"Oscillate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... again eagerly, fixedly, tremblingly. A wild impulse to summon Barker or Stacy on the spot was restrained with difficulty and only when he remembered that they could not help him. Then he began to oscillate between a joy and a new fear, which now, for the first time, began to dawn upon him. If the news of her death had been a fiendish trick of her relations, why had SHE never sought him? It was not ill health, restraint, nor fear; there was nothing but happiness and the strength of youth and ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... to the ancient Germans, there certainly was among them one very prevalent form of head, and even the varieties of feature which occur among the Marcomans—for example, on Marcus Aurelius' column—all seem to oscillate round one ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... refreshment. In the presence of Lady Middleton and the rest of the company he made several interesting experiments—for instance, standing on a china dish, to show that china is a non-conducting agent (the rod ceasing to oscillate even when over water); finding metals hid in the ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
... to be angry," she replied a trifle crossly, as perhaps was excusable under the circumstances, carrying out the while, however, what had evidently been her original idea of giving the mite "a good shaking," and thereby causing his small person to oscillate violently to and fro as if he were crossing the Bay of Biscay in a Dutch trawler with a choppy sea running. "I ain't angry to speak of; but he's that tormenting sometimes as to drive a poor creature a'most out of her ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... the breakwaters from clashing against each other, they are united end to end in a very simple and ingenious manner. From each of them there starts a deeply inserted iron bar which terminates in a journal that permits the breakwater to oscillate. Between these two bars there is a sort of swivel, whose pieces, in playing upon one another, give the breakwaters elasticity, while always holding them apart (Fig. 4). From each side of the swivel ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... of the carriages are said to oscillate, from being too heavy at the top, let a few copies of "Martinuzzi" be placed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... and the vibrations cannot be seen, hold it against the edge of a sheet of paper and hear the blows it strikes; or, watch one of the lowest strings of the piano after striking the key a sharp blow; or, look closely at the heavier strings of the violin (or better still, the cello) and watch them oscillate rapidly to and fro as the bow moves ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... necessary in order that two deals may be operated upon simultaneously, each division being devoted to a separate deal, and likewise to enable the connecting-rod which works the frame to pass up the center and oscillate on a pin near the top, thereby avoiding the deep excavations and costly foundations required where the rod is engaged with the pin at the bottom. The rack that advances the deals to the saws passes through a "bow" in the connecting-rod and the middle ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... the interest in harmony. When two interests are simultaneous and fall within one act of apprehension the desirability of harmonising them is involved in the very effort to realise them together. If attention and imagination are steady enough to face this implication and not to allow impulse to oscillate between irreconcilable tendencies, reason comes into being. Henceforth things actual and things desired are confronted by an ideal which has both ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Bligh, of Oneonta, N. Y., have patented an improved power for churning and other purposes where little power is required. It consists in the combination of a drum and weight, a train of gearing, and a pallet wheel arranged to oscillate a ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... fooleries were incessant. His disposition fluctuated between gaiety and melancholy, and Rousseau attracted him. Meanwhile his health declined until a long illness, which began with a hemorrhage, caused him to oscillate for days between life and death; and convalescence, generally so delightful, was marred by a serious tumor. His father's disposition was stern, and he could become passionate and bitter, and his mother's ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... displayed is truly remarkable. In easy and graceful walking, the forward motion of the limbs is not altogether due to the exercise of muscular power, but partly to the force of gravity, and only a slight assistance of the muscles is required to elevate the leg sufficiently to allow it to oscillate. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... forward to immortality of fame as the best vindication of their work. A marked characteristic of the man was a secret dissatisfaction with all that he accomplished, making him restless and unhappy, and extremely sensitive to criticism. With this was united a tendency at times to oscillate to the other extreme of vaingloriousness. An example of this was a reply to Rossini one night at the opera when they were listening to "Robert le Diable." The "Swan of Pesaro" was a warm admirer of Meyerbeer, though the latter was a formidable rival, ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... large room, on the walls of which were hundreds of little indicators. From the front they looked like rows of little square compartments, tier on tier, about the size of ordinary post office boxes. Closer examination showed that each was equipped with a delicate needle arranged to oscillate backward and forward upon the very minutest interference with the electric current. Under the boxes, each of which bore a number, was a series of drops and buzzers numbered to correspond with ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... becoming that the face and form of the other seemed to vibrate and oscillate before his eyes. Yet outwardly Sheldon was calm and ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... if I like," she said sadly. "You seem so indifferent, Irgens! Yes, I admit I should like to go to the opera, but—Where are you going this evening? I am just like a compass-needle now: I oscillate, I may even swing all the way round, but I hark constantly back to one point—I point continually in one direction. It is you I ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... you I like to waver, and vacillate, and oscillate, and make scruples? These are things a woman can do, both with privilege and inclination. I think myself to be very ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... approach of a tempest there passes through the forests a terrible gust of wind which makes the trees shudder, to which profound silence succeeds, so had Napoleon, in passing, shaken the world; kings felt their crowns oscillate in the storm, and, raising hands to steady them, found only their hair, bristling with terror. The Pope had travelled three hundred leagues to bless him in the name of God and to crown him with the diadem; but Napoleon had taken it from his hands. Thus everything trembled in that dismal ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... that the result might prove to be different, which, he held, would be depressing. The other Zulus oscillated between belief and scepticism, as do the unstable who set to work to study the evidences of Christianity. But Sammy did not oscillate, he literally howled, and prepared the food which poured in upon us so badly that I had to turn on Hans to do the cooking, for however little appetite we might have, it was necessary that we should keep ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... most typical representative of petty bourgeois socialism. Now the "fate" of the petty bourgeois—in so far as he does not adopt the proletarian standpoint—is to constantly oscillate between Radicalism and Conservatism. To make more understandable what we have said, we must bear in mind what the plan of social organisation propounded by ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff
... traced to the fluctuations of the moon's orbit, which undergoes a continuous change in a period of nineteen years. Thus the efficiency with which the moon acts on the protuberant mass of the earth varies, and thus the pole is caused to oscillate. ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... the return of spring to the skies, airs, waters of the Delaware, return the sea-gulls. I never tire of watching their broad and easy flight, in spirals, or as they oscillate with slow unflapping wings, or look down with curved beak, or dipping to the water after food. The crows, plenty enough all through the winter, have vanish'd with the ice. Not one of them now to be seen. The steamboats ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... the lofty granite rocks called Tiergh Castle. Here is a reef of rocks jutting into the sea, on the summit of one of which is a large single mass of stone, weighing about sixty tons, resting on a sort of pivot, so near the centre that the whole block may be easily made to oscillate or log, to and fro. This logging stone has created astonishment amongst the illiterate, and given rise to many fabulous stories: whilst others have imagined it was placed here by the Druids, to overawe ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... they are in general best to be explained by the action of earthquakes. Water being an exceedingly elastic substance, an earthquake passes through it with much greater speed than it traverses the rocks which support the ocean floor. The result is that, when the fluid and solid oscillate in the repeated swingings which a shock causes, they do not move together, but rub over each other, the independent movements having the swing of from a few inches to a foot or two ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... have been well had the discussion stopped here. In the heat of debate each pushed his argument beyond his own convictions. Colonel Bradshawe sat sipping his wine, listening with mock gravity and seeming to oscillate between the opinions of the disputants, but most of the company agreed with Lord Strathern; still L'Isle found several staunch backers for his mechanical theory. But when quoting facts in support of his views, he referred to the conduct of their own men on sundry late occasions, and stated the ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... legal principle, I would endeavor to fix that mercury by a positive law. If to please an administration the judges can go one way to-day, and to please the crowd they can go another to-morrow, if they will oscillate backward and forward between power and popularity, it is high time to fix the law in such a manner as to resemble, as it ought, the great Author of all law, in whom there is no ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... triumph was fairly unctuous. His jaw seemed to oscillate in oil as he mouthed his contempt ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... glimmering in the moonlight, and drew from its hiding-place the pledge that had been entrusted to her. As if by a miracle, the little flower, touched by the moon's silvery glow, expanded in an instant. Almost spontaneously it began to oscillate in her hand, and shrill and clear the little bell rang, so that it resounded into the adjacent wood, whence ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... had picked it up from the ledge, beginning to oscillate it in front of her fair face, the nudging ceased. People looked at the thing with eyes wide with astonishment, but ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... develop side by side, and make up between them a composite mental condition, adopting, in short, a modus vivendi which merely gives us the complex impression of life. But imagine these two feelings as INELASTIC and unvarying elements in a really living man, make him oscillate from one to the other; above all, arrange that this oscillation becomes entirely mechanical by adopting the well-known form of some habitual, simple, childish contrivance: then you will get the image we have so far found in all laughable objects, SOMETHING MECHANICAL ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... a letch, could not give the pleasure that a full developed woman could. Tight as it was, it had not that peculiar suction, embrace, and grind, that a full-grown woman's or girl's has. When I was getting drier and drier, the old one stiffened my prick, and I put it into the child; but oscillate my arse as I might, I could not get a spend out of me; then in the aunt's clipping though well stretched cunt, I got my pleasure in no time. A fuck is barely a fuck if a man's prick is but half up a girl, it ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... Many different methods were tried. Some experimenters placed the center of gravity far below the wings, in the belief that the weight would naturally seek to remain at the lowest point. It is true, that, like the pendulum, it tended to seek the lowest point; but also, like the pendulum, it tended to oscillate in a manner destructive of all stability. A more satisfactory system, especially for lateral balance, was that of arranging the wings in the shape of a broad V, to form a dihedral angle, with the center low and the wing-tips elevated. In theory this was an automatic system, but in ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... of the problems of family training; they oscillate between the wishy-washy sentimentality that permits anarchy in the home and the harsh, unthinking despotism that breeds hatred and rebellion. Fathers criticize the public schools but never take the time to go and look inside one. They laugh at women's clubs because they are too lazy to make ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... then back again, the two seemed to oscillate, their motions corresponding so closely that it was as if both were moved by the same delicate machinery ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... lever toward him and watched the pointers on a dial as the flier lifted. The red needle started to oscillate and he reached quickly to adjust a knob. The oscillation stopped. He ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... placed at the center of the pendulum. The plane of the oscillations remains fixed, but the Earth revolves beneath, from West to East. The fundamental principle of this experiment is that the plane in which any pendulum is made to oscillate remains invariable even when the point of suspension is turned. This demonstration enables us in some measure to see the Earth ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... results of dissection of a very large number of men and of a very large number of gorillas. The anatomy of a type is not the anatomy of an individual; it is a kind of central point around which there oscillate the variations presented by the individuals belonging to the type. So far as this newer method has been applied, it has been found that the variations of the gorilla type frequently, in the case of individual ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... shots. A short light rifle, whether with a large or a small bore, is, I believe, utterly worthless. In the hands of a man trembling with running and with exhaustion, it shakes like a wand: the shorter the rifle, the more quickly does it oscillate, and of course, in the same proportion, is it difficult to catch the exact moment when the ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... the mass of the system remains indeterminate. The lesser component of the splendid, slowly revolving binary, Castor, is also closely double. Its spectral lines were found by Belopolsky in 1896[1447] to oscillate once in nearly three days, the secondary globe being apparently quite obscure. Further study of the movements thus betrayed elicited the fact that the major axis of the eclipse traversed revolves in a period of 2,100 days, as a consequence, most likely, of the ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... small disks on the machine bends toward the negative pole, becomes widened, and, at a certain point of electric intensity, commences to vibrate and oscillate, exhibiting a peculiar stratification. Since these phenomena are also least observed in flames rich in oxygen, it appears to be a general law that carbon and hydrogen are more strongly attracted by the negative pole, while oxygen ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... the name before, nevertheless my lips were forming the syllables almost before he spoke. As he flicked up his grey horse and the gig began to oscillate in more business-like fashion, I put him a fourth question—a question at ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
