanded absolute submission to his judgment. So Henry again took the method of procedure into his own hands and appeared at intervals during three successive days before the castle in the garb of a penitent, barefooted and clad ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... that in which he writes: "It was in 1868, when nine years old or thereabouts, that while looking at a map of Africa of the time and putting my finger on the blank space then representing the unsolved mystery of that continent, I said to myself with absolute assurance and an amazing audacity which are no longer in my character now: 'When I grow up I shall go there.'" Mr. Conrad's genius, his consciousness of his destiny, may be said to have come to birth in ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... priests, king, parents, elder brother, and husband. The priest has long been regarded as a god, but in the epic he is god of gods, although one can trace even here a growth in adulation.[42] The king, too, has been identified before this period with the gods. But in the epic he is to his people an absolute divinity,[43] and so are the parents to the son;[44] while, since the elder brother is the same with a father, when the father is dead the younger brother worships the elder. So also the wife's god is her husband; ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... was Val Elster. Lady Kirton gathered in the sense of the words, and gave a cry; a prolonged cry of absolute dismay. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... absolute, guiltless, simple, unmixed, chaste, holy, spotless, unpolluted, classic, immaculate, stainless, unspotted, classical, incorrupt, true, unstained, clean, innocent, unadulterated, unsullied, clear, mere, unblemished, untainted, continent, perfect, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... placed on the horns of a dilemma: give, and the report that a generous and fabulously wealthy Signore has arrived in Amalfi will run like wild-fire through the whole place, and your life in consequence will become an absolute burden for the remainder of your sojourn in this spot. Refuse, and the wretches who have hitherto been wheedling and cringing at your heels, will at once grow insolent and threatening, especially in the case of unprotected ladies. It is in fact a choice of two evils, ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... jealous of other women—of such women as Mrs. Saunders. He despises her: he plays with her as dexterously as she thinks she plays with him; but he likes to chat with her; and they rattle away for a whole evening without the least constraint. She has no conscience: she talks absolute nonsense about art and literature: she flirts even more disgustingly than she used to when she was Belle Woodward; but she is quickwitted, like most Irish people; and she enjoys a broad style of jesting which Ned is a great deal too ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... plurality of souls in the Absolute is therefore appearance and their existence not genuine ... souls like their bodies, are as such nothing more than appearance—Neither (body and soul) is real in the end: each is merely phenomenal." ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... endure whatever the past might hold for her; and Margherita, who had been watching her with strange intuition, knew that she might hold nothing back, as she also knew that the young Queen had been kept in absolute ignorance of the complications preceding the accession of Janus. But it was impossible for Caterina to conceal the play of her angry emotions as the tale progressed, and she frankly gave up the attempt. Janus—her beautiful Janus—the idol ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... troops came tramping in, having gradually, and in regular order, evacuated their posts, leaving their fires burning and moving in absolute silence, so that it was not until next morning that the enemy awoke to the knowledge that the Residency was deserted, and that their expected ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... what was going on under the surface at Ham Farm. The phrase used in the note, "I have a serious reason for asking this," appeared to favor the latter of the two interpretations. Impossible as it seemed to be that Mrs. Glenarm could know something about Arnold of which Lady Lundie was in absolute ignorance, her ladyship's curiosity (already powerfully excited by Blanche's mysterious letter) was only to be quieted by obtaining the necessary explanation forthwith, at ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... childlike simplicity and sincerity of her nature. There was something very peculiar about the single-minded, simple-hearted genuineness of Mrs. Arkwright which gave an unusual charm of unconventionality and fervid earnestness to her manner and conversation. I remember her telling me, with the most absolute conviction, that she thought wives were bound implicitly to obey their husbands, for she believed that at the day of judgment husbands would be answerable ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... and especially, of the Prussian bourgeoisie, against feudal aristocracy and absolute monarchy, in other words, the liberal ...
— The Communist Manifesto • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
... accomplished thing. Pliny would have loved it who said: "Ea est stomachi mei natura ut nil nisi merum atque totum velit," which signifies "such is the character of my taste that it will tolerate nothing but what is absolute and full." ... It is no use grumbling about the Latin. The nature of great disasters calls out for that foundational tongue. They roll as it were (do the great disasters of our time) right down the emptiness of the centuries until they strike the walls of Rome and provoke these ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... suggestions; but suggestions imply uncertainty; wherefore they are not a reason for the absolute conviction with which the Emir now said ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... quite so simple as that," she sighed. "Norman's w—this woman presently got tired of him. Evidently she had no scruples about getting what she wanted, nor how. She went away with another man. Norman is getting a divorce—the decree absolute will be granted in March next. He wants me ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... constantly well attended, and the proprietors, actors, authors, and all those concerned in their success, secure against the consequences of failure, and the true interest of the art be likewise promoted. In a word, neither absolute independence, nor exclusive privilege should prevail; but a middle course be adopted, in order to fix the fate of those great scenic establishments, which, by forming so essential a part of public diversion, have ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... His feeling had been shown clearly in the case of Zeke. So, in her period of uncertainty and stress, there was none of whom the girl could take counsel. But, in the end, she decided that she must give warning to the United States marshal. The task demanded care. On absolute secrecy depended, in ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... out of its place—not a leaf deranged—here are bright amber trees, and blue metallic towers, prepared gravel-walks, and figures nicely cleaned and bleached to suit; it is, in truth, the most genteel landscape ever looked on. Nothing but absolute needlework can create more wonderment. Fie! fie! get thee hence, W.F. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... one plainer, if you mean me," said my Aunt Kezia, bluntly. "What do nine-tenths of the men care about monarchy or commonwealth— absolute kings or limited ones—Stuart or Hanoverian? They just care for Prince Charles, and his fine person and ringing voice, and his handsome dress: what else? And the women are worse than the men. Some men will give their lives for a cause, but you don't often see ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... objected to his marrying a penniless girl, and hers, on the other, warned her of his disreputable character. But when two people have made up their minds to be one, such trifles as these are of no consequence. A far more trying obstacle was the absolute refusal of her Most Catholic Majesty to allow her maid of ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... I thought you were just giving me a reminder of my absolute dependence on you. I've been a ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... and unclean thing. Matravers made no secret now of his interest. He had drawn his chair to the front of the box, and the footlights fell full upon his pale, studious face turned with grave and absolute attention upon the little drama working itself out upon the stage. Ellison in the midst of his jubilation found time to notice what to him seemed a somewhat singular incident. In crossing the stage her eyes had for a moment met Matravers' earnest gaze, and Ellison could almost have ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... forbid us to kindle fires on his Sabbath; nor require us to stay in our houses, nor forbid us to assemble together to worship; neither does it forbid us to administer to the sick on his Sabbath, nor do any work of absolute necessity. These I propose to treat upon more at large, under the head Scriptural Observance of ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates
... are still no better guides than Haureau, De la Philosophie Scolastique (revised edition) and Prantl, Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande, who were our masters five-and-twenty years ago. The last-named book in especial may be recommended with absolute confidence to any one who experiences the famous desire for "something craggy to break his ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... accession of Egbert, had very nearly attained the absolute sovereignty in the Heptarchy; they had reduced the East Angles under subjection, and established tributary princes in the kingdoms of Kent and Essex. Northumberland was involved in anarchy; and no state of any consequence remained but that ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... Height of the Devil's Kingdom, and we shall never find him arrive to such a Pitch again; he was then truly and literally the universal Monarch, nay the God of this World; and as all Tyrants do, he governs them with an arbitrary absolute sway; and had not God thought fit to give him a Writ of Ejectment, and afterwards drown him out of Possession I know not what would have been the Case, he might have kept his Hold for ought I know till the Seed of the Woman came to bruise his Head, that is to ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... afraid, Colonel Campbell, our confidence in you is absolute; but do you not think that you are running a great risk in attacking a force some forty times as large as ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... you, and confess later. I have never lied to my wife, M'sieu—except upon rare occasions," Mr. La Branche chuckled merrily. "And even then only about trifles. So, the result? Absolute trust; supreme confidence on her part. A happy state for man and wife, is it not? Ha! I am a very good liar, an adept, as you shall see, for I am not calloused by practice and therefore liable to forgetfulness. With me ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... to the Captain of the Panther, they would have bellowed in rage. The whole empire wanted war, but the tired, swarthy faced man in the little underground chamber at the Wilhelmstrasse, not "absolutely absolute" as he is popularly supposed to be, deemed it wise not to fly in the face of public opinion at the time and countermand the official orders to the Panther. So he had done so in the dark, verbally, by me, knowing that so he served the best ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... autumn the Duke had been an unhappy man. While the absolute work of the Session had lasted he had found something to console him; but now, though he was surrounded by private secretaries, and though dispatch-boxes went and came twice a day, though there were dozens of letters as to which he had to give some instruction,—yet, ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... leaving Bolpur, that I could not carry away with me my store of stones. It is still difficult for me to realise that I have no absolute claim to keep up a close relationship with things, merely because I have gathered them together. If my fate had granted me the prayer, which I had pressed with such insistence, and undertaken that I should carry this load of stones ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... have quoted is, in fact, so preposterous, so utterly incompatible with anything but absolute ignorance of some of the best established facts, that we should have passed it over in silence had it not appeared to afford some clue to M. Flourens' unhesitating, 'a priori', repudiation of all forms ...
— Criticisms on "The Origin of Species" - From 'The Natural History Review', 1864 • Thomas H. Huxley
... very glad to think that I had done the man no injury. At the moment I knew that I could hurt him if I would, and what is more I had the desire to do so. It came to me, I suppose, with that breath of the past when I was so great and absolute. Perhaps I, or that part of me then incarnate, was a tyrant in those days, and this is why now I must be so humble. Fate is turning my pride to its hammer and ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... surprised. When you have learned to know the absolute, the utterly unlimited power and authority of an Indian Agent or sub-Agent, you have only to ask the capability for villainy he may possess in order to find the ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... he had been unobserved. In Yussuf's silence he had absolute confidence.... But of course there were a hundred other chances—some spying, back-stairs ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... this school is an absolute monarchy in the hands of the Head-Master, though the Dean and Chapter of Westminster can exercise a certain control of the Queen's Scholars, and the reigning sovereign of England is by the statutes Visitor of the School. In 1846 the father of one of the Queen's Scholars complained ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a bare economic solution of the question of bread and butter is possible in Russia only through such an absolute and tyrannous dictatorship as has been established, under which the reluctant and disorganized proletariat can be forced back to work, whether they wish or no, at the point of the bayonets of the ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... assembly of fashionable idlers. All knew the history of the house at Fulham. They knew of Paulina Durski only as a beautiful, but dangerous, syren, whose fatal smiles lured men to their ruin. That Douglas Dale should unite himself to such a woman seemed to them little short of absolute madness. ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... unregimented people, with a strong belief in the virtues of rugged individualism and in the right of the average man to go along about as he pleases, so long as he does not do actual injury to society. Voluntary group cooperation rather than absolute group loyalty, developing from a strong spiritual bond, is the basic technic of Americans in their average rounds. It is enough to satisfy the social, political and economic needs of a democracy, but in its military parts, ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... took the honour. I doubt if there be any greater mental or nervous strain than that of making the initial stroke in an important golf contest. The player realises that all eyes are on him, and unless he has nerves of steel and an absolute mental poise he is likely to fall the victim of a wave which surges against him as he grasps ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... were ready to embark. Grace was driven to the wharf, and she walked on board the sloop, supported by Lucy and myself; more, however, from solicitude than from absolute necessity. Every precaution, however, was taken by order of the physician to prevent anything like excitement; the blacks, in particular, who would have followed "Miss Grace" to the water's edge, being ordered to remain at home. Chloe, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... noon: yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good." But, however that may be, he is plainly right in the broad issue. Practice is the only absolute proof of sincerity: but defect in practice is no proof of insincerity. Certainly, no Christian can doubt that the struggling, even though falling, sinner is in at least as hopeful a condition as the complacent person whose principles and practice are ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... CHRISTIAN HOME.—Two Kinds. Divine Promises to Parents and Children. Those of Punishment. Law of Reproduction. Iniquity of the Parents upon the Children. Promises of Reward. In this Life. John Q. Adams. In the Life to Come. God's Fidelity to His Promises. They are Conditional. When they become Absolute. Popular Objections. Compatibility between Promises and Agencies. Paul. Moses. Promises made ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... stung out of his impassivity by a sort of moral stab which disturbs every faculty, unless he is absolutely stunned and left gasping. In England, the quiet club servant waits with dignity and reserve, but he is obedient to the last degree, and his civility reaches the point of absolute polish. When he performs a service his air is impassive, but if he is addressed his face assumes a quietly good-humoured expression, and he contrives to make his temporary employer feel as though it was a pleasure to attend upon him. All over our country we find that politeness ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... the paramount sultan are of this kind. When a sultan dies, or is displaced, they assemble like the College of Cardinals, or rather like the old Polish nobility, to elect a new one. It is the law that this Sultan of Aghadez must be a stranger. When once chosen he is invested with something like absolute authority throughout all Aheer, and he alone possesses the dreaded power of "cutting off heads." En Noor has sent this morning what is called "the present, of salutation," which he determined to despatch to Abd-el-Kader, ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... a darker streak in their midst, which gave a wonderful expression of strength and will to the beautiful face. The rather short profile was very dignified, the nose continuing the line of the brow with absolute rectitude, as in a Greek statue. A deep dimple under the lower lip foiled it up delightfully; and from time to time, when she was absorbed by a particular idea, she bit this lower lip with her white upper teeth, making the blood run in tiny red veins under ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... his head dropped on her shoulder. The little dog, unnoticed, barked angrily. For a few minutes neither of them could speak. To him, the unexpectedness of forgiveness was an absolute shock. Eleanor, her cheek against his hair, wept. ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... air,—so advantageously, that, for the most part, they approach the condition of cherubs. This is the true aerial perspective, so little understood heretofore. Trees, castles, rivers, volcanoes, oceans, float together in absolute vacancy; the solid earth is represented, what we know it actually is, buoyant as a bubble, so that no wonder if every horse is endued with all the privileges of Pegasus, save and except our sorrel. Malicious ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... judged. The Second treateth of Elections, shewing their Use and Application as they are constituted on the Twelve Celestial Houses, whereby you are enabled to choose such times as are proper and conducible to the perfection of any matter or business whatsoever. The third comprehendeth an absolute remedy for rectifying and judging Nativities; the signification and portance of Directions: with new and experienced Rules touching Revolutions and Transits, by Jo. Blagrave, of Reading Gent. Student in Astrology and ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... imploring little hands in his own firm grip. "Listen. There's no telling what has happened. We may have to go on deck. We may even be ordered to the boats. Warm clothing is an absolute necessity. Think now, and ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... opera-singer's life, Hilda walked serenely. She knew there were disagreeable things in the world but refused herself even the thought of them. It was not the barrier of innocence but rather a selection of certain aspects of life that she fancied, and an absolute impassibility in the presence of evil. Then her mother grew ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... the great school where this political morality was taught. That country was broken up into a number of small states, too nearly equal to allow the absolute supremacy of any one; while, at the same time, it demanded the most restless vigilance on the part of each to maintain its independence against its neighbors. Hence such a complexity of intrigues and combinations as ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... shores of our continent one may spend days of leisure or delightful study among the abundant and ever changing variety of wonderful living creatures. It is not unlikely that the enjoyment and absolute novelty of this new world may enable one to look on these as some of the most pleasant days of life. I write from the edge of the restless waters of Fundy, but any rock-strewn shore will duplicate ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... the sad thing is the servile class. Before the law the chimney sweep and the peer have exactly the same standing. They have worked that out with absolute justice. But there it stops. The serving class is what we should call abject. It does not occur to them that they might ever become—or that their descendants might ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... see how soon travellers get past that first cheeckalko feeling that it is a little "nervy," as the Boy had said, to walk into another man's house uninvited, an absolute stranger, and take possession of everything you want without so much as "by your leave." You soon learn ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... forward in his chair, his thin lips in an excited smile, his black-irised eyes sparkling. "I had to come tell you. The sheer, utter beauty of it is too much to contain. Three times in a row was almost absolute, Bart; the probability that our hypothesis is correct was computed as straight nines to seven decimals. But now! The fourth time! Straight nines to ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... his town of Ghoree, which, with his fort, was situate on the edge of a morass extending from the limits of the savannah to the foot of the hills—I should think that the fever so prevalent in these districts must be in a great degree attributable to the absolute want of drainage and the decomposition of vegetable matter. Its position was most insalubrious, for the marshy swamps commenced at the very base of hills, and thus as it were encircled the savannahs ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... if you are too proud, say so, and there's an end of it. You know me well enough to feel the absolute truth of what I say, when I assure you that you will remain just as independent of me as you ever were. I shall be spending my money in a way that gives me pleasure; the matter will never appear to me in any other light. Why, ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... progress showed no sign of absolute finality. Some of these, however, were rather of nomenclature than of substance, and hardly affect the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... his intendants, his sub-delegates, he intervenes in the most trifling of local matters. His revenue is four hundred and seventy-seven millions.[1119] He disburses one-half of that of the Clergy. In short, he is absolute master, and he so declares himself.[1120]—Possessions, freedom from taxation, the satisfactions of vanity, a few remnants of local jurisdiction and authority, are consequently all that is left to his ancient rivals; in exchange for these they enjoy his ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine |
