"Random" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the terrible punishment endured by these regiments, chosen at random from the head of the list which shows the slaughter-roll of the Civil War. Yet the shattered remnants of each regiment preserved their organization, and many of the severest losses were incurred in the hour ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... Odlyzko in Random Mapping Statistics you can have the article at ftp://netlib.att.com/netlib/att/math/odlyzko/index.html 1 ...
— Miscellaneous Mathematical Constants • Various
... striking the brig to the windward, threw her off several points from the wind, and, before she could regain her position, another broke completely over her, and hurled her full upon her beam-ends. The ballast now shifted in a mass to leeward (the stowage had been knocking about perfectly at random for some time), and for a few moments we thought nothing could save us from capsizing. Presently, however, we partially righted; but the ballast still retaining its place to larboard, we lay so much along that it was useless to think ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... and by degrees the ships separated—the admiral, like Lord Howe on the first of June, preserving his position, though very much mauled; and the housekeeper, like the Montague, running down to join her associates. A few random shots were exchanged as they parted, and at every second or third step on the stairs, Mrs Margaret brought to, and fired, until both were quite out of range; a distant rumbling noise was heard, and the admiral concluded, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Under the circumstances, it needed but some seven or eight minutes for these ships to glide a mile through the troubled ocean, and this was about the period the most exposed of them all had been under the random and slow fire that the state of the weather permitted. The trifling damages sustained were already repaired, or in a way soon to be so. On the other hand, considerable disorder prevailed among the French. ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... continued to gaze up long and earnestly into the starry sky, his thoughts began to wander over the past and the present at random, and a cold shudder warned him that it was time to return to the hut. But the wandering thoughts and fancies seemed to chain him to the spot, so that he could not tear himself away. Then a dreamy feeling of rest and comfort began to steal over his senses, and he thought how ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... showing that circumstances alter cases, and that two or three years make a great difference. These latter particulars, however, I only give as conversational. To prevent any adverse impressions which might be given by such random talk, I would remark in passing, that a case like the foregoing is not a question of right or wrong, truth or falsehood, but of a balance of expediency, which it is a counsel's business in each instance to state, ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... play an important part in the great events on which we touch. All that is wanting is, to persuade HIM into this belief, himself. Once persuade a man that he is intended to be something, and your work is half done to your hands. But the world is so full of ill-digested and random theories, that truth has as much as it can do to obtain a sober ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... on the lute, and crack with their tails, to make pretty little platform leaps in keeping level by the ground? But now the world is unshackled from the corners of the packs of Leicester. One flies out lewdly and becomes debauched; another, likewise, five, four, and two, and that at such random that, if the court take not some course therein, it will make as bad a season in matter of gleaning this year as ever it made, or it will make goblets. If any poor creature go to the stoves to illuminate his muzzle with a cowsherd or to buy ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... of Mr. Tyrrel's feelings, it is probable, however, he did some justice to his rival. He regarded him, indeed, with added dislike; but he no longer regarded him as a despicable foe. He avoided his encounter; he forbore to treat him with random hostility; he seemed to lie in wait for his victim, and to collect his venom for ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... dropped on my knee with rifle to shoulder. Instantly the red devil, with sage brush tied round his head raised up about ninety yards from me and again fired. I only caught a glimpse of him as he made a few zig zag leaps among the rocks and disappeared. I fired at random but failed to wing my game. That taught a rash, presumptuous young fool a lesson, and he contented himself for the balance of the day imitating the men in the line, and keeping ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... difficulty in the way of placing them between the irregular nebulae and the helium stars. The average radial velocity of 47 planetary nebulae is about 45 km. per second; and, if the motions of the planetaries are somewhat at random, their average velocities in space are twice as great, or 90 km. per second. This is fully seven times the average velocity of the helium stars, and the helium stars in general, therefore, could not have come from planetary nebulae. The radial ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... at random, of the doubts suggested and the illustration afforded by these editions in the study of the text. Of course such minute criticism is of interest only to those few who reckon Dante's words at their true worth. The common reader may be content with the text as he finds it in common editions, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... speaking somewhat at random out of his annoyance to have failed in immediately disgusting the hermit of the responsibilities his return home might entail, here succeeded by chance in ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... already decided upon his finishing stroke, and his taunts were meant to push the captain into further reckless action. They were wholly successful as the man sprang forward, and slashed almost at random. Now, Robert, light of foot and agile, danced before him like a fencing master. The captain cut and thrust at the flitting form but always it danced away, and the heavy slashes of his cutlass cut the empty air, his ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in smiling and replying. "It would be presumption in my part to think so," he observed. "I was simply at random humming a few verses composed by former writers, and what reason is there to laud me to such an excessive degree? To what, my dear Sir, do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" he went on to inquire. "Tonight," replied Shih-yin, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... depend upon chance, according to Dr. Culin, may be divided "into those in which the hazard depends upon the random fall of certain implements employed, like dice, and those in which it depends upon the guess or choice of the player; one is objective, the other subjective." Games of the first or objective class are generally played in silence, while those of the second or subjective class, called guessing ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... I mean," he said. Arrived at this point Miss Tarlton felt she need no longer listen, she simply noted with pitying tolerance the random utterance. "A camera costs very nearly as much to keep as a horse, what with films and bottles of stuff, and all the other accessories. And as for a bicycle, I am quite sure that you have to count as much for mending it as you do for a ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... was a big woman, dressed in loose folds of red and blue. Her hair was dishevelled, and ornamented with brass pins fastened into it at random. Her sleeves were rolled up to her armpits, and she had her arms akimbo—fat, flabby arms that shook as she laughed. Her eyes were almost hidden, she screwed them up so closely, but her wide mouth opened and disclosed a row ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... us try these truths with closer eyes, And trace them through the prospect as it lies: 100 Here for a while my proper cares[12] resigned, Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind; Like yon neglected shrub at random cast, That shades the steep, and sighs at ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... exactly what happened to those detachments which once upon a time separated from the original human family. Each may have gone forth at random, but there was the earth to choose from and to be had for the taking; and, wherever such a detachment settled, there was nothing to prevent its posterity staying on and on, and developing their own peculiarities under local influences; for it would take many, many centuries before ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 40, August 12, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... call by the higher title of Poems, to which appellation the author objects) were written at random — off and on, here, there, anywhere — just when the mood came, with little of study and less of art, ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... random, while behind us we heard musket shots from every part of the town. We met a company of soldiers who were hurrying to the relief of their comrades, but heard later that they had not been allowed to pass ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his Bible at random. His eye fell upon the warning of Jeremiah, "Hear, O earth, behold I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts!" Alas! he needed no warning to show him now the dire results of his own past wrong thinking. Evil is but wrong thinking wrought out in life experience. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and gallop into the fields at random, merely taking care not to quit the paths. By the latter, one can go in almost any direction; and as they are very winding there is a certain pleasure in following their sinuosities, doubtful whither they tend. Much of the ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... conventional occupation. Bring these fellows into the country, or set them aboard ship, and you will see how they pine for their desk or their study. They have no curiosity; they cannot give themselves over to random provocations; they do not take pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own sake; and unless Necessity lays about them with a stick, they will even stand still. It is no good speaking to such folk: they cannot be idle, their nature is not ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... encounter a deer, are seized with nervous excitement, called in sporting parlance the "buck fever," which causes them to fire at random. Notwithstanding I have had much experience in hunting, I must confess that I am never entirely free from some of the symptoms of this malady when firing at large game, and I believe that in four out ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... reasonable enough, as otherwise Parson Thumpcushion might have put an untimely catastrophe to my story; but as nobody would be much affected by my disgrace, and all was to be suffered in my own person, I know not why I cared about a name. For a week or two I travelled almost at random, seeking hardly any guidance except the whirling of a leaf at, some turn of the road, or the green bough that beckoned me, or the naked branch that pointed its withered finger onward. All my care was to be farther from home each ...
— Passages From a Relinquised Work (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... random reminiscences I am impressed in a singular fashion with the fact that my career consisted entirely in the making, or rather getting, of money and the spending of it. I had no particular professional ambitions ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... left on Ithaca, and with a mind unsettled by the goddess, was not more pleasantly astray. I have been after an adventure all my life, a pure dispassionate adventure, such as befell early and heroic voyagers; and thus to be found by morning in a random woodside nook in Gevaudan—not knowing north from south, as strange to my surroundings as the first man upon the earth, an inland castaway—was to find a fraction of my daydreams realized. I was on the skirts ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... strange lurid hue, which, infected with sulphur, seemed to breathe suffocation through the apartment. The rich hangings, and splendid furniture of the chamber, the very walls themselves, were changed into huge stones tossed together at random, like the inside of a wild beast's den, nor was the den without an inhabitant. The beautiful and innocent lips to which Artavan de Hautlieu had approached his own, were now changed into the hideous and bizarre form, and bestial aspect of a fiery dragon. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... hunter hath his whelps 395 Purloin'd, too late returning mourns his loss, Then, up and down, the length of many a vale Courses, exploring fierce the robber's foot, Incensed as he, and with a sigh deep-drawn Thus to his Myrmidons Achilles spake. 400 How vain, alas! my word spoken that day At random, when to soothe the hero's fears Menoetius, then our guest, I promised him His noble son at Opoeis again, Living and laden with the spoils of Troy! 405 But Jove performs not all the thoughts of man, For we were both destined to tinge the soil Of Ilium with our blood, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... the victim of a sudden unfortunate spasm of nervousness, sir. Upon finding himself alone with the young lady, he admits to having lost his morale. In such circumstances, gentlemen frequently talk at random, saying the first thing that chances to enter their heads. This, in Mr. Fink-Nottle's case, would seem to have been the newt, its treatment in sickness and ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... from association with cultivated people, than by getting a small pronouncing dictionary of words in ordinary use, and reading it word by word, marking and studying any that you use frequently and mispronounce. When you know them, then read any book at random slowly aloud to yourself, very carefully pronouncing each word. The consciousness of this exercise may make you stilted in conversation at first, but by and by the "sense" or "impulse" ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... study would be to learn whether the motion of the reported UFO's was random or ordered. Random motion is an unordered, helter-skelter motion very similar to a swarm of gnats or flies milling around. There is no apparent pattern or purpose to their flight paths. But take, for example, swallows flying around a chimney—they wheel, dart, and ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... great dog Cork vigilant and silent beside her, sat before it as one wrapt in reverie. Now and then she roused herself to answer at random some remark from Nick, but for the most ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... moon his dark face seemed even darker; his long, crisp, curly hair, his hat pressed down over his eyes, his black beard and moustache, his strongly aquiline nose, all proclaimed his gypsy origin. He wore a threadbare blue doublet, braided with cords, which were buttoned here and there at random, and over this was fastened some ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... The remark was a random one and meant nothing at all, except that he had been conscious of her close attention, but something in the way her gaze was withdrawn showed that whatever she had been thinking she wished to conceal it, and in the end it made Nathan Hornby really uncomfortable. The fact of the matter ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... that way with women—as if life were not the same for us as for you. Pass me the book. I wager that I can open it at random, and that you cannot deny the truth of the ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... this argument must certainly be in the habit of very random shooting with a smoothbore. How can he possibly get a correct aim with "ball" out of a smoothbore, without squinting along the barrel and taking the muzzle-sight accurately? The fact is, that many persons fire so hastily at game that they ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... severed Leonard from Burley but Helen's return to his care. It was impossible for him, even had there been another room in the house vacant (which there was not), to install this noisy, riotous son of the Muse by Bacchus, talking at random and smelling of spirits, in the same dwelling with an innocent, delicate, timid, female child. And Leonard could not leave her alone all the twenty-four hours. She restored a home to him and imposed its duties. He therefore told Mr. Burley ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... could, and recommended ourselves to God and the Holy Virgin, we sailed from the port of Agaruco on the 8th of February 1517. In twelve days we passed Cape St Antonio in the land of a tribe of savages called Guanatareyes, after which we sailed to the westwards at random, being entirely ignorant of the shallows, currents, or prevailing, winds in these seas. We were in most imminent danger during our voyage for two days and two nights in a violent storm; but the wind subsided, and in twenty-one days after leaving Cuba, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... it as "the land of darkness, like the blackness of death shade, where is no order, and where the light is as darkness." The following passages, selected almost at random, will show the ideas entertained of the place, and confirm and illustrate the foregoing statements. "But he considers not that in the valleys of Sheol are her guests." "Now shall I go down into the gates of Sheol." "The ground slave asunder, and the earth ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... or the members of a Chinese family to their uncle; and if there is an allegation which I would 'deny with both hands', it is this: that an insipid sameness is the chief characteristic of an anthology which offers—to name almost at random seven only out of forty (oh ominous academic number!)—the work of Messrs. Abercrombie, Davies, de la Mare, Graves, Lawrence, Nichols ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... he is an ancient bird, who tried his pipe in better days, and then was scared by random shots, he is fain to lift the migrant wing once more towards the humble perch, among the trees he loves. All gardeners own that he does no harm, unless he flits into a thicket of young buds, or a very choice ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... navre. He took his portfolio under his arm, made up the little valise of a pedestrian, and, without saying a word to anyone, wandered off at random among the mountains. ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... random, scarcely hearing her chatter, and listening, listening each instant for his step or voice on ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... anger, and resolved to revenge his disappointed lust by her death. With this view he armed himself with a poniard; and about midnight, when the family were asleep, stole into the chamber where she reposed, and close by her the infant son of her generous host. The villain being in the dark made a random stroke, not knowing of the infant, and instead of stabbing the object of his revenge, plunged his weapon into the bosom of the child, who uttered loud screams; upon which the assassin, fearful of detection, ran away, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... under very special conditions. Their operation involved the building-up of terrific static charges. Unless a tractor-beam generator could be grounded to the object it was to pull, it tended to emit lightning-bolts at unpredictable intervals and in entirely random directions. So men didn't use them. Obviously, the ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... Ripton's hold; whereupon the two seniors laid their grey heads together over the title-page. It set forth in attractive characters beside a coloured frontispiece, which embodied the promise displayed there, the entrancing adventures of Miss Random, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ranting round in pleasure's ring Religion may be blinded: Or if she gie a random sting, It may be little minded: But when on life we're Tempest-driv'n— A conscience but a canker, A correspondence fixed wi' Heav'n, Is sure ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... to tell quickly that those years were swift and full. Early in the second a letter from Solon, read at a random camp-fire, told me of my namesake's coming. For the other years I pleased myself prodigiously by remembering that she must speak my name openly to her first-born. And I lusted for battle, then. I was an early Norseman, and I would escape the prosaic bed-death, since, for those ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... fluent heat began, And grew to seeming-random forms, The seeming prey of cyclic storms, Till at the ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... the recent scene, that matters were even worse than she had feared. This absurd revue, which she had looked on as a mere isolated outbreak of foolishness, was, it would appear, only a specimen of the sort of thing her misguided brother proposed to do, a sample selected at random from a wholesale lot of frantic schemes. Fillmore, there was no longer any room for doubt, was preparing to express his great soul on a vast scale. And she could not dissuade him. A humiliating thought. She had grown so accustomed ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... Turks might lurk revealed themselves as small tufts of grass. Vigilance increased. If rifles did not sweep that crest continually the old Turk would leave his head and shoulders above the edge long enough to take aim, instead of blazing away rather at random. ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... fastened with pins. Owen had never quite understood what it was that these young men did want, and now his detached mind refused even more emphatically to grapple with the problem. He distributed the documents at random with the air of a preoccupied monarch scattering largess to the mob, and the subsequent chaos had to be handled by a wrathful head of the department ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... and odious uniformity: and the evil is here aggravated, not in merely direct proportion with the augmentation of its sources, but in a ratio constantly increasing. In fact, a room with four or five mirrors arranged at random, is, for all purposes of artistic show, a room of no shape at all. If we add to this evil, the attendant glitter upon glitter, we have a perfect farrago of discordant and displeasing effects. The veriest bumpkin, on entering ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the disaster was approached there was revealed upon the plates a confused mass of debris; a mass whose individual units were apparently moving at random: yet which was as a whole still following the orbit of Roger's planetoid. Space was full of machine parts, structural members, furniture, flotsam of all kinds; and everywhere were the bodies of men. Some were encased in space-suits, and it was to these ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... downhill. Following some random counsel, he changed the name of it and advanced the price—two blunders. Then he was compelled to reduce the subscription, also the advertising rates. He was obliged to adopt a descending scale of charges and expenditures to keep pace with his declining circulation—a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... "Thy voice and step still sounding in my ear— "Oh God! thou wouldst not wonder that at last, "When every hope was all at once o'ercast, "When I heard frightful voices round me say "Azim is dead!—this wretched brain gave way, "And I became a wreck, at random driven, "Without one glimpse of reason or of Heaven— "All wild—and even this quenchless love within "Turned to foul fires to light me into sin!— "Thou pitiest me—I knew thou wouldst—that sky "Hath naught beneath it half so lorn as I. "The fiend, who ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Probing at random I had touched a very sensitive nerve. We had got down from underneath the political and reached the social. What is the true and original root of Dutch aversion to British rule? It is not Slagters Nek, nor Broomplatz, nor Majuba, ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... compassion of a Christian, and the tenderness of her gentle sex, was moved by my story, and very readily consented. Instead therefore of going forth at random in the evening, as I was at one time mindet, I remained in her house; where indeed could I at that time flee in the hope of finding any place of refuge? But although this was adopted on the considerations ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... passing like flesh away,— And know how much outweighed they are by darkness. We are like searchers in a house of darkness, A house of dust; we creep with little lanterns, Throwing our tremulous arcs of light at random, Now here, now there, seeing a plane, an angle, An edge, a curve, a wall, a broken stairway Leading to who knows what; but never seeing The whole at once . . . We grope our way a little, And then grow tired. No matter what we touch, Dust is the answer—dust: dust everywhere. ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... nook, Over bridge and through brook, Quite at random we drove without fear; While the birds of the grove, In sweet harmony strove, By their concert of music to cheer. With none to molest us, No home cares to press us, Farther onward, and onward we roam; But at length ...
— The Kings and Queens of England with Other Poems • Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow
... she would have gone in. Mrs. Sand walked the floor, carrying a baby, a pale sticky baby with blotches, which had inherited from its maternal parent a conspicuous lack of buttons. Mrs. Sand's room was also ornamented with texts, but they had apparently been selected at random, and they certainly hung that way. The piety of the place seemed at the control of an older infant, who sat on the floor and played with his father's regimental cap. On the other side of the curtain Captain Sand audibly washed himself ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... plan, and trust to themselves and their numbers. The clump of trees was surrounded by the party, and the dogs encouraged to go in, which they did, every now and then rushing back from the paws of the lioness. The Hottentots now fired into the clump at random, and their volleys were answered by the loud roars of the animal, which would not, however, show herself, and half an hour was ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... not a sailor, but he had studied the accounts of American discoveries, and concluded that instead of random expeditions after gold and spices, companies should be sent out to form permanent settlements. His attempts to colonize the new world, however, ended fatally. Sailing home in a bark of only ten-tons burden, in ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... long studied acquirement. He ever had in view the maxim—Ars est celare artem; but he did not always succeed, for he shows too evidently the art with which he concealed what first his art had effected. Looking carefully at these pictures, we see intention every where: there is no actual random work. We believe him to have finished much more than has been supposed; that there is, in reality, careful drawing and colouring, at least in many of his pictures, under that large and general scumbling and glazing, to which, for the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... simplicity, or freedom from the curse of affectation. What is certain is that nobody of his time was a finer example of high good manners and genuine courtesy than Mr. Gladstone himself. He has left a little sheaf of random jottings which, without being subtle or recondite, show how he looked on this side of human things. Here is ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... before some problem while his thin, eager features became more attenuated with the asceticism of complete mental concentration. Finally he lit his pipe, and sitting in the inglenook of the old village inn he talked slowly and at random about his case, rather as one who thinks aloud than as one who makes a ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... imperfect, and made blunders I blush to have pass for mine,-added to what belong to me. The most important character after the hero and heroine had but two lines of his part by heart ! He made all the rest at random, and such nonsense as put all the other actors out as much as himself; so that a more wretched Performance, except Mrs. Siddons, Mr. Kemble, and Mr. Bensley, could not be exhibited in a barn. All this concurred to make it very desirable to withdraw the piece ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... be driven. The Rebels fire too high. The air is filled with the screaming of their bullets, and a wild storm sweeps over the heads of the men from Nebraska, who lose but ten men killed and wounded in this terrible contest. The Nebraska men are old hunters, and do not fire at random, ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... The ferridge or cloak, worn by this "Queen of the Sweet Waters," was thrown loosely on her shoulders, disclosing a dress remarkable for its elegant simplicity. Her veil of white gauze, worked at the ends with silk and gold, floated at random over her head and shoulders; a rich shawl was bound round her waist, and served to confine the tunic close to her bust: the remainder of her dress was of muslin, plain, neat, and of the purest white. She appeared perfectly unconscious of her superior beauty, and though ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... savage shouts, came rushing on, till, when they were within twenty yards of us, the Kroomen, without waiting for orders, fired at them. They, on this, hesitated for a moment, and then there came a random volley from muskets and pistols, the shots whistling past our ears. A ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... his prescribed distance; a volley from behind the rock scarce ten paces off rolled horse and man over and over. The effect on the enemy was such that they kept at a more respectful distance, and after a few random shots discontinued the pursuit. Such was the account the serjeant himself gave me of the fight, and I have no reason to suspect him of exaggeration. He accomplished his arduous retreat with a loss of nineteen men killed, but more than half this number voluntarily sacrificed themselves to avenge ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... undid the last bolt the gate opened and the soldiers rushed in, firing at random as they did so. Bathurst had stepped behind the gate as it opened, and as the soldiers ran up the yard he took Isobel's hand, and, passing through the gate, ran with her round the building until he reached the spot where Rabda was ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... she did hope and believe that some day people would cease to want to read of wickedness, and then Frederick would need supporting—on helping the poor. The parish flourished because, to take a handful at random, of the ill-behavior of the ladies Du Barri, Montespan, Pompadour, Ninon de l'Enclos, and even of learned Maintenon. The poor were the filter through which the money was passed, to come out, Mrs. Arbuthnot hoped, purified. She could do ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... always from a young hare, and leave to allow. 2. Take a tree from random cutting, and leave to throw. 3. Take part of the eye from cuttings, and leave what children often say the kettle does. 4. Take a sty from a workman in wood, and leave a carrier. 5. Take a favorite from floor-coverings, and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... waiting—patiently waiting—under the gray hillside, and the wind brought me a mocking echo of the words I had just heard. Kitty bantered me a good deal on my silence throughout the remainder of the ride. I had been talking up till then wildly and at random. To save my life I could not speak afterwards naturally, and from Sanjowlie to the Church wisely held ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... three days' fighting only a few burghers were wounded. As the enemy fired at random into the village, some of the inhabitants were also injured. A young man was mortally wounded, while a bullet shattered the ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... find one that isn't improved and finished and rounded off by an Amen at the end." He selected a hymn at random, and sang a stanza in his rich voice that poured itself out gloriously on the ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... flute; but we have got M. le General down here for a few days, and he is setting everybody to work. I dare say the end of it will be an expedition into the Desert. You may look, monsieur. I'm not talking at random, I assure you; generals love war as umbrella-makers love bad weather; and it is easier to make people fight than it is to make ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... one of those novel readers who open a book at random. I do not appreciate effects till I have found out the causes. I want to know everything about ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... somewhat at random, now of the recent past, then of their first meeting and their marriage; but presently I began to form a fairly coherent picture of their lives; and it seemed to me that my surmises had not been incorrect. Mrs. Strickland ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... paint the old nailed boots, but also the new hats and the Waltham watches. Why do they not read? All have been taught, and curious as the inconsistency may seem, they all value the privilege of being able to read and write, and yet they do not exercise it, except in a casual, random way. I for one, when the public schools began all through the rural districts, thought that at last the printing-press was going to reach the country people. In a measure it has done so, but in a flickering, uncertain manner; ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... cigarettes, and silent. Each was busy with thoughts of his own. Carolyn June had been very impartial during the evening meal, distributing her smiles and little attentions freely among them all. Now she was sitting at the piano playing snatches of random melodies as they came to her mind, while Skinny sat stiffly on a high-backed chair at the corner ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... who can beat that," they cried; and there was a general search for pebbles, which were flung at random among ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... cut out the little circular disks which he will find at the back of the book, and place them at random on the numbered spots, leaving number ten vacant for his first move, he may find Bright-Wits' task to be less difficult ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood
... the work—very fine needlework, Jacob and Rachel a-kissing one another among the sheep, like a picture—and th' old squire was sitting there, for he mostly sits with her. Well, she was mighty pleased with the screen, and then she wanted to know what pay she was to give me. I didn't speak at random—you know it's not my way; I'd calculated pretty close, though I hadn't made out a bill, and I said, 'One pound thirty.' That was paying for the mater'als and paying me, but none too much, for my work. Th' old squire looked up at this, and peered in his way at the screen, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... I must again move—in what direction? "Go to Villette," said an inward voice; prompted doubtless by the recollection of this slight sentence uttered carelessly and at random by Miss Fanshawe, as she bid me good-by: "I wish you would come to Madame Beck's; she has some marmots whom you might look after; she wants an English gouvernante, or was wanting one ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... noise!" muttered Tony as he looked at his victim and then all round the hill to see if the noise had alarmed the land. Luck favoured him. A random shot is nothing in war. Finding a hole near by, he dumped the body in, then covered it over with grass. This done, he whipped out his glasses and commenced to study things. Away in front he could ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... facing the dining-room door, the door to the library on her left; if not in any way evident to her senses, she could fix its position only approximately by an effort of memory. But through the former opening her vision, ranging at random, instinctively seeking relief from the oppression of blank darkness, detected a slender beam of artificial light no thicker than a lead-pencil—a golden blade that lanced the obscurity, gleaming dull upon a rug, more bright ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... "The random poppy of paradox grows too often in the golden cornfield of your conversation," Harry went on, ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... vaguely conscious of their surroundings; they saw all things dimly, as through a veil; they were steeped in dreams, often they did not hear when they were spoken to; they often did not understand when they heard; they answered confusedly or at random; Sally sold molasses by weight, sugar by the yard, and furnished soap when asked for candles, and Aleck put the cat in the wash and fed milk to the soiled linen. Everybody was stunned and amazed, and went about muttering, "What CAN be ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... schoolmates. I was unaware that there was such discussion between them—though it is, I suppose, not probable that our school was exempt. I was a great reader, and when about 12 or 13 I came across a reference to an illegitimate child which puzzled me. Ere long, however, in my random and extensive reading I hit on a book that touched on phallicism, and I learned that there were male and female organs of generation. I had neither shame nor curiosity; I jumped to the conclusion that during close caresses somehow a subtle aroma arose from the man to fertilize the woman; ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... random, and, presently, for the sake of verisimilitude, turned a page. Rodney was turning pages as regularly as clockwork. It was a silly magazine! She wished she'd found something that really could interest her. It was getting harder and harder to sit still. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... me a decent fortune!" chuckled Merle, selecting at random. It was the six of spades, and her cousin shook ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... taken the train a few days after this from a station—as well as to a station—selected almost at random; such days, whatever should happen, were numbered, and he had gone forth under the impulse—artless enough, no doubt—to give the whole of one of them to that French ruralism, with its cool special green, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... unites to Austrian insolence the enchantment of beauty and the highest rank, and who makes of her secret and corrupt court the sanctuary of her pleasures and the focus of her vices, this prince, blinded on the one hand by the priests, and on the other by love, holds at random the loose reins of an empire which is escaping from his grasp. France, exhausted of men, does not give to him, either in Maurepas, Necker, or Calonne, a minister capable of supporting him. The aristocracy is barren, and produces nothing but to its shame; the government must be renewed ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... a brilliant field before you, and a start such that no one is likely to catch you. Sit deliberately down over against the city, conquer it and make it your own, and don't be wasting powder in knocking down odd bastions with random shells. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... game at bouts rimes; but, if we recollect rightly, it is an indispensable condition at this play that the rhymes, when filled up, shall have a meaning; and our author, as we have already hinted, has no meaning. He seems to us to write a line at random, and then he follows, not the thought excited by this line, but that suggested by the rhyme with which it concludes. There is hardly a complete couplet enclosing a complete idea in the whole book. He wanders from one subject to another, from the ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... the Haytian scoundrels know of this increase to our strength until the morrow, believing that if we waited till daylight we might be able to take them more completely then by surprise and ensure a victory; for in the dark we might get mixed up and, firing at random, hit our friends as well as our foes. So I went up above and spoke to Captain Alphonse, who agreed with me about it, and we planned a pleasant ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... the back of the house. One climbed the rope ladder, looked in the window, and explained with much gesturing to those below that the room was empty. Random shots were thrown toward the river and into the grove. But nobody headed the pursuit. They were waiting for ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... animals bounded, their necks proudly arched and their tiny feet hitting the only safe places with unerring aim. They were far out of range before I thought to get my rifle in position, and my random shot only sent them farther out on the plain, like drifting leaves ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... devious paths, they reached a house on a sunny elevation, at the western extremity of the garden. It was a house such as one sees only in Rome,—a wide expanse of stuccoed wall with six or seven windows of different sizes scattered at random over its surface. Long tufts of fine grass depended from the gutters of the roof, and the plain pillars supporting the round arches of the loggias had a humid and weather-beaten look. The whole edifice, instead of asserting itself glaringly as a product of human art, blended with ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Coleridge, was written a short time before his death, to a young friend. This deliberate exposition of his faith, and at such a season, cancels every random word or sentence, Mr. C. may ever have expressed or written, of an opposing tendency. In thoughtless moments Mr. C. may sometimes have expressed himself unguardedly, attended, on reflection, no ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... years a real treasure-house for naturalists. The walls are studded with innumerable barnacles, dogwinkles and other shells—not dead and empty, but full of living creatures, requiring only the return of the tide to awaken them to an active existence. There are simply myriads of them: a random stone thrown against a wall will smash a whole colony; and there are besides polyps and sea-anemones and other strange animals of eccentric habits in unusual abundance. The visitors to Tenby find ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... told by red-haired men, I have no doubt that ten minutes' reflection (in which I decline to indulge) would provide me with a handsome list of instances in support of it. I remember a riotous argument about Bacon and Shakespeare in which I offered quite at random to show that Lord Rosebery had written the works of Mr. W. B. Yeats. No sooner had I said the words than a torrent of coincidences rushed upon my mind. I pointed out, for instance, that Mr. Yeats's chief work was "The Secret Rose." This may easily be paraphrased ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... simultaneously at various points in the city (Louvain), notably at the Porte de Bruxelles, Porte de Tirlemont, Rue Leopold, Rue Marie-Therese, Rue des Joyeuses Entrees. German soldiers were firing at random in every street and in every direction. Later fires broke out everywhere, notably in the University building, the Library, in the old Church of St. Peter, in the Place du Peuple, in the Rue de la Station, in the Boulevard de Tirlemont, and in the Chaussee de Tirlemont. ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... ideal towards which she was working than an attainment in fact, that eclecticism of which she spoke to Wilfrid Athel. The monthly library lists which came under her eyes offered many a sore temptation. She was true on the whole to her system; she did not read at random, and never read frivolously; but a taste strongly directed to the best in literature will find much in the work of our day, especially its criticism, which is indispensable as guidance, or attractive by its savour. This was not Emily's first access, fortunately, ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... given little of this verse; and what we do give is taken at random. We agree entirely in his father's estimate of his poetical gift and art, but his mind was too serious, too thoughtful, too intensely dedicated to truth and the God of truth, to linger long in the pursuit of beauty; he was ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... and the men fell in rapidly; the trenches opening fire on the unseen enemy, who moved gradually round to the other side of the camp. It was pitch dark, for the moon had not yet risen; and the enemy poured in a murderous fire, but did not attempt to rush the camp. The troops were firing almost at random for, in spite of star shells being fired, very few of the enemy ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... stuff and nonsense, my good friend," said the Major; "you are speaking at random. I suppose you will say, then, that a black fellow is ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... however, was to elapse before the sea-tale came into its own. It was not until a generation after Defoe that Smollett, in "Roderick Random," again stirred the theme into life. Fielding in his "Voyage to Lisbon" had given some account of a personal experience, but in the general category it must be set down as simply episodal. Foster's "Voyages," a translation from the German ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... contests, especially those of the Latins, not only between combatants who had been trained scientifically, whom he used often to match with the Greek champions; but even between mobs of the lower classes fighting in streets, and tilting at random, without any knowledge of the art. In short, he honoured with his patronage all sorts of people who contributed in any way to the success of the public entertainments. He not only maintained, but enlarged, the privileges of the wrestlers. He prohibited combats of gladiators where no quarter was ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... the agreement required the legalization of opposition political parties prior to the 1999 elections, which occurred, but such parties have made little progress in successful participation in government. Random criminal and political violence in the country remains a complication impairing Tajikistan's ability ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... would have charged us, in Paris grape-shot would have ploughed through our ranks. Here they deemed we were but of the sacred race of Thought-readers, who, by a custom of the strange people, are permitted to run at random through the streets and ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... mountain to the west, the ruins of a large Crusader fortress looked down upon us. The soil, which slowly climbs upward through a long valley between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, is cut with deep ravines. The path is very difficult to find; and while we were riding forward at random, looking in all directions for our baggage mules, we started up a beautiful gazelle. At last, about noon, hot, hungry, and thirsty, we reached a swift stream, roaring at the bottom of a deep ravine, through a bed of gorgeous foliage. The odor of the wild grape-blossoms, ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... advanced to the table, where, selecting a decanter at random, he poured out a considerable drink of pale spirits. Harry Kaperton looked at him ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... university days, yet I arrived at the tree with only a very few yards to spare. Throwing myself upon my knees, I commenced a feverish search, and presently—more by good fortune than any thing else—my random fingers encountered a soft, silken bundle. When Lisbeth came up, flushed and panting, I held ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... which is obvious in their essential denotation, every one who uses them supplies according to his inclination, and status the "deeper and richer sense.'' As a matter of fact many more words are used pictorially than we are inclined to think. Choose at random, and you find surprisingly numerous words with exaggerated denotations. If I say, "I posit the case, I press through, I jump over, the proposition, etc.,'' these phrases are all pictures, for I have posited nothing, I have pressed through no obstacle, and have jumped over ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... figures, but hardly one except Agnes that could without hyperbole be styled truly and memorably magnificent. Though in the first order of tall women, yet, being full in person, and with a symmetry that was absolutely faultless, she seemed to the random sight as little above the ordinary height. Possibly from the dignity of her person, assisted by the dignity of her movements, a stranger would have been disposed to call her at a distance a woman of commanding presence; but never after he had approached near enough to behold her face. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... as some were persuaded, still redolent with the tawny sediment of the Roman wine it had held so long ago, it was set aside for use at the supper which was shortly to celebrate the completion of the masons' work. Amid much talk of the great age of gold, and some random expressions of hope that it might return again, fine old wine of Auxerre was sipped in small glasses from the precious flask as supper ended. And, whether or not the opening of the buried vessel had anything to do with it, from that time a sort ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... (addressing Marutta). 'I too am quite able to do all that.' Then, O prince, that Brahmana, raving like a lunatic, and repeatedly scolding Marutta with rude words, again accosted him thus, 'I am afflicted with a cerebral disorder, and, I always act according to the random caprices of my own mind. Why art thou bent upon having this sacrifice performed by a priest of such a singular disposition? My brother is able to officiate at sacrifices, and he has gone over to Vasava (Indra), and is engaged in performing ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... drowsy, and have a vision amid which my mind returns to the donations which I have received that day, and sees them swell and multiply and increase in weight until I feel their bulk pressing upon me like a tumulus of the steppes. Next, the coppery notes of a bell jar in my ears, and, struck at random intervals, go floating away ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... left arm, but fortunately did no further damage. The discharge was followed by a quick movement in the bushes, rendered audible by the crushing of dried leaves and breaking of branches. This guided the whites in their aim, and a volley was poured into the bush, followed by several random shots from revolvers. ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... noises grew deafening together, the noise of the peril of England and the louder noise of the placidity of England. It is their fault if the last verse was written a little rudely and at random— ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... Random hunches and circuit diagrams flashed through Tom's brain. "The job will boil down to blotting out sonar waves and piercing the enemy's own 'wave-trap ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... it is true, are not too conspicuous even in the oldest and best versions of 'Lord Bateman.' Choosing at random, however, we find a ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... from well known authors should be given, if possible, by every pupil in the school. We give a few taken almost at random:— ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... stone for which, from remotest antiquity, men had cheated, schemed, lied, fought, murdered. The jewels showed no attempt at sorting or classification. With true Oriental laissez-faire, they were all mingled quite at random; these gems, any chance handfuls of which must have meant ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... Shakespeare, by an unknown author, contains some of the most beautiful and happy lines that were ever applied to any poet.[14] An idea, however, soon became prevalent that Shakespeare was a rude and wild genius, who poured forth at random, and without aim or object, his unconnected compositions. Ben Jonson, a younger contemporary and rival of Shakespeare, who labored in the sweat of his brow, but with no great success, to expel the romantic drama from the English stage and to form it on the model of the ancients, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... it was a random shot, Or aim'd maliciously,—tho' Fame says not— Certain his soul (the Knight so crack'd his crown) Fled from his body; but which way it went, Or whether Friars' souls fly up, or down, Remains a ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... prominently into the foreground with the publication of "Pamela" by Samuel Richardson; and between seventeen hundred and forty and seventeen hundred and fifty-two, Richardson's "Clarissa Harlowe," Smollett's "Roderick Random" and "Peregrine Pickle," and Fielding's "Tom Jones" were published. This fact may seem irrelevant to the present subject; nevertheless, the idea of a veritable story-book, that is a book relating a tale, does not seem to have entered Newbery's ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... of Purcell than of Shakespeare. There is no adequate biography. Hawkins and Burney (who is oftenest Hawkins at second-hand) are alike rash, random, and untrustworthy, depending much upon the anecdotage of old men, who were no more to be believed than the ancient bandsmen of the present day who tell you how Mendelssohn or Wagner flattered them or accepted hints from them. Cummings' life is scarcely even a ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... a lecture to the witness, who was considerably more than half-drunk at the time, that he entirely lost his wits and memory, and answered so completely at random, that the jury begged he might not be asked ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor |
