"Define" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... proceed to the investigation of the laws by which the living principle or excitability is acted on, it will be first necessary to define some terms, which I shall have occasion to use, to avoid circumlocution: and here it may not be improper to observe, that most of our errors in reasoning have arisen from want of strict attention to this circumstance, the accurate definition of those terms which we ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... and may learn how very few there are current which are more than very superficially understood—as I have shown in what I have said of the Will, the Imagination, Forethought, and many other faculties which are flippantly used to explain a thousand problems by people who can hardly define the things themselves. ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... for art's sake. There is something that made Scott and Irving personally loved by the millions of their readers, who had only the dimmest ideas of their personality. This was some quality perceived in what they wrote. Each one can define it for himself; there it is, and I do not see why it is not as integral a part of the authors —an element in the estimate of their future position—as what we term their intellect, their knowledge, their skill, or their art. However you rate it, you ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... dispel the darkness of the mind; that there are strict limits to the power of prosperity to supply man's wants or satisfy his aspirations. This is a great part of Carlyle's teaching. It is impossible, were it desirable, accurately to define his religious, social, or political creed. He swallows formulae with the voracity of Mirabeau, and like Proteus escapes analysis. No printed labels will stick to him: when we seek to corner him by argument he thunders and lightens. Emerson complains that ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... of the isoseismal lines is that drawn by Professor Mercalli.[48] In this map, reproduced in Fig. 33, the continuous curves represent the principal isoseismal lines; the dotted curves define the disturbed areas of ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... winning to the touch, but as cold of heart as the drifting snow that suffocates a poor lost lamb. She has had a strange influence over me; a puzzling, baffling attraction. A suggestion of something delicate and subtlely charming, which, when one seeks to seize and to define, retires icily behind the ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... or rather lines, for there are several along the sides of the downs a little further south, would certainly be claimed as evidence of a "pilgrims' way" if they ran east and west between Guildford, say, and Dorking. Fields with such noble hedges to define them have their own air of wildness and age; it is easy enough, even with Purley slate roofs hardly a mile away, to fancy partridges calling across those open spaces. Coulsdon, indeed, was once celebrated for its game. Aubrey tells us that in the parish ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... still possible for small things to make him happy. The thought of being several rows away from Lady Underhill had restored Freddie's equanimity like a tonic. It thrilled him like the strains of some grand, sweet anthem all the way to the theatre. If Freddie Rooke had been asked at that moment to define happiness in a few words, he would have replied that it consisted in being several rows away from ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... not have the interest to inquire and the ambition to insist upon the knowledge of how that calibration was originally made, we have no right to claim any collegiate rank for our courses. But if we define electrical current in terms of mechanical force which exhibits a balanced couple on a system in rotational equilibrium, there can be no dodging of the issue, for in no other way than by the study of the mechanics of the situation can the content and the limitations ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... question me as to the habits and modes of life among the races on the upper earth, more especially among those considered to be the most advanced in that civilisation which he was pleased to define "the art of diffusing throughout a community the tranquil happiness which belongs to a virtuous and well-ordered household." Naturally desiring to represent in the most favourable colours the world ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Bushman, with his practised eye, saw something in the general physiognomy of the elephant—just as one may distinguish a fierce and dangerous bull from those of milder disposition, or a bad from a virtuous man, by some expression that one cannot define. ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... much farther apart from Manicheism than some of his radical phrases imply, appears from his "Gnowthi seauton, De Essentia Originalis Institutiae," of 1568. After admitting that Augustine, Luther, and the Apology of the Augsburg Confession are correct when they define original sin as an inordinate disposition, a disorder (ataxia), perversion, and confusion of the parts of man, Flacius proceeds: "The substantial form of a certain thing for the most part, consists in the right position and disposition of the parts; as, for example, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... answered, he immediately forgot question as well as answer, and was again struggling with himself silently and terribly. Death was disclosed in him so clearly that the judges avoided looking at him. It was hard to define his age, as is the case with a corpse which has begun to decompose. According to his passport, he was only twenty-three years old. Once or twice Werner quietly touched his knee with his hand, and each time ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... the kitchen to see "Arethusie" and to state with positiveness that the city did not agree with her at all. But with all of this glow of feeling over getting Home, there was really something wrong, something lacking about it; something Arethusa dimly sensed, but could not exactly define. After awhile Miss Eliza gave her the clue to it, when she imparted the news that Timothy had gone over to ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... sprightly cavalier, who pursued her like a shadow, pouring tender tales in a not unwilling ear. Group by group the guests retired from the festive scene, and the brother and sister, scarcely able to define the new feelings which sprung up in the heart of each, quitted the magnificent palace to seek their forlorn abode. A pavilion, nearly in ruins, was the sole shelter which the proud lord of Alberoni afforded to the only surviving branches of his family, when returning to their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... brought us luck," said Jack in an undertone to Cary. But by this time all eyes were turned to the north-west, where a black line along the horizon began to define the boundary of sea and air, till now all dim ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... formative influence; and that was precisely what might provoke derision. He was a ministering angel—his patience and good nature really entitled him to the epithet and his rewards would doubtless some day define themselves; but meanwhile other promotions were in precarious prospect, for the failure of which these would not even in their abundance, be a compensation. He kept an unembarrassed eye on Downing Street, and while it may frankly be said for him that he was neither a pedant nor ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... we reflect, the abstract and impersonal thing which engineers define as the ratio between energy expended and result obtained has no moral quality in itself. Whatever of morality or lack of morality the word "efficiency" calls forth is given to it by the manner in which the terms of the ratio are defined. It is for society to make the definitions. Society ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss
... parting with Valerie, to collect and examine the state of his mind and feelings. Maltravers, to his own surprise, did not find himself so unhappy as he had expected. On the contrary, a soft and almost delicious sentiment, which he could not well define, floated over all his memories of the beautiful Frenchwoman. Perhaps the secret was, that while his pride was not mortified, his conscience was not galled—perhaps, also, he had not loved Valerie so deeply as he had imagined. The confession and the separation had happily come before her presence ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... gathered in a group at one end of the room. Though they had never seen one another before, most of them being the offspring of the late national lying-in, they seemed to recognize a certain representative air which is very difficult to define, though it can never be mistaken. The usher, not venturing to choose among so many eminent personages, turned a mute, caressing glance on all, as ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... to define Richard Morton's attitude from any outward expression he manifested concerning it. He stood with folded arms, tall and straight, facing unflinchingly the accusing eyes of his life-long friend, Jack Gardner. His lips were shut tightly together, and he seemed ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... cross-stroke or tick—finishes the free ends of all lines used in making a Roman capital. The value of the serif in stone-cut letters seems obvious. To define the end of a free line a sharp cut was made across it with the chisel, and as the chisel was usually wider than the thin line this cut extended beyond it. Serifs were added to the ends of the thick lines either for the sake of uniformity, ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... can't tell you, 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 ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... different. The club, when fresh from the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," the "Reader's Handbook" or Smith's "Classical Dictionary," could deal confidently with any subject; but when taken unawares it had been known to define agnosticism as a heresy of the Early Church and Professor Froude as a distinguished histologist; and such minor members as Mrs. Leveret still secretly regarded ethics ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... as a rule, but this evening that same emptiness seemed to emphasise his own isolation. He was suddenly conscious of a sense of incompleteness, of some detail left out that should be there—a want he could not measure or define. It was a sort of culminating point in his own grey thoughts. In a gust of his old imperious temper he caught up the photograph and tore it in half, and flung it from him: tried to fling into the fire and failed even in that. The box of photographs ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... how you define it. Probably an astronomer might think there was something very much wrong. I make it that the orbit of the earth has altered its relative ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... Astronomers were too hasty, in determining, after 5 or 6 Observations only, in how much time Mars finish's his Revolution; and denies it to be perform'd in 13 hours: adding, that, though Himself had observ'd for a much longer time, than they; yet he durst not for a great while define, Whether Mars made but one Turn in 24 hours 40 minuts or two; and that all, that he could, for a long time affirm, was onely this, that after 24 h. 40 m. this Planet appear'd in the ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... 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 ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... all the spires and chimney-tops, where the sky was so bright and blue, life, real life, unfolded itself under many a varied aspect, and with this suspicion, sprung up a lingering dissatisfaction, a longing for something which no words of mine could define. ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... question of free will and determinism here naturally meets us, but on such a subject it is idle to suppose that a modern writer can do more than define the question and state his own side. The Determinist says that the real question is not whether a man can do what he desires, but whether he can do what he does not desire; whether the will can act without a motive; whether that motive can in the last analysis be other than ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... possess the merit of being true: they are simple outlines often, that leave much to be filled up by after discovery; but, like those outlines of the skilful geographer that fix the place of some island or strait, though they may not entirely define it, they always indicate the exact position in the scale of the formations to which they refer. They leave a good deal to be done in the way of mapping out the interior of a deposit, if I may so speak; but they leave nothing to be done in the way of ascertaining its place. ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... did not believe that absolute truth was attainable by man. And they attacked the prevailing systems with great plausibility. Thus Sextus attacked both induction and definitions. "If we do not know the thing we define," said he, "we do not comprehend it because of the definition, but we impose on it the definition because we know it; and if we are ignorant of the thing we would define, it is impossible to define it." Thus the skeptics pointed out the uncertainty ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... placed naturalness among Madame de Sevigne's leading qualities. There are those who are not of this opinion, and contend that naturalness is just the merit she most lacks; but we must define our meaning. Naturalness for each one is what is conformable to his nature; and as each one of us has a nature of his own very different from that of his neighbors, naturalness cannot be exactly the same in every instance. Moreover, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... particularly friendship that urged Baker to show Fenwick. Their friendship was of a breed that Baker had never quite been able to define to his own satisfaction. It seemed to him there was a sort of deadly fascination in associating with a man who walked so blindly, who was so profoundly incapable of understanding his ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... 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. Good-bye, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... Perhaps I can see soon. I have been trying to get a definition for art and for beauty. I have nothing that satisfies me yet. Art and beauty: I do not connect them at all in my mind. Art is based on significance first and this does not depend on beauty. Beauty is much more difficult to define than art. We have somehow got the idea that only the beautiful pleases. Can beautiful be applied to whatever pleases? I don't think so. Beauty is truthfulness of what? Of the original intention I suppose. Is beautiful something or is it not? Anyway I detach it from that which pleases. ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... every class, in all climates, countries, and times, have varied when long bred under domestication, we must conclude that the influence is of some very general nature{211}. Mr Knight alone, as far as I know, has tried to define it; he believes it consists of an excess of food, together with transport to a more genial climate, or protection from its severities. I think we cannot admit this latter proposition, for we know how many vegetable products, aborigines of this country, here vary, when cultivated ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... such as are startled at these things, that it is their ignorance to think that time is the measure of motion in respect of sooner or later, as Aristotle calls it; or quantity in motion, as Speusippus; or an interval of motion and nothing else, as some of the Stoics define it, by an accident, not comprehending its essence and power, which Pindar has not ineptly expressed in these words: Time, who surpasses all in the seats of the blest. Pythagoras also, when he was asked what time was, answered, it was the soul of the universe. For time ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... things, the moral sense, the beauty of truth, utility, sympathy, common sense; all that has been said by ancient and modern philosophers, is recalled in transient perplexing succession to his memory. If such be the state of mind of the man who is to define, what must be the condition of the child who is to understand the definition? All that a prudent person will attempt, is to give instances of different virtues; but even these, it will be difficult properly ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... remarkably unreliable account, has it that they number "some" sixty thousand. A large proportion of this settled and unsettled population is of such variety of color as to render it almost impossible to define the nice proportions of blood it is so strongly mixed with. On this point, my son, you must not be too particular, but accept it as your father does, as a proof that the races, whom we are told can never be got to live in harmony together, have, to say the least, ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... supposing that there is in human nature some mysterious faculty, by which, in coming calamities, the dread of some fearful evil is anticipated, and that it is possible to catch a dark presentiment of the sensations which they subsequently produce. For my part I can neither analyze nor define it; but on that day I knew it by painful experience, and so have a ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... Henry as the night advanced; the shadow of trouble deepened as his weary wits lost their balance to combat it. The premonition was as formless and amorphous as a cloud, and, though he could not see any shape to his fear, or define its limitations, it grew darker ere he slept. He considered what might happen and, putting aside any lesser disaster, tried to imagine what the morning would bring if ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... same with a repealing power; and they could not conceive, that less authority was necessary to repeal than to enact any statute, if one penal law was dispensed with, any other might undergo the same fate: and by what principle could even the laws which define property be afterwards secured from violation? The test act had ever been conceived the great barrier of the established religion under a Popish successor: as such it had been insisted on by the parliament; as such granted by the king; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... do you define the word 'relative.' I suppose, Mr. Brett, you are fairly well posted in the ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... question-begging as 'artistic,' and he would be a rash man who should try to define either. But so much as this will readily be admitted, that humour is a habit of mind essentially complex, involving always a double vision—a reference from the public or normal standard of proportion to one that is private and ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... laws, unmade them, for a bribe of gold. With lawless lust a daughter's shame he shared; All dared huge crimes, and compassed what they dared. Ne'er had a hundred mouths, if such were mine, Nor hundred tongues their endless sins declared, Nor iron voice their torments could define, Or tell what doom to ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... Hamilton, Marshall, and Story,—to say nothing of English and French jurists,—Mr. Sumner brings authority to define and illustrate the true place of the judicial office in the political system of a free government. And here, fidelity to those principles of liberty he had explained and defended, fidelity to the "good ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... was almost as much at sea with regard to him as when I first began to study him; not at sea with regard to his commanding genius and power, but with regard to any adequate statement and summary of him in current critical terms. One cannot define and classify him as he can a more highly specialized poetic genius. What is he like? He is like everything. He is like the soil which holds the germs of a thousand forms of life; he is like the grass, common, universal, perennial, formless; he is like your ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... is present everywhere, hearkening to them that approach him in purity and truth, as saith the Prophet, 'The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.' For this reason the Fathers define Prayer as 'the union of man with God,' and call it 'Angels' work,' and 'the prelude of gladness to come.' For since they lay down before all things that 'the kingdom of heaven' consisteth in nearness to and contemplation of the Holy ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... far harder to define, is moral. There are a thousand different humours in the mind, and about each of them, when it is uppermost, some literature tends to be deposited. Is this to be allowed? Not certainly in every case, and yet perhaps in more than rigorists would ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... what do I know—really know—of them? After all, this wall which rises 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 a narrative ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... the law! How shall I define it? Law is—law. Law is—law; and so forth, and hereby and aforesaid, provided always, nevertheless, notwithstanding. Law is like a country dance; people are led up and down in it till they are tired. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... advice. 2. Give three reasons why worry can make you thin. 3. Define "Medical Trust" and "League for Medical Freedom." 4. Memorize paragraph about nature 5. Enumerate the things you can eat ...
— Diet and Health - With Key to the Calories • Lulu Hunt Peters
... expected that I should begin a lecture on the relations between thought and language with some definition of both these things; but thought, as Sir William Grove said of motion, is a phenomenon "so obvious to simple apprehension that to define it would make it more obscure." {210} Definitions are useful where things are new to us, but they are superfluous about those that are already familiar, and mischievous, so far as they are possible at all, in respect of all those things that enter ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... hard to define the difference between the humor of one writer and another, or of one nation and another. It can be felt and can be illustrated by quoting examples, but scarcely described in general terms. It has been said of that class of American humorists of which Artemus ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... accepted its reality, sympathising, through friendship rather than through moral or intellectual agreement. For he was one of those fortunate mortals who, while possessing a strong sense of God, have but small necessity to define Him. Many of Julius's keenest agonies appeared to him subjective, a matter of words and phrases. Yet he respected them, out of the sincere regard he bore the man who suffered them. He did more. He tried a practical remedy. Modestly, as one ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... virtues separately; for those who use general terms deceive themselves when they say, that virtue consists in a good disposition of mind, or doing what is right, or something of this sort. They do much better who enumerate the different virtues as Georgias did, than those who thus define them; and as Sophocles speaks of a woman, we think of all persons, that their 'virtues should be applicable to their ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... necessary to make these comparisons, in order to define the position which this edition claims to hold with regard to its predecessors. On the other hand, no one can regret more sincerely than myself—no one has more cause to regret—the circumstances which placed this wealth of new material in my hands rather than ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... who had driven the jeep, had become one of the most solid pillars of the little A.M.E. church beyond the village, as a result. Sergeant Williamson had also become an attendant at church for a while, and then stopped. Without being able to define, or spell, or even pronounce the term, Sergeant Williamson was a strict pragmatist. Most Africans are, even five generations removed from the slave-ship that brought their forefathers from the Dark Continent. And Sergeant Williamson could not find the blessedness at the ...
— Dearest • Henry Beam Piper
... evening of reminiscence on the starlit terrace. She was the same, but so mysteriously changed! And it was the mystery, the sense of unprobed depths of initiation, which drew him to her as her freshness had never drawn him. He had not hitherto attempted to define the nature of the change: it remained for his sister Nannie to do that when, on his return to the Rue de Rivoli, where the family were still sitting in conclave upon their recent visitor, Miss Durham ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton
... she thought, and with the thought suppressed the unpleasant, confused feeling in her breast. She would not permit herself to define the cold sensation that already pressed her heart quietly but powerfully. It grew and rose in her throat, filling her mouth with a dry, bitter taste, and compelling her to turn around and look once more. As she turned he carefully shifted from one foot to the other, standing ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... external conditions, in which each modification was suggested by circumstances and tested by experience. And with the complexity of our operations our animating ideas have been striking deeper and growing bolder. Speaking then up to date, I would define the root idea of 'University Extension' in the following simple formula: University Education for the Whole Nation organized on a ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... 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 gathered congregation there should go up ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... attempt to define liberty, which he decides to be the power to do that which we ought to desire and not to do that which we ought not to desire,[Footnote: Ibid., iv. 2-4 (liv. xi. c. 2, 3).] Montesquieu tells us that political liberty is found only in limited governments, ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing, with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them, conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... if the book were meant to be a picture of human nature as a whole. "I count Rochefoucauld's Maxims," says one critic, "a bad book. As I am reading it, I feel discomfort; I have a sense of suffering which I cannot define. Such thoughts tarnish the brightness of the soul; they degrade the heart." Yet as a faithful presentation of human selfishness, and of you and me in so far as we happen to be mainly selfish, the odious mirror has its uses by showing us ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... to define in a single sentence the specific object of this agitation we may best describe it as based on the demands of woman the mother, and as directed to the end of securing for her the right to control and regulate the personal ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... question, but is on the whole accepted by most economists of to-day, and seems to me to be a mere arithmetical truism if we only make the meaning of the word "currency" wide enough; that is to say, if we define it as including all kinds of commodities, including pieces of paper and credit instruments, which are normally accepted in payment for goods and services. This addition of credit instruments, however, ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... happy," it is because we have told them, and told them repeatedly. We do not, as in a former time, "spell some of our words" in their company, in order that they may not know all we say. On the contrary, we pronounce all our words with especial clearness, and even define such as are obscure, that the children not only may, but must, fully understand us when we speak "before them." Unquestionably this takes from the play of the children self-forgetfulness of one kind, but sometimes it gives to them self-forgetfulness ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... order to make any fact burglary; the place in which it is committed must be a dwelling house, and the breaking and entering such a dwelling house must be an intent of committing felony, and not a trespass; and this much I think is sufficient to define the nature of this crime, which notwithstanding the many examples which have been made of it, is still too much practised. As to arson, by which the Law understand maliciously and voluntarily burning the house of another by night or by day; to make a man guilty of this it must ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... having in a great degree succeeded, it was only natural that he should bring up that question of his marriage day. She, when she had accepted him, had done so with a stipulation that she should not be hurried; but we all know what such stipulations are worth. Who is to define what is and what is not hurry? They had now been engaged a month, and the Squire was clearly of opinion that there had been no hurry. "September was the nicest month in the year," he said, "for getting married and going abroad. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... statutes of each state define the crimes of which its laws take cognizance. The definitions given in this chapter, agree substantially, it is presumed, with those of similar crimes in every state in the union. The statutes also prescribe the penalties, which are not ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... himself! Oh, for the brother who will bring us, not a sermon only, but a man—a man discovered, saved, cleansed, polished by God; improved into value and profitableness, but still a man! In these words we express one of the greatest needs of the hour, and define a quality absolutely essential to the successful and ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... 370 A.D.) Ambrose, the Archbishop of Milan, strove to define this music more clearly, by fixing upon the modes that were to be allowed for these chants; for we must remember that all music was still based upon the Greek modes, the modern major and minor being as yet unknown. In the course of time the ancient ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... on no default Ever presume to sit above the salt. Third that he never change his trencher twice. Fourth that he use all common courtesies: Sit bare at meals and one half rise and wait. Last, that he never his young master beat, But he must ask his mother to define, How many jerks she would his breech should line. All these observed, he could contented be, To give ...
— English Satires • Various
... bridge. Yet while the principles of structure are thus simple, for the general understanding by the student who begins their study the complete appreciation of the shades of variation, which differentiate one tissue from another, which define a sound tendon or a ligament from a fibrous band—the result of disease filling in an old lesion and tying one organ with another—is as complicated as the nicest jointing of Chinese woodwork, the building of a furnace for the most difficult ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... Nothing was said to define the all-important words "substantial agreement." But the Prime Minister laid grave emphasis on the importance of a settlement for the purpose of the war. The limitation upon Ulster's claim was plainly conceived by him to lie in Ulster's sense of an Imperial necessity. "The Empire ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... feel, but cannot define; we group them round types, in short. Thus if you ask an ordinary person what kinds of animals there are, he will probably say, beasts, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, &c. Ask him to define a beast from a reptile, and he cannot do it; but he says, things like a cow or a horse are beasts, and things like a frog or a lizard are reptiles. You see he does class by type, and not by definition. ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... the situation? Would he be able to carry the thing off in a manner adequate? He lacked confidence. He desired the moment of her arrival, and yet he feared it. His heart and his brain were all confused together in a turmoil of emotion which he could not analyse nor define. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... woman it is remarkable! She certainly understands you better than you are understood by the greater part of those who have known you so long; and with regard to some others, I can perceive, from occasional lively hints, the unguarded expressions of the moment, that she could define many as accurately, did not delicacy forbid it. I wonder what she thinks of my father! She must admire him as a fine-looking man, with most gentlemanlike, dignified, consistent manners; but perhaps, having seen him so seldom, his reserve may be a ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... whether a 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 ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... the definition corresponding with the name differs for each. Thus, a real man and a figure in a picture can both lay claim to the name 'animal'; yet these are equivocally so named, for, though they have a common name, the definition corresponding with the name differs for each. For should any one define in what sense each is an animal, his definition in the one case will be appropriate ...
— The Categories • Aristotle
... join and read these mystical letters than we Christians, who cast a more careless eye on these common hiero- glyphics, and disdain to suck divinity from the flowers of nature. Nor do I so forget God as to adore the name of nature; which I define not, with the schools, to be the principle of motion and rest, but that straight and regular line, that settled and constant course the wisdom of God hath ordained the actions of his creatures, accord- ing to their several kinds. To make a revolution every day is the nature of the sun, ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... toward Frank 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 power, which ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... criminal offences, and may be punished summarily by immediate imprisonment without the right of appeal. It speaks well both for the great good sense of the judges and for the deep-rooted legal instincts of our people that such offences are seldom heard of. It would be impossible nicely to define what measure of freedom of manners should be allowed in a court of justice, which, as we know, is neither a church nor a theatre, but, as a matter of practice, the happy mean between an awe-struck and unmanly silence ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... be proper here to explain once for all, that it is not the intention of the Author, as indeed he has not the ability, to define scientifically the mental processes which he thinks he has observed in the young. His object is simply to point them out, so that they may be successfully imitated by the teacher in the exercises ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... and turned away. No one came to let me out, but I undid the bolts myself, and stepped into my taxicab with a little breath of relief. Somehow or other I felt as though I had escaped from a danger which I could not define, and yet which I had felt with every breath I had drawn in ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... satisfaction, its eloquent pleadings in favor of their cause. But, at a later period, the French clergy discovered in St. Cyran's book free-thinking concealed under dogmatic forms. "In case of heresy any Christian may become judge," said Petrus Aurelius. Who, then, should be commissioned to define heresy? So M. de St. Cyran ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... aspiration to a higher and better life is a hunger the world cannot satisfy, has within himself the power to see and know that which he seeks behind the veil of the senses. Nature has never produced a desire she cannot 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 be patient and strive. To others I would say: Be content. All birds cannot be eagles. The nightingale has a song and ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... define a horse!" said Mr. Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. "Girl number twenty possessed of no facts in reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some boy's definition of a horse. ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... it is not a fixed, inborn feeling, but that it varies with every people and every epoch, depending particularly on one's economic and social station in life. We realize from this play that the man in the brownstone mansion will necessarily define honor differently ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... adapted now."[474] The friends of a free Kansas appreciated the superiority in debate of the Illinois statesman, whose arguments now called out half a dozen replies from as many Republican senators. It afforded a fine opportunity to define and shape the principles of the new party, and each senator attracted wide attention. But the speech of Seward, who took the floor on the 9th of April in favour of the immediate admission of Kansas as a State, seems to have impressed ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... decision, decision, dictamen below deck, bajo cubierta on deck, sobre cubierta to declaim, declamar to declare, declarar decline, baja to decline, venir a menos to decree, decretar deeds, hechos deeds (law), actas defect, defecto to defer, diferir to define, definir definite, definitivo degree, grado, graduacion delay, demora to delay, demorar, postergar delegate, delegado to commit a delinquency, delinquir to deliver, entregar delivery, entrega to demand, pedir, demandar demurrage, sobrestadia to deny, negar ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... Medical School lends us also to-day Dr. Lewellys F. Barker, its Professor of Clinical Medicine. Dr. Barker has done so much to define and settle the contradictions of mind and matter, and has clarified so much, and in fields so varied, as teacher, research worker, and practitioner, that we welcome this opportunity of listening to his discussion of "THE IMPORTANCE OF PSYCHIATRY IN ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... my packet of the 12th instant, in the last sheet (not the half sheet), last page, omit the sentence which (defining, or attempting to define, what and who are gentlemen) begins, 'I should say at least in life that most military men have it, and few naval; that several men of rank have it, and few lawyers,' &c. &c. I say, omit the whole of that sentence, because, like the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... physicists suppose matter to be simply a form of ether—plainly, that matter originated out of ether—was made from ether; so that, after all, the universe was created from nothing—that is, nothing if we correctly define matter. It was but a step for me, then, to the end: remove all radiant energy from a fixed gas—a gas without the property of condensation to another form of matter, i.e., to a fluid or a solid—and the thing, I said to myself, is done. I am positive that I know of ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... 