"Disposition" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for several miles into its interior structure, and armed with hammer, chisel, and climbing hook, they explore the beetling sea-cliff, traverse the deepest valleys, and scale the highest mountains, carefully examining their formation, disposition, and substance, and are thus enabled to obtain some knowledge of the earth's stomach, as it were, by scrutinising the deposits and eruptive ejectments on its surface. For example, we come to a mountain composed of a particular substance ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... a lawyer to justify the legality of it, by producing his precedents, without ever considering the motives and circumstances that first introduced them, the necessity or turbulence or iniquity of times, the corruptions of ministers, or the arbitrary disposition of the prince then reigning. And I have been told by persons eminent in the law, that the worst actions which human nature is capable of, may be justified by the same doctrine. How the first precedents began of determining cases of the highest importance to Ireland, and immediately affecting ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... anon regrets and rebukes some egotism or assumption, or petty irritation of bygone years, and confesses that he can now cheerfully accept the fortunes, good and bad, which have occurred to him, "with the disposition to believe them the best that could have happened, whether for the correction of what was wrong in him, or the improvement of ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... wretchedly low-spirited and nervous, that I could scarcely be said to live, and during this time, habits of indecision, arising out of a listless acquiescence in the will of others, a fear of encountering even the slightest opposition, and a disposition to shrink from what are commonly called amusements, grew upon me so strongly, that I have scarcely even yet, altogether overcome them. We saw nothing more of Mr. Carew. He returned to England as soon as the melancholy rites attendant upon the event which I have just mentioned were ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... care," answered Nellie, whose gay, dashing disposition poorly accorded with the listless, sickly Mabel, and who felt it rather a relief than otherwise to ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... to hear your opinion of Mr. Sharpman; we have neither the time nor the disposition to listen to it. You caused this defendant to produce before us the body of the boy Ralph. They are both here; what further do ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... them are perhaps too much of the disposition of S. Thomas, who must push his hands against the scars of the Lord's Body; but the Lord has ever been patient towards the devout and warm-hearted men, who share with S. Thomas, not only his doubt, but that ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... and south of the Pyrenees, the Burgundians in the Rhone valley, and the Vandals in Africa, still another Germanic people began to spread over northern Gaul. They were the Franks, who had long held lands on both sides of the lower Rhine. The Franks, unlike the other Germans, were not of a roving disposition. They contented themselves with a gradual advance into Roman territory. It was not until near the close of the fifth century that they overthrew the Roman power in northern Gaul and began to form the Frankish kingdom, out of which modern ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... to know her regard for him, but she did not want him to learn it from any act of hers. She desired him to wrest it from her by main force, and as little awkwardness as a man may use. Had Dic by the smallest word or act shown a disposition to profit by what Rita feared had been excessive frankness in her letter, or had he, in any degree, assumed the attitude of a confident lover, such word or act would have furnished the needful chemical drop, and Dic's interests would have suffered. ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... weather the distribution of a rum ration was at the disposition of a commander, who in most instances did not give it. This stalwart Australian evidently had ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... of woman is interesting. They are not usually conscious of their malice. The chronic bitterness resulting from an unfortunate hereditary disposition in their character, as much as from their outraged feelings, makes them take a dislike to the world and renders them incapable of seeing anything but the worst side of people. They become accustomed to disparage ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... several persons carried a cracker as large as a room and went out of town to let it off. Over and above ten thousand persons were attracted, and they followed to see the sight. One among them was of an impatient disposition. He could not reconcile himself to wait; so stealthily he snatched a joss-stick and set fire to it. A sound of 'pu-ch'ih' was heard. The whole number of spectators laughed boisterously and withdrew. The persons, who ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... others in the world; but those of a retired turn have gained for themselves a character of infamy and indolence. For justice dwells not in the eyes of man,[12] whoever, before he can well discover the disposition of a man, hates him at sight, in no way wronged by him. But it is necessary for a stranger exactly to conform himself to the state, nor would I praise the native, whoever becoming self-willed is insolent ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... held, felt her shiver at this gallantry, which for her, with her natural haughty disposition, must have been the worst humiliation imaginable; but the movement was restrained, and her face gave no sign. She now came to the porch of the Conciergerie, between the court and the first door, and there she was made to sit down, so as ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... patent laws, and especially about the possibility of undertaking the manufacture of the incubators on shares. He enclosed the letters he already had received from companies interested, none of which however had made him any positive offer, only sounding him in general as to his disposition to sell the patent rights on certain terms which had no very promising prospects of ready money. And it was money Bauer wanted,—not dim future prospects of the all-powerful medium ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... Constantinople, he tried to account for it all, but only came to the conclusion that it was inherent wickedness and villainy. George had outwitted and defied him at Port Said. To a man of Mark's cruel and villainous disposition this was sufficient, and he had made up his mind to leave no stone unturned to humble and ruin his former friend. Well, time would show if he were ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... were often opposed to those of the Council and, kindly as was his disposition, disputes concerning many questions of law were constantly occurring between him and the Honourables. When he began to persuade the Emperor to prevent by a pardon the cruelty which the Council intended to practise ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of a rich English nobleman who was engaged in writing a book on the dances of the ancients. This gentleman, though no longer young, and afflicted with that strange English malady that obliges a man to wrap his feet in swaddling-clothes like a new-born infant, was of a generous and paternal disposition, and offered, if I would accompany him to Florence, to give me a home and a genteel education. I remained with him about two years, during which time he had me carefully instructed in music, French and the art of the needle. In return for this, my principal duties were to perform in antique ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... admit, however, that, whatever pliability of disposition, or other inherent suitability, led to the first domestication of certain species of animals, the changes induced in their natures by many generations of domesticity have made them amenable to man's control to a degree which puts a wide difference between ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... grew in years his temper became worse, and his girth greater. The violent exertion of his earlier days was exchanged for the ease of a man who had nothing to do but stand about, eat, sleep, and throw things at cabin-boys. He had all the peremptory disposition of an Eastern tyrant; and the notion of being called to account for any one of his doings would have thrown him into apoplectic surprise. So he lived out his days, working his old tub up and down the coast with marvellous skill, beating his boy, roaring songs when his ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... if not more so, but it was a pale, fragile sort of beauty. She had spent the summer in Scotland and the month of September in Devonshire, and had returned to town at the beginning of October. Change of air and scenery had worked a partial cure, but had not brought back her merry, light-hearted disposition. She secretly nursed her grief—the sorrow that had fallen on her happy young life—and tried hard not to show it. There was a wistful, far-away expression in her eyes, and she seemed unconscious of the presence ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... summary process, and would, more than once, have broken out in open and desperate resistance, but for the admonitions and entreaties of the trembling girl, who clung to his side, in a manner so dependent, as to show the youth, that her hopes were now placed, no less on his discretion, than on his disposition to serve her. ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to Spain and Sicily not an entirely new invention, but an improved method of making paper, and what was more important, a culture and civilization that kept this method in constant exercise. It was chiefly for the lack of ability and lack of disposition to put paper to proper use that the earlier European knowledge of paper- making was so barren of results. The art of book- making as it was then practised was made subservient to the spirit of luxury ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... sweetheart, if you must. I deserve it. But don't you think I have had purgatory enough because I didn't dare believe to punish me for anything? As for the rest I know I've been behaving like a brute. I've a devil of a disposition and I've been half crazy anyway. Not that that is any excuse. But I'll behave myself in the future. Honest I will, Ruthie. All you have to do is to lift this small finger of yours—" He indicated the digit by a loverly kiss "and I'll be as meek and lowly as—as ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... Henry, had great conversational powers, and inherited from his father an eager and sanguine disposition. He was a very entertaining companion, but had perhaps less steadiness of purpose, certainly less success in life, than his brothers. He became a clergyman when middle-aged; and an allusion to his sermons will be found in one of Jane's letters. At one time he resided in London, and ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... wisdom and patriotic disposition, I place these suggestions before you, in the full confidence that they cannot fail to meet your sanction. I entertain no doubt that if the Constitution should be amended in conformity thereto, a beneficial reform of the Legislative Department would be effected, and the general advantage ...
— Speeches of His Majesty Kamehameha IV. To the Hawaiian Legislature • Kamehameha IV
... recourse to the latter, as being the most summary mode of proceeding. When his duty did not require his presence on his own territory, the forecastle, he was fond of taking a walk on the main-deck, alongside the carpenter's bench, for he was of a social disposition, and delighted in what he called ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... proper. The difference, then, between professor and teacher is one of degree, and not of kind. Both teach, and both teach in great part the same subjects and in substantially the same way; that is, by means of textbook and recitation. Herein lies the explanation of the disposition evinced by some of our best schools to call their teachers "professors." An institution like Phillips Exeter or Andover can scarcely be said to assume more than it is entitled to in putting itself on an equality with Hobart ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... otherwise, he has an absolute right, and may use and dispose of the same as he pleases. Her chattels real, however, which are leases of land for years, though personal property, he can not dispose of by will; and if he makes no disposition of them during his life time, and she outlives him, she takes them in her own right. If he survives his wife, he acquires an ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... courses. They have nothing about them of the heroism of sin; their crimes are not the result of ungovernable passion, or even of antipathy to conventional restraints; circumstances and not any law-defying bias of disposition have made them criminals. How is it that the novelist contrives to make them so interesting? Is it because we are a nation of shopkeepers, and enjoy following lines of business which are a little out of our ordinary routine? Or is it simply that he makes us enjoy ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... sentinels awaiting some procession which tarried long. At a point under him where the road was torn up there stood a red light, and at the corner two men were talking in leisurely repose, as if sunning themselves at noonday. Lovers of a feline disposition, who were never seen by daylight, joked and darted at each other in and out of ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... surroundings, and his freedom from restraint was comforting to Tom who had felt very apprehensive. He was soon to learn that the most conspicuous and attractive thing about a British sailor or soldier is his disposition to take things as he finds them and not to be ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... insubordination (disobedience) and deprived of his command. (Charles Lee was not connected with the Lees of Virginia.) General Lee was really a brilliant soldier, but he was ruined by his own jealous disposition. Washington treated him and all other enemies with the kindness of a great mind and a ...
— George Washington • Calista McCabe Courtenay
... of his earnest disposition to do the best for himself, and of the trustful and grateful nature which has been denied him, we give another of the only three of his notes which we chance ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... supplications to Allah, which had been rising with hypnotically soothing murmurs through the incensed air, and now followed Bara Miyan toward the raised platform. The old Sheik beckoned his guests. All disposed themselves comfortably among the cushions. The Legionaries ignored what seemed a disposition on the part of the Arabs to separate them—to scatter them along ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... family I know a case of a very long service, and where, no doubt, there was much interest and attachment; but it was a case where the temper had not softened under the influence of years, but had rather assumed that form of disposition which we denominate crusty. My grand-uncle, Sir A. Ramsay, died in 1806, and left a domestic who had been in his service since he was ten years of age; and being at the time of his master's death past fifty or well on to sixty, he must have been more than forty years a servant in the family. ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... that. They will, with the Marquis of Brandenburg, declare: "If I be asked whether with heart and lip I confess that faith which God has restored to us by Luther as His instrument, I have no scruple, nor have I a disposition to shrink from the name Lutheran. Thus understood, I am, and shall to my dying hour remain, a Lutheran." They will ever be able to distinguish between the man Luther, prone to error and sin like any other mortal, and the Luther who fought the battle of the Lord and had a mission of everlasting ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... the town. At the door of the Mission I bid the Mate farewell, and I catch a last glimpse of him as he removes his hat and wipes his boots with the diffidence apparently interwoven in the fibre of all mariners ashore. He is not of a proselytising disposition. Strong Orangeman, an Ulster Protestant, and—the rest. So, thinking of him, I fare onward, watching the show. Men and maidens idly saunter along, or hasten to the house of God. Why, I wonder, do girls of religious ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... fortnight, so extreme was her suffering in mind and body; but rather than give Sidney Kirkwood such a triumph, she would work on, and breathe no word of what she underwent. Even in her anger against him, the knowledge of his forgiving disposition, of the sincerity of his love, was an unavowed support. She knew he could not utterly desert her; when some day he sought a reconciliation, the renewal of conflict between his pride and her own would, she felt, ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... disposition of the goldenrod, which, though remaining fresh and bright, when called upon to decorate our homes, obstinately refuses to open a petal after it is gathered; and the fairy-like elder, which sullenly resents being touched, gives up the struggle ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... showed a disposition to treat and to agree to terms; but when he had seemingly agreed, he denied or broke off the next day. The failure or desertion of ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... people give me. Oh, the falsehood and hypocrisy of this world! I am fixed in a little town retired by the seashore, embowered in woody hills that rise round me, huge, rocky, and capped with clouds. My employer is a retired county magistrate and large landholder, of a right hearty, generous disposition. His wife is a quiet, silent, amiable woman; his sons are two fine, spirited lads. My landlord is a respectable surgeon, and six days out of seven as drunk as a lord; his wife is a bustling, chattering, kind-hearted soul; his daughter—oh! death and damnation! Well, what am I? ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... patriotic lyric, 'Rule, Britannia,' and also pseudo-classical tragedies; but his only other poem of much importance is 'The Castle of Indolence' (a subject appropriate to his own good-natured, easy-going disposition), which appeared just before his death, in 1748. In it he employs Spenser's stanza, with real skill, but in a half-jesting fashion which the later eighteenth-century Romanticists also seem to have thought necessary when they adopted it, apparently as a sort of apology ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... that sociable disposition, that she could not half enjoy anything unless she could get some one to sympathise with her. She did so long to tell her news. Late as was the hour when the party broke up, she wanted to tell Isabel; but Isabel had refused their accustomed ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... continually complaining of the difficulty he found in raising from the peasantry the comparatively small sums he yearly transmitted to his master. But so it was: and although the Conde carried his confidence in his dependents, and his easiness of disposition, to such an extent as almost to become a fault, yet as he examined the accounts of some years' standing, a strong suspicion arose in his mind that somehow he had been most egregiously cheated, and ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... shell-fish, which are found in great abundance and beauty on most of the islands, the Mission being in part supported by collections of these and other natural curiosities, made by me and other Brethren, whose time and disposition allowed of it. It became at one time peculiarly my business, and though I possessed no previous knowledge of these things, and would not venture to determine upon a proper classification of the various natural ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... as a sample of the disposition of the natives there was but little reason to expect much benefit by persevering in the intention of visiting Poulaho; for I considered their good behaviour formerly to have proceeded from a dread of our firearms, and which therefore was likely to cease, as they knew ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... with the fondness of a friend, may be added the testimony of Pope, who says, in a letter to Blount, "Mr. Rowe accompanied me, and passed a week in the Forest. I need not tell you how much a man of his turn entertained me; but I must acquaint you, there is a vivacity and gaiety of disposition, almost peculiar to him, which make it impossible to part from him without that uneasiness which ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... dear old Catholic lady was hauled fifty miles over the snow by her two stalwart sons, to have her leg removed for tubercular disease of the ankle. She did exceedingly well, and the only puzzle which we could not solve was where to raise the necessary hundred dollars for a new leg—for her disposition, even more than her necessity, compelled her to move about. While lecturing that winter in America, I asked friends to donate to me any of their old legs which they no longer needed, and soon I found myself the happy possessor ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... be sure," said Calabressa, with calm sarcasm, "at your disposition, signore. So we were not satisfied with selling photographs and pebbles to the English on board the steamer; we want to get a little Judas money; we sell ourselves to the weasels, the worms, ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... Christian martyrdom [296:2]. This later Sergius Paulus reproduces many features of his earlier namesake. Both alike are public men; both alike are proconsuls; both alike show an inquisitive and acquisitive disposition. The Sergius Paulus of the Acts, dissatisfied (as we may suppose) alike with the coarse mythology of popular religion and with the lifeless precepts of abstract philosophies, has recourse first to the magic of the sorcerer Elymas, and then to the theology ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... doubled than divided, though two have thenceforward to share it instead of one. Besides, the individual experience of one man, however varied, would not have been sufficient to exemplify all the most useful lessons of the Gospel, unless the trials of many persons, of different age, sex, and disposition, were interwoven. The instance at hand ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... "Corner-box" from the nest where he was hatched, had shown remarkable vigor from the first. Though all were about the same age, he had grown faster, was bigger, and incidentally handsomer, though the fanciers cared little for that. He seemed fully aware of his importance, and early showed a disposition to bully his smaller cousins. His owner prophesied great things of him, but Billy, the stable-man, had grave doubts over the length of his neck, the bigness of his crop, his carriage, and his over-size. "A bird can't make time pushing a bag ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... unlike him. And more than once Tom had caught Steve observing him with an expression that he couldn't fathom. There was something up, that was certain, but what it was Tom couldn't imagine. It wasn't that Steve was cross or disagreeable. For that matter, his disposition seemed a good deal improved. But he was decidedly stand-offish and extraordinarily quiet. Tom wanted to ask outright what the trouble was, but, for some reason, he held back. As the days passed, Steve's manner became more natural and he ceased looking at Tom as though, to quote the latter's ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... manana—to-morrow! Tonight I and Sanchicha make the bed for us 'ere. Sanchicha, she stands herself now over in the street. We have mooch sorrow we have to make the caballeros mooch tr-rouble to make disposition of his house. But what ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... business men and adroit politicians, was divided into two factions, each one fancying itself the more truly patriotic, public-spirited, and independent.[520] The Softs had trapped the Hards into allegiance with the promise of a solid support for Dickinson whenever the convention manifested a disposition to rally around him—and then gagged them by a rigid unit rule. This made Dickinson declamatory and bitter, while the Softs themselves, professing devotion to Douglas, exhibited an unrest which indicated that changed conditions would easily change their devotion. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... cheerful. She had to sleep upon a mattress laid on the floor. At another time this would have been fun, but now it did not seem funny at all; it was only part and parcel of the misery of coming to live in Redding. She cried herself to sleep, and came down in the morning with swollen eyelids and a disposition to make the very worst of things,—easy enough for any girl to do if ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... Thorogood meekly. "It's the effect of going to the cinematograph. All the magistrates are talking about it. They say Charlie Chaplin's got something to do with it. I suppose, though, there's no objection to my asking what the disposition of our Light Cruisers happens to be, is there? It's prompted more by a healthy desire to improve my knowledge before I take over the afternoon watch than ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... in fact, owing to himself that the sheik was now in his present position. It was true that the Arab had refused to give him up to the Mahdi's people at Metemmeh, not from any love towards him, but of his own obstinate and headstrong disposition. However, that refusal, whatever its motive, had undoubtedly saved his life; and, moreover, the sheik had behaved with great kindness to him since, and he felt that it was clearly his duty to do all in his power to ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... to an appeal thus put, neither Henry nor myself could have hung back even if we had had the disposition to do so. But I believe that we all instinctively felt that our place was by Edmund's side, wherever he might choose ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... widows—neither old Du Bruel nor old Claparon, nor Desroches the father, nor even the Abbe Loraux, Agathe's confessor—noticed Joseph's faculty for observation. Absorbed in the line of his own tastes, the future colorist paid no attention to anything that concerned himself. During his childhood this disposition was so like torpor that his father grew uneasy about him. The remarkable size of the head and the width of the brow roused a fear that the child might be liable to water on the brain. His distressful face, whose originality was thought ugliness by those who had no eye for ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... in progress was looked forward to with intense interest, for he and Zukertort were the leading scorers, and the fight for the first prize would have centred in this contest. A good feature in Bird's character is his disposition to make acquaintances with working men. He has taught many of them his "charming game," and has frequently been told afterwards that it has been the means of saving them a few shillings every week. This is easily understood, ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... imperfection of man's best perfections; death lying in ambush to entrap those whom by open force he could not devour. He dying in this voyage, and following his son, hath left this glorious act, memoriae sacrum, the memorable epitaph of his worth, savouring of a true heroic disposition, piety and valour being in him seasoned by ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... order of things. A tractable people may be governed in large bodies; but, in proportion as they depart from this character, the extent of their government must be less. We see into what small divisions the Indians are obliged to reduce their societies. This measure, with the disposition to shut up the Mississippi, gives me serious apprehensions of the severance of the eastern and western parts of our confederacy. It might have been made the interest of the western States to remain united with us, by managing ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... gentle in his disposition, and quite unlike his two predecessors, who were mighty warriors; and doubtless, in his heart, he will welcome the words you said yesterday concerning Quetzalcoatl. But he is swayed wholly by the priests, and such sentiments will not be agreeable to them, for sacrifices ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... on the 25th, with dispatches to Lord Howe, then residing on Staten Island. My boat's crew on this occasion consisted either of pressed men or of fellows whom I knew to be among the greatest blackguards in the ship. On the way down they showed signs of an unruly disposition by pulling slowly and not putting out their strength when I ordered them. Their conduct, however, did not trouble me, and I forgot all about it as I walked up to present my dispatches to his lordship. I have ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... which he devoted himself, and in which he was the friendly rival of Watt, Priestley, Cavendish, and other leading chemists and mechanicians of two or three generations ago. His eldest son, heir to little more than a famous name and a chivalrous and enterprising disposition, had to fight his own way in ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... of the wills, we will return to the inventory. Going over it without haste, item by item. While considering each one, I will give its history; then, we will make a short note, embodying our individual ideas as to the best present or future disposition of that particular piece of property. These notes to be attached to the inventory. By the time we have finished this work, you will have acquired such a firm mental grasp of our financial situation, that you can advise ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... about sixty years of age. It bore an excellent character. Its patience and sweet disposition under the most trying circumstances will long be remembered. The remains, weighing not less than twenty-six hundred pounds, will be suitably disposed off. While the public mourns it may also console itself with the reflection that there are plenty more where it came from, and that the energy of ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... their clients off." It is unquestionably a generally accepted principle that it is better that ninety-nine guilty men should escape than that one innocent man should be convicted. However much persons of argumentative or philosophic disposition may care to quarrel with this doctrine, they must at least admit that it would doubtless appear to them of vital truth were they defending some trembling client concerning whose guilt or innocence they were themselves somewhat in doubt. "Charity believeth all things," ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... very few, who at the very first Moment of their being seized, did not imagine themselves lost without Relief, whatever Pains we took to encourage them: And though many amongst them seemed to us, before the first Access of the Distemper, to be of a firm and courageous Disposition of Mind, and resolute under all Events, yet as soon as they felt the first Strokes, it was easy to know by their Looks, and their Discourses, that they were convinced that their Sickness was Incurable and Mortal, even ...
— A Succinct Account of the Plague at Marseilles - Its Symptoms and the Methods and Medicines Used for Curing It • Francois Chicoyneau
... The courtesy and obliging disposition of Caesar were notorious, and both were illustrated in some anecdotes which survived for generations in Rome. Dining on one occasion at a table, where the servants had inadvertently, for salad-oil, furnished ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Shanghai when the squadron returned to Japanese waters, and she played a very active though brief part in the troubles which then existed in China. Imperial and revolutionary troops were fighting for supremacy, and the former showed a hostile disposition to the American and English residents of Shanghai. An American pilot was captured by an Imperial man-of-war, but was retaken in a most spirited manner from the Chinese by Lieutenant Guest, and a boat's crew from the "Plymouth." The Chinese manifestations of hostility toward foreign ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... otherwise than as noble fellows while they are under his guidance. The Corsair, from his very name and profession, is a declared criminal; but this once said, the poet occupies himself and his reader with nothing but what is generous and heroic in Conrad. Byron had no disposition, had a certain antipathy, to paint the virtuous man; but it was a virtue, nevertheless, that attracted his pencil. He felt it necessary, as a preliminary condition, to remove his hero from the category of good men; but this being fairly done, he resigned himself to the natural bent for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... discarded their German uniforms soon after their return to the French lines and were again attired in regulation French costume, with which they had been provided. They now approached the French officer who was busy directing the disposition of his men. ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... route, your labours are at an end. All you have to do is to march; and that is no great hardship when you are as hard as nails, as we are fast becoming. On the march the mental gymnastics involved by the formation of an advanced guard or the disposition of a piquet line are removed to a safe distance. There is no need to wonder guiltily whether you have sent out a connecting-file between the vanguard and the main-guard, or if you remembered to instruct your sentry groups as to the ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... is to be carried for two miles. The disciple is to meet evil with a manifestation, not of anger, hatred, or intent to inflict retribution, but of readiness to submit to more. It is a hard lesson, but clearly here, as always, the chief stress is to be laid, not on the outward action, but on the disposition, and on the action mainly as the outcome and exhibition of that. If the cheek is turned, or the cloak yielded, or the second mile trudged with a lowering brow, and hate or anger boiling in the heart, the commandment is broken. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... garden, and he himself was not inclined to introduce the subject. His grandmamma did not speak to him, for she was anxious if possible to make him ashamed of his conduct. Discerning as she was, she was little aware of the obstinacy of his disposition, and that all he cared for, was to ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... virtuous affections—candour, veracity, fortitude, sense of honour. (3) The kind affections themselves, and the more as they are fixed rather than passionate, and extensive rather than narrow; highest of all in the form of universal good-will to all. (4) The disposition to desire and love moral excellence, whether observed in ourselves or others—in short, true piety towards God. He goes on to give a similar scale of moral turpitude. Again, putting aside the indifferent qualities, and also those that merely make people despicable and ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... United States have reserved the liberty of treating with every nation whatever upon the same footing of equality and reciprocity. In making this communication to the court of London, the king is firmly persuaded it will find new proofs of his majesty's constant and sincere disposition for peace; and that his Britannic majesty, animated by the same friendly sentiments, will equally avoid every thing that may alter their good harmony, and that he will particularly take effectual pleasures to prevent his French majesty's subjects and the United States ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of Cornhill, and was for many years brought up under his roof as his nephew; in which situation, the elegance of his person, the vivacity of his disposition, and the general information he acquired, became subjects of attraction. His education was respectable for his situation, and his allowance liberal. His father however marrying a young lady of some property, and he, 'gay, light, and airy,' ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... favourite word, one significant lesson—so it seems—was learnt, which has outlived controversy, and has remained longer than the questions at issue—an interesting and unnoticed thing cast up by the storm of thoughts. This is a disposition, a general consent, to find the use and the value of process, and even to understand a kind of repose in the very wayfaring of progress. With this is a resignation to change, and something more than resignation—a delight ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... foreboding on your part, the result of an agitated mind and a weakened body. Can anything be more absurd than to suppose, that a secret confided to me can be pregnant with danger, unless it be, indeed, that my zeal to assist you may lead me into difficulties. I am not of a prying disposition; but we have been so long connected together, and are now so isolated from the rest of the world, that it appears to me