"Define" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was not matter for admission. They were free and so were we, and we must for the sake of our safety remain so. The idea then occurred to us that, as we should never agree about it, we should avoid trying to define a standard proportion in any general agreement that we might come to, and, indeed, say nothing in it about shipbuilding; but that the Emperor should announce to the German public that the agreement on general questions, if we should ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
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... very simple question, ain't it? and anyone that reads this book when you publish it, will say, "Why, everybody knows what natur is," and any schoolboy can answer that question. But I'll take a bet of twenty dollars, not one in a hundred will define that tarm right off the reel, without stopping. It fairly stumpt me, and I ain't easily brought to a hack about common things. I could a told her what natur was circumbendibusly, and no mistake, though that takes time. But to define it briefly and quickly, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
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... matter to define exactly one's likes and dislikes. Even a tiny protoplasmic animal appears to be highly complex under the microscope. How can we hope to analyse, with any degree of certitude, our souls, especially ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
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... externally and within. The room itself was large and old, and its far extremities, mantled as they were with dusk and shadow, impressed upon the mind that involuntary and vague sensation, not altogether unmixed with awe, which the eye, resting upon a view that it can but dimly and confusedly define, so frequently communicates to the heart. There was a strange oppression at Mordaunt's breast with which he in vain endeavoured to contend. Ever and anon, an icy but passing chill, like the shivers of a fever, shot ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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... did not trouble himself to define impelled Calumet to wheel his pony when he reached the far end of the corral fence and ride into the cottonwood where, thirteen years before, he had seen the last of his mother. No emotion moved him as he rode toward it, but when he came upon the grave ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
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... To define an epitaph is useless; every one knows that it is an inscription on a tomb. An epitaph, therefore, implies no particular character of writing, but may be composed in verse or prose. It is, indeed, commonly panegyrical; because we are seldom distinguished with a stone but by our friends; but ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
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... the middle-age mystics to place him. At the same time something strange seemed to hover about the man, refusing to be handled in that way. Something which he called his own religious sense appeared to know something of what the soutar must mean, though he could neither isolate nor define it. ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
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... sufficiently comprehensive to define this motive power of woman's nature is the feminine spirit. That spirit manifests itself most frequently in motherhood, but it is greater than maternity. Woman herself, all that she is, all that she has ever been, all that she may be, is but the outworking of this inner spiritual urge. Given ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
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... means of this twofold material the emotions and aspirations of human beings may be expressed and permanently recorded. We realize, and with our inborn equipment can appreciate, the moving power of music; but to define, in the usual sense of the term definition, what music really is, will be forever impossible. The fact indeed that music—like love, electricity and other elemental forces—cannot be defined is its special glory. It is a peculiar, ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
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... spectacle of torture and of blood which he needed too. Curiously, his melancholy increased; his good looks had gone; Psyche was no longer amorous of his eyes. Something else haunted him, something he could not define; the past, perhaps, perhaps the future. To his ears came strange sounds, the murmur of his own name, and suddenly silence. Then, too, there always seemed to be something behind him; something that when he turned ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
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... as at that moment. There was at all times about her a majesty of mind and feeling that lent to her simplest word and action a dignity and power, which, though universally felt, it would have been impossible to define. If one could have procured for her a kingdom to reign over, or have chosen from the galaxy of heaven a region worthy her command, it must have been that pale and holy star, which, splendid and alone in the firmament, heralds the approach of day; so unfitted ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
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... was not strange to hear her referred to as "the Milo girl," and not infrequently she was included at gatherings of people who were still in their twenties. In just what her youthfulness lay it was hard to define. At times an expression of the eye, a trick of straight-looking, or perhaps the lifting and turning of the chin, or a quick bringing together of the hands,—all these were girlish. There was that about her which made her seem as simple and ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
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... fallen upon Jimmy in the road came to him again, now, as sobering as a blow. Something which he could not define had changed the atmosphere. Suddenly in an instant, like a shallow stream that runs babbling over the stones into some broad, still pool, the note of their talk ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
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... to face with their initial tests. We must hold the light steady until they find themselves. And in the meantime, if it be possible, we must establish a peace that will justly define their place among the nations, remove all fear of their neighbors and of their former masters, and enable them to live in security and contentment when they have set ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
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... to last night's decision and strike with what weapons we had? It was a pressing question, too, the last of many—was there to be no end to the emergencies of this crowded day?—pressing for reasons I could not define, while convinced that we must be ready with ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
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... it that glass of wine from which she had sipped last evening?—and at this moment she would have given much to be back where she thought herself two weeks ago, on the wine question; but she stood silent and let him talk on, not once attempting to define her position—partly because there had crept into her mind this fearful doubt, unaccompanied ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
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... to settle European frontiers; it is necessary to settle and, as it were, dovetail into each other the economic interests of the European countries in Africa, Asia, and the Southern Pacific. It is also necessary to define the relations of European countries to the States in North ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
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... first revival, and I faced William. Spiritually speaking, we parted company. He passed into a praying and fasting trance, and my heart was nearly broken with the loneliness, for praying and fasting did not agree with me, and William seemed to recede in some mystical sense hard to define, so that I became a sort ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
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... not define it, nor September. It has no synonym, for there is nothing like it. I am glad that I have lived to see hedges of heliotrope, of geraniums and calla-lilies. I remember, in contrast, solitary calla plants that I have nursed with care all winter ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
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... the plunging hoofs and rattling wheels were heard. A dull, lurid glow began to define the horizon. They were silent until an abatement of the smoke, the vanishing of the gloomy horizon line, and a certain impenetrability in the darkness ahead showed them they were nearing the Carquinez Woods. But they were surprised on entering ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
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... saying that my sympathies have gone out with enthusiasm toward that gifted man ever since I heard him remark, not very long ago, that he liked to have things cluttered up in his house. I am not able to define the compound "cluttered-up," but it conveys to my mind a meaning that is perfectly clear, and it suggests conditions which are pleasing to me. I, too, like to have things cluttered up. The most dreadful day in the week is, to my thinking, Friday—not because we invariably have fried fish ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
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... philosopher would remark that the indefinite is equally real with the definite. Health and mental qualities are in the concrete undefined; they are nevertheless real goods, and Plato rightly regards them as falling under the finite class. Again, we are able to define objects or ideas, not in so far as they are in the mind, but in so far as they are manifested externally, and can therefore be reduced to rule and measure. And if we adopt the test of definiteness, the pleasures of ...
— Philebus • Plato
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... define a contract to be "An agreement between two or more persons to do or not to do a certain stated thing ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
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... Isclo d'Or and in all the subsequent editions of Mireio. Mistral had professed great admiration for the author of Jocelyn even before 1859, but as poets they stand in marked contrast. We may partly define Mistral's art in stating that it is utterly unlike that of Lamartine. Mistral's inspiration is not that of a Romantic; his art sense is derived directly from the study of the Greek and Roman classics. In all that Mistral has written ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
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... seem remarkable, that Aristotle, who is so fond and free of definitions, hath not thought proper to define the Ridiculous. Indeed, where he tells us it is proper to comedy, he hath remarked that villany is not its object: but he hath not, as I remember, positively asserted what is. Nor doth the Abbe Bellegarde, who hath written a treatise on this subject, though he shows us ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
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... Asked to define the expression, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." "It just means," responded a little fellow, "that the evil committed at the present day is ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
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... and not to define and emphasise it in a foreword to the reader. The motive of The Last Shot (CHAPMAN AND HALL) appears in due course in the narrative; I would have preferred to discover it gradually for myself rather than have the essence of it extracted and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
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... attempted to define the rural community and to describe the new conditions which are determining its structure and shaping its functions, in the belief that an understanding of the nature of the rural community should aid those who ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
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... But she was smiling, her full mouth parted in the strangest smile I have ever seen. And those small white teeth gleamed; and in her eyes, which were all black pupils now, with the iris quite hidden, was desire—or something beyond desire. I couldn't define it then; now, I think I can. Her small, pink tongue darted over her lips, ...
— Each Man Kills • Victoria Glad
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... of this treatise we may, perhaps, define it as the power to see what is hidden from ordinary physical sight. It will be as well to premise that it is very frequently (though by no means always) accompanied by what is called clairaudience, or the power to hear what would be inaudible to the ordinary physical ear; and ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
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... the character of Augustine by which the sensualist became a saint? Was it the study of Plato? or the prayers of Monica? or the preaching of Ambrose? We know not; rather let us say it was the Spirit of God. Who can define the process by which Wilberforce was changed from the pet of fashionable society to one of the heroes in the world's great crusade against injustice and oppression? Such inquiries are more easily started than settled. I repeat, the only rational and convincing word ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
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... to the supreme court: to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
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... attempted to apply Aschaffenburg's [1] classification of reactions, but without success. Our failure to utilize this system of classification is assigned to the following considerations: (1) Distinctions between associations according to logical relations are extremely difficult to define; in many cases there is room for difference of opinion as to the proper place for an association, and thus the application of a logical scheme depends largely upon the personal equation of the observer; that even experienced ...
— A Study of Association in Insanity • Grace Helen Kent
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... saying: "Artabanos, of human life, which is such as thou dost define it to be, let us cease to speak, and do not remember evils when we have good things in hand: but do thou declare to me this:—If the vision of the dream had not appeared with so much evidence, wouldest thou ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
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... related define the views and feelings of General Lee as accurately as they could be set forth in a whole volume. The defeated commander, who could open his poor purse to "one of our old soldiers who fought on the other side," and pray daily during the bitterest of conflicts ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
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... processions of cardinal virtues, however well mounted and splendidly attired. It was in some such mood of mind that Chaucer penned those unparalleled pictures of contemporary life that delight yet, after five centuries have come and gone. It is difficult to define Chaucer's charm. He does not indulge in fine sentiment; he has no bravura passages; he is ever master of himself and of his subject. The light upon his page is the light of common day. Although powerful delineations of passion may be found in his "Tales," and wonderful descriptions ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
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... "Medicine Man" among the Indians are so mixed up with witchcraft and jugglery, so filled with the pretence of savage quackery, so completely rude and unfounded as to principle, that it is impossible to define the practice for any useful end. About five years since, a young gentleman of scientific habits, who was attached to an exploring party, accidentally became separated from his companions. In his ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
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... represented in his character. But what are the possibilities of this spiritual organism? What is yet to emerge from this chrysalis-case? The natural character finds its limits within the organic sphere. But who is to define the limits of the spiritual? Even now it is very beautiful. Even as an embryo it contains some prophecy of its future glory. But the point to mark is, that "it doth not yet appear what it shall be." ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
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... thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
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... many—and those not fools—of making convention and routine seem particularly desirable. But there was not, I think, a young man or woman admitted to their inner ranks who did not possess in some measure a certain quality very difficult to isolate and define. Perhaps, to call it "disinterestedness" comes nearest. For they were certainly no seekers after wealth, or courters of the great. It might be said, of course, that they had no occasion; they had as much birth ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
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... a situation as organist. But if a man is running off with a young lady it will not do to have an absolutely empty purse. Even though she may be an heiress, he cannot very well begin by asking her to pay his railway-fare. "It would define the relative positions a little too clearly," thought Percival with a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
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... full-page plates in color and figures in the text. Non-technical, with a color key to about one hundred and fifty of the more common species. This book is in two parts. The first chapters define the bird, its place in Nature, and its relation to man, and outline the leading facts in its life-history. The second part gives a Field Key based on color, and biographies of some of the common birds. ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
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... Number, we define, to be, a certayne Mathematicall Summe, of Vnits. And, an Vnit, is that thing Mathematicall, Indiuisible, by participation of some likenes of whose property, any thing, which is in deede, or is counted One, may resonably be called One. We account an Vnit, a thing ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
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... in the event which discharged him of all obligation to define himself of this or that relation to life. He must have had some relation to it such as we all bear, and since the question of him has come up with me again I have tried him in several of those relations—father, son, brother, husband—without identifying ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
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... the investigation of the laws by which the excitability is acted on; but I must first define some terms which it will be necessary to use, to avoid circumlocution, and at the same time to give us more distinct ideas on ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.
