"Variable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the services they proved to be, perhaps not so predictably, quite similar in practical consequences. One pressure felt by all the services was the recently acquired knowledge that the nation's military manpower was not only variable but also limited in quantity. Military efficiency demanded, therefore, that the services not only make the most effective use of available manpower, but also improve its quality. Since Negroes, who made up approximately 10 percent of the population, formed a substantial ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... English garden, adorned at every turn with statues of the heathen deities (although they were all but personifications of the various attributes of nature,) would be ridiculous. Setting aside the injury they must sustain from our damp, variable climate, they would be out of keeping with all around; here it is altogether different; the very air of Italy is embued with the spirit of ancient mythology; and though "the fair humanities of old religion," the Nymphs, the Fauns, the Dryads be banished ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... developed among these early Greek settlers, amalgamating the customs, religions, and arts of the ancient eastern world of Egypt, Syria, and Chaldoa in variable proportions: their script was probably derived from one of the Asianic systems whose monuments are still but partly known, and it consisted of a syllabary awkwardly adapted to a language for which it had not been designed. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... boat, we assisted in moving ourselves slowly through the water, providentially the sea was comparatively smooth, or our overloaded boats would have swamped, and we should only have escaped the flames to have perished in the deep. The wind was light, but variable, and, acting on the sails, which, being drenched with the rain, did not soon take fire, drove the burning mass, in terrific grandeur, over the surface of the ocean, the darkness of which was only illuminated by the quick glancing ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... a belief in superhuman beings who rule the world, and, second, an attempt to win their favour, it clearly assumes that the course of nature is to some extent elastic or variable, and that we can persuade or induce the mighty beings who control it to deflect, for our benefit, the current of events from the channel in which they would otherwise flow. Now this implied elasticity or variability of nature is directly opposed to the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... is very variable; when it is scarcely felt, the velocity does not exceed a foot a second; but it is far otherwise in the cases of hurricanes and tornados, that sweep ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... when he lived with Tisaphernes, the Persian satrap, he exceeded the Persians themselves in magnificence and pomp. Not that his natural disposition changed so easily, nor that his real character was so very variable, but, whenever he was sensible that by pursuing his own inclinations he might give offense to those with whom he had occasion to converse, he transformed himself into any shape, and adopted any fashion, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... concerning the possibility of taking a maiden to wife, "that I shall be compelled to swallow the whole social code, make a covenant with society, sign a pledge of abstinence, and give to another a life interest in all my affairs, when I know too well that I am but taking to my arms a variable creature like myself, whose wishes are apt to become insistent and burdensome in proportion to the decrease of her beauty and interest?" These are the men, who, unwilling to risk the manifold contingencies of an authorized connection, are led to consider the advantages ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... hiatal esophagismus are variable in degree. Substernal distress, with a feeling of fullness and pressure followed by eructations of gas and regurgitation of food within a period of a quarter of an hour to several hours after eating, are present. If the esophageal dilatation be great, regurgitation may occur only ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... considerable time, the sea has left the places where these immense deposits are laid down, then the slow but combined alteration that these great masses undergo, left uncovered and exposed to the incessant action of the air, light, and a variable humidity, changes them gradually into fossils and destroys their membranous or gelatinous part, which is the readiest to decompose. This alteration, which the enormous masses of the corals in question continued to undergo, caused their structure to ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... account you give of Mrs. Williams's health is not cheering, but I should think her indisposition is partly owing to the variable weather; at least, if you have had the same keen frost and cold east winds in London, from which we have lately suffered in Yorkshire. I trust the milder temperature we are now enjoying may quickly confirm her convalescence. With kind regards to Mrs. Williams,—Believe ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... which it shows one after the other to the world. Hence the many transformations of that semi-madness, and their quick variety. Young Gourlay was showing them now. His had always been a wandering mind, deficient in application and control, and as he neared his final collapse it became more and more variable, the prey of each momentary thought. In a short five minutes of time he had been alive to the beauty of the darkness, cowering before the memory of his father's eyes, sobbing in self-pity and angry ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... an orderly and rational union; in other words, it must be one in which Mind is master and Pleasure servant; the finite, the regular, the universal must govern the indefinite, variable, particular. Thus in the perfect life there are four elements; in the body, earth, water, air, fire; in the soul, the finite, the indefinite, the union of the {157} two, and the cause of that union. If this ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... which he had started, despite Howe's skill. At nightfall both fleets were still steering to the southward, on the port tack, the French five or six miles in the rear of the British, with the wind variable at east. The same course was maintained throughout the night, the French gradually overhauling the British, and becoming visible at 3 A.M. of the 11th. By Howe's dispatch, they bore in the morning, at an hour not specified, east-north-east, which would ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... each particular part upon the surface of this globe, is alternately exposed to the influence of light and darkness, in the diurnal rotation of the earth, as well as in its annual revolution. In this manner are produced the vicissitudes of night and day, so variable in the different latitudes from the equator to the pole, and so beautifully calculated to equalise the benefits of light, so variously distributed in the different regions of ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... wind was variable at daylight, and a dense fog was on the river. As the sun rose, it was dissipated and a light breeze sprung up from W.S.W. We ran up the stream with a free sheet for six hours, when we stopped for a short time ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... old towns and hamlets border the road, now with high sign- poles, now with high minster spires; the lanes go burrowing under blossomed banks, green meadows, and deep woods encompass them about; from wood to wood flock the glad birds; the vane turns in the variable wind; and as I journey with Hope and Pleasure, and quite a company of jolly personifications, who but the lady I love is by my side, and walks with her slim ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... and the ballad airs, also, these 'owerwords' are exceedingly variable, and are often interchangeable. Some of them are 'owerwords' literally; that is to say, they simply repeat or echo a word or phrase of the stanza to which they are attached. A specimen is the verse from Johnie o' Braidislee, quoted in the previous chapter. Others, and ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... collection should be as convenient as possible for the citizen, and the mode of payment should be the most simple. The utmost certainty is desirable as to the time, method of payment, and amount. Taxation that, in its principle, is variable, shifting, or dependent on personal whim and favoritism, is despotism. But the greatest evils, in practice, result from the failures in assessment. The assessment of taxes has to be intrusted to men with ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... physician, who has spent many years in Japan, long ago called attention to the existence of such spots on Japanese infants. The spots described by him were of a blue or purple color, were located upon the back (especially in the sacral region), and were variable in form and size. They were temporary, disappearing at from two to eight years of age. The occurrence of these infantile color blotches was so common in Japan as to be almost ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... description of Venetian commerce, as occasioned by the view which he saw from his window in the fourteenth century, has often been quoted: 'See the innumerable vessels which set forth from the Italian shore in the desolate winter, in the most variable and stormy spring, one turning its prow to the east, the other to the west; some carrying our wine to foam in British cups, our fruits to flatter the palates of the Scythians and, still more hard of credence, the wood of our forests to the Egean and the Achaian isles; some to Syria, ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... the way, extending a considerable distance along the creek, and leading sheer to the water from a variable height ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... authority lay. As for himself he had lately begun to ask himself seriously how much he was interested in Pamela. For in truth, though he was no coxcomb, he could not help seeing—all the more because of Pamela's variable moods towards him—that she was at least incipiently interested in him. If so, was it fair to her that they should correspond?—and that he should come to Mannering whenever he was asked and military duty allowed, now that the ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... changed from its calm. Variable emotions shot over it. Prescott, as he stood there before her, was conscious of admiration. What vagary had sent a girl who looked like this upon ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the South Sandwich Islands variable, with mostly westerly winds throughout the year interspersed with periods of calm; nearly all ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... food butter has most fully received the attention of the sophisticator, because it is the most costly of the ordinary articles of diet, and because its composition is so intricate and variable that its analysis presents extraordinary difficulties and its nature exceptional and various opportunities for admixture with foreign substances. It is the intention of the producer of butter to separate the fatty portion of the milk as completely ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of iron, of sodium, and of many other metals can be identified in their spectrum. These stars are older than the first, and the ruddy ones, such as Antares, Betelgeuse, [alpha] of Hercules, are still older; several of them are variable, and are on ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... schools will allow. Then, how hard it is to foresee, in any direction of effort, the effects our present appliances and plans shall be producing a score of years hence, or in the next generation—hardest of all to those whose work is directly upon that extremely variable quantity, mind! And in what other human business, besides that of education, are there not in like manner remissnesses and errors to point out? Justice, in truth, requires the acknowledgment that probably no other body of men and women can take precedence of the teaching class, in devotion ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... diagnosis of a cancerous tumor by the microscope, though tolerably sure under the eye of an expert, is based upon accidental, and not essential points,—the crowding together of the elements, the size of the cell-nuclei, and similar variable characters. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... is rather to be effected by the conscientious consecration and prayerful use of wealth. That is for each man to settle for himself. But what is not variable is the obligation to set the kingdom high above all else, and to use all outward wealth, as Christ's servants, not for luxury and self-gratification, but as in His sight and for His glory. Let us not ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... His voice was pleasant, his manners affable. In stature he was short; in movement, quick and nervous. But in the make-up of the man one essential of true greatness—fixedness of purpose—had been omitted. He lacked the staying qualities. He was "variable and fond of change." "His full nature, like that river of which Alexander broke the strength, spent itself in channels which led to no great name on earth." By a single exploit, at the age of thirty, he carved his ...
— Pioneer Surgery in Kentucky - A Sketch • David W. Yandell
... corrected only when unambiguous ("Symrna"), or when the expected spelling occurs many times in the book. A few variable forms such as "handsom : handsome" ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... and Montgomery Counties, rock crystals are found lining cavities of variable size, and in one instance thirty tons of crystals were found in a single cavity. These crystals are mined by the farmers in their spare time and sold in the streets of Hot Springs, their value amounting to some $10,000 annually. Several thousand ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... countless opportunities both of great joy and bitter grief, so the readings of the temperament-chart of the artist will be apt to resemble the variations of a barometer when changeable weather is about. Genius is thus as a rule variable to ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... Russians began to build religious edifices of masonry, the structure of which, particularly in the vaulting, is inspired by Byzantine art, they adapted to this structure, together with a sensibly modified Byzantine garb, an ornamentation, derived from Asiatic, Sclavic and Turanian elements in variable, that is to say ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... have been on that service," says his biographer with simple truth, "can have any idea of its difficulties,—surrounded by dangers of every kind, exposed to the violence of storms, sailing amidst a multitude of rocks and variable currents in the longest and darkest nights, and often on a lee shore on the enemy's coast, while the whole of their fleet is near, ready to take advantage of any disaster." Collingwood, who in the next war succeeded to the same unenviable duty, wrote home that, even in ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... The variable position of the head of steamboat navigation on the Kanawha made it impossible to fix a permanent depot as a terminus for our wagon trains in the upper valley. My own judgment was in favor of placing ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... was a pet monkey. It had been captured down on the Tana River months before and at first was wild and vicious. As time went by it lost much of its wildness and to those it liked was affectionate and friendly. To all others it presented variable moods, sometimes friendly and sometimes unexpectedly and unreasonably hostile. We feared that Little Wanderobo Dog would have some bad moments with the little Tana River monkey, and their first meeting was awaited with keen interest. ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... may be placed the burials which consisted in first depositing the bodies on scaffolds, where they were allowed to remain for a variable length of time, after which the bones were cleaned and deposited either in the earth or in special structures called by writers "bone-houses." Roman [Footnote: Hist. of Florida, 1775, p. 89.] relates the following concerning ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... nuts is as variable as the trees themselves, not only in the exterior appearance, but in the character of the meats as well. The ideal commercial nut should be of medium size, about one and one-eighth to one and one-half inches in diameter, of regular oval ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... that the growth of population can be reduced to one or more relatively simple laws, but we have seen from analyzing the statistics of birth rate and death rate that this is hardly probable. A formula that would cover the growth of population would have to cover all of the variable causes influencing birth rate and death rate and so entering into the surplus of births over deaths. It is evident that these causes are too complex to be reduced to any such formula among modern civilized peoples. In the animal world and among uncivilized peoples, however, conditions are quite ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... very remarkable influence upon the irritability of the sensitive plant. Thus, if a sensitive plant be placed in complete darkness, by carrying it within an opaque vessel, it will entirely lose its irritability, and that in a variable time, according to a certain state of depression or elevation of ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... particularizing that unnatural conjunction of vices and follies, so inconsistent with each other in the same breast: Furious and fawning, scurrilous and flattering, cowardly and provoking, insolent and abject; most profligately false, with the strongest professions of sincerity, positive and variable, tyrannical and slavish. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... the red of any of the other species. Viewed from the back of the stone (by transmitted light) it is still pleasing. It may be purplish, but is seldom orange red. Also, owing to the dichroism of the ruby the red is variable according to the changing position of the stone. It therefore has a certain life and variety not seen in any of the others except perhaps in red tourmaline, which, however, does not approach ruby ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... everything which is mutable is variable. But forms are invariable; for it is said (Sex Princip. i) that "form is essence consisting of the simple and invariable." Therefore it does not belong to God ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... little realized how slowly, how painfully, we approach the expression of truth. We are so variable, so anxious to be polite, and alternately swayed by caution or anger. Our mind oscillates like a pendulum: it takes some time for it to come to rest. And then, the proper allowance and correction has to be made for our ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... farther than this in the advocacy of such violations, or abrogations, of the law of veracity, as would undermine the very foundations of social life, and as would render the law against falsehood little more than a variable personal rule for limited and selected applications,—after the fashion of the American humorist who "believed in universal salvation if he could pick his men." Rothe teaches that falsehood is a duty, not only ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... grass, we remained the following day for the benefit of our animals. The valley was probably fifteen miles in length, with a variable width of two or three miles. It was a delightful spot. Wild plants grew in profusion, many-hued flowers studded its surface, and silvery streams, bordered by luxuriant verdure and shrubs, were winding through it. On both sides the mountains towered up by continuous elevations ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... Karroo farmer had no light duty to perform each day. The farm was twenty miles in length, and of variable breadth. There were no crops raised on it, save the fruit of the splendid garden already mentioned, some grapes, and a few mealies. The sources of gain were ostriches and their feathers, Angora goat hair, (mohair), horses, sheep-wool, and cattle, looking after which ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... also be taken into consideration. Let it be well borne in mind that if its destructive power surpasses anything ever conceived or dreamed of, it extends over a zone not exceeding a mile in extent. The distance of this dangerous zone is variable, but once the engines have been set, the modification of the distance occupies some time, and a warship that succeeds in passing the zone has nothing ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... tried to grapple with the altered circumstances, and strove to substitute and equitable Crown rent or money payment for the existing and variable claims which were collected by the Court of Ward and Livery. The knight's fee then consisted of twelve plough-lands, a more modern name for "a hide of land." The class burdened with knight's service, ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... more variable in character than in extent. Each sphere of life, each occupation, is burdened with its own special brand of this unhappy heritage. To remove one small section of inborn ignorance is a life-work for any man. 'Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance,' was what betrayed the great ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... so many of us are so limited in our capacity for "variable reaction" that there are so few good critics. But we are all, I think, more multiple-souled than we care to admit. It is our foolish pride of consistency, our absurd desire to be "constructive," that makes us so dull. A critic need not necessarily approach the world from the "pluralistic" ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... frequent; a fulness at the upper and right side of the abdomen was sometimes perceptible, formed apparently by temporary enlargement of the liver; the difficulty in ascending an eminence increased sensibly. In the intervals of these attacks, which were variable, but generally continuing ten or twelve days, the strength was frequently good, and accompanied by a great flow of spirits, and an aptitude, ...
— Cases of Organic Diseases of the Heart • John Collins Warren
... kept as much as possible out of sight. Towards her, Mr. Stillinghast's manner was inconsistent, and variable in the extreme. At one time almost kind, at another, captious and surly. Sometimes he called on her for every thing, and perhaps the next moment threatened to throw whatever he had ordered, at her head. Once he told her, in bitter tones and language, that "but for wishing to make use of her ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... with his sling. What idle fabricators of crazy systems will tell me that climate is the creator of genius? The climate of Austria is more regular and more temperate than ours, which I am inclined to believe is the most variable in the whole universe, subject, as you have perceived, to heavy fogs for two months in winter, and to a stifling heat, concentrated within the hills, for five more. Yet a single man of genius hath ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... vesicle. For some days after this the female is incapable of reproduction. But for some days before her monthly illness she is liable to conception, as for that length of time the male element can survive. This period, therefore, becomes a variable and an undetermined one, and even when known, its observation demands a ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... seem to me at all incompatible that a group which at any one period (or during all successive periods) varies less, should in the long course of time have undergone more modification than a group which is generally more variable. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... dead men." Brockton laughed in relief. Mrs. Dinsmore did not point out to him from her more subtle knowledge that constancy to the unchanging dead is sometimes easier than constancy to the variable living. She was only too glad to have the inevitable disclosure made lightly and the truth dismissed without frightening off the desirable suitor. "And certainly Miss Harned don't look as ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... from the variableness of seasons-because the seasons have always been variable-and taking the state of Shetland now and twenty or thirty years ago, do you think there has been an improvement for the better?-I cannot say there has been much in the way of improvement. Perhaps there has ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light thingummy aspen made. When pain and anguish wring the brow, She nothing does, but makes ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... separated and counted as two. Usage is not altogether consistent in this particular; the same combination is in some words pronounced as two syllables (ni-ais, li-en, pri-ere, pri-ons, jou-et), in others as one (biais, rien, bar-riere, ai-mions, fou-et); and even the same word is sometimes variable (ancien, hier, duel). In general such combinations are monosyllabic if they have developed from a single vowel in the ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... the people is sought for, and can only be gained by the resumption of specie payments. The rich, the speculative, the operating, the money-dealing classes may not always feel the mischiefs of, or may find casual profits in, a variable currency, but the misfortunes of such a currency to those who are paid salaries or ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes
... and skill; hence a method giving the calorific power of any fuel in an exact and reliable manner by a simple experiment is a great desideratum. This will become more obvious when one takes into consideration the many qualities and variable characters of the coals yielded by the South Wales and North of England coal fields. Bituminous coals—giving some 65 per cent, of coke—are preferred for some manufacturing purposes and in some markets. Bituminous steam coals, yielding 75 per cent, of coke, are highly prized in others. Semi-bituminous ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... persons and property of the conquered; but these militant dogmatists claim an empire even over opinions, and insist that no people can be free or happy unless they regulate their ideas of freedom and happiness by the variable standard of the Jacobin club. Far from being of Hudibras's philosophy,* they seem to think the mind as tangible as the body, and that, with the assistance of an army, they may as soon lay one "by the heels" ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... demands much more of philosophy than Sir W. Hamilton deems it capable of accomplishing. Why may not Hamilton, like Kant, distinguish between the permanent and necessary, and the variable and contingent—in other words, between the subjective and the objective elements of consciousness, without therefore obtaining a "direct intuition of things in themselves?" Why may he not distinguish between ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... early he offered himself for the mission field and was impatiently eager to enter it. Then look at the sovereign love of God, imparting to him in so eminent a degree the childlike spirit, teaching him to trust not his own variable moods of feeling, but the changeless word of His promise; teaching him to wait patiently on Him for orders, and not to look to human authority or direction; and so singularly releasing him from military service ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... it is obvious, that the most superficial characters are the most variable. Thus colour depends much upon light; thickness of hair upon heat; size upon abundance of food, &c. In wild animals, however, these varieties are greatly limited by the natural habits of the animal, which does not ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... your father with all my might and strength, but he hath deceived me, and hath changed mine hire and meed ten times, and yet our Lord hath not suffered him to grieve me. When he said the beasts of party color should be mine, then all the ewes brought forth lambs of variable colors. And when he said the contrary they brought forth all white. God hath taken the substance of your father and hath given it to me. And now God hath commanded me to depart, wherefore make you ready and let us depart hence. Then answered Rachel and Leah: Shall we have nothing ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... in this case were perfectly simple ones, drawn from well-known anthropological facts. The human race, as you know, is roughly divided into three groups—the black, the white, and the yellow races. But apart from the variable quality of colour, these races have certain fixed characteristics associated especially with the shape of the skull, of the ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... account, that no simple and easy calculation is a sufficient guide. A definite proportion of the liabilities might often be too small for the reserve, and sometimes too great. The forces of the enemy being variable, those of the defence ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... Committee of Safety to Genoa, with instructions; his young wife and her sister Desiree accompanied him. Perhaps the new, variable impressions of the journey, perhaps her separation from Bonaparte, and her association with other officers less gloomy than the saturnine Napoleon, all this seemed to cool the love of Desiree Clary; ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... the marked tabular character of the pueblo masons' material. The narrow edges of similar stones are visible in the unplastered portions of the house wall, which also illustrates the relative proportion of chinking stones. This latter, however, is a variable feature. Pl. XV affords a clear illustration of the proportion of these small stones in the old masonry of Payupki; while in Pl. XI, illustrating a portion of the outer wall of the Fire House, the tablets are fewer in number ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... greater abilities and vigour than Henry, might have directed the talents of this nobleman either to the exaltation of his throne, or to the good of his people: but the advantages given to Leicester by the weak and variable administration of the king, brought on the ruin of royal authority, and produced great confusions in the kingdom, which however, in the end, preserved and extremely improved national liberty and the constitution. His popularity, even after his death, continued ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... Hepoona, where the extent of the whiteness on the tail, and the variation in the colour of the body appear to differ in the specimens from the same place, I have regarded them as belonging to the same species, believing it to be a variable species ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... variable spelling, particularly of place names; this has been repaired where there was a definite prevalence of one form over the other, but is otherwise left ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... up with a comma between each item and a hard return at the end of each definition. This means that this section could easily be cut and pasted into its own text file and imported into a database or spreadsheet as a comma separated variable file (.csv file). Failing that, you could do a search and replace for commas in this section (I have not used any commas in my words, definitions or notes) and replace the commas with spaces ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... apparently; still we do make progress, which is something.... It is very difficult to imagine what is [Page 379] happening to the weather.... The clouds don't seem to come from anywhere, form and disperse without visible reason.... The meteorological conditions seem to point to an area of variable light winds, and that plot will thicken ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... Variable quantities of other materials are usually found in connection with the clay, in its native condition. The most common of ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... landscapes. Sometimes this sublime spectacle presents itself to them at the hour of prayer, and seems to invite them to lift up their hearts with their voices to the heavens. It changes every instant into forms as variable as the shades, presenting celestial colors and forms which no pencil can pretend to imitate, ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... WHAT RULE HAVE WE, BY WHICH WE CAN DISTINGUISH THESE OBJECTS? Here we must have recourse to statutes, customs, precedents, analogies, and a hundred other circumstances; some of which are constant and inflexible, some variable and arbitrary. But the ultimate point, in which they all professedly terminate, is the interest and happiness of human society. Where this enters not into consideration, nothing can appear more whimsical, unnatural, and even superstitious, than all or most of the ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... manganese steels, low in silicon, only exceptionally up to 0.2 per cent., but generally below 0.1 per cent., and with less than 0.1 per cent. of phosphorus and sulphur. On the other hand, rails with a tendency to break or split are low in carbon, with variable proportions of manganese, but contain much silicon, 0.3 to 0.9 per cent., and often above 0.1 per cent. of phosphorus. Another series of experiments upon rails for the Finland lines made by the author in 1879-80 shows the high quality of manganese steel. These ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... variable fools we are! Months of tender intercourse had failed to bring about anything like a positive engagement between Margaret and myself; and here behold me irrevocably pledged to Flora, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... would actuate and control that gigantic projector. Immense hour and declination circles could be read by optical systems from the operators' seats—circles fully forty feet in diameter, graduated with incredible delicacy and accuracy into decimal fractions of seconds of arc, and each driven by variable-speed motors through gear-trains and connections having ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... day about 6. in the afternoone, the wind came to the West northwest for the space of one houre, and presently to the East againe, and so was variable all ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... ambitions, was capital. Mrs Jo kept her eye on Miss Cameron, and saw her nod approval several times at some natural tone or gesture, some good bit of by-play or a quick change of expression in the young face, which was as variable as an April day. Her struggle with the toasting-fork made much merriment; so did her contempt for the brown sugar, and the relish with which she sweetened her irksome duties by eating it; and when she sat, like Cinderella, on the ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... preserved as printed. Variable spelling, hyphenation and use of accents has been made consistent where there was a clear prevalence of one form over the other, or with reference to reliable sources; otherwise, these are preserved as printed. ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... to the 16th, we met nothing remarkable, and our course was west southerly; the winds variable from north round by the east to S.W., attended with cloudy, rainy, unsettled weather, and a southerly swell. We generally brought-to, or stood upon a wind during night; and in the day made all the sail ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... have been changed and are listed below. Author's archaic and variable spelling is preserved. Author's punctuation style is preserved. Passages ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... there all his life from a child upwards, and had his impression of to-day modified by that of to-morrow, and belied by that of the day after, till at length the stable characteristics of the country are all blotted out from him behind the confusion of variable effect. ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... air, and their varying densities, which cause both reflection and refraction of sound, prevent the air from being a reliable medium for carrying it. Now, submarine signalling has none of these defects, for the medium is water, subject to no such variable conditions as the air. Its density is practically non variable, and sound travels through it at the rate of 4400 feet per second, without ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... of interest, not as fluctuating and variable, but steady and persistent. It contains also the elements of ease, pleasure, and needed employment; that is, in learning something that has a proper interest, there is greater ease and pleasure in the acquisition, and occupation ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... week—he remained away for a month. We heard of him, leading a wild life, among a vicious set of men. It was reported that a frantic restlessness possessed him which nobody could understand. He came back as suddenly as he had left us. His variable nature had swung round, in the interval, to the opposite extreme. He was full of repentance for his reckless conduct; he was in a state of depression which defied rousing; he despaired of himself and his future. Sometimes he talked of going back to America; ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... or presage of the approach of such a revolution. There is nothing more striking to a person newly arrived in the United States, than the kind of tumultuous agitation in which he finds political society. The laws are incessantly changing, and at first sight it seems impossible that a people so variable in its desires should avoid adopting, within a short space of time, a completely new form of government. Such apprehensions are, however, premature; the instability which affects political institutions is of two kinds, which ought not to be confounded: the first, which modifies ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... specially, and of duetie Great payne and busines as for mine owne For you I haue taken because I loue you hartely To maintaine you is all my desyre and faculty yet hard it is to doo, the people be so variable And many be so wilfull, they will not be ...
— The Interlude of Wealth and Health • Anonymous
... Climate: variable, with mostly westerly winds throughout the year interspersed with periods of calm; nearly ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... arrange the sounds he heard to fit it." Even visual perceptions are liable to great error, as in identification, recognition, judgment of distance, estimates of numbers, for example, the size of a crowd. In the untrained observer, the sense of time is highly variable. All these original weaknesses are complicated by tricks of memory, and the incessant creative quality of the imagination. Cf. also Sherrington, The Integrative Action of the Nervous System, ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... each section divided into chapters and each chapter into articles, the state of the liabilities, each debt, the state of the assets and a tabular enumeration of distinct resources, available capital and unpaid claims, fixed income and variable income, certain revenue and possible revenue. In no case must "the calculation of presumable expenditure exceed the amount of presumable income." In no case must "the commune demand or obtain an extra tax ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... electro-motive force of two volts. As may be seen, these elements should, in general, all be mounted for tension, as they are in the figure, inasmuch as the mobility of the zincs permits, according to circumstances, of employing a variable number of them without changing anything. Moreover, with zincs amalgamated in a special manner, the attack is imperceptible, and the work in open circuit need scarcely to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... only in a casual or accidental way, you do not feel warranted in calling it a cause. If heat applied to ice (A) were sometimes followed by a tendency to liquefaction (B) and sometimes not, you would not consider A connected with B as a cause, but only as some variable accompaniment of the true and unknown cause, which might allowably be present or be absent. This, then, is the startling and mysterious phenomenon of the human understanding—that, in a certain notion, which is indispensable to the coherency of our whole experience, indispensable to the establishing ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... so with religion. The early faith of the Slavs, the Celts, and the Teutons is now generally regarded as best representing that of the Aryans. It was a religion in which rite and belief were indefinite and variable compared with those of the later Aryan faiths of India and of Southern Europe, there being neither a regular priesthood nor the use of writing to impart fixity to religious forms. The river, the fountain, and the aged oak, each had ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... fish, while it differs from all mammals. But it also gives suck to its young. Now, looking to these two features alone, should we say that a porpoise ought to be classed as a fish or as a mammal? Assuredly as a mammal; because the number of teeth is a very variable feature both in fish and mammals, whereas the giving of suck is an invariable feature among mammals, and occurs nowhere else in the animal kingdom. This, of course, is chosen as a very simple illustration. Were all cases as ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... illegal conspiracy. In 1857 a permanent body was formed in Sheffield, and in the years immediately following in Glasgow, London, Bristol, and other cities. They have since come into existence in most of the larger industrial towns, 120 local trades councils existing in 1892. Their influence has been variable and limited. ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... Nitrogen is variable, but, in general, the older peats contain the most. To this topic we shall shortly recur, and ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... transmitter for this purpose is a plane mirror of flexible material, silvered mica or microscope glass. Against the back of this mirror my voice is directed. In the carbon transmitter of the telephone a variable electrical resistance is produced by the pressure on the diaphragm, based on the fact that carbon is not as good a conductor of electricity under pressure as when not. Here, the mouthpiece is just a shell supporting a thin metal diaphragm to which the ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... lacking inward sincerity, a life that can never in itself satisfy them, but only keep up the appearance of doing so." There must be some decision; for is not society being more and more broken up into small sections, possessing the most variable standards of life, and evaluating things in a diversity of ways? Such an inward schism must weaken any effort on the part of humanity to combine for ideal ends. Perhaps he of narrow vision, who sees nothing in life but sensuous pleasure, is happy—but ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... and Cabinet.*—Another governmental group which, like the Privy Council, differs from the cabinet while containing it, is the ministry. The ministry comprises a large and variable body of functionaries, some of whom occupy the principal offices of state and divide their efforts between advising the crown, i.e., formulating governmental policy, and administering the affairs of their ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... referred to belong as well to the dry-plate as to the retina, while the former exhibits, presumably, neither contrast nor induction. The illusion-bands can be easily photographed in a strong light, if white and black sectors are used in place of colored ones. It is best to arrange the other variable factors so as to make the transition-bands as narrow as possible (p. 174, No. 4). The writer has two negatives which show the bands very well, although so delicately that it is not feasible to try to ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... should be as pure as possible (m. p. 20'0). Commercial acetophenone contains variable quantities of impurities which reduce the yield. By distilling commercial acetophenone with the help of a good still-head (preferably under diminished pressure) and using only the fraction which boils at 201-202'0 (76-77'0/10 mm.) greater quantities of benzalacetophenone can ...
— Organic Syntheses • James Bryant Conant
... imaged her soul;—for this too was very variable; this too had its "raptures;" and here too at times also a glimmering light would break through the chaos. If the complexion were muddled, and the nose red and swollen, she had a most ordinary appearance; but in cooler moments, and when the rose-hue confined itself merely to the cheeks, she was extremely ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... was crowned emperor of the Romans in the year eight hundred; and so the patriciate terminated. This is the eighth, which "is of the seven;" and goeth into perdition. This septimo-octave head is so variable, sometimes acknowledged as residing in Austria, then in France, etc., that for hundreds of years, the great republic of the nations,—all bestial,—are at a loss to identify the visible head in whom resides the precedency: ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... comet appears of variable forms, so that it is now round and now long, and now again divided into two or three parts, and now in one piece, and when it is to be ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... the dropping out of detail that accomplishes this in one case and the other. In either, the point of view alone is fixed. The rest is variable, and depends, it may be, on the nature of that subtile and volatile ether through which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... variable condenser. Its function is to tune the secondary circuit, which is accomplished simply by turning the knob. Such a condenser could not be made without the use of a good set of tools, and the author strongly advises it be bought instead ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... frequently spoke of the rings of mountain-ranges surrounding the central crater—an island of somewhat greater area, upon which ice was at all times to be found at a few feet above sea-level, and which, during eight months of the year, was so cold that no animal life could have existed upon it. Then, at variable distances from the crater, and in different directions, islands were to be found of almost any desired temperature. The wealthier Hili-lites owned summer residences on these out-lying islands, ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... Would this be a desirable state? would it be that from which humanity has the best founded prospect of that felicity, which is the desired object of his research? Again; do we not see that either enthusiasm or interest is the only standard of their decisions? that their morals are as variable as their caprice? those who listen to them, very rarely discover to what line they will adhere. In their various writings, we have evidence of the most bitter animosities; we find continual contradictions; endless disputes upon what they themselves ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... parte is of variable affections of love: wherein the first 7 be of the beginning and byrth of his love; the second 7, of the prayse of his mistresse; the thyrd 7, of severall accidents hapning in the tyme of ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable
... in imagining that atmospheric events are fortuitous. Where shall a line be drawn between that eternal trade-wind, which, originating in well-understood physical causes, sweeps, like the breath of Destiny, slowly, and solemnly, and everlastingly over the Pacific Ocean, and the variable gusts into which it degenerates in more northerly and southerly regions—gusts which seem to come without any cause, and to pass away without leaving any trace? In what latitude is it that the domain of the physical ends, and that ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... sensible and disinterested advice to Mr. Bell, as you will see by my letter to him. As I approve entirely of his marrying again, you may readily ask me why I don't marry at all. My circumstances have hitherto been so variable and uncertain in this fluctuating world, as induce to keep me from engaging in such a state: and now, though they are more settled, and of late (which you will be glad to hear) considerably improved, I begin to think myself too far ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... is, but I am always depressed after a letter from home. Mother reports that there is no improvement in Vere's health, and that her spirits are variable—sometimes low, sometimes quite bright and hopeful. Mr Dudley is very good in coming to see her, and his visits always cheer her up. He asked after me last time, hoped that I was enjoying myself and would not hurry back. I am not wanted there apparently, and here they all love ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... peculiar arrangement of this great belt of sediment in the earliest times, it is not here the place to inquire. It is enough for us to know that from the mouths of the Adige to those of the Piave there stretches, at a variable distance of from three to five miles from the actual shore, a bank of sand, divided into long islands by narrow channels of sea. The space between this bank and the true shore consists of the sedimentary ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... of modern inventions for inexpensive wall-coverings are found in what are called the ingrain papers. These have a variable surface, without reflections, and make not only a soft and impalpable colour effect, but, on account of their want of reflection, are ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... his exit from public life should be made in company with the latest lady on whom he had bestowed his variable affections; and remembering this proviso, the Baroness, without exactly encouraging or disencouraging his scheme, was at least not prone to insist on ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... of all degrees, and is often so slight that the two most careful experimentalists who have ever lived have come to diametrically opposite conclusions in ranking forms by this test. The sterility is innately variable in individuals of the same species, and is eminently susceptible of favourable and unfavourable conditions. The degree of sterility does not strictly follow systematic affinity, but is governed by several curious and complex laws. It is generally different, and sometimes ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... to swing through the same arc by the same quantity of machine electricity, whether it was condensed in a small battery or diffused over a large one. Thus the electricity developed by thirty turns of his machine produced, under very variable conditions of battery surface, the same deflection. Hence he inferred the possibility of comparing, as regards quantity, electricities which differ greatly from each other in intensity. His object now is to compare frictional with voltaic electricity. Moistening bibulous ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... but so well did I know the unhappy moods to which he was subject, that a desponding letter now and then gave me no surprise. In fact, had the style of his letters been uniformly gay and lively, I should have been more surprised, so well did I understand his variable temper. But we both looked forward to our anticipated meeting with all the eagerness and impatience of youthful expectation. For, as I said near the opening of my story, I loved Charley as a brother, ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... so also must scent be variable. The two things are inseparably bound up with one another. For this reason, if after a period of rainy weather we have an anti-cyclone in the winter without severe frost, and an absence of bright sunny days, we can usually depend on a scent. Instead of the air rising, there is during ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... that other, preoccupied by ambition, pays off his affections as he would a debt, bestows the luxuries of wealth but deprives the daily life of happiness,—in short, the average man of social life is essentially incomplete, without being signally to blame. Men of talent are as variable as barometers; ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... "Catoctin belt." The second province is the region drained by smaller streams, chief of which is Goose Creek. In this province the drainage lines head entirely within the "Catoctin belt," and the elevations are variable according to the constitution of the ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... the order to haul in the jib and foretop-mast staysail-sheets towards the middle of the ship, and haul forward the fore-bowline; this operation is seldom necessary except when the helm has not sufficient government of the ship, as in variable ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... mountains protecting its west side from the south-west winds. The east side is exposed for six months to a modified north-east monsoon. Everywhere else throughout the almost changeless year, steadily alternating land and sea breezes with gentle variable winds and calms prevail, interrupted occasionally on the west coast during the "summer" by squalls from the south-west, which last for one or two hours, and are known as "Sumatrans." Hurricanes and earthquakes are unknown. ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... Thursday, 7th May. Variable weather and cloudy, wind north-easterly, and calms. I continued my course to the N W, between the islands, which, by the evening, appeared of considerable extent, woody and mountainous. At sun-set the ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... was unpredictably variable. Sometimes it was blazing, brilliant and hot. Other times it was oddly dim, cool, shedding little warmth on its many planets. Gresth Gkae, leader of the Mirans, was seeking a better star, one to which his "people" could migrate. That star had to be steady, reliable, with a good planetary ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... mine; a young man like others; generous, flighty, as variable as youth itself, but always with some high motives and on the search for higher thoughts of life. I should tell you at once that he thoroughly agrees with the eighth commandment. But he got hold of some unsettling works, the New Testament among others, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Shannon (1947: 79) described the subspecies brevilineata, which they diagnosed as differing from lineaticollis in having fewer ventrals and shorter neck-stripes. The present data suggest that the characters used to diagnose the subspecies are variable not only in Michoac['a]n, but throughout the range of the species. Consequently, Pituophis (deppei) brevilineata Schmidt and Shannon (1947) is placed in the synonymy of Pituophis ...
— A Taxonomic Study of the Middle American Snake, Pituophis deppei • William E. Duellman
... purpose of Scripture in using this word was to evade such a value. The word is always varying, for the very purpose of keeping it faithful to a spiritual identity. The period or duration of every object would be an essentially variable quantity, were it not mysteriously commensurate to the inner nature of that object as laid open to the eyes of God. And thus it happens, that everything in this world, possibly without a solitary exception has its own separate aeon: how ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... apparatus consisted of an arrangement for producing a series of sounds and silences, variable at will in absolute rate, in duration, and, within restricted limits, in intensity, by the interruptions of an electrical current, into the circuit of which had been introduced a telephone receiver and a rheostat. ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... and repeats, that value being based on utility, and utility depending entirely on our needs, whims, customs, &c., value is as variable as opinion. Now, political economy being the science of values, of their production, distribution, exchange, and consumption,—if exchangeable value cannot be absolutely determined, how is political economy ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... we saw the white cliffs of Cape Rulhieres, which, like Point Pearce, we found to be four miles and a half west of its assigned position. On the 14th and 15th we were beating to the westward with a light and variable wind. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... uncertain, however, than the action of the whirling eddies of a great rapid. True, the general flow of its body of water is almost always the same, but its superficial billows are more variable—now tossing a drifting log to the right, anon to the left, and casting it ashore, or dragging it with fearful violence into the raging current. Although there was only the canoe's length between the old trapper and the youth when they were left struggling ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... to make of his brain a mirror, unclouded, bright, and true of surface; then he will reflect events as they presented themselves to him, neither distorted, discoloured, nor variable. Historians are not writing fancy school essays; what they have to say is before them, and will get itself said somehow, being solid fact; their task is to arrange and put it into words; they have not to consider what to say, but how to say it. The historian, we may say, should ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... them. The late Andrew S. Fuller had not seen them, but asked me to bring him a few. When he saw them he was surprised and at once pronounced them the finest hickories he had ever seen, and named them "Hales' Paper Shell." The hickory is one of the most valuable of North American nuts. It is of a variable nature. I have over twenty old trees on my place, and no two bear nuts of the same shape or size, and although some neighbors planted some nuts from the old tree and produced fruit from them they were only ordinary sized, so that it is necessary to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... that a moderately simple fact practically makes all these complicated theories unnecessary. No two living things are exactly alike—that is, all living matter is more or less variable. Some variations are more fortunate than others, and these variants are the ones which survive—the ones best adapted to their environment. Given this fact of the constant variation of living matter, natural selection ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... which are frutfull & fitt for habitation, being devoyd of all civill inhabitants, wher ther are only salvage & brutish men, which range up and downe, litle otherwise then y^e wild beasts of the same. This proposition being made publike and coming to y^e scaning of all, it raised many variable opinions amongst men, and caused many fears & doubts amongst them selves. Some, from their reasons & hops conceived, laboured to stirr up & incourage the rest to undertake & prosecute y^e same; others, againe, out of their fears, objected against it, & sought to diverte ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... her every "once in so often" you couldn't keep up with the progress of events; she might flash a dozen telegrams to somebody, about something, while your head was turned away. Kathleen could be safely left unwatched for an hour or so without fear of change; her moods were less variable, her temper evener; her interest in the passing moment less keen, her absorption in the particular subject less intense. Walt Whitman might have been thinking ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... possessing those mental perfections and that cultured charm which alone make an indefinite period of companionship endurable, I was not slow to reconcile myself to a temperament which, fortunately, was very variable, and which thus served to console me on the morrow for what ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... definition; no one wants to say, Thus far shalt thou go, and beyond that shalt cease to be English. Moreover, a leading characteristic of the Irish type is just its variety—its continual deviation from the normal. How, then, to find a description that will apply to a certain quality of mind throughout a variable race; that quality being in its essence the most complete expression of an individuality, in its difference from other individualities, since a man's humour is the most individual thing about him? ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... she rejoined, leading the way; "and sit down, and let us have tea, and talk, and be cosey. You want me to talk about myself, and I will if I can. I was happy just now, but you see I am depressed in a moment. It is misery to me to be so variable. And I constantly feel as if I wanted something—to be somewhere, or to have something; I don't know where or what; it is a sort of general dissatisfaction, but it is all the worse for not being positive. If ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Provence or Italy; the most esteemed of all are those of Roquevaire; they are very large and very sweet. This sort is rarely eaten by any but the most wealthy. The dried Malaga, or Muscatel raisins, which come to this country packed in small boxes, and nicely preserved in bunches, are variable in their quality, but mostly of a rich flavour, when new, juicy, and of a ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Representative in Peking should be an old friend who had known the Dictator intimately since his Korean days; and who faithful to the extraordinary English love of hero-worship believed that such a surprising character could do little wrong. British policy which has always been a somewhat variable quantity in China, owing to the spasmodic attention devoted to such a distant problem, may be said to have been non-existent during all this period—a state of affairs ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... characteristic of spectra of the first type. The H and K lines in this spectrum are dark, showing that they probably do not belong to that series of lines. The star near [chi]' Orionis, discovered by Gore, in December, 1885, gives a similar spectrum, which affords additional evidence that it is a variable of the same class as o Ceti. Spectra of Sirius show a large number of faint lines besides the well-known ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... Jehovah there is revealed an existence which reverses all that we know of finite and progressive being, or finite and mortal being, or finite and variable nature. With us there are mutations arising from physical nature. The material must needs be subject to laws of growth and decadence. Our spiritual nature is subject to changes arising from the advancement in knowledge. Our moral nature is subject to fluctuations; circumstances ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... passion for battles and bloodshed. I judged from your father's point of view. She has money, and you are to have money; and the union of money and money is supposed to be a good thing. And besides, you are variable, and off to-morrow what you are on to-day; is it not so? and heiresses are never jilted. Colonel Barclay is only awaiting your retirement. Le roi est mort; vive le roi! Heiresses ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
