"Methodical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... play with yesterday's pack of cards and shuffle them on a threadbare tablecloth, and how it was that they had ceased to dress for themselves or others. He saw the glimmerings of something like a philosophy in the even tenor of their perpetual round, in the calm of their methodical monotony, in their ignorance of the refinements of luxury. Indeed, he almost came to think that luxury profited nothing; and even now, the city of Paris, with its passions, storms, and pleasures, was scarcely more than ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... indicated an inferiority of mind, of nature. Dickens—though he died in the endeavour to increase (not for himself) an already ample fortune, disastrous influence of his time and class—wrought with an artistic ingenuousness and fervour such as Trollope could not even conceive. Methodical, of course, he was; no long work of prose fiction was ever brought into existence save by methodical labour; but we know that there was no measuring of so many words to the hour. The picture of him at work which ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... very oddly that good and wise men at Cambridge should think of raising me into an object of criticism. I have always been, from my incapacity of methodical writing, 'a chartered libertine,' free to worship and free to rail, lucky when I could make myself understood, but never esteemed near enough to the institutions and mind of society to deserve the notice of masters of literature and religion.... I could not possibly give you one of the 'arguments' ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... appear to have been particularly happy, and his wife died in 1611. Two years later, undeterred by the want of success in his first venture, he sought a second partner, and he evidently determined not to make a mistake this time. Indeed, the methodical manner in which he made his choice of the lady to whom he should propose has been duly set forth by him and preserved for our edification. With some self-assurance he asserts that there were no fewer than eleven spinsters desirous of sharing his joys and ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... to whom clearness and accuracy were strangers, and whose attention wandered with every passing butterfly. In the classroom he not only demanded but practised order and system. He arrived at his conclusions by as methodical a series of mental actions as he arrived at his desk every morning at twenty-nine minutes to nine. But these ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... that her home would settle itself into its usual calm, methodical order. She strove to give to every hour its long accustomed duty, and to infuse an atmosphere of rest and of "use and wont" into every day's affairs. It was impossible. The master of the house had suffered a world change. He had tasted of strange pleasures and ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... a copy from a Rembrandt, which if anything, was finer than the original. In spite of all he swore that the work he got barely supported him, but I did not believe what he said. He was a weak genius who preferred a vagabond life to methodical labour. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... stones set in foil, and six in number," continued the methodical chatelain, whose eye now lighted with the triumph ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... lonely life that young Joffre led—but we have no direct evidence that he ever felt lonely. His books and his day dreams seem always to have made up for a lack of human companionship. The other fellows contented themselves with saying of him: "He is too slow, and methodical to ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... advantage than in the management of his country home. Overwhelmed with work though he constantly was, accustomed to carry his business and often part of his business staff to Harkings with him for the week-ends, there was never the least confusion about the house. The methodical calm of Harkings was that ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... methodical examination of his room, peering under the bed, into closets, a wardrobe. Yet there was no sign of danger. Carefully he inspected his bed for signs of the deadly black mold from Venus that would, once it found lodgment in the pores ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... they will wear out the powers of opera singers, and torture the public, apparently without a suspicion that it is possible to write both grand and light operas with true, characteristic German thoroughness. Even German opera requires a constant attention to the right use of the voice, and a methodical, effective mode of singing. It tolerates no murderous attacks on single male and female voices, or on the full opera company; it is opposed to that eager searching after superficial effect, which every sincere friend ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... my old man is sick. I must tie up the letters in oilskin. That is something to do first—else they will get all sweated ... And I am all alone!' He bound them into a neat packet, swedging down the stiff, sticky oilskin at the comers, for his roving life had made him as methodical as an old hunter in matters of the road. Then with double care he packed away the books at the bottom ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... to draw my stockings over my little feet. The tears had quite dried now, yet the mournful thought of the invented dream was still haunting me a little. Presently Uncle [This term is often applied by children to old servants in Russia] Nicola came in—a neat little man who was always grave, methodical, and respectful, as well as a great friend of Karl's, He brought with him our clothes and boots—at least, boots for Woloda, and for myself the old detestable, be-ribanded shoes. In his presence I felt ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... neat, either not much used, or the abode of a very methodical man. There was nothing on the table except a pile of that morning's papers. I walked to the farther end, turned the key in the lock, and came ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... the box by this time, and was examining one of the numerous packets of papers, which were arranged in very methodical order, carefully tied together, ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... bathing so much enjoyed, nor the sun-bath after it—it was just like old Maoriland again. There was always the pop-pop-popping on the hills above, the occasional thud of a spent bullet in the scrub, and the more or less methodical bursting of shrapnel shells somewhere along the shore; but all these circumstances had become so much part of the scene that the troopers were seldom perturbed. Sometimes a Turkish machine-gunner or sniper became a little too ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... all preconceived opinions, and dispensing with commentaries, he compared scripture with scripture by the aid of the marginal references and the concordance. He pursued his study in a regular and methodical manner; beginning with Genesis, and reading verse by verse, he proceeded no faster than the meaning of the several passages so unfolded as to leave him free from all embarrassment. When he found anything obscure, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... shadowy bedroom; she moved slowly across, saying again aloud: 'I will fetch the volume and return.' As the words left her lips she realised she had spoken in French; her ruse was useless then! The murderer was probably some illiterate scoundrel; how should he comprehend? But her dogged, methodical nature stood her in good stead. If Johanna Elizabetha began anything, she invariably completed her task; so although she imagined her strategy spoiled through her use of the French language, she kept steadily moving across the large dark room. As she gained the door ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... and Co.'s, a great feeling of discontent and loneliness came over all our hearts. Little Nelse, who had been Peter's favourite, went round behind the pig-stye, where none might disturb him, and sat down on the projecting end of a trough to "have a cry", in his usual methodical manner. But old "Alligator Desolation", the dog, had suspicions of what was up, and, hearing the sobs, went round to offer whatever consolation appertained to a damp and dirty nose and a pair of ludicrously doleful ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... creaks. Ever since I had left hospital convalescent after being wounded on the Somme ("gunshot wound in head and cerebral concussion" the doctors called it), I had trained myself, whenever my brain was en panne, to go back to the beginning of things and work slowly up to the present by methodical stages. ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... 't is to just forget Until, alas, it is too late. The most methodical of folks Sometimes forget to shut the ...
— Old Granny Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... and added various little conveniences. At first, when a family moved into one of these homes, some of its members would be very much inclined to keep to their wigwam habits. As these were very shiftless, and far below what we considered to be their possibilities of methodical and tidy housekeeping, some practical lessons had to be given. As they were willing to learn, various plans and methods were adopted to help them. The following was the most successful and perhaps on ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... his later years was a very orderly one, although he was not methodical in arranging his office hours and attending to his many duties. Rising before eight A.m., he was usually in his office at nine, transacting business with his secretary, and was ready to receive callers at ten. So many were the people who had occasion to see him, and so varied were ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... was very methodical, and was divided strictly between painting and domestic affairs, with few outside diversions. He had settled down in the house which now bears his name and a tablet, close to the church of the Madonna dell'Orto. His children were eight in number, ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... learned, in civilized countries. They will inform you how, to gratify God, you must in certain months of the year, languish the whole day with hunger and thirst; how you may shed your neighbor's blood, and purify yourself from it by professions of faith and methodical ablutions; how you may steal his property and be absolved on sharing it with certain persons, who devote ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... intelligent abstract of the bills he was to introduce —the results of a progressive and statesmanlike brain. There was an account of him as a methodical and painstaking business man whose suggestions to the boards of directors of which he was a member had been invaluable. The article ended with a list of the clubs to which he belonged, of the societies which he had organized and of those of which he ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... General William Clark, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis, were forwarded to Washington where they are now kept in the files of the Indian office.[184] With methodical care Governor Clark copied the letters which he received into letter books. The existence of these letter books was not known until a few years ago, when some of them were found in the hands of a junk dealer in Lawrence, Kansas, and were rescued—a great gain ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... did not reply. She stitched away in a methodical manner, as if abstracted, and Louise crossed her delicate hands behind her head and gazed at her mother reflectively. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... personal letters, and while I went on, carefully filing them, I thought how absurd it was of people to preserve so many papers that were entirely without value. Mr. Vanderbridge I had imagined to be a methodical man, and yet the disorder of the desk produced a painful effect on my systematic temperament. The drawers were filled with letters evidently unsorted, for now and then I came upon a mass of business receipts ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... person had an appointed seat. These tables were set out with cups and saucers, cakes, biscuit, etc., and when the proper time came, attendants passed along serving tea. The arrangements were so accurate and methodical that the whole multitude actually took tea together, without the least ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... attend the confirmed celibate. His home life was a model of order and decorum, his home as unchallenged as a bishopric, its hospitality, though select, profuse and untiring. An elder sister presided at his board, as simple, kindly and unostentatious, but as methodical as himself. He was a lover of books rather than music and art, but also of horses and dogs and ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... habits is failure in life; by which I suppose he means that if one gets tied down to a petty routine of one's own, it generally ends in one's becoming petty too—narrow-minded and conventional. I don't suppose he referred to method, because he was one of the most methodical of men. He wrote down sentences that came into his mind, scattered ideas, on small cards; when he had a sufficient store of these, he sorted them and built up his essay out ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... due investigation. This habit, persisted in, led to the discovery of the new planet (Georgium Sidus)." As well might one say that a skilled mining surveyor, digging for coal, came upon the seam by chance, as ascribe to chance the necessary result of such a careful and methodical scrutiny as this. ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... the exact hour," replied the American, whose vexed tone showed that the captain's methodical mode of setting to work did not quite harmonise with the excited state of his feelings. "I think, however, it must have been nearly seven o'clock, as well, sir, as I ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... better to allow his father and mother to remain quietly together for some time, and did not therefore return to the house until twelve o'clock, when he knew that dinner would be prepared; for his mother was so methodical in her ways that everything would go on just as at home directly she took charge of the affairs of the house. He went up for a few minutes before dinner, and was struck with the change in the expression ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... a half gathering information, studying the intricate functioning of this gigantic civilization—so many things that our mentors on Kalechi either weren't aware of or chose not to tell us. And we haven't done too badly, Kilby. We're prepared now to conduct the search for the group in a methodical manner. Nineteen hours in space, and we'll be on another world, under cover again, with new identities. Why shouldn't we continue with the ...
— The Other Likeness • James H. Schmitz
... made by time on their own faces and figures, they seemed to think that their brother had arrested the course of the common enemy, and that he had in fact some elixir for keeping himself eternally young. Manuel Antonio was methodical in his visits: he had several houses at which he called every day at the same time. He went to Don Juan Estrada's at three o'clock, the coffee hour; he took chocolate with the Countess of Onis every afternoon, ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... special types into those which are more general, as had been previously the case in the early stages of myth. By continually concentrating, and at the same time by enlarging the value of the conception, it is united in a single form which constitutes the dawn and genesis of monotheism. This methodical process, which is characteristic of human thought, may be traced in all peoples which have really attained to the monotheistic idea, in the Aryan and Semitic races, in China, Japan, and Egypt, in Peru and Mexico; the ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... face the very picture of age and starvation, his heart recoiled at the thought of selling her in her present condition. He read the letter she bore, contemplated her with an air of pity, and turning to Mr. Benbow, his methodical book-keeper of twenty years, who had added and subtracted through a wilderness of bodies and souls, ordered him to send the shrunken old woman into the pen, on feed. Mr. Forsheu prided himself on the quality of people sold at his shambles, and would not for the world hazard his reputation on old ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Germany and Italy, and his life had been one of war and labor, of small results, but growing fame. He was born a ruler in the highest sense of the word; he possessed all the attributes of power; bold yet cautious, courageous and enduring, energetic and methodical, he towered proudly above all who surrounded him, and had the highest conception of his princely calling. But his ideas were beyond his time, and while he tried to open the way for a distant future, he was made to feel the penalty of running ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... most estimable young woman, clean, respectful, willing, capable, and methodical, but as a Bureau of Information she is painfully inadequate. Barring this single limitation she seems to be a treasure-house of all good practical qualities; and being thus clad and panoplied in virtue, why should she be so ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... great newspaper office, with its diverse and highly specialised duties all tending to one common end. The headquarters staff is a big one. There are superintendents in charge of the departments, men whom no emergency can ruffle—calm, methodical and alert, ready to act in the time one ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... so are the leading Pre-Raphaelites, Rossetti only excepted. And there can be no doubt about the goodness of the advice, if it were only for this reason, that the more particular you are about your colors the more you will get into a deliberate and methodical habit in using them, and all true speed in coloring ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... of the coming of Mrs Malcolm.—She was the widow of a Clyde shipmaster, that was lost at sea with his vessel. She was a genty body, calm and methodical. From morning to night she sat at her wheel, spinning the finest lint, which suited well with her pale hands. She never changed her widow's weeds, and she was aye as if she had just been ta'en out of a bandbox. The tear was aften in her e'e when the bairns were at the school; but ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... happened—after her farewell letter to Blanche—here was Miss Silvester writing to Blanche's husband, of her own accord! It was unaccountable, to say the least of it. He took the letter back, and looked at it again. Lady Lundie's steward was a methodical man. He had indorsed each letter received at Windygates with the date of its delivery. The letter addressed to Arnold had been delivered on Monday, the seventh of September—on ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... bed this methodical person committed three several matters to paper. In his memorandum-book he wrote the name of a certain college at Oxford, and a date, corresponding, oddly enough, to the name and date on one of the goblets in Mr ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... methodical collection of the most choice and select admonitions and sentences, compendiously drawn from infinite varietie,' is quoted by Lowndes under Bodenham, as first printed in 1598; the Epistle dedicatory however of the present copy is signed: 'N. Ling', and addressed ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 2, November 10 1849 • Various
... was revealed, however, on inspection, only the brick of the chimney on one side and the outer wall of the house on the other; in depth the space extended only to the flooring. The breach had been made about four feet from the floor, and inside were all the missing bits of plaster. It had been a methodical ghost. ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... two pairs of the birds, and they were unmistakably at home, we naturally had hope of finding one of the nests. We made several random attempts, and one day I devoted an hour or more to a really methodical search; but the wily singer gave me not the slightest clue, behaving as if there were no such thing as a bird's nest within a thousand miles, and all my endeavors went ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... society. The Vicomte de Beauseant had his residence in Paris on the rue de Grenelle in 1819. At that time he kept a dancer and liked nothing better than high living. He became a marquis on the death of his father and eldest brother. He was a polished man, courtly, methodical, and ceremonious. He insisted upon living selfishly. His death would have allowed Mme. de Beauseant to wed Gaston de Nueil. [Father ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... which surround the successful man is devoted to the enumeration of instances of his lack of intelligence. Another point: successful men seldom succeed as the result of an ordered arrangement of their lives; they are the least methodical of creatures. Naturally when they have "arrived" they amuse themselves and impress the majority by being convinced that right from the start, with a steady eye on the goal, they had carefully planned every ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... the noise of hammering increased, and at the same time grew persistent and regular, almost methodical. I had no sooner guessed the meaning of this—that the ruffians were fastening down the hatches on their prisoners—than one of them, at the far end of the ship, either fetched or found a lantern, lit it, and stood ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... The methodical and complete exploitation of all the resources of the country, organized since the beginning of the war, has enabled us to accumulate a considerable stock of fresh munitions, and an increasing rate of production is henceforth ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... After supper, balancing himself against the wall of the hut on a chair without a back, he smoked his pipe and looked at the night. Sally was busy. She passed in and out of the hut, and he lazily watched her methodical actions. Her walk attracted his notice; it was not particularly graceful, but it was easy and assured; she swung her legs from the hips, and her feet seemed to tread the earth with decision. Athelny had gone off to gossip with ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... the chances of being snubbed; and where neither self-respect or national dignity is compromised, we recommend him by all means to adopt the most conciliatory course. Chinese etiquette is a wide field for the student, and one which, we think, would well repay extensive and methodical exploration. ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... of the rock-masses which constitute the crust of the earth, if carried out in the methodical and scientific manner of the geologist, at once brings us, as has been before remarked, in contact with the remains or traces of living beings which formerly dwelt upon the globe. Such remains are found, in greater or less abundance, in the great majority of rocks; and they are not only of great ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... intercourse with him was more agreeable than any flattery; and at the same time he was most highly venerated by those who associated with him: and he had the faculty both of discovery and ordering, in an intelligent and methodical way, the principles necessary for life; and he never showed anger or any other passion, but was entirely free from passion, and also most affectionate; and he could express approbation without noisy display, and he possessed much knowledge ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... suit of moyre, which is handsome, and so after dinner I did give her L15 to lay out in linen and necessaries for the house and to buy a suit for Pall, and I myself to White Hall to a Tangier Committee, where Colonell Reames hath brought us so full and methodical an account of all matters there, that I never have nor hope to see the like of any publique business while I live again. The Committee up, I to Westminster to Jervas's, and spoke with Jane; who I find cold and not so desirous of a meeting as before, and it ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... of courts of equity became more enlarged and more methodical,—as magistrates, for a long series of years, presided in the Court of Chancery, who were not bred to the Common Law,—as commerce, with its advantages and its necessities, opened a communication more largely with other countries,—as the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... he stood; if defeated, and driven back on his base, he must move in diverging lines from Wellington. That Bluecher would abandon his base to keep touch with Wellington—as actually happened—Napoleon never guessed. Wellington, cooler and more methodical than his Prussian fellow-commander, would not fight, it was certain, till his troops were called in on every side and he was ready. Bluecher was nearer the French frontier. Napoleon calculated that he could leap upon him, bar Wellington from coming ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... will be in accordance with its temperament and opportunities, and it is evident from the records which they have left us that the Babylonians, though very superstitious, were a methodical, practical, prosaic people, and a people of that order, if they are numerous, and under strong rule, will go far and do much. The discovery of the Saros was such as was within their power, and was certainly no ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... myself, and I want you to sell out your business at Langley and live at Tracy Park, where you can see to things as if they were your own. You will find everything straight and square, for Colvin is honest and methodical. He knows all about the bonds, and mortgages, and stocks, so you cannot do better than to retain him in your service, overseeing matters yourself, of course, and drawing for your salary what you think right and necessary for your support and for keeping up ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... the desk. The few papers in it appeared to be arranged with the most methodical neatness: but they were small, chiefly old letters. "I don't see anything like a codicil," he observed. "You had better look yourself, Mr. Matiss; you will probably ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... He retained his methodical habits, and Cai found him already at work in the outhouse, and thoroughly enjoying a task which might have daunted one of less boyish confidence. He was, in fact, recasting the 'Fasti' of Ovid into English verse, using for that purpose a spirited, if literal, prose translation (published ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Ceillier upon them seems too severe. Certain passages, which seem to favor Pelagianism, ought to be explained by others, which clearly condemn that heresy; or it must be granted that they have suffered some alteration. The composition is not very methodical, these homilies being addressed to monks, in answer to particular queries. The author exceedingly extols the peace and sweetness which a soul, crucified to the world, enjoys with the consolations of the Holy Ghost, who resides in her. But he says that the very angels deplore, as much ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... you know?' Lyon didn't know and he asked for further information. His neighbour had a sociable manner and evidently was accustomed to quick transitions; she turned from her other interlocutor with a methodical air, as a good cook lifts the cover of the next saucepan. 'He has been a great deal in India—isn't he rather celebrated?' she inquired. Lyon confessed he had never heard of him, and she went on, 'Well, perhaps he isn't; but he says he is, and if you think ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... to take an evening off now and then from yarning or reflecting, and proceed, in a most methodical manner, to wash his spare shirts and patch his pants. I was in the habit of contributing to some Sydney papers, and every man is an editor at heart, so, at other times, Mitchell would take another evening off, and root out my swag, and go through my papers ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... interesting chat with Mr. Franklin Homan, Auctioneer, Cabinet-maker, and Upholsterer of High Street, Rochester. Our informant did a good deal of work for Charles Dickens at Gad's Hill Place, and remarked "he was one of the nicest customers I ever met in my life—so thoroughly precise and methodical. If anything had to be done, he knew exactly what he wanted, and gave his instructions accordingly. He expected every one who served him to be equally exact ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... force is much less, in comparison with the strong work of Sturlunga. There is great dexterity in the management of the narrative, great lucidity; but the vivid imagination shown in the story of Flugumyri, and hardly less in other passages of Sturlunga, is replaced in the life of Hacon by a methodical exposition of facts, good enough as history, but seldom giving any hint of the author's reserve of imaginative force. It is not that Sturla does not understand his subject. The tragedy of Duke Skule does not escape him; he recognises the contradiction in the life of Hacon's greatest rival, ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... gently and retired to her private boudoir to change her shoes. The boudoir was not more than eight feet by ten in size, and very poorly furnished, but its neat, methodical arrangements betokened in its owner a refined and orderly mind. There were a few books in a stand on the table, and a flower-pot on the window-sill. Among the pegs and garments on the walls was a square piece of cardboard, on which ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... work, acting from sheer force of habit; his sluggish, deliberate nature, methodical, obstinate, refusing to adapt ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... flattened upon either temple; and her neck-tie, dress, gloves, hat, were always most neatly arranged, and ordered with the same precision that governed all her action. In the town of Canterbury she was an institution. Her charities and all her religious observances were methodical, and never omitted. Her whole life, indeed, was a discipline. Without any great love for children, she still had her Bible-class; and it was rare that the weather or any other cause forbade attendance ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... little dark man, who explained with calm politeness that he had been out when the messenger first arrived. He took off his coat, hung it up, opened his bag, and proceeded to a minute examination of the patient. His movements were so methodical, and he gave orders to May in a tone so quiet, casual, and ordinary, that she almost lost her sense of ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... and the national spirit on either side of the Rhine was all for immediate action. The leaders themselves were anxious to begin, so that they might finish before the winter. So the preparations were pushed forward in Germany with a methodical haste, a sane and deliberate foresight. In France it was more a question of sentiment—the invincibility of French arms, the heroism of French soldiers, the Napoleonic legend. But while these abstract aids to ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... in her dress and in all her ways, she had everything belonging to her arranged in the most perfect order—habits of order early impressed upon her mind by Mrs. Honora Edgeworth, which, with her methodical way of doing business, enabled her to get through a surprising amount of multifarious work in the ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... usual place, on your desk," answered the youth, re-commencing his work. The Attorney moved away and entered his private office, and seating himself in his old leathern chair, commenced in a methodical way to ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... legal form of administration, was, that the sword, by the nature of the feudal tenures, remained still in the hands of his subjects; and this irregular and dangerous check had much more influence than the regular and methodical limits of the laws and constitution. As the nation could not be compelled, it was necessary that every public measure of consequence, particularly that of levying new taxes, should seem to be adopted by common ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... diffusing a more liberal spirit among the clergy and people of the Pays de Vaud. His system of logic, which in the last editions has swelled to six tedious and prolix volumes, may be praised as a clear and methodical abridgment of the art of reasoning, from our simple ideas to the most complex operations of the human understanding. This system I studied, and meditated, and abstracted, till I have obtained the free command of an universal instrument, ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... brother, is liberty. You must be your own master. You own your house: it is not worth much, but it belongs to you. You possess a piece of ground, a little corner, perhaps, but it is yours. Your chickens, eggs, apples are yours. You are a king upon the earth. Then you must be methodical. . . As soon as you are up in the morning, you must go to work. In the spring it is one thing, in the summer another, in the autumn and winter still another. From wherever you may be you always return to your home. There is warmth, rest! ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... he is enabled to get through a large amount of work by methodical habits and by a strict avoidance of injurious haste and worry. His leisure is spent in the enjoyments of his beautiful home and in the cultivation of a fine artistic taste which has been developed and gratified by a tour among the principal art ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... down at the slip again—yes, the date was right, and the red-ink heading was evidently a stereotyped one; probably Arabella kept a supply of these papers ready, being a methodical creature. And the questions!—were they for her own education? But no—Arabella was a cultivated person and would not require such things, and, on that particular Sunday, had never opened the door of her ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... to have been Bacon's general system of philosophy. He has nowhere presented it in a compact form; and his style of writing is often so corrupt, and his use of terms so inexact, that any exposition of his views, exhibiting them in a methodical arrangement, is liable to the charge of possessing a definiteness of statement beyond that which his opinions had assumed in his own mind. Still, the view that has now been given of his philosophy corresponds ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... form of what may be called skill of hand in it; and what marks in [112] him the final achievement of poetic scholarship is the perfect balance his work presents of so many and varied effects, as regards both matter and form. The memories of a large range of poetic reading are blent into one methodical music so perfectly that at times the notes seem almost simple. Sounding almost all the harmonies of the modern lyre, he has, perhaps as a matter of course, some of the faults also, the "spasmodic" ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... virtually ignored her existence, yet was free from offence. His soul evidently was absorbed by his patient, whom he observed with alert watchfulness, issuing brief directions now and then to his white-capped, methodical, and noiseless assistant. Selma sat with her hands before her in a corner of the bed-room, practically ignored. The shadows deepened and a maid announced dinner. Dr. Page looked ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... when it came to platoons he would shout, "Form ..." and then could think of nothing better than pontoon or pantaloon. His brother, it appeared, had joined a Territorial regiment up North; being methodical he had read all the letters from the front which have appeared in the Press, and set about equipping himself accordingly. Even if he should lose all except what he stood up in he meant to keep dry and warm; so he scrapped all his shirts, socks, vests and whatnots, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... next two hours they worked with scarcely the exchange of a word, overhauling every part of the engine quickly, but with methodical care, cleaning, oiling, testing the exhaust and the carburettor, filling the petrol tank and the reservoir of lubricating oil, examining the turbines and the propeller—not a square inch of the machinery escaped their ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... could not be necessary. Regular troops could only be useful as garrisons for posts to which the militia might resort for protection or supplies. Experience had proved that the sudden desultory attacks of the frontier militia and rangers were productive of more valuable consequences, than the methodical operations of a regular force. But, should it even be conceded that invasion and conquest were to be contemplated, the existing establishment, if completed, would be sufficiently great; and it was still insisted that, even for the purposes ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... inefficient to cover the still athletic mould of his limbs. Petrus had heard nothing but good of Paulus, and yet he measured him now with no friendly eye, for all that wore the aspect of extravagance repelled his temperate and methodical nature. Paulus was made conscious of what was passing in the senator's mind when, without vouchsafing a single word, he took the key from his hand. It was not a matter of indifference to him, that this man should think ill of him, and he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... wild-beast instincts. Nothing could be more treacherous than these creatures. Nothing could be more crafty, more patient, more persistent, more dangerous and at the same time more absurd and more logical, more slovenly and more methodical. All these epithets, M. de Lourtier, may be applied to the doings of the lady with the hatchet. The obsession of an idea and the continual repetition of an act are characteristics of the maniac. I do not yet know the idea by which the lady with the hatchet is obsessed but I do ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... magically effectual was it, that, with variations adapted to locality and circumstances, this "Mississippi plan" soon enveloped the entire South in its mesh-work of fraud, barbarity, and blood. The massacres, and other outrages, while methodical, were remittent, wave-like, sometimes in one Southern State, sometimes another, and occurring only in years of hot political conflict, until one after another of those States had, by these crimes, been ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... part of the globe ship licked a tongue of fire. With the force of a whiplash it coursed across the rock and in its passing embrace, the creatures below writhed and withered to charred heaps. They had no chance under that methodical blasting. The alien beside Raf signaled again for a drop. He patted the weapon that he held and motioned for Raf to release the covering of the windshield. But the pilot shook his ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... my choice," said Professor Parkhurst firmly, gazing at the unconscious Jocelyn. "You can see by the way he tosses paper about that he is neither methodical nor orderly." ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... the butte. A full quarter of a mile ahead of them flickered a large fire, with several smaller blazes twinkling here and there about it. Shadowy figures were observed moving back and forth, some with rapid movements, others in slow, methodical steps. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... who had been sent to identify the fugitive, was a cold, methodical man, every way resembling the delinquent's father, whose office-companion he had been, and in whose track of undeviating attention to business and negative honesty he had faithfully followed. He felt the peculation, or robbery, for ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... ever be laid down. If children are not in schools, they are yet subject to influences that are formative of character. When proper government and methods of education exist at home, the presence of the child in school at an early age is not desirable. Even when education at home is not methodical, it may be continued until the child is seven or even eight years of age, if it is at once moral, intelligent, and controlling. It is not, however, wise to expect a child who is infirm physically to perform the labors imposed by the necessary and proper regulations ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... forth upon her travels with the firm intention of making notes about everything along the way and it disturbed her methodical soul to have anybody else "messing" with this neat little record. It was only a trifle better that the girl should have turned to the very back of the book and chosen a fly leaf there to scribble on. Scribbling it seemed, so rapidly was it done, and after a brief time the book was returned to its ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... as was his wont, nor did he give so much as a single shout, but walked quietly between us with his eye sparkling and a joyful smile upon his countenance. My reader must not suppose that I thought all this in the clear and methodical manner in which I have set it down here. These thoughts did indeed pass through my mind; but they did so in a very confused and indefinite manner, for I was young at that time and not much given to deep reflections. Neither did I consider that the peace whereof I write ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... the young man could cool the great affection which our worthy canon bore the charming offspring of his dear niece, Maria Remedios. Where the young lawyer was concerned, every thing else must give way. Even the grave and methodical habits of the worthy ecclesiastic were altered when they interfered with the affairs of his precocious pupil. That order and regularity, apparently as fixed as the laws of a planetary system, were interrupted whenever Jacinto was ill or had to take a journey. Useless celibacy of the clergy! The ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... about here when our friend comes back," the publisher said. " He is a very methodical person, and will sit down and go right to work just as if we were not here. We can watch him, and if he should express any particular interest in your poems, I will, if you say so, carry you up to him and reveal the fact that you are the author ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... impossible to describe its effect, in the midst of the tranquil night, chiming over the serried rooftops, and under the solitary moon. It was not like the artful song of man, for it was defective in the methodical harmony of tune; it was not like the song of the wild-bird, for it had no monotony in its sweetness: it was wandering and various as the sounds from an AEolian harp. But it affected the senses to a powerful degree, as in remote lands ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... narratives, the precise accounts of the gradual enlargement of divine laws, the copious description of the tabernacle and the institution of divine worship, are wearisome, though pervaded by a theoretic interest which looks at everything from a legal point of view. A second or junior Elohist was less methodical and more fragmentary, supplying additional information, furnishing new theocratic details, and setting forth the relation of Israel to heathen nations and to God. In contrast with his predecessor, he has great beauty of description, ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson
... her fore-top-gallant-mast fidded abaft, a double martingale, and a standing gaft;" observed the methodical and technical mariner, as another would have recounted the peculiarities of complexion, or of feature, in some individual who was the subject of a personal description. "The rogue has no need of showing his brazen-faced trull to be known! I chased him, for six-and-thirty hours, in the chops ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... its external form certain general features which it is easy to discriminate at the first glance. A sort of methodical order seems to have regulated the separation of land and water, mountains and valleys. A simple, but grand, arrangement is discoverable amidst the confusion of objects and the prodigious variety of scenes. This continent is divided, almost ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... crown for her dramatic defiance in the matter of tea. Even in that rumbling interval, Hamilton learned, the Committee of Correspondence, which had directed the momentous act, had been unexcited and methodical, restraining the Mohawks day after day, hoping until the last moment that the Collector of Customs would clear the ships and send the tea whence it came. Hamilton heard the wrongs of the colonies discussed without ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... a huge, methodical woman, seasoned to the drudgery of a farm wife. Quite methodically she'd arise every morning at 4:00 A.M. with her husband and each would do their respective chores until long after the sun had set ...
— The Shining Cow • Alex James
... himself at length on board ship. The following day they were out of sight of land. When Roger saw the Captain and his mates bring up their quadrants on deck just before noon to make an observation, he brought up his, and began in a methodical way to make preparations ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... that intercourse with him was more agreeable than any flattery; and at the same time he was most highly venerated by those who associated with him; and he had the faculty both of discovering and ordering, in an intelligent methodical way, the principles necessary for life; and he never showed anger or any other passion, but was entirely free from passion, and also most affectionate; and he could express approbation without noisy display, and he ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... training and nurture which is not excellent? Concerning the other branches, I am not in a position to say anything; but restricting myself to the two mansions of Jung and Ning, they are those in which, above all others, the education of their children is methodical." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... last seven years had sewed at the side of her grandmother in that cold household of monotonous and methodical customs,—had undertaken her neuvaine all the more willingly because she hoped to inspire some feeling in Joseph Bridau, in whom she took the deepest interest because of the monstrosities which her grandfather attributed in her hearing to ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... at a very early age. The usual plan is to take a child the moment it is able to string enough words together to form ideas, and to subject it to a methodical process of teaching. The custom of beginning what is called a child's education at a tender age is verified by the fact that the State now compels, or rather pretends to compel, parents to send their children to school at ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... dining-parlor, where the mistress sat before a business-like writing-table, covered with letters, papers, etc., all arranged with that careful order in disorder which indicates, even in the smallest things, the possession of an accurate, methodical mind, than which there are few greater possessions, either to its owner or to the world ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... well versified, had not, however, the fortune to please him. He found those verses too methodical for poetry; and the poet, moreover, seemed to him somewhat a huckster, and in bad taste. The satirists might do what they liked, they never had his ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... had kept accounts by double entry,—day-book, journal, and ledger, with cash-book, bank-book, house-book, and letter-book. I had made extracts, copies, translations, and quotations, more perhaps than other man living, without ever being able to pack up my knowledge or my labors in any methodical order; and now doubt whether I might not have employed my time more profitably in some one great, well-compacted, comprehensive pursuit, adapting every hour of labor to the attainment of some ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... a large apron, stood at the tub and conversed with the Scotchwoman, who watched her quick movements with interest and admiration, for she was very graceful, and she did her work in a very business-like manner, which pleased the methodical housekeeper. ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... interminable tentacles seemed to enlace the whole of his great body. The head of the whale especially seemed a perfect net-work of writhing arms—naturally I suppose, for it appeared as if the whale had the tail part of the mollusc in his jaws, and, in a business-like, methodical way, was sawing through it. By the side of the black columnar head of the whale appeared the head of the great squid, as awful an object as one could well imagine even in a fevered dream. Judging as carefully as possible, I estimated it to be at least as large as one of ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... hour and a half the formation of the Southern army went on. Despite the danger of discovery, present every moment, Jackson was resolved to perfect his preparations for the attack. He was calm, methodical, and showed no emotion now, however much he may have felt it. Harry rode back and forth, sometimes with him and sometimes alone, carrying messages. He expected every instant to hear the crack of some Northern scout's rifle ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... century to obtain any appreciable improvement in the quality of a race by this procedure, even if it were carried out in a methodical and general way. At the end of a few centuries our descendants might recognize the happiness that they owe to our efforts. They would also no doubt be astonished at being descended from such a race of barbarians, and at having so many drunkards, ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... began to compare the two enlargements in a very different manner from my previous scrutiny. I borrowed a pair of calipers from the photographer and with these I carried out a most methodical and exact comparison of the details shown ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... world are more fond of money than the Neapolitans: if you ask a man of the people in the street to show you your way, he stretches out his hand after having made you a sign, for they are more indolent in speech than in action; but their avidity for money is not methodical nor studied; they spend it as soon as they get it. They use money as savages would if it were introduced among them. But what this nation is most wanting in, is the sentiment of dignity. They perform ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... sergeant on this line and told briefly to 'get on with it.' Sapper Duffy spat on his hands, placed his spade on the exact spot indicated, drove it down, and began to dig at a rate that was apparently leisurely but actually was methodical and nicely calculated to a speed that could be long and unbrokenly sustained. During the first minute many bullets whistled and sang past, and Sapper Duffy took no notice. A couple went 'whutt' past his ear, and he swore and slightly increased ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... plenty of discarded tins lying about," thought Wilmshurst. "It seems strange that methodical Fritz should waste a good raw-hide thong when simpler and more efficacious means are available, unless—ah! I wonder if it was a lack of water ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... intellectual freedom, to come to bombarding Louvain, Malines, and the Cathedral of Rheims! Having assumed the role of representative par excellence of culture, of civilization in its loftiest form, at the end to aim at the subjugation of the world and to strive toward that aim by the methodical letting loose of brute force, wickedness, and barbarism! To boast of having attained the highest plane of human nature, and to reveal themselves as survivors ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... methodical, began her drawing as slowly and carefully as if she had the whole day for it, reasoning to herself that she would rather hurry the finishing ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... equally certain unto me; and even of the mysteries of the Gospel I must needs say, with Mr. Richard Hooker, that whatever some may pretend, the subjective certainty cannot go beyond the objective evidence. * * * Therefore I do more of late than ever discern the necessity of a methodical procedure in maintaining the doctrine of Christianity. * * * My certainty that I am a man is before my certainty that there is a God. * * * My certainty that there is a God is greater than my certainty that he requireth love and ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of a people devoid of religion. But I know that religion always must remain a matter of the heart and of personal conviction, and if it is to promote virtue and righteousness, it must not, by a mere methodical constraint, be degraded to an empty and thoughtless ritualism. Hereafter Lutheran principles shall be strictly adhered to in religious affairs, for they are entirely in harmony with the spirit and Founder of ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... continued Michael, who was eminently methodical, "a few military formalities, which have had my attention. In fact, I think that everything has been attended to. In case you should require any information, or perhaps advice, write to C 74, Smith's Library, Vigo Street. That is the address on ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... had rather have the gift of remembering all they read, or of once knowing everything, and then taking their chances for recollecting it when they wanted it. Lucy, who had a quick memory, was willing to take her chance. But Harry, who was more methodical, hated to lose anything he had once learned, and he thought he had rather have the good fairy give him the gift of recollecting all he had once learned. For my part, I quite agree with Harry. There are a great many things that I have no desire ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... filling the magazine with cool, methodical regularity, kept changing his position with a restlessness and recklessness puzzling alike to friends and foes. Now he aimed and fired, lying "doggo" behind his favourite stone, while bullets from the enemy's trenches flattened themselves upon it, or buried themselves harmlessly ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... and two constables, put to sea in the harbour-master's swift steam launch. Some food had been brought aboard and Mark made a meal as he described the incidents of the night. It was eight o'clock before they reached the cavern and began a methodical search over the ground and upward. Mark had arranged with Doria that a signal should fly from "Crow's Nest" for him if there were any news; but nothing had happened, for the flagpole ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... writes Knox, "make a most grotesque appearance in their different dresses; and our inventions to guard us against the extreme rigours of this climate are various beyond imagination. The uniformity, as well as the nicety, of the clean, methodical soldiers is buried in the rough, fur-wrought garb of the frozen Laplander; and we rather resemble a masquerade than a body of regular troops, insomuch that I have frequently been accosted by my acquaintances, whom, though their voices were familiar to me, I could not discover, or ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... easily corrected. Every experiment will teach caution, and miscarriages will hourly shew, that attempts are not always rewarded with success. The most precipitate ardour will, in time, be taught the necessity of methodical gradation, and preparatory measures; and the most daring confidence be convinced, that neither merit ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... her own way, and it would be injustice to her memory not to give the reader a little idea of her. She was a native and essential cook, as much as Aunt Chloe,—cooking being an indigenous talent of the African race; but Chloe was a trained and methodical one, who moved in an orderly domestic harness, while Dinah was a self-taught genius, and, like geniuses in general, was positive, opinionated and erratic, to the ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... devout life; and all of them were for their dispositions serviceable, and quiet, and humble, and free from scandal. Having thus fitted himself for his family, he did, about the year 1630, betake himself to a constant and methodical service of God; and it was in this manner:—He, being accompanied with most of his family, did himself use to read the common prayers—for he was a Deacon—every day, at the appointed hours of ten and four, in the Parish-Church, which was very near his house, ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... have regarded it, for he goes on to explain how, after the deliverances of a master, "then begin men to aspire to the second prizes, to be a profound interpreter and commentor, to be a sharp champion and defender, to be a methodical compounder and abridger. And this is the unfortunate succession of wits which the world hath yet had, whereby the patrimony of all knowledge goeth not on husbanded and improved, but ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... her clothes. She did not wish to wake Helen, for she was most anxious that no one should know that on the first morning of her housekeeping she had arisen soon after six o'clock. Her plans were all laid beforehand, and a wonderfully methodical and well arranged programme, considering her fourteen years, was hers; she was all agog with eagerness ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... Thirty-two pages have perhaps been wanted for a number, and the printers with all their art could not stretch the matter to more than twenty-eight or -nine! The work of filling up must be very dreadful. I have sometimes been ridiculed for the methodical details of my business. But by these contrivances I have been preserved from many troubles; and I have saved others with whom I have worked—editors, publishers, and ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... theoretical and scholarly, and, on the other hand, the utilitarian opinion and ideal of the function of a college is that the work should be more progressive and practical. One class emphasizes the importance of true culture and of making ardent, methodical, and independent search after truth, irrespective of its application; the other believes that practice should go along with theory, and that the college should introduce the student into the practical ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... they govern the mysteries of their handicrafts, being rent into many dark and divided ways, it is not possible to map our work beforehand, or resolve on its directions. We will not attempt to bind ourselves to any methodical treatment of our subject, but will get at the truths of it here and there, as they seem extricable; only, though we cannot know to what depth we may have to dig, let us know clearly what we are digging ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... far as all political power was concerned. To accomplish this end, he prescribed in his own society, and their affiliated {67} lodges, or meetings, a certain manner of life, distinguished by a most cleanly but not luxurious clothing, a regular diet, a methodical division of time, part of which was to be appropriated to one's self, and part to the state. Heeren remarks, that when a secret society pursues political ends, it naturally follows that an opposing party increases in the same degree ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... the old chest which held her completed work, frowning prettily over a note-book in her lap. She was very methodical, and, in some inscrutable way, things had become mixed. She kept track of every yard of lace and linen and every spool of thread, for, it was evident, she must know the exact cost of the material and the amount of time spent on a garment before ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... well-meaning, earnest, and extremely nervous man, he displays a methodical antagonism. Our vicar is the worst of all possible rural vicars—unripe, a glaring modern, no classical scholar, no lover of nature, offensively young and yet not youthful, an indecent politician. He was meant to labour amid Urban ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... dreaded waking stale and disappointed after a great effort. The first thing that came was always the sense of the futility of such endeavor, and of the absurdity of trying too hard. Up to a certain point, say eighty degrees, artistic endeavor could be fat and comfortable, methodical and prudent. But if you went further than that, if you drew yourself up toward ninety degrees, you parted with your defenses and left yourself exposed to mischance. The legend was that in those upper reaches you might be divine; but you were much likelier to ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... years have passed since houses were haunted in Egypt, and have left some sane, educated, and methodical men to meet the same annoyances as the ancient Egyptians did, by the same measures. We do not pretend to discover, without examination, the causes of the sounds and sights which baffle trained and not superstitious investigators. But we do say that similar ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... subdivisions. Each of the five may, like a sentence, be simple, or complex, or compound; and each may be of any of the three grand classes. The development of this scheme forms a volume, not small. The system is plausible, ingenious, methodical, mostly true, and somewhat elaborate; but it is neither very useful nor very accurate. It seems too much like a great tree, beautiful, symmetrical, and full of leaves, but raised or desired only for fruit, yet bearing little, and some of that little not of good quality, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... marriage was a desirable husband for her in many ways; her father highly approved of his suit; but this neglect of her was awkward, if not painful, for Phyllis. Love him in the true sense of the word she assured me she never did, but she had a genuine regard for him; admired a certain methodical and dogged way in which he sometimes took his pleasure; valued his knowledge of what the Court was doing, had done, or was about to do; and she was not without a feeling of pride that he had chosen her when he might have ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... drew up the orders necessary to secure that the retreat should be both methodical and orderly. The Czechs were to retire first, past my lines, and entrain at Kraevesk, followed by the English and the French, who were to bring up the rear, which was to be covered by the English armoured train, assisted by the machine-gun section of the Middlesex Regiment under Lieutenant ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... altogether charming little book. Simple, clear, and methodical, the style leaves nothing to be desired, and suggests no wish that anything were away. An aunt called upon for more stories—and no wonder, when she tells them so well—resolves to play the Nereid, and takes her little ones in fancy down among the slopes and dells of Ocean to watch the lovely growths ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... There's a telegram." I snatched the receiver spitefully, thinking it only the methodical Torrence confirming the appointment made by telephone. ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... whose belongings, arranged with mathematical precision, indicated the methodical business habits of its owner, sat Hugh Mainwaring, senior member of the firm of Mainwaring & Co., a man approaching his fiftieth birthday. His dress and manners, less pronouncedly English than those of the remaining two, betokened the polished man of ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... one feel a doubt upon the point, as so stated? If so, it will be upon him to show that Psychology, in its methodical pursuit, is a needless and superfluous employment of strength; that the problems of ethics, ontology, &c., can be solved without it—a hard task indeed, so long as they are unsolved in any way. I have no space for indulging in a dissertation on the value of methodical study and arrangement ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... redundance, be more or less numerous. But either complexity or vagueness, as well as redundance or deficiency, is a fault; and, when all these faults are properly avoided, and the two great ends of methodical syntax, parsing and correcting, are duly answered, perhaps the requisite number of syntactical rules, or grammatical canons, will no longer appear very indeterminate. In the preceding chapters, the essential principles of English syntax are supposed to ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... born in 1839. Frail most of his life, in later years he has become robust, and now (1913) is the only surviving member of the family besides Mr. Burroughs. He is cheery and loquacious, methodical and orderly, and very punctilious in dress. (One day, in the summer of 1912, when he was calling at "Woodchuck Lodge,"—the summer home where Mr. Burroughs has lived of late years, near the old place where he was born,—this brother recounted some of their youthful ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... beside the open door. Miss Clarkson gave a methodical last look around the dismantled room, and walked out of it, the child following. At the top of the stairs she turned her head sharply, a sudden curiosity uppermost in her mind. Was he glancing back? she wondered. Was he showing any emotion? Did he feel any? He seemed so ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... shews the Reason, first of his Writing on this Subject (1.) Next of his present manner of Handling it, and why he partly declines a Methodical way (2.) and why he has partly made use of it in the History of Whiteness and ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... oh! most faithfully, he would lead a hardworking life. Then he shut himself up in his room and pictured the future to himself—long years of austere and methodical labour. ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... describes the talents, the researches, and learning of Sir William Jones, is worthy of the imagination of Burke; and yet, with all this oriental splendour of fancy, he has the reputation of being a patient and methodical man of business. He looks, however, much more like a poet or a student, than an orator and a statesman; and were statesmen the sort of personages which the spirit of the age attempts to represent them, I, for one, should lament that a young man, possessed of so many amiable qualities, all ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... most plucky gun-bearer that I have ever seen. He has accompanied me through so many scenes with unvarying firmness that I never have the slightest anxiety about my spare guns if he is there, as he keeps the little troop of gun-bearers in their places in a most methodical manner. ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... the actual capture of this burglar, I seemed to develop an entirely alien personality. But the change was only temporary, and I had now fully recovered my normal temperament, which is that of a careful, methodical and eminently cautious man. Hence, as I took my breakfast and planned out my procedure, an important fact made itself evident. I should presently have in my museum a human skeleton which I should have ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... understand. She laid her head back in its little cloud of amber hair, and looked up at Tims, who, frowning portentously, once more with lifted finger enjoined silence. Tims then concealing her agitation behind a cupboard-door, reached down the tea-things. By some strange accident the methodical Milly's teapot was absent from its place; a phenomenon for which Tims was thankful, as it imposed upon her the necessity of leaving her patient for a few minutes. Shaking her finger again at Milly still more emphatically, she went out, and ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... concerned in the first place with improving the condition of the muscles by methodical exercises and massage. When reflex irritability of the muscles with consequent spasm is a prominent feature, the reflex arc may be interrupted by resection of the posterior nerve roots corresponding to the part affected. This operation, first suggested by Spiller but chiefly popularised ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... shouted one, seizing on the methodical, active, little dark-eyed woman, who was busy stowing away the linen of the boys who had already arrived into their several pigeon-holes, "here we are again, you see, as jolly as ever. Let us help ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes |