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... holiday. For the civilian who has been starved for thrilling action and the chance to cheer through the autumn days, the jam at the hotels used as headquarters by the followers of the two elevens satisfies a yearning that he has hitherto been unable to define. There too, is found a host of old-time college football men and coaches who hold reunion and sometimes even bury hatchets. Making his way through the crowds and jogging elbows with the heroes of a sport that he understands only as organized combat he becomes obsessed with the spirit ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
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... difference with those who lead their party. I will not deny that in general this conduct in parties is defensible; but within what limits the practice is to be circumscribed, and with what exceptions the doctrine which supports it is to be received, it is not my present purpose to define. The present question has nothing to do with their motives; it only regards the public expression of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
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... The Native Location Commission will reserve to the native tribes of the State such locations as they may be fairly and equitably entitled to, due regard being had to the actual occupation of such tribes. The Native Location Commission will clearly define the boundaries of such locations, and for that purpose will, in every instance, first of all ascertain the wishes of the parties interested in such land. In case land already granted in individual titles shall be required for the ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
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... Senorita Carmen was a pure-blooded gipsy. At all events, she was infinitely prettier than any other woman of her race I have ever seen. For a women to be beautiful, they say in Spain, she must fulfil thirty ifs, or, if it please you better, you must be able to define her appearance by ten adjectives, applicable to ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
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... might say, of the last twenty-five years. In that time there has been composed a great volume of this sort of verse upon which a number of the minor poets have based their claims to remembrance. It is difficult to define vers de societe; in fact, the only way it can be described is through examples. Its characteristics are a gracefulness of thought and style, a fluency in expression, a vein of delicate humor or sentiment and a subject which falls within the ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
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... be fathomed for every little pearl that lies at the bottom of his ocean. If I succeed in showing that such art may exist where it is not readily discovered, this may give some additional probability to its existence in places where it is harder to isolate and define. ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
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... General Grant and General Sherman, when the one was President and the other general of the army, I studied the subject as thoroughly as I was capable of doing, and formulated a regulation intended to define the relations between the Secretary of War, the general of the army, and the staff departments. I still think that plan of my great superiors, only formulated by me, would have worked quite satisfactorily if it could have had general ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
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... by choice, not often did the young laird enter either. But he had concerning them, the latter in particular, a notion of vastness and grandeur; and along with that, a vague sense of sanctity, which it is not quite easy to define or account for. It seems however to have the same root with all veneration for place—for if there were not a natural inclination to venerate place, would any external reason make men capable of it? I think we shall come at length to feel all places, as all times and all spaces, venerable, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
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... Nature, in her bounty, good as wise, To work our safety, and ensure her plan, Contrived to bind and rivet man to man: Lift against Virtue, Power's oppressive rod; Betray thy country, and deny thy God; And, in one general comprehensive line, To group, which volumes scarcely could define, 20 Whate'er of sin and dulness can be said, Join to a Fox's[118] heart a Dashwood's[119] head; Yet may'st thou pass unnoticed in the throng, And, free from envy, safely sneak along: The rigid saint, by whom no mercy's shown To saints ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
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... how much in common there was between the Baileys and me, and how natural it was that I should become a constant visitor at their house and an ally of theirs in many enterprises. It is not nearly so easy to define the profound antagonism of spirit that also held between us. There was a difference in texture, a difference in quality. How can I express it? The shapes of our thoughts were the same, but the substance quite different. It was as if they ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
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... invariably alluded to the odd little house where her many avocations were carried on as her "establishment," and spoke habitually of "the business." It would have been hard to define the precise nature of this business. There was a bakery attached to it, over which Pat Rooney presided, driving round the country each afternoon with the results of his labours. Juliana and Henrietta McNally sold groceries at one counter, and Matilda and ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
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... was another class of men who denied human power of absolution. They were called Scribes or writers—pedants, men of ponderous learning and accurate definitions; from being mere transcribers of the law, they had risen to be its expounders. They could define the exact number of yards that might be travelled on the Sabbath-day without infringement of the law; they could decide, according to the most approved theology, the respective importance of each duty; they would tell you, authoritatively, which was the great commandment of the law. ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
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... ship's Company, either by fair means or by force. The Dort was, by their reckoning, about thirty miles from the island, and having run in until after dark, they had hove to till the next morning. Krantz was on deck; he leant over the side, and as the sails flapped to the masts, he attempted to define the line of the horizon. It was very dark, but as he watched, he thought that he perceived a light for a moment, and which then disappeared. Fixing his eyes on the spot, he soon made out a vessel, hove to, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
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... not attempt to define this word fact. Fact expresses for me something in its nature primary and unanalyzable. I start from that. I take as a typical statement of fact that I sit here at my desk writing with a fountain pen on a pad of ruled scribbling paper, that the sunlight falls upon me and throws ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
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... it. The design is in black or dark-brown, on a cream-colored slip. The third kind of ware is the archaic or "strong" style. It dates from 500 B.C. to the Peloponnesian Wars, and is marked by black figures upon a yellow or red ground. White and purple are also used to define flesh, hair, and white objects. The figure is stiff, the action awkward, the composition is freer than before, but still conventional. The subjects are the gods, demi-gods, and heroes in scenes from ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
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... condition of subdued life, a sort of contemplative oriental placid state in which both cares and pleasures ceased to be acute, and the flight of time seemed gliding and even, and not marked by the distinct epochs which define our civilised life. Although this passive enjoyment was really agreeable—and, in fine weather and good health, perhaps a mollusc could affirm as much of its existence,—certainly an experience of the condition I have described enables one to understand ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
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... sufficient to say that the affidavits for the complainant so clearly define the principle of operation of the flying machines in question that I am reasonably satisfied that there is a variableness of the angle of incidence in the machine of defendants which is produced when a supplementary plane ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
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... if you don't know," she said, almost reproachfully. "Many words are supposed to define it—love and sympathy are those in commonest use, but I am not even sure that they are the right ones, and so few people really ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