it would be a solace to you, were you to confide in one whom you can trust, what evidently has long ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... replied Mr. Bounderby, 'it suits my disposition to have a full understanding with a man, particularly with a public man, when I make his acquaintance. I have only one thing more to say to you, Mr. Harthouse, before assuring you of the pleasure with which I shall respond, to the utmost ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... same judge, and the same clerk. The latter now stared at Jurgis, as if he half thought that he knew him; but the judge had no suspicions—just then his thoughts were upon a telephone message he was expecting from a friend of the police captain of the district, telling what disposition he should make of the case of "Polly" Simpson, as the "madame" of the house was known. Meantime, he listened to the story of how Jurgis had been looking for his sister, and advised him dryly to keep his sister in a better place; ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... falls on a new man. The cynical observer may point to this as showing that the laws governing elections, under such circumstances, are the same, whether in party caucuses or in church councils; but Paul, in this case, saw the direct intervention of the Almighty, and his disposition to magnify his office was vastly increased thereby. He was especially strenuous, and one of his earliest public acts was to send to the gallows a poor author, who, in an unpublished work, had spoken severely regarding one of ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... came from New Orleans a wealthy invalid, with his only daughter Matilda. She was a proud haughty girl, whose disposition, naturally unamiable, was rendered still worse by a disappointment from which she was suffering. Accidentally Mr. Richards, her father, made the acquaintance of John Nichols, conceiving for him a violent fancy, and finally securing him as a constant companion. For several weeks John appeared ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... or no, was gradually made distinct and deep in my mind, that I was living and working in the midst of a den of monkeys;—sometimes amiable and affectionate monkeys, with all manner of winning ways and kind intentions,—more frequently selfish and malicious monkeys; but, whatever their disposition, squabbling continually about nuts, and the best places on the barren sticks of trees; and that all this monkeys' den was filled, by mischance, with precious pictures, and the witty and wilful beasts ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... hue that lights her oval cheeks Recalls the pink that tints a cherry; Upon her chin a dimple speaks, A disposition blithe and merry. Her laughter ripples like a brook; Its sound a heart of stone would soften. Though sweetness shines in every look, Her laugh is never loud, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... not with any disposition towards cold or conscious criticism, but in order that she might better understand the conditions of her own life. She also had a wakening curiosity to know just what her mother was to her father and he to her. The hope was forming that she ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... shade and to pick the red flowers with the thin green leaves which were growing beneath it. She laid them side by side, flower to flower and stalk to stalk, caressing them for walking alone. Flowers and even pebbles in the earth had their own life and disposition, and brought back the feelings of a child to whom they were companions. Looking up, her eye was caught by the line of the mountains flying out energetically across the sky like the lash of a curling whip. ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... as she had been for a long time on the possibilities hinted at, the thought of unfavourable disposition by will had never occurred to her. She shook ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... subalterns well knew that he was never to be contradicted, yet they had often earned thanks by delaying the execution of his orders. The interpreter, whose presence of mind never forsook him, contrived to excite this disposition in them very strongly. The tumult, moreover, was so great, that a delay brought with it its own concealment and excuse. He had called out my mother, and put the adjutant, as it were, into her hands, that, by prayers and representations, she might gain ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... fine, handsome young man of about thirty. He was well made, evidently of a very amorous disposition. The moment they entered the chamber she ran up to her lover and throwing herself in his arms, imprinted some hot kisses on his lips. I could even see her velvet organ of speech enter his mouth in search of his, and they remained for a moment glued ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... the church, which were the dilapidated remains of an ancient palace of the Bishops of Winchester. The walls were of great thickness and composed of flints and mortar, but it was impossible to trace the disposition of the apartments or the form of the edifice." Bishop Sutton had belonged to the church of Winchester since King Ine's day, but in the early part of the eleventh century it was held by Harold, and after the Conquest by ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... also a lot of those weird, semi-transparent, yellow, spotted little sandfish with cup- shaped pectoral fins, which I see they use to enable them to make their astoundingly long leaps. These fish are of a more nervous and distrustful disposition, and hover round my hand but will not come into it. Indeed I do not believe the other cheeky little fellows would allow ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... had in Madame Marve a perfect wife for a showman. In addition to her value as the Egyptian Mystic, a wonder-worker, and teller of for tunes, she was chief cook and housekeeper for the whole caravan, but she had a flirtatious disposition, and the attentions Nicholas Crips offered in his unprofessional moments were received in a spirit of frivolous appreciation that disturbed the boss showman's ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... her to understand that, thanks to his master's angelic disposition and his own worthiness, he ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... broad verandah, affording shelter from the hot rays of the sun. Mistress Audley, as might be expected, invited Cicely to reside at the cottage, while Captain Layton and Roger were engaged in building a house near at hand; they, in the mean time, living on board the ship. The unfriendly disposition of the natives compelled the settlers thus to concentrate themselves in a town, instead of forming farms scattered over the country some distance from each other, by which means corn and other ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... warfare occurred in a certain well-known town; one of the high officials of which—whom I knew well—a most courteous gentleman—proved to be in close touch with the enemy. He, too, was shot. Daily there are men, and sometimes women, who risk their lives in securing items of information as to the disposition of troops, guns, etc., which are likely to prove of value to the enemy. Notwithstanding the strictest orders, I am afraid our men are not always wise in their intercourse with strangers. On one occasion, ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... that James was not slain in the battle of Flodden, because the English never had this token of the iron-belt to show to any Scottishman. The person and character of James are delineated according to our best historians. His romantic disposition, which led him highly to relish gaiety, approaching to license, was, at the same time, tinged with enthusiastic devotion. These propensities sometimes formed a strange contrast. He was wont, during ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... of the scene which ensued, Nahemah, still under the worst influences of her hybrid disposition, openly visited Mr. Addison and recovered the image of Bast! This she did in circumstances which hopelessly compromised both of us, since they revealed in a hitherto faultless plan the presence of an unsuspected party ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... custom of the officer of the day to make the rounds of the camp to make sure that all lights were out and everything quiet in the company quarters. Sometimes this officer, if he manifested a disposition to be officious in the discharge of his duties, came to grief. There was one who, when detailed as officer of the day, generally had about all the business he cared to attend to, in the vicinity of Company F quarters, after taps. A candle would be ...
— History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R.I. Volunteers, during the Spring and Summer of 1861 • Charles H. Clarke
... working for white men is so universal, and has been so consistently maintained for three hundred years, as to present a queer contradiction to those divine marks which set him apart for that condition. The Cardinal attributed, in fact, to intercourse with the spirit of his countrymen that disposition of the negro which seems to be derived from intercourse with the spirit ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... Duchesse de Maufrigneause. Rastignac was alone in his ignorance of the frantic efforts made by women who lived in the Chausee-d'Antin to enter this seventh heaven and shine among the brightest constellations of their sex. But his cautious disposition stood him in good stead, and kept his judgment cool, and the not altogether enviable power of ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... aimed at the purification of the secular clergy. And we have seen that the evil to be remedied had arisen from the imminent danger that the Church would be laicised and feudalised. From the highest to the lowest all ecclesiastical posts were at the disposition of laymen who treated them as a species of feudal fief, so that the holders, even if they were in Holy Orders (which was not always the case), regarded their temporal rights and obligations as the first consideration ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... government! The government is a gentleman who is, like your obedient servant when he was in its employ, a worthy man with a frayed overcoat, who reads the newspapers at a desk. Let his salary be twelve hundred or twelve thousand francs, his disposition is the same, it is not a whit softer. Talk of reductions and releases from the public treasury represented by the said gentleman! He'll only pooh-pooh you as he mends his pen. No, the law is the wrong road for you, Monsieur ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... a sad occurrence in the family. Mr Isaac Cohen, the brother of Lady Montefiore, a man highly esteemed for his excellent character and benevolent disposition, died suddenly. Though this was a cause of much grief to both Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, they did not consider themselves in any way justified in delaying the necessary preparations for their ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... sorts, and they took it mighty respectfully, and a fine company of gentlemen they are; but above all I was glad to see my Lord Hinchingbroke drink no wine at all. I home by coach, but met not one bonfire through the whole town in going round by the wall, which is strange, and speaks the melancholy disposition of the City at present, while never more was said of, and feared of, and done against the Papists, than just ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... have had intimations of this feeling through the accounts of the hostility that has been shown to our countryman, Mr. Winans, whose deer-forest is said to cover two hundred square miles. While evictions are much less common than they were two or three generations ago, there has all along been a disposition on the part of the proprietors to enclose in their sheep-farms and deer-forests lands that were formerly tilled or used as commons by the crofters and cottars. In comparison with the crofter of to-day the sub-tenant of a hundred years ago had, as a rule, more land for tillage, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... your quiet, correct husband, was as great a torment to you as you were to him. Without intending it, you made his life a misery. The dreadful scenes which were brought about by your violent and sensual temperament so changed his disposition that he became brutal; while to you they became a kind of second nature, a necessity, ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... ebullition of feeling; but if it should now be, that this had grown into a manly and disinterested love, how could Mary remain unmoved? What could her heart want more, better, more beautiful, more rich than such a love as his? Was he not personally all that a girl could like? Were not his disposition, mind, character, acquirements, all such as women most delight to love? Was it not impossible that Mary should be ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... beautiful city of Damascus was at the height of its splendour and magnificence, dwelt therein a young noble, named Demetrius, whose decayed fortunes did not correspond with the general prosperity of the times. He was a youth of ardent disposition, and very handsome in person: pride kept him from bettering his estate by the profession of merchandise, yet more keenly did he feel the obscurity to which adverse fates had reduced him, that in his lot was involved the fortune ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... Courcy, that Edgar was now riding. Albert and he had been special friends. They were about the same age, but of very different dispositions. The difference between their characters was perhaps the chief attraction that had drawn them to each other. Albert was gentle in disposition, his health was not good, and he had been a weakly child. His father, who was a stout knight, regarded him with slight favour, and had acceded willingly to his desire to enter the Church, feeling that he would never ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... Fountain's reconciliation with the Church of her fathers, she had shown sometimes an anxious disposition to practise the usual austerities of good Catholics. But neither doctor nor director had been able to indulge her in this respect, owing to the feebleness of her health. And on the whole she ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... rectitude benignity was the crown. Sternly exposing what he thought mean or unworthy in any proceeding or adversary, his severity was in his argument and rhetoric rather than in the feeling of his soul. Without a sweet disposition no man could have had such a smile. Without some grandeur of design no man ever displayed such a countenance and port, handsome and sublime. In his intentness and earnestness, he did not suspect the liability of his expressions to the charge of a vindictiveness he was unconscious ...
— Senatorial Character - A Sermon in West Church, Boston, Sunday, 15th of March, - After the Decease of Charles Sumner. • C. A. Bartol
... of gaining instruction and success in the disposition of his alleged medicines, the Mid[-e] familiarizes himself with the topography and characteristics of the country extending over a wide area, to ascertain the best feeding grounds of the various animals and their haunts at various seasons. He keeps himself informed by also skillfully conducting ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... bilander. All were laden as heavily as speed and safety would allow, and all were thoroughly well manned. They laid their course for the Dogger Bank, where they would receive the latest news of the disposition of the enemy. Robin Lyth, high admiral of smugglers, kept to his favorite schooner, the Glimpse, which had often shown a fading wake to fastest cutters. His squadron was made up by the ketch, Good Hope, and the old Dutch coaster, Crown of Gold. This vessel, though built ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... neglect of such a principle of combination, that the several nations of the country, who might have prevailed by confederated strength, fell one after another under the imperial yoke. Yet, once in the field the Inca did not usually show any disposition to push his advantages to the utmost, and urge his foe to extremity. In every stage of the war, he was open to propositions for peace; and although he sought to reduce his enemies by carrying off their harvests and ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... with a low laugh that gave evidence of the sunniest disposition in the world—"Oh! that is not a pretty speech, monsieur! But there! you cannot, of course, know my powers of entertainment. Positively there need be no hurry. On my honour, as the true friend of a gentleman who looked very ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... the joy of their Lord above. A feeling of sadness and yet of thankfulness comes over me, as I see before my mind's eye brethren of our own Mission with whom I was associated—Buyers, with his intimate acquaintance with the native languages, his large knowledge, and his kindly disposition; Shurman, the keen, impetuous, plodding German scholar, whose great monument is his translation of the Old Testament into Hindustanee; Mather, first of Benares and afterwards of Mirzapore, one of the most enterprising and devoted missionaries ever sent to India, ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... approaching the prisoner and his brother, who both remained in the detention room, "a lad hath arrived bearing a parcel for John Law, Esquire. 'Tis not within possibility that you have these goods, but we would know what disposition we shall ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... Berger, a refugee from Schleswig Holstein, to escape Prussian rule, commenced business as a chemist. He was clever in his profession, unassuming in character, and behind his retiring disposition was a fund of kindness and simplicity which endeared him to all. He died, much regretted, a few years back at ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... attention is given to this important piece of work. There is too frequently a disposition on the part of the person setting trees of any kind to do the work as rapidly as possible without consideration for the future welfare of the trees. Few realize that time spent in careful, intelligent preparation of the soil and in setting the trees is time well spent, and well paid for in the ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume
... my last number, it will readily be inferred that sleep was out of the question. The only alternative was to sit or lie down and meditate upon the next change which might befal us. There was but little disposition for merriment at such a time and place; yet there was one man, named John Young, but called by his companions 'Old John Young,' who in despite of empty stomach and aching limbs, amused himself and annoyed all others by singing a line of one and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... and floppy he seemed as if he had hardly a bone in his body. We used to pick him up and drop him gently in the grass to watch him go out flat like a tortoise. He belonged to Lean, and grew up a rather irresponsible creature with long legs and a lovable disposition. He adored coming down to the ambulance trains or sitting importantly on a car, jeering and barking at his low French friends in the road, on the "I'm the king of the castle" principle. Another of ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... this most extraordinary character, who, in most other points, commanded respect: he was a kind man and a good officer; but from the idiosyncrasy of his disposition, whether from habit or from nature, could not speak the truth. I say from nature, because I have witnessed the vice of stealing equally strong, and never to be eradicated. It was in a young messmate ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... to go with them, but lingered a moment behind to remark to Mr Snow on the exceeding loveliness of Miss Elliott's disposition and character, her great superiority to young ladies in general, and especially on the devotion so apparent in all her intercourse ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... I received her reply, every word of which spelt despair. Nature had given her a disposition which had become so intensified by indulgence that the cloister was unbearable to her, and I foresaw the hard fights I ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... intertwisted too closely. But life, without any intemperance at all, would soon have untwisted them. Charles Lamb, for instance, at forty-five, and Coleridge at sixty, measured their several conditions by such tests as the loss of all disposition to involuntary murmuring of musical airs or fragments when rising from bed. Once they had sung when rising in the morning light; now they sang no more. The vocal utterance of joy, for them, was silenced for ever. But these are amongst the changes that life, stern ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... son of Vulcan had fixed his worship on the Fair Maid of Perth, a certain natural wildness of disposition had placed him under the influence of Venus, as well as that of Mars; and it was only the effect of a sincere attachment which had withdrawn him entirely from such licentious pleasures. He was therefore ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... young guest about the Curate's daughter, who had all unconsciously wielded such an influence over the events of his past life. He told of the girl's kindness to him when he had broken his collarbone; of her assistance so freely offered to his mother; of her jolly, lively spirits, her amiable disposition and general gay good-fellowship; and then of the unlucky kiss that had aroused the suspicion and august displeasure of Lady Henrietta, and had sent her erring son a wanderer over the face ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... Seed.—"This should be done from plants raised from early sowings. The finest specimens should be selected; avoiding, however, those that show a disposition to run quickly to seed. Those that heart readily, and yet are slow to run up, are to be preferred. Care should be taken that no two different varieties be allowed to seed near each other, in order that the sorts may be kept true. The seed which ripens first ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... condition on which peace is maintained is the subsistence of certain tribes at the expense of the government, without reference to their ability or disposition to work. Every five or seven days, twenty thousand Sioux, big and little, assemble around the agencies for the distribution of food. Soldiers' rations are dealt out: flour by the hundred sacks is delivered to them; beeves by the score are turned loose to be shot down ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... salvation. That a nation has not called for our aid, but is resolutely determined to keep us at a distance, is a strong argument for being deeply interested in their behalf. Their very blindness and maniac disposition should call forth the deep commiseration of our souls. Such was the spirit of Christ. Such is the true spirit of missions. It is but a small measure of compassion to aid those who supplicate our assistance. The very blindness, ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... peace, all military officers of the militia, to be vigilant, each within his respective department and according to his functions, in searching out and bringing to condign punishment all persons engaged or concerned in such enterprise, and in seizing and detaining, subject to the disposition of the law, all vessels, arms, military stores, or other means provided or providing for the same, and in general preventing the carrying on such expedition or enterprise by all the lawful means within their power. And I require all good and faithful citizens and others ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... which way you will, the same object still seems to continue, and the imagination has no rest. But the parts must be uniform, as well as circularly disposed, to give this figure its full force; because any difference, whether it be in the disposition, or in the figure, or even in the color of the parts, is highly prejudicial to the idea of infinity, which every change must check and interrupt, at every alteration commencing a new series. On the same principles of succession and uniformity, the grand appearance of the ancient heathen temples, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... treaty of peace between the United States and Spain by their respective plenipotentiaries at Paris, on the 10th instant, and as the result of the victories of American arms, the future control, disposition, and government of the Philippine Islands are ceded to the United States. In fulfillment of the rights of sovereignty thus acquired and the responsible obligations of government thus assumed, the actual occupation and administration of the entire group of ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • William McKinley
... met Colonel Lightburn, to whom I turned over the command of the district, and spent the time, whilst the troops were on the march, in completing the arrangements both for our transportation and for the best disposition of the troops which were to remain. The movement of the division was the first in which there had been a carefully prepared effort to move a considerable body of troops with wagons and animals over a long distance within a definitely fixed ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... unflinching determination commanded the attacking ship, would most probably spare the necessity of firing a shot. Lives are commonly sacrificed only when a mistaken humanity shrinks from duty till the proper time for action has gone by. The disposition of the crews was not generally bad, but they were misled by example, and encouraged by impunity. When the Greyhound mutinied, and Captain Israel Pellew demanded if he had ever given them cause for dissatisfaction, if he had not always been their friend, they admitted that they had ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... the annual income named. You repeat Windbag's statement to an eminent artist. The artist knows the picture. He looks at you fixedly, and for all comment on Windbag's story says, (he is a Scotchman,) "HOOT TOOT!" But the disposition to vapor is deep-set in human nature. There are not very many men or women whom I would trust to give an accurate account of their family, dwelling, influence, and general position, to people a thousand miles from home, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... is meant such a Situation of all the Parts of the Body as enables them to give their mutual Assistance to defend or attack. A Guard cannot be perfect without a good and graceful Disposition, proceeding from a natural Proportion of the Parts of the Body, and an easy and vigorous Motion, which is to be acquired by Practice, and the Instruction ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... un belligerant ne peut faire usage d'un port Francais, ou appartenant a un Etat protege, dans un but de guerre, &c. (2) La duree du sejour dans nos ports de belligerants, non accompagnes d'une prise, n'a ete limitee par aucune disposition speciale; mais pour etre autorises a y sejourner, ils sont tenus de se conformer aux conditions ordinaires de la neutralite, qui peuvent se resumer ainsi qu'il suit:—(a) ... (b) Les dits navires ne peuvent, a l'aide ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... As we drew to the end of our construction work, I really believe we experienced a slight, a very slight, feeling of regret that this fine flavour of anticipation was so nearly at an end. However, I noticed that though we completed the house at three of the afternoon, we none of us showed any disposition to wait for the morrow. We promptly lugged one of Yank's log cradles to the border of the stream and put ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... throne in the year 1509, in his eighteenth year, without opposition, and amid the universal joy of the nation; for his manners were easy and frank, his disposition was cheerful, and his person was handsome. He had made respectable literary attainments, and he gave promise of considerable abilities. He was married, soon after his accession, to Catharine, daughter of the King of Spain, and the first years of his reign ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... the great chagrin of the doctor, who regretted the loss of this occasion to prove, by figures, the vanity of homeopathic practice. Dr. Griffon would have been stupefied if any one had said to him, in reference to this free and autocratic disposition ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... puzzled him. The enemy, after forcing his flank, had shown no disposition, even with their overwhelming force, to turn aside and crush him. He could easily have fallen back, when it was possible to hold the ridge no longer, without pursuit. His other flank and rear were not threatened, as they might have been, by the ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... press of canvas. The very mud in the road, where the ice had melted, was crystallized with deep rectilinear fissures, and the crystalline masses in the sides of the ruts resembled exactly asbestos in the disposition of their needles. Around the roots of the stubble and flower-stalks, the frost was gathered into the form of irregular conical shells, or fairy rings. In some places the ice-crystals were lying upon granite rocks, directly over crystals of quartz, the frost-work ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... Both these qualities—his disposition to revise his opinions in the light of new arguments and changing conditions, and the reticence he maintained till the process of revision had been completed—exposed him to misconstruction. Commonplace ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... The Decemuiri perceiuing, that contrarie to their expectation, no likelihode was of any persecution, to be done vpon them, condescended to those demaundes. Appius being a man of nature cruell and malicious, measuring the malice of others, by his owne maligne disposition, spake these woordes: "I am not ignoraunte what fortune is nowe imminente: for I do plainely see that whiles weapons be deliuered to our aduersaries, the combate is deferred against vs: with bloude, enuie muste be rewarded. I will not any longer delaie the time, but depriue ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... good to me, Jem," said his wife. She walked all round the cage admiring it, the parrot, which was of a highly suspicious and nervous disposition, having had boys at its last place, turning with her. After she had walked round him five times he got sick of it, and in a ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... equally pious with themselves, and turned the governor and his wife into the snow-covered streets." Another measure of iniquity laid to their charge was their "cruelty to Mr. Foster," the master of the charity school held in the old Market Cross, "a man of amiable disposition, and a teacher of considerable merit." These aggressive wardens grazed the churchyard for profit, looked coldly upon a proposal to put up Tables of Benefactions in the church, and altogether acted in a manner ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... magnates, and who was then already said to be the most generous of philanthropists and the kindest of friends; this reputation he fully sustained in the subsequent years of his life and in the generous disposition of his vast wealth. I have often been told that Mr. Cecil Rhodes owed the inspiration of some of his colossal ideas to his friend Mr. Beit, and when it came to financing the same, the latter was always ready to assist in carrying out projects ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... himself to a third scotch whisky, and sallied out into the rain. A brilliantly lighted music hall upon the opposite side of the road attracted his attention. The novelty of freedom having worn off, he felt no disposition to spend the remainder of the evening in the street, for the rain was now falling heavily, but determined to sample the remainder of the program offered by the "first house," and presently was reclining in a plush-covered, tip-up seat in the back ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer |
