"Positive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lindora's entertainment was. It was certainly to the last degree original, and those who said the worst of it could say no worse than that it was queer. It quite filled the time till six o'clock, and may be perhaps best described as a negative rather than a positive triumph, though what Lindora had aimed at she had undoubtedly achieved. Whatever it was, whether original or queer, it was ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... Palladius is very prudent (l.c. p. 11): "Everything that the studious Chinese authors could gather and say of the situation of Karakhorum is collected in two Chinese works, Lo fung low wen kao (1849), and Mungku yew mu ki (1859). However, no positive conclusion can be derived from these researches, chiefly in consequence of the absence of a tolerably correct map ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the Portuguese in 1505, Mauritius was subsequently held by the Dutch, French, and British before independence was attained in 1968. A stable democracy with regular free elections and a positive human rights record, the country has attracted considerable foreign investment and has earned one of Africa's highest per capita incomes. Recent poor weather and declining sugar prices have slowed economic growth ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the well-known impresario, announced with an air of conscious pride and pardonable enthusiasm that he had secured Diotti for a "limited" number of concerts, Perkins' friends assured that wide-awake gentleman that his foresight amounted to positive genius, and they predicted an unparalleled success for his star. On account of his wonderful ability as player, Diotti was a favorite at half the courts of Europe, and the astute Perkins enlarged upon this fact without regard for the feelings of ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... the onlookers, and particularly to my opponent, that I had been to school since last meeting him. I had not been particular about fancy touches, or the pointless, gingerbread style of showing off before a crowd. There was a positive viciousness in my attack, which was perfectly legitimate in such circumstances; but it was the first time I had ever felt the beast in my blood, and I turned him loose; and if I had been made Prime Minister of England by a miracle, I could not have felt ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... fatigues and weakens, and no man keeps his soul in as desirable a frame unless by positive resolution and especial implorations. Pulpit and pew often get stupid together, and ardent ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... agents, sent among them for that purpose—these are powers not granted to the Federal Government or to any one of its branches. Not being granted, we violate our trust by assuming them as palpably as we would by acting in the face of a positive interdict; for the Constitution forbids us to do whatever it does not affirmatively authorize, either by express words or by clear implication. If the authority we desire to use does not come to us through the Constitution, we can exercise it only ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson
... (which yet I grant not) thy desire A moment elder than my rival fire; Can chance of seeing first thy title prove? And know'st thou not, no law is made for love? Law is to things which to free choice relate; Love is not in our choice, but in our fate; Laws are but positive; love's power, we see, Is Nature's sanction, and her first decree. 330 Each day we break the bond of human laws For love, and vindicate the common cause. Laws for defence of civil rights are placed, Love throws the fences down, and makes a general waste; Maids, widows, wives, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... the usages of the civilised nations of Christendom. Here this science no longer rests in general principles. That province of it which we now call the law of nations, has, in many of its parts, acquired among our European nations much of the precision and certainty of positive law, and the particulars of that law are chiefly to be found in the works of those writers who have treated the science of which I now speak. It is because they have classed (in a manner which seems peculiar to modern ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... always an odious one to me, and one which seemed next to an impossibility, don't for one moment suppose that I say so on the ground of personal claims and personal ambition, which I hold to be as wrong and selfish in politics as in everything else. And I shall feel a positive pleasure, far above that of seeing him first, in seeing him give so undoubted a proof of disinterestedness and patriotism as consenting to be second, if that were all. But oh, the danger of other sacrifices—sacrifices as ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... met my eye was not unexpected, yet was no less interesting on that account. A hand—the hand—curiously made of bronze, and of exquisite proportions, lay on its enamelled cushion, with rings on all of its fingers save one. That one I was delighted to see was the middle one, proof positive that the mischief contemplated by Miss Calhoun had not ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... husband was beside her, and his presence had saved her, though not even he had guessed at her danger. What could save her now, alone, with a perpetual weariness of spirit, and a feeling of physical weakness amounting to positive pain? Yet if she went but a few steps forward, she would sink into the gloomy depths, which for the moment her quickened conscience could so clearly perceive. If David could but be at home now! If she could but have her little son to occupy ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... if the cooking is poorly done, it affects not only the nutritious qualities, but is not so easily digested, thus making food, which is originally the best kind, of very little value to us, and with very poor cooking it is sometimes a positive injury. ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... the wants of the farmer, knew the value of good roads, of fertilizers and drainage, and would argue long and vigorously as to the saving in plowing with three horses instead of two, or on the use of mules versus horses. He had positive views as to the value of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... are not a guarantee of efficiency or excellence. The best that can be said for them is that they are a protection against absolute incompetence and, to a certain extent, against political spoiling. But in a positive sense, the Civil Service is merely a guarantee of mediocrity. And mediocrity never yet made a success of a great transportation or productive system such as our railroads or industrial corporations. The political possibilities ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers
... not imagine because you are positive that you have thought everything out beforehand, and now have come to writing it down, that your job of thinking is ended. Not at all; there are a few things still to be thought ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... world never could be saved by its own wisdom; and all the laws and legions of Rome were equally impotent to lift it out of the ditch of sin. Neither a brilliant brain nor a mailed fist can save a lost world. Yet both Greece and Rome made positive contributions to the preparation for Christ. Greece fashioned a marvelous instrument for propagating the gospel in its highly flexible and expressive language, and Rome reduced the world to order and hushed it into peace and ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden
... Perch doggedly. "Any girl could catch Freddie. He's a positive fool with one of these girls after him. Now she's got to have his uncle Henry's armchair in her room, if you please. That's ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... custom of the stranger, and partly in consequence of his statements that he can buy a similar article elsewhere at a much lower price, (when perhaps the quality of the other is vastly inferior) they not unfrequently sell goods at a positive sacrifice—and what do they gain by it? The pleasure of being laughed at by the purchaser, as soon as he is out of sight, for suffering themselves to be beaten down, as the phrase is; and of having him boast ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... as it may—and it is conjecture unsupported by positive proof—enough has been said, it is hoped, to show that ordinaries were quite capable of making their decrees obeyed, and that excommunication (contrary to the commonly received opinion) was a most effective means of coercion. Many, indeed, were its uses. It might ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware
... if a fresh egg so-called is truly fresh. If fresh there will be no perceptible marring of its oval—but if it shows a shrinkage, and especially if the yolk is so near the shell it shows through the cooked white, there is proof positive that the egg is not new-laid—though it ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... different case. He was brought up in the most secluded fashion, and though he was sharply enough disciplined into decorous behaviour by his very grim and positive mother, he was guarded like a precious jewel, and as he grew up he was endlessly petted and indulged. The Ruskins lived a very comfortable life in a big villa with ample grounds at Denmark Hill. Whatever the wonderful ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... did not say a word to indicate that the child should be given up. He muttered something, indeed, about impotent nonsense, which seemed to imply that the threat could be of no avail; but there was none of that reassurance to be obtained from him which a positive promise on his part to hold the bairn against all comers would have given. Mrs. Outhouse told her niece more than once that the child would be given to no messenger whatever; but even she did not give the assurance with that energy which the mother would have ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... fiction. So far, then, the infidel has gained nothing by the overthrow of our religion. "Except truth!" does he exclaim? Yet, I again repeat it, truth in its negative form only, as destroying supposed falsehoods, but not in its positive form as establishing something to ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... this, telling me of the hunter that had been killed, claiming now, beyond a doubt, that this was the same bull, and urging me to kill the ugly brute and rid the woods of a positive danger. But Umquenawis was already learning the fear of me, and I thought the lesson might be driven home before the summer was ended. So it was; but before that time there was ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... pin for that," Elma cried, with a true woman's contempt for anything so unimportant as mere positive evidence. "Perhaps Sir Gilbert made him do it somehow—compelled him, or coerced him, or willed him, or something—I don't understand these new notions—or perhaps he got him into a scrape and then hadn't the courage or the manliness to get him ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... Missouri, grandson of Nancy (Lincoln) Brumfield, Abraham Lincoln's youngest child, has given us so clear a statement of the case that we cannot hesitate to accept it, although it conflicts with equally positive statements from other sources. The late Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, who gave much intelligent effort to genealogical researches, was convinced that the Abraham Lincoln who married Miss Hannah Winters, a daughter ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... forget that a public singer has a private personality," he went on thoughtfully. "We are supposed to divide our time into even thirds, practising, singing and receiving compliments. It gets to be a positive delight to discuss the weather and ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... certainly was not in love with Mr. Savage, and he was too indolent to give his side of the case continuous thought. Dimly he realized, and once lugubriously admitted, that he was not quite heartwhole, but he had not reached a positive ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... and reset the pillars of a party that may enjoy a long supremacy for domestic reasons. Now, if you will permit me to say so, from my somewhat distant view (four years make a long period of absence) the big party task is to build up a clearer and more positive foreign policy. We are in the world and we've got to choose what active part we shall play in it—I fear rather quickly. I have the conviction, as you know, that this whole round globe now hangs as a ripe apple for our plucking, if we use the right ladder while the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... his thoughts turned in another direction, for he came upon the two gipsy lads, seated under the hedge, with their legs in the ditch, proof positive that the people of their tribe were somewhere not ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... the will of Heaven; but, before I choose the manner of death, I conjure you by the great name which was engraven upon the seal of the prophet Solomon, the son of David, to answer me truly the question I am going to ask you. The genie, finding himself obliged to give a positive answer by this adjuration, trembled, and replied to the fisherman, Ask what thou wilt, but make haste. Day ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... opinions from those which prevail in many quarters. We believe in the essential healthfulness of literary culture, and in the invigorating power of sound knowledge. Emphatically do we believe that our common schools have been in the aggregate a positive physical benefit. We are confident, that, just to the degree that the unseen force within a man receives its rightful development, does vigorous life flow in every current that beats from heart to extremities. With entire respect for the opinions of others, even while we cannot concur with them, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... congrua, as it regards the cruel Butcheries of so many harmless Creatures; some of which we put to merciless and needless Torment, to accommodat them for exquisite and uncommon Epicurism. There lies else no positive Prohibition; Discrimination of Meats being [93]Condemn'd as the Doctrine of Devils: Nor do Meats commend us to God. One eats quid vult (of every thing:) another Olera, and of Sallets only: But this is not my ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... less precision at concentration on a point within and a point without his own world. Concentration "without" is illustrated when you devote all your attention upon Nature, such as learning a trade, a profession, a science, an art or some form of business. This is Evolution, outgoing or positive mental energy. I shall call this Objective Concentration. Concentration "within" implies the withdrawing of attention from the external world and the placing of mind on "God," "Spirit," "Heaven," "Religion," "Peace," "Nirvana," "Eternity," etc. This is Involution, i.e., incoming ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... artist, in getting himself to be good, proceeds to upon the opposite principle. Even if the good thing he tries for is merely a negative good thing like economy, he instinctively seeks out some positive ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... hopefully of what he might say to her in his kindliest judicial manner, and occasionally took furtive glances into the hall to see if she was coming. He was disappointed, perhaps, because she didn't come, for he was positive he could say things for the good of her soul, and—Oh, well!—he always subscribed for the Home Missionary Society. Moreover she was a particularly pretty girl as chambermaids go, and there is never an orchard ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... frescoes we have, it is true, many a quaint bit of genre (superior to Teniers only because of superior associations), but never again the fairy tale. And as the better recedes, it is replaced by the worse, by the bane of all genre painting, non-significant detail, and positive bad taste. Have London or New York or Berlin worse to show us than the jumble of buildings in his ideal of a great city, his picture of Babylon? It may be said he here continues mediaeval tradition, ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... I am proud to wear, was the eldest daughter of Professor Stuart, and inherited his intellectuality. At the time of her death she was at the first blossom of her very positive and widely-promising success as a writer of the simple home stories which took such a hold upon the popular heart. Her "Sunnyside" had already reached a circulation of one hundred thousand copies, and she was following it fast—too fast—by other books for which the critics and the publishers ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... numerous conventions of men of our race. There have been Religious Assemblies, Political Conferences, suffrage meetings, educational conventions. But our meeting is for a purpose which, while inclusive, in some respects, of these various concerns, is for an object more distinct and positive than any ...