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... heresies, and his pertinacity (they being condemned already by the church, general councils, and most famous universities) to be an heretic, and to have an evil opinion of the faith, and therefore to be condemned and punished, like as we condemn, and define him to be punished, by this our sentence definitive, depriving and sentencing him, to be deprived of all dignities, honours, orders, offices, and benefices of the church; and therefore do judge and pronounce him to be delivered over to the secular ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
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... I had in me somewhere a definite feeling about the President. If I could only find the words to define it with! Here they are, to a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
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... the writer to make occasional reference to these ruins in the present paper, both in the discussion of general arrangement and characteristic ground plans, embodied in Chapters II and III and in the comparison by constructional details treated in Chapter IV, in order to define clearly the relations of the various features of pueblo architecture. They belong to the same pueblo system illustrated by the villages of Tusayan and Cibola, and with the Canyon de Chelly group there is even some trace of traditional connection, as is set forth by Mr. Stephen in Chapter I. The ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
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... not a fettering of human impulse, but a registration of the deepest yearnings of men and women. The laws that define and support it are merely man's efforts to express the common opinion that has taken form out of the experiences through the centuries of a great multitude of persons who, like ourselves, have sought success ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
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... prominent nowadays in all writing about art, though recently it has given place, in the fashion of the day, to "values" and the realistic representation of natural objects as the painter's proper aim. What precisely is meant by color would be difficult, perhaps, to define. A warmer general tone than is achieved by painters mainly occupied with line and mass is possibly what is oftenest meant by amateurs who profess themselves fond of color. At all events, the Louis Quinze painters, especially Watteau, Fragonard, and Pater—and Boucher has ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
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... very word beauty is a useless one because, he says, all efforts to define beauty are vain. But that is true of the word life, yet we have to use the word because life exists. And all explanations of art which refuse to believe in beauty as a reality independent of us, yet one of which we may become a part, do fall into incredible nonsense. ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
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... theological refinements. There is an excuse for the Fathers, because the heretics forced them to define particular points; but every definition is a misfortune, and for us to persevere in the same way is sheer folly. Is no man to be admitted to grace who does not know how the Father differs from the Son, and both from the Spirit? or how the nativity of the Son differs from the ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
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... Whatever I have written I have written with one or other ulterior object, to which the mere pleasure of literary opposition as such has been altogether subordinate. Of the nature of these objects I have said enough already, but I may once again define them. ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
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... which a number of teeth project, like the teeth of a comb. It is used as a collector of electricity from the plate of a frictional or influence electric machine; it is also used in a lightning arrester to define a path of very high resistance but of low self-induction, for the lightning ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
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... or even to give her a due sense of the importance and value of her work, or the dignity of her vocation. We have already alluded to her modesty in her unwillingness to assert herself or claim any prerogative,—something even morbid and exaggerated, which we know not how to define, whether as over-sensitiveness or indifference. Once finished, the heat and glow of composition spent, her writings apparently ceased to interest her. She often resented any allusion to them on the part of intimate friends, and the public verdict as to their ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
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... Blackstrap and Co., his friend Sable, the timber merchant, our inviter the bookseller, and the two interlopers, remained fixed as fate to the festive board, until the chairman, and scarce any one of the company, could clearly define, divide, and arrange the exact arithmetical proportions of the dinner bill. After a short cessation of hostilities, during which our commercial friends despatched their London letters, and Bob and the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
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... my text the normality of Mr Wells, on the understanding that I shall define the essential term as I will; and this brief outline of his early experiences may help to show, inter alia, that he viewed life from many angles before he was twenty-seven. That he had the capacity so to see life was either a lucky accident or due to some ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
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... name his successor, but the nomination must be ratified by the people represented by their principal men assembled in the estufa. In this cacique may be recognized the sachem of the northern tribes, whose duties were purely of a civil character. Mr. Miller does not define the duties of the governor. They were probably judicial, and included an oversight of the property rights of the people in their cultivated lands, and in rooms or ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
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... was difficult to define, more remarkable was her attitude of mind toward Jasper Cole. There was something sinister—no, that was not the word—something "frightening" about him. He had a magnetism, an aura of personal ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
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... beyond my desk, the wall against which my glass case of instruments rests, symbolizes the boundary of knowledge—seemingly an opaque barrier. I am called a man of science, a man with a passion for accuracies. I seek to define a part of the limitless and undefined mysteries of the body. But what is behind the wall? Are we sensitive to it? You smile. Give your attention then to ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
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... puzzled me, for example, how I was to find the source whence Pascal's taste, both for mathematics and religious philosophy, sprang. Next came the question of the possibility of a universally applicable scientific method of criticism, regarded as intellectual optics. If one were to define the critic's task as that of understanding, through the discovery and elucidation of the dependent and conditional contingencies that occur in the intellectual world, then there was a danger that he might approve everything, not only every form and ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
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... erect, be of the same species with what I have seen very like them in England, as to the outward shape, but differing in their notions, natures, and intellectuals, more than any two kinds of brutes in a forest, which any men of common prudence would immediately discover, by persuading them to define what they mean by law, liberty, property, courage, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
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... peculiar gift with children which is not easy to define. Some people possess it, and some do not; it cannot be learned, it comes by nature. She was bright and firm and equable all at once. She both amused and influenced them. There was something about her which excited the childish imagination, ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
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... produce symptoms corresponding to those of the disease for whose relief they are administered as in homoeopathy. The introduction of the term is contemporary with homoeopathy itself. It was merely given to define briefly the distinction that exists between the rival modes of treatment, and it has been accepted and adopted by all medical men who have no faith in homoeopathy, and the treatment ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
