"Momentous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... years ago, of the Government of India from the old East India Company to the Crown, another very important step was taken, a step which I have often thought since I have been concerned with the Government of India was far more momentous, one almost deeper than the transfer to the Crown. And what do you think that was? That was the first establishment—I think I am right in my date—of Universities. We in this country are so accustomed to look upon political changes ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... not but feel that here, trying to express itself, was real power. I was excited and interested. I felt that these pictures had something to say to me that was very important for me to know, but I could not tell what it was. They seemed to me ugly, but they suggested without disclosing a secret of momentous significance. They were strangely tantalising. They gave me an emotion that I could not analyse. They said something that words were powerless to utter. I fancy that Strickland saw vaguely some spiritual meaning in material things that was so strange that he could only suggest it with halting ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... the reports. It made him restless to be lolling here outside of the storm when such a momentous affair was moving down the lake under the leaden pall of the city smoke. He asked questions eagerly, and finally got into discussion with old Boardman, one of the counsel for ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... On the momentous morning when the trio set forth upon their journey, Mary Temple, as glad as they, stood upon the steps at Grantley Square and waved ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... very little more, pertinent to this narrative, that I need add of the events on Earth, Venus, and Mars during this momentous summer. The main facts are history now: the wild storms, the damage done by outraged nature and the panic among the people—all of it has been detailed as public news. The strange light-beams planted by Wandl in Greater New York, Grebhar, and ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... fluttering among the little folk, and were the theme of much excitement and great speculation among the master's scholars. The master had promised Mliss, to whom this sort of thing was sacred and rare, that she should go, and on that momentous evening the master ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... afternoon Milly met her husband in a frame of mind much more serene than it was before she saw the Reddons, and told him her momentous news. He seemed more pleased and less disturbed by it than she had supposed possible. A few days later he got the proof-sheets of Reinhard's novel from the trunk, where they had been lying neglected, and worked ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... our stretcher-bearers coming out of that belching brimstone line with the punctured and broken bodies of our boys. But it was glorious to know that the line had not wavered. How long could they last? And how speedily could artillery be brought to their aid? These were the momentous questions that quivered on every lip and that gave imperative urgency to the commands and appeals of the officers who watched with choking emotion the slaughter ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... momentous for all nations, the future is a tangled riddle; for the Slavs this seems true in a double measure. To involved social problems is added race opposition in the breasts of neighbors, a deep, sullen historic hostility. ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... arts have been thus left to the chance adoption or neglect of mankind; they are no one's property; cast at random upon the waves of human opinion. In any country soever, men may appropriate them at once, and form themselves at their will into a society for their extension. But for the more momentous truths of revealed religion, the God, who wrought by human means in their first introduction, still preserves them by the same. Christ formed a body. He secured that body from dissolution by the bond of a Sacrament. He committed the privileges of His spiritual kingdom and the maintenance ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... ever assembled with more momentous measures before it than the thirty-first Congress of the United States. An immense area of unsettled public domain had been wrested from Mexico. The Territories of California, Utah, and New Mexico, amounting to several hundred thousand square miles, ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... countenance she made sign to her ladyship. A moment later and Nishioka Shintaro[u] entered the room. There was not a trace of difference from the ordinary in his composed harsh reverential manner to her ladyship. The latter gave a look at O'Saku. The old women asked the momentous question. "The matter in hand—has all gone well? The wench no longer troubles the peace and future of the okugata?"—"Everything to perfection: the chu[u]gen and servants were given tasks to take them far removed. There was barely a struggle. By ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... to consult you on a subject which, as you will perceive, is of a most momentous nature. You know how much reliance I place in your judgement and knowledge of what is proper, and, therefore, I write to you before speaking to any other living person on the subject: not even to mamma; for, although her judgement is good too, she has so many cares ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... forms which natural religion has assumed none probably has exerted so deep and far-reaching an influence on human life as the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead; hence an historical survey of this most momentous creed and of the practical consequences which have been deduced from it can hardly fail to be at once instructive and impressive, whether we regard the record with complacency as a noble testimony to the aspiring genius of man, who claims to outlive the sun and the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... rate, Eveline's day should not be spoiled. It should be one to be marked with a white stone. He little thought with what danger the trip was to be fraught, or that it would prove the most momentous one of ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... was made in the same monotone as the foregoing sentence, I was at some loss to determine whether or not it formed part of the title of that momentous work. ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... reaching toward a higher goal, appeals to its hope and faith, Why failest thou [25] me? Jesus as the son of man was human: Christ as the Son of God was divine. This divinity was reaching humanity through the crucifixion of the human,—that momentous demonstration of God, in which Spirit proved its supremacy over matter. Jesus assumed ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... the head taken off, by a cut somewhat resembling the clerical tonsure, so that they looked extremely wild and unsettled with their straight locks projecting over their ears; every thing, therefore, of the less important arrangements had been gone through—the weighty and momentous concern was as ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... carried away for storage—for in the field the ranks were to bivouac in the open air. Such gayety; such jokes; such bravado; and augury of the to be! And the rumors! Telephones, had they been invented; stenographers, had they been present in legion, could not have kept track of the momentous tales that were instantly bruited about. General Scott was going to lead the army in person. His charger had been seen before the headquarters. The rebels were going to be swooped up by another such famous dash ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... hinted, the issue is much more momentous than any could have realized even so late as fifty years ago. It is only in our own time that we are learning the measure of the natural differences between individuals, it is only lately that we have come to ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... the tragic experiences of one's freshman year seem often the most insignificant of trifles; but that does not prevent their being at the time momentous as the fate of empires. There are mid-year examinations, for instance; after one has survived them a few times she knows that being "flunked out" is not so common an experience as report represents it to be, and as for "low grades" and "conditions," if one has "cut" or been too ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... Webster had rendered the Nation some of his strongest arguments for the Northern Cause. He was quite ready to accept the judgment of the English publicist that "Webster was not only the greatest man of his age,—he was the greatest man of any age." No doubt he had followed every stage of that momentous career to the very end. All thoughtful Americans went into retirement with Daniel Webster, and in his last sickness watched in a kind of reverent awe as his life ebbed away. From the solemn death chamber in Marshfield, his home by ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... of the British Islands. His dissolution of the late Parliament, and his easy suppression of the subsequent tumult, had but increased the respect for him abroad. Whether he would finally declare himself for Spain or for France was still the momentous question. The Marquis of Leyda, Spanish Governor of Dunkirk, had come to London to assist Cardenas in the negotiations for Spain; but Mazarin was indefatigable in his offers, through M. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... not forgotten my promise. 'Tis true the story you wished me to give you is more easily communicated by the pen than by the lips. I admit your claim to be acquainted with all the incidents of my life, be they momentous or trivial. I have often told you that the retrospect is very mournful; but that ought not to prevent me from making it, when so useful a purpose as that of thoroughly disclosing to you the character of one, on whom your future happiness is to depend, will be affected ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... mischievous enemies this country has ever known." Speaking thus, he looked full at Franklin, and drew upon him the general attention. But Chatham hastened to defend the defenseless one. "The plan is entirely my own," he said; "but if I were the first minister, and had the care of settling this momentous business, I should not be ashamed of calling to my assistance a person so perfectly acquainted with the whole of American affairs, one whom all Europe ranks with our Boyles and Newtons, as an honor not to the English nation only but to ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... to England marks a turning-point in the history of civilisation. It was the first step in a long process of interaction—big with momentous consequences—between the French and English cultures. For centuries the combined forces of mutual ignorance and political hostility had kept the two nations apart: Voltaire planted a small seed of friendship which, in spite of a thousand hostile influences, ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... reluctantly obliged to omit. We may note however his general conclusion that the impact on the public mind of a book often varies in an inverse ratio with the attractiveness of its appearance or its title. At the same time he admits that if he had called his momentous work The Terrible Treaty, and if it had been bound in a rainbow cover with a Cubist design, its circulation might have been even greater than it actually is. But then, as he candidly owns, "as a Cambridge man, I may be inclined to attach ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... idea, and had it been realized, might have saved Clare from despondency and final ruin. Unfortunately, its realization, though easy at one moment, depended not upon the poet, but upon his patronizing friends, who proved painfully lukewarm at this momentous period of his life. It so happened that in the winter of 1822-3, an opportunity offered itself for acquiring a piece of freehold land of about seven acres, close to the poet's cottage, known to the people of Helpston as ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... Let it be so. It is a fact, I believe, that there is nothing revealed in this book which will not bear a spiritual, and a moral, interpretation; and I venture to say of some of it that the moral implications involved are exceedingly momentous, and timely too. I need not refer to such matters any further. If they don't speak for themselves they will get ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... in Friedrich's service; but, except him of Hessen-Darmstadt, none of them had much minded. [In Orlich, Furst Moritz von Anhalt Dessau (Berlin, 1842), pp. 74, 75, Prince Moritz's rather mournful Letter on the subject, with Friedrich's sharp Answer.] I did not hear that his strategic talent was momentous: but Prussia had taught him the routine of right soldiering, surely to small purpose; and Friedrich, no doubt, glanced indignantly at this small thing, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... even reach that goal to which the aim of nature leads and almost constrains them. What if they were left without this mighty, this well-nigh irresistible help of nature's guidance! Consider also how momentous is the powerlessness which incapacitates the wicked. Not light or trivial[L] are the prizes which they contend for, but which they cannot win or hold; nay, their failure concerns the very sum and crown of things. Poor wretches! they fail to compass even that for which they toil day and night. ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... reopened as soon as curiosity as to Pennewip's visit had been sufficiently satisfied. Indeed, she was all the more willing for a truce, as it was evident from the man's appearance that there was something momentous at hand. His wig cried out fire and murder in unmistakable tones. And that was just what the good ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... fellow-countrymen," he said, "and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... in the gross. He treated nothing less momentous than the fortunes of the race. It is precisely from this cause that the incomparable grandeur of Milton's characters and situations springs. The conversations that he records are like international parleyings. Eve is the official ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... fail to mark the ignorance and degradation which prevailed, but I never speak of it, because, you know, it makes one very unpopular,' Here, Florry, you have the clew to the mystery. Americans quietly contemplate this momentous subject, and silently view the abuses which are creeping into our communities, because if they expose them, it is at the hazard of ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... a good place under one of the sheds, and, wrapped in blankets, soon sank to slumber. The day after such a momentous night came dark and gloomy, with the rain still dripping. A north wind had arisen, and high waves chased one another over the lake. There was still much fog on the land side, and, under its cover, the French and Indians were stalking the camp, ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... delay would endanger the chances of picking up the eight men who had elected to winter on the shelf-ice one thousand five hundred miles to the west. At such a critical moment determination, fearless and swift, was necessary, and, in coming to his momentous decision, Captain Davis acted well and for the best ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... feet, and took the proffered hand with a deliberate gesture, as if he had been cautiously weighing all the possible arguments for and against this momentous compact. ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... misfortunes that arise from the audience; as, when at a momentous point of the plot there entereth one heated with liquor, and causeth a disturbance, or a woman with a huge bonnet becometh the subject of a discussion as to her right to wear the same, and impede the view of them that be behind; also when there cometh in a ruffian, or more, in a pea-coat, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... any new device into the symbolism of logic is necessarily a momentous event. In logic a new device should not be introduced in brackets or in a footnote with what one might call a completely innocent air. (Thus in Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica there occur definitions and primitive propositions expressed in words. Why ...
