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Active   Listen
adjective
Active  adj.  
1.
Having the power or quality of acting; causing change; communicating action or motion; acting; opposed to passive, that receives; as, certain active principles; the powers of the mind.
2.
Quick in physical movement; of an agile and vigorous body; nimble; as, an active child or animal. "Active and nervous was his gait."
3.
In action; actually proceeding; working; in force; opposed to quiescent, dormant, or extinct; as, active laws; active hostilities; an active volcano.
4.
Given to action; constantly engaged in action; energetic; diligent; busy; opposed to dull, sluggish, indolent, or inert; as, an active man of business; active mind; active zeal.
5.
Requiring or implying action or exertion; opposed to sedentary or to tranquil; as, active employment or service; active scenes.
6.
Given to action rather than contemplation; practical; operative; opposed to speculative or theoretical; as, an active rather than a speculative statesman.
7.
Brisk; lively; as, an active demand for corn.
8.
Implying or producing rapid action; as, an active disease; an active remedy.
9.
(Gram.)
(a)
Applied to a form of the verb; opposed to passive. See Active voice, under Voice.
(b)
Applied to verbs which assert that the subject acts upon or affects something else; transitive.
(c)
Applied to all verbs that express action as distinct from mere existence or state.
Active capital, Active wealth, money, or property that may readily be converted into money.
Synonyms: Agile; alert; brisk; vigorous; nimble; lively; quick; sprightly; prompt; energetic.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Active" Quotes from Famous Books



... {102a} And surely, for a man to seek to make restitution for wrongs done, to the utmost of his power, by what he is, has, and enjoys in this world, is the best way, in that capacity, and with reference to that thing, that a man can at this time be found active in. ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan

... mention of the Moors, and the Germans (the Emperor's merchants) that were sojourners or settlers in London. The Saracens at that time were among the great merchants of the world; Marseilles, Arles, Avignon, Montpellier, Toulouse, were the wonted stapes of their active traders. What civilisers, what teachers they were—those same Saracens! How much in arms and in arts we owe them! Fathers of the Provencal poetry they, far more than even the Scandinavian scalds, have influenced the literature of ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... which had accumulated in the royal treasury. The most extravagant bounty was offered to the soldiers, and prices were paid for mules and horses, which showed that gold, or rather silver, was the commodity of least value in Peru. *12 By these efforts, the active commander soon assembled a force considerably larger than that of his adversary. But how ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... the solitude of his office, Mr. Bellamy resolved to assert himself once and for all, and set matters on a proper footing, and Mrs. Bellamy in her place. But it is one thing for husbands of the Bellamy stamp to form high-stomached resolutions, and another for them to put those resolutions into active and visible operation on wives of the Mrs. Bellamy stamp. Indeed, had it not been for a little incident about to be detailed, it is doubtful if Mr. Bellamy would have ever come to the scratch ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... as he entered Iberia, he commenced active operations and in a few days raised ten cohorts in addition to the twenty which were already there, and with this force marching against the Calaici[471] and Lusitani he defeated them, and advanced to the shores of the external sea, subduing the nations which hitherto had paid no obedience ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... Turkish?" asked Mr. Sherlock Holmes, gazing fixedly at my boots. I was reclining in a cane-backed chair at the moment, and my protruded feet had attracted his ever-active attention. ...
— The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax • Arthur Conan Doyle

... will have quite a little party of active men with them, ready to despatch the brute with their spears if they are lucky enough to catch him; but ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn

... patrols reconnoitred the enemy wire. On the following day eight small patrols were established in No Man's Land to cover work in the trenches, and, ensuing upon this, the German artillery became fairly active. ...
— The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - A Record of its Services in the Great War, 1914-1919 • Fred W. Ward

... "upon the fortunate consummation of his arduous duties," and he expressed his entire approbation of the whole course of his proceedings during a series of difficulties requiring higher moral courage than the operations of an active campaign under ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... to the end of Babylon Lane and stood now upon the London road. Above the cornfield on the right hovered a sweet-voiced lark and the wild hedges were astir with active bird life. Velvet bees droned on their way and the air was laden with the fragrance of an English summer. Along the road flashed a motor bicycle, bearing a khaki-clad messenger and above the distant town flew a Farman biplane gleaming ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... commander of all the western posts, and troops trailed us continually. They were led by Captain Lawton, who had good scouts. The Mexican[36] soldiers also became more active and more numerous. We had skirmishes almost every day, and so we finally decided to break up into small bands. With six men and four women I made for the range of mountains near Hot Springs, New Mexico. We passed many cattle ...
— Geronimo's Story of His Life • Geronimo

... Sunnah traditions, is it not reported of the Prophet (whom Allah save and assain!) that he appointed the blood money for a woman to be half that of a man. And as for the evidence of reason, the male is the agent and active and the female the patient and passive.'[FN234] Rejoined she, 'Thou hast said well, O my lord, but, by Allah, thou hast proved my contention with thine own lips and hast advanced evidence which telleth against thee, and not for thee. And thus it is: Allah (extolled and exalted be He!) ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... in a subtle manner, struck the same note. The old painting blouse he usually wore had been discarded for the blue serge suit, severely masculine in aspect; his hair had been reduced to an usual order, his whole appearance was rigid, active, braced for ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... were shut up in the storm-besieged cabin had been fearfully long to their active spirits, and on this account, too, they welcomed the chance ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren

... the instant this tremendous giant appeared, and, as usual on such occasions, when he had made the same attempt before, a dreadful battle took place. Fifty active little boys bravely flew upon the enemy, armed with their dinner-knives, and looked like a nest of hornets, stinging him in every direction, till he roared with pain, and would have run away; but the fairy Teach-all, seeing his intention, rushed forward with the carving-knife, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... And through the open door and windows came the stir of the sweet night air, and the sound of insects, and the gurgle of a brook that ran a few yards off; peaceful, free, glad, as if all were as it had been last night, or nature took no cognizance of human affairs. The minister had been very active and helpful; bringing wood and drawing water and making up the fire, as well as anybody, Mrs. Starling said afterwards; he had taken his part in the actual nursing, and better than anybody, Diana thought. Now the two stood silent and grave by the long table, while they still kept up the application ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... transitional form between man and the ape: we seemed to have found "the missing link." There were very interesting scientific discussions of it at the last three International Congresses of Zoology (Leyden, 1895, Cambridge, 1898, and Berlin, 1901). I took an active part in the discussion at Cambridge, and may refer the reader to the paper I read there on "The Present Position of Our Knowledge of the Origin of Man" (translated by Dr. Gadow with the title ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel

... occupation of it. With hearts made to beat quickly by the news that filtered through the lines, and heads made old by the responsibility thrust upon them,—in the absence of fathers and older brothers,—such boys as John Quincy Adams saw active service in the capacity of post-riders bearing in their several districts the anxiously awaited tidings from ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey

... a somewhat short and thick-set but bright and active-looking boy, with a pair of very keen, greenish-gray eyes. But, after all, the first word he spoke ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... development begins at a very early date, supplementing the sense of hearing. Long before the child is old enough to read, its fingers have become its eyes, and each of the ten fingers carries its quota of information to the active brain, the amount and quality of this information increasing with the mental development. In addition to the fingers, the nerves of the face and those of the feet contribute their share of information. The child learns to detect differences in climatic condition by the ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley

... which the development of Herrnhut aroused in certain quarters. This opposition was not universal. The Moravians had many warm friends and advocates at the Saxon Court, at the Universities of Jena and Tuebingen, and elsewhere, but they also had active enemies who drew their inspiration principally from ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries

... to keep a close watch on earth and foliage. When he saw the faint trace of a large moccasin on the earth all that was left of the spell departed suddenly and he became at once the wilderness warrior, active, alert, ready to ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler

... new and astonishing spectacle to Rose, fresh from a prim boarding-school, and she watched the active lads with breathless interest, thinking their antics far superior to those of Mops, ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... much while my faculties last, and (if I know myself) have a certain something in me that would still be active in rusting and corroding me, if I flattered myself that I was in repose. On the other hand, I think that my habit of easy self-abstraction and withdrawal into fancies has always refreshed and strengthened me in short intervals wonderfully. I always seem to myself to have ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... into a hansom, whence came the yapping of a dog. Another cab was loitering by, empty; and this cabman had his orders. Logan had seen to that. To hail that cab, to leap in, to cry, 'Follow the scoundrel in front: a sovereign if you catch him,' was to the active Miss Blowser the work of a moment. The man whipped up his horse, the pursuit began, 'there was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee,' Marylebone rang with the screams of female rage and distress. Mr. Fulton, he also, leaped up and rushed in pursuit, wringing ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... that M'bisibi, an old man, became most energetically active. Lokali and swift messengers sent his villages to the search. Every half-hour the Hotchkiss gun of the Zaire banged noisily; and Hamilton, tramping through the woods, felt his heart sink as hour after hour passed without news of ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace

... combustibles. It was no easy task to board so lofty a ship, but the king urged on his men, some of whom, jumping overboard, swam to the rudder, to which they secured ropes, and thus gained the power of steering her. The most active now climbed up her sides, but were driven back by the overwhelming number of her defenders. The galleys were next ordered to try the effect of their beaks; retiring to windward, and setting all their sails, as well as working away with their oars, they ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... slight, active man, with eyes like an eagle's; his features were finely cut, and you could read each thought as it kindled over the dark surface ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... immediately, and called at the house of the carpenter. Mat Mogmore, after some haggling, consented to become one of the crew of the yacht. He was a young man of eighteen, who had made two or three fishing voyages, and was a smart, active fellow. He had been rather intimate with Dock since the return of the latter; and this was all Levi had against him. Before night, the young captain of The Starry Flag had engaged three other hands. The crew were to go on board the next morning, when Levi intended to start on a trial trip, ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic

... this struggling, noisy, busy, merry race shall have exchanged their pleasures or occupations for a quiet coffin (and a tawdry lying epitaph) at Montmartre, or Pere la Chaise; when the follies here recorded shall have been superseded by new ones, and the fools now so active shall have given up the inheritance of the world to their children: the latter will, at least, have the advantage of knowing, intimately and exactly, the manners of life and being of their grandsires, and calling up, when they so choose it, our ghosts from the grave, to live, love, quarrel, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... erosion natural hazards: occasional typhoons; active volcanism international agreements: party to - Biodiversity, Climate Change, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection; signed, but not ratified - Law ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... active now like a snake coiling and uncoiling within the flaming spaces of his mind, darted upon Morris. He must find Morris at once—no delay—at once—at once. What to do? He did not know. But he must be face to face with him and deal with him—that wretched, miserable, whining, ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... cause of misunderstanding is the idea that "the Saints" mean only a few very holy persons, who have attained by the grace of God such a degree of perfection, as is beyond the reach of those who live an active life in the world. But this idea also is found to be contrary to the ordinary Bible use of the word. Those whom S. Paul addresses in his Epistles as "Saints," are rebuked for almost every kind of sin. The Corinthians, ...
— The Kingdom of Heaven; What is it? • Edward Burbidge

... to correspond, can I honestly satisfy you about my motives for this sudden stop? So, my dear, I choose, you see, rather to rely upon your discretion, than to feign reasons with which you would not be satisfied, but with your usual active penetration, sift to the bottom, and at last find me to be a mean and low qualifier; and that with an implication injurious to you, that I supposed you had not prudence enough to be trusted ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... from the first used to take an active part in his son's education, and the following anecdote will show that he had at least a pupil who was anxious to learn. One day, when Charles was a very small boy, he came up to his father and showed him a book of logarithms, with the request, "Please explain." Mr. Dodgson told him that he was ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

... Church at Jerusalem to take charge of the daily ministration of charity to the poor widows (Acts vi. I ff.). And when this work is hindered by the outbreak of persecution following on the death of Stephen, we find him at once departing to enter on active missionary work elsewhere (Acts viii. 4 ff.). The fact that he should have selected Samaria as the scene of these new labours, is in itself a proof that he was able to rise above the ordinary Jewish ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.

... days after this, the great man, who had grown at last too feeble for an active part in "affairs," resigned the presidency of the South Midland, and retired, as he said, ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... see the necessity of fulfilling the Maltese article in the treaty of Amiens. Prussia, alarmed by the near neigbourhood of Mortier, hardly dared to remonstrate. Denmark alone showed any symptom of active resentment. She marched 30,000 men into her German provinces; but finding that Austria and Prussia were resolved to be quiescent, was fain to offer explanations, and recall her troops. The French General, meantime, scourged ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... virtuous acts, never turning their backs on the field of the battle, and possessed of every accomplishment! Thou art the Lord of all, thou art Omnipresent, thou art the Soul of all things, and thou art the active power pervading everything! The rulers of the several worlds, those worlds themselves, the stellar conjunctions, the ten points of the horizon, the firmament, the moon, and the sun, are all established in thee! And, O mighty-armed one, the morality of (earthly) creatures, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... instinct, as well as to his new desire as a Christian, to know well the Word of God, Bullen had read over, the night before, the passages in Exodus and Leviticus, relating to the robing of the High-priest, and had been struck with this fact, that the High-priest himself did nothing, took no active part in his robing. Moses, as God's representative, ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... early errors made him tolerant to the faults of others,—few men are charitable who remember not that they have sinned. In our faults lie the germs of virtues. Thus gradually and serenely had worn away his life—obscure but useful, calm but active,—a man whom "the great prizes" of the Church might have rendered an ambitious schemer, to whom a modest confidence gave the true pastoral power,—to conquer the world within himself, and to sympathize with the wants of others. ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book I • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... measure of a pacific tendency; and in a conversation which Clarendon had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he found him well inclined to the same policy, so that there is an important section of the Cabinet disposed to take an active part in this direction. But Palmerston at the same time wrote to Melbourne in a tone of the greatest contempt for all that was saying and doing in France, and, of course, elated by the recent successes in Syria, which, with his usual luck, have happened at this ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... abroad for a copy of Suetonius. Robert Grosseteste got a rare book, Basil's Hexaemeron, from Bury St. Edmunds in exchange for a MS. of Postillae.[1] At Ely, in the fourteenth century, when the scribes there were very active, the preceptor was always on the look-out for "copy." On one occasion he was paid 6s. 7d. for going to Balsham to inquire for books (1329).[2] Abbot Henry of Hyde Abbey exchanged a volume containing Terence, Boethius, Suetonius, and ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... outwardly covered with great plaits of auburn hair, through which broke riotous, frivolous curls, the inside held a distinctly active and developed brain, which had acquired the habit of thinking deeply upon such subjects as ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... He came to Quesnay two days after, when I was with him. The Doctor began talking about the art of war, and I remember he said, "Military men make a great mystery of their art; but what is the reason that young Princes have always the most brilliant success? Why, because they are active and daring. When Sovereigns command their troops in person what exploits they perform! Clearly, because they are at liberty to run all risks." These observations made a lasting impression on ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... years and three months were the most active ones which I ever spent, though I was occasionally unwell, and so lost some time. After going backwards and forwards several times between Shrewsbury, Maer, Cambridge, and London, I settled in lodgings at Cambridge (In Fitzwilliam Street.) on December ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... and Galletly crawled into the cutter. He was that most despicable of created beings, a male gossip, and he spent most of his time travelling from house to house in the village, smoking his pipe in neighbourly kitchens and fanning into an active blaze all the smouldering feuds of the place. He had been nicknamed "The Morning Chronicle" by a sarcastic schoolteacher who had sojourned a winter at the Corner. The name was an apt one and clung. Telford ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... host-like attention to his fair little companion; but it was as well for her that the walk presently sufficed of itself for her entertainment. They went first across several fields, where the sun beat down freely on all their heads, and divers fences gave play to the active and useful qualities of the gentlemen. Suddenly from the last field they went down a grassy descent—and found themselves at the side of ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... art, men have chilled it with the foul and withering breath of infidelity and materialism, let us leave the busy arena of commerce, men are gloating over gain and gold in their hidden corners; let us rest with that sturdy, active, middle-class, where the mechanic's ingenious conceptions puzzle and captivate the most listless observer; let us watch the busy minds and busier fingers of those men, so fascinated by their daily toil, that all the world outside ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... During his visit to Fildy Fe Manor, the liking had hardened into serious regard. He had been surprised, rather distressed, to find how much less well-off they had appeared here, at home, than when the Colonel had been on so-called active service. It had also become plain to him—though he was not a man to look out for such things—that the husband and wife were now on very indifferent terms, the one with the other, and, on the whole, he blamed the wife—and then, just before he had started for ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... was not at work in the dock-yard with his broad axe, he amused himself by sailing a yacht, dressed like a Dutch skipper, with a red jacket and white trousers. He was a marked personage, even had it not been known that he was the Czar,—a tall, robust, active man of twenty-five, with a fierce look and curling brown locks, free from all restraint, seeing but little of the ambassadors who had followed him, and passing his time with ship-builders and merchants, and adhering rigidly to all the regulations ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... active volcanism; situated along the Pacific "Rim of Fire"; the country is subject to frequent and sometimes severe earthquakes; ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... a little man, with thin grey hair, which stood upright from his narrow head—what his age might have been it was impossible to guess; he was wizened, and dry, and grey, but still active enough on his legs when he had exchanged his slippers for his shoes; and as keen in all his senses as though years could never ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... us in general terms, which is one way of attenuating it; we may be told, that all trades, professions, it may be added, all the accidents of the social hierarchy and all forms of intelligence, have their own slang. The merchant who says: "Montpellier not active, Marseilles fine quality," the broker on 'change who says: "Assets at end of current month," the gambler who says: "Tiers et tout, refait de pique," the sheriff of the Norman Isles who says: "The holder in fee reverting to his landed estate cannot ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... men and women had broadened. She read them more easily now than when she was a girl—had suffered, perhaps, by trusting them too much. This had sharpened the tip end of her tongue to so fine a point that when it became active—and once in a while it did—it could rip a sham reputation up the back as easily as a keen blade loosens the seams of ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... porch on the side nearest the furnace, and Gordon saw an active figure glide from the shelter of a flask-shed and go in pursuit. He followed at a distance. It was needful only that he should know where to find Farley when Kincaid should have ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... by-road not much travelled led to the grave-yard, and led off from it over the broken country, following the ups and downs of the ground to a long distance away, without a moving thing upon it in sight near or far. No sound of stirring and active humanity. Nothing to touch the perfect repose. But every lesson of the place could be heard more distinctly amid that silence of all other voices. Except indeed nature's voice; that was not silent; and neither did ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... put the places of his own command in as good condition as was possible, but he went from one city to another, assisting and advising. He made journey after journey to the Hague to rouse Leicester to a more active policy, and at one time went even into Germany to implore help for the wretched country. All this time he was writing to Leicester, to the queen, to her advisers, the most passionate letters. He set forth the condition of affairs in language ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... not a soul stirred who could avoid it. Those who were so active and lively the night before, were now stretched languidly upon their couches. Being to the full as idly disposed, I sat down and wrote some of this dreaming epistle; then feasted upon figs and melons; then got under the shade of the cypress, ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... his comrades were secretly glad. The rising of the waters had prevented them from going into North Carolina and joining Sherman. Hence, they deduced that so active a man as Sheridan would march for a junction with Grant, and that was where they wanted to go. They did not believe that the Confederacy was to be finished in North Carolina, but at Richmond. They knew that Lee's ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... I found myself in high favour, from my superior howling, and the duration of my convulsions. But during this state, which by habit soon became spasmodic, continuing until the vital functions were almost extinct, the mind was as active as ever, and I lay immersed in a sea of doubt which was most painful. In my state of exhaustion I doubted every thing. I doubted if my convulsions were convulsions, or only feigned; I doubted if I was asleep or awake; I doubted whether I was in a trance, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... though I have no sort of claim to that unique and accomplished scholarship which gives you a mastery of the French tongue unmatched in England, and a complete familiarity with its history, application and genius, yet I can put to my credit a year of active, if eccentric, experience in a French barrack room, and a complete segregation during those twelve memorable months wherein I could study the very soul of this sincere, creative, ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc

... be known, holy priest, that in my dying moment I prayed for Nelson, and for all who have been active in bringing me to this end. It is easy for the fortunate and the untempted to condemn; but he is wiser, as he is safer, who puts more reliance on the goodness of God than on his ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... received a very cordial 'press,' has had an uncommon amount of publicity, and the advertisements of which announce that it is in its 'fourth printing,' has, after about half a year, earned for its author perhaps $1,000. Its sale now in active measure is over. An author is fairly fortunate who receives as much as $500 or $600 from the sale of his book. I recall an excellent story published something over a year ago which was much praised by many reviewers. It took the author probably the better part of ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... circulation and needs periodically to be withdrawn and replaced. An epithet which is complimentary in one generation is ironical in the next and eventually offensive. Moody, with its northern form Mudie, which now means morose, was once valiant (Chapter I); and pert, surviving in the name Peart, meant active, brisk, etc.— ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... has that bee buzzed In your bonnet. The only lawless tribes In this country are far away in the interior. And even they are apt to think many times before they offer active resistance to the passing of a strong and well-intentioned kafila. Besides, my dear fellow, we must purchase some portion of our equipment here. It is secrecy, not candor, that would endanger our mission. Believe me, you are suffering from Red Sea spleen. It distorts your ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... then exceeded the collective number of those who had preceded them—so far as is known—from the earliest period in the history of art. In a critical review of the time, however, we find a general and active interest in culture and art among women rather than any considerable number ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement

... swamp, across field and trench, we pushed the fighting defenders steadily. For a part of the time, Sheridan himself was there, short and broad, and active, waving his hat, giving orders, seldom out of fire, but never stationary, and close by fell the long yellow locks of Custer, sabre extended, fighting like a Viking, though he was worn and haggard with much work. At four o'clock ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... wrong seemed to be less obviously offensive than the minor fault. It was true that it involved the doing of something he had not contemplated, and the certainty of exposure if 'Lige ever returned, but he was nevertheless resolved. The step from passive to active wrong-doing is not only easy, it is often a relief; it is that return to sincerity which we all require. Howbeit, it gave that ring of assertion to Daniel Harkutt's voice already noted, which most women ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... de badger and de bah, En de funny lil hah, En de active lil flea, En de lil armadillah Dat sleeps widouter pillah, An dey all gottah mate ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... requested leave of absence, and taking with him the most active of his men, and hastening to the village to which Xenophon had been allotted, surprised all the villagers and their head man in their houses, together with seventeen colts that were bred as a tribute for the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... moves among. Added to which, many of the higher topics whereto our curiosity would turn, are intercepted from it by the policy of our guides and rulers; while the principal ones on which cruelty is most active, are pointed to by the sceptre and the truncheon, and wealth and dignity are the rewards of their attainment. What perversion! He who brings a bullock into a city for its sustenance is called a butcher, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... of a French airman demonstrates. His dirigible had been commanded to make a night-raid upon a railway station which was a strategical junction for the movement of the enemy's troops. Although the hostile searchlights were active, the airship contrived to slip between the spokes of light without being observed. By descending to a comparatively low altitude the pilot was able to ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot

... were too relevant not to arouse controversy, but too remote from the spirit of the age to win many adherents. Of another sort was Mistress Anne Hutchinson, a woman of "nimble wit and active spirit," one of those popular village characters who go about among the poor and sick, bringing wholesome draughts of cordial, gossip, and consolation. As a taster of dry sermons there was none better; so that many women of Boston, and not a few men, ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... made chairman of the meeting and a temporary secretary was elected. The chairman read a number of letters from various parts of the country expressing an active interest in the formation of an organization such as was proposed. A committee of three was appointed by the chair to draft a constitution. This committee, consisting of Mr. John Craig, Dr. R. T. Morris and ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... to the interval for adjustment and deliberation after one move is finished and before the next move begins. This further removes the game from the chess category, and approximates it to the likeness of active service. Most of a general's decisions, once a fight has begun, must be made in such brief intervals of time. (But we leave unlimited time at ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells

... Clonbrony's. The circumstances of domestic distress which afterwards occurred in the family of his friend, entirely occupied Lord Colambre's time and attention. All thoughts of love were suspended, and his whole mind was given up to the active services of friendship. The sudden illness of Sir John Berryl spread an alarm among his creditors, which brought to light at once the disorder of his affairs, of which his son had no knowledge or suspicion. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... active vanity were disturbed; but above that rose another passion that had of late years grown strong within her—avarice. She recognized the sure ring of gold in those notes, and ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... the one person in the world whom you want at the moment to see and to talk with proves to be out. Then the news has to be suppressed; the conclusions, the suspicions, the guesses have to be postponed; the active ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... of the new Gothic vaulting swayed over head. In 1219, however, Suger's structure was nearly destroyed by fire and the upper part of the choir, the nave and transepts were afterwards rebuilt in the pure Gothic of the times, the more active reconstruction being effected between 1231 and 1281. A visit to the monuments is unhappily a somewhat mingled experience. Owing to the inscrutable official regulations in force, the best of the mediaeval tombs are only seen ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... excited, "Here I am. If you wish to kick me down stairs, you can. I came in civilly on business, supposing, as a citizen, I had a right to that." The deputy ejaculated, "A d——d poor citizen," the warden also having followed, and joining freely in the vituperation. Seeing no active signs of putting the threat in practice, I started on and came safely away, but was subsequently informed by one then standing at the foot of the stairs, that he kicked towards me, when I had taken a few steps. But he did not hit or injure the object of his rage. In this experience ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... been very active and skillful in directing all this work, and he had also built a pretty cottage for himself, not far from the King's palace, and there Inga found Zella, who was living very happy and contented in her new home. Not only had Nikobob accomplished all this in a comparatively brief space of time, ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum

... sister from my mind. She told me, that at first she did all she could to turn Ellen from her purpose; but when she found her resolution was unalterably fixed by some means to earn sufficient to repay the cause of so much distress, she entered warmly into her plan; and, with the active assistance of Robert, procured her work from the baby-linen warehouses at Plymouth. She first began with the plainest work, but that succeeded so well, finer was given to her. In London she worked ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... respect to the kinds of exercise, the various species of it may be divided into active and passive. Among the first, which admit of being considerably diversified, may be enumerated walking, running, leaping, swimming, riding, fencing, different sorts of athletic games, &c. Among the latter, or passive kinds of exercise may be comprised riding ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... after some years of retirement he was now in Washington, willing to be restored to his old mission. Every President thinks it respectable to have at least one literary man in his pay, and Mr. Gore's prospects were fair for obtaining his object, as he had the active support of a majority of the Massachusetts delegation. He was abominably selfish, colossally egoistic, and not a little vain; but he was shrewd; he knew how to hold his tongue; he could flatter dexterously, ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... say the poor girl caught a chill and died of pneumonia after only five days' illness, during which time the letter-writer was particularly active; and as the communications continued after her death, she must ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... her mother's side of a French nobleman and a German princess. Nevertheless she continues to reside in Vermilion, Ohio. She is of a "decided poetic nature and lives in an atmosphere of her own. She dwells in a world of thought peopled by the creations of an active and lyric mentality." She is so imbued with the poetic spark that, as she expresses it, she "speaks in rhyme ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... all the agony he was enduring. The fate Congo at first only conjectured had now assumed a horrible certainty. Death seemed inevitable; and Hendrik's active mind, susceptible of strong emotions, became painfully anxious at the approach of death. He feared it. Nor did that fear arise from an ignoble cause. It was simply the love of life, and the desire to ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid

... the reader, that the mind, so far as we yet know, can be cultivated in no other way than by voluntary exercise:—not by mere sensation, or perception, nor by the involuntary flow of thought which is ever passing through the mind; but by the active mental operation called "thinking,"—the voluntary exertion of the powers of the mind upon the idea presented to it, and which we have denominated "reiteration,"[1] as perhaps best descriptive of that thinking of the presented idea "over again," by ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... were active. He wanted to speak, had already opened his mouth to do so, to confess that he had spent more than he had had. If only his father were not always so extremely proper. Good gracious, you cannot help pulling handfuls of money out of your ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... immaculate as new flax, and a neckerchief like a flower-garden. Now he wore the remains of an old blue cloth suit of his gentlemanly times, a rusty silk hat, and a once black satin stock, soiled and shabby. Clad thus he went to and fro, still comparatively an active man—for he was not much over forty—and saw with the other men in the yard Donald Farfrae going in and out the green door that led to the garden, and the ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... Peter McSnadden. Now Peter had been a "jined member" of that mysterious "U. P. Kirk" which, according to the author of "Lothair," was founded by the Jesuits for the greater confusion of Scotch theology. Peter, I knew, had been active as a missionary among the Red Men in Canada; but I had neither heard of his death nor could conceive how his shade had found its way into a paradise so inappropriate as that in which I encountered him. Though ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... attractions. But the true Liverpool man looks at his native town from a very different point of view. He is part and parcel of the place, and he loves it for its size and ugliness, its great commerce, its thriving active business life. Liverpool to its citizens means home; they are proud of their laws and their customs; they like to dispense charity in their own way; they like to support and help their own poor; they ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade

... our possession, we had leisure to look about us. Memphis had been in the West what Charleston was in the East: an active worker in the secession cause. Her newspapers had teemed with abuse of every thing which opposed their heresy, and advocated the most summary measures. Lynching had been frequent and never rebuked, impressments ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... higher still. Keep your hair on!" she shouted down to Ulyth, and began swarming up the bole of a huge old oak-tree that abutted on the wall. She was strong and active as a boy, and had soon scrambled to where the branches forked. A mass of twisted ivy hung here, and raising herself with its aid, she ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... and he waved a hand doorwards, "servants are servants. I make no doubt they are listening, and your ladyship's voice has scarce been controlled. You can never say when a servant may cease to be a servant, and become an active enemy." ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... riding the trails passion-bent to escape pursuers, or passion-bent in his search, the constant action and toil and exhaustion made him sleep. But when in hiding, as time passed, gradually he required less rest and sleep, and his mind became more active. Little by little his phantoms gained hold on him, and at length, but for the saving power of his dreams, they would ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... guardianship over the three girls for which their mother was silently grateful. It was obvious that she could not tramp the fields with them and equally apparent that they would go wherever their healthy young active curiosity might lead. Richard and Warren took upon themselves the duties of friendly counselors—and had their ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence

... to the public, and doubtless to his own feelings, the aggregate of all,—that the proper temperament for generating or receiving superstitious impressions is naturally produced. Hope, the master element of a commanding genius, meeting with an active and combining intellect, and an imagination of just that degree of vividness which disquiets and impels the soul to try to realise its images, greatly increases the creative power of the mind; and hence the images become a satisfying ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... present time, a commission in the revenue police is considered, if not a more fashionable, at any rate a more lucrative appointment than a commission in the army. Among these officers some of course would be more active than others, and would consequently make more money; but it will be easily imagined, that however much the activity of a sub-inspector of revenue police might add to his character and standing at headquarters, it would not be likely ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... close of life Mr. Muller, acting under medical advice, abated somewhat of his active labours, preaching commonly but once a Sunday. It was my privilege to hear him on the morning of the Lord's day, March 22, 1896. He spoke on the 77th Psalm; of course he found here his favourite theme—prayer; and, taking that as a fair specimen of his average preaching, he was ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... But, to tell the truth, unless there were a prospect of active service I should prefer to remain in England, for this sole reason. I do not give up all hope of that will turning up, and if it should, I want to be in the way of getting early information, and ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... the other. But farther than this we are not bound to go; and indeed, for the sake of the world, we ought not to increase the jealousies, or draw on ourselves the power, of this formidable confederacy. I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States, never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... cope with the situation, and for them to usurp its powers was to step backward into the night out of which they had come. Further, no lighter word than "criminal" could characterize such conduct. And yet further, he promised them, in set, sober terms, if anything serious were the outcome, to take an active part in the prosecution of every one of them. At the conclusion of his speech he made a motion to hold the prisoner for the territorial court and to adjourn, but was voted down ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... make up for what the prairie may lack in diversity. Dusk by dusk they drown our world in color, they smother our skies in glory. They are terrifying, sometimes, to the tenderfoot, giving him the feeling that his world is on fire. Poor old Struthers, during an especially active display, invariably gets out her Bible. Used to them as I am, I find they can still touch me with awe. They make me lonesome. They seem like the search-lights of God, showing up my human littlenesses of soul. They are Armadas of floating glory reminding me there are seas I can never traverse. And ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... intellect, prompt energy, and indomitable perseverance. Inspired by these gifts and attainments, it was only natural, almost inevitable, that his first appearance upon the literary stage should have been in the role of a novelist. The active young intellect was pliant and strong, but had not yet learned its power. Before him lay the broad fields of romance, fascinating with their royal fleurs de lis, rich with the contributions of every age, some quaint and laughter-moving, some pompous and exaggerated, ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... was sincere and active enough in all that he did up here in the north for the priests of his faith; indeed, he risked both property and liberty on their behalf, and was willing to continue doing so as long as these were left to him. But it seemed to him sometimes that too much was ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... children usually managed? 815. What is the cause of their early promise and subsequent disappointment? 816. What mode of treatment should be adopted in educating precocious children? 817. How should the dull or less active child be treated? What is the ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... Martha was born, Tom and Nellie Rover came forward with twin boys, one of whom they named Anderson, after his grandfather, and the other Randolph, after Uncle Randolph, of Valley Brook Farm. Andy and Randy, as they were always called for short, were exceedingly clever and active lads, in this particular being a second edition of their father. Andy was usually saying things that were more or less funny, and Randy thought that playing some trick was the finest ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer

... near Herman Mordaunt's fortress, would be the place of all others most likely to contain an enemy who made his approaches against a garrison, by means of natural facilities alone. We were aware of this; and Guert, who took an active command among us, as we drew near to danger, issued his commands for every man to be on the alert, in order that there might be no confusion. We were instructed as to the manner of proceeding the moment an alarm was given; ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... witticism manner. Neither he nor Mrs. Brinkley was particularly glad to be together, but at Mrs. James Bellingham's it was well not to fling any companionship away till you were sure of something else. Besides, Mrs. Brinkley was indolent and good-natured, and Munt was active and good-natured, and they were well fitted to get on for ten or fifteen minutes. While they talked she kept an eye out for other acquaintance, and he stood alert to escape at the first chance. "How is it we are here so early—or rather ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the steamers behind them, through the streets and into the hotels, the houses, the cars, and the trains go, the new comers, and the newspapers, and the letters from England, all hot and active, bringing word of the main land, with its hub-bub and hurly-burly, to the island that has been four-and-twenty hours cut off from it—like the throbbing and bounding globules of fresh blood fetching life from the fountain-head to some half-severed limb. It is an hour of tremendous vitality, ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine

... the Chief of Staff had said. "You know perfectly well that the President is willing, even eager, to keep you on past the retirement age. You're a big man in the world now. You can stay on the active list as long as you want. If necessary, he'll ask a special law, and there won't ...
— The Golden Judge • Nathaniel Gordon

... well for Miss Halliday that she had submitted to this novel restriction with as good a grace, inasmuch as Mr. Sheldon had prepared himself for active opposition. He had given orders to his wife, and further orders to Mrs. Woolper to the effect that his step-daughter should not be permitted to go out of doors, except in his own or ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... interest of the races is tonight concentrated on the two head boats and their fate. At every gate there is a jam, and the weaker vessels are shoved into the ditches, upset and left unnoticed. The most active men, including the O. U. B. coxswain, shun the gates altogether, and take the big ditches in their stride, making for the long bridges, that they may get quietly over these and be safe for the best part of the race. They know that ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... point, of the near approach of a steamer to the Monongahela Wharf. Between himself and others of his color in the same line of business, and especially as regarded a certain formidable competitor called Ginger, there existed an active rivalry in the baggage-carrying business. For Cuff to allow Ginger the advantage of an undisputed descent upon the luggage of the approaching vessel would be not only to forfeit all "considerations" from the passengers, but, by proving him a laggard in his calling, to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... maiden of the same land as Dr. McDonnell. She was the silent member of a noisy group, but there was none of the active work ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason

... Imogen, though more exalted in its nature than any of her works, excepting Isabella, would rival in public acceptance her Juliet, Viola, or Rosalind, was not to be expected: it was too much a passive condition—delicate and elusive—and too little an active effort. She woke into life the sleeping spirit of a rather repellant drama, and was "alone ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... Yet, if we look at the Catholic population as it is, and is every year becoming, we cannot but be struck with its marvellous energy and progress. We will find that population more intellectual, more cultivated, more moral, more active, living, and energetic ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... Stuart period, Archbishop Spottiswoode seems to have been active in carrying the superstition from the sixteenth century to the seventeenth, and Archbishop Bramhall cites Scripture in support of it. Rather curiously, while the diary of Archbishop Laud shows so much superstition regarding ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... be enjoyed in Paris; in fact, not one of the persons to whom he brought letters of introduction took the least notice of him. English society is quicker to run after celebrities than to discern them in embryo. But the two or three Englishmen whom he already knew were active in his behalf. William Brokedon, his old friend the painter, conducted him to the dinner of the Royal Geographical Society, where a curious thing happened. Cavour's first essay in public speaking was before an English ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco



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