"Action" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... impression, but that most of the Peers of that party were out of town, and it was impossible to expect them on the receipt of a letter of invitation and advice to reply by return of post that they would abandon their leaders and their party, and change their whole opinions and course of action, that I expected the Archbishop and Bishop of London would go with him, and that they would carry the bench. He said the Bishop of London he had already talked to, that the Archbishop was such a poor, miserable creature ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... him to study the carefully-made lines upon the large sheet. Eagerly he scanned the drawings, and then placing the forefinger of his right hand upon one central point, he moved it along one line extending farther than the rest until it stopped at a small square in which was the word "City." This action gave him much satisfaction and a pleased expression lighted up his face. "Power, power," he murmured. "Ay, quicker than thought, and bright as the sun shining in its strength. Great, wonderful! and yet they do not realise it. But ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... be it said to their credit, never resented any word or action on the part of the Professor. They had only love and veneration for him; and the Professor, by his constant attitude toward them, showed that even these careless actions or any other examples of thoughtlessness on the part of the boys, were part of the training that would ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... done this a dozen times before, but some instinct drove him to repeat the process. There was always hope of the undiscovered, and, besides, he needed the physical action and the close application of his mind. So, mechanically and doggedly he went over every inch of his ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... and phosphoric acid dissolved in the water is far too small to supply the requirements of the plant, and it is probable that what is required for this purpose is dissolved by some direct action of the roots of the plant on coming in contact with the insoluble phosphoric acid and potash ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... 932; take to blame, take to task; put in the black book. inform against, indict, denounce, arraign; impeach, appeach[obs3]; have up, show up, pull up; challenge, cite, lodge a complaint; prosecute, bring an action against &c. 969; blow upon. charge with, saddle with; lay to one's door, lay charge; lay the blame on, bring home to; cast in one's teeth, throw in one's teeth; cast the first stone at. have a rod in pickle ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... the old adhesions, there are numerous ones of recent date. The pleura is not much reddened, but by its thickness in some points, its adhesion in others, and the effusion of a serous fluid, it proves how much and how long it has participated in the inflammatory action. The trachea and the bronchia are slightly red, and the right side of the head ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... having any part in his action, without reflection or understanding, he took half a step towards Nyuta and clutched her by the arm. Everything was dark before his eyes, and tears came into them. The whole world was turned into one big, rough towel which ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... cognizance, and a verb does no more. To move motion, to rise rising, to err error, to forgive forgiveness. The only difference between the two parts of speech is this, that, whereas a noun may express any object whatever, verbs can only express those objects which consist in an action. And it is this superadded idea of action that superadds to the verb the phenomena of tense, mood, person, and voice; in other words, the phenomena ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... of the College, and may be a formal fiction designed by John Shakespeare and his son to recommend their claim to the notice of the heralds. The negotiations of 1568, if they were not apocryphal, were certainly abortive; otherwise there would have been no necessity for the further action of 1596. In any case, on October 20, 1596, a draft, which remains in the College of Arms, was prepared under the direction of William Dethick, Garter King-of-Arms, granting John's request for a coat-of-arms. Garter stated, with characteristic vagueness, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... consent, for fear of offending the States General of Holland. This forced him to appoint a council of nine prominent citizens, and, although he endeavored to hedge round their powers by numerous conditions, the nine ever afterwards served as a salutary check upon the action of the Governor. He succeeded, in the autumn of 1650, in settling the boundary disputes with the English in New England, and then turned his attention to the Swedes on the Delaware, whom he conquered in 1654. His politic course towards them had the effect of converting them into warm ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... not, because of our personal tastes, our prejudices perhaps, set ourselves to oppose the action of our time. This action goes on without regard to us, and probably it is right. The world is moving in the direction of what I may call a kind of Americanism, which shocks our refined ideas, but which, when once the crisis of the present hour is over, may very possibly not be more inimical than ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... interrupted the first, in a savage tone; 'you are one of those sneaking hounds who are satisfied with dogs' wages—a bit of bread and a kick. Work, indeed! who, with the spirit of a man, would work for a country where there is neither liberty of speech nor of action? a land full of beggarly aristocracy, hungry borough-mongers, insolent parsons, and "their . . . wives and daughters," as William Cobbett says, in ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Santo Domingo last week," he explained. "And they're waiting for me now. I'm to lead the attack on the fortress. We land in shore boats under the guns of the ship and I take the fortress. First, we show the ship clearing for action and the men lowering the boats and pulling for shore. Then we cut back to show the gun-crews serving the guns. Then we jump to the landing-party wading through the breakers. I lead them. The man who is carrying the ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... is "that the emancipation was undertaken in obedience to the neglected law, and that to make their action even more effective ... they decided to emancipate all their slaves without waiting till the legal term had expired" (Peake). Yet it is also possible that the reference in verses 13, 14 to the law, Deut. xv. 12, is due ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... Trades Union Congress or TUC; Guyana Council of Indian Organizations or GCIO; Civil Liberties Action Committee or CLAC note: the latter two organizations are small and active but not ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... his manner is constrained and his voice quiet and clear with a strong power of appeal which is enhanced by a slight French lisp. At times he is violent in his language and movements, but he is never restless or vague. In everything he says and does he is orderly. This orderliness of speech and action is the outcome of an orderliness of mind which is as complete as it is rare, and endows Mr. Belloc with a power of detaching his attention from one subject and transferring it, not partially but entirely, to another. As a result, whatever he is doing, however small or however great the piece ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... completely in himself. Far from exhausting themselves in provocations or complaints, they marched along silently, exerting all their efforts against a hostile atmosphere, and diverted from every other idea by a state of continual action and suffering. Their physical wants absorbed their whole moral strength; they thus lived mechanically in their sensations, continuing in their duty from recollection, from the impressions which they had received in better times, and in no slight degree from that sense of honour ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... gutters ran foaming with blood into the Seine; when it was death to be great-niece of a captain of the royal guards, or half-brother of a doctor of the Sorbonne, to express a doubt whether assignats would not fall, to hint that the English had been victorious in the action of the first of June, to have a copy of one of Burke's pamphlets locked up in a desk, to laugh at a Jacobin for taking the name of Cassius or Timoleon, or to call the Fifth Sansculottide by its old superstitious name of St Matthew's Day. While the daily waggon-loads of victims were ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... effective action in protecting the emigrants who landed at New York, many philanthropic and benevolent societies were formed for that purpose. Of those societies one Hiram Huested gave the following testimony on oath: "I am sure, there is as much iniquity amongst the emigrant societies as ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... me leave to tell you, that ye'll may be find it liker a hanging-match than a musical matter. Are you not aware that I could hand you over to the sheriff, on two special indictments? In the first place, for an action of assault and batterification, in cuffing me, an elder of our kirk, with a sticked killing-coat, in my own shop; and, in the second place, as a swindler, imposing on his Majesty's loyal subjects, taking the coin of the realm on false ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... investigations will be made of the cause of the failure and disintegration of cement and concrete subjected to the action of sea water. Tests are conducted so as to approach, as nearly as possible, the actual conditions found in concrete construction along the sea coast. All sea-water tests are made in the ocean, some will probably ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... something she did not understand, a word, a phrase, or an allusion to a phase of life, the thing became a haunting demon only to be exorcised by positive knowledge on the subject. Ages of education, ages of hereditary preparation had probably gone to the making of such a mind, and rendered its action inevitable. For generations knowledge is acquired, or, rather, instilled by force in families, but, once in a way, there comes a child who demands instruction as a right; and in her own family Evadne appears to have been that child. Not that she often asked for information. Her ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... oh, the joy, when he felt himself drawing from the switch and gaining from behind on its bearer! How he strained and panted to catch on that pursuing person and pursue her and get his own switch into action. ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... an unlucky accident as that a woman should call first, people often engage a friendly man or boy to pay them an early visit. It is particularly interesting to find a Shropshire parallel to the polaznik's action in going straight to the hearth and striking sparks from the Christmas log,[114] when Miss Burne tells us that one old man who used to "let the New Year in" "always entered without knocking or speaking, and silently stirred the fire before ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... second-hand booksellers (or rather sellers of second-hand books) in American cities, the more notable have passed from the stage of action in the last quarter of a century. Old William Gowans, a quaint, intelligent Scotchman, in shabby clothes and a strong face deeply marked with small pox, was for many years the dean of this fraternity in New York. His extensive book-shop ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... narrator; one lively heroine with archaeological father, hunting for relics; one schoolboy; one young and over-zealous R.I.C. officer on the look-out for concealed arms; poachers, innkeepers, peasants, etc. Action, mostly amphibious, passes between the mainland of Western Ireland and a small islet off the coast. Will the gentleman who said "GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM" kindly consider himself entitled to ten nuts? I suppose it was the mention of an islet that finally gave away my simple secret. Mr. "BIRMINGHAM" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... need to be more trustful, and to allow God to do with me what He will." Give God His way with you, and let God work, and He will work mightily. The deepest quietness has often been proved to be the inspiration for the highest action. It has been seen in the experience of many of God's saints, and it is just the experience we need,—that in the quietness of surrender and faith, God's working has ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... his long white finger to his upper lip. It was the action of a man who is in the habit of tugging gently at his moustache when in thought, and one would almost have said that the smooth-faced priest had at no very distant period worn that manly ornament. His finger passed over the shaded skin with a ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... historic drama of New-Amsterdam, is but half acted. The reigns of Walter the Doubter, William the Testy, and Peter the Headstrong, with the rise, progress, and decline of the Dutch dynasty, are but so many parts of the main action, the triumphant catastrophe of which is yet to come. Yes, Sir! the deliverance of the New-Nederlands from Yankee domination will eclipse the far-famed redemption of Spain from the Moors, and the oft-sung conquest of Granada will fade before the chivalrous triumph of New-Amsterdam. ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... formidable and terrible of all combinations. The man who combines inspiration, apparently derived—in my judgment, really derived—from close communion with the Supernatural and the Celestial, a man who has that inspiration and adds to it the energy of a mighty man of action, such a man as that lives in communion on a Sinai of his own; and when he pleases to come down to this world below, seems armed with no less than the terrors and decrees of the Almighty Himself." Now both forms of concentration must be practised ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... gave offence to H. Shervill, Esq. then Recorder of this city (this was about 1631), who, out of zeale, came and brake some of these windowes, and clambering upon one of the pews to be able to reach high enough, fell down and brake his leg. For this action he was brought into the Starr-Chamber, and had a great fine layd upon him [500. J. B.] which, I think, did undoe him. [See a minute and interesting account of Sherfield's offence, and the proceedings ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... me to such scares, lest I should and some times, I say, consent thereto, and be overcome therewith, that by the very force of my mind, in labouring to gainsay and resist this wickedness, my very body also would be put into action or motion by way of pushing or thrusting 'with my hands or elbows,' still answering as fast as the destroyer said, Sell him; I will not, I will not, I will not, I will not; no, not for thousands, thousands, thousands of worlds. Thus ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... before Faraday's time had endeavored to solve this problem, but it was reserved to Faraday alone to be successful. Since success in this investigation resulted from some experiments he made while endeavoring to obtain inductive action on a quiescent circuit from a neighboring circuit through which an electric current was flowing, we will first briefly examine this experiment. All his experiments in this direction were at first unsuccessful. He passed an electric current through ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... reckoned up trains and glanced at distances and situations his mind was busy with other schemes, for he had all his life been a man who could think of more than one thing at once. And at the end of the hour he had decided on a plan of action. ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... priests he turn'd to canons, creeds, and prayers, Rubrics and rules, and all our Church affairs; Churches themselves, desk, pulpit, altar, all The Justice reverenced—and pronounced their fall. Then from religion Hammond turn'd his view To give our Rulers the correction due; Not one wise action had these triflers plann'd; There was, it seem'd, no wisdom in the land, Save in this patriot tribe, who meet at times To show the statesman's errors and his crimes. Now here was Justice Bolt compell'd to sit, To hear the deist's scorn, the rebel's wit; The fact mis-stated, ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... This division of the foreign power will be found to have produced a corresponding sense of security in the minds of the native population, and thus deprived them of that next best thing to a united national action, the combining effects ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... on Lake Erie, he started to retreat. Tecumseh protested, and was induced to go on only by the promise that winter supplies would be delivered a few miles up the Thames. It was on this stream that Proctor finally determined to make a stand, but at the outset of the action he, coward-like, retreated with his red coats, leaving the Indians to bear the brunt of the battle. Tecumseh had gone into the fight saying that he would be killed, and his prediction was verified. But how he died no one can say with certainty. No less than four Americans ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... the boat lay in the seething foam partially sheltered by a rock, while the men sat with oars out, ready for instant action. ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... the time for action had again come—that critical moment which she had so often in the past seen come and had let pass unheeded. He was in love with another woman; he was prosperous, assured of a good income for a long time, though ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... projecting copings. This finish is often carried several inches above the roof and crowned with narrow stone slabs, one on each of the four sides, forming a sort of frame which protects the mud plastered sides of the opening from the action of the rains. Examples of this simple type may be seen in many of the figures illustrating Chapters II and III, and in Pl. XCVII. Fig. 94 also illustrates common types of roof openings seen in Zui. ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... half of the century and the excellence of their work cannot be accounted for if the influence of Alfred's reign had utterly died out. But it had not. Only the machinery was defective. The driving power remained, latent but ready for action. One indication of a surviving interest in these matters at this time is the gift of some nine books to St. Augustine's Abbey by King Athelstan—an interesting little collection including Isidore de Natura ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... Action trod on the heels of resolve Can such love be wrong? He who wholly abjures folly is a fool He out of the battle can easily boast of being unconquered Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto I am human, nothing that is human can I regard as alien to me Love is at once the easiest and the most ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... above all things, let us flee from humorous recitations," added Elisabeth. "There are few things in the world more heart-rending than a humorous recitation—with action. As for me, it unmans me completely, and I quietly weep in a remote corner of the room until the carriage comes to take me home. Therefore, I avoid such; as no woman's eyelashes will stand a long course of humorous recitation without ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... not wholly, I hope, the conduct that becomes a woman, I caught the point of the sabre, now poised to run him through, with the one I carried. He backed away, hesitating, for he had seen my hat and gown. But I made after him with all the fury I felt, and soon had him in action. He was tired, I have no doubt; anyway, I whirled his sabre and broke his hold, whipping it to the ground. That was the last we saw of him, for he made off in the dark faster than I could follow. The trouble was all over, save the wound of the corporal, ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... apprehension, continues without rest till the change be accomplished. But let us now look calmly and confidently forward, and success is certain. It is no longer the paltry cause of kings, or of this, or of that individual, that calls France and her armies into action. It is the great cause of all. It is the establishment of a new aera, that shall blot despotism from the earth, and fix, on the lasting principles of peace and citizenship, the great Republic ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Night, or What You Will, much like The Comedy of Errors, or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and near to that in the Italian called Inganni." The writer then goes on to state such particulars of the action, as fully identify the play which he saw with the one now under consideration. It seems that the benchers and members of the several Inns-of-Court were wont to enrich their convivialities with a course of wit and poetry. And the forecited ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... its perpetration and supposed authors, that the public at large, so instructed and informed, become detectives. Hence "crooked" and wicked people are really more afraid of the thunderbolt exposure of the newspapers than of the slower and more uncertain action ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... (became self-governing in free association with New Zealand on 4 August 1965 and has the right at any time to move to full independence by unilateral action) ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... import, and the necessary consequences of such a law. They had previously laboured to lessen the social evil by moral and spiritual means, but now they turned their whole attention to obtaining the abolition of the disastrous enactment which took that evil under its protection. They felt that the action of Government in passing that law brought the whole nation (which is responsible for its Government) under a sentence of guilt—a sentence of moral death. It lifted off from the shoulders of individuals, in a measure, the moral responsibility which ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... unsatisfied with those manifold blessings acquired by the labors of their sires; and while they are conscious of not excelling them in wisdom, virtue, or valor, they are becoming ideal, and seem willing to sacrifice the practical, safe rules of republican action, for mere idealisms, born in the dizzy sphere of their own over-wrought imaginations. They tremble at the name of Washington, whose purity and moral power shed lustre upon the name of man, and they worship him as a god; but while the REAL WASHINGTON commands the homage of mankind, ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... the islands, so that one of them may attend to ecclesiastical affairs and the other to temporal. Part of Cerezo's letter of August 10, 1634, to the king is answered by the latter (October 10, 1636) in his despatches to Corcuera; it relates to military affairs—approving Cerezo's action, and giving some directions ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... have done better never to have meddled," he said to himself remorsefully—even while he gave his orders for the apprehension of Shere Ali and his companion. For he did not allow his remorse to hamper his action; he set a strong guard at the gates of the city, and gave orders that within the gates the city should be ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... at future action he felt a strange, unalterable purpose to save Fay Larkin. She was very young—seventeen or eighteen, she had said—and there could be, there must be some happiness before her. It had been his dream to chase a rainbow—it had been his determination to find her ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... ether. Through one of these cavities light could not pass, for there would be nothing to bear it. Sound could not come from it; nothing could be felt in it. It would not have a single one of the conditions necessary to the action of any of our senses. In such a void, in short, nothing whatever could occur. Now, in the words of the writer before quoted—the learned doctor himself nowhere puts it so concisely: "A man inclosed in ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... to right and left of the narrow way showed that in some great convulsion of nature, the rock had been split and separated to a small extent, and the result was the formation of this cavern; for so similar were the sides that had the natural action been reversed, the two sides would have fitted together, save where the water had worn ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... House in 1861, see vol. i.; describes drilling of Army of Potomac; on importance of Lincoln's action in Trent case; introduces bill abolishing slavery under federal jurisdiction, see vol. ii.; on composition of Gettysburg address; dreads danger in election of 1864; Lincoln's only supporter in Congress; refusal of Lincoln to help in campaign; on ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites. There scarcely ever was a civilised nation of that complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in action or speculation.... Such a uniform and constant difference [between the negroes and the whites] could not happen in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction between these breeds of men.... In Jamaica, indeed, they talk of one ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... rich of the Bright and Cobden sort did have a kind of confused faith that the economic conflict would work well in the long run for everybody. They thought the troubles of the poor were incurable by State action (they thought that of all troubles), but they did not cold-bloodedly contemplate the prospect of those troubles growing worse and worse. By one of those tricks or illusions of the brain to which the luxurious are subject in all ages, they sometimes seemed ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... his option it certainly was never intended to allow the change to be made while play was in progress: and it therefore becomes the duty of the umpire to interpret this rule according to its spirit, and to regard the action of a batsman in jumping from one position to the other while the ball is in play from pitcher to catcher as hindering the catcher, and in such case he ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... misapprehension of the underlying motives that led to an inevitable step. No one who witnessed, as I did at close range, the swift unfolding of the drama which ended on May 23 in a declaration of war, can accept such a base or trivial reading of the matter. Like all things human the psychology of Italy's action was complex, woven in an intricate pattern, nevertheless at its base simple and inevitable, granted the fundamental racial postulates. Old impulses stirred in the Italians as well as new. Italy repeated according ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... of rove is wound on the bobbin in virtue of the joint action of the spindle and flyer, the rotating bobbin, and the builder, each complete traverse of the latter increases the combined diameter of the rove and bobbin shaft by two diameters of the rove. It is therefore necessary to impart an intermittent ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour
... Missouri Compromise which broke down all legal barriers to the spread of slavery Stephen Arnold Douglas was the ostensible leader and central figure; and Douglas was a Senator from Illinois, Lincoln's State. Douglas's national theatre of action was the Senate, but in his constituency in Illinois were the roots of his official position and power. What he did in the Senate he had to justify before the people of Illinois, in order to maintain ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... gas confirms the whole, assuring us that "ambition they have none, and are more desirous of being thought strong than valiant. The objects of ambition with us—honor, fame, reputation, riches, posts, and distinctions—are unknown among them. So that this powerful spring of action, the cause of so much seeming good and real evil in the world, has no power over them. In a word, these unhappy mortals may be compared to children, in whom the development of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... party, who looked very incredulous; "I don't believe a word of it. That's some darned stuff you've trumped up, thinking to gammon us—it won't go down; we'll just give you a walloping, if it's only to teach you to wear your own clothes,"—and suiting the action to the word, he ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... tidings of this treacherous and dishonourable action on the part of the Captain of Soissons, Jeanne cried out that if she had him, she would cut his body into four pieces, which was no empty imagining of her wrath. As the penalty of certain crimes it was the custom for the executioner, ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... of action, Kelley did not stop with the mere observation of these evils but cast about to find a remedy. In doing so, he came to the conclusion that a national secret order of farmers resembling the Masonic order, of which he ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... while he would hold her with his eyes, so that her feet seemed rooted to the ground, till at length it was as though he cut a rope by some action of his will and set her free, and, choked with wrath and blind with tears, Benita would turn and run from him as ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... is he who has overcome all passions and then proceeds energetically to perform his duties under all circumstances careless of success! Let the motive lie in the deed, not in the outcome. Be not one of those whose spring of action is the hope of reward. Do not let your life pass in inactivity. Be industrious, do your duty, banish all thoughts as to the results, be they good or evil; for such equanimity is attention to intellectual things. Seek an asylum only in Wisdom; for he who is ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... The action of the fountain seldom continues more than about five minutes at a time, and then a repose of several hours ensues. If left to itself, the periods of the fountain's activity, though not quite regular, generally recur at intervals of six or seven hours. But they may be hastened by throwing big ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man, As modest stillness, and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage: Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let it pry through the portage of the head, Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it, As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'erhang and jutty ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... brother too well to either inquire into his motives or comment upon them. It was sufficient that Richard had conquered his lower self, and whether the victory had been a single-handed one, or whether the Bishop had been an ally, was not of vital importance. One may enjoy the perfume of a good action without investigating ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... The over-critical might have objected that English sailors do not, as a rule, have braids of brown hair escaping from their hats, and that the brave captain and explorer walked with some difficulty; but the speech and action of the sailor were spirited, and the captain's halting step was doubtless owing to temporary fatigue. Moreover, one glance at the boyish face under the great cocked hat was enough to make the most carping critic forget all other ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... enemy must move from it upon the village was the work of a short time. While these manoeuvres were accomplishing, night sunk down, dark and gloomy, though the moon was at full. Sometimes, however, she gleamed forth a dubious light upon the scene of action. ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... and the hand whose only ornament was a wedding ring went to meet the one folded on his arm with a confiding gesture that made the action ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... of the floats," answered the captain. "You will notice that the two floats within range of the submarine's action are being dragged down. If the floats should be in a normal condition, or float on their true water line, which you can readily observe by glasses, it is evident ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... see my feyther spit, I should say so! Vun young blood—a dock's son he vere too—vent an' 'ad a front tooth drawed a purpose, but I never 'eard as it done much good; bless you, to spit like my feyther you must be born to it!" (here Mottle-face paused to suit the action to the word). "And, mark you! over an' above all this, my feyther vere the ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... stream of life flows with absolute tranquillity, and ruffled by no menace of a breeze—the azure overhead never dimmed by a passing cloud, that in such circumstances the blood stagnates: life, from excess and plethora of sweets, becomes insipid: the spirit of action droops: and it is oftentimes found at such seasons that slight annoyances and molestations, or even misfortunes in a lower key, are not wholly undesirable, as means of stimulating the lazy energies, and disturbing a slumber which ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... right, thanks," she answered. "That is, when people don't drop suddenly from the clouds and galvanise us into action this ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... stranded in a tiny corner of the earth, surrounded by half-savage Mohammedan tribes and by soldiers, considers itself highly advanced, acknowledges none but Cossacks as human beings, and despises everybody else. The Cossack spends most of his time in the cordon, in action, or in hunting and fishing. He hardly ever works at home. When he stays in the village it is an exception to the general rule and then he is holiday-making. All Cossacks make their own wine, and drunkenness is not so much a general tendency ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... it has been shown that the spherical figure of a cluster is owing to the action of central powers, it follows that those clusters which, caeteris paribus, are the most complete in this figure, must have been the longest exposed to the action of these causes. Thus the maturity of ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... is involved in the same Guilt with yourself, you are sure she will not betray you. Nay, you may be assured further, that she will betray every Word and Action of her ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... thinness makes it easy to trim off the projecting corners and angles, reducing them to such a form that they can be laid in close contact. Thus laid they furnish an admirable protection against the destructive action of the violent rains. The stones are usually trimmed to a width corresponding to the thickness of the walls. Of course where a projecting cornice is built, it can be made, to some extent, to conform to the width of available coping stones. These can usually be procured, ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... amusements, we have to look quite as closely and distrustfully at the action of the reformers as we have at the action of the kind gentlefolk who are going to give us "Daniel Deronda" and the highly entertaining works of Mr. William Deans Howells in place of the dear welcome stories that pass away ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... soldiers might go to church, and all that had made it difficult and dangerous to confess the faith was taken away. Constantine longed to see his whole empire Christian; but at Rome, heathen ceremonies were so bound up with every action of the state or of a man's life that it was very hard for the Emperor to avoid them, and he therefore spent as little time as he could there, but was generally at the newer cities of Arles and Trier; and at last he decided on founding ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... were punctured and placed in the solution; the quadrifids of one were examined after 17 hrs., and found slightly opaque; the quadrifids of the other, examined after 45 hrs., had their primordial utricles more or less shrunk with thickened yellowish specks, like those due to the action of nitrate of ammonia. Several uninjured bladders were left in the same solution, as well as a weaker solution of one part to 1750 of water, or 1 gr. to 4 oz.; and after two days the quadrifids were more or less opaque, with their contents finely granular; but whether the solution had entered by ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... will you extract from these, which a moderate estate will not yield in equal, if not greater, measure? You fret yourself to acquire your wealth—you fret yourself lest you should lose it. It robs you of your health, your ease of mind, your freedom of thought and action. Riches will not bribe inexorable death to spare you. At any hour that great leveller may sweep you away into darkness and dust, and what will it then avail you, that you have wasted all your hours, and foregone all wholesome pleasure, in adding ingot to ingot, or acre ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... secured lasting independence for the natives, after these plans had been agreed upon by the two chiefs, Antonio Ay and Cecilio Chi, at the remote rancho of Xihum, in July, 1847. Such unanimity of action could only have been possible through the aid of a powerful, well-disciplined and widespread secret organization. There can scarcely be a doubt they were the chiefs or masters of the redoubtable order of Nagualism in ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton
... ready and waiting; the spark struck fire in the midst of them. Little more than a decade has followed its publication, and the world is filled with the agitation that it helped kindle. It has given direction to economic thought and shape to political action. ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... moment. He knew he was right, and that the end would justify him; one of the cheerfullest of men, he was strong where others were weak, hopeful where others despaired. He was wise in counsel, and prompt in action; ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... fervour of emotion, which, in her brother, broke forth in the schemes of patriotism and the aspirations of power, were, in Irene, softened down into one object of existence, one concentration of soul,—and that was love. Yet, in this range of thought and action, so apparently limited, there was, in reality, no less boundless a sphere than in the wide space of her brother's many-pathed ambition. Not the less had she the power and scope for all the loftiest capacities granted to our clay. Equal was her enthusiasm for her idol; equal, had she been equally ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... peers could not effect their purpose unless they could rally the bishops to their aid. The question was, What would the Archbishop of Canterbury do? He was Dr. Howley, the mildest and most apostolic of men, and the most averse from strife and contention. It was impossible to be certain of his action, and the Duke of Cumberland posted off to Lambeth to ascertain it. Returning in hot haste to the caucus, he burst into the room, exclaiming, "It's all right, my lords; the Archbishop says he will be d——d to hell if ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... with my task. It is only when I dally with what I am about, look back, and aside, instead of keeping my eyes straight forward, that I feel these cold sinkings of the heart. All men I suppose do, less or more. They are like the sensation of a sailor when the ship is cleared for action, and all are at their places—gloomy enough; but the first broadside puts all to rights. Dined at Huntly Burn with the Fergusons ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... Foyle answered in a soft voice, "The other day a man came to see me. He was a man of high social standing and had fallen into the clutches of a gang of blackmailers. He wanted us to take action, but he absolutely refused to go into the witness-box to give evidence. I pressed him, pointing out that that was the only way in which we could bring home anything against them. 'It will ruin me,' he ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... Mrs. Clarke. "He wouldn't claim any credit for the world. But look at the poor child's hands! Look at his eye! We must take some action at once. Can't we swear out a warrant or something against those hoodlums, and ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... its armies, whose defeat was recorded by the inscriptions as well as the tribute which they had been forced to pay. The sense of their own weakness prevented the Egyptians from passing from useless regrets to action; when, however, one or other of the Pharaohs felt sufficiently secure on the throne to carry his troops far afield, he was always attracted to Syria, and crossed her frontiers, often, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Martin, "we might say our prayers; they will be the last," and suiting his action to the word, the great man knelt down, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... replaced with a stare of interest. It was impossible to tell why one respected this man, but after a time there grew a suspicion of unknown strength in this lone rider, strength like that of a machine which is stopped but only needs a spark of fire to plunge it into irresistible action. Strangely enough, the youthful figure seemed in tune with that region of mighty distances, with that white, cruel sun, with that bird of prey hovering ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... Suiting the action to, at least, the spirit of the song, Donald tossed off another bumper of the alcohol, which had the rather odd effect of recalling him to some sense of his situation, instead of destroying, as might have ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... the very important discovery I made in physics two years ago, upon which the whole success of the projectile rests. You will remember that, according to the text-books, very little is known about gravity except the laws of its action. What it is, and how it can be controlled or modified, have never been known. Electricity was as much a mystery fifty years ago, but we know all its attributes. We can make it, store it, control it, and use it for almost every necessity ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... invective had abused the freedom of speech allowed on such occasions, remains to attest the irritability and vehemence of his own temper. The letter was either not sent, or the lawyer had too much moderation to make it the subject of another action, the consequences of which he could have ill borne; for the expense, incurred by the former suit, was already more than he was able to defray, at a time when pecuniary losses and disappointments in other quarters were pressing heavily upon him. A person, for whom he had given ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... breastworks; but always after a little while the yelping tumult receded, and our rifle fire slackened while the musketry from the breastworks grew more furious, crashing out volley on volley, while the entire ridge steamed like a volcano in action. Further to the north we heard more musketry break out, as our New York regiments passed rapidly toward Butler's left flank. And by the running fire we ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... in spite of his abounding sympathy, which is one reason of his great attractiveness, cannot fairly be said to be a great character creator, he had sufficient flexibility and force of genius to set in action interesting personages. Part of the early success of The Nabob was due to this fact, although the brilliant description of the Second Empire and the introduction of exotic elements, the Tunisian and Corsican ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... taking him over. Little Mary, who was always very good, seeing his distress, gave him all the money she had in her pocket, wished him a safe journey, and went home with a light heart, having done a good action. ...
— Little Mary - The Picture-Book • Sabina Cecil
... no one into her confidence. The case was not one for counsel; whatever her future action, it must result from the maturing of self-knowledge, from the effect of circumstance upon her mind and heart. For the present she could ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... another, if he had it not in his power to reward the compliance with, or punish the deviations from, his rules by some good, or evil, which is not the natural consequence of those actions; since the forbidding men to do or forbear an action on the account of that convenience or inconvenience which attendeth it, whether he who forbids it will or no, can be no more ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... journey up and noticed some small tobacco plantations on the banks. I met some good-looking people, who had come from Tierras Verdes, the locality adjoining on, the south. Their movements were full of action and energy. Their skins showed a tinge of delicate yellow, and as the men wore their hair in a braid, they had a curious, oriental appearance. The women looked well in black woollen skirts and white tunics. The people from that part of the country are known for their pretty, white, ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... he surprising them. Merging from obscurity to the light of action, he had developed into a human dynamo, generating power at a high rate of speed and storing it in the dry cells of his brain. Brent accused him of consuming so much of the atmosphere that nothing remained; he said the air seemed lifeless ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... of record, held in the chamber of Guildhall every Tuesday, where the Recorder also sits as judge, and the Lord Mayor and Aldermen may sit with him if they see fit. Actions of debt, trespass, arising within the City and liberties, of any value, may be tried in this court, and an action may be removed hither from the Sheriff's Court before ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... as the heavy bullet struck him, but his face went white. He had been a principal in more than one shooting affray, and experience had taught him the value of instantaneous action. And so, even with the stinging pain in his left shoulder, his hand swept his gun lightly upward, and before it had reached a level he had begun to pull the trigger. But to his astonishment only the metallic click, click of the hammer striking the steel ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... sternly, "but it is a heat arising from an indignation which I share. Consequently, I pass it over. I cannot instruct you to arrest Samson South before the Grand Jury has accused him. The law does not contemplate hasty or unadvised action. All men are innocent until proven guilty. If the Grand Jury wants South, I'll instruct you to go and get him. Until then, you may leave my part of the ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... policy, the lenity he might have been induced to have shown, all idea of the kind was chased from his mind by the unfortunate action of the prisoner. At the moment when the distant heights resounded with the fierce yells of the savages, and leaping forms came bounding down the slope, the remarkable warrior of the Fleur de lis—the fearful ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... affectation? What youth, if corrupted with the severity of old age? Lastly, what is that in the whole business of a man's life he can do with any grace to himself or others—for it is not so much a thing of art, as the very life of every action, that it be done with a good mien—unless this my friend and companion, Self-love, be present with it? Nor does she without cause supply me the place of a sister, since her whole endeavors are to act ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... like you that is! It is most important that you should know whether he intended to slight you on that occasion or not. It is the key to his whole action in this matter." ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... now to the application I mentioned. If it is God's work and glory to labor for those below Him, why should not we, His sons and daughters, follow His example as far as possible in our sphere of action? If we are ever to become like Him we must follow in His steps and do the things which He has done. Our work, also must be to help along the road to salvation those who are lower down, those who are more ignorant and are weaker ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... god. There is no reference to volcanic action: iron was smelted on Mount Ida; cp. "Epigrams of Homer", ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... action of the pin hole I would direct attention to Fig. 2. Here F represents the front of the camera, D the pinhole, AA the plate and the letters RR, rays from a lighted candle. These rays of course, radiate in all directions, an infinite multitude of them. Similar rays radiate from every ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... [alpha]-azo-naphthalene forms red needles or small steel-blue prisms. The azo-group, however, has little or no colouring effect when present in a ring system, such as in cinnolene, phthalazine and tolazone. The nitro group has a very important action mainly on account of the readiness with which it can be introduced into the molecule, but its effect is much less than that of the azo group. The colour produced is generally yellow, which, in accordance with a general rule, is intensified with an increase in the number of groups; ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... from Germantown, he at once sought out Janice and confirmed Andre's action. Though he found her working on the costume, it was with so melancholy a countenance ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... scepticism, with their corresponding eras of civilization and barbarism. And it necessarily must be so; because, these religions not being compatible with the indefinite extension of man's knowledge, they do not secure the continued action and authority of conscience; and without conscience, national progress, ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... sat the young vintner. He had finished his supper and was watching and scrutinizing all who came in. His face brightened as he saw the goose-girl; he would have known that head anywhere, whether he saw the face or not. He wanted to go to her at once, but knew this action would not ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... by Jacques Lenoble and representing "Christ Walking on the Water." Art critics enthusiastically declared it to be the most magnificent painting of the age. Walter bought it, thereby causing entire Paris to talk of him, to envy him, to censure or approve his action. He issued an announcement in the papers that everyone was invited to come on a certain ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... particularly was the action of a band of so-called "Patriots" who operated in many parts of Ireland—maiming cattle, ruining crops, injuring peaceable farmers, who did not do their bidding and shooting at landlords and prominent people ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... all working class movements, there is an outcry against political action, an outcry raised by impetuous men-in-a-hurry who want twelve o'clock at eleven. They cry out that the ballot is too slow; they want some more "direct" action than the ballot-box allows. But you will find, Jonathan, that the men who raise ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... By your argument and action, Florus, you have half convinced me; I forego the remaining half— True or false, I thus act with you. [Sheathes his sword. I ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... all the results of the Canada experiment, as presented by the official action of its civil officers and public men. Need it be said, that the prospects of the African race have only been rendered the more dark and gloomy, by the conduct of the free colored men of that Province. And when we ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... was designed to extend the system of {240} arbitration contained in the Covenant and to fill the existing gap in article 15 of the Covenant, by which the parties to a dispute recover their liberty of action and are entitled to resort to war if the Members of the Council are unable to agree upon a unanimous report. In the sub-committee a strong feeling manifested itself against unanimous decisions of the Council being binding in cases where one party to a dispute, but not both, desired arbitration. ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... wish to get moving pictures of a rhino charge. Mr. Akeley had a machine and our plan of action was simple. We would first locate the rhino, usually somnolent under a thorn tree or browsing soberly out in the open. We would then get to the leeward of him and slowly advance the machine; Mr. Akeley in the middle and Stephenson ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... be studied. You do not study a good story, or a haunting poem, or a battle song, or a love ballad, or any moving narrative, whether it be out of history or out of fiction—nor any argument, even, that moves vital in the field of action. You do not have to study these things; they reveal themselves, you do not stay to see how. They remain with you, and will not be forgotten or laid by. They cling like a personal experience, and become the mind's intimates. You devour a book ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson
... premised: your letter of late I receiued, and found that you would haue me discouer vnto you the estate and quality of the countreyes of Tombuto and Gago. And that you may not thinke me to slumber in this action, wherein you would be truely and perfectly resolued, you shall vnderstand, that not ten dayes past here came a Cahaia of the Andoluzes home from Gago, and another principall Moore, whom the king sent thither at the first with ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... of alluvial soil, is wholly composed of volcanic tufa, that is to say, an agglomeration of porous rocks and stones. Before the volcanoes broke out it consisted of trap rocks slowly upraised to the level of the sea by the action of central forces. The internal fires had not ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... face?" and down the avenue he marched. But considering on the way that he composed the whole infantry, as John Gudyill had not appeared, he took his vantage ground behind the hedge, hammered his flint, cocked his piece, and, taking a long aim at Laird Basil, as he was called, stood prompt for action. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Hospital. We find that where stimulants are required, such remedies as caffeine, nitro-glycerine and kolafra take the place of alcohol, and are even more satisfactory. The main use of alcohol is to stimulate the action of the heart in various ailments. The blood is thus forced to the remote parts of the system, and poisonous substances carried away. But, besides serving this good purpose, the drug tears down and ultimately destroys the cellular tissues of the body. A relapse is certain ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen |