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Ludwig Wittgenstein
... anxiously. The whole thing seemed to me so momentous. Neither of them showed the slightest signs of fear or apprehension. Mr. Parker, with his newly lit cigar in the corner of his mouth, was smiling a smile of pleasant contentment. Eve, leaning back in her chair, with her hands clasped round the back of her ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... subtle art of HENRY JAMES, Vain the wealth of ROTHSCHILDS or of MORGANS, If I fail to satisfy the claims Of these mystic and momentous organs; I'm no better than a grain of sand Or a simple common polypody, With an undeveloped pineal gland, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... The momentous interview was no sooner concluded, and Oliver composed to rest again, than the doctor, after wiping his eyes, and condemning them for being weak all at once, betook himself downstairs to open upon Mr. Giles. And finding nobody about the parlours, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... that departure should be so simple. When you are taking the most momentous step of your life, surely there should be dragons in the way! Here were no dragons. As he went down the High Street people smiled at him and waved hands. The town sparkled under the afternoon sun. It was market-day, and the old fruit-woman ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... the above is now returned to his country, his vows having been most awfully answered by one of the most momentous struggles she has ever had, or to which the nations around have ever yet stood as spectators; for the balance of Europe trembles at the ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... continuance of occupancy and a great increase of military and naval strength. This intrusion, into a sphere hitherto alien to it, of a new military power, capable of becoming one of the first force, if it so willed, was momentous in itself; but it was attended further with circumstances which caused Great Britain, and Great Britain alone among the nations of the earth, to appear the friend of the United States in the latter's conflict. How this friendliness ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... which might be the most conducive to the prosperity, strength and harmony of all the British communities of North America." It must always be a subject of astonishment that the British government for so many years should have had no definite policy on a matter so momentous, and that they should have sought to discourage, rather than otherwise, a project which has been of such vast importance ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... that he had listened to me with pleasure, and had weighed all my reasons, finding them very true; but that for the accomplishment of an undertaking so momentous, a large heart and a strong will were indispensable, and these he could not at present promise me. He told me in confidence that never until now had negotiations of such importance passed through his hands, to be followed by so few results. One day the King would have recourse to an expedient, and ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... papers came to the conclusion some time ago that our girls must be disposed of in some way, and feeling that it lacked the ability to solve the problem alone and unaided, sent a request abroad for help in settling this momentous question. ...
— Silver Links • Various
... Thou ever for a moment imagine that men would have the same strength to resist such a temptation? Is human nature calculated to reject miracle, and trust, during the most terrible moments in life, when the most momentous, painful and perplexing problems struggle within man's soul, to the free decisions of his heart for the true solution? Oh, Thou knewest well that that action of Thine would remain recorded in books for ages ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky
... nation-state. In the hands of these empires the political destinies of the world seemed to rest, and the lesser nation-states appeared to be altogether overshadowed by them. Among the vast questions which fate was putting to humanity, there were none more momentous than these: On what principles, and in what spirit, were these nation-empires going to use the power which they had won over their vast and varied multitudes of subjects? What were to be their relations with one another? Were they to be relations ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... anthropology has made in the second half of the nineteenth century is due in the first place, to Darwin's discovery of the origin of man. No other problem in the whole field of research is so momentous as that of "Man's place in nature," which was justly described by Huxley (1863) as the most fundamental of all questions. Yet the scientific solution of this problem was impossible until the theory of descent had ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... families to migrate made some stir in the town. It was yet a small place, and everybody knew every other body's business. The Bryants and Howells were among the "old families," and their momentous step created a little ripple of excitement among their friends and acquaintances. The boys enjoyed the talk and the gossip that arose around them, and already considered themselves heroes in a small way. With envious eyes and ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... and princesses that are in disgrace, this momentous question is put only once. Those in good ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... had been growing between the two great sections of his country, and he certainly had not the slightest sympathy with those who had fomented the ill-will for personal ends. Finally, however, he had found himself face to face with the momentous certainty of a separation of his State from the Union. For a time he was bewildered and disturbed beyond measure; for he was not a prompt man of affairs, living keenly in the present, but one who had been suddenly ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... Indeed, the whole statement cohered marvellously well; all the parts harmonized with each other and looked plausible, even reasonable, as I have said, except the grand fact itself, which was too momentous for belief. But why should it not be true? What new achievement of the human mind ought to startle one in this nineteenth century, after having witnessed the wonders of steam and electro-magnetism? I determined to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... G.H.Q. the momentous decision was being taken, on the recommendation of General Dobell and the Divisional commanders, not to attack again on the 20th, but to consolidate the ground won, and to start trench warfare. Had the decision been different few indeed of us would have seen the evening—but as it was the Battalion ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... encouraging opinions. When I first began to make one of Lady Russell's frequent visitors, there was, of course, between us a natural sympathy of political opinion which was made all the stronger because of momentous events that had lately passed, or were then passing, ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... momentous of all his commissions, especially to his own country, was in 1587, when he destroyed a hundred ships in Cadiz Harbour. It was a fine piece of work, this "singeing of the King of Spain's beard" as he called ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... minstrel, was scarcely less goodly to look upon. While the giant Little John and broad-shouldered Will Stutely made up in stature what little they lacked in outward polish. Mistress Dale, on her part, looked even more charming, if possible, than on the momentous day when she went to Plympton Church to marry ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... relation of their own, whom they knew intimately; but it was not easy to determine how to show their sympathy. Mr. and Mrs. Austen seem at last to have come (no doubt with their daughters' good-will) to the momentous decision mentioned in the following letter, which was addressed to Mrs. Leigh Perrot on January 11, 1800, by ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... United States in 1916.[1] The majority of these pupils are lost from school—whatever the cause—before the completion of their courses; and, again, the majority of those who do graduate have on graduation ended their school days. Consequently, it becomes more and more evident how momentous is the influence of the public high school in conditioning the life activities and opportunities of our youthful citizens who have entered its doors. Before being entitled to be considered a "big business enterprise,"[2] ...
— The High School Failures - A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or - Commercial High School Subjects • Francis P. Obrien
... to notice is the liability of reason's gaze to become morbid and as it were inflamed by unremitting exercise. I do not here allude to hard study, but to overcurious scanning of the realities of this life, and the still greater realities and more momentous possibilities of the world to come. There is a sense of the surroundings being too much for us, an alarm and a giddiness, that comes of sober matter-of-fact thought over-much prolonged. Then it happens that one or more undeniable ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... subsequent. It lays hold on nothing. Not only have they no perception of themselves, but they have no perception of anything. They never recognize an exigency. They do not salute greatness. Has not the Autocrat told us of some lady who remembered a certain momentous event in our Revolutionary War, and remembered it only by and because of the regret she experienced at leaving her doll behind when her family was forced to fly from home? What humiliation is this! What an utter failure to appreciate the issues of life! For her there was no revolution, no upheaval ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... to me in the idea of writing down men's names for such a work as this, just as boys at school used to draw out the elevens for a cricket match." The old stager turned round and stared at the younger politician. "The thing itself is so momentous that one ought to ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... directions, with the air of one who felt that he had a momentous task before him, Bythewood sat on the rock, his head heavy and hot, his feet like clods of ice, and his heart collapsing with intolerable suspense. The gloom of the cave, and the strangeness of ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... interesting from our standpoint is another set of primitive animals, utterly insignificant in appearance, but of momentous importance on account of their later history. Among these reptiles were a few small creatures perhaps not much bigger than mice or moles. Their teeth were a little more complicated and specialized than the teeth of their reptilian cousins. Between their ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... When this momentous discussion was finished, as usual Owen preached before the king, expounding the Scriptures and taking for his subject the duty of faith. As he went back to his hut he saw that the snake which John had killed had been set upon ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... sat on the Wishing-rock, beating their heels against its mossy side. And the world stretched before them. It was the end of a momentous day—momentous because so many things had been decided and such nice things! First, Uncle Johnny had said that he'd "fix" it with Mrs. Westley that Isobel and Gyp should remain at Kettle a month longer, then Mrs. Allan had driven over from Cobble and announced ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... Union; and establishing a Provisional Government, with Jefferson Davis as President, at Montgomery in Alabama, had proclaimed a new Republic, under the title of the Confederate States of America. In order to explain Jackson's attitude at this momentous crisis, it will be necessary to discuss the action of Virginia, and to investigate the motives which led her to take the side ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... of William Tell, was momentous to the main plot of the emancipation of Switzerland in its issue. This man, who was one of the sworn at Rutli, and noted for his high and daring spirit, exposed himself to arrest by Gessler's myrmidons, for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... me to pass over no less than Fifteen Years of my momentous Career. I am led to do this for divers cogent Reasons, two of which I will forthwith lay before my Reader. For the first, let me urge a Decent Prudence. It is not, Goodness knows, that I have any thing to be ashamed of which should hinder me from giving a Full, True, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... luxuries,—bread and beer and coals, Manning. But as to France and Frenchmen, and the Abbe Sieyes and his constitutions, I cannot make these present times present to me. I read histories of the past, and I live in them; although, to abstract senses, they are far less momentous than the noises which keep Europe awake. I am reading Burnet's "Own Times." Did you ever read that garrulous, pleasant history? He tells his story like an old man, past political service, bragging to his sons on winter evenings of the part he took in public transactions when "his ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... shoved aside. Nothing mechanical like that was wholly true. Daddy had often used queer phrases that hinted at it: "Some day—A day is coming—A day will come"; and so forth. Their belief in a special Day when no one would say "Time" haunted them already. Yet, evidently this evening was not the momentous occasion; for when Tim mentioned that the clock was fast, the figure behind the chair replied that she was half an hour overdue already, and her tone was like Thompson's when he said, "Dinner's served." There was ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... of looking at that great revolution of which we habitually set the beginning in 1789. That date is, indeed, momentous; more so than any other in modern history. It marks the outbreak in legislation and politics of ideas which had already been working for a century, and which have changed the face of the civilized world. These ideas are not all ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... guessed nor dreamed the number of his dollars which had gone into guaranties and railroad bonds. He had done much for his county, and the railroad was his last and greatest achievement, the capstone of the Travers' effort, the momentous and marvellous thing that had been brought about just yesterday. It had been running two years, and, highest proof of all of his judgment, dividends were in sight. And farther reaching reward was in sight. It was written in the books that the next Governor of California ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... responsibility than does the public business of a state in the American Union. The latter retained many important duties; but it surrendered, if not the most essential of its functions, at least the most critical and momentous, while in the exercise of the remainder it was to a certain extent protected against the worst consequences of mistakes or perversities. It surrendered the power of making peace or declaring war. Its relation to the other states in the Union was strictly ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... I have no time to discuss the subject of slavery on this occasion, nor should I desire to discuss it in this connection, if I had more time. But I just not omit a few plain words on the momentous issue which has now been raised. I speak for Massachusetts—I believe I speak the sentiments of all New England, and of many other States out of New England—when I say that, upon this question, our minds are made up. So far as we have power—constitutional or moral power—to ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... returned, as he had undertaken to do if required, and then resolved that the only thing was for him to marry at once. He accordingly went straight to his cousin Charles Grove, and with twenty-five pounds borrowed from his relative Mr. Medwin, a solicitor at Horsham, he entered on one of the most momentous days of his life—the 24th or 25th August 1811. After passing the night with his cousin, he waited at the door of the coffee-house in Mount Street, watching for a girlish figure to turn the corner from Chapel Street. There was some delay; but what was to ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... directing the whole in its sublime career, but he notices the fall of a sparrow, and numbers the very hairs of our head. Events, the most trivial in their nature, are the objects of his notice, as well as those of the most momentous character. Were not this the case, universal disorder and ruin would soon find their way into his works, break the chain of events, and reduce all, that we now admire, from its present harmony and glory, down to its general confusion and chaos. This conclusion ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... of a little difference of opinion respecting the right of William of Orange to the English crown) in the upbringing of their children. Thus his life ran along in comparative smoothness until the momentous advent of the ghost. ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... and looked wildly about in quest of help, but her agitation went unnoticed by the new friend. From that momentous hour Mrs. Medcroft encouraged an inordinate regard for the circumspect. She decided that it was best never to be alone with her husband; the future was now too precious to go unguarded for a single moment that might be unexplainable when the triumphal hour of revelation came to hand. ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... the element of foliation moderately, that of floral and figure sculpture decoration profusely; the latter, ignoble, uninventive, and declining, uses foliation immoderately, floral and figure sculpture subordinately. The two schools touch each other at that instant of momentous change, dwelt upon in the "Seven Lamps," chap, ii., a period later or earlier in different districts, but which may be broadly stated as the middle of the fourteenth century; both styles being, of course, in their highest excellence at the moment when they meet, the one ascending ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... of this momentous night was at hand when, with the networks of wires and disks properly adjusted upon us, Tako took Jane, Don and me with him ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... me from a life of monotonous drudgery into one charged with novelty and dramatic interest; not only had they introduced me to a renascence of scientific culture and revived under new conditions my intimacy with the comrade of my student days; but, far more momentous than any of these, they had given me the vision—all too fleeting—of happiness untold, with the reality of sorrow and bitter regret that promised ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... preparatory exercises for the reader. His "Church and State, according to the Idea of Each"—a little book—we cannot help recommending as a storehouse of grand and immovable principles, bearing upon some of the most vehemently disputed topics of constitutional interest in these momentous times. Assuredly this period has not produced a profounder and more luminous essay. We have heard it asked, what was the proposed object of Mr. Coleridge's labours as a metaphysical philosopher? He once answered that question himself, in language never to be forgotten by ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... grateful task, your former orators, on this anniversary, have anticipated all that the most ardent industry could collect, and gratified all that the most inquisitive curiosity could desire. To you, my friends, every occurrence of that momentous period is already familiar. A transient allusion to a few characteristic instances, which mark the peculiar history of the Plymouth settlers, may properly supply the place of a narrative, which, to this auditory, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... days he had been engaged in prediction, and last night he had been visited by dreams, the significance of which he could not doubt. But his reading of her horoscope had been incomplete, or else he had failed to understand the answers. That he was a momentous event in her life seemed clear, yet all the signs were set against their marriage; but what was happening had been revealed—that he should stand with her in a room where the carpet was blue, and they were there; that the furniture should be of last century, and he examined the cabinets in the ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... to have been adopted in a meeting of Senators held on the evening of the 5th of January,[110] have been magnified, by the representations of artful commentators on the events of the period, into something vastly momentous. ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... to be formidable, but it is only the more immense. It does not act directly upon the governed, but it renders the majority more absolute over those who govern; it does not confer an unbounded authority on the legislator which can only be exerted at some momentous crisis, but it establishes a temperate and regular influence, which is at all times available. If the power is decreased, it can, on the other hand, be more conveniently employed, and more easily abused. By preventing political tribunals from inflicting judicial punishments, the ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... the portrait in oils and the three carbon photographs had been pushed under the bed. He was tired of discussing terms, of assisting at surveys, of all the routine of the business. What to the other parties was merely the sale of a ship was to him a momentous event involving a radically new view of existence. He knew that after this ship there would be no other; and the hopes of his youth, the exercise of his abilities, every feeling and achievement of his manhood, had been indissolubly connected with ships. He had served ships; ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... in knowledge goes a picture representing the ease of the life and the lordly rewards and pleasant adventures of the "industry." From the remote perspective of to-day very similar seems to have been the process in this most momentous conversation between Mr. Rogers and myself. The apprentice at the knees of the master was being gently and gradually admitted into the secrets of the calling—financial highwaymanry. At the moment, however, it never ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... return Madame Berselius, now free and her own mistress, left Paris for Vaux on a short visit to some friends, little dreaming of the momentous event that was to ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... birthday, one October day when the leaves were all red and yellow, two very momentous events occurred, and, in a manner of speaking, at the very same time. Betsy had noticed that her kitten Eleanor (she still thought of her as a kitten, although she was now a big, grown-up cat) spent very little time around the house. She came into the kitchen two or three times a ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... enough, if religion depended on speculative consistency, and not in obedience of life, to perplex and terrify us. What are we? what is anything? If it be not divine, what is it then? If created—out of what is it created? and how created—and why? These questions, and others far more momentous which we do not enter upon here, may be asked and cannot be answered; but we cannot any the more consent to Spinoza on the ground that he alone consistently provides an answer; because, as we have said again and again, we do not care ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... circle, and must content himself with the acquisition of wealth, the pursuit of learning and such other privileges as his "best friends" may find it consistent with the welfare of the nation to allow him; but to every other good citizen the inquiry ought to be a momentous one. What is a ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... obtained in his retreat, Dunstan appeared again in the world; and gained such an ascendant over Edred, who had succeeded to the crown, as made him not only the director of that prince's conscience, but his counsellor in the most momentous affairs of government. He was placed at the head of the treasury [l], and being thus possessed both of power at court, and of credit with the populace, he was enabled to attempt with success the most arduous enterprises. Finding that his advancement had been owing to the ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... This momentous instrument granted to the "Russian-American Company under our Highest Protection," "full privileges, for a period of twenty years on the coast of northwestern America, beginning from latitude 55 degrees north, and including the chain of islands extending ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... them He also glorifies!" Has grace begun in thee? Canst thou mark—though it should be but the drops of the incipient rill which is to terminate in such an ocean—the tiny grains which are to accumulate and issue in such "an exceeding weight of glory!" Delay not the momentous question! The day of offered grace is on the wing; its hours are fast numbering; ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff
... walked up and down, waiting, and still revolving over and over again in his mind the troublous question that so bewildered and oppressed him. Who was Martia? what was she—that he should take her for a guide in the most momentous business of his life; and what were ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... be well to briefly recall the circumstances under which this momentous battle was fought. One after another the English had been compelled to surrender to the victorious armies of Charles VII. their fortresses in Poitou, Angoumois, Guyenne and Gascony; so that of their immense province of Aquitaine, which ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... cambric ruffles, and silver-gilt buckles. But, alas! the bunch of seals—topaz, agate, and cornelian—no longer buoyed the deep-anchored watch. The money due his father had been promptly paid, through the agency of a three-months' promissory note, and thus the most momentous result of the robbery was overcome. This security for the future, however, scarcely consoled him for the painful privation of the present. Without the watch, Alfred Barton felt that much of his ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... but juster; and is a proof that even the moderns, where they speak naturally, hold the same language with the ancients. In this pope, says he, there was a singular capacity and judgement: admirable prudence; a wonderful talent of persuasion; and in all momentous enterprizes a diligence and dexterity incredible. But these VIRTUES were infinitely overbalanced by his VICES; no faith, no religion, insatiable avarice, exorbitant ambition, and a more ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... are rendering a valuable service in their attempts to explore the baffling region of primitive man's mind, and they have hit upon some very suggestive clues, though so far only tentative ones, to the psychological experiences and attitudes which set man's feet on the {xvi} momentous religious trail. At every stage of its long and devious history, religion has been some sort of life-adjustment to realities which were felt to be of supreme importance either to the individual or to the race, and it becomes thus possible for the scientific observer to note a ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... exercised—and it is of the very essence of political freedom that this should be the normal method of control—in the first place, through expressed public opinion. By this are continuously regulated not only momentous matters of State, such as declarations of war and the introduction of constitutional changes, but also smaller and more individual matters, such as the commutation of a capital sentence, or the forcible feeding ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... of Public Worship, to be held by the Archbishop of CANTERBURY, and that he would himself assume the archbishopric on the following day. The frenzied delight of the entire Liberal Party on hearing this momentous announcement beggars description. The cheering lasted fifteen minutes, and when the vocal chords of the Members were exhausted by the strain they rolled about on the floor of the House ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... was a momentous one. It might be death to remain on the ship, but to a landsman it seemed still more perilous to embark on an angry sea in a ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... the purpose that had brought her to the stream. Her eyes were not upon the swirling pool at her feet, but were lifted to a spot, a thousand feet up on Oak Knoll, where she knew the pipe-line trail lay, and where Croesus had made the momentous decision that had resulted in her comradeship with Aaron King. Following the canyon wall with her eyes—as though in her mind she walked the thread-like path—from Oak Knoll to the fire-break a mile from the reservoir; ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... the owners of slaves, are at their comfortable homes, or in comfortable offices, while the poor and ignorant are relied upon to achieve independence! and these, very naturally, disappoint the President's expectations on momentous occasions. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... All this had not tended to cure him of the low spirits with which he began the journey. Nevertheless, although he was unable—as will be seen—to report an entirely satisfactory answer from Farnese to the Queen upon the momentous questions entrusted to him, he, at least, thought of a choice passage in 'The AEneid,' so very apt to the circumstances, as almost to console him for the "pangs of his cholic" and the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... relate one of these adventures by way of introduction to a longer and more momentous narrative. One night there was a party at Mr. Barnard's, and both Augustus and myself were not a little intoxicated toward the close of it. As usual, in such cases, I took part of his bed in preference to going home. He went to sleep, as I thought, very quietly (it being ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... colonies are consistent . . . and necessary to their own existence as free subjects, and they will never recede from them. The tools of power here are incessantly endeavouring to divide them, but in vain. I wish the king's ministers would duly consider what appears to me a very momentous truth, that one regular attempt to subdue those in any other colony, whatever may be the first issue of the attempt, will open a quarrel, which will never be closed till what some of THEM affect to apprehend, and we sincerely deprecate, shall take effect. Is it not then high time that they ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... Tuesday, the Corner House girls and their guests went for a ride in the automobile, the momentous decision regarding the new baby's name was still ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... where there is no outside diversion such tests of opinion become momentous matters, and the present instance was no exception. Mrs. Jennings, too, had taken sides—her husband's, naturally—and the anti-Jennings faction was made to realize fully the possibilities for revenge which lie within ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... unreasonable one only wanted to kiss her. Guy's privileges in that line had passed with the days when he used to pick up bodily his lithe little playfellow to cross a creek or rain-puddled road. But to-day seemed pleasantly momentous; it called for the unusual. "I say, Bibi, when a knight went off to fight, you know, his lady used to give him a stirrup-cup at good-by. Don't you think it would be ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... and west to prevent the enemy's retreat into the Gulf States. "With a little more cavalry," he said, "I would be sure to capture the whole army." He issued also a Special Field Order, announcing to the army the momentous news. "Glory to God and to our country, and all honor to our comrades in arms toward whom we are marching. A little more labor, a little more toil on our part, the great race is won, and our government stands regenerated after four years of bloody war." [Footnote: ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... time when Sam Marlowe was having the momentous interview with his father, described in the last chapter, Mr. Rufus Bennett woke from an after-luncheon nap in Mrs. Hignett's delightful old-world mansion, Windles, in the county of Hampshire. He had gone to ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... attractions of art. Nevertheless, his power was creative. Cromwell and Michael Angelo, and such as they, are not the passive organs, the mere outcome, of the communities in which they appear. Without the original thought and personal energy of leaders, momentous changes in the life of nations could never have taken place. A great man may be obliged to wait long for the answering sympathy which is required to give effect to his thoughts and purposes. Such a mind is said to be in advance of the age. Another generation may have to appear before ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... and I should see she could have no other view in her expostulations, after her compliance had passed, than to rectify my motions for the future; and it would have been impossible then, but I must have paid the greater deference to her opinion and advice in more momentous matters. ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... I think, for a moment, that Wally should get the start of him; no—I was an honest chap, and he'd put his fist to double the amount to serve me;" and then bade me "sit to the books," and make all square before I cut my stick: and thus happily concluded this most momentous change in my circumstances. ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... night; not that he and Pete talked again about their plans, but because his brain was full of the momentous question: ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... It was a momentous event which had just suddenly fallen in her life so monotonous and so calm—an inconceivable, startling event, the consequences of which were to weigh ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... act not according to the dictates of his heart, but in the service of his native land. In the case of this particular patriot, the man and scout were at odds. As one of the Bicycle Squad of the Boston Corps of Cadets, the scout knew what, at this momentous crisis in her history, the commonwealth of Massachusetts demanded of him. It was that he sit tight and wait for the hated foreigners from New York City, New Jersey, and Connecticut to show themselves. But the man knew, and had known for several years, that on ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... document bearing his opinion and advice. His majesty is usually his own letter-carrier, unless he can meet with a trustworthy messenger in the shape of a priest, an officer, or a policeman. The matter contained in these momentous memorials occupies from eighteen to twenty closely-written sheets, and is always prefaced with the imposing heading: 'Yo, el Rey' (I, ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... I protest against all such ceremonies, and the pretexts for them, 'in toto'. What? Can any ceremony be more instructive than the words required to explain the ceremony? I make but two exceptions, and those where the truths signified are so vital, so momentous, that the very occasion and necessity of explaining the sign are of the highest spiritual value. Yet, alas! to what gross and calamitous superstitions have not even the visible signs in Baptism and ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... to indicate that it recognizes the urgency and bigness and significance of the momentous ...
— High Finance • Otto H. Kahn
... herself of that, dared to shift that feminine buckler against the eye of the sun, to slacken her pace, and to muse on an afternoon whose events, so quiet, so undramatic, and yet so profoundly significant, buzzed still in her head. As she thought on them, other things came into her mind as momentous and worthy of attention before the jump of the great event—that moment alone with Bertram Chester, that panic of unaccountable fear. Slow to anger as much by a native and hidden sweetness as by that surface control which puzzled ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... been banished, they were tolerably contented with the life they led. Noddy was continually planning some new thing to add to the comfort of their daily life, and to provide supplies for the future. As in many large cities, a supply of pure water was a question, of momentous importance to him, and he early turned his attention to the subject. He made spouts of canvas for the "mansion" and the storehouse, by which the water, when it rained, was conducted to barrels set in the ground, so as to keep it cool. This expedient promised a plentiful supply, ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... the Church, these "prophets" found themselves compelled to discover the foundations {337} for a new type of Church altogether, and to feel their way down to a new and fundamental basis of religious authority. That would be a momentous task for any age, or for any spiritual leaders, and we must not demand the impossible of these sixteenth century pathbreakers. What they did do consistently and well was to proclaim the spiritual character of God as revealed in Christ, the native capacity of the human soul for God, ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... drawing-rooms, and a rapid survey of their length sufficed to assure him that Pellerin was not in either. Taking leave of Wade, the young man made his way back to the drawing-room, where only a few hardened feasters remained, and then passed on to the library which had been the scene of the late momentous colloquy. But the library too was empty, and drifting back uncertainly to the inner drawing-room Bernald found Mrs. Beecher Bain domestically putting out the wax candles on ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... Mr. Mottram is again leaving England for the Indies." Catherine forced herself to say the words. She was dully surprised to see how quietly news so momentous to her was received by her ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... thoughts had a very different effect on Dan Lewis, washing his hands under the hydrant in the factory yard. He had not forgotten that it was Saturday. Neither had Growler, who stood watching him with an oblique look in his old eye that said as plain as words that he knew what momentous business was brewing ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... a Russian lieutenant-general, and exercised an almost unlimited power in Servia; the revolution, after a struggle of eight years, appeared to be successful, but the momentous events then passing in Europe, completely altered the aspect of affairs. Russia in 1812, on the approach of the countless legions of Napoleon, precipitately concluded the treaty of Bucharest, the eighth article of which formally assured a separate ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... you always have lived—a rich girl to whom nothing has been denied." Again, she saw herself bent over the desk of Andrew P. Hill, with her forty-five shares clutched in her resolute hand, and saying, "I demand to be heard; I demand to have a voice in this momentous matter; I demand a fair and even chance for my nephew-in-law-to-be." Once more, she was wringing her hands and asking Virgilia in tones of piteous protest, "Why, oh why, didn't you take Richard Morrell when you could have got him?—a fine, promising, pushing fellow, ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... attendant). If this be an example of the Bethulian women, I shall have a momentous business upon me when ...
— Judith • Arnold Bennett
... am still a Christian, but contact and intercourse with the mysticism of Africa and India has made me superstitious. I have a curious habit at momentous times of indecision of taking two full packages of cards and playing Napoleon's solitaire. If I get it out once in three times, I generally go into the matter in hand without question. It never has failed me. Twice in my ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... furtherance or hindrance upon the fortune of united Italy, we are approaching, with a quietness and composure which more than anything else mark the essential difference between our own form of democracy and any other yet known in history, a crisis in our domestic policy more momentous than any that has arisen since we became a nation. Indeed, considering the vital consequences for good or evil that will follow from the popular decision in November, we might be tempted to regard the remarkable ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... his pocket, and cutting alternately a morsel of bread and a morsel of radish, with a sharp, well-worn blade, he began his temperate repast with a vigorous appetite, keeping his eye fixed on the hand of his watch. When it reached the momentous hour, he unsealed the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... momentous step when the government of this colony was transferred to New England. Winthrop was chosen Governor, others of the Company elected to minor offices, and they, with no fewer than one thousand new colonists, sailed for this ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... congregation to rise and say, "I do." There was no answer. It seemed to Von Barwig that the minister was looking directly at him, and not only looking at him, but tacitly asking a reply. Once more in compelling tones came the momentous question, "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" Von Barwig was now quite positive that the clergyman was addressing himself directly to him, and he felt that the moment had come to declare the ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... chaos of fraud, frivolity, hoggishness—this revel of fools, and incredible make-believe and general unsettledness, we call the world; a soul-sight of that divine clue and unseen thread which holds the whole congeries of things, all history and time, and all events, however trivial, however momentous, like a leash'd dog in the hand of the hunter. Such soul-sight and root-centre for the mind—mere optimism explains only the surface or fringe of it—Carlyle was mostly, perhaps entirely without. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... is actually accused of a crime, Musya sought justification. She endeavored to find something that would at least make her sacrifice more momentous, which might give it real value. ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... his fingers to the loose hide at the back of Neewa's neck. Miki, surmising that something momentous was about to happen, watched the proceedings with popping eyes. Then Challoner's fingers closed and the next instant he dragged Neewa forth and held him at arm's length, kicking and squirming, and setting up such a bawling that in sheer sympathy ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... the Members of the Administration (as appears to me) may be justly reproached; and a still heavier charge will lie against them, if the correction of the Poor Laws be longer deferred. May they exhibit, in treating this momentous subject, a tenderness of undeceived humanity on the one side, and a sternness of enlightened state-policy on the other! Thus, and thus only, can be checked immediately, and in due course of time perhaps removed, an evil by which one claim and title is set in array against another, in a manner, and ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... am deeply sensible of the honour conferred upon me by being elected chairman of the National Union, I am profoundly impressed with the responsibilities attached to the position. The issues to be faced in this country are so momentous in character that it has been decided that prior to the holding of a public meeting a review of the condition of affairs should be placed in your hands, in order that you may consider matters quietly in your homes. It has also been decided that it will be wise to postpone the meeting which ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... Applied to the Improvement of Offspring: including important Directions to Lovers and the Married, concerning the strongest Ties, and most sacred and momentous Relations of Life. By O. S. ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... She stayed as long as she dared, and finally had to return so as to be home before her father got back. This was the day of the storm. She had much difficulty in finding a driver, but at length succeeded by means of a heavy bribe. Then followed her momentous meeting with me. Her departure from the cottage so abruptly was owing to her intense desire to get home before her father should arrive. This she succeeded in doing. She felt deeply grateful to me, but did not dare to ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... persuasion in his voice. It held authority. But Muriel heard it without awe. She had passed that stage. The matter was too momentous to allow of weakness. She had strung herself to the highest pitch of resistance as a hunted creature at bay. She threw back her head, a look of obstinacy about her lips, her slight figure straightened ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... which, so far from being a byword, should be a glorious incentive in the human breast. I cannot away with them. What? Malign such an one, the amiable Miss Callan, who is the lustre of her own sex and the astonishment of ours? And at an instant the most momentous that can befall a puny child of clay? Perish the thought! I shudder to think of the future of a race where the seeds of such malice have been sown and where no right reverence is rendered to mother and maid in house of Horne. Having delivered ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... however, when one realizes that the appearance of these thinkers was really a momentous thing. For these men turned their faces away from the poetical and mythologic way of accounting for things, which had obtained up to their time, and set their faces toward Science. Aristotle shows us how Thales may have been led to the formulation of his main thesis by an observation ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... impossible to masticate, and she had challenged me to extract it with my fingers. But now, compared with her, Saint Nitouche was a Maenad. I was entertained by Judith's fruitless efforts to get behind this wall of reserve. Carlotta said, "Oh, ye-es" or "No-o" to everything. It was not a momentous conversation. As it was Carlotta in whom Judith was particularly interested, I effaced myself. At last, after a lull in the spasmodic talk, Carlotta ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... midst of the news of the gaieties of the town, of the begging of political placemen for a higher rank in the peerage, we now come upon the question of America. The English people had not yet appreciated the momentous struggle into which the King and his ministers had drawn their country. The flippancy with which Selwyn alludes to the rebellion is indicative of the general state of opinion even among those who were constantly at the centre of political affairs. The battle of Bunker's ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... now twelve years since the writing of 'Looking Backward' changed one of the most brilliant of the younger American authors into an impassioned social reformer whose work was destined to have momentous effect upon the movement of his age. His quality had hitherto been manifest in romances like 'Doctor Heidenhof's Process' and 'Miss Ludington's Sister,' and in many short stories exquisite in their imaginative texture ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... vista that now opens to us is wider and more glorious than ever before. Gratification and amazement struggle for supremacy as we contemplate the population, wealth, and moral strength of our country. A trust momentous in its influence upon our people and upon the world is for a brief time committed to us, and we must not be faithless to its first condition—the defense of the free and equal influence of the people in the choice of public ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... the day was Saturday, and he began at once to word the phrases in which he would tell his revelation on the morrow. He knew that this must be done tactfully, in spite of its divine source. It would be a momentous thing to the people and to the priesthood. It was conceivable, indeed, that members of the latter might dispute it and argue with him, or even denounce him for a heretic. But only at first; the thing was ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... high seas which resulted from Prince Henry's activities is one of the most momentous events in human history. Its effect was, sooner or later, to unite the scattered families of mankind, to make the problems of all the concern of all: to make the world one place. Prince Henry and his sailors were, in fact, ...
— Progress and History • Various
... important, not to say momentous question," said he. "Let's figure the thing over and take it up again soon. We'll not begin to disagree at this late day. Mr. Hinckley has warned us that he has an engagement in thirty minutes. It seems to me we ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... one could hardly be mistaken in assuming that the directors of the Britannia Company—two or three of them, at all events—had an opportunity of surveying their position long before the hour when this momentous news got abroad. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... a frank and independent nature. The movements of the eagle and the lion must be unintelligible to the spider or the fox. It was impossible for Guicciardini to feel the real greatness of the century, or to foresee the new forces to which it was giving birth. He could not divine the momentous issues of the Lutheran schism; and though he perceived the immediate effect upon Italian politics of the invasion of the French, he failed to comprehend the revolution marked out for the future in the shock of the modern nations. While criticising the papacy, he discerned ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... the "Unitarian Review" for December, 1889, I said: "Without advancing any personal claim whatever, permit me to take advantage of your indulgent kindness, and to make here the first public confession of certain painfully matured results of thirty years' thinking, which, in the momentous and arduous enterprise of developing a scientific theology out of the scientific method itself, appear to be principles of cosmical import.... Perhaps I can make them intelligible, as a contribution to that 'Unitary Science' which the great ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot |