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... did Mr. Weller, senr., define the Funds; and what view did he take of Reduced Consols? In what terms is his elastic force described when he assaulted Mr. Stiggins at the meeting? Write down the name of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
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... the rangers was summoned, given instructions. He packed his mule, saddled his horse, and rode away to be gone a greater or lesser period of time. Others were sent out to run lines about tracts, to define boundaries. Still others, like Ross Fletcher, pounded drill and rock, and exploded powder on the new trail that was to make more accessible the tremendous canon of the river. The men who came and went rarely represented ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
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... preaching to produce the sense of guilt. But this is to preach the law, in its fullest extent, and the most tremendous energy of its claims. Such discourse as this must necessarily analyze law, define it, enforce it, and apply it in the most cogent manner. For, only as the atonement of Christ is shown to completely meet and satisfy all these legal demands which have been so thoroughly discussed and exhibited, is the real virtue and power ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
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... lingering notions we have opinions respecting relations of cause and effect which have resulted as a necessary consequence from past intellectual conditions. A superstition, accordingly, I should define as a belief respecting causal sequence, depending on reasoning proper to an outgrown culture. According to this view, with adequate information it would be possible to trace the mental process in virtue of which arise such expectations ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
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... chimney money; that he would protect and defend the Established Church in the enjoyment of all her possessions and privileges; that he would not again violate the Test Act; that he would leave it to the legislature to define the extent of his dispensing power; and that he would maintain the Act of Settlement ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
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... among the islands, some of which were seen, and others known to exist, off the Arctic coast opposite the mouth of the Greygoose River. Moreover, a faint hope, that he would have found it difficult to define, was aroused by the fact that the kidnapper of his child had formerly been the rescuer ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
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... very quiet; he talked neither of prohibiting performances nor of seizing books, of imprisoning authors, or of suppressing anything. Calm and severe, he saw in Napoleon only Taine's 'condottiere' who kicked Volney in the stomach. Everybody wished to define the true Napoleon. Count Martin, in the face of the imperial centrepiece and of the winged Victorys, talked suitably of Napoleon as an organizer and administrator, and placed him in a high position as president of the state council, where his words threw light upon obscure ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
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... at him sharply, with a wrinkle between his eyebrows. For the moment he looked as if he were short-sighted, as if he were trying to define an image somewhat blurred, conscious that the image itself was clear enough, that the fault lay in the obscurity of his ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
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... West visited the sanctuary in 1903. The Census Report for 1901 sums the Chet Ramis up by saying that "the sect professes a worship of Christ," and that is our present point of view. But we cannot leave them without noticing also how Indian they are in their unwillingness to define their thought, and in their readiness to enthrone a holy man and his relics. Undefined thought we see expressed in symbol. There are four doors to the sanctuary at Buchhoke,—the fakiri [Chet Rami ascetics'] door, the Hindu, Christian, and Mahomedan ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
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... that the Saxons bowed under the yoke of Christ and of Charlemagne. The idols and their votaries were extirpated: the foundation of eight bishoprics, of Munster, Osnaburgh, Paderborn, and Minden, of Bremen, Verden, Hildesheim, and Halberstadt, define, on either side of the Weser, the bounds of ancient Saxony these episcopal seats were the first schools and cities of that savage land; and the religion and humanity of the children atoned, in some degree, for the massacre of the parents. Beyond the Elbe, the Slavi, or Sclavonians, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
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... complained of, as an inevitable and in some degree a proper result of the imperfect state of those sciences. It is not to be expected that there should be agreement about the definition of any thing, until there is agreement about the thing itself. To define, is to select from among all the properties of a thing, those which shall be understood to be designated and declared by its name; and the properties must be well known to us before we can be competent to determine which of them are fittest to be chosen for this purpose. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
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... possibilities and hopes that died with them — it is natural to wonder if America's future is one of fear. Some speak of an age of terror. I know there are struggles ahead, and dangers to face. But this country will define our times, not be defined by them. As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of terror; this will be an age of liberty, here and across the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
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... regulate the value thereof, and fix the standard of weights and measures; establish post-offices and post-roads; promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations; declare war; grant letters of marque and reprisal; make rules concerning captures on land and water; raise and support armies; provide and maintain a navy; make rules for the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
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... his hand and, covertly looking round the room, owned himself puzzled. He had returned a week later to the day than he had arranged to return. But had his absence run into months instead of weeks the lapse of time had not sufficed to explain the change which he felt, but could not define, in his surroundings. ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
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... friend had in contemplation for him, was in the meantime likely to be provided for in a very different manner, and upon principles very much at variance with those of that political gentleman yclept the Castle, an impersonation which it would be exceedingly difficult to define. ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
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... the great question raised in the correspondence last April between us and the British Government turned on the independence, and now after having consulted the people we come and say: "We are prepared to abandon the independence, and we define to what extent." And now, as General Smuts has said, that is exactly the basis that we lay down ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
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... confesses, in a letter which he wrote concerning their characteristics—and which although in manuscript, deserves to be printed, for he understood those natives as far as it is possible to comprehend them—that it is so difficult to describe their characteristics that it would be more easy to define the formal object in logic; more feasible to compute the square of a circle; more discoverable to assign a fixed rule for the measurement of the degrees of longitude on the globe; and after the four knowledges of Solomon could be placed this fifth, as impossible. [94] In fact, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
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... Religion.—But, before we can set out on this inquiry, we are met by the question, What is it that we suppose to have been thus developed? In order to trace any process of evolution it is necessary to define that which is evolved; for it belongs to the very idea of evolution that the identity of the subject of it is not changed on the way up, but that the germ and the finished product are the same entity, only differing from each other in that the one has still to grow while the other is grown. ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
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... or copies of an article or articles published in any issue of a periodical, the publication date of which is more than five years prior to the date when the request is made. These guidelines do not define the meaning, with respect to such a request, of ". . . such aggregate quantities as to substitute for a ...
— Reproduction of Copyrighted Works By Educators and Librarians • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
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... had he been her brother. Lucy was getting to covet the companionship of Lionel very much—too much, taking all things into consideration. It never occurred to her that, for that very reason, she might do well to keep away. She was not sufficiently experienced to define her own sensations; and she did not surmise that there was anything inexpedient or not perfectly orthodox in her being so much with Lionel. She liked to be with him, and she freely indulged the liking upon any occasion ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
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... define that soul, for it was so complex. To judge by appearances, it was a very peaceful soul, and perhaps, too, it was in reality peaceful. George Sand, who knew herself thoroughly, frequently spoke of her laziness and of her apathy, traits peculiar to the natives of Berry. Superficial observers looked ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
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... extinguished, and others to be concentred: that his feelings were acute, I had sufficient opportunities of observing; for, although he could control, he could not altogether disguise them: still he had a power of giving to one passion the appearance of another, in such a manner that it was difficult to define the nature of what was working within him; and the expressions of his features would vary so rapidly, though slightly, that it was useless to trace them to their sources. It was evident that he was a prey to some cureless disquiet; but whether it arose ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
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... the student is to learn to recognize the Amanita family, and to avoid them all; next, to define and recognize any mushroom he is using for food, so that he could pick a single specimen of the same out of a basketful of assorted fungi; and finally, never to pick mushrooms at random for food, unless he has tested by actual use each and all of the varieties ...
— Mushrooms of America, Edible and Poisonous • Anonymous
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... To define Azuma-zi was beyond ethnology. He was, perhaps, more negroid than anything else, though his hair was curly rather than frizzy, and his nose had a bridge. Moreover, his skin was brown rather than black, and ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
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... dominant influence. Gradually he came too under the influence of Wordsworth's philosophy of poetry and life, and later his reading of Milton affected his style to some extent, but Shakespeare's influence was the widest, deepest and most lasting, though it is the hardest to define. His study of other poets left traces upon his work in turns of phrase or turns of thought: Shakespeare permeated his whole being, and his influence is to be detected not in a resemblance of style, for Shakespeare can have no imitators, ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
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... sentinel, we seemed in a world all our own—a tiny human world, with a camp fire for its hub; and as we dreamed on, half conscious of the moonlight and shoutings, the deep inner beauty of the night stole upon us. A mystical, elusive beauty. difficult to define, that lay underneath and around, and within the moonlight—a beauty of deep nestling shadows, crooning whispers, and ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
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... himself the power to see and know that which he seeks behind the veil of his earthly senses. Nature has never produced a desire she could not satisfy. There is no hope, however vague, that the soul cannot define, and no aspiration, however high, that the wings of the spirit cannot reach. Therefore ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
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... his duties to his family; the man who works for specific objects, such as political reform; this man, worthy of all respect though he be, is still intent on the stages of his journey. The spiritual man, as we must now define him from the point of view of Ethical Culture, is the man who always thinks of the ultimate goal of his journey, i. e., a moral character complete in every particular, and who is influenced by that ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
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... carbohydrates, fats, the whole series of different ferments, etc. occur in the cell in a definite physical arrangement. The two systems of two species must as a matter of fact possess a constant difference, which it is necessary to define by a special term. We say, therefore, that the SPECIFIC STRUCTURE ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
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... stepped into the dark hallway an uneasy feeling took possession of him—a feeling hard to define, and one for ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
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... temperament—not the author's verbal style, but a peculiar quality which runs through all the matter written by the author. Just as one may like a man for something which is always coming out of him, which one cannot define, and which is of the very essence of ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
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... the pale, set face of the pilot, on which the diffused light from the binnacle lantern feebly shone. For the second time that evening the captain shivered, and without being able to define the cause. He felt strangely ill at ease. Accustomed to daring ventures, the present seemed sheer recklessness. Who was this determined boy? Why did his presence bring back a fateful memory of ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
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... this agitation and excitement, simultaneously came over the feelings of both mother and daughter, though they alike repressed its expression. Lady Annabel was lost in many sad thoughts, and Venetia felt mournful, though she could scarcely define the cause. Both were silent, and they soon sought refuge from ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
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... can accomplish this?—a device without a parallel! Think upon it, Moor! That were an art worthy of thee for its inventor. Has not poisoning been raised almost to the rank of a regular science, and Nature compelled, by the force of experiments, to define her limits, so that one may now calculate the heart's throbbings for years in advance, and say to the beating pulse, "So far, and no farther"? Why should not one try ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
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... the earlier essays, such as On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences, written, as Huxley acknowledges, in great haste, and the later essays, such as A Liberal Education and The Method of Scientific Investigation. To trace and to define this difference will be most helpful to the student who is building up a knowledge of structure for ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
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... general-in-chief, its place is everywhere in the field of action. It is the least like an instrument of any of our faculties; the farthest removed from our conceptions of mechanism and matter, as we commonly define them." Holmes was correct in his idea, but faulty in his details. The Will does not change its seat, which is always in the center of the Ego, but the Will forces the mind to all parts, and in all directions, and it directs the Prana or ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
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... past ten years. Cherry had bullied Peter since her babyhood, ruined his piano with sticky fingers, trampled his rose-beds, coaxed him into asking her father to let her sit up for dinner. For some reason she could not, or would not, define, Anne liked the idea of Cherry and Peter falling ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
