"Comprehend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the banner! angels bend In anxious silence o'er the sign, And vainly seek to comprehend The ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... middle or final syllables in words compounded, as blockhead; or derived from the Latin, as comprehend. ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... That they do not secure all this, is the objection I have to the amendments to the Constitution proposed by the Peace Conference. They are ambiguous, loose, and deceptive. I do not know that the people can comprehend them. There will be no certainty under them; and they would, if adopted, result in endless trouble and litigation. I trust no amendments will ever be made to the Constitution, unless they are made upon principles of right, justice, and equality, so that there ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... stairs, the door of their room was partly open, and I saw a pedler there with open box. John, the husband, was standing with a little purple cap on his hand, which he was regarding with mystified, admiring air, as if he didn't quite comprehend it, and trim little Mary gazing at it with ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... good girl. Can't you comprehend that? First you say that Mrs. John has no child. Next you say—kindly attend to me—that you had taken your child, which has been passing for Mrs. John's, out of the latter's room. However; all of us here happen to know Mrs. John's child ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... throw round the shores of your enviable little Eden, 'cherubim and a flaming sword,' to guard its approaches from those who would endanger your peace; and above all, shield you from those, who would perplex and confuse your unsophisticated minds, by mysterious doctrines which they do not themselves comprehend! Remain steadfast to the faith, which your late father and benefactor has instilled into your minds, culled from the precepts of your Bible, and be content for the present to observe those simple rules for your religious and moral conduct, which ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... perceptible wink of Tom's left eye was designed to show Aubrey that his position was understood, and action taken upon it. Aubrey saw and comprehended the gesture. Hans saw it also, but did not comprehend it except as a sign of some private understanding between the two. They walked on together, Aubrey engaged in vexed meditation as to how he was to get rid of Hans. But Hans had no intention of allowing himself to be dismissed. He began to talk, and Aubrey had to answer, and could ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... as, while they may afford to the general reader, not, indeed, a minute analysis, but perhaps a sufficient notion of the scholastic inquiries which have engaged the attention of some of the subtlest minds of Germany and England, may also prepare him the better to comprehend the peculiar character and circumstances of the people to whose history he is introduced: and it may be well to warn the more impatient that it is not till the second book (vol. i., p. 181) that disquisition is ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... enables us to understand its influence upon the social and political condition of its inhabitants. And this knowledge, as I said before, is very important to enable us to follow clearly the external revolutions of different nations, which we want to comprehend before we penetrate to what ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... 'Faith, sir,' said O'Leary, 'because I don't understand the language in which you are addressing me.' Upon this, the doctor, with a contemptuous sneer, said to Murphy, 'Why, sir, this is a pretty fellow you have brought hither. Sir, he does not comprehend the primitive language.' O'Leary immediately bowed very low, and complimented the doctor in a long speech in Irish, to which the doctor, not understanding a word, made no reply, but looked at Murphy. O'Leary, seeing the ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... individual that it was a fine day. Unfortunately this conversation did not prove fruitful, for, besides the fact that the subject of the weather in Egypt is a quickly exhausted topic, the gentleman to whom the remark had been addressed soon made it evident that he failed to comprehend. However, the trooper soon unearthed a magnificently emblazoned official from the Sudan, who happened to be English, and struck up an ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... "Neither do you comprehend God!" I retorted on one occasion. "When a saint is clear to you, you will be one." Among the trillion mysteries, breathing every second the inexplicable air, who may venture to ask that the fathomless nature of a master ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... not understand how such things can be," she objected in some confusion, "why such journeys must exist. My mind cannot comprehend ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... Ogle, "if I say that this is very vague talking. I have not proposed to sever one question from another. I only propose to do in a different way that which is being done now by the most rigid of Mr. Verity's friends. It is impossible to comprehend what is meant by such a statement as that every truth is somehow connected with religion. It may be that the notion—if it really is not, as I suspect it to be, mere verbiage and clap-trap, used by certain fools to mislead others—means ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... communicated to the English public by Coleridge; who, in his lectures on Shakspere and other dramatists, helped himself freely to William Schlegel's "Vorlesungen ueber dramatische Kunst und Litteratur." [21] Heine denounces the shallowness of these principles and their failure to comprehend the modern mind. "When Schlegel seeks to depreciate the poet Buerger, he compares his ballads with the old English ballads of the Percy collection, and he shows that the latter are more simple, more naive, more antique, and consequently more poetical. . . . But death is not more ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... though Julia's lips remained demure. So far as Noble was able to comprehend what he was doing, he was floating rhythmically to a faint, far music; but he was almost unconscious, especially from the knees down. But to the eye of observers incapable of perceiving that Noble was floating, it appeared that he was out of step most of ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... heard with his usual imperturbability the particulars of the loss he had just experienced, but nevertheless repeatedly expressed his astonishment at the deplorable recklessness of Vandamme, and said he could not comprehend how this experienced general could have allowed himself to be drawn away from his position. But the deed was done, and in such instances the Emperor never lost time in useless recriminations. "Come," said he, addressing the Duke of Bassano, "you have just heard—that means war from early ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... break with the Past, Why with so rude a gesture take your leave? None hinders, go your way; but wherefore cast Contempt and boorish scorn Upon the womb from which even you were born? Begone in peace! Forbear to flout and grieve, Vulgar iconoclast, Those of a faith you cannot comprehend, To whom the Past is as a lovely friend Nobly grown old, yet nobly ever young; The temple and the treasure-house of Time, With gains immortal stored Of dream and deed and song, Since man from chaos first began to climb, His lonely ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... could not comprehend what was wrong, then, like a flash, he understood that the bees had attacked the old gardener, and that it was due to his having irritated ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... was extreme when he had to learn and comprehend that the prodigious talent of Petitot was joined to a Huguenot conscience, and this talent spoke of expatriating itself. "I will go to Clagny to-morrow," replied the prince to me; and he went there, in fact, accompanied by the Marquise de Montchevreuil and ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... "They do not comprehend the metaphysics of a Trinal Unity, nor how it is just that innocence should be punished, that guilt may go free. They do not attribute any magic virtue to the laying on of hands; nor do they believe that the traces of an evil life in the soul can be washed out by the sprinkling of a few drops ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... that I had no sisters at home, that I have never thoroughly been able to dance; for though I always arrive at the end of a quadrille (and thank heaven for it too!) and though, I believe, I make no mistake in particular, yet I solemnly confess I have never been able thoroughly to comprehend the mysteries of it, or what I have been about from the beginning to the end of the dance. I always look at the lady opposite, and do as she does: if SHE did not know how to dance, par hasard, it would be all up. But ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not only the effect of the still-working man that the busy man cannot anticipate, but neither can he comprehend the present labour. If Horace ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... all—wanton and vagrant, unlovable. Such is not for the epicure—the lover of the subtle fascination, the dainty moods, and pretty expressions of islands. The Isle must be small, too, because since it is yours it becomes a duty to exhaustively comprehend it. Familiarity with its lines of coast and sky, its declivities and hollows, its sunny places, its deepest shades, the sources of its streams, the meagre beginning of its gullies cannot suffice. Superficial intimacy ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... was very oddly developed, showing how starved and stunted some of the faculties, naturally good, become without their proper nourishment. As, intellectually, she seemed not to comprehend herself, except that she had a vague sense of want and waste, so, from the habit of occupying herself with the external, she had not only a keen sense of the beautiful in outward form, but as ready a perception ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... creditable to get drunk, to run into debt, to set at defiance all the rules and regulations enacted for their own benefit, and to conduct themselves in unswerving opposition to the wishes of their nearest and dearest friends, and all to do themselves as much harm as possible, is more than I can comprehend. Girls are not wrong-headed like this. Where the son is the source of all the annoyance, and ill-humour, and retrenchment in a family, the daughter is generally the mainstay, and comfort, and sunshine ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... nineteen imagine; especially when the bachelor of fifty is sitting solitary and unfriended at two o'clock in the night, in the forlorn atmosphere of a house that has outlived its hopes. Bachelors of fifty alone will comprehend me. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... puzzled—at first. He broke the dry sticks into fragments across his knee; when he had a fair-sized pile he took out his knife and whittled a few shavings. Not till he snapped his knife shut and put it in his pocket and began, none too gently, to remove the boots from Hicks' feet, did I really comprehend what he was about. It sent a shiver through me, and even old Piegan stood aghast at the malevolent determination of the man. But we voiced no protest. That was neither the time nor place to abide by the Golden Rule. Only the law of force, ruthless, ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... danger—to be apprehended from an untimely extension of the elective franchise to any new class in our country, especially when the large majority of that class, in wielding the power thus placed in their hands, can not be expected correctly to comprehend the duties and responsibilities which pertain to suffrage. Yesterday, as it were, 4,000,000 persons were held in a condition of slavery that had existed for generations; to-day they are freemen and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson
... that Tony Bailles was with the show. Alfred scanned the bills, no names appearing on them or descriptions of the great feats their owners performed, and his youthful mind could not comprehend this omission in advertising. Animals of all species were pictured but the graceful bare-back rider, high in the air above the horse's back, throwing a back somersault through a paper balloon, was not there. The lady rider on the back of a ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... imagine me as clever as a man, and talk to me of your doings. Indeed I will endeavour to comprehend you.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... honest, worthy fellows, who are as single-minded as children, and in whose eyes all men and things are just what they seem: hypocrisy he could never understand, and it was almost as difficult for the worthy young man to comprehend irony. We have seen an exemplification of this in his affair with Hoffland; and if our narrative permitted it, we might, by following him through his after life, find many more instances of the same singleness of heart ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... less if it allows its own organs to join in with the same note, and continually to emphasize the maintenance of peace as the object of all policy. It must rather do everything to foster a military spirit, and to make the nation comprehend the duties and ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... expression. We pass to the conclusion of a syllogism, not from each term, but from a comparison of the premises—and this requires an intellectual operation entirely distinct from a mere apprehension of the terms. It is one thing to comprehend the premises; it is quite another to deduce a conclusion from them. It may necessarily follow, but it requires a separate act of the mind to reach it. Premises will not of themselves ...
— The Philosophy of Evolution - and The Metaphysical Basis of Science • Stephen H. Carpenter
... comprehend the tide of domestic joy, of social happiness, and of Christian consolation which flows through the heart of this man and his family, in consequence of this change in ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... Child I may compare, Who sees the riches of some famous Fair, He feeds his eyes but understanding lacks, To comprehend the worth of all those knacks; The glittering plate and Jewels he admires, The Hats and Fans, the Plumes and Ladies' tires, And thousand times his mazed mind doth wish Some part, at least, of that brave wealth was his; But seeing empty wishes nought obtain, At night turns to his Mother's cot again, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... then, for these particular features of the organic world, which you can understand and comprehend, so long as you confine yourself to one sort of living ...
— The Present Condition of Organic Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... of disease and injury by fasting—the mode of Nature—made the greatest impression in families in which there was intelligence enough to comprehend it; but the victories of Nature were complicated by cases in which death was inevitable. With a feeling that I must give the new hygiene to the world in printed form, I did not enlarge in public over a method that would be certain ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... the day of the letter that Sandy Morley, sitting rigidly in the chair that Lansing Hertford had lounged in, listened to as much of an outline of his future as Levi Markham felt he could comprehend. ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... silent for some minutes, when, Sorillo joining us, I told him the good news. At first he did not seem to comprehend. When he did, I thought he would take leave of his senses. Even Jose, who was not given to judging by outward show, was impressed ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... of light; instead of persisting in attempts to comprehend at first sight the propositions before me, I admitted their truth provisionally; I went on further, and was quite surprised, on the morrow, that I comprehended perfectly what overnight appeared to me to be encompassed ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... them. We even can conceive nothing more selfish and more contemptible. Every rational luxury is to be procured in England by such an income. Every advantage of education is to be procured by the same means. We can perfectly comprehend the advantages offered by the cheapness of the Continent to large families with narrow incomes; but that the opulent should abandon their country, their natural station, and their duties, simply to drink champagne at a lower rate, and have cheaper dancing-masters, we must ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... rare it is to translate well! Even rarer than to write English well. If a woman is aware that she has grace in expressing herself, and a delicate perception of the meaning of words, and the power to comprehend the thought of a writer, then can she do better with time and money than to perfect her knowledge of a language so that she can make a good translation of some fine book which would otherwise be neglected? If she should also have some poetic gift, she might ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... the peasant strikes his roots. Urban people can never comprehend when these roots are cut away how hopelessly-lost and adrift this European peasant in particular becomes. Wicked as the Great War has seemed to us in its bearing down upon these innocent folks, yet we can never understand the cruelty that they have suffered in being uprooted from the land and sent ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... said, who came forward to announce the play for the next evening, and who took the tumultuous applause, as usual, for himself. Pen was not even distinctly aware that the house was calling for Miss Fotheringay, nor did the manager seem to comprehend that anybody else but himself had caused the success of the play. At last he understood it—stepped back with a grin, and presently appeared with Mrs. Haller on his arm. How beautiful she looked! Her hair had fallen ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that enters into self-love belongs to inclination, and all inclination rests on feelings, and consequently whatever checks all the feelings together in self-love has necessarily, by this very circumstance, an influence on feeling; hence we comprehend how it is possible to perceive a priori that the moral law can produce an effect on feeling, in that it excludes the inclinations and the propensity to make them the supreme practical condition, i.e., self-love, from all participation in the supreme ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... exact piece; his business not being ostentation, but charity. 'Tis miscellaneous in the matter of it, and by no means artificial in the composure. But it contains hints that may serve thee for texts to preach to thyself upon, and which comprehend much of the course of human life. Since whatever be thy inclination or aversion, practice or duty, thou wilt find something not unsuitably said for thy direction and advantage. Accept and improve what deserves thy notice; the rest excuse, and place ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... could speak no English, he understood it sufficiently to appreciate the drift of the youth's words, even though he had failed to comprehend the meaning of the angry frown and the glittering knife. But, however much he might have wished to reply to the question, Henry took care to render the attempt impossible, by compressing his windpipe until he became blue in the face, ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... This was the only room at liberty, they said; and could we not arrange to sleep here? S'accomodi, Signore! S'accomodi, Signora! These encouraging words, uttered in various tones of cheerful and insinuating politeness to each member of the party in succession, failed to make us comprehend how a gentleman and his wife, with a lean but rather lengthy English friend, and a bulky native of the Grisons, could "accommodate themselves" collectively and undividedly with what was barely sufficient for their just moiety, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... eyes, satin lips, and all the form and color that make beauty. How can I make clear a love that grew strong and passionately demanding, knew delicate coquetries of advance and evasion, intimacy of minds like the meeting of eyes in understanding—all in the dark? The blind might comprehend. But the blind have a physical communication we had not; touch has enchantments ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... are produced. Mr. Darwin says he can set no limit to the changes of structure, habits, instincts, and intelligence, which these simple laws in the course of millions or milliards of centuries may bring into existence. He says, "we cannot comprehend what the figures 60,000,000 really imply, and during this, or perhaps a longer roll of years, the land and waters have everywhere teemed with living creatures, all exposed to the struggle for life, and undergoing change." (p. 354). "Mr. Croll," ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... of which you have spoken just now comprehend the United States flour?"—A. "No, they are exclusive ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... him with the handkerchief was Werrajouit, those of the other four Yarree Buckenba and Tackijally Buckenba (brothers) Youimooba, and Werrayoy (youths). The most intelligent was Tackijally, and even he understood but little, not enough to comprehend anything I said about the white man lost ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... the guides were manifesting more or less impatience. They apparently understood that the enemy would be apt to turn up here again, sooner or later; and could not comprehend why the scouts should always want to compare notes, before doing anything like making a change of base. Francois and the Cree were accustomed to making most of their moves through instinct; while with the scouts those same ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... slept late. At breakfast, excitement took away her appetite. And throughout the study-hour that followed, her eyes read, and her lips repeated aloud, several pages of standard literature for juveniles that her busy brain did not comprehend. Yet now as she waited behind the rose hangings for the supreme moment, she felt, strangely enough, no impatience. With three to attend her, privacy was not a common privilege, and, therefore, prized. She fell to inspecting the row of houses across the way—in ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... mystery of a Life and Universe. Despise it not. You are raised high above it, to large free scope of vision; but you too are not yet at the top. No, your notion too, so much enlarged, is but a partial, imperfect one: that matter is a thing no man will ever, in time or out of time, comprehend; after thousands of years of ever-new expansion, man will find himself but struggling to comprehend again a part of it: the thing is larger than man, not to be comprehended ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... is full of mysteries. I can comprehend the pleasure to be got out of the hydraulic engine; but what can be the fascination of a whip, when one has nothing to flagellate but the calves of his own legs, I could never understand. Yet a small riding-whip is the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... very surely were the details of frightful looting and of the first atrocities perpetrated by the Germans, who demonstrated a premeditated intention to destroy, defile and wipe out everything in their path. And Paris was doubtless the first city in France to comprehend the significance of this war, which is a war of civilization against barbarism, a sacred war in which the forces of humanity raise a rampart of human breasts against the violent ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... an opportunity of more easily reclaiming them. The Anomaeans were the followers of Eunomius, who, to the errors of the rankest Arianism, added a peculiar blasphemy, asserting that both the blessed in heaven, and also men in this mortal life, not only know God, but also comprehend and fathom the divine nature as clearly as we know our own, and even as perfectly as God comprehends himself. This fanaticism and impiety St. Chrysostom confutes in these five homilies, demonstrating, from the infinitude of the divine attributes, and from holy scriptures, that ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... to take it in—perhaps he was too unhappy, or it sounded like sending him away again; or, maybe, such a great step in life was more than he could comprehend, after the outcast condition to which he had been used: but Mr. Cope could not go on talking to him, for the Grange carriage was stopping at the gate, and Matilda and Ellen were both coming down-stairs to receive Miss Jane. Poor little thing, she looked very ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... long way off, and could not hear them even if he understood English, which was improbable. There were so many other languages at this meeting-place of East and West which it was essential for him to comprehend. The room was absolutely bare; not so much as a dog could be concealed in it. It these two had anything to say to each other this was assuredly the moment, and this bare railway station the place to ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... have it otherwise; 't is better there should be Much bigger fish than I have caught a-swimming in the sea; For now some worthier one than I may angle for that game— May by his arts entice, entrap, and comprehend the same; Which, having done, perchance he'll bless the man who's proud to say That the biggest fish he ever caught were ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... to be done, and why Captain Marmaduke seemed so confident of finding a new Garden of Eden or Earthly Paradise at the other end of the world, I did not rightly comprehend then; nor, indeed, have I striven much to comprehend since. But I gathered this much—that Captain Marmaduke had retired from the service to carry out his fancy; that he had bought land of the Dutch in the Indies; that he had plenty of money at his command; and that the enterprise was all at his ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... distemper, until, by a variety of experiments, that important country has been brought into her present situation—a situation which I will not miscall, which I dare not name, which I scarcely know how to comprehend in ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... and the children come home for the summer, the home folks will probably have some trouble at first in understanding their imperfect speech. Do not be discouraged. The speech will steadily improve from year to year, and you will soon be able to comprehend it, even when it is very faulty. But do not accept from the child anything except the best speech he is capable of. When the boy first arrives you will, probably, not know just how much to expect of him. To begin with, it will do him no harm to ask him ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... bustling communities, whose growth had already begun to affect the East, bringing increased business and prosperity, whose rapid development and far-reaching influence people were only slowly beginning to comprehend. ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... hundred miles of Paris, you would not pay it the slightest attention." Such places had their individuality, but she upheld that there is not a corner in the universe, "however common-place it may appear, but has a character of its own, unique in this world, for any one who is disposed to feel or comprehend it." In one of her village tales a sagacious peasant professes his profound contempt for the man who cannot like ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... The mass of the people they considered as thoroughly loyal, attached to our rule as well from gratitude as from self-interest, being thoroughly conscious of the benefits it had conferred upon them. Holding these opinions, they did not comprehend either the nature or the magnitude of the crisis. To their inability to do so, many lives and much treasure were needlessly sacrificed.'—'The Indian ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... deny any validity to the conclusion of our logical faculties upon this subject. Our intellect, Bergson says, cannot grasp the true nature of life, nor the meaning of the evolutionary movement. With the emphasis of italics he repeats that "the intellect is characterized by a natural inability to comprehend life." He says this in a good many pages and in a good many different ways; the idea is one of the main conclusions of his book. Our intuitions, our spiritual nature, according to this philosopher, are more en rapport with the secrets of the creative energy than are our intellectual faculties; ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... Frances. The tenderness, care, and attention which Frances experienced in her own family could not console her for the prince royal's desertion. Her sister was the only being in the world to whom she confided her grief; women have a delicate sensibility which enables them to comprehend the minutest details; nothing escapes them, and, with the finest instruments in their possession, they can more readily deal with a crushed heart. If love had left Frances a single hope, she might still ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... considerable power and all the creatures in Oz, as well as the three mortal girls from the outside world, looked upon her as their protector and friend. The idea of their beautiful girl Ruler's being overpowered by an enemy and dragged from her splendid palace a captive was too astonishing for them to comprehend, at first. Yet what other explanation of the mystery ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... distance, shrinking back whenever the man Wolfe happened to look towards her. She knew, in spite of all his kindness, that there was that in her face and form which made him loathe the sight of her. She felt by instinct, although she could not comprehend it, the finer nature of the man, which made him among his fellow-workmen something unique, set apart. She knew, that, down under all the vileness and coarseness of his life, there was a groping passion for whatever was beautiful ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... trees drooping into the water on either shore, the gay concourse of people, the bright patch of color made by the red coats of the band of the regiment stationed across the stream, the tents for the competitors to change in, the dark wondering faces of Kafirs and coolies, who cannot comprehend why white people should take so much trouble and run so much risk to amuse themselves. We certainly must appear to them to be possessed by a restless demon of energy, both in our work and our play, and never more so than on this hot afternoon, when, amid much ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... round approached. Many a struggle and blush did it cost; but this seemed only to excite the tyranny of the masters of the craft; and compliance could never be avoided, except by more torture than yielding.... It is difficult for those who have been under a more natural system to comprehend how a sensible man, a respectable matron, a worthy old maid, and especially a girl, could be expected to go into company easily, on ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... Hugh! Hugh!" And in a passion of tears that told of a too great trial, still resolute despite her partial defeat, she tore the letter and cast it on the fire. "There!" she cried, "would to God I loved him less." And then, with strange firmness, she took up a book, and sternly set herself to comprehend what ...
— Mr. Kris Kringle - A Christmas Tale • S. Weir Mitchell
... sentences. He began to feel impotent; his whole expedition was a tottering of an old man upon a trail of birds. A sense of age made him choke again with wrath. That other vehicle, that was youth, with youth's pace; it was swift-flying with the hope of dreams. He began to comprehend those two children ahead of him, and he knew a sudden and strange awe, because he understood the power of their young blood, the power to fly strongly into the future and feel and hope again, even at that time when his bones must be laid ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... either poetry or music is adult, the presence of each is a distraction to the other, and each prefers, in the elaborate ages, to stand alone, since the mystery of the one confounds the complexity of the other. Most poets hate music; few musicians comprehend the nature of poetry; and the combination of these arts has probably, in all ages, been contrived, not for the satisfaction of artists, but for ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... who have involved the country in this war are wicked and corrupt. A systematic exclusion of all Federalists from any office of trust is the leading feature of this Administration, yet the Federalists comprehend the majority of the wealth, virtue, and intelligence of the community. It is the power of the ignorant multitude by which they are supported, and I conceive that America will never be a respectable nation in the eyes of the world, till the extreme democracy of our Constitution ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... learned from the lips that unfolded it to Paul. In The Master's Violin, Myrtle Reed tells us the secret of the music that the old man's fingers wooed from the Cremona. You have but to look at the master, she says, and you will comprehend. 'There he stands, a stately figure, gray and rugged, yet with a certain graciousness; simple, kindly, and yet austere; one who had accepted his sorrow, and, by some alchemy of the spirit, transmuted it into universal ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... well, that, after that that I may perceive and comprehend, the lands of Prester John, Emperor of Ind, be under us. For in going from Scotland or from England toward Jerusalem men go upward always. For our land is in the low part of the earth toward the west, and the land of Prester John is in the low part of the earth toward ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... Latin. Now the medium of these is about fourteen syllables, because the dactyl is a more frequent foot in hexameters than the spondee. But Holyday (without considering that he writ with the disadvantage of four syllables less in every verse) endeavours to make one of his lines to comprehend the sense of one of Juvenal's. According to the falsity of the proposition was the success. He was forced to crowd his verse with ill-sounding monosyllables (of which our barbarous language affords him a wild plenty), and by that means he arrived at his pedantic end, which was to make ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... found that he had engaged passage for himself, wife, and two sisters—his own. The state-rooms were sufficiently roomy, and each had two berths, one above the other. These berths, to be sure, were so exceedingly narrow as to be insufficient for more than one person; still, I could not comprehend why there were THREE staterooms for these four persons. I was, just at that epoch, in one of those moody frames of mind which make a man abnormally inquisitive about trifles: and I confess, with shame, that I busied myself in a variety of ill- bred ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... salary as well as the position of private 'secretary?" queried the detective, half to himself, with a tone of amusement, which Mr. Whitney failed to comprehend. "Yes; I met him to-day at the ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... white, in mode and shape it seems A lady's glove, but, as he spoke with none By night within the garden whom, by chance, He might have robbed of it—confused thereto In his reflections by myself, who calls him Up to the council in the palace, he Forgets the thing he cannot comprehend, And off-hand in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... honest Swiss, who sat near, one George Michael Moser, keeper of the Royal Academy, perceiving Dr. Johnson rolling himself as if about to speak, exclaimed, "Stay, stay! Toctor Shonson is going to say something." "And are you sure, sir," replied Goldsmith, sharply, "that you can comprehend ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Phantom Ship—and if your father is permitted to range over the seas, why should you not be selected and permitted to reverse his doom? I fully believe every word that you have told me, and since you have told me this, I can comprehend much that in your behaviour at times appeared unaccountable; there are many who would pity you, Philip, but I ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to whom they were introduced as the lady of the commandant, whose house it was, and were speedily convinced of their mistake, which produced a hearty laugh. They then, by signs, tried to make their palanquin-boys comprehend that it was a hotel they wanted, and not a private house. These said they understood "Master," and away they all four went towards the town. At a short distance from this the boys stopped at another large building, which appeared more like a hotel ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... stiff from six days' toil— So God takes hold an' preaches, In boughs ov rustlin' maple an' In whisperin' leaves ov beeches: Sez He tew that thar farmin' chap (Likewise tew the old woman), "I guess I'm built tew comprehend That you an' ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... Roman Orators) I shall leave you to judge, whether an application of the Irony is not equally reprehensible, as it would be in giving a judicial evidence."—"Pray, what are you driving at," said I,— "for I cannot comprehend you."—"I mean," replied he, "in the first place, that the commendations which you have bestowed upon some of our Orators, have a tendency to mislead the opinion of those who are unacquainted with their true characters. There were ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... you say, Veroshka? open your heart to me. Perhaps I can comprehend, and if you have grief, help ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... occasions of peculiar exposure. The men who never tasted stimulants had the most endurance, and suffered the least from cold or exposure of any kind. We wonder at the delusions of witchcraft, and can scarcely comprehend how men could so abandon common sense as to give credence to such folly; but the absurdity of the use of alcoholic stimulants is not less puerile. The time will come when it will be told with pitying wonder how men of this day stupidly ignore the ghastly results of ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... and start talking. Having while in Tyler's office heard them arguing on the immortality of the soul, etc., I asked permission of Mr. Tyler if, after finishing the press matter, I might come in and listen to the conversation, which I did many times after. One thing I never could comprehend was that Tyler had a sideboard with liquors and generally crackers. Prentice would pour out half a glass of what they call corn whiskey, and would dip the crackers in it and eat them. Tyler took it sans food. One teaspoonful of that ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... different ages move, 'Tis so ordained (would Fate but mend it!), That I shall be past making love When she begins to comprehend it. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... at the globe," said the Professor. "I cannot comprehend the meaning of this. Let us go at once ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... partially diverting the stream of migration. Tradition is very strong in birds (and all animated creatures); they return annually in the face of terrible destruction, and the individuals do not seem to comprehend the danger. But by degrees the race at large becomes aware of and acknowledges the mistake, and slowly the original tracks are deserted. This is the case with water-fowl, and even, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... how shallow is my mind! How confined! and how restricted![3] Ah! how driftless are my words! And my thoughts themselves how driftless! Since I cannot comprehend, Cannot pierce the secrets hidden In this little book that I Found by chance with others mingled. I its meaning cannot reach, Howsoe'er my mind I rivet, Though to this, and this alone, Many a day has now been given. But I cannot therefore yield, Must not own myself outwitted:— No; a studious ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... full minute to comprehend. When he did, he breathed deep, shut his lips upon words that would have frightened her, and went down the ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... wish to understand the spirit and the period of Nicholas Nickleby we must endeavour to comprehend and to appreciate the old more decisive remedies, or, if we prefer to put it so, the old more desperate remedies. Our fathers had a plain sort of pity; if you will, a gross and coarse pity. They had their own sort of sentimentalism. ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... Anthony arose after that half hour of suspense, and the bitter hostility she noted on every side. However, with a clear, distinct voice, which filled the hall, she said: "It seems to me, gentlemen, that none of you quite comprehend the cause of the disrespect of which you complain. Do you not see that so long as society says a woman is incompetent to be a lawyer, minister, or doctor, but has ample ability to be a teacher, that every man of you who chooses this profession ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... century had no comprehension of solitude, the strength which it may impart to the vigorous, the poetic graces which it may shed about the life of those who are less than vigorous; and what they did not comprehend, they dreaded and abhorred, and thought monstrous in the one man who did comprehend it. They were all of the mind of Socrates when he said to Phaedrus, "Knowledge is what I love, and the men who dwell in the town are my teachers, not trees and landscape."[252] Sarcasms fell on him like hail, and ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... at least four feet long, with large black letters on a white ground: "Boys not allowed." I looked at it for some moments in a sort of bewildered surprise: I did not quite comprehend the meaning of the words. At last I understood it. I was waiting in a large railway station, where many trains connect; and most of the passengers from the train in which I was were eating dinner in a hotel near by. I was entirely alone in the car, with the exception of one boy, who was perhaps ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... the book as a whole I could form no adequate conception, and it was not for many years, and after I had known the poet himself, as already stated, that I saw in it a teeming, rushing globe well worthy my best days and strength to surround and comprehend. ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... bride, white silk and satin, that did not suit her, that made her seem large and strange to me; she obtruded bows and unfamiliar contours. She went through all this strange ritual of an English wedding with a sacramental gravity that I was altogether too young and egotistical to comprehend. It was all extraordinarily central and important to her; it was no more than an offensive, complicated, and disconcerting intrusion of a world I was already beginning to criticise very bitterly, to me. What was all this fuss for? The mere ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... composed? It is true that impatience, the mother of stupidity, praises brevity, as if such persons had not life long enough to serve them to acquire a complete knowledge of one single subject, such as the human body; and then they want to comprehend the mind of God in which the universe is included, weighing it minutely and mincing it into infinite parts, as if they had to ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... very terrible thing has happened, and I must explain it to you, in order that you may comprehend what I must do. Will you promise me to listen patiently and to forgive me beforehand for all ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... simple intention of friendliness which she was too shallow to appreciate or understand, this heavy loss would have been spared him. For this dead animal was more to him than comrade and friend; more than any man who has not shared the good and evil times with his horse in the silent places can comprehend. ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... am certain is the case with your protegee. So long as she has been under my care, I have watched her moving with an even step, slowly, steadily forward—never back. As with a child it is necessary to begin everything at the beginning, so it is with her. She can comprehend nothing which does not follow from what precedes it; let a thing be as simple and easy as possible, she can make nothing of it if it is not in a recognizable connection; but find the intermediate links, and make ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... "Oh!" he says, "for that matter, he may do his duty pretty well." "And do you mean to say," continued I, "that if he should do so, you will give him no opposition?" He looked at me, as if he did not clearly comprehend, and said, "Why, I ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... the first deep breath with luxurious enjoyment, he spoke again. "It is a little difficult to get a man of your stamp to comprehend the fact that an artist—a true artist—is not one to be greatly drawn by the grosser things of life, more especially when he is in ardent pursuit of that elusive flame called inspiration. But you would hardly grasp a condition in which the body—and the impulses of the ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... about this; often bear in mind, observe and comprehend, that all minerals and metals together, in the same time, and after the same fashion, and of one and the same principal matter, are produced and generated. That matter is no other than a mere vapour, which is extracted from the elementary ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... from whom Thais had often bought perfumes and stuffs, and they looked on anxiously with long, yellow faces, unable to comprehend what was going on. Some young debauchees, who, returning from a supper, passed by there, preceded by their slaves, stopped, their heads crowned with flowers, their tunics floating, and uttered loud cries. Attracted ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... liable to be covered by the sea, and there was a low, languid plash of the tide, which could not be seen. Twilight began to deepen the mist. The guide was evidently uneasy; he sidled up to Philip, and began to ask what he—hitherto obstinately deaf and contemptuous to French—was very slow to comprehend. At last he found it was a question how near it was to All Soul's day; and then came an equally amazing query whether the gentlemen's babe had been baptized; for it appeared that on All Soul's day the spirits of unchristened infants ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Great Britain's action was unjustifiable, and at times even monstrous, regarded in itself alone, must be admitted; but we shall ill comprehend the necessity of preparation for war, if we neglect to note the pressure of emergency, of deadly peril, upon a state, or if we fail to recognize that traditional habits of thought constitute with nations, as with individuals, a compulsive moral force which an opponent ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... strange idea of justice. He holds to it as some men hold to the idea of love or revenge. Unless I am much mistaken in the man, it must remain inviolate or perish by an act of his will alone. A passion has crept into his cold and idealistic life. A passion which I can only comprehend intellectually. A passion that is not like the passions we know, we men of another blood. But it is as ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... ultimately become mad. To men like the vicar, almost the only possible theory of crime is the theory of insanity. It is positively impossible for a man who has passed thirty or forty years in a quiet country parish to comprehend the motives or the actions of great criminals. He naturally says they must be crazy or they would not do such things. If Goddard were crazy enough to commit a forgery, he was crazy enough for anything, even to the extent of suspecting that his ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... attended his old master's steps from the first of his daughters' ill-usage to this sad period of his decay, tried to make him understand that it was he who had followed him under the name of Caius; but Lear's care-crazed brain at that time could not comprehend how that could be, or how Kent and Caius could be the same person, so Kent thought it needless to trouble him with explanations at such a time; and, Lear soon after expiring, this faithful servant to the king, between age and grief for his old master's ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Hervey lived all the year round in what were then called lodgings, that is, apartments appropriated to the royal household, or even to others, in St. James's, or at Richmond, or at Windsor. In order fully to comprehend all the intimate relations which he had with the court, it is necessary to present the reader with some account of the family of George II. Five daughters had been the female issue of his majesty's marriage ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... stupor and affright, which the discovery of this vast infernal machine spread through all classes of society. A great number of magistrates and administrators of provinces refused to believe in it, and could not be brought to comprehend that such a system had so long preyed on the body politic, under their eyes as it were, silently, and without betraying itself."—See "British India in 183," by Count Edward de Warren, 2 vols. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... of this Publication is to present photographs of all the great sights of the world, from every corner of the globe, carefully reproducing them by the photo-electro process, and adding a few lines of explanation to every picture, so that any one can comprehend each subject. ...
— Shepp's Photographs of the World • James W. Shepp
... other people did not have, they said to themselves, some inner light that shone through her face, some finer sight and keener ear that made her see and hear what was not given to common mortals to comprehend; and because she sat thus with the light of communion on her face they, too, sat with respectful hearts and tried to join lustily in the hymns with ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... not comprehend why his nephew did not appear; he expected him every moment, and was impatient to have him in his arms. After he had expected him seven days in vain, he searched for him through all Cairo, but could hear ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... not understand are stirring in our hearts. Voices are calling us to some great effort, to some mighty work. But we do not comprehend their meaning yet, and the hidden echoes within us that would reply ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... to comprehend all this by the low, muttered utterances of those crowding near me, spoken in nearly every language of the world. Much I could not even translate, yet enough reached my ears to convince me of the temper of the crew—their feverish ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... "the darkness apprehended it not." The old common version says "comprehended"; the revisions, both English and American, say "apprehended." Both are rather large words, larger in English than John would use. John loved to use simple talk. Yet there's help even in these English words. Comprehend is a mental word. It means to take hold of with your mind; to understand. Apprehend is a physical word. It means to take hold of with ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... story from a more careful writer. It is a story with an aim, and left an impressive lesson on the minds of all. If it be somewhat of an allegory, it is one whose meaning it is not hard to comprehend. ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... recognised that Smoke called for strong yet respectful management. The cat's circuitous methods puzzled him, and his elaborate pretences perhaps shocked the dog's liking for direct, undisguised action. Yet, while he failed to comprehend these tortuous feline mysteries, he was never contemptuous or condescending; and he presided over the safety of his furry black friend somewhat as a father, loving, but intuitive, might superintend the vagaries of a wayward and talented ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... than either of her rival goddesses. I believe that there are now nearly 10,000 plants arranged according to the system of De Jussieu, in the most simple and perfect manner, so that the student is enabled at once to comprehend the plan, and numbers of both sexes attend even as early as six in the morning copying the names of plants and studying their classification. Although this establishment is called the Garden of Plants, it has many other ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... I comprehend. Mademoiselle parle francais? Mais sans doute; telle que je la vois! La demande etait bien ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... the doctrinal Puritans, who rigidly defended the speculative system of the first reformers. In opposition to all these stood the court party, the hierarchy, and the Arminians; only with this distinction, that the latter sect, being introduced a few years before, did not as yet comprehend all those who were favorable to the church and to monarchy. But, as the controversies on every subject grew daily warmer, men united themselves more intimately with their friends, and separated themselves wider from their antagonists; and the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... prince, who has been described as a very humane and indolent man, the country was distracted by sanguinary broils; the governors of several provinces and districts withdrew their allegiance; and the dominions of the khans of Kalat gradually so diminished that they now comprehend only a small portion of the provinces ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... Are they mere pretences at prayer, full of nothing but sound? Is there any reasonable ground for assuming that they can accomplish anything? Or are my prayers weighted with sincere desire? Do they comprehend my brother's good as well as my own? Are they spoken in faith? Do they go forth in great expectancy? Then do they surely "exert a mighty influence," and they become fellow-labourers with all God's ministries of grace. The greatest thing I can do ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... laughing to think that her mother did not comprehend so very plain an affair, "this is our little snow-sister whom we have just ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... hypnotic quality of his written word was carried leagues farther in effect by his trained, soothing voice. Flattered, no longer frightened, her nerves deliciously assaulted by this coloured rhetoric, Ermentrude yielded her intellectual assent. She did not comprehend. She felt only the rhythms of his speech, as sound swallowed sense. He held her captive with a pause, and his eloquent eyes—they were of an extraordinary lustre—completed the subjugation of ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... founded, that his sea urchin had indeed been claimed by the hunger of the sea. Uniacke had worked in cities and had seen much of sad men. He had learnt to read them truly for the most part, and to foresee clearly in many instances the end of their journeys. And his ministrations had taught him to comprehend the tragedies that arise from the terrible intimacy which exists between the body and its occupant the soul. He could not tell, as a doctor might have been able to tell, whether the morbid condition into which Sir Graham had come was primarily due to ill-health ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... seen much to confirm this belief, and had not looked in the right place to find any facts that would contradict it. This belief had made him hard and sometimes even dishonest in his dealings with men; for what is the use of being good in a world that can neither comprehend goodness nor admire it? On the whole, the notary was much better satisfied with himself than with human nature around him, although, if he had only known it, he himself had grown to be the reflex—the image as in ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... people under the sun, the so-called labouring man has best cause to pray for deliverance from his friends. His friends are, or rather were, of three classes. The first, ardent but wingless angels of mercy, who fail to comprehend the fact that the unlovely lot of their would-be wards is the result of conditions imposed more largely from within than from without; the second, those who care neither for lots nor conditions, regarding the labourer as a senseless tool with which ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... practised mind of the Lord of Sant' Agata. The latter fancied that he could trace in the movement of her lips the sound of his own name, and a dozen times during the confession he thought he could even comprehend sentences of which he himself was the subject. Twice the good father smiled involuntarily, and at each indiscretion he laid a hand in affection on the bared head of the suppliant. But Violetta ceased to speak, and the absolution was pronounced ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the clergy who, without reason or sincerity, attacked him from the pulpit; nor yet the malice and revenge displayed in the vile slanders that pursued him to his last hour; we can, on the other hand, comprehend, and even, up to a certain point, excuse this prosperous and noble country of England for not classing her great son among popular poets—for hiding her admiration cautiously: since it must be acknowledged that Lord Byron often acted and wrote rather as belonging to ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... vain that I repeated the arguments of some of the parliamentary panegyrists of boxing and bull-baiting; and asserted, that these diversions render a people hardy and courageous. My opponent replied, that he did not perceive the necessary connexion between cruelty and courage; that he did not comprehend how the standing by in safety to see two men bruise each other almost to death could evince or inspire heroic sentiments or warlike dispositions. He observed, that the Romans were most eager for the fights of gladiators during ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... was very artistically doubled and folded into the resemblance of a man, and then the lasso was attached to it. The Apaches experimented with it for several minutes before putting it to the test, but at last everything was satisfactory, and it was launched. The aborigines seemed to comprehend what the trouble was with the other, and ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... of over-sea dominions of their own, many Americans are coming to comprehend something of the powerlessness of a great people in the grip of its destiny. They are also beginning to understand that the ruling and civilising of savage and alien peoples is not either all comfort or all profit. If Americans were given ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... quick to comprehend the cruel words, and in an instant she had crumpled the anonymous scrawl in her hand. But she was the fraction of a second too late. Amy ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... boundless! It includes all that wondrous extent of Divine love which we shall be ever learning, and never be able to comprehend, the breadth, length, depth, and height of the love of Christ, which ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... his companions recovered consciousness, thanks to the attention lavished upon them, they found themselves in the cabin of a steamer, without being able to comprehend how they had ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... science is so coldly received in ordinary society is, that either by reason of its unripeness for generalisation, or of the tendency of its cultivators to keep continually analysing and multiplying facts, it has not in general been presented in propositions which the ordinary mind can comprehend or make use of. We should be loath to urge it into generalisations for which it was not prepared; but while this is duly avoided, we would have it to be somewhat more vigilant than it usually is, in taking opportunities of proceeding ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... O God! is in the sea, Thy paths I cannot trace; Nor comprehend the mystery Of thine ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... loss when I strove to comprehend how the dancers could so suddenly know what every different note meant; for they no sooner heard this or that sound but they placed themselves in the place which was denoted by the music, though their motions were all different. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Pollingray idolises him—spoils him. She says that he is worth twenty of Charles. Nous savons ce que nous savons, nous autres. Charles is wild, but Charles would be above these littlenesses. How could Miss Pollingray comprehend ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... enough, indeed, to be learnt there, could we but enter into the heart of even the most brutish negro slave who ever was brought down the Nile out of the desert by Nubian merchants, to build piers and docks in whose commerce he did not share, temples whose worship he did not comprehend, libraries and theatres whose learning and civilisation were to him as much a sealed book as they were to his countryman, and fellow-slave, and only friend, the ape. There was metaphysic enough in him truly, and things eternal and ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... is with the king] This answer I do not comprehend. Perhaps it should be, The body is not with the king, for the king is ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson |