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. The ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... ambition. How did it differ from that of Abraham? What methods did he use to achieve his ambition? Were these methods justifiable? What is your view of the statement, "The end justifies the means"? Try to define exactly the method of determining justifiable means. May Jacob's action be excused because he was acting under the direction ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... the suppression of reason. They were organized for the difficult defence of reason. Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first. The authority of priests to absolve, the authority of popes to define the authority, even of inquisitors to terrify: these were all only dark defences erected round one central authority, more undemonstrable, more supernatural than all—the authority of a man to think. We know now that this is so; we have no excuse for not knowing it. For we can hear scepticism crashing ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... been so much confusion about Lynngams previously; e.g. at one census they were named Lynngam, at another they received the appellation of Garo, and at a third enumeration they were called Khasis. In Section I. the habitat of the Lynngams has been roughly defined. It is impossible to define the Lynngam country exactly, because these people are continually shifting their village sites owing to the exigencies of jhum cultivation, which has been described in Section II. Some of the Lynngams preserve a tradition that they originally came from the Kamrup plains. It is interesting that ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... understand by it is far from a simple and determinate idea in the minds of most men, and it is therefore liable to uncertainty and confusion. I have no great opinion of a definition, the celebrated remedy for the cure of this disorder. For when we define, we seem in danger of circumscribing nature within the bounds of our own notions, which we often take up by hazard, or embrace on trust, or form out of a limited and partial consideration of the object before us, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... manful soul. His had been so long bound about with swaddling-clothes, airy, sensuous, fine as a gossamer web, yet strong in beliefs and prejudices. There were times when he felt, through that instinctive knowledge we can never wholly define or explain, that Sylvie Barry belonged to him, that they two could reach a point in mental and artistic life, that she and Jack would never attain. His whole soul cried out for her. With the charm of self-satisfying and blinding theories swept away, he clung ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... the direct working of natural law. It may be said, perhaps, that, obviously, the good man does not always reap his reward of good results, nor does the wicked man always suffer. Not always immediately; not always within our ken; but assuredly, eventually and inexorably." The writer then goes on to define his conception of Good and Evil. He says: "We shall see more clearly that this must be so if we define exactly what we mean by good and evil. Our religious brothers would tell us that that was good which was in accordance with God's will, and that that was evil which was in opposition ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... have here a man of such heroic size that it is no easy matter to define him. Along with the clearest vision of the lines of demarcation between the old and the new in the greatest crisis of human history and an unfaltering championship of principle when real issues were involved, we see in him the most genial superiority ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... halted and listened attentively; yet strange to say, not a sound was to be heard except quick breathing and beating of hearts. The stillness seemed worse than the noise, for during the latter we were enabled to define the position of our opponents, and knew that they were at arm's length; but now, when every thing was quiet around us, we knew not but our next step might bring us under their fire, and then farewell to ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... process, a development of desires and ideas that takes the form of a project—a project for the reshaping of human society upon new and better lines. That in the ampler proposition is what Socialism claims to be. This book seeks to expand and establish that proposition, and to define the principles upon which the Socialist believes this reconstruction of society should go. The particulars and justification of this project and this claim, it will be the business of this book to discuss just as plainly as the ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... beautiful woman could not but set his heart throbbing with disconcerting rapidity. In his world even the touch of a woman's fingers was almost a forbidden thing, and to kiss them an act not to be so much as imagined. Philip dared not think, or to define to himself what significance he attached to this incident. An unsophisticated man is often suspicious from the simple fact that he is forced to distrust his judgment. He is unable to estimate the value of appearances, ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... Inferior Courts.—It is difficult in brief space to define minutely the province of each court The following accounts, therefore, give ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... actually have been produced earlier than others which in my lists are assigned to a subsequent date. It is not, so to speak, the literal but the spiritual order which I have studied to observe and to indicate: the periods which I seek to define belong not to chronology but to art. No student need be reminded how common a thing it is to recognise in the later work of a great artist some partial reappearance of his early tone or manner, some passing return to his early lines of work and to habits of style since modified or abandoned. ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... authority, and could not, without extreme violence, be adjusted to any other form of government: that a protector, except during the minority of a king, was a name utterly unknown to the laws; and no man was acquainted with the extent or limits of his authority; that if it were attempted to define every part of his jurisdiction, many years, if not ages, would be required for the execution of so complicated a work; if the whole power of the king were at once transferred to him, the question was plainly about a name, and the preference was indisputably due to the ancient title: ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... him, she felt herself getting daft, and longed to rush away and to escape into the open country in order to avoid that mute, eternal companionship and also some vague danger, which she could not define, but of which she had ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... now, but, confused and startled, inclined to believe that he was on his trial; and that the faint parleyings with treason, small things hard to define, to which he had stooped, were known. Mechanically, to gain time, he ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... Belgium, Italy and Great Britain remark that it is a condition of peace, not of armistice. But Clemenceau makes it a question of regard and consideration for France. France would not understand there being no mention of it; there was no desire to define anything, only just to mention it, and in three simple words. "I ask you," says Clemenceau, "to put yourselves into the spirit of the people of France." At once the British representative notes the necessity of a clear statement regarding reparations for losses at sea through ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... violence, looting, arms trafficking, ethnic conflicts, and refugees in border areas; UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) has maintained over 4,000 peacekeepers in Sierra Leone since 1999; Sierra Leone considers excessive Guinea's definition of the flood plain limits to define the left bank boundary of the Makona and Moa rivers and protests Guinea's continued occupation of these lands, including the hamlet of Yenga ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... air of self-abasement about Lieutenant Weil as he crossed the wide chamber. It was a thing hard to define in words; yet undeniably there was a diffidence and a reluctance manifest in him, as though a sense of guilt wrestled with the ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... felt at once convinced that he was right. It would make no difference; it was not relief he wanted; I seemed to perceive dimly that what he wanted, what he was, as it were, waiting for, was something not easy to define—something in the nature of an opportunity. I had given him many opportunities, but they had been merely opportunities to earn his bread. Yet what more could any man do? The position struck me as hopeless, and poor Brierly's saying recurred to me, "Let him creep twenty feet underground ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... is the word "wrong." The judges made no attempt to define it in 1843, and it has been variously interpreted ever since. Now it may mean "contrary to the dictates of conscience" or, as it is usually construed, "contrary to the law of the land"—and exactly what it means may make a great difference ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... muscles or the intellectual processes. Like the 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 ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... majority of the umpires each year; especially was this the case in 1892, when the observance of the balk rule was very lax indeed. The difficulty in framing a proper rule for the purpose is, to properly define the difference between a palpable fielding error, which enables a base to be run on the error, and an error plainly induced by the very effort made to steal a base. No base can be credited to a base runner ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... declarations, which may be, by reason of their thought and expression, termed "Wilsonian" (Appendix IV, p. 314). The first five Points are announcements of principle which should govern the peace negotiations. The succeeding eight Points refer to territorial adjustments, but make no attempt to define actual boundaries, so essential in conducting negotiations regarding territory. The Fourteenth Point relates to the formation of "a general association of the nations for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... proposed in turn to denounce the trade as piracy. Canning agreed to this, but only on condition that it be piracy under the Law of Nations and not merely by statute law. Such an agreement, he said, would involve a Right of Search for its enforcement; he proposed strictly to limit and define this right, to allow captured ships to be tried in their own courts, and not to commit the United States in any way to the question of the belligerent Right of Search. Adams finally sent a draft of a proposed treaty to England, and agreed to recognize the slave-traffic "as piracy under the ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... define his thoughts so precisely; but something unruly stirred in his consciousness, when he saw the ghost of his days of courtship rise before him in the deep blue kimono. His wife had certainly made a great abdication when she ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... surprised at my not having called this "beauty." Of course, to those who define beauty as "combinations of lines and colours that provoke aesthetic emotion," I willingly concede the right of substituting their word for mine. But most of us, however strict we may be, are apt to apply the epithet "beautiful" ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... Minister at this moment was sitting in his own particular room at the Treasury Chambers, and before the entrance of his friend had been conscientiously endeavouring to define for himself, not a future policy, but the past policy of the last month or two. It had not been for him a very happy occupation. He had become the Head of the Government,—and had not failed, for there he was, still the Head of the Government, with a majority at his back, ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... being by the woman whom he loved so tenderly and so devotedly, he had spoken only to her, compelling her attention and stirring—even by this simple admission of a despicable crime—an emotion in her which she could not—would not define. ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... As he came in she looked up at him, and, lifting her hand, swept the hair back from her forehead just as she had done the day before when Mr. St. Claire was there. The peculiar motion had struck the latter as something familiar, though he could not define it; but Frank did, or in his nervous condition he thought he did, and his knees shook so he could hardly stand as he talked with Mrs. Crawford and told her he had come for the child, who ought to be where her mother ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... his debts, performs 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 thought at all times and in all things. Spirituality, in this conception of it, is nothing but ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... 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 ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... us to regulate our conduct by the principles of morality and virtue."—Ritual of the E. A. Degree.—The old York lectures define the square thus: "The square is the theory of universal duty, and consisteth in two right lines, forming an angle of perfect sincerity, or ninety degrees; the longest side is the sum of the lengths of the several duties which we owe to all men. And every man ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... is paid to this highly important quality of accuracy. As a man eminent in practical science lately observed to us, "It is astonishing how few people I have met with in the course of my experience, who can DEFINE A FACT accurately." Yet in business affairs, it is the manner in which even small matters are transacted, that often decides men for or against you. With virtue, capacity, and good conduct in other respects, the person who is habitually inaccurate cannot be trusted; ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... Study first appeared, Hohenemser, who considers that my analysis of modesty is unsatisfactory, has made a notable attempt to define the psychological mechanism of shame. ("Versuch einer Analyse der Scham," Archiv fuer die Gesamte Psychologie, Bd. II, Heft 2-3, 1903.) He regards shame as a general psycho-physical phenomenon, "a ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... parasite from the noninfected territory has in every instance been found a certain method of excluding Texas fever. The regulations governing the movement of cattle from below the quarantine line are made yearly by the Secretary of Agriculture, and they define the boundary of infected districts. The infected area as now determined is ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... glanced at 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
... rabbinical culture became visible. But one who should regulate these forces was lacking, a guide to direct these activities and to serve as a model to others. In order that the movement might not come to a premature end, a master was needed who would give it impetus and define its course, who would strike the decisive blow. Such a man there was, a man who impressed his contemporaries as a scholar of high degree and noble character, and whose memory as such is still cherished by posterity. This ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... I cannot define what it was about Mary that made her little speeches, half argumentative, all-pleading, so wonderfully persuasive. Her facts were mere fancies, and her logic was not even good sophistry. As to real ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... there dwelling as in a shrine, I derived, from many existences in the material world, a sentiment such as I felt always around, within me, by her large and luminous orbs. Yet not the more could I define that sentiment, or analyze, or even steadily view it. I recognized it, let me repeat, sometimes in the survey of a rapidly growing vine—in the contemplation of a moth, a butterfly, a chrysalis, a stream of running water. I have felt it in the ocean—in the falling of a meteor. I have felt it in ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... at 32 degrees is 0.463. The specific heat of saturated steam (ice and saturated steam representing the other forms in which water may exist), is something that is difficult to define in any way which will not be misleading. When no liquid is present the specific heat of saturated steam is negative.[14] The use of the value of the specific heat of steam is practically limited to instances where superheat is present, and the specific heat of ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... the same way; as to which inconsiderable specks it is enough to observe, that his Preface announces that he was aware there might be many such in so immense a work; nor was he at all disconcerted when an instance was pointed out to him. A lady once asked him how he came to define Pastern the KNEE of a horse: instead of making an elaborate defence, as she expected, he at once answered, 'Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.' His definition of Network* has been often quoted with sportive malignity, as obscuring a thing in itself ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... ask if it is possible to define an absolutely invariable unit of time; it would be desirable to determine with sufficient precision, if only once in a century, the relation of the second to such a unit, so that we might verify the variations of the second indirectly and independently ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... are divided; now a body of men who are daily excommunicating each other as heretics and apostates; now a universal idea; now the narrowest and most exclusive of all parties. Really, before you ask me to hear the Church, I have a right to ask you to define what the ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... appear fairly clear. Governments tend to become democratic, if we define democracy as "any form of government in which the will of the people finds sovereign expression." The tendency of society seems to be toward furnishing all its members equality of opportunity to make the most of their natural endowments. But if we are convinced that these ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... for rural places filed a demurrer against six of the seven trunks. He endeavored to define, picture, elucidate, set forth and describe a farm. His own words sounded strange in his ears. He had not realized how thoroughly urbsidized he ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... think more stress is laid upon these events than they deserve. It was a necessity to define the course of the government in regard to the participation of the subjects of Great Britain in the impending conflict. The legal officers were consulted. They said war de facto existed. Seven ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... at last I have brought Mr. Lincoln to the conclusion that he had better define his position on certain political questions to which I called his attention at Ottawa. * * * In a few moments I will proceed to review the answers which he has given to these interrogatories; but, in order to relieve his anxiety, I will ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... struck her as weird: something which she could not then define; but she was quite sure that it was not merely the unusual chilliness of that rainy summer's day, which had caused her to tremble so, when—in the vestry—her husband had taken her hand and ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... science permits me to postulate (a concession by science which I much doubt if it could make) that matter, as we know it, has the semblance of being what we call a substance, charged with a something which we define as energy, but which at all events simulates a vital principle resembling heat, seeking to escape into space, where it cools. Thus the stars, having blazed until their vital principle is absorbed in space, sink into relative torpor, or, as the astronomers say, die. The trees ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... or how often soever they approach it. The proportions and beauties of the whole building are so intimately united, that they may be compared to good breeding in men; it is what every body perceives, and is captivated with, but what few can define. That it has an irresistible beauty which delights men of sense, and which charms the eyes of the vulgar, I think must be admitted; for no other possible reason can be assigned why this building alone, standing in the very centre ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... far for Reuby to walk, but we will go out on the same road papa has gone, and wait for papa to come;" so saying, she led the child out of the house, and rambled slowly along the road on which the Elder would return. In a few moments she saw moving in the distance a large black object she could not define. As it came nearer she saw that it was several men, walking slowly and apparently bearing something ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... that you learned just then that one could define the Second Bureau as the world of spies, and that you were extremely ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... people," one of them said. "Nor were our forefathers as religious as some students may suppose. Those who went before us gave to the Buddhist shrine and even worshipped there, but their daily life and their religion had no close connection. We did not define religion closely. Religion has phases according to the degree of public instruction. Our religion has had more to do with propitiation and good fortune than with morality. If you had come here a century ago you would have ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... inviolate those rights to which, as men, and English Americans, they are justly entitled, and which have been guaranteed to them by his majesty's royal predecessors." Thus anxious were they at every point of the controversy to define the ground on ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... attendant in question, reported to me that Lieutenant Davies, Eleventh Calvary, entered the ward, accompanied by a member of the household of Captain Cranston, declared the treatment of the patient unjustifiable and ordered him, the attendant, out of the room. On Paine's attempting to define his orders he was abruptly silenced and again ordered to leave. Being on duty under the instructions of superior authority, Trooper Paine again strove to explain his orders, and this time was curtly told that he should pay no ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... went on rolling in their appointed orbits, for what reason nobody knew, but then nobody cared! And Love—the key-note of the theme to which I had set my mistaken life in tune—Love was only a graceful word used to politely define the low but very general sentiment of coarse animal attraction—in short, poetry such as mine was altogether absurd and out of date when confronted with the facts of every-day existence—facts which plainly taught us that man's chief business here below was simply to live, breed, and die—the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli |