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... the right direction—but he made one mistake which many are making in our own day; he valued peace more highly than truth. His decalogue was a monologue, consisting but of one commandment: Do your duty. What a man's duty was, the Justice did not pause to define. Had he been required to do so, his dissection of that difficult subject would probably have run in three grooves—go to church; give alms; ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
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... simplest so long as they are undisputed invariably become the subtlest when once they are disputed: which was what Joubert meant, I suppose, when he said, "It is not hard to believe in God if one does not define Him." When the evil instincts of old Foulon made him say of the poor, "Let them eat grass," the good and Christian instincts of the poor made them hang him on a lamppost with his mouth stuffed full of that vegetation. But if a modern vegetarian aristocrat were to say to the poor, "But why don't ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
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... can't describe it to you, but it seemed to stop the breath. I went into the front room and the back room, and the kitchens downstairs; they were all dirty and dusty enough, as you would expect, but there was something strange about them all. I couldn't define it to you, I only know I felt queer. It was one of the rooms on the first floor, though, that was the worst. It was a largish room, and once on a time the paper must have been cheerful enough, but when I saw it, paint, paper, and everything were most doleful. But ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
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... most extensive of all; embracing a greater number and variety of unfounded inferences than any of the other classes, and which it is even more difficult to reduce to sub-classes or species. If the attempt made in the preceding books to define the principles of well-grounded generalization has been successful, all generalizations not conformable to those principles might, in a certain sense, be brought under the present class; when, however, the rules ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
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... contrary to the even, does not any the more admit it, for it always brings the contrary with it, just as the number two does to the odd, fire to cold, and many other particulars. Consider, then, whether you would thus define, not only that a contrary does not admit a contrary, but also that that which brings with it a contrary to that to which it approaches will never admit the contrary of that which it brings with it. 124. But call it to mind again, ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
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... bitterly resented by the Indian tribes who occupied the Northwest above the Illinois River. These Sioux, Sauk and Foxes, and Winnebagoes, with remnants of other tribes, carried on an intermittent warfare for years, despite the efforts of the Federal Government to define tribal boundaries; and between red men and white men coveting the same lands causes of irritation were never wanting. In 1827 trouble which had been steadily brewing came to the boiling-point. Predatory expeditions in the north were reported; the Winnebagoes were excited by rumors that ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
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... sometimes—especially when we do not differ very much. I am, of course, much pleased and gratified that you like my article. I wrote it chiefly because I thought there was something a little fresh still to say on the subject, and also because I wished to define precisely my present position, which people continually misunderstand. The main part of the article forms part of a chapter of a book I have now almost finished on my favourite subject of "Geographical Distribution." It will form a sort of supplement to my former work, and will, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
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... define ideals even before their realisation is known to be possible, because they constitute one of the two factors whose interaction and adjustment is moral life, factors which are complementary and diverse in function and may be independently ascertained. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
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... God; I am without idea of God; the word 'God' is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which, by its affirmer, is so imperfect that he is unable to define it to me." ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
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... the virtuoso feels as magnetism. It puts something into the artist's playing that he cannot define. For a moment the vital spark flares into a bewildering flame, and all his world is peopled with moths hovering around ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
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... the two Hippos, (Cellarius, tom. ii. p. 112; D'Anville, tom. iii. p. 84.) Orosius has distinctly named the field of battle, but our ignorance cannot define ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
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... language can begin with inflections, implies an absurdity," may have seemed too strongly worded: but if he took inflections in the commonly received meaning, in the sense of something that may be added or removed from a base in order to define or to modify its meaning, then surely the simple argument ex nihilo nihil fit is sufficient to prove that the inflections must have been something by themselves, before they became inflections relatively to the base, and that the base too ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
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... case of most novelists, although of first rank, it is not as a rule difficult to define their class and name their tendency: their temperaments and beliefs are so-and-so, and they readily fall under the designation of realist or romanticist, pessimist, or optimist, student of character or maker of plots. This is, in a sense, impossible with Balzac. The ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
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... he should have the courage to blame. While tolerant of kinds in literature, he should be intolerant of pretentiousness. He should be less patient, for instance, of a pseudo-Milton than of a writer who frankly aimed at nothing higher than a book of music-hall songs. He should be more eager to define the qualities of a book than to heap comment upon comment. If—I hope the image is not too strained—he draws a book from the life, he will produce a better review than if he spends his time calling it names, ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
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... averted, the desire had been steadily taking on colour and size. But, with the girl's brave broken cry, there had come on to him an intolerable question. For a long time he would not let the question get into words, or in any way define itself within his brain. Still, all morning long, he recognised that the question and that desire of his to crush Steering were ranged before him in some sort of fierce competitive effort. A thousand times he wished that he had had the courage to ask Sally candidly just ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
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... "I would define true courage," (he says,) "to be a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it." (Sherman's Memoirs, revised edition, Vol. 2, p. 395.) But, I will further ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
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... great dog, the red-deer dog, the seven dogs, and the red dog, or "It-shou-ma-shungu," by the Gros Ventres. The dog was their universal beast of burthen, and so they multiplied the name in many ways to enable it to define the Superior powers of the ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