— Civilization the Primal Need of the Race - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Paper No. 3 • Alexander Crummell
... all the prominent religious persuasions here represented, from the Universalist to the staid Quaker; a number had been Sabbath school attendants, one quite an Advent speaker, who seemed positive he would be able to convert us all to his notions could he have the stand for a suitable time, a privilege he earnestly strove for. More came from the Catholics than from any other sect, and more from the shoe-makers than from any ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... it.... We cannot tell at what date it was that these apocryphal additions (which are contained in all MSS. that have reached us), were taken up into the Greek and Syriac Daniel." How he knows so "certainly" that they were not in it at the period named, he does not explain; and before this positive statement can be unreservedly ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... United States there exist two distinctly opposed natures: the one positive and practical, the other inclined to mysticism. The two do not clash, but live, on the contrary, on perfectly good terms with one another. This strange co-existence of reality and vision is explained by ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... was an unhealthy, sad-looking cheese. It looked like a cheese that had seen trouble. In appearance it resembled putty more than anything else. It even tasted like putty—at least, like I should imagine putty would taste. To this hour I am not positive that it was not putty. The garnishing was even more remarkable than the cheese. All the way round the plate were piled articles that I had never before seen at a dinner, and that I do not ever want to see there again. There was a little heap of split-peas, three or four remarkably ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... Gentlemen said, "His chief Objection was to the Length of it, for that he was certain he could tell the whole Story contained in the two first Volumes in a few Minutes; for Example, (continued he) There is a Family who live in the Country, consisting of an old, positive, gouty Gentleman, two old Batchelors as positive as their gouty Brother, a meek Wife, an ambitious Son, an envious elder Sister, and a handsome younger Sister; who, having refused many offered Matches, engages ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... DeGolyer—and the light of affection beamed in his eyes—"Henry, you are a positive charm; and if I should meet a girl adorned with a disposition like yours, I would unstring my heart, hand it to her and say, 'Here, miss, this ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... commander in chief of the military and naval forces of the United States. It may be doubted, however, whether such power could be extended to the apprehension of deserters [from foreign vessels] in the absence of positive legislation to that effect."[227] Justice Gray and three other Justices were of the opinion that such action by the President must rest upon express ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... really putting a halter about their necks, for that they would assuredly be hung if they commenced hostilities against a nation at peace with the United States." So great is the force of legal pedantry that Jefferson was unable to agree that the President should proclaim neutrality in clear and positive terms; but that same pedantry was effectively employed in covering the legal flaws of Jefferson's position in his notes to Genet. He attenuated the treaty obligations by strict construction and also by reservations founded on the general principles of international law. "By our treaties with several ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... Mississippi seemed to them of the first importance. Even the frontiersmen themselves put second to this the right to people the vast continent which lay between the Pacific and the Mississippi. The statesmen at Washington viewed this last proposition with positive alarm, and cared only to acquire New Orleans. The winning of Louisiana was due to no one man, and least of all to any statesman or set of statesmen. It followed inevitably upon the great westward thrust of the settler-folk; a thrust which was delivered blindly, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... great difficulty in getting them up again. After travelling about thirty-one miles we reached a gully which I supposed was Lungley's, and I left Kennedy with the horses while I ascended it on foot. I soon saw many emu tracks, and therefore was positive water was a little higher up. Found Windich was about 100 yards in advance of me, having crossed over into the same gully. I soon heard him shout that there was abundance of water, and fired the welcome gun-shots to acquaint the party. Returned, and after lifting ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... information, but occasionally statements based on much more stable foundations circulated. That a troop-train was standing in the siding at Palais de Koubbeh, and that there were several transports moored in Alexandria, was absolutely positive proof that the N.Z.M.R. were about to land in Asia Minor or to be at Constantinople in a week or two. Other proofs were not lacking—a super-abundance of staff officers in the vicinity, or confidences from the orderly room clerk. Then came the ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... to all this with the greatest interest. While he might to some extent share the confidence of his chum, still he did not feel quite so positive about the warmth of their welcome by the lawless band of shingle-makers peopling the lower reaches of the river that emptied into ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... use of English it shows an advance upon all his previous books. In some of his finest chapters there is scarcely a page without a phrase that no Englishman would have written, and in nearly every one of his books slight positive errors in the use of English are fairly common. In "A Set of Six" I have detected no error and extremely few questionable terms. The influence of his deep acquaintance with French is shown in the position of the adverb in "I saw again somebody in the porch." ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... temper, and of some warm expressions which the tender-hearted wench let fall against the cruelty of men, and wishing to have it in her power to serve her, has she given her the following note, signed by her maiden name: for she has thought fit, in positive and plain words, to own to the pitying Dorcas ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Happiness is based on reality. It must be earned before we can come into its possession. Happiness is not a state. It is the accompaniment of action. It comes from the exercise of natural functions, from doing, thinking, planning, fighting, overcoming, loving. It is positive and strengthening. It is the signal "all is well," passed from one nerve cell to another. It does not burn out as it glows. It makes room for more happiness. Loving, too, is a positive word. It is related to happiness as an impulse to action. ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... a hornet sting and no water. She said there were no springs, but that she had found a place where a spring had existed before the dry spell, and there was a naked footprint in the mud, quite fresh! We all went to look at it, and Tish was quite positive it was not a man's footprint at all, but only ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... quite positive that they know what they are supposed to know about their guests. This clerk interviewed somebody while Mary V held the line, and later returned to assure her that Mr. Jewel had been seen leaving the lobby the night ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... but with great civility of expression, that his orders were positive to bring no more than four into the island, but he offered to row back to obtain ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... verse-writing, but it is hardly mechanical enough to be of value in all cases. At the same time, many people are not in a position to translate from a foreign language; and even if they were, the danger of acquiring foreign idioms and strange uses of words is so great as to offset the positive gain. But we can easily exercise ourselves in translating one kind of English into another, as poetry into prose, or an antique style into modern. To do this the constant use of the English dictionary ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... face was covered with patches and bandages, and all the rest of his head was covered and concealed by them. It is said that the student likes to appear on the street and in other public places in this kind of array, and that this predilection often keeps him out when exposure to rain or sun is a positive danger for him. Newly bandaged students are a very common spectacle in the public gardens of Heidelberg. It is also said that the student is glad to get wounds in the face, because the scars they leave will show so well there; and it is also ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... vain to the superior officers for redress: the soldiers protested they were innocent; no positive proof appeared against them, and I gained nothing by my complaint but ridicule and ill-will. I called myself, in the first transport of my grief, by that name which, since my arrival in Egypt, I had avoided to pronounce: I called myself Murad the Unlucky! The name and ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... and, towards the end of the seventeenth century, the judicial power took their side. But they gained little by this. Law could not prevail against custom: and, in the ten or twenty years just preceding the first French revolution, the prejudice in France against the Cagots amounted to fierce and positive abhorrence. ...
— An Accursed Race • Elizabeth Gaskell
... ultimately triumphed over the synthetical principle. The method adopted by literary Latin of indicating the comparative and the superlative degrees of an adjective, by adding the endings -ior and -issimus respectively, succumbed in the end to the practice of prefixing plus or magis and maxime to the positive form. To take another illustration of the same characteristic of popular Latin, as early as the time of Plautus, we see a tendency to adopt our modern method of indicating the relation which a substantive bears to some other word in the sentence by means of a ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... I have said little or nothing about the positive dogmas of Clement, Origen, and their disciples; but have only brought out the especial points of departure between them and the Heathens. My reason for so doing was twofold: first, I could not have examined ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... intimate glimpse into the workings of his employer's mind that came to him as a positive revelation. Larssen's were no mysterious powers, but the powers that every man possessed worked at white heat and with an extraordinary swiftness and exactitude. The revelation did not sweep away the glamour; on the contrary, it increased it. Lars Larssen was a craftsman taking up the commonest ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... Bertillon record; only instead of taking finger-prints, as is done with criminals, I measured footprints sketching them in my notebook, noting any slight peculiarity that would distinguish one track from another, and thus made positive identification possible. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... on and exercised by the ruling classes, and symbolically imaged in their code of honour, took an effective shape in the banning of cowardice and of cowardly crime. So far as positive values go, the ethics of nobility degenerated into smartness, the claim for "satisfaction" and the exclusiveness of rank; a Prussian and Kantian abstraction, the conception of duty, a conception at bottom unproved and incapable of generating conviction, became a rule of life, made effective by training ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... during, and notwithstanding, his unfortunately rather too short stay with some adepts, he has by actual experiment and observation verified some of the less transcendental or incipient parts of the "Course." And, though it will be impossible for him to give positive testimony as to what lies beyond, he may yet mention that all his own course of study, training and experience, long, severe and dangerous as it has often been, leads him to the conviction that everything is really as stated, save some ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... something had occurred which had thrown a stain upon his character. What this was, I had never heard very distinctly stated. He had favoured the escape of a malefactor, ensnared some officers who were sent on board his vessel to seize him. All this was very vague, but what was positive was the fact, that the owners of the ship he then commanded, had had much trouble about the matter, and Ready himself remained long unemployed, until the rapid increase of trade between the United States and the infant republics of South America had caused ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... in this negative way was as far as she could possibly go. It was for him to make the positive proposal to which she had thus ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... such reaction was effective only because an age had come—the age of a negative, or agnostic philosophy—in which men's minds must needs be limited to the superficialities of things, with a kind of narrowness amounting to a positive gift. What that mental attitude was capable of, in the way of an elegant, yet plain-spoken, and life-like delineation of men's moods and manners, as also in the way of determining those moods and manners themselves ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... scarcely knew if he believed what he professed. His emotions seemed to have been finally extinguished in the vision of the white car and the silence of the crowd that evening three weeks before. It had been so horribly real and positive; the delicate aspirations and hopes of the soul appeared so shadowy when compared with that burning, heart-shaking passion of the people. He had never seen anything like it; no congregation under the spell of the most kindling preacher alive had ever responded with one-tenth of ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... be stronger; intentions were never more clearly expressed; thoughts were never more explicitly set forth in words. Nothing is left for doubt; all is concise, positive, and binding. Nothing is left to be guessed at; nothing left that could be construed to mean that States 'may' or 'may not.' 'SHALL' and 'SHALL NOT,' are the words used to define what the States are to do or not to do. The very slight 'right' given to the States to lay duties for executing ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... himself: and that ye give none advice or counsel to no man, great or small, in any case where the king is party; &c. &c. &c." The clause forbidding the judge to receive gifts of actual suitors was a positive recognition of his right to customary gifts rendered by persons who had no process hanging before him. It should, moreover, be observed that in the passage, "ye shall take no fee as long as ye shall be justice, nor ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... are come where you labour to insinuate, 'that a transgression against a positive precept, respecting instituted worship, hath been punished with the utmost severity that God hath executed against men, on record, on this ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... prefers to call natural rights. I can imagine they had the right to eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; they were restricted even in this by the prohibition of one. As far as I know without positive assertion, their liberty of action was confined to the garden. These were not 'inalienable rights,' however, for they forfeited both them and life with the first act of disobedience. Had they, after this, any rights? We cannot imagine them; they were condemned beings; they could have no ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... When I visited the jungle in 1891, I carefully cross-examined the natives in the matter, and they said that they could not say whether the tiger had died from wounds or whether he had been killed by the tiger that had carried off and eaten the body, but they were positive that it was a tiger that had eaten the body, from the tracks, for the body had been taken down to water, on the margin of which no other tracks but those of a tiger were visible, and these were clearly defined. They could also ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... which follow it will perish with the earth, even so labour done to bless mankind and to please God is Divine, and the results flowing out of it must be everlasting honour and joy. Where this principle is carried into effect, every part of human conduct becomes religious—nay, a positive act of Divine worship, and an ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... not until the night of this last awful day that a withering sense of his helpless, desperate state came in its full intensity upon his blighted soul; not that he had ever held any defined or positive hope of mercy, but that he had never been able to consider more than the dim probability of dying so soon. He had spoken little to either two men, who relieved each other in their attendance upon him; and they, for their parts, ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... in no immediate need of nourishment. The men repaid cultivation. Their ideas were often faulty because of insufficient basis of knowledge: but, when untinged by prejudice, apt to be logical. Opinions were always positive, and always existent. No phenomenon, social or physical, could come into their ken without being mulled over and decided upon. In the field of their observations were no dead facts. Not much given to reception of contrary argument or idea they were always eager for new ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... rested on material and palpable facts, which appeared to him indisputable, was not disposed to provoke contradiction. Plantat, on the contrary, whose system seemed to rest on impressions, on a series of logical deductions, would not clearly express himself, without a positive and pressing invitation. His last speech, impressively uttered, had not been replied to; he judged that he had advanced far enough ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... though destructible, are so far from being in themselves perishable that, while defended from positive injuries, they appear to suffer scarcely at all from any intrinsic principle of decay, or to be liable to any perceptible process of decomposition. "No one," says Father Mabillon,[5] "unless totally unacquainted with what relates to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... are the hastily formed yet, nevertheless, widely published opinions of tourists and newspaper correspondents. Could such writers realize the inevitable limitations under which they see and try to generalize, the world would be spared many crudities and exaggerations, not to say positive errors. The impression so common to-day that Japan's recent developments are anomalous, even contrary to the laws of national growth, is chiefly due to the superficial writings of hasty observers. Few of those who have dilated ecstatically on her recent growth have understood either the history ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... efface the conviction that had gone abroad was to comply with our request; in fine, he used so many arguments, and with such address, that Harlay, confused and thrown off his guard, and repenting of the manner in which he had acted towards us as being likely to injure his interests, gave a positive assurance to M. de Chaulnes that what we asked should ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... generally entertained was, that there were but two electricities, or rather two varieties of the same electricity, one repellent and the other attractive, answering in a measure to your terms of positive and negative. Some, indeed, thought that several different kinds existed; but the renowned electricians—truly great men, for they had opened the gates of science—proclaimed that all electricities were in reality one and the same, modified only ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... away, learned that Marciano had become converted, he made the journey to take out of his brother's heart the false teaching which he had imbibed. He pitied his brother, thinking that Marciano's mind had become unbalanced. When Captain Egydio arrived at his brother's in Vargem Grande, being a very positive man, he set about the business of straightening out his brother with dispatch and determination. He failed in his purpose, and then called in a priest. When he returned with the priest Marciano asked the two to be seated. Immediately ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... to her that hitherto I had been wild and reckless; and she told me at once that her father destined her for the son of an old friend of his, to whom it appeared she had been affianced while still a baby. She was positive that nothing would move her father. For the man she was to marry she entertained no kind of affection, and indeed had never seen him, as she had been brought up in a convent to the age of fifteen; and just before she had returned ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... "personal God," and other high topics, of which it was not always pleasant to give account in the argumentative form, in a loud hurried voice, walking and arguing through the fields or streets. Though of warm quick feelings, very positive in his opinions, and vehemently eager to convince and conquer in such discussions, I seldom or never saw the least anger in him against me or any friend. When the blows of contradiction came too thick, he could with consummate dexterity whisk aside out of their way; prick ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... Tidditt was accustomed to make each year to the crowd at the post office, when the receipt for the draft for taxes caused him to wax reminiscent. The younger generation here in Bayport regard their town clerk as something of an oracle, and this regard has made Asaph a trifle vain and positive. ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the time. She was one of the few women of that age who could not separate themselves from reason and thought, even in religion; the latter was a matter for the reason and the intellect to decide, and was thus an elevated product of the mind rather than an instinct coming from the heart, or a positive revelation as it was in the seventeenth century. In this view, Madame de Lambert indicated the beginning of the later ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... argument that no early remains have been found is futile, not only because such a country as Sumer is no more favourable to the preservation of such evidence than is the Delta of the Nile, but also upon the more general grounds that negative statements of this sort cannot be assigned a positive evidence for an immigration."[14] This distinguished ethnologist is frankly of opinion that the Sumerians were the congeners of the pre-Dynastic Egyptians of the Mediterranean or Brown race, the eastern branch of which reaches to India and ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... life of his race, like an inferior animal or a mineral, lower even in freedom of body than birds. Heretofore you have, as I have said, seen but one side in many workings of Nature, as if you had discovered either negative or positive electricity, but not both; for gravitation and apergy are as inseparably combined in the rest of the universe as those two, separated temporarily on earth that the discovery of the utilization of one with the other might serve as an incentive to your minds. You saw ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... precede painting, because men must learn forms in the solid before they can project them on a flat surface, and must learn to conceive designs in light and shade before they can conceive them in color, and must learn to treat subjects under positive color and in narrow groups, before they can treat them under atmospheric effect and in receding masses, and all these are mere necessities of practice, and have no more connection with any divisions of the human ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... earthen fire-pot in a corner of the chimney, in which there was no fire; this was all the furniture of the room. Bixiou noticed the remaining sheets of writing-paper, brought from some neighboring grocery for the letter which the two women had doubtless concocted together. The word "disgusting" is a positive to which no superlative exists, and we must therefore use it to convey the impression caused by this sight. When the dying woman saw Joseph approaching her, two great ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... unfortunate in having succeeded an officer who, in the engagement was his subordinate in command, and in anticipating a ranking officer in bringing on the conflict; but the surrounding circumstances and the positive orders of the Secretary of the Navy made his meeting the enemy ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... future, confident that so far as the workings of the K. K. K. are ever discovered, they will confirm the main facts as given here. Of course there are many minor points on which it is not likely there will ever be more positive testimony than that here given. This must be so from the nature of the case, as will plainly appear ...
— The Oaths, Signs, Ceremonies and Objects of the Ku-Klux-Klan. - A Full Expose. By A Late Member • Anonymous
... been disturbed by the communication Sister Agatha had made to her in regard to Brother Jonathan. The morning after, Sister Agatha asked if she had considered the matter well, and prayed over it; to which Carmen answered in the affirmative, but persisted in her positive refusal; to which Brother Jonathan submitted with apparent calmness. If he felt at all mortified, he certainly exerted immense self-control, for he seemed the same as usual, and his voice was clear and ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... dispatches order upon order, With positive command to stop his coming. Yet there is notice given to the city; Besides, Belleure brought but a half account, How that the Guise replied, he would obey His majesty in all; yet, if he might Have leave to justify himself before him, He ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... ignorant of dialectic philosophy, and therefore incapable of naming rightly what they had failed to apprehend correctly. Plato's view of actual language, as far as it can be made out from the critical and negative rather than didactic and positive dialogue of "Kratylos," seems to have been very much the same as his view of actual government. Both fall short of the ideal, and both are to be tolerated only in so far as they participate in the perfections of an ideal state and an ideal ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... offer a positive opinion, ma'am; but I think Mr. Linley and his lawyer have their suspicions. Plainly speaking, I am afraid spies are set ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... of legal procedure against witches was negative rather than positive: the enactments in the statute-books were left unrepealed, and so seemed not to altogether discountenance a still somewhat doubtful prejudice. It was so late as in the ninth year of the reign of George II., 1736, that the Witch Act of 1604 was formally and finally repealed. ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... "I'm positive! You're such an extraordinary, woman. I'm pretty sure it all hinges on the treasure I told you about the other day. Whoever gets first hold of that holds all the trumps. I'd like to get it myself. That would be the making of me, politically ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... were made to develop modern schools, though the work of development was continually hindered by the incessant political unrest. Only at the universities, which became foci of republican and progressive opinion, was any positive achievement possible. Many students and professors were active in politics, organizing demonstrations and strikes. They pursued a strong national policy, often also socialistic. At the same time real scientific work was done; many young scholars of outstanding ability ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... must often have thought of those two airy characters of the "Beaux' Stratagem," Archer and Aimwell, who, on this very ground, after attending service at the cathedral, contrive to make acquaintance with the ladies of the comedy. These creatures of mere fiction have as positive a substance now as the sturdy old figure of Johnson himself. They live, while realities have died. The shadowy walk still ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... must already have observed the extreme disproportion of the weapons in this conflict between the prisoner under suspicion and the examining judge. Absolute denial when skilfully used has in its favor its positive simplicity, and sufficiently defends the criminal; but it is, in a way, a coat of mail which becomes crushing as soon as the stiletto of cross-examination finds a joint to it. As soon as mere denial is ineffectual in face of certain proven facts, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... had sent him my letter, an' then he guessed how it was, an' puttin' what I told him onto what she an' Whitman had told him, he saw it all. He didn't know what had made her leave Judson, or rather Jordan; but he said he was positive it was his fault, as she was some the finest woman he had ever met, exceptin' of course ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... evidently extremely rich; but I must confess I rarely troubled to explore them. In other regions the gold-bearing quartz was actually a curse, our path being covered with sharp pebbles of quartz and slate, which made ever step forward a positive agony. Wild ranges adjoined that conglomerate country, which, as you have probably gathered, is extremely difficult to traverse. Certainly it would be ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... positive this is the first of his writing I've seen since I've known him. Where the deuce?" He shut his eyes, and made a strong effort of memory. Suddenly he opened his eyes again, and stared hard at the signature. "Yes, sir! Francis Turl—that was the name. And who ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the second or ten-volume edition. But, for reading, some may prefer the first, in which the number of the volumes coincides with their real division, which has the memories of the death of Sophia Scott and others connected with its course, and to which the second made fewer positive additions than may be thought.—[It has been pointed out to me in reference to the word 'whomle' on the opposite page that Fergusson has 'whumble' in 'The Rising of the Session.' But if Scott had quoted, would he have altered the spelling? The Grassmarket story, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... the view Bade to his cheerful visits long adieu; But haply err'd, for this engaging bride No mirth suppress'd, but rather cause supplied: And when she saw the friends, by reasoning long, Confused if right, and positive if wrong, With playful speech, and smile that spoke delight, She made them careless both of wrong and right. This gentle damsel gave consent to wed, With school and school-day dinners in her head: She now was promised choice of daintiest food, And costly dress, that made her sovereign ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... worth anything, we have the old sound here in the pronunciation soo, once universal, and according both with Saxon and Latin analogy. Moreover, Bishop Hall rhymes shew with mew and sue; so that it will not do to be positive. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... who had lived for years in the atmosphere of appreciation that surrounds success; their movements were observed in the newspapers; their names stood for wide interests, big concerns. They had known the satisfaction of a positive importance, not only in their community but in their country; and they had come to England invested as well with the weight that is attached to a public mission. It may very well be that they looked for some echo of what they were accustomed to, and were a little dashed not to find ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... own and yours—probably," she said with spirit, for she took sides in that moment, and was positive that the blame for the estrangement lay with the father. The level, unagitated voice irritated her; she resented it. He ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... meaning to "get a rise out of him," after the odious manner of the tourists described in "The Innocents Abroad," though at the same time he felt rather supportingly sure of the fact that generally, when he displayed ignorance, he displayed it because he was a positive encyclopedia of ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... have positive proof that Peter Junior was murdered and from the lips of his murderer. The witness just dismissed says he heard Richard Kildene tell you he pushed his cousin Peter Junior over the bluff into the river. Can you deny this statement? On your sacred ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... came home, they told me the story, at which I laughed very heartily, for I thought their fears had magnified the visit of some neighbour's dog into a bear, or some other wild beast; but they appeared unconvinced, being both frightened and positive. My wife declared, that in the morning she found some of the salt-pork had been abstracted from the barrel, which stood in one corner of the kitchen, by the ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... Bartlett ought really to be able to help you. At any rate he's very positive himself about what's good and what's bad. Curiously enough, he and I have been touching upon the same point as you, and I find, among other things, that he is ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... been made to the Comstock's delight in humor of a positive sort. The practical joke was legal tender in Virginia. One might protest and swear, but he must take it. An example of Comstock humor, regarded as the finest assay, is an incident still told of Leslie Blackburn ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to be found for any one, from that base and shifty opportunism in public and social matters, that predominance of fluctuating aims and spiritless conformities, in which so many of us, without any great positive happiness at all to reward us for the sacrifice we are making, bury the ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... the game is for the guards to prevent the corner goal men from catching the ball. This is not only for defensive play, to prevent the opponents from scoring, but has a positive value, there being a separate guard score, each ball that a guard catches and holds scoring for his team. This scoring for catches by the guards has the advantage of calling for especially active work from the guards, with much jumping ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... to make the thing positive," admitted Mr. Princeman. "Mr. Turner, would you mind sending some samples of your material to my factory with the ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... exclaimed Conscience suddenly, "all these night-long rehearsals and frantic sessions of rewriting must be positive deadly. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... walls; there's no doubt at all about that," said Clive, in a positive tone. "Why, they are three feet thick, at least. And, you see, there are signs of an additional ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... v. Home & Colonial Stores Ltd. (1904 A.C. 179). They overrule an earlier view propounded by Lord Westbury in 1865 (Tapling v. Jones, 11 H.L.C. 290) that the Prescription Act 1832 had abrogated the common law prescription as to light, that the right to "ancient lights'' now depends upon positive enactment alone, and does not require, and ought not to be rested on, any fiction of a "lost grant'' (see EASEMENT.) There has been much difference of judicial opinion as to what constitutes an actionable interference ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... myself, I have no hesitation; I prefer in every case the ruined, however ruined, to the reconstructed, however splendid. What is left is more precious than what is added; the one is history, the other is fiction; and I like the former the better of the two—it is so much more romantic. One is positive, so far as it goes; the other fills up the void with things more dead than the void itself, inasmuch as they have never had life. After that I am free to say that the restoration of Carcassonne is ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... broke in Jean. "A positive engagement unfortunately prevents her being here to say so, but she authorized me to state that she preferred the elective choice herself, and to tell you to do just as you think best in the ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... (Personlichkeit) is ever holy to us; a certain orthodox Anthropomorphism connects my Me with all Thees in bonds of Love: but it is in this approximation of the Like and Unlike, that such heavenly attraction, as between Negative and Positive, first burns out into a flame. Is the pitifullest mortal Person, think you, indifferent to us? Is it not rather our heartfelt wish to be made one with him; to unite him to us, by gratitude, by admiration, even by fear; or failing all these, unite ourselves ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... began and continued to write. Then, as he progressed, he found that his imagination was embarrassed—frustrated by the known facts already employed—whilst it was not assisted by new facts which he was positive existed, but which he could not procure. As he attempted to close the narrative, the cold, written page was a very different thing from what he had conceived it would be as he sat in the tap-room of some New England old 'Sailor's Home,' with ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... word without recalling Dr. Saul Ascher, with his abstract legs, his tight-fitting transcendental-grey long coat, his forbidding icy face, which could have served as frontispiece for a textbook of geometry. This man, deep in the fifties, was a personified straight line. In his striving for the positive, the poor man had, by dint of philosophizing, eliminated all the splendid things from life, such as sunshine, religion, and flowers, so that there remained nothing for him but the cold positive grave. The Apollo Belvedere and Christianity were the two special ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... taken down a young fellow, about twenty years of age, who had been convicted at the assizes for stealing curious coins from a person who had brought them out to this country as old family relics. The evidence was more circumstantial than positive, and many persons believed ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... still. And when a snob came to poison the air, how exquisitely one could annihilate him with showing him his ignorance of claret; and when an epicure dined, how delightfully, as one carried in a turbot, one could test him with the eprouvette positive, or crush him by the eprouvette negative. We have been Equerries at the Palace, both of us, but I don't think we know what true dignity is till we shall have risen to headwaiters at ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... before the public mind had become sufficiently settled to inquire into the matter, the rumor changed itself into a piece of positive news:— ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... never weary of trying to perform little acts of kindness for his father's prisoner; but there was only one thing which the midshipman desired, and, as that could not be accorded, the friendly feeling between the two lads stayed where it was. In fact, it seemed to be turning into positive dislike on one side, Archy fiercely rating his gaoler over and over again, and Ram bearing it all ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... be doubted that the twelfth article of the treaty as it now stands contains a positive obligation, "in consideration of the extension acquired by the boundaries of the United States," to pay to the Mexican Republic $12,000,000 in four equal annual installments of three millions each. This obligation may be assigned by the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... very contemptuously of Bagtche Serai. 'How' they ask, 'can any one apply the name of palace to that cluster of wooden houses, daubed with coarse paintings, and furnished only with divans and carpets?' From this point of view they are right. The positive cast of their minds prevents them from seeing the beautiful in aught but costly material, well-defined forms, and highly-polished workmanship: hence, to them Bagtche Serai must be a mere group ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... and of whom Gordon himself said: "He drilled troops, supervised the manufacture of shells, gave advice, brightened the Futai's intellect about foreigners, and made peace, in which last accomplishment his forte lay"—wrote to him, stating that he had positive information that Burgevine was enlisting men for some enterprise, that he had already enrolled 300, and that he had even chosen a special flag for his force. A few days later Burgevine, probably hearing of this communication, wrote to Gordon, begging him not to believe any rumours about him, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... full of details, I simply had to consider it. Of course, only as a hint and I intended to get proof. I gave it to Schmuttermaier and told him to keep the Hochstetter woman under strict surveillance. Saturday at noon we obtained positive evidence, ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... through marshy ground, flowing from W.S.W. The actual breadth of clear water, independent of the marsh and reedy banks, was about 400 yards, but, as usual in the deep and flat portions of the White Nile, the great extent of reeds growing in deep water rendered any estimate of the positive width extremely vague. We could discern the course of this great river for about twenty miles, and distinctly, trace the line of mountains on the west bank that we had seen at about sixty miles' distance when on the route from Karuma to Shooa; ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... anyone could do when a stage is robbed would be to tell the robbers about the property of passengers like him. I didn't believe it at first, and now I know how frightfully foolish I was. But the young man, who had been in jail once himself, was so positive, that I really believed a criminal has a sense of honor. And when the robber asked whose valise that was, I was so frightened the words came right out before I realized what ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... that they often flatly contradict one another, medical experts do not stand very high in popular repute; nevertheless, it is a positive fact that a single medical expert is worth half Scotland Yard in the detection and prevention of crime. Thousands of rivals in love, disagreeable husbands, dangerous political agitators, harsh masters and mistresses, rich uncles, and people ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... to give you any very positive expression of opinion on the matter respecting which you write, but I can say that I have smoked tobacco and taken wine for years, and though I cannot aver that I should not have done as well without ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... decision the boy had been in a fever of impatience to be off. So full was he of anticipations concerning the proposed journey that he could talk and think of nothing else. Thus, after a month of tiresome delay, he was in such an uncomfortable frame of mind that it was a positive trial to have him about the house. For this reason he was encouraged to spend much of his time aboard the raft, and was even allowed to eat and sleep there whenever he chose. At length he reached the point of almost quarrelling with his sister, whom he ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... she complained. "You make love like a garden rake. You should have leaned towards me with a quiver in your voice when you said those last two words, and instead of that you look as though you were sitting at attention, with a positive glint of steel ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... manager was baffled how the pirates were to ascend a ladder to their sleeping loft. They had no place to go. They would crack their ugly heads upon the ceiling. The costumer was positive (parsimony!) that a hole—even a little hole—should not be cut in the plaster overhead for their disappearance. If the chandelier had been an honest piece of metal they might have perched on it until the act ran out. Or perhaps the candles could be extinguished when their legs ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... am very sorry," returned the officer, "and so will be Lord Howe, that any error in the superscription should prevent the letter being received by General Washington." "Why, sir," replied Reed, whose instructions were positive not to accept such a communication, "I must obey orders;" and the officer, finding it useless to press the matter, could only repeat the sentiment, "Oh! yes, sir, you must obey orders, to be sure." Then, after exchanging letters from prisoners, the officers saluted and separated. ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... "By furnishing precise information upon the possibility of circumnavigating Africa, by indicating the route to the Indies, by giving more positive and extended ideas upon the commerce of these countries, and above all, by describing the gold-mines of Sofala, and so exciting the cupidity of the Portuguese, Covilham contributed greatly to accelerate the expedition ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... indeed, and most truly, that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" and, therefore, wisely forbids us to increase our burden by forebodings of sorrows; but I think it no where says that even our ordinary afflictions are not consistent with a very considerable degree of positive comfort and satisfaction. And, accordingly, one whose sufferings as well as merits were conspicuous, assures us, that in proportion "as the sufferings of Christ abounded in them, so their consolation ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... make no second appearance, never coming our way again, but passing out of our ken as utterly as if their route lay along a tangent, or the branch of an hyperbola, or other such unreverting line. We seldom, it is true, get proof positive, as in the case of the Dermodys, father and son, that they will no more return. Generally their doing so any day may be supposed possible as long as anybody remembers to suppose it. But some come back at more or less regular ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... Comparison, because it is used when things are compared with one another in respect to some quality common to them all, but possessed by them in different degrees. The form of the adjective which expresses the simple quality, as sweet, is of the Positive Degree; that which expresses the quality in a greater or a less degree, as sweeter, less sweet, is of the Comparative Degree; and that which expresses the quality in the greatest or the least degree, as sweetest, least sweet, is of the ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... labours which proved their own reward. Straight from the concert-platform rushed the musician to his workshop, and many a lace ruffle was torn by nails or bespattered by molten pitch; to say nothing of the positive danger to which Herschel continually exposed himself by the precipitancy of his movements. For example: one Saturday evening, when the two brothers returned from a concert between eleven and twelve o'clock, William amused ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... absence of a special sacerdotal class as well as of all distinctions of caste in general, slavery as a legitimate institution, the days of publicly dispensing justice at the new and full moon. On the other hand the positive organization of the body politic, the decision of the questions between regal sovereignty and the sovereignty of the community, between the hereditary privilege of royal and noble houses and the unconditional legal equality of the citizens, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... her white hands the reeking blood of the horse slaughtered for an offering. She would bite, in her barbarous sport, the neck of the black-cock which was to be slaughtered by the sacrificial priest; and to her foster-father she said in positive earnestness,— ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... hurried consultation ensued. The presence of so many dogs in the village was regarded by the half-breed as almost positive assurance that the Indians were still there. Yet it was difficult to account for their silence. Gurrier in a loud tone repeated who he was, and that our mission was friendly. Still no answer. He then gave it as his opinion that the Indians were ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... difficulties have been effectually removed by Apis, and the treatment of intermittent fever may henceforth be said to constitute one of the most certain and positive achievements of the hom[oe]opathic domain. For the last three years, during which period I have experimented with Apis, I have not come across a single case of intermittent fever that did not yield satisfactorily ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... 1813 and 1827, and all Acts amendatory thereof, thus they became "legally authorized practicing physicians and surgeons," and as such, are entitled to membership of our County Medical Societies. This right is positive, and no County Society has the power to adopt a by-law which will keep them out if they should make application for admission. The right of legally authorizing physicians to membership of County Medical Societies has been most definitely settled by our courts, and the ...
— Allopathy and Homoeopathy Before the Judgement of Common Sense! • Frederick Hiller
... internal state. Mr. Edison should turn his attention from physics to humanity electrically considered in its social condition. We have heard a great deal about affinities. We are told that one person is positive and another negative, and that representing socially opposite poles they should come together and make an electric harmony, that two positives or two negatives repel each other, and if conventionally united end in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... But it was with the greatest difficulty that I could make him take so much—indeed anything—for my lodging and fare. He declared that it was next to robbing me, explaining how much I ought to pay on the road. However, as I was positive, he took the guinea for himself; but, as a condition, insisted on accompanying me, to prevent my meeting with any trouble or imposition ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... his successors throughout Europe, whose imitation of the worst parts of his policy is only limited by their comparative impotence, and their positive imbecility.—[MS. M.] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... electrical state positive; fusing point 442 deg. F.; tensile strength per square inch in tons, 2 to 3. Tensile strength is the resistance of the fibers or particles of a body to separation, so that the amount stated is the weight or power required ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler |
