"Alphabet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... names have never been heard by the people—of France—even as Phoenicia, in the wanderings of her adventurous son, Cadmus, became the mother of Thebes and the godmother of Greek culture and of European literature. Palamedes and Simonides added some letters to the alphabet brought, according to tradition, by Cadmus to Greece, and Cadmus suffered the doom of those who sow dragon's teeth, as France has suffered, but still is his name kept in the memory of every school child; and so should be remembered those who planted the lead ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... old boss brought me to Arkansas when I was bout twelve years old. Biggest education I got, sit down with my old boss and he'd make me learn the alphabet. In those times they used the old ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... although she had not yet dared to look at him. But her little hand lay unreprovingly in his,—nestling like a timid bird which loved to be there, and sought not to escape. He pressed it gently to his heart; he felt by its magnetic touch, by that dumb alphabet of love, more eloquent than spoken words, that he had won the heart ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Egyptians were possessed of many discoveries in philosophy and chemistry before the invention of letters; these were then expressed in hieroglyphic paintings of men and animals; which after the discovery of the alphabet were described and animated by the poets, and became first the deities of Egypt, and afterwards of Greece and Rome. Allusions to those fables were therefore thought proper ornaments to a philosophical poem, and are occasionally introduced ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... assured herself that she could love no one but Francis Sales, that was no reason why others should not love her. From that point of view John Batty was a failure. He took her to a cricket match, but finding that she did not know the alphabet of the game, and was more interested in the spectators than in the players, he gave her up. He admired her appearance, but it did not make amends for ignorance of such a grossness; and, equally displeased with him, she returned home alone while ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... the whole world's school The lesson it will surely read, That each one ruled has right to rule — The alphabet of Freedom's creed Which slowly wins it proselytes And makes uneasier many a throne; You taught them all to prate of Rights In language growing like ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... if R.C. is not too sanguine. I never saw so much reason for indulging hope. By the bye, I am admitted a member of the Maitland Club, a Society on the principle of the Roxburghe and Bannatyne. What a tail of the alphabet I should draw after me were I to sign with the indications of the different societies I belong to, beginning with President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and ended with umpire of the Six-foot-high Club![267] Dined at home, and in quiet, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... without wheat? Certainly, and live well. We must recognize the scientific fact that no one food (with the exception of milk) is indispensable. There are four letters in the food alphabet: A, fuel for the body machine; B, protein for the upkeep of the machinery; C, mineral salts, partly for upkeep and partly for lubrication—to make all parts work smoothly together; D, vitamines, subtle and elusive substances upon whose presence depends ...
— Everyday Foods in War Time • Mary Swartz Rose
... her text, her career was ever marked with deeds of kindness and charity to the oppressed of every class. Taking an active part in both the "Anti-slavery" and "Woman's Rights" struggles, she early learned the very alphabet of liberty. With her the perception of its blessings and its glory was also a rich inheritance, and the vigilance and courage to conquer and secure it for others was not less a noble legacy. The love of liberty flowed down to her through two streams ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... said that it is also called NTZCH, Netzach, the neighboring letters (M and N, neighboring letters in the alphabet, that is, and allied in sense, for Mem Water, and Nun Fish, that which lives in the water) being counter-changed. (Netzach Victory, and is the ...
— Hebrew Literature
... a prominent feature that rising intonation, passing sometimes almost into a wail, which one hears all along the eastern Border. But the great outstanding characteristic of Berwick speech is the burr a rough guttural pronunciation of the letter "i." With nothing but the scanty resources of our alphabet to fall back upon, it is quite impossible to represent this peculiarity phonetically, but it was once remarked by a student of Semitic tongues that the sound of the Hebrew letter 'Ayin is as nearly as possible that of the burr, and that, if you want to ascertain the correct ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... fatty degeneration, gout, goitre, gastritis, headache, haemorrhage, hysteria, hypertrophy, idiocy, indigestion, jaundice, lockjaw, melancholia, neuralgia, ophthalmia, phthisis, quinsey, rheumatism, rickets, sciatica, syphilis, tonsilitis, tic doloureux, and so on to the end of the alphabet and back again to the beginning. Never and nowhere shall you forget that you are a trading animal, buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market. Never shall you forget that nothing matters—nothing ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... to which Richard was shown was called "Barrack B." There were ten rooms of this kind, known by the first ten letters of the alphabet, omitting J. Each barrack contained twenty narrow iron bedsteads, and no two boys were allowed to occupy the same bed. At the head of each barrack, there was an alcove large enough to contain the bed of the assistant teacher, who had charge ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... rapping started slowly, and distinctly to spell out words. It was so weird and uncanny that I scarcely breathed. Letter after letter the message came, nineteen raps for "s," eight for "h," five for "e," according to the place in the alphabet, numerically, of the required letter. At ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... present to shadow forth symbolically the manifold expressions of that being. All in me and out of me is only the hieroglyph of a power which is like to me. The laws of nature are the cyphers which the thinking mind adds on to make itself understandable to intelligence—the alphabet by means of which all spirits communicate with the most perfect Spirit and with one another. Harmony, truth, order, beauty, excellence, give me joy, because they transport me into the active state of their ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... were so very illiterate when they were called to Britain by Vortigern, in Welsh, Gwrtheyrn, that they could neither write nor read. And for that reason Messengers were sent to them from Britain, with a verbal Invitation. Mr. Llwyd has proved that the Welsh furnished the Anglo-Saxons with an Alphabet. See a Welsh Book entitled Drych y prif Oesoedd, "a view of the Primitive Ages," by the above named Mr. Theophilus Evans. p. 96. note. Edit. 2. and ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams
... the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, is the only red man admitted to the nation's Hall of Fame in the Capitol at Washington. The Indian languages, more than fifty in number, are better appreciated and more studied to-day than ever before. Half our states have Indian names, and more than that proportion ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... disconcerting to talk about the ABCs, if the group already knows the alphabet. To devote any great part of a presentation to matters which the majority present already well understand is to assure that the main object will receive very little serious attention. Thus in talking about the school of the rifle, only a fool would start by explaining what part of it was the trigger ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... hers now. It's an alphabet, all about us down here. Kitty wrote it, but she says Uncle Steve helped her a little bit with some of the lines. It's ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... people could write, people wrote down the Epic. If they applied their art to literature, then the preservation of the Epic is explained. Written first in a prae-Phoenician script, it continued to be written in the Greek adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet. There was not yet, probably, a reading public, but there were a few ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... them seeming to be as nearly destitute of the number sense as it is possible for a human being to be. The Bushmen[43] of South Africa have but two numerals, the pronunciation of which can hardly be indicated without other resources than those of the English alphabet. Their word for 3 means, simply, many, as in the case of some of the Australian tribes. The Watchandies[44] have but two simple numerals, and their entire number system is cooteon, 1, utaura, 2, utarra cooteoo, 3, atarra utarra, 4. Beyond this they can ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... little hut were suspended various pictures for study, upon which I taught them to read according to the method of mutual assistance. A bed of sand, smoothed upon a small bench, served the younger ones to trace and understand the letters of the alphabet: the others wrote upon slates. We bestowed nearly two hours upon each exercise, and then my scholars amused themselves at different games. At three o'clock, all returned to the cotton field, and remained till five. ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... had a signalling competition amongst the companies. Each company had been teaching all the men the semaphore code. It is a good thing to start with, but at the Front they use only the Morse system. About seventy-five per cent. of the men of the regiment could read the semaphore alphabet very readily. When a warship sent a signal everybody on board read it. "H" ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... Lillyworth and I don't seem to be very affectionate towards each other, though we get along very well together. But Mulgrum wrote out for me that he was born in Cherryfield, Maine, and obtained his education as a deaf mute in Hartford. I learned the deaf and dumb alphabet when I was a schoolmaster, as a pastime, and I had some practice with it in the house ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... always using the abbreviation, both in writing and speaking. "She always calls him H," said Grandma Cobb, "and I tell her sometimes it doesn't look quite respectful to speak to her husband as if he were part of the alphabet." Grandma Cobb, if the truth had been told, was always in a state of covert rebellion against ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... he never forgot. It was ever his inspiration, his alphabet with which he wrote the spirit of his composition, but it was a classic thought played upon with the most talented of variations. Pure Greek was too cold and chaste for the temper of the time in which he lived and worked and ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... admirably is a gift indispensable to a lady. Alas! I fear that those little feet of yours—I hope they are small—have never been taught to move in a coranto or a contre-danse, and that you will have to learn the alphabet of dancing at an age when most women are finished performers. The great Conde, while winning sieges and battles that surpassed the feats of Greeks and Romans, contrived to make himself the finest dancer of his day, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... understand you, and on top of it she will imagine that what you are teaching is of no earthly use to her. In two or three weeks you will try your hand on another Lukeria, and meanwhile you will be washing a baby here, teaching another the alphabet, or handing some sick man his medicine. That will ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... keeps a great number of Catholic children away from the schools, the education of the lower classes in Holland is in a condition that any European state might envy. In proportion, Holland contains less people who do not know their alphabet than does Prussia. "Of all Europe," as a Dutch writer has said with just pride, although he judges his country severely on other points, "Holland is the land where all such knowledge as is indispensable to civilized man is most widely diffused." I was once greatly surprised, on asking a Dutchman ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... magnitudes with constellations was introduced by Bayer in 1603, and is still adhered to. According to this the stars in each constellation, beginning with the brightest star, are designated by the letters of the Greek alphabet taken in their usual order. For example, in the constellation of Canis Major, or the Greater Dog, the brightest star is the well-known Sirius, called by the ancients the "Dog Star"; and this star, in accordance with Bayer's method, has received the ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... early and toward evening, and as to which they persuade themselves that it is the most efficacious safeguard against idolatry, fortified wherewith they can not lapse from true to false religion. The other secret alphabet consisted in this, that in inversed order they change the last letter [Hebrew: T] with the first [Hebrew: '], and this and another in turn, and so on through the rest, which inversion it is the custom to call ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... sentences, since it was not always possible to get a consistent answer to the question as to what part of a sentence constitutes a single word, and time was too limited for any extensive language study. The following alphabet has been used ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... "Monkery being extinguished above eighty or ninety years, and the Lord General's name being Monk, is the dead man. The royal G or C (it is gamma in the Greek, intending C in the Latin, being the third letter in the alphabet) is Charles II., who, for his extraction, may be said to be of the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... never attended school or been privately taught in her life. And she can't write or even form the letters of the alphabet, but she gave her interviewer a very convincing demonstration of her ability to read. When asked how she mastered the art of reading, she replied: "The Lord ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... similar dream, and has further heard that the first elements are names only, and that definition or explanation begins when they are combined; the letters are unknown, the syllables or combinations are known. But this new hypothesis when tested by the letters of the alphabet is found to break down. The first syllable of Socrates' name is SO. But what is SO? Two letters, S and O, a sibilant and a vowel, of which no further explanation can be given. And how can any one be ignorant of either ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... men intend always to keep women slaves, political and civil, they make a great mistake when they let the girl, with the boy, learn the alphabet, for no educated class will long remain in subjection. We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... telegraph, by which he can communicate with far off friends, telling them where an enemy is, and how or when he should be "struck." A single spark, or smoke, has in it much of meaning. A flash may mean more; but ten following in succession were alphabet enough to tell a tale of no common kind—one, it ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... seized it with avidity. That language had never been totally extinct in Italy; but at the time on which we are touching, there were not probably six persons in the whole country acquainted with it. Dante had quoted Greek authors, but without having known the Greek alphabet. The person who favoured Petrarch with this coveted instruction was Bernardo Barlaamo, a Calabrian monk, who had been three years before at Avignon, having come as envoy from Andronicus, the eastern Emperor, on pretext of proposing a union between the Greek and Roman churches, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... thing that was eccentric, and by no means a miser of my eccentricities; every one was welcome to a share of them, and I had plenty to spare after having freighted the company. Some sweetmeats easily bribed me home with him. I learned from poor Boyse my alphabet and my grammar, and the rudiments of the classics. He taught me all he could, and then sent me to the school at Middleton. In short, he made a man of me. I recollect it was about five and thirty years afterwards, when I had risen to some eminence at the bar, and when I had a seat ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... him, he was convinced, thoroughly well. I once put to him a question in connection with this to which he replied in almost exactly the words he placed five years later in the mouth of David Copperfield: "I faintly remember her teaching me the alphabet; and when I look upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their shapes, and the easy good nature of O and S, always seem to present themselves before me as ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... moment advertising the most undesirable article in the world, a commodity for which I can conceive of no demand whatever. Yet there—the result of the caprice of adhesive cement or the desire of one letter of the alphabet to get level with its neighbour and be dropped too—the amazing notice is, in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... last: undergoing a certain change of sense and use on the lips of each nation; but retaining a deep vital meaning, which all good scholars feel in employing them, even at this day. If you do not know the Greek alphabet, learn it; young or old—girl or boy—whoever you may be, if you think of reading seriously (which, of course, implies that you have some leisure at command), learn your Greek alphabet; then get good dictionaries of all these languages, and whenever you are in doubt about a word, hunt it down ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... man in the Colony. It was his idea that some time I should write the work instead; upon the Sacondaga hills, he said, we saw and read the heavens without Old-World dust in our eyes, and our book that was to be should teach the European moles the very alphabet of planets. Alas! I also was too indolent—truly, not figuratively; the book ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... The A B C; this rubi'y, though indescribably beautiful in the Original, is somewhat too involved for us to grasp the meaning at one reading. Perhaps, in thus weaving the alphabet into his numbers, it was the purpose of the poet to give promise of the ultimate attainment of the Alpha and Omega of knowledge. Perhaps the stanza, on the other hand, was merely intended as a pretty poetical conceit, an exercise in metrical ingenuity. If the latter ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... each Sabbath for the others to memorize. To make this task of memorization easier many of the Jewish hymns were written in acrostic form—that is, each line or stanza began with a different letter in the order of the Hebrew alphabet. ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... when we reflect on their enormous superiority in artillery and equipment, that is a great tribute to the strategy of the Grand Duke in conducting the most difficult retreat of modern times. Germany, though a mistress of the entire alphabet of frightfulness, is making increasing play with the U's and Z's, and Admiral Percy Scott, who predicted the dangers of the former, is now entrusted with the task of coping with the ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... positive child it is! Well, then, it shall not be forced to say the a, b, c, of Cupid's alphabet, to that terrible pedagogue, Clarence Hervey, till it pleases: but seriously, Miss Portman, I am concerned that you will make me take this draught: it is absolutely robbing you. But Lord Delacour's the person you must blame—it is all his obstinacy: ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... miscalled firmness, which was the bane of both our lives. I believe I was kept at home for that purpose. I had been apt enough to learn, and willing enough, when my mother and I had lived alone together. I can faintly remember learning the alphabet at her knee. To this day, when I look upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their shapes, and the easy good-nature of O and Q and S, seem to present themselves again before me as they used to ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... F. say about them?" asked the Pen. "He ought to know the alphabet of Parliamentary portraiture at all events ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... of the figures would change, or a single letter of the alphabet would shift. And so on, column after column. Bob had not the remotest notion of what it all meant, but he copied it and handed the result to Harvey. In ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... source of great joy to my cousin to see that on these occasion the managers know how to put the critics in their proper places, grouping them, for instance, in rows of stalls bearing the more remote letters of the alphabet, whilst between them and the footlights come the deadheads of ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... forgotten nothing! To attempt to instruct a Peer would be as gross an impertinence to the instinct of his order as to present MINERVA—who no doubt came from the head of JOVE a Peeress in her own right—with a toy alphabet ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... of the World prays for a long time and afterwards approaches the coffin and stretches out his hand. The flames thereon burn brighter; the stripes of fire on the walls disappear and revive, interlace and form mysterious signs from the alphabet vatannan. From the coffin transparent bands of scarcely noticeable light begin to flow forth. These are the thoughts of his predecessor. Soon the King of the World stands surrounded by an auriole of this light and ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... before he fell sick and was sent away to the country where the merry haymakers were. Of course, there were worse names than Ben Holt. It was surely better than Eygji Watts, whose sanguine parents were said to have named him with the first five letters they drew from a hat containing the alphabet; Ben Holt was assuredly better than Eygji, even had this not been rendered into "Hedge-hog" by careless companions. His last confusion of ideas was a wondering if Bernal Linford was as good a name as Ben Holt, and why he could not remember having chosen ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... part of a play, and his interest merely the interest of a looker-on." There was an indignant rasp in Roger's voice, and he looked across to his father with a protesting scowl. "He almost made me feel as if I had never learned the alphabet." ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... down through the alphabet," Polly advised him, rather proud to be able to answer him so promptly. "Bars, cars, fars, jars—that way, you know. How I found out is that Sister Winnie writes so ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... should again succumb to the demands of nature—or the influence of tobacco—how could he best make use of the opportunity? It was a puzzling question. To speak—in a whisper or otherwise—was not to be thought of. Detection would follow almost certainly. The dumb alphabet would have been splendid, though dangerous, but neither he nor Hester understood it. Signs might do. He would try signs, though he had never tried them before. What then? Did not "Never venture, never win," "Faint heart never won," etcetera, and a host of similar proverbs ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... which she found this little Alabama child possessed. The following year Miss Sullivan brought the child, then eight years old, to Boston, and Mrs. Keller came with her. They visited Miss Fuller's school. Miss Sullivan had taught the child the manual alphabet, and she had obtained much information by means of it. Miss Fuller noticed how quickly she appreciated the ideas given ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... dismay of the accomplished corrector of the University Press, as his indignant pencil hung over "incanting" and "reverizing" and "cose." Yet closer examination always shows that she, too, has studied grammar and dictionary, algebra and the Greek alphabet; and her most daring verbal feats are never vague or wayward, for there is always an eager and accurate brain behind them. She dares too much to escape blunders, yet, after all, commits fewer in proportion than those who dare less. The basis of all good writing is truth in details; and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... out of their zigzag beds, jumped onto the rails with their zigzag legs and spit and twisted till they spit and twisted all the rails and the ties and the spikes back into a zigzag like the letter Z and the letter Z at the end of the alphabet. ...
— Rootabaga Stories • Carl Sandburg
... The general use which may be made of the table is obvious—but, in this particular cipher, we shall only very partially require its aid. As our predominant character is 8, we will commence by assuming it as the e of the natural alphabet. To verify the supposition, let us observe if the 8 be seen often in couples—for e is doubled with great frequency in English—in such words, for example, as 'meet,' '.fleet,' 'speed,' 'seen,' been,' 'agree,' &c. In the present ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... title of a famous poem by Gordon, Kotzo shel Yod, literally "the tittle of the Yod" the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. The poem in question pictures the tragedy of a woman who remained unhappy the rest of her life because the Hebrew bill of divorce which she had obtained from her husband was declared void on account of a trifling error ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... the Phoenician alphabet, parent of all the European alphabets, was derived from an Atlantis alphabet, which was also conveyed from Atlantis to the Mayas ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... its thirteen cantos," leaving, therefore, the cabalistic numeber seven for the body of the poem. And all this regulation not being sufficiently meaningless, fantastic, and oppressive, he invents an elaborate system for compelling each of his sections and groups to begin with a letter of the alphabet, determined beforehand, the letters being selected so as to compose words having "a synthetic or sympathetic signification," and as close a relation as possible to the section or part to ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... Gold byzants of the fifth century prove an intercourse with Constantinople at the exact date of the colonisation of Britain. From the very earliest moment when we catch a glimpse of its nature, the home-grown English culture had already begun to be modified by the superior arts of Rome. Even the alphabet was known and used in its Runic form, though the absence of writing materials caused its employment to be restricted to inscriptions on wooden tablets, on rude stone monuments, or on utensils of metal-work. A golden drinking-horn found in Sleswick, and ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... Westminster. When the king and Bishop Mellitus arrived next day, Edric told his story, and pointed out the marks of the twelve crosses on the church, the walls within and without moistened with holy water, the letters of the Greek alphabet written twice over distinctly on the sand, the traces of the oil, and even the droppings of the angelic candles. The bishop could not presume to add any further ceremonial, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... that the stems, isolated leaves, or small groups of leaves, form a letter of the alphabet, sometimes a number. These letters and numbers have meanings which must be looked for in connection with other noticeable signs. If an initial "M" appears, and near to it a small square or oblong leaf, both being near the rim of the cup, it would indicate a letter coming speedily ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... dreams Copernicus had kindled. Did this earth Move? Was the sun the centre of our scheme? And Tycho told him, there is but one way To know the truth, and that's to sweep aside All the dark cobwebs of old sophistry, And watch and learn that moving alphabet, Each smallest silver character inscribed Upon the skies themselves, noting them down, Till on a day we find them taking shape In phrases, with a meaning; and, at last, The hard-won beauty of that celestial book With all ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... before my eyes, (she had then given me no reason to fear,) I frankly asked her to teach me to read; and, without hesitation, the dear woman began the task, and very soon, by her assistance, I was master of the alphabet, and could spell words of three or four letters. My mistress seemed almost as proud of my progress, as if I had been her own child; and, supposing that her husband would be as well pleased, she made no secret ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... suitors learn I pray, Is not each time the clock strikes through the day, In Cupid's alphabet I think I've read, Old Time, by lovers, likes not to be led; And since so closely he pursues his plan, 'Tis right to seize him, often as you can. Delays are dangerous, in love or war, And Nicaise is a proof ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... "Set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry," &c., the word rendered "mark" is [Hebrew: TdageshW] (Tau), the name of the Hebrew letter answering to the above: and as the Samaritan alphabet, which the present Hebrew characters have superseded, was then in use, it is highly probable that the "mark" referred to in Ezekiel's vision was the Samaritan Tau, as seen on ancient Hebrew shekels, resembling a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... beginnings of what is called our Literature. Literature really means letters, for it comes from a Latin word littera, meaning a letter of the alphabet. Words are made by letters of the alphabet being set together, and our literature again by words being set ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Z—— (I must have a letter for my nameless town, and I have gone through the whole alphabet for it, and picked up a crooked stick at last), and the new group of people he had got among interested him. He liked problems and experiments. They were what he excelled in at the Military School. This was his first furlough; and it was since his entrance at ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... is delicious," he answered her, speaking more lightly than he felt. "What a numskull you make, Grizel, of any man who presumes to write about women! I am at school again, and you are Miss Ailie teaching me the alphabet. But I thought you lost that serious little girl on the doleful day when she heard you say that you ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... simplified spelling "seems to have its rules which will present as much difficulty to memorize as do the peculiarities of our present system" overlooks the advantage that writing with a phonetic alphabet, like those of Europe, has over writing with purely conventional characters, as in China. Now English writing is probably the least phonetic in Europe. Simplifying it in any of the well-known proposed methods would be making it more phonetic, and consequently easier. At present it is a mass of ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... times a young wolf was put to school, to endeavour, by instruction, to correct his natural propensity to voracity. His master, in order to teach him to read, transcribed, in large characters, some letters of the alphabet, and attempted to make him understand these signs. But instead of reading K L S, as it was written, the savage animal read fluently Kid, Lamb, Sheep. He was governed by instinct, and his nature was incorrigible. The son of a robber is in the very same situation: vice is coeval with his existence. ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... estates (heavily encumbered before her father came to the rescue) were among the oldest and most coveted in the English market. Her mother noted, with unctuous joy, that the present Lady Bazelhurst in babyhood had extreme difficulty in mastering the eighth letter of the alphabet, certainly a most flattering sign of natal superiority, notwithstanding the fact that her father was plain old John Banks (deceased), formerly of Jersey City, more latterly of ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... detected in herself in relation to little Nicholas some symptoms of her father's irritability. However often she told herself that she must not get irritable when teaching her nephew, almost every time that, pointer in hand, she sat down to show him the French alphabet, she so longed to pour her own knowledge quickly and easily into the child—who was already afraid that Auntie might at any moment get angry—that at his slightest inattention she trembled, became flustered and heated, raised her voice, and sometimes ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... sixth century. The sculptured stones of Meigle in Scotland have no runes. Runes were, as it is well known, the characters used by the Teutonic tribes of northwest Europe before they received the Latin alphabet. They are divided into three principal classes, the Anglo-Saxon, the Germanic, and the Scandinavian, bearing the same relation to each other as do the different Greek alphabets. Their likeness to each other is ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... larger, better, nobler than the denizens of the plains. "Flee to the mountains," cried the angel to Lot. Ah! there was meaning in the command. Men stagnate upon the plain; they grow indolent, sensual, mediocre there, and are only vivified as they seek the great alphabet of nature, as they pulsate with her in her wondrous heart-beats. It has been the mountain men who have ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... again. "Come to order! We shall now review our semaphore alphabet. Lineup! Troop, attention! ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... ago we were quite sure that it was beyond the bounds of natural possibility to produce a bad burn upon the human body by touching the flesh with a bit of cardboard or a common lead pencil. Now we know with equal certainty that if upon one arm of a hypnotised patient we impress a letter of the alphabet cut out of wood, telling him that it is red-hot iron, the shape of the letter will on the following day be found on a raw and painful wound not only in the place we selected but on the other arm, in the exactly corresponding spot, and reversed as though seen in a looking-glass; ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... everybody intimately—by sight. She was squat, dyed, rouged and penciled, badly, too. She was written down in the city directory as Madame de Chevreuse, but she was emphatically not of French extraction. In her alphabet there were generally but twenty-five letters; there were frequent times when she had no idea that there existed such a letter as "g." How she came to appropriate so distinguished a name as De Chevreuse was a puzzle. ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... America, or in any other kingdom in the world. The cathedral of Tours has nothing to distinguish it except its antiquity, two beautiful towers, and a library of most valuable manuscripts. Amongst these there is a copy of the Pentateuch, written in the alphabet of the country, upwards of eleven hundred years ago. There is likewise a copy of the four Evangelists, written in Saxon letters, in the beginning of the fifth century, about fifty years after Constantine declared Christianity to be the religion ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... the place of his mother, sent him to "Hammenotia School" in Oxford University, which he attended for four and a half years, received his diploma, and was transferred to Cambridge College. Here he attended for four years. At the former school he learned the alphabet, went up to the seventh grade, learned some medicine about herbs, etc. "I learned some medicine, not all of it. I didn't practice it much; just practiced it enough to do the country good. At that time we didn't have any ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... of the island whereon the treasure was said to have been secreted, as viewed from certain bearings—and I knew that these figures must stand in lieu of a certain arrangement of the letters of the alphabet, forming words. I had early noted the somewhat curious fact that there was but one solitary nought throughout the document; but that only helped me so far as to render me morally certain that the letters of the text ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... alphabet, n. symbols, letters, crossrow; rudiments, elements, a b c. Associated Words: abecedary, alphabetic, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... to revive the spirit of literature. His difficulties were great. It was not alone the resuscitating of a dead literary desire, but it entailed also the providing of a vehicle of expression, namely an alphabet, so deeply had the Persian domination imprinted itself upon the land. As might be expected, the primary results of the revival were didactic, speculative, or religious in character. Mysticism at that time flourished in the monasteries, and ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... were in a state of great ignorance, very few of the common people being able either to read or write; that with respect to schools, there was but one in the place, where four or five children were taught the alphabet, but that even this was at present closed; he informed me, however, that there was a school at Colhares, about a league distant. Amongst other things, he said that nothing more surprised him than ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... of Malay words in the native character is hardly yet fixed, though the Perso-Arabic alphabet has been in use since the thirteenth century; and those follow but a vain shadow who seek to prescribe exact modes of spelling words regarding which even native authorities are not agreed, and of which the ...
— A Manual of the Malay language - With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay • William Edward Maxwell
... opportunity of learning, he set himself to read with such close application that, from being comparatively thin, the effect of having been fond of the chase, he became quite corpulent from want of exercise. Mr. Oswell gave him his first lesson in figures, and he acquired the alphabet on the first day of my residence at Chonuane. He was by no means an ordinary specimen of the people, for I never went into the town but I was pressed to hear him read some chapters of the Bible. Isaiah was ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... lecturing, and experimenting, he had become thoroughly familiar with electrical science: he saw where light was needed and expansion possible. The phenomena of ordinary electric induction belonged, as it were, to the alphabet of his knowledge: he knew that under ordinary circumstances the presence of an electrified body was sufficient to excite, by induction, an unelectrified body. He knew that the wire which carried an electric current was an electrified ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... intent, dogged persistence; the strong, firm chin set as though he were colt-breaking. Gradually, as I watched him that night, the truth dawned on me: the man was trying to teach himself to read. The "Cardinal's Snuff-box"! and the only clue to the mystery, a fair knowledge of the alphabet learned away in a childish past. In truth, it takes a deal to "beat the Scots," or, what is even better, to make them feel that they ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... vanisheth away!' What time have we for idle fooleries? Only time to learn the letters that we shall spell hereafter—to form the strokes and loops wherewith we shall write by and bye. Here we know but the alphabet of either faith ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... forgotten to bring a reading book, and now put Hephzibah through the alphabet, which she seemed to know perfectly, calling each letter by its right name. Daisy then asked if she could read words; and getting an assenting nod again, she tried her in that. But here Hephzibah's education was defective; she could read indeed, after a fashion; but it was a slow ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... bidder, annulled the wills made in favour of the bishoprics and abbeys, and sought to impose upon his subjects a rationalistic conception of the Trinity. He pretended to some literary culture, and was the author of some halting verse. He even added letters to the Latin alphabet, and wished to have the MSS. rewritten with the new characters. The wresting of Tours from Austrasia and the seizure of ecclesiastical property provoked the bitter hatred of Gregory of Tours, by whom Chilperic was stigmatized as the Nero ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... for a mile or more, and then, judging with a long tack he could weather the southerly side of the island he put the boat about. He took occasion to explain to Helen how this operation was necessary, and she learned the alphabet of navigation. The western end of their little land now lay before them; it was about three miles in breadth. For two miles the bluff coast line continued unbroken; then a deep bay, a mile in width and two miles in depth, was made by a long tongue of sand ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... sentiments of your heart. As you have ever heard me, let your attention be tripled now. Read my letter once and again. Preserve it as a sacred deposit. Lay it under your pillow. Meditate upon it fasting. Commit it to memory, and repeat the scattered parcels of it, as Caesar is said to have done the Greek alphabet, to cool your rising choler. Be this the amulet to preserve you from danger! Be this the chart by which to steer the little skiff of your political system safe into the port of ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... hearing. Special institutions are in existence today which can take these deaf mutes when small and so teach them to make audible sounds that they can make themselves understood—at least partially. Lip reading is a wonderful improvement over the deaf and dumb alphabet, and ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... alphabet Hath many a word of mystery; I read not all thy record yet, Though perseveringly I try; But teach me, Lord! and none shall be More prompt, more pleased to learn ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... but eager listeners. Brother Fee said his object in requesting these specimens of the fugitives writing was to exhibit to those who were constantly asserting that negroes could not learn. He wished them to see the legible hand-writing of those who had only six weeks' training from their alphabet. ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... to the young man in his reading. 'Tis in vain to advise as to reading; a higher power controls the matter. Of course there are some books all must read, as every one learns the alphabet and spelling-book; but his use and combination of them he shall share with no one. Some spiritual power is ever drawing us towards what we love. Thus in books one constantly meets his own idea, his own feelings, even his most private ones, which he thought could not be known or appreciated beyond ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... heart, suh," he gayly responded, "what's spellin', anyway? Just alphabet lettuhs fixed like some man chose to fix 'em befo' you an' me were bawn. An' so I say such a man's had his notions more'n long enough, and it's high time we-all took a whirl ...
— How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee • Owen Wister
... laid out a plan for teaching others more ignorant than herself. She cut out of thin pieces of wood ten sets of large and small letters of the alphabet, and carried these with her when she went from house to house. When she came to Billy Wilson's she threw down the letters all in a heap, and Billy picked them out and ...
— Goody Two-Shoes • Unknown
... a fine departure for Cape Greenville, the next point ahead. I saw the ugly boulders under the sloop's keel as she flashed over them, and I made a mental note of it that the letter M, for which the reef was named, was the thirteenth one in our alphabet, and that thirteen, as noted years before, was still my lucky number. The natives of Cape Greenville are notoriously bad, and I was advised to give them the go-by. Accordingly, from M Reef I steered outside of the adjacent islands, ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... convertible, the definitions which account for all—that which is always the same in all the difference, that which is always permanent in all the change; first it is the doctrine of 'those simple original forms, or differences of things, which like the alphabet are not many, the degrees and co-ordinations whereof make all this variety,' and then it is the doctrine of their combinations,—the combinations which nature has herself accomplished, those which the arts have accomplished, and those which are possible, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... Might claim the breath I shape to prayer. I do not claim it! Let the earth Claim the thrones she brings to birth. Let the first shapers of our tongue Claim whate'er is said or sung, Till the doom repeal that debt And cancel the first alphabet. Yet when, like a god, you scaled The shining crags where my foot failed; When I saw my fruit of the vine Foam in the Olympian cup, Or in that broader chalice shine Blood-red, a sacramental drink, With stars for bubbles, lifted up, Through the universal night, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... it is necessary to refer to them, astronomers have invented a system. To only the very brightest are proper names attached; others are noted according to the degree of their brightness, and called after the letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, beta, gamma, delta, etc. Our own word 'alphabet' comes, you know, from the first two letters of this Greek series. As this particular star is the brightest in the constellation Centaurus, it is called ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... had pointed out its affected archaisms; to see (p.222) the name Ahura-Mazda rendered by "the mighty spirit;" to meet (p.258) with "sarvanman," the Sanskrit name for pronoun, translated by "name for everything, universal designation;" to hear the Phoenician alphabet still spoken of as the ultimate source of the world's alphabets, etc. Such mistakes, however, can be corrected, but what can never be corrected is the unfortunate tone which Professor Whitney has ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... telegraphic signal book provides certain words which can be signalled by a single number. Words not in this vocabulary must be spelled letter by letter,—each letter of the alphabet ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... The second letter of the alphabet. It is called a vocal labial consonant, which, no doubt, serves it ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... proper I am discouraged from by the perverse economy of its grammar and syntax. It needs must have two plurals, one for under ten and one for over, twenty-three conjugations, and yet be without the distinction of past and future. Which is worse even than the Hindustani alphabet with no vowels and four z's—so unnecessary, isn't it, as ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... freemen I conceive, should learn as much of these branches of knowledge as every child in Egypt is taught when he learns the alphabet. In that country arithmetical games have been invented for the use of mere children, which they learn as a pleasure and amusement. They have to distribute apples and garlands, using the same number sometimes for a larger ...
— Laws • Plato
... tired enough to-night to fold my hands, and turn up my toes and say "Enough." If overcoming difficulties makes character, then I will have as many characters as the Chinese alphabet by the time I get through. The bothers meet me when the girl makes the fire in the morning and puts the ashes in the grate instead of the coal, and they keep right along with me all day until I go to bed at night and find the sheet under the ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... are always amongst the spectators persons in league with the prestidigitator. In the present case a woman is the assistant, with whom he has entered into an arrangement by which each card is represented by a letter of the alphabet; and the following are the cards selected for the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... (15th century), while the vulgar dialect has kept free from such admixture. Javanese influence is also traceable in the use of three varieties of speech, as in the Javanese language, according to the rank of the people addressed. The alphabet is with some modifications the same as the Javanese, but more complicated. The material universally used for writing on is the prepared leaf of the lontar palm. The sacred literature of the Balinese is written in the ancient Javanese or Kawi language, which appears to be better understood ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... and sang the night away. Robert Tomes echoed the strain in his tale of college life a little later, under stricter social and ecclesiastical conditions. There was a more serious vein also. In 1827 the Kappa Alpha Society was the first of the younger brood of the Greek alphabet—descendants of the Phi Beta Kappa of 1781—and in 1832 Father Eells, as he is affectionately called, founded Alpha Delta Phi, a brotherhood based upon other aims and sympathies than those of Mr. Philip Slingsby, but one which ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... accidentally opened, and a piece of paper was found, folded up carefully, upon which something was written in the Russian language, as was supposed. The date 1778 was prefixed to it, and, in the body of the written note, there was a reference to the year 1776. Not learned enough to decypher the alphabet of the writer, his numerals marked sufficiently that others had preceded us in visiting this dreary part of the globe, who were united to us by other ties besides those of our common nature; and the hopes of soon meeting with some of the Russian traders ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... bibles. One girl had a copy of the crown lands rules and regulations. Only six could read a sentence by spelling each word. They had to be started from the beginning, and Archie had provided for that by producing a smoothly planed board on which he had printed, with a carpenter's pencil, the alphabet on one side and figures on the other. The children, with a few exceptions, were eager to learn. Then he got them to memorize the second verse of the 23rd psalm, and taught them a simple hymn, singing both. They were strong on singing, and a boy volunteered to ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... pray!' she cried. The chief arose, and on opening his eyes beheld the same glaring lights and heard the same ominous sound. Impelled by the extreme urgency of the case, he commenced, with all possible vehemence, to vociferate the alphabet, as a prayer to God to deliver them from the vengeance of Satan! On hearing this, the cat, as much alarmed as themselves, fled precipitately away, leaving the chief and his wife congratulating themselves on the efficacy ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... the spirits converse with this gentleman?' At all events, thought I, the term 'gentleman' applies to the next world, which is a comfort. She listened for the answer. Presently three distinct raps on the table signified assent. She then took from her reticule a card whereon were printed the alphabet, and numerals up to 10. The letters were separated by transverse lines. She gave me a pencil with these instructions: I was to think, not utter, my question, and then put the pencil on each of ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... every other work held in little estimation and performed for hire—chiefly in the hands of slaves, freedmen, or foreigners, or in other words chiefly in the hands of Greeks or half-Greeks;(4) which was attended with the less difficulty, because the Latin alphabet was almost identical with the Greek and the two languages possessed a close and striking affinity. But this was the least part of the matter; the importance of the study of Greek in a formal point of view exercised a far deeper ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Josef were kept awake by the recruits, about 280 in number, singing the war- song of the Paupaus. This wild song consisted of a short air and chorus. The tone was, although wild, not inharmonious, and the words rather euphonious. As near as our alphabet can convey ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... least furnished her with the opportunity of studying the notebook she had found in the secret hiding place, and of making herself conversant with the gang's cipher; and she now set to work upon it. It was a numerical cipher. Each letter of the alphabet in regular rotation was represented by its corresponding numeral; a zero was employed to set off one letter from another, and the addition of the numerals between the zeros indicated the number of the letter involved. Also, there being but twenty-six letters in the alphabet, ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... that he, too, was god of eloquence and poetry, and could win all hearts by means of his divine voice; he was like Mercury in that he taught mortals the use of runes, while the Greek god introduced the alphabet. ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... strangers who came, grew intimate, and disappeared! The glances that followed Diane when she crossed a room! The shrug, the whisper, the suggestive grimace, at the mention of her name! All these were as an alphabet in which Mrs. Eveleth, grown skilful by long years of observation, read what had become not less familiar than ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... a plain errand of business. No need, as you hint, to mention names; and therefore let me present myself as Mr. Z. The residue of the alphabet is at your service ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... in Latin are distinguished from more recent ones in the same language by the forms of the letters, by the names which appear in them, and by archaisms in grammar and orthography. Inscriptions in the Greek tongue are rare, though the letters of the Greek alphabet, scratched on walls at a little height from the ground, and thus evidently the work of school-boys, show that Greek must have been extensively ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... give to your father, is part of his benefit bestowed upon you." So it is the benefit of my teacher that I have become proficient in liberal studies; yet we pass on from those who taught them to us, at any rate from those who taught us the alphabet; and although no one can learn anything without them, yet it does not follow that whatsoever success one subsequently obtains, one is still inferior to those teachers. There is a great difference between the beginning ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... they all rejected thee with disdain. (34) Then my children came to Sinai, they accepted thee, and they honored thee. And now, on the day of their distress, thou standest up against them?" Hearing this, the Torah stepped aside, and did not testify. "Let the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet in which Torah is written come and testify against Israel," said God. They appeared without delay, and Alef, the first letter, was about to testify against Israel, when Abraham interrupted it with the words: "Thou chief of all letters, thou comest to testify against ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... a sure sign that they despise both their office and the souls of the people, yea, even God and His Word. They do not have to fall, they are already fallen all too horribly, they would need to become children, and begin to learn their alphabet, which they imagine that they have long since ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... him the little disc. Captain Hardy laid the disc beside the dollar on the table, and painstakingly examined again the marks on the coin. After a time he took a sheet of paper and across it in a row wrote down the letters of the alphabet. Then he picked up the message and made check marks below the letters in his alphabet as he found those letters in the message. When he had gone through the message, his paper ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... also Father Cyril himself. Each such witness appended to his signature a full list of his dignities and qualifications: one man in printed characters, another in a flowing hand, a third in topsy-turvy characters of a kind never before seen in the Russian alphabet, and so forth. Meanwhile our friend Ivan Antonovitch comported himself with not a little address; and after the indentures had been signed, docketed, and registered, Chichikov found himself called upon to pay only the merest trifle in the way of Government percentage and fees for publishing the ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... discussed. Caves used in ancient times as habitations or sepulchres and old shrines occasionally offer evidence in the form of symbols which, since they bear some resemblance to the letters of the Korean alphabet (onmuri), have been imagined to be at once the origin of the latter and the script of the Kami-no-yo (Age of the Kami). But such fancies are no longer seriously entertained. It is agreed that the so-called "letters" are nothing more than copies of marks produced by the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... lowest species of literature—if it must be so designated—that we gather the real genius, or mental character of the ordinary classes of society. I do assure you that some of these chap publications are singularly droll and curious. Even the very rudiments of learning, or the mere alphabet-book, meets the eye in a very imposing ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... catalog, program. If the student employs these forms, he must use them consistently. Many writers oppose simplified spelling; many advocate it; many compromise. Others desire to supplant our present alphabet with one more nearly phonetic, and prefer, until this fundamental reform takes place, to preserve our present spelling ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... for their judgment as to the soundness of his views, a sermon, not yet preached, on the relation of baptized children to the church. We will call him, and two of the ministers who agreed with his views, by their initials, respectively, which consisted of the first three letters of the alphabet; while the three who dissented from them had, as initials to their names, letters remote from these. Neither Messrs. A., B., and C., nor Messrs. R., S., and T., had had any previous concert or comparison of views on this interesting subject; but they found themselves thus arrayed ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... of faith and conversion of the Icelanders to Christianity, writing, and the materials for writing, first came into the land, about the year 1000. There is no proof that the earlier or Runic alphabet, which existed in heathen times, was ever used for any other purposes than those of simple monumental inscriptions, or of short legends on weapons or sacrificial vessels, or horns and drinking cups. But with the Roman alphabet came not only a readier means of expressing thought, but ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... plaintive, with a barbaric twang like the plucked string of a Congo war-fiddle, the sound had fascinated him. It is made in the throat by processes utterly impossible to describe in human words, and no alphabet as yet produced by civilized man affords the symbols to vocalize it to the ear of imagination. "Gunk" is the poor makeshift that must be employed ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... papers, and on the ground was seated a venerable, white-bearded old man, something between Stephen's notions of an apostle and of a magician, though the latter idea predominated at sight of a long parchment scroll covered with characters such as belonged to no alphabet that he had ever dreamt of. What were they doing to his brother? He was absolutely in an enchanter's den. Was it a pixy at the door, guarding it? "Ambrose!" ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the alphabets of the various peoples, we shall find in them clear indications of the physical and social conditions under which they evolved. Thus the Hebrew alphabet carries with it unmistakable evidence of the nomadic and simple life of those "dwellers in tents." The forms of the letters are derived from the shapes of the constellations, of which twelve are zodiacal, six northern ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... which a full knowledge of each other's goodness and worth inspires; and it is not necessary for intimate friends to go every day through those civilities and attentions which they practise with strangers, any more than it is necessary, among literary people, to repeat the alphabet over every day ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various |
