"Alter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the night advanced, in all its chilly, lonely, comfortless protraction, shivered as she added new logs to the dying embers, and as she hoped or despaired of his return, alternately replaced the veilleuse by candles, the candles by a veilleuse. She had already assumed her night-apparel; and alter wandering like an unquiet spirit from her own apartment to the sitting-room and back again, a thousand, thousand times,—after reclining her exhausted frame and throbbing head against the door of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various
... the story of the Cross," said Anna; "and as soon as one is ended she begins it again, and Lena will not let her miss or alter a single word." ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... mandibles. Nor is that all, for the air column pumped up from the lungs may be increased or diminished at will, a very strong current producing a loud tone, and a feeble current a low one. The elongation or contraction of the whole throat will also modify the pneumatic column, and thereby alter ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... strong desire manifested in many quarters so to alter the tariff of letter postage as to reduce the amount of tax at present imposed. Should such a measure be carried into effect to the full extent desired, it can not well be doubted but that for the first years of its operation a diminished revenue would be ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler
... a like breach in others, and others younger than myself. I have never allowed the dictum of the law to interfere with what I deemed to be a moral development in any youth for whom I am responsible. I cannot say that the trial made me alter my course of life, of the rightness of which I was too convincingly persuaded, but it made me much more careful, and it probably sharpened my sense of responsibility for the young. Reviewing the results of the trial ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... attack was repulsed, and a second one, made in conjunction with the imperialists, fared not less badly. The pontoons were lost, and the force suffered a greater loss than at any time during the war, with the exception of Waisso. The Taepings also lost heavily; and their valor could not alter the inevitable result. Changchow had consequently to be approached systematically by trenches, in the construction of which the Chinese showed themselves very skillful. The loss of the pontoons compelled the formation of a cask-bridge; and, during the extensive preparations for renewing ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... at Llanfair-Caerecinion that "a day with Mr. GLADSTONE was a whole liberal education," the London School Board has at last decided to alter the present system completely. After many days' deliberation, it has been arranged to hire the Albert Palace and Mr. GLADSTONE for a week. It is estimated that during six days, all the children now in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various
... walls, and perhaps reducing radiation to the minimum, but for extreme accuracy in calorimetric investigations it is necessary to insure the absence of radiation, and hence we have retained the ingenious device of Rosa, by which an attempt is made arbitrarily to alter the temperature of the zinc wall so that it always follows any fluctuations in the temperature of the copper wall. To this end it is necessary to know first that there is a temperature difference between ...
— Respiration Calorimeters for Studying the Respiratory Exchange and Energy Transformations of Man • Francis Gano Benedict
... to view intent Watered spirits in a glass, For his eyes on that are bent, But his thoughts are wandering sent Alter ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... both of the facts and principles; the imperfection of material, and error of arrangement, on which works such as these are based; and to insist on the necessity, as well as the dignity, of an earnest, faithful, loving, study of nature as she is, rejecting with abhorrence all that man has done to alter and modify her. And the praise which, in this first portion of the work, is given to many English artists, would be justifiable on this ground only, that although frequently with little power and desultory effort, they have ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... not endure (here I think he was wrong) to have his pieces of light and mirthful verse touched in any way by an editor. Even where no opinions were concerned, even where an editor has (to my mind) a perfect right to alter anonymous contributions, Murray declined to be edited. I ventured to remonstrate with him, to say non est tanti, but I spoke too late, or spoke in vain. He carried independence too far, or carried it into the wrong field, for a piece of humorous verse, say ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... easy when stated in a text-book, but, practically, it is often exceedingly difficult to determine the arrangement. Stems often twist so as to alter entirely the apparent disposition of the leaves. The general principle, however, that the leaves are disposed so as to get the best exposure to air and light is clear. This cannot be shown by the study of the naked branches merely, because these do ...
— Outlines of Lessons in Botany, Part I; From Seed to Leaf • Jane H. Newell
... sentiments now, Miss Henley," he said, "but you may alter them in time: you are not called on ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... other men, and yet a man. A man—my God! Lady Catharine—a man unworthy, yet a man seized fatally of that love which neither life nor death can alter!" ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... adds nothing to the meaning of the sentence, but helps to fill out its form or sound, and serves as a device to alter its natural order. Such a word is called an EXPLETIVE. In the following sentence there is an expletive: THERE are no such ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... sin and the new birth unto righteousness is a definite entrance into the spiritual life, rather than a gradual process. The fact that in Christian countries Baptism in most cases precedes conversion does not alter the character of the sacrament; indeed, infant Baptism is by far the most appropriate symbol of our adoption into the Divine Sonship, to which we only consent after the event. It is only because we are already sons that we can say, "I will arise, and go unto my Father." The Holy Communion ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... all sorts of other matters. She then took him to the great wooden table outside the dairy if she was satisfied, and gave him food and a little money. Sometimes she heard that her guest spent the money in the village tavern, but she did not alter her charitable habits for all that. She would say, "Oh sad, sad man, to spend his money like that." Then she would add, "But, perhaps he hasn't learned any ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... not as a denomination in accounts; for so long as we have it at all, we will certainly reckon from it and by it. For purposes of common barter, there ought to be a two-cent piece, a four-cent, and perhaps a seven-cent; and thus we shall be compelled to think decimally. 'If it is worth while to alter at all,' says Mr Taylor, 'ought we not to go the whole required length, and aim without timidity at the possession of a scale complete at once within itself, and so escape an indefinite prolongation of the purgatory of transition? ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... great misery with all the exterior of servitude, liberty looks, among them, like something that is more noble and liberal. I do not mean, sir, to commend the peculiar morality of this sentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it; but I can not alter the nature of man. The fact is so; and these people of the Southern colonies are much more strongly, and with a higher and more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty, than those to the Northward. Such were all the ancient commonwealths; such were our Gothic ancestors; such in our ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... O Brahmana, did the Sarasvati bend her course there in an easternly direction? O best of Adharyus, it behoveth thee to tell me everything relating to this! For what reason was that daughter of the Yadus filled with wonder? Why, indeed, did that foremost of rivers thus alter her course?" ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... perhaps I pity her, too, in a way. But my pity and yours don't alter the situation. She doesn't want pity. She doesn't want help. She flew at me like a wildcat when I asked if she was ill. Her personal affairs, she says, are not ours; she doesn't want our acquaintance or our friendship. She has gotten some ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... spoke of the Life Guards, and sat now in a state of great disturbance. Darrell also, as I perceived, was very uneasy, and made a hasty effort to alter the course of the conversation; but Mr Jermyn would not ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... dreams as the music filled his ears, he realized as never before in his busy, purposeful life how beautiful a home with the right woman could be. No thought of love for Dorothy entered his mind, for he knew that the love existing between her and his friend was of the kind that nothing could alter, but he felt that she had unwittingly given him a great gift. Often thereafter in his lonely hours he had imagined that dream-home, and nothing less than its perfection ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... missed of his design in the dedication, though he had prepared the book for it; for in every figure of Aeneas he has caused him to be drawn like king William, with a hooked nose. After my return to town, I intend to alter a play of sir Robert Howard's, written long since, and lately put by him into my hands; 'tis called the Conquest of China by the Tartars. It will cost me six weeks' study, with the probable benefit of a hundred ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... more or less alter matters," replies the Pilot. "But there are any number of good landmarks such as lakes, rivers, towns, and railway lines. They will help to keep us on the right course, and the compass will, at any rate, prevent us from going far astray ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... have done at first. Then they were added out of superabundance, but now out of necessity,—then they were set about man to preserve him in his natural frame and inclinations, but now they are needful to change and alter them quite, which is a kind of creation, therefore saith David, "create in me a new spirit," and, therefore, the gospel abounds in variety of motives and inducements, in greater variety, of far more powerful inducements than the law. Here is that great persuasion ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... your wife at a word. Do not interrupt me. To-night I conveyed her to the chateau of the Comte de Villemaur, to whom her hand had been promised. Guests were present; the priest was waiting; her marriage to one eligible in rank and fortune was ready to be accomplished. At the alter this demoiselle, so meek and dutiful, turned upon me like a leopardess, charged me with cruelty and crimes, and broke, before the gaping priest, the troth I had plighted for her. I swore there and then, by ten thousand devils, that she should marry the first man we met after ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... alter all that," she returned with a laugh, which her anxious glance at him belied. "You are going to be domestic now, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... for moral evil. This seems to be a great mistake of certain theologians, who pay more attention to the coherency of their system than to the light of nature or of revelation. Thus, says Dr. Dick: "If our antagonists will change the meaning of words, they cannot alter the nature of things. Pain and death are evils, and when inflicted by the hand of a just God, must be punishments: for although the innocent may be harassed and destroyed by the arbitrary exercise of human power, none but the guilty suffer under his administration. ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... He said that when he came home to England (and he had no idea when that would be) he should have me here, as head of his establishment, and it would be given out that the child was his ward. I hoped that he would alter his mind later on, but, as you ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... almost forced the letter from her hand; and then it was that Miss Adair vindicated her claim to social superiority. She went straight to Miss Polehampton and demanded that Janetta should remain; and when the schoolmistress refused to alter her decision, she calmly replied that in that case she should go home too. Miss Polehampton was an obstinate woman, and would not concede the point; and Lady Caroline, on learning the state of affairs, at once perceived that it was impossible to leave Margaret at the ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... so rash a thought could not have crossed your mind. We will not be precipitate; a few hours may bring some change to direct us. One thing I learn from Woods' delay. The Indians cannot be far off, and he must be with them, or in their hands; else would he return alter having visited the mills and the houses ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... is worth trying. Of course it will be a vastly more difficult job getting the girl and her father away than just taking a boat and sailing off as we have often talked of doing. Then, on the other hand, it would altogether alter our position afterwards. By his appearance and hers I have no doubt he is a well to do trader, perhaps a wealthy one. He walked with his head upright when the crowd were yelling and cursing, and is evidently a man of courage ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... the profundity of these moral truths. She perceived that she had senses. A second was enough to bring about this discovery, to change her soul, to alter her whole life. To have learned to know herself was at first a delight. The {greek here} of the ancient philosophy is not a precept the moral fulfilment of which procures any pleasure, since one enjoys little satisfaction from knowing one's soul. It is not the same with the flesh, ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... fermentation, as a science, does not enable us to alter the spontaneous course of nature; yet if, by the assistance of the instruments, and means recommended, we are enabled to foresee and provide for the changes induced by the alterations of the atmosphere, we can guard against the inconveniences in some ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... America) by the adoption, at a public meeting in Boston itself, of a memorial against any change of the law, in the course of which it was stated that, if English authors were invested with any control over the republication of their own books, it would be no longer possible for American editors to alter and adapt them to the American taste. This deliberate declaration, however, unsparing as Dickens's anger at it was, in effect vanquished him. He saw the hopelessness of pursuing further any present effort to bring ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... happening accidentally to come into the crowd, no sooner understood the vizier's errand, than he ran before to give his master warning. He found him sitting in the vestibule of his house, as melancholy as if his father had been but newly dead. He fell down at his feet out of breath, and alter he had kissed the hem of his garment, cried out, "My lord, save yourself immediately." The unfortunate youth lifting up his head, exclaimed, "What news dost thou bring?" "My lord," said he, "there is no time to be lost; the sultan is incensed against you, has sent to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... which he could neither foresee nor prevent. When we consider the weakness of human resolutions and the inconsistency of human conduct, it must appear absurd that one man shall engage for another, that he will not change his opinions or alter his conduct. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... nodded as calmly as if she had simply announced a decision to alter a gown or a hat, instead of referring to a ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... they require less depth of water than the English vessels, took advantage of the form of their shipping, and sheltered themselves behind a flat, called Kentish Knock; so that the English, finding some of their ships aground, were obliged to alter their course; but perceiving, early the next morning, that the Hollanders had forsaken their station, they pursued them with all the speed that the wind, which was weak and uncertain, allowed, but found themselves unable to reach them with the bulk of their fleet, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... had once in her life seen a poet from behind the screens of gauze in her father's hall, and had conceived from that specimen no very favorable ideas of the Caste, expected but little in this new exhibition to interest her;—she felt inclined, however, to alter her opinion on the very first appearance of FERAMORZ. He was a youth about LALLA ROOKH'S own age, and graceful as that idol of women, Crishna,[21]—such as he appears to their young imaginations, heroic, beautiful, breathing music from his very eyes, and exalting ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... glass obtained in the oxidizing flame undergoes no change, nor does it, according to H. Rose, alter by the addition of ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... the first one. He had it all up; then some little thing didn't suit him. The next day I came in again. All struck—sloughed—every bit of it— and a new one started. 'Lloyd,' I said, 'just think a minute— that's my money!' What good did it do? He even began to alter the new set! He would only go on, encouraging Werner and the other directors to change their sets, to lose time in trying for foolish effects, anything at ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... eternity, as light play-house matters; this of rising into such transcendency of valor, as to snap your fingers in the face of the Almighty Maker; this, Messieurs, give me leave to say so, is a thing that will conduct you and your PREMIERE NATION to the Devil, if you do not alter it. Inevitable, I tell you! Your road lies that way, then? Good morning, Messieurs; let me still ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... anxious to convince the workers that unemployment is due to the private ownership of land and capital, and that all unemployed should be relieved by the State because "A really adequate system of helping the unemployed will completely alter the relation of power between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. It will make the proletariat masters in the factory. If the workers sell themselves to-day to the employer, if they allow themselves to be exploited and oppressed, it is the ghost of unemployment, the whip of hunger, which compels ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... the language of the Evangelists that it was not intended to be a permanent institution. He takes up the statement of Paul in the Epistle to the Corinthians, which he thinks, all things considered, ought not to alter our opinion derived from the Evangelists. He does not think that we are to rely upon the opinions and practices of the primitive church. If that church believed the institution to be permanent, ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... matters—and the Countess, Dr. Bretton, and I, were for a short time alone together—all the child left her; with us, more nearly her companions in age, she rose at once to the little lady: her very face seemed to alter; that play of feature, and candour of look, which, when she spoke to her father, made it quite dimpled and round, yielded to an aspect more thoughtful, and lines distincter and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. On this broad continent not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours. Go where you are treated best and the ban is still upon you. I cannot alter ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... vision we can say little. For aught we know it may be true, but if true then it is the work of magic and we will have nothing to do with it. Should you wish to go to seek this mountain Umpondwana you must go alone, for we cannot alter our plans to trek there with you. But we counsel you not to go, since no good can come of ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... signal that some attendants should follow him, in case of his escape; but the cry of "Shame! shame!" which burst from the multitude induced him to alter his ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... consideration, however, Fitzjames could entertain no reasonable doubt of the rightness of the verdict, and Mr. Matthews agreed with him. A petition from three jurors was sent in upon Sunday, the 21st, but did not alter the case. Finally, upon the same afternoon, Lipski confessed his guilt and the sentence was executed next day. 'I hope and believe that I have kept the right path,' writes Fitzjames, 'but it has been a most dreadful affair.' 'I hardly ever remember so infamous and horrible a story.' He was ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... little chorister boys, the old Cure left the vestry, and at the moment when he knelt on the steps of the alter: ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... in a scientific article in the intermediate part between Leaders and Reviews once a fortnight if we will supply him. He is not to mutilate or to alter, but to take what ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... You know I have done all I could. I have told papa that I can think of Richard as a friend, but not as a husband. He only laughs at me, and says, 'Wait a little, and you will alter your opinion, my dear.' You see Richard is everything to him; Richard has always managed his affairs, and has saved him from losing by bad speculations; Richard has known me from the time when I was a child; Richard has a splendid business, and ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... it will follow, that, if this difference of velocities between the earth and the air in contact with it be diminished or annihilated, the easterly character of these winds will be diminished or annihilated likewise. At the same time, there is no cause in operation, that I can discover, to alter the direction of the meridional motion, as it may be called, of the Trade-winds, or that by which they are impelled ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... Leguminosae alter, a Nakhood Moschata, Nakhood Labaria violacea, Mulgedioid, Euphorbia, Astragalus prior, alter., Pedicularis, Onosma versicolor, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... Cod. Bobbiensis (k): which however for "illis" has "et:" for "Petro," "puero:" and for "occidentem," "orientem." It also repeats "usque." I have ventured to alter "ab orientem" into "ab oriente."—Compare what is found in the Philoxenian margin, as given by White ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... see, and (because you say so) I may alter my life's ways. The Gods make all things possible. But for the present I remain as I am, celibate, and not wishful to be otherwise; and so in the meantime I would hear the continuance of ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... and ornament afterwards; think first of what you actually want for your health or comfort; cut your coat upon that pattern, clap on your lace afterwards; but enrich it only to improve its appearance, not to interfere with, to conceal, or to alter its original destination. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... true; but we might alter the first part of it a little, and say, "No word can ever die." Not only the soft, loving words, but the rough, angry ones, which we may well wish we had never spoken, all live in this "vast library," and tell their ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... off very well, as I hear. No alterations were suggested by the lady to whom it was sent, so far as I know. Sometimes people criticize the poems one sends them, and suggest all sorts of improvements. Who was that silly body that wanted Burns to alter "Scots wha hae," so as to lengthen the last ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... had the woman's passion for influence; and he seemed like wax in her hands. Why not help him to education and refinement, to the cultivation of the best that was in him? She would persuade Cousin Elizabeth—alter and amend his life for him—and Mr. Helbeck should see that there were better ways of dealing with people than by looking down upon them and ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... late hours, of course, amply accounted for these late breakfasts; but why, so Miss Mapp pithily asked herself, why these late hours? Of course they both kept summer-time, whereas most of Tilling utterly refused (except when going by train) to alter their watches because Mr. Lloyd George told them to; but even allowing for that ... then she perceived that summer-time made it later than ever for its adherents, so that was ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... temper. I wrote down his music for him. Wrote it down, did I say? Why, I often composed it for him; yes, I, for he would sit and moon away at the piano, insanely wasting his ideas, while I would force him to repeat a phrase, repeat it, polish it, alter it and so on until the fabric of the composition was complete. Then, how I would toil, toil, prune and expand his feeble ideas! Mon Dieu! Frederic was no reformer by nature, no pathbreaker in art; he was a sickly fellow, always coughing, always scolding, but he played charmingly. ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... you, my thoughts, that some mistrust do cary, If for mistrust my mistresse do you blame, Say, though you alter, yet you do not vary, As she doth change, and yet remaine the same. Distrust doth enter hearts, but not infect, And love is sweetest ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various
... 'I must apologise. Legs are legs, and you needn't alter 'em so far as I am concerned. I only meant to explain to Your Lordliness that I've had nothing to eat since morning, ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... believe in and practise wrong knowingly, you can at once change your course and do right. Matter can make no opposition to right endeavors against 253:21 sin or sickness, for matter is inert, mindless. Also, if you believe yourself diseased, you can alter this wrong belief and action without hindrance ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... and much singing and joviality, one's views are apt to alter. Risks which before supper seemed great, show ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... But if he was fed reg'lar like, so as to alter his shape, and I took off part of his ears, and about half his tail, he might ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... for of course the public knew nothing of the inside of that deal. The people accepted Mr. Worth's personal assistance cheerfully, thankfully, and had come to look upon him as a friend. But this did not in the least alter their belief that he belonged to the band. He was simply a generous, gentlemanly sort of robber, kin to the hold-up man who returns the railroad tickets of the passengers and refuses to rob the ladies. This railroad situation had seemed to deny ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... not; He burns bought sticks at night to boil his pot; Yet all the plain, he fancies, to the stone That stands beside the poplars, is his own. But who can talk of property in lands Exposed to ceaseless risk of changing hands, Whose owner purchase, favour, lawless power, And lastly death, may alter in an hour? So, with heirs following heirs like waves at sea, And no such thing as perpetuity, What good are farmsteads, granaries, pasture-grounds That stretch long leagues beyond Calabria's bounds, If Death, unbribed by ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... chagrined, and made a move to follow the woman he had so publicly scorned, but the look she cast back at him was one to remember, and he hesitated. What was there left for him to say, or even to do? The avowal had been made in all its bald frankness and nothing could alter it. As for her, she behaved beautifully, and by no word or look, so far as the world knew, ever showed that her woman's pride, if not her heart, had been cut to the quick, by the ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... confidently. "I've been a good son to him, and he knows it. And I always have had my own way. I'm not going to alter now. It wouldn't be ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... might, by means of biological rapport with my mind, have gone so far as to read my questions and reply to them coherently. But biology could not enable her to discover that magnetic currents would so alter the crystals of the diamond as to remedy its previous defects and admit of its being polished into a perfect lens. Some such theory may have passed through my head, it is true; but if so, I had forgotten ...
— The Diamond Lens • Fitz-James O'brien
... the table, I asked for tea. While he was speaking to me, there was one peculiarity about him that I observed. Almost all men, when they stand on their own hearths, in their own homes, instinctively alter more or less from their out-of-door manner: the stiffest people expand, the coldest thaw a little, by their own firesides. It was not so with Mr. Mannion. He was exactly the same man at his own house that he was ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... there can be no mistake in the altitudes, because nothing can alter the facts, that an equality between the length of the shadow and the height of the substance can only subsist at an altitude of 45 degrees; or that an altitude of 29 degrees (more or less) is the nearest that will give the ratio of 11 to 6 between ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... the beginning, "You will be lonely; there is no one on the island to whom you can speak as a friend," he perceived now that she had excluded herself as well as the absent world from his companionship. It seemed to him that it had never once occurred to her that it was in her power to alter this. ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... the joke comes in. If you are Head Girl a dozen times over, it doesn't alter the fact that you don't know how to behave. You have bullied me and made me miserable ever since I came to this school, and I won't stand it any longer, and so ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... conjecture seem very satisfactory. The stars may have opaque planets revolving about them, shutting off their light; they may rotate, and have unequally illuminated sides; they may revolve in very elliptical orbits, so as to greatly alter their distance from us; they may be so situated in regard to zones of meteorites as [Page 223] to call down periodically vast showers; but none or all of these suppositions apply to all cases, if they ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... in his eagerness to be polite, almost pushed the girl toward the open door. Insensibly, she resisted, and turned to explain matters to Theydon, who had just placated the Cerberus at the gate, and was running alter her. ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... was dull, or the play was a little too long, or devotees of the unity of time made sport of a second breach of that unity coming just after the breach caused by the voyage. Perhaps accordingly the owners of the play altered, or hired a dramatist to alter, the arrangement at this point, and this was unwittingly done in such a way as to produce the contradictions we are engaged on. There is nothing intrinsically unlikely in this idea; and certainly, I think, the amount of such corruption of Shakespeare's texts by the ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... is who will not sell or alter his houses to suit the spirit of the times. He it is who, though he made the widow Cammysole change the name of her street, will not pull down the house next door, nor the baker's next, nor the iron-bedstead ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Italic urban commonwealth prosecuting trade and commerce. Lucullus and Pompeius, however little they in other respects aimed at the reduction of things to one level in the east, and however much the latter was disposed in questions of detail to censure and alter the arrangements of his predecessor, were yet completely agreed in the principle of promoting as far as they could an urban life in Asia Minor and Syria. Cyzicus, on whose vigorous resistance the first violence of the last war had spent itself, received ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... may be, the Rhine of Germany and the Rhine of Switzerland are very unlike. The catastrophe of Schaffhausen seems to alter the whole character of the river, and no wonder. "Stand for half an hour," says Ruskin, "beside the Fall of Schaffhausen, on the north side where the rapids are long, and watch how the vault of water first bends, unbroken, in pure polished velocity, ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... Crosby is, my dear," answered Sir Adam calmly. "The fact that she comes of decent people doesn't alter the case in the least. Nor the fact that she has one rich husband, and wishes to get another instead. I say that her husband is rich, but I'm very sure he has ruined himself in the last two years, and that she knows it. She is not the woman to leave him ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... splendour of my strength and youthful beauty—I first had looked upon the woman's loveliness that did destroy me. And yet within me burned the same fire as of yore; yet I was not changed, for time and grief have no power to alter the immortal spirit of man. Seasons may come and go; Hope, like a bird, may fly away; Passion may break its wings against the iron bars of Fate; Illusions may crumble as the cloudy towers of sunset flame; Faith, as running water, may slip ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... unusually intelligent; and if some day your intelligence discovers that it requires evidence for belief seek for that evidence. It is obtainable. Try to recognise it when you encounter it.... Only, in any event, remember this: never alter your early faith, never destroy your childhood's belief until evidence to prove ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... the decanters at him. However, there can be no doubting of the wisdom of my father's remark. Indeed there can be little doubting of the wisdom of anything that my father said in life, for he was a very learned man. The fact that my father did not invariably defer to his own opinions does not alter the truth of those opinions in my judgment, since even the greatest of philosophers is more likely to be living a life based on the temper of his wife and the advice of his physician than on the rules laid down in his books. Nor am I certain that my father was in a regular habit ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... read "A Window in Thrums" in manuscript they thought it unbearably sad and begged me to alter the end. They warned me that the public do not like sad books. Well, the older I grow and the sadder the things I see, the more do I wish my books to be bright and hopeful, but an author may not always interfere with his ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... lieutenant at the Chatelet de Paris. At the age of twenty-eight the marquise was at the height of her beauty: her figure was small but perfectly proportioned; her rounded face was charmingly pretty; her features, so regular that no emotion seemed to alter their beauty, suggested the lines of a statue miraculously endowed with life: it was easy enough to mistake for the repose of a happy conscience the cold, cruel calm which served as a mask ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... to myself," he replied, "'What is done, is done, and is beyond my power to alter or help.' And so I would be a man and bear it—not a weakling, and let it crush me. No, by Jove! ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... behalf; and, secondly, to save his Charter, if by any means it could be saved. This doubt seemed to haunt him. "My argument is," I remember he said, "they may take away the Charter or leave it, but there is one fact that no man can alter—viz., that a vast and valuable territory has been opened up by that Company in about half the time, and at about a quarter the cost, which the Imperial Government would have required for a like task; so that whether, in consequence of one bad ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... Speaker, that there is a LARGE, RESPECTABLE and INTELLIGENT PARTY in Kentucky, who will exert every nerve and spare no efforts to dislodge the subsisting rights to our Slave population, or alter in some manner, and to some extent, at least, the tenure by which that species of property is held."—Speech of the Hon. James T. Morehead in the Kentucky Legislature, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... which every where lined the coast. I, however, put the boat's bow to the shore, and gave cloth, medals, etc. to some people who were there. For this treatment they offered to haul the boats over the breakers to the sandy beach, which I thought a friendly offer, but had reason afterwards to alter my opinion. When they found I would not do as they desired, they made signs for us to go down into the bay, which we accordingly did, and they ran along shore abreast of us, their number increasing prodigiously. I put in to the shore in two or three places, but, not liking ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... give no "sleep to his eyes, nor slumber to his eye-lids." His child may be lying pining in sickness at his cottage, but it may endanger him to return to clasp that and his other little ones in his embrace, and bid them a fond farewell. He may have no time to alter his raiment or take even his scrip or pilgrim-staff. The Avenger of blood may be in the adjoining street, or in the dwelling hard by. Another hour may be fatal;—"Skin for skin, all that a man hath will he give for his life."[1] Off he speeds in breathless ...
— The Cities of Refuge: or, The Name of Jesus - A Sunday book for the young • John Ross Macduff
... upon me as her stay, and her mind and her affections were ever fixed on me. Oh, fie on my desire of life, owing to which suffer all this woe. Ye children, ye are all excellent and dear unto me. I have obtained you alter much suffering. I cannot leave you. Even I will go with you. Alas, O Krishna, (Draupadi), why dost thou leave me so? Everything endued with life is sure to perish. Hath Dhata (Brahma) himself forgotten to ordain my death? Perhaps, it is so, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... "Women of your type usually have. They make and mar without rhyme or reason—set business by the ears, alter the gold reserve, disturb the balance of trade, and nobody ever suspects it. Old James Wing and I have got a trust company organized, and the building up, and the man Wing ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... been committed to them concerning Mercy Disborough, they return that they find the prisoner guilty according to the indictment of familiarity with Satan. The jury being sent forth upon a second consideration of their verdict returned that they saw no reason to alter their verdict, but to find her guilty as before. The court approved of their verdict and the Governor passed sentence of ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... between brothers by divine right, could in no way affect their friendship. He had written, April 25, 1812, to the Emperor Alexander: "Your Majesty will permit me to assure you, that if fate shall render this war between us inevitable, it cannot alter the feelings with which Your Majesty has inspired me; they are secure from ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... not, for no such promise has been given; and there is no love story of which I am the heroine, I assure you. For all that, I have had a letter from a gentleman—a letter from my brother in Australia—which may alter my plans for the future. My dear girls, my dear friends and companions, I think you know that you are all very dear to me, and I believe you love me too a little; but of course in a few months at farthest most of you will leave me. You will have given up school, but not, I hope, ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... up the question from this point of view in 1836 and 1837. The passage of air through red-hot glass tubes, or through strong sulphuric acid, does not alter the proportion of its oxygen, while it must needs arrest, or destroy, any organic matter which may be contained in the air. These experimenters, therefore, contrived arrangements by which the only air which should come into contact with ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... faults or crimes, a little longer and a little longer, because he has fixed a certain time, after which he intends to do better. Perhaps he will assert that his companions, his surroundings, his position must be changed before he can alter his internal conduct. Wherever education or temperament favors sentimentality, we shall find birthdays, New Year's day, confirmation day, etc., selected as these turning points. It is not to be denied that man proceeds, in his internal life, ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... and even the most minute details of individual or family incidents, connected with the general narrative, while they add additional interest, and fill up or ornament different and separate parts, will never alter the general form of the fabric, nor displace any of the main pillars upon ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... a true woman,' said curdie. 'I am come to set things right in this house. Not one of the servants knows I am here. Will you tell them tomorrow morning that, if they do not alter their ways, and give over drinking, and lying, and stealing, and unkindness, they shall every one of them be driven from ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... than it is at present, I presume that no one will give himself much trouble on the subject. If it should be thought necessary, however, to refute these pretended miracles, in order to prevent those in scripture from growing into disrepute, then it will alter the case. ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... cura be found more often in the houses of the sick and dying, than in weddings, games, and dances. He should let the customs of the villages alone, when they involve no grave disadvantages, for innovations alter men's dispositions; and more than anything else must he shun causing innovation in the prayer, and in matters pertaining to the Church and the method of administration. Let him encourage congregations, devotions, and novenas, frequent confession, daily mass, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... world a prison-house, full of sights of woe, Where groans burst forth, and tears in torrents flow! These gardens of the sun, sacred to song, By dogs of carnage, howling loud and long, [Footnote 9] Swept—till the voyager, in the desert air, [a] Starts back to hear his alter'd accents there! [Footnote 10] Not thine the olive, but the sword to bring, Not peace, but war! Yet from these shores shall spring Peace without end; [Footnote 11] from these, with blood defil'd, Spread the pure spirit of thy Master mild! Here, in His train, shall arts and arms attend, [b] ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... her sorrow to the roof— I have told the naked stars the grief of man. Let the trumpets snare the foeman to the proof— I have known Defeat, and mocked it as we ran. My bray ye may not alter nor mistake When I stand to jeer the fatted Soul of Things, But the Song of Lost Endeavour that I make, Is it hidden in the twanging ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... boy who dreamed in Windsor Forest and with the lightest of hearts planned to achieve the impossible. For what is more difficult of attainment than to achieve the perfected phrase, so worded that to alter a syllable of its wording would be little ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... the procreating cause of an indefinite series of acts, it must have some ultimate object in which it ends,—or is to end. Even supposing such a series of acts to be continued through a whole life, and yet remain incomplete, it would not alter the case. It is well known that many such series have employed the minds of mathematicians and astronomers to their last hour; nay, that those acts have been taken up by others, and continued through successive ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... the mate was engaged in conversation with the captain. I saw that my kind friend looked somewhat annoyed. He had made up his mind that Ali was honest, and that Potto Jumbo was fanciful, and I suspect did not like to be compelled to alter his opinion. He soon afterwards called me up, and cross-questioned me on the subject. He had a good deal to make him anxious. The navigation of the seas through which we were sailing is as difficult as that of any part of the world. Pirates also swarmed in all directions; ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... we have ventured very materially to alter the shape of the confused system which was referred to us preserving the spirit, and, as much as possible, the original words, except where we had to encounter gross violations of ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... langue d'oil, this second stage saw a great increase of suppleness, a great emancipation from monotony, a wonderful freshness and wealth of colour and form. It has been said, and I see no reason to alter the saying, that the French tongue in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was actually better suited for lyrical poetry, and did actually produce lyrical poetry, as far as prosody is concerned, of a fresher, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... an order. I am making a request that any American should be glad to grant, seeing that my message concerns the safety of the United States fleet, and may alter the whole course of ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... "That does not alter the facts of this rather peculiar case. Mr. Buzzby knows that, up to this date, my daughter and I have never availed ourselves of any rights in this estate; and he has managed it so wisely alone, during these last seven years, that now he no ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... was very dry and arid, he constructed aqueducts with great artifice and ingenuity, and brought water into the place in such abundance that these lands, which had hitherto been sterile and barren, bore fruit in great quantities. And so entirely did he improve and alter the whole place that, instead of Vigevano, it might well be ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... fruitless efforts, you return Without amendment, and he answers, "Burn!" That instant throw your paper in the fire, Ask not his thoughts, or follow his desire; But (if true Bard!) you scorn to condescend, [ci] And will not alter what you can't defend, 790 If you will breed this Bastard of your Brains, [75] We'll have no words—I've ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... magnificently. He stood the test even of evening clothes, though Christine fancied as she studied him that she would alter his style of collars. They would be better higher. Mrs. Ussher brought him over at once and ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... had he to come into her life to spoil it? He would go back whence he came, and all should be as it had been before. Go back?—ah! we none of us can go back; surely the Greeks of old were right when they said that not even Omnipotence itself can alter the past. For him he felt, as he watched the white gulls wheel about the face of the inaccessible cliff, there could be no comfort. He had gotten a hurt that would last him a lifetime, but for her—surely he ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... did not either of us move, since it seemed that the slightest attempt to alter our position must result in a plunge into the darkness yawning to ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... publication which emanated from them, had driven them to the necessity of meeting secretly, and admitting members into their society in a private and mysterious manner. Between secret meetings and conspiracy the interval is small—between meeting secretly for constitutional purposes and meeting to alter or overthrow the constitution, the interval is perhaps still less. Whether the objects or the United Irish societies were at this period unconstitutional or not, it is certain the meetings were clandestine, and that of the lower class of ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... case with me; and then another, arising from the first answer to the question: "What is to be done?" consisted for me in this, that it was necessary for me to repent, in the full sense of that word,—i.e., to entirely alter my conception of my position and my activity; to confess the hurtfulness and emptiness of my activity, instead of its utility and gravity; to confess my own ignorance instead of culture; to confess my immorality and harshness in the place ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... the contrary, I maintain that the mythical faculty still exists in all men, independently of this survival of old superstitions, to whatever people and class they may belong; and it will continue to exist as an innate function of the intelligence, if not with respect to the substance, which may alter, at any rate in the mode of ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... merciful prince, had no power to alter the laws of his country; therefore he could only give Hermia four days to consider of it: and at the end of that time, if she still refused to marry Demetrius, she was ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... not know that other influences had been also exerted in their favor, which, although ineffectual at the time, had tended to alter the Doctor's intention. Immediately after school Mr. Rose had been strongly endeavoring to change the Doctor's mind, and had dwelt forcibly on all the good points in Eric's character, and the promise of his earlier career. And Montagu had gone with Owen and Duncan to beg that the ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... opinions, therefore, of public interest, of right to power, and of right to property, are all governments founded, and all authority of the few over the many. There are, indeed, other principles, which add force to these, and determine, limit, or alter their operation—such as self-interest, fear, and affection; but still we may assert that these other principles can have no influence alone, but suppose the antecedent influence of those opinions above mentioned. They are, therefore, to be esteemed the secondary, not the original ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... all her eloquence to convince him of the innocence of the accused, and to pacify his anger, but neither prayers, tears, nor her motherly exhortations, could in the least alter his resolution to rid himself of these murderers ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... opportunity. I was glad that I could do for your town what no other minister had been able to do. I took special delight in getting hold of those lads and men at the Inn. Hicks and his crowd didn't trouble me one bit, or even alter one plan I had for the members of the club. I didn't even grow discouraged when the opposition came from you, for I kept hoping that you'd see your mistake and come over to my aid. But time went on, and you did not. I sought reasons ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... (Shamash), Pa-sag, Gal-alim, Dun-shagga, Nin-Mar, Dumuzi-zuaba, Nin-gish-zida. These deities may be taken as indicative of the territorial extent of Gudea's jurisdiction. They are called upon to punish him who attempts to alter the decrees of the ruler, or to efface the memory of his deeds. Again, at the beginning of one of his inscriptions, he appeals to Nin-girsu, En-lil, Nina, Bau, Ga-tum-dug, Gal-alim, and Dun-shagga. He recounts what he has done to promote the cults of these ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... this route for the Canal is, that there is a volcano on an island in the Nicaragua Lake, and there are always fears of eruptions and earthquakes in the neighborhood of volcanoes. A great eruption of the volcano might change the course of a river, or alter the face of the country so much, that the Canal might have to be ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 15, February 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... whole affair, let him only call to mind my invariable ill luck in such matters, and how always it had been my lot to see myself on the fair road to success, only up to that point at which it is certain, besides—but why explain? These are my confessions. I may not alter what are matters of fact, and my reader must only take me with all the imperfections of wrong motives and headlong impulses upon my head, or abandon me ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... unfortunately I was visiting a sick parishioner several miles away, and did not get the message in time. When I arrived at the Manor he was past speech. He tried to scrawl a few lines on a piece of paper, but the writing was quite undecipherable. If he regretted any earthly act, it was too late then to alter it; he was going to settle his ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... with the order of our officers yesterday to remove the office to Deptford, pretending other things, but to be sure it is with regard to his own house (which is much because his family is going away). I am glad I was not at the order making, and so I will endeavour to alter it. Set out with my Lady all alone with her with six horses to Dagenhams; going by water to the Ferry. And a pleasant going, and good discourse; and when there, very merry, and the young couple now well acquainted. But, Lord! to see ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys |