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... find that I must go back to the subject of my last paper on the wasp in order to define my precise attitude towards that insect. Then, too, there was another wasp at table, not in itself a remarkably interesting incident, but I am anxious to relate it ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
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... to decide what is not humorous than what is, and very difficult to define it otherwise than Cowley has done, by negatives"—the only meaning of which is that the subject is surrounded with rather more than the usual difficulties attending moral and psychological researches. ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
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... was a purpose noble and firm, and a resolve so high that, for the present at least, all other sentiments and feelings must hold a subordinate place. And so, while she did not repel him, or offend his sensitive spirit, she, in some way which he could not exactly define, made him feel that he must defer the thing to him so important, and talk on other subjects. There was one theme on which she was always eager to talk and to get him to talk, and to her it never grew stale or threadbare. It was about what he and she had learned or could remember ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
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... lamentations—had she cried, "You have wronged me—you must do me justice!"—he would have been better pleased than with the stern, unsuggestive character that she assumed. To all this, his old experience would have given him an easy answer. But to be driven to condemn himself—to define his own doings with the name due to his deserts—to declare his crime, and proffer the sufficient atonement—was ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
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... it known to you then that our respected Head, vulgarly called The Bogey by ill-trained Juniors, is among our elect set yclept Lemonade, partly owing to her habit of fizzing over, and partly to a certain acid quality in her temper, otherwise hard to define. Miss Douglas, our honoured Form mistress, being a canny Scot, goes by the familiar appellation of Thistles, intended also to subtly convey our appreciation—or shall I say depreciation?—of her ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
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... universe. There is no wholesale entrance into God's Church or into God's kingdom. God's mercy is not given to crowds, except as composed of individuals who have individually received it. There must be the personal act of faith; there must be my solitary coming to Him. As the old mystics used to define prayer, so I might define the whole process by which men are saved from their sins, 'the flight of the lonely soul to the lonely God.' My brother, it is not enough for you to say, 'We have sinned'; say, 'I have sinned.' It is not enough that from a ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
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... itself in his thoughts, wherein those sacred personalities, which are at once the reflex and the pattern of our nobler phases of life, housed themselves; and this region in his intellectual scheme all subsequent experience did but tend still further to realise and define. Some ideal, hieratic persons he would always need to occupy it and keep a warmth there. And he could hardly understand those who felt no such need at all, finding themselves quite happy without such heavenly companionship, ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
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... force (which physicists define as that which causes motion) would invariably thus change its character under the above conditions. Again, I maintain that matter, though it may be in the future eternal, was created by God with the most marvellous affinities, leading to {43} complex definite ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
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... savages, who, although speaking kindred dialects of a common language, and having the same religion and laws, have from time immemorial waged hereditary warfare against each other. The intervening mountains generally two or three thousand feet above the level of the sea geographically define the territories of each of these hostile tribes, who never cross them, save on some expedition of war or plunder. Immediately adjacent to Nukuheva, and only separated from it by the mountains seen from the harbour, lies the lovely valley of Happar, whose inmates cherish ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
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... hand neither overshot nor fell short, but accurately performed its service. I cast the stone towards heaven: 'twas a surprise to see it fall earthward in obedience to some law I could not in my daze define—some law I had with impatient labor, long, long ago, made sure I understood and would remember. I looked away to sea, stared into the sky, surveyed the hills: 'twas the self-same world I had known, constituted of the same materials, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
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... growing." "You would call groundsel a weed in the garden of a man who does not keep a canary, but not a weed in the garden of a man who does?" "I would." Socrates would burst out laughing at this, and say: "It seems to me that a weed is more difficult to define even than justice. I think we had better change the subject and talk about the immortality of the soul." The only part of the definition of a weed, indeed, that bears a moment's investigation is contained in the three words: ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
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... legislature should be again negatived by a specified number of members of each branch. Eighthly, To establish a national judiciary, the members of which should hold office during good behavior; and to define their duties, powers, privileges, and emoluments. Ninthly, To provide for the admission of new states into the Union. Tenthly, To guaranty a republican form of government to each state and territory. Eleventhly, To provide for a continuation of a Congress with its delegated powers, until ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
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... pretend to define loyalty,' she said; 'but I know it when I see it. It may be less definite than insult; but the last, at least, is clearly outlined. I have been mistaken, and I will correct my error now. ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
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... something penetrating her consciousness, something insistent, pervasive, unescapable, which in drowsiness she could not define. The gas was burning, Lise had come in, and was moving peculiarly about the room. Janet watched her. She stood in front of the bureau, just as Janet herself had done, her hands at her throat. At last she let them fall, her head ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
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... Athanasius. {114c} Certainly only you and I and Thackeray understand it. When men like Spedding quote to me such a passage as 'Athanasius alas is innocent of many smiles, etc.,' they shew me they don't understand it. The beauty—if one may dare to define—lies more in such expressions as 'adjusting the beaks of the macaws, etc.' I have laughed outright (how seldom one does this alone!) at the Bishops' meeting. 'Mr. Talboys—that candle behind Dr. Allnut—really that I should be obliged—.' I suppose this would be the most ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
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... article were designed in general so to define and limit the rights, powers, and duties of both Congress and the States, with regard to the subject of slavery, as to prevent further controversy, and to enable and induce those most opposed in opinion and interest, by the practice of mutual ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
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