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Imaginary   Listen
adjective
Imaginary  adj.  Existing only in imagination or fancy; not real; fancied; visionary; ideal. "Wilt thou add to all the griefs I suffer Imaginary ills and fancied tortures?"
Imaginary calculus See under Calculus.
Imaginary expression or Imaginary quantity (Alg.), an algebraic expression which involves the impossible operation of taking the square root of a negative quantity; as, sqrt(-9), a + b*sqrt(-1).
Imaginary points, Imaginary lines, Imaginary surfaces, etc. (Geom.), points, lines, surfaces, etc., imagined to exist, although by reason of certain changes of a figure they have in fact ceased to have a real existence.
Synonyms: Ideal; fanciful; chimerical; visionary; fancied; unreal; illusive.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Imaginary" Quotes from Famous Books



... the frontier, which is here an imaginary line. Two slovenly customs-house men asked me if I had anything dutiable on me. I said No, and it was evident enough, for in my little sack or pocket was nothing but a piece of bread. If they had applied the ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... soon as they had been a little deepened, came to have flat bases; and these flat bases, formed by thin little plates of the vermilion wax left ungnawed, were situated, as far as the eye could judge, exactly along the planes of imaginary intersection between the basins on the opposite side of the ridge of wax. In some parts, only small portions, in other parts, large portions of a rhombic plate were thus left between the opposed basins, ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... exhausted nearly all the transformations which ancient history afforded him, proceeds to enlist in the number some of the real phenomena of nature, together with some imaginary ones. As Pythagoras was considered to have pursued metaphysical studies more deeply, perhaps, than any other of the ancient philosophers, Ovid could not have introduced a personage more fitted to discuss these subjects. Having travelled through Asia, it is supposed that Pythagoras passed ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... the Regulations for 1876 show that this danger is by no means imaginary, for by the constant practice of the so-called 'Three-Line Tactics' we had already progressed far on the downward path which leads to tactical destruction. If the 'Form' would not fit the conditions, so much the worse ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi

... the actual outward construction of a brick altar there may optionally be substituted the merely mental construction of an imaginary altar.] ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... Parkhurst's explanation of the Scripture text is not sufficient. He acknowledges only a part of the truth. The candle is giving already a dim and lurid light. Man is blindly worshiping, groping in the dark, bowing to imaginary deities, the products of his own imagination, the work of ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong

... war, bearing large round shields of basket-work, and long ill-made swords. On the shields of the last are painted monstrous faces of some imaginary animal, intended to frighten the enemy, or, like another ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... her ground. "Her 'guides' say she will be taken care of, and as for the disgrace, that is all imaginary. It is an honor—" ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... to do with a romance or with imaginary personages. We have married Gilberte to a young man in the ordinary conditions ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... resources, etc., etc.). Canada's future was unclouded by the political complications and entanglements of the older countries in Europe. For one hundred years they had been at peace with the Republic south of that imaginary line which delimited the boundaries, but which did not divide the hearts of these two peoples (great applause). For his part, while he rejoiced in the greatness of the British Empire he believed that Canada's first duty was to herself, to the developing here ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... the policy of the Empire must, however, be attributed not to any imaginary shortcomings of the English authorities; it was an inevitable result of the abandonment of the policy of Free Trade, and of the active support which the Government was now giving to all forms of commercial enterprise. It was shewn, first of all, in the grant of subsidies to ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... colonization begun. Every year saw one or more caravels sent from Lagos southward to follow the coast of the main-land; but they skirted no shores that were not desert, and turned back baffled by their own fears. Cape Boyador long remained a barrier whose imaginary dangers of reef and shoal served as an excuse for the still more unreal horrors of ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... produced, and a line was quietly provided from some of the small cordage that still remained about the masts. A piece of leather, torn from a spar, answered for the bait; and the lure was thrown. Extreme hunger seemed to engross the voracious animals, who darted at the imaginary prey with the rapidity of lightning. The shock was so sudden and violent, that the hapless mariner was drawn from his slippery and precarious footing, into the sea. The whole passed with a frightful and alarming rapidity. A common cry of horror ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... perceive to be opposed to the oligarchy; and, in our opinion, if one of ourselves should elect to undermine this constitution of ours, he would deserve punishment. Do you not agree? And the case," he continued, "is no imaginary one. The offender is here present—Theramenes. And what we say of him is, that he is bent upon destroying yourselves and us by every means in his power. These are not baseless charges; but if you will consider it, you will find them amply established in this unmeasured censure of ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... write. I always did think she was a fine girl, though I disagreed with her on Prohibition." Claude crossed the fields mechanically, without looking where he went. His power of vision was turned inward upon scenes and events wholly imaginary ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... was "on Lexden Heath near Colchester," from May till October of this 1741, [Manifold but insignificant details about it, in the old Newspapers of those Months.]—Camp waiting always to be shipped across to the scene of action, but never was:—this actual Camp, and several imaginary ones here, which were alarming to the Continental Gazetteer. In England his Majesty is busy that way; still more among his Hanoverians, now under his own royal eye; and among his Danes and Hessians, whom he has now brought ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Men are imaginary invalids, whose weakness empirics are interested to encourage, in order to have sale for their drugs. They listen rather to the physician, who prescribes a variety of remedies, than to him, who recommends good regimen, ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... Wendover, Roger of; his Flores Historiarum. Westminster; Abbey; the Provisions of; the first statute of; second statute of; third statute of; Hall; St. Stephen's Chapel. Westminster, Abbot of. See also Lansham, Simon. Westminster, Matthew of, imaginary chronicler. Westmoreland. Weyland, Sir Thomas, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Weymouth. Whalley Abbey. Wharton's Anglia Sacra. Whitecastle. White Friars, the. Whittaker, W.J., his edition of Le Mirroir des Justices. Whittingtons, the. Whittlesea, William, Archbishop of Canterbury. ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... love between himself and the imaginary being whose spirit haunts him as having been the deadliest sin, and one that has, perhaps, ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... crack-brained enthusiast, sane and even shrewd enough in many things, but quite crazy upon certain points. Convinced, to begin with, that it was the duty of every Irishman to hate the English, he had imaginary private wrongs of his own to avenge. On the top of all that, he had become a thorough Mohammedan in his sympathetic feelings and habits, and quite sincere in his adoption of the cause of the Mahdi. The appearance of England in the field, which would have ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... with heads uncovered.[C] It debates these suggestions with forms and in a phraseology which imply that it is only considering what counsel to give the king. It enacts nothing—it only recommends; and it holds its existence solely at the discretion of the great imaginary power which called it into being. These forms may, very probably, soon be changed for others more true to the facts; and the principle of election may be changed, so as to make the body represent more fully the general population of the empire; ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... let us take notice that the seventeenth century is, par excellence, the century distinguished for narratives of imaginary travels. It was then that astronomy opened up its world of marvels. The knowledge of observers was vastly increased, and from that time it became possible to distinguish the surface of the moon and of other celestial bodies. ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion

... the spiritual with the practical, the imaginary with the real. The maxims that have been followed in the earlier and the later period produced their inevitable result. In the former that maxim was, "Ignorance is the mother of Devotion in the latter, ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... been a clear case of economy to buy him off with a little loose silver, so that his lamentable figure should not limp at the heels of your conscience all over the world. To own the truth, I provided myself with several such imaginary persecutors in England, and recruited their number with at least one sickly-looking wretch whose acquaintance I first made at Assisi, in Italy, and, taking a dislike to something sinister in his aspect, permitted him to beg early and late, and all day long, without getting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... infantry went forth to get themselves into hard condition by strenuous route marches. Dotted about the camp were little groups of specialists and others practising their several trades. Here was a bombing-school urgently killing imaginary Turks; there a squad of bayonet-fighters engaged in the same pleasurable pursuit; while farther away an eager band of signallers with their handy little cable-waggons laid a wire at ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... an exhibition which would compare favorably with the best, even with Mistress Ann Putnam's and Abigail William's. His face became shockingly contorted, and he writhed and twisted and turned convulsively. He tore imaginary spectral hands from around his neck. He pushed imaginary weights from off his breast. He cried, "Take them away! Pray, take them away!" until the whole company were very much affected; and even ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... flowery fustian speech is put into his mouth, which he delivers with prodigious pomp and importance, and is listened to by the philosophers with infinite complacency. The two scenes of the Quakers and philosophers, who, with countenances full of imaginary importance, were seated at a green table with their president at their head while the secretary, with the utmost care, was making an inventory of the ridiculous presents of the Nabob, were truly laughable. ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz

... father in God, Friar John, belongs to a higher class in the moral order of being; and he much rather than his fellow-voyager and penitent is properly comparable with Falstaff. It is impossible to connect the notion of rebuke with the sins of Panurge. The actual lust and gluttony, the imaginary cowardice of Falstaff, have been gravely and sharply rebuked by critical morality; we have just noted a too recent and too eminent example of this; but what mortal ever dreamed of casting these qualities ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... another moment," answered the vibrating voice of the knight, "and you will find yourself addressed with a volley of arquebuse-shot. Ola, there!" he commanded, turning and addressing an imaginary body of men on the lower ramparts of the garden, to his left. "Arquebusiers to the postern! Blow your matches! Make ready! Now, my Lord Duke, will you draw off, or must ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... demolished, and being without a protection? Did they suppose she wouldn't suffer in giving up her love? Of course she would suffer! The very extremity of her suffering would prove the extremity of her need. Passionately Rosie defended herself against her imaginary accusers, because ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... a gateway ahead of them and threatened the car furiously. They both applied imaginary brakes to the car with feet and hands and taut nerves. The puppy escaping death by an inch, trotted back to his saved home with an air that comes from duty well performed. They looked from the ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... that you can prove nothing of the kind. Dearest, it is fixed between us now, and do not let us be so silly as to raise imaginary difficulties. Of course you would have to marry me, even if there were cause for such fears. If there were any great cause, still the game would be worth the candle. There could be no going back, let the fear be what it might. But there need be no fear if you will ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... falsely imagined in a rope) dies, nor is the water appearing in a mirage used for drinking or bathing[282].—This objection, we reply, is without force (because as a matter of fact we do see real effects to result from unreal causes), for we observe that death sometimes takes place from imaginary venom, (when a man imagines himself to have been bitten by a venomous snake,) and effects (of what is perceived in a dream) such as the bite of a snake or bathing in a river take place with regard to a dreaming person.—But, it will be said, these effects ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut

... 8 follows No. 1, and No. 5 follows No. 3 round the track of an imaginary figure 8, or double circle, for that is the shape of the completed ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp

... sisters, and could no more conceal their artless delight than so many children. They laughed and giggled nervously. They gesticulated as they talked, and shrugged their pretty shoulders with a grace taught them by our Spanish predecessors. They patted imaginary stray hairs into place in their sleek black coiffures, and settled camisa or panuela with indescribably quick and bird-like movements. Those of them who could speak Spanish talked clothes and babies and servants, or smiled politely at our mistakes in the language, ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... 211. 'Economic,' interpretation of, 3, 6 et seq. 'Economic Man,' imaginary figure conceived by classical economists, 8. Economic Review, The, 44. Economics, causes of lack of interest in, 14. Elvira, the Council of, decree against usury, 169. Emperor, the, temporal vicar of God, 11. Encyclopaedia Britannica, ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien

... been reciprocated. We entertain none but kind feelings toward you: we all regretted your hasty departure. You were received as a friend, and treated as such, I believe. My wife and sister often speak of you: you could command their fullest sympathy in this, or any trouble, real or imaginary." ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... times a bandit engaged in feats of plunder. All possible scenes in history or imagination that she understood did the child try to enact in the wilderness. But she went there now with no intention of posing in any imaginary part. She went there ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... that surrounded us, doubled by reflection in the water, presented a broad, unbroken belt of utter blackness. The effect was quite startling, like some huge conjurer's trick. It seemed as if we had crossed the boundary-line between the real and the imaginary, and this was indeed the land of shadows and of spectres. What magic oar was that the guide wielded that it could transport me to such a realm! Indeed, had I not committed some fatal mistake, and left that trusty servant behind, and had not some wizard of the night stepped into his place? A slight ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... some rascally comrade had sneaked it. At first he made excuses; he invented all sorts of lies—ten francs for a subscription, twenty francs fallen through a hole which he showed in his pocket, fifty francs disbursed in paying off imaginary debts. After a little, he no longer troubled himself to give any explanations. The money evaporated, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... knows, is an imaginary line or circle girdling the Earth half-way between the North and South poles. If you imagine a transparent Earth with a light at its very centre, and also imagine the SHADOW of this equatorial line to be thrown on the vast concave of the Sky, this shadow would in astronomical parlance ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... looking at those objects as his own heroes; their gleaming aspect brightens all he says, and has taken hold, one might think, of his language, his very vocabulary becoming chryselephantine. Homer's artistic descriptions, though enlarged by fancy, are not wholly imaginary, and the extant remains of monuments of the earliest historical age are like lingering relics of that dream in ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... a description of the Monastery of Kathara, and several adjacent places. The eighth, among other curiosities, fixes on an imaginary site for the Farm of Laertes: but this is the agony of conjecture indeed!—and the ninth chapter mentions another Monastery, and a rock still called the School of Homer. Some sepulchral inscriptions ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... in their imaginary fury, and, as the dust of conflict cleared away, recognized little Johnny Peters gazing at them with ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... that the gods have attained the nature of Brahman. Death doth not devour creatures like a tiger; its form itself is unascertainable. Besides this, some imagine Yama to be Death. This, however, is due to the weakness of the mind. The pursuit of Brahman or self-knowledge is immortality. That (imaginary) god (Yama) holdeth his sway in the region of the Pitris, being the source of bliss to the virtuous and of woe to the sinful. It is at his command that death in the form of wrath, ignorance, and covetousness, occurreth ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... a man—and he is not an imaginary case—who is married, and has young people growing up in the home. He is wealthy, with a reputable position in society. But there is a sinister something in the background of his life, and he sets himself to do what he knows full well is an irreparable ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd

... of the human heart, they are unsubstantial as dreams and afford no foundation on which to build our faith. Heathen religions are generally woven of this legendary stuff. The Greek and Roman divinities were all mythical. But the scientific spirit has swept these imaginary deities out of our sky and rendered belief in them impossible. Our religion must be rooted in reality and cannot live in clouds, however beautifully they may be colored. We refuse hospitality to anything but fact. Give us names and dates, is ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden

... resemblance. In this system of life the starting point is man, the most finished, yet the lowest organism; at least, the lowest because most dependent and least mysterious. In just so far as an organism, actual or imaginary, resembles his, is it believed to be related to him and correspondingly mortal; in just so far as it is mysterious, is it considered removed from him, further advanced, powerful, and immortal. It thus happens that the animals, because alike mortal and endowed with ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing

... another Divisional Scheme took place on the hills south-east of the camp, the object being to intercept and defeat an imaginary enemy (represented in skeleton), advancing from Tel el Jemmi. This ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown

... a drawing board or a large blotting pad, and holding the instrument vertical to the paper, grasp the tracing leg very lightly indeed between the forefinger and thumb of the right hand, with the hatchet toward the left hand, as shown in Fig. 1. Then by moving the tracing point round and round an imaginary figure and allowing the hatchet to go where it pleases, it will be seen that the hatchet moves to and fro along zigzag lines, and travels sideways—the side travel being nearly proportional to the area of the figure described by the tracing point. If the tracing point be too tightly grasped, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various

... Oppressor of mankind. The moral interest of the fable, which is so powerfully sustained by the sufferings and endurance of Prometheus, would be annihilated if we could conceive of him as unsaying his high language and quailing before his successful and perfidious adversary. The only imaginary being resembling in any degree Prometheus, is Satan; and Prometheus is, in my judgement, a more poetical character than Satan, because, in addition to courage, and majesty, and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... strange. He pretended to be holding a baby, cuddling an imaginary child in his arms. Then he tossed the non-existent little one up in the air, and ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells

... long time. I am now lying here, and all is over, all is found out; there are no more questions and answers, no more todays and tomorrows. How it will fare with you remains to be seen hereafter. Not well most undoubtedly. So don't triumph in your imaginary virtue." ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... distant. After a period of great and disastrous activity, the sleepy indifference of 1830 is again settling upon Rome, the race for imaginary wealth is over, time is a drug in the market, money is scarce, dwellings are plentiful, the streets are quiet by day and night, and only those who still have something to lose or who cherish very modest hopes of gain, still take an interest in financial affairs. ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... I do not know what reply to make to my imaginary European critic. I suspect that he is right. At any rate, we stand here at the fork of the road. If we do not wish to linger any longer over a catalogue of intellectual sins, let us turn frankly to our moral preoccupations, comforting ourselves, if ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry

... whole dramas—imaginary histories of chance and circumstance—woven about the ring, as she walked up and down the long, windy hills, westward and homeward, the blue bay on the one hand beaten green under the rising "trade," and the fog coming in before her. With the experience ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... dreadful an assertion as that you are never happy? Are you sure that some real misfortune would not show you that your present misery is imaginary?" ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... voyage to Liverpool he whiled away the hours on shipboard by whittling thin wood into shapes of imaginary cross sections until he finally decided which one was best suited to the needs of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various

... Confusion, and imagining some greater danger than there really was, every body was struck with a panick Fear, and endeavour'd to be the first who should quit the Bastion, and secure himself by a real Shame from an imaginary Evil. Thus was a Bastion, that had been gloriously gain'd, inadvertently deserted; and that too, with the Loss of almost as many Men in the Retreat, as had been slain in the Onset, and the Enemy most triumphantly again ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe

... such the doom of all speculative men of talent?' said she. 'Do they not all sit rapt as you now are, cutting imaginary silken cords with their fine edges, while those not so highly tempered sever the every-day Gordian knots of the world's struggle, and win wealth and renown? Steel too highly polished, edges too sharp, do not do for ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... province, and later on a judge of the supreme court. Mr. Wetmore, when haranguing St. John audiences, used to depict the dreadful effects of confederation in a manner peculiarly his own. His great plea was an imaginary dialogue between himself and his little son, that precocious infant asking him in lisping tones, "Father, what country do we live in?" to which he would reply, "My dear son, you have no country, for Mr. Tilley has sold us to the Canadians for ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... wished Albert to be suspected of the crime, it was simply a precaution. He thought that he could so arrange matters that the police would waste their time in the pursuit of an imaginary criminal. ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... there an account of the creation of their works worth serious consideration. In the colloquial as well as the true sense of the word they are apt to be imaginative, and such a story as Edgar Allen Poe's of the composition of the Raven is not so much imaginative as imaginary. The creative artist is usually the last man in the world to give a veracious history of the genesis of his creations, for the simple reason that he does not know, and, during the later process of trying to find out, for ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... makes me despair of the People," said Mr. Simson. Joan could not be sure whether he was addressing her individually or imaginary thousands. "Likes working for nothing. Thinks she was born to be everybody's servant." He seated himself beside Miss Ensor on the antiquated sofa. It gave a complaining groan ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... stopped there would have puzzled herself to explain. It was not to worship, not to repent of her heinous sin: she neither repented nor desired to repent. But it seemed pleasant to play at repentance and put on imaginary sackcloth. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... recommend to thee on this Occasion is, to establish such an imaginary Fair in Great Britain: Thou couldst make it very pleasant, by matching Women of Quality with Coblers and Carmen, or describing Titles and Garters leading off in great Ceremony Shop-keepers and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... presented to the imagination, and the world was invited to realise them, of societies in which all were workers on equal terms, and groups of fraternal citizens, separated no longer by the egoisms of the private home, dwelt together in palaces called "phalansteries," which appear to have been imaginary anticipations of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Here lapped in luxury, they were to feast at common tables; and between meals the men were to work in the fields singing, while a lady accompanied their voices on a grand piano under a hedge. These pictures, however, agreeable ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock

... of his page, who was a native, and that only a priest was saved, is all that has been taken from history. The rest of this poem, the personages, father, daughter, wife, et cet. (with the exception of the names of Indian warriors) is imaginary. The time is two months. The first four books include as many days and nights. The rest of the time is occupied by the Spaniards' march, the assembly ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... this practice calamity-howling, whether in tornado-swept Kansas, blizzard-bitten Iowa or boss-ridden New York. in literature it is mere charlatanry, mere scagliola, made for sale. Hamlin Garland makes imaginary journeys over "Traveled Roads" to tell us of the utter and intolerable miseries of the Western farmers who live in sod houses. Raising dollar wheat is not so bad, even in a sod house. George Cable ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... others sing of Knights and Paladines In aged accents and untimely words, Paint shadows in imaginary lines, Which well the reach of their high wit records: But I must sing of Thee, and those fair eyes! Authentic shall my verse in time to come, When the yet unborn shall say, Lo, where she lies! Whose beauty made him speak, that else was dumb! These are the arks, the trophies I erect, That fortify ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... Huxley cannot play fast and loose with human volition, nor juggle the trustiness of memory into a state of consciousness, to save his system; nor may Haeckel lead us at his own sweet creative will through fourteen stages of vertebrate and eight of invertebrate life up to the great imaginary 'monera,' the father and mother of us all. It will be time to believe a million things in a lump when one of them is fully proved in detail. We have no disposition, even with so eminent an authority as St. George Mivart, to denominate Natural Selection ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... with; in so far as he is king of Samoa, I cannot find but what the president of a college debating society is a far more formidable officer. And unfortunately, although the credit side of the account proves thus imaginary, the debit side is actual and heavy. For he is now set up to be the mark of consuls; he will be badgered to raise taxes, to make roads, to punish crime, to quell rebellion: and how he is to do it is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that business and a regard for her future welfare compelled him to remain where they were until the expiration of a certain time. When it should be elapsed, he promised that she should lead him to any part of the world she chose. Cheered by this promise, she planned many an imaginary journey to foreign lands, and many a long hour did Mary and her father beguile in arranging the ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe

... like Damocles' sword over the head of every samurai and often assumed a morbid character. In the name of Honor, deeds were perpetrated which can find no justification in the code of Bushido. At the slightest, nay, imaginary insult, the quick-tempered braggart took offense, resorted to the use of the sword, and many an unnecessary strife was raised and many an innocent life lost. The story of a well-meaning citizen who called the attention of a bushi to a flea ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization; and yet I wish to say there is an objection urged against free colored persons remaining in the country which is largely imaginary, if not sometimes malicious. ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... be no easy matter to carry into practice these views of the Home Government. People in England, who derive their knowledge of savages from the orations delivered at Exeter Hall, are apt to conceive that nothing more is requisite than to ensure them protection from imaginary oppression, and a regular supply of spiritual comforts. They do not consider that whilst they insist upon these unfortunate creatures being treated exactly as British subjects, they are placing a yoke on their own necks too heavy for them to bear in their present condition. Primitive and ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... before the artist can be born. But they come in such a rainbow of glory that all subsequent achievement appears dull and earthly in comparison. We are all artists; almost all in the age of illusion, cultivating an imaginary genius, and walking to the strains of some deceiving Ariel; small wonder, indeed, if we were happy! But art, of whatever nature, is a kind of mistress; and though these dreams of youth fall by their own baselessness, ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... outer seas, Hakon gathered about him the few pirate chiefs who had joined him in the hope of plunder, and upon them he bestowed as rewards for their service the islands of which he had made imaginary conquest. He gave the isle of Arran to Earl Margad, who had invaded it, and upon Roderic MacAlpin he bestowed the isle of Bute. These chiefs, however, did not at once take possession of their estates, ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... "What Jesuit ever forgave a wrong—real or imaginary? Your mother, I ought to have said, was a Protestant. Hence there was a difference of religious opinion—the worst of differences that can exist between husband and wife—. Checkley vowed her destruction, and he kept his vow. He was enamored of her beauty. But while ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Dale; "that will not do. Too imaginative, Saxe. There's plenty all round to encounter, without your calling up the imaginary. Well, Melchior, which ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... ever feel his pulse, or hers, at night. Gwen was none the better for doing it. Nor did she benefit by an operation which her mind called looking matters calmly in the face. It consisted in imaginary forecasts of a status quo that was to come about. She had to skip some years as too horrible even to dream of; years needed to live down the worst raw sense of guilt, and become hardened to inevitable life. Then she filled ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... they now were, having sent all their furniture on, they were driving in their own carriage; and that coming along ever a bleak and desolate moor, the horse took fright at something, they knew not what, and ran away. Because it could not get along fast enough from its imaginary object of fear, it began to kick, and breaking the carriage in pieces, made its escape, leaving her and her husband on the ground. He was not much hurt, and soon rose, and came to help her. She was severely bruised, and her ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... much at the hands of both Burns and Clarke. The young lady had reason to complain, when the poet volunteered to sing the imaginary love of that ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... at his back, containing a small hammer and other useful tools, which, it was believed, had actually carried his lesson-books years ago. All the villagers knew his strong-and-weak point, and he rarely appeared amongst them without having various stones and imaginary curiosities presented to him, particularly by the young people. Many of these stones found their way into his bag, and it was not to be wondered at that he had a somewhat round back, as he frequently carried a load upon it, that a beast of burden ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... should earn a living. The same considerations, in varying measure, applied to others of the anti-slavery reformers. Some, unable to escape the reforming habit, turned their attention to different social evils, real or imaginary. Others, sufficiently supplied with this worlds goods for their moderate wants, withdrew from public life. Douglass was thinking of buying a farm and retiring to rural solitudes, when a new career opened up for him in the lyceum ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... so effectively steered the ship of State through the troubled waters of the interregnum, was, quite unintentionally and unwillingly, the greatest obstacle in the way of the young captain! Everybody who had a grievance—real or imaginary—against the government of Lorenzo, sought Messer Tommaso's advice and sympathy, so that the situation became charged with difficulties and embarrassments. The very merest change in the whim of a fickle people might upset the Medici, and ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... By nature he was a queer mixture of rashness and timidity, but through his mother's anxiety on his behalf the latter quality was constantly being nursed at the expense of all tendency to action. And so, in order to keep the balance, he revelled in the imaginary or real deeds of men whose very life-breath was danger. The more the books gave him of what he craved, the less he thought of looking for it ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... sat, the two mothers and the rest, looking gloomy enough, while, over there in her bit of a brown house in the village, Mrs. Lee sat in very much the same frame of mind, trying to relieve her feelings by smoothing imaginary wrinkles out of her boy's best clothes, and planning for him any number of bright red neck-ties, if he would only come back to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... which stay in the City he caused Walter Walker, an eminent grocer in Cheapside, to be apprehended and tried for a few harmless words innocently spoken by him—viz., that he would make his son heir to the Crown, inoffensively meaning his own house, which had the crown for its sign; for which imaginary crime he was beheaded in Smithfield, on the eighth day of this king's reign. This "Crown" was ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... by a previous consideration of the undertaking, we are equally in danger of deceiving ourselves. It is never easy, nor often possible, to comprise the series of any process with all its circumstances, incidents, and variations, in a speculative scheme. Experience soon shows us the tortuosities of imaginary rectitude, the complications of simplicity, and the asperities of smoothness. Sudden difficulties often start up from the ambushes of art, stop the career of activity, repress the gaiety of confidence, and when we imagine ourselves almost at the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... These imaginary costly whims increased so rapidly, that M. Fauvel one day said, as he signed a large check, "Upon my word, ladies, you will buy out all the stores, if you keep on this way. But nothing pleases me better than to see you gratify ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... be abrogated on two years' notice. Through a most unfortunate blunder on the part of our government a commission was constituted virtually British in its character, which awarded to Great Britain the sum of $5,500,000 for imaginary American benefits to be derived from reciprocity. This money was ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... Lady, colouring deeply, "for so long enduring and fostering your petulance. Begone, sir. Leave this castle to-night—I will send you the means of subsistence till you find some honest mode of support, though I fear your imaginary grandeur will be above all others, save those of rapine and violence. Begone, sir, and ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... purpose of eclipsing them or robbing them of admiration. Hence, often, secret tears and dumb revolt against supposed tyranny. In the midst of these woes, which become very real though built on an imaginary basis, they have also a mania for composing a scheme of life, while casting for themselves a brilliant horoscope; their magic consists in taking their dreams for reality; secretly, in their long meditations, they resolve to give their heart and hand to none but ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac

... they may be referred to other less rare phenomena. It must never be forgotten that we are dealing with an age when accurate observations and descriptions of natural phenomena were unknown, and when mankind was subject to be imposed upon by imaginary wonders and prodigies. The circumstance which we should regard as most unequivocally marking a total eclipse is the visibility of the stars during the darkness. But even this can scarcely be regarded as conclusive, ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers

... type may be frequently met now in the city and neighborhood of Genoa. He adds, "as for the portraits, whether painted, engraved, or in sculpture, which appear in collections, in private places, or as prints, there is not one which is authentic. They are all purely imaginary." ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale

... morning for a cup of coffee, while I read an Amiens news-sheet made up mostly of extracts translated from the leading articles of English papers. (There was never any news of French fighting beyond the official communique and imaginary articles of a romantic kind written by French journalists in Paris about episodes of war.) In one corner of the estaminet was a group of bourgeois gentlemen talking business for a time, and then ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... help it if you wanted to," vowed the other. "I am quite disgusted with you. I have told you a thousand times that this is all an imaginary terror that you are conjuring up for yourself, to ruin your health and happiness. When you have married him you will see that it's just as I tell you, and you'll laugh at yourself for feeling as ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... the balance by a continual advancing and moving, it is impossible to imagine happiness. It cannot dwell where, as Plato says, continual Becoming and never Being is all that takes place. First of all, no man is happy; he strives his whole life long after imaginary happiness, which he seldom attains, and if he does, then it is only to be disillusioned; and as a rule he is shipwrecked in the end and enters the harbour dismasted. Then it is all the same whether he has been happy or unhappy in a life which was made up of a merely ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... I broke down from over-work and worry, and was ordered away for my health. I chose to travel about my own country, and at a hotel in a certain place where many people go to recover from imaginary ailments I met a man who was being slowly crippled forever by a real and incurable one. His place at the table was next to mine, and every day he was brought in, in his wheeled chair, from the sunniest corner of the piazza, fed neatly and expeditiously by ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... any public religion. The zeal of the philosophic historian for the rights of mankind, has induced him to acquiesce in the ambiguous testimony of those ecclesiastics, who have too lightly ascribed to their favorite hero the merit of a general persecution. [164] Instead of alleging this imaginary law, which would have blazed in the front of the Imperial codes, we may safely appeal to the original epistle, which Constantine addressed to the followers of the ancient religion; at a time when he no longer disguised his conversion, nor dreaded the rivals of his throne. He invites and exhorts, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... you understand me?" And in the darkness George's bodily lips moved in unison with those which uttered the words in his imaginary rendering of this scene. An eavesdropper, concealed behind the column, could have heard the whispered word "sure," the emphasis put upon it in the vision was so poignant. "You say you understand me, but ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... for they are only partially carried out—not all the women will admit their sinful ways of life, nor submit to control by the government. The system prevails in Paris and in Germany, and there is more disease there than in any other part of Europe. Men, depending upon the imaginary security of a doctor's examination card, abandon themselves the more readily, and caution is thrown to the winds, with the result that a woman who has been O.K.'d by a government physician one day may contract a disease and spread it the very next day. You can depend upon it ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... arguments of the advocates for that measure. If I choose puny adversaries, writers of no estimation or authority, then you will justly blame me. I might as well bring in at once a fictitious speaker, and thus fall into all the inconveniences of an imaginary dialogue. This I shall avoid; and I shall take no notice of any author who my friends in town do not tell me is in estimation with ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... undergo a long course of training, and exceed the age of one-and-twenty before they are deemed worthy of admission into the ranks of these singular hordes. They have no actual sovereign, but merely two traditionary beings, to whom they bow with most abject servility. These imaginary potentates are always alluded to under the fearful names of "John Doe and Richard Roe;" though they are never seen, still their edicts are all-powerful, their commands extending to the most distant regions, and carrying captivity ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... doubled in the still water at their feet on which we floated, reflecting therein their sharply reversed outlines, and presenting the mirage of fearful precipices, over which we hung:—- the stars also were reversed in their order, making, in the depths of the imaginary abyss, a sprinkling ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... patient every day, and received his guinea. Mrs. Lucas also called him in for her own little ailments, and they were the best possible kind of ailments: for, being imaginary, there ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... thing, and it was of but little consequence whether I succeeded or not. I have some recollection that I both whistled and sang as I worked. The idea that I was in any danger of losing my life quite forsook me, and all the hardships through which I had been passing appeared to have been only imaginary—a chimera of my brain, or, ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid

... of things about nine o'clock this evening, for one real attempt to enter the house, invariably gives rise to a thousand imaginary attacks and fanciful alarms.... ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... lent additional interest to the prospective bonanza. The fishing business again came to a standstill, and the old settlers looked upon each other as bloated bond-holders. Such a drilling and blasting was never seen before in these parts, and soon the whole territory was dotted with huge mounds of imaginary ore. Farms that could scarcely be given away suddenly possessed enormous values in the minds of their lucky owners. Some of the mines were developed extensively, and shipments began which have continued at intervals, but only a few of them furnished the best quality. ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various

... jingle their virtues into rhyme, unless it was, that my prose began to run upon stilts, or that I mistook a momentary enthusiasm for a poetical inspiration. In fact, every thought and conception is so far raised above the common train of ideas, that the error is excusable, especially too when the imaginary ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... Mankind in a visible Form, it may, I doubt not, with as good Authority be advanc'd that he is left at Liberty to assume what Shape he pleases, and to choose what Case of Flesh and Blood he'll please to wear, whether real or imaginary; and if this Liberty be allow'd him, it is an admirable Disguise for him to come generally with his Cloven-Foot, that when he finds it for his Purpose, on special Occasions to come without it, as I said above, he may not be suspected; but take this with you as you ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... at the thought of the eighteenpenny restriction, but from pure joy at finding a companion who could face life with a smile, and find enjoyment from such simple means as imaginary purchases from shop windows. Oh, the blessed effect of a cheerful spirit! How inspiriting it was after the constant douche of discouragement from which she had suffered for the ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... multiplied reformations, which their heresies had rendered necessary. I became of course the butt of every thing which reason, ridicule, malice, and falsehood could supply. They have concentrated all their hatred on me, till they have really persuaded themselves, that I am the sole source of all their imaginary evils. I hope, therefore, that my retirement will abate some of their disaffection to the government of their country, and that my successor will enter on a calmer sea than I did. He will at least find ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... colony has arisen indirectly, not directly, as a result of this tax, as the slave-traders have used it as a pretext for stirring up the rebellion among the natives. England for many years has been doing her best to suppress slave-trading, and the slave-traders make use of any grievance, imaginary or otherwise, in their attempts to overthrow the power of the white men, in order that their barbarous man-hunting may not be interfered with. Several men-of-war have been sent by England to Sierra Leone, and are to be reinforced by others; troops ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 23, June 9, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... way. I give you my word, Mr. Mostyn, I haven't a ghost of an argument. I don't want to vote myself, you see, and I don't see how I am going to make other women want to. Just at present I have so many matters to bother about that I can't throw myself into an imaginary position. I'd break down and cry—I feel exactly like it—if I hadn't been this way before and managed to pull through by the skin of my teeth. You see, standing up before a crowd makes you feel so desperate and hemmed-in- like that ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... vary as the method employed. Mrs. Gamp, the outcome of a single observation, is a type certainly, but exaggerated and "founded on fact" rather than true to life. "The Suburbanite" (see p. 24), though an equally imaginary portrait, is the real thing—the absolute personification of a type ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson

... in its character, that the questions which we put to the landlord were put eagerly, but our eagerness proved to be uncalled for. "Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, Sir." What we mistook for a striking incident, proved to be an everyday occurrence in Bohemia, and our imaginary palmer or devotee but a common beggar. And now, having touched on the subject, we proceeded to sound the depth of our host's information on the subject of gypsies. Where did they horde? how were we most likely ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... history have been attempted in this romance. Few characters in the story are purely imaginary. Doubtless the fastidious reader will distinguish these intruders at a glance, and very properly ignore them. For they, and what they never were, and what they never did, merely sugar-coat a dose disguised, and gild the solid pill of fact with ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... an edge of white froth that faded to delicate salt filigree and so vanished. When this had happened a dozen times or more, and still without disaster, he took heart and began to turn it all into a game, choosing this or that breaker and making imaginary wagers upon it; but yet the spectacle fascinated him, and still at the back of his small brain lay wonder that all this terrifying fury and uproar should always be coming to nothing. God must be out yonder (he thought) and engaged in some ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... that it wouldn't cost much to feed an imaginary critter, but he was a little fearful of the temper back of the lad's hair, which was ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates

... is said, he hath purged our sins by himself, so it was by himself at once—'For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified' (10:14). Now by this word 'at once,' or by 'one offering,' is cut off all those imaginary sufferings of Christ which foolish men conceive of; as that he in all ages hath suffered or suffereth for sin in us.[30] No; he did this work but once. 'Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... only the remarks which he intended to make, but the very language in which he meant to offer them. As he formed sentences, almost for the first time, his courage and his fancy alike warmed: his sanguine spirit sympathised with the nobility of the imaginary scene, and inspirited the intonations of ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... This imaginary estimate of the Bishop is simply absurd, and supposes in Lower Canada ten-fold the wealth that ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... person be startled at the mode of reasoning by which we have convicted an imaginary Irish waiter of a real bull: it is at least as good, if not better logic, than that which was successfully employed in the time of the popish plot, to convict an Irish physician of forgery. The matter is thus recorded by L'Estrange. The Irish physician ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... her foot from the stirrup. What mattered that imaginary figure of moving white? She felt a strong power of protection lying all about her, breathing out to her with the keen scent of the pines, fanning her face with the chill of the night breeze. She was alone, but she was ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... George told himself that he was being "extra careful," and he was repaid for the inconvenience by the feeling of virtue derived from the delay. He was relieved that he did not have to cough any more, or to invent any more tales of his interviews with the imaginary lung-specialist. Sometimes he had guilty feelings because of all the lying he had had to do; but he told himself that it was for Henriette's sake. She loved him as much as he loved her. She would have suffered needless agonies ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair

... a wife is to keep healthy. Even if she is ailing she must not complain unless through mental suggestion she desires to increase her ailments, real or imaginary. She must earnestly endeavor to discover the cause of the alleged ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley

... the groups themselves as the families of an order, or the orders of a class; while all have the same sort of structural relations with the wild rock-pigeon, as the members of any great natural group have with a real or imaginary typical form. Now, we know that all varieties of pigeons of every kind have arisen by a process of selective breeding from a common stock, the rock-pigeon; hence, you see, that if all species of animals have proceeded from some common stock, the general ...
— A Critical Examination Of The Position Of Mr. Darwin's Work, "On The Origin Of Species," In Relation To The Complete Theory Of The Causes Of The Phenomena Of Organic Nature • Thomas H. Huxley

... intercepted by a kiss, and the remembrance of the past, the happiness of the present, resumed their sway; the imaginary terrors were forgotten, and the curtains ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... and with Moreas and Gustave Kahn he founded the Symboliste, coming forward as one of the earliest defenders of symbolism. Among his numerous novels should be noted Le mystere des foules (2 vols., 1895), a study in Boulangism, Lettres de Malaisie (1897), a fantastic romance of imaginary future politics. In 1899 he began a novel-sequence, giving the history of the Napoleonic campaigns, the restoration and the government of Louis Philippe, comprising La force (1899), L'enfant d'Austerlitz ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Wild died in a shepherd's hut at the Dry Creeks. The shepherds (white men) found him, "naked as he was born and with the hide half burned off him with the sun," rounding up imaginary snakes on a dusty clearing, one blazing hot day. The hut-keeper had some "quare" (queer) experiences with the doctor during the next three days and used, in after years, to tell of them, between the puffs of his pipe, calmly and solemnly and as if the story was rather to the doctor's credit than ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson

... now is winnowing three measures of imaginary corn, as one stands in the barn alone with both doors open to let the spirits that come in go out again freely. As one finishes the motions, the apparition of the future husband will come in at one door and pass out at ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley

... Miss Frost, and she cried as if her heart would break. And then all kinds of comic and incongruous tunes came into her head. She imagined herself dressing up with most priceless variations. Linger Longer Lucy, for example. She began to spin imaginary harmonies and variations in her head, upon the ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... objects where unrest—the leading feeling in his bosom—constitutes the principal element in their grandeur. It is curious, by the way, how few good descriptions there exist in poetry of views from mountains. Milton has, indeed, some incomparable ones, but all imaginary—such, at least, as no actual mountain on earth can command; but, in other poets, we at this moment remember no good one. They seem always looking up to, not down from, mountains. Wordsworth has given us, for example, no description of the view from Skiddaw; and there ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... unconditioned is an invention of Schelling's, not known to consciousness. In other words: all our real faculties bear witness to the truth of Hamilton's statement; and the only way of controverting it is to invent an imaginary ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel

... to hesitate, the injured look on young Snobbins' countenance and the hurt tone were too much for him. He exchanged coats with the young rascal, who, suddenly directing Jack's attention to some imaginary object of interest at one end of the street, made off at full speed towards the other end. Our hero was, however, a famous runner. He gave chase, caught the arab in a retired alley, and gave him an indignant ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... had pursued Duncan Jopp with unmanly insults, the unbeloved countenance that he had known and feared for so long, were all forgotten; and he hastened home, impatient to confess his misdeeds, impatient to throw himself on the mercy of this imaginary character. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... She had small ability as an actress, having never risen beyond the primer stage of mere posing and declamation in which so many players are halted by their vanity—the universal human vanity that is content with small triumphs, or with purely imaginary triumphs. But she had a notable figure of the lank, serpentine kind and a bad, sensual face that harmonized with it. Especially in artificial light she had an uncanny allure of the elemental, the wild animal in the jungle. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... information which it affords relative to the present condition, political, military, &c. of this republic, and as an example of the evils it has drawn upon itself for the last century, by interfering too much with the imaginary balance of power, and with the wars of the European States, thus imposing upon itself the burden of a standing army, which has swallowed up its navy and subjected it to an imperious rival, &c. &c.; and on the other hand, this long paper occupies my ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... lighter. For practice purposes the explosive was left out, and the detonator wired into an empty tin. Each day lines of men could be seen about the country standing behind a hedge, over which they threw jam tins at imaginary trenches, the aim and object of all being to make the tin burst as soon as possible after hitting the ground. We were given five seconds fuses, and our orders were, "turn the handle, count four slowly, and then throw." Most soldiers wisely counted four fairly rapidly, but Pte. ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills

... He held an imaginary book in one hand and waved an eloquent gesture. "So too shall every Hero inasmuch as notwithstanding for evermore come back to Reality," he parodied the enthusiastic Parsons, "so that in fashion and thereby, upon things and not under things ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... on learning of the capture of his accomplices. Lost in his illusions he took no care for his own safety, and remained at Mandeville, organising imaginary legions on paper, arranging the stages of the King's journey to Paris, and discussing with the Montfiquets certain points of etiquette regarding the Prince's stay at their chateau on the day following his arrival in France. One day, however, when they ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... give the imaginary author substance. "These sheets" have accomplished all the wonders claimed for them, not "the author of these sheets." Richardson speaks not of the author, but of an author, of authors in general. The implication hangs over the preface, and ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson

... our port quarter. It was intensely hateful to my sight. During the night we had been heading all round the compass, trimming the yards again and again, to what I fear must have been for the most part imaginary puffs of air. Then just about sunrise we got for an hour an inexplicable, steady breeze, right in our teeth. There was no sense in it. It fitted neither with the season of the year nor with the secular experience ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... from the few words the feelings behind them—(should speak rather more easily, I think—but I dare not run the risk: and I know, after all, you will be just and kind where you can.) I have read your letter again and again. I will tell you—no, not you, but any imaginary other person, who should hear what I am going to avow; I would tell that person most sincerely there is not a particle of fatuity, shall I call it, in that avowal; cannot be, seeing that from the beginning and at this moment I never dreamed of winning ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... luxury. All the instruments of pleasure, on which his reason or imagination set any value, were within his reach. But these he must forego, for the sake of advantages which, whatever were their value, were as yet uncertain. In pursuit of an imaginary addition to his wealth, he must reduce himself to poverty, he must exchange present certainties for what was distant and contingent; for who knows not that the law is a system of expence, delay and uncertainty? If he should embrace this scheme, it would ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... simply smiled, and going to her husband she brushed an imaginary dust speck from his coat. He caught ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake

... major premise" which, as Mr. Justice Holmes has said, is the true foundation of so many of our political judgments. The theory of natural rights upon which Burke heaped such contempt was wrong rather in its form than in its substance. It clearly suffered from its mistaken effort to trace to an imaginary state of nature what was due to a complex experience. It suffered also from its desire to lay down universal formulae. It needed to state the rights demanded in terms of the social interests they involved rather than in the abstract ethic they implied. But the demands ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... or no existing trusts have tried to benefit themselves in so many different ways as we have supposed this imaginary trust to have done. But to shorten our investigation, the author has purposely extended the scope of this trust's action, to bring out clearly the variety and importance of the methods by which a trust reaps profits, aside from any advance in the ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker

... be mocked at the apparent improbabilities. As in the gardens of a Scicilian nobleman, described in Mr. Brydone's and in Mr. Swinburn's travels, there are said to be six hundred statues of imaginary monsters, which so disgust the spectators, that the state had once a serious design of destroying them; and yet the very improbable monsters in Ovid's Metamorphoses have entertained the world for ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... himself all historical Switzerland living upon this imaginary hero; raising statues and chapels in his honour on the little squares of the little towns, and placing monuments in the museums of the great ones; organizing patriotic fetes, to which everybody rushed, banners displayed, from all the cantons, with banquets, toasts, speeches, hurrahs, songs, ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet



Words linked to "Imaginary" :   notional, complex quantity, real, real number, complex number, math, complex conjugate, fanciful, number, pure imaginary number, imaginary creature, imaginary part, mathematics



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