"Comparative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to England has been made under extremely trying and painful circumstances. I had expected no participation in any social functions. I had communicated with only a very few near and dear friends. Formal intercourse with comparative ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... midnight the storm abated, and allowed us to pass the remainder of the night in comparative comfort. The morning broke fair, and as the state of the horses would not permit us to attempt ascending the mountain with the baggage to-day, I contented myself with dispatching them for the provisions left last night at the bottom of the precipice, and to get up ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... measures, frequent repetitions of the same thought. The intellectual ear grasps all that easily, and amuses itself with the comparison of themes which are repeated in the same or in changed forms. We, on the contrary, nearly always listen to music with a dreamy, seldom with an intellectually comparative ear; therefore modern music is much more influential, but also much more dangerous, than the old. Musical pieces increase in length from year to year, in order that, during the performance of them, one ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... black. Breakfast was eaten in comparative silence, and after the meal was concluded, at Frank's suggestion, it was decided to explore the island for a spring that could be tapped for further water supply. The boys all admitted to themselves that the chance of finding one was remote, but they ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... higher than it really is: the illusion in the former case being due to the singular slope of its contours, and the remarkable breadth of its base, occupying nearly all the northern end of the island; in the latter, to misconception of the comparative height of the eminence you have reached, which deceives by the precipitous pitch of its sides. Pele is not very remarkable in point of altitude, however: its height was estimated by Moreau de Jonnes at 1600 metres; and by others at between 4400 and 4500 feet. The sum of ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... now, and they were standing in comparative isolation looking into each other's eyes in silence. At last she murmured: "You've helped me. I'm going to stay—a little while, anyway, and ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... colleges are as follows: thirty-five require the Bible as a text book; ten prescribe Social Ethics; six prescribe Christian Evidences; three make courses in Social Service or Practical Sociology requirements; five prescribe Hebrew History; one college requires Comparative Religion; one, Sunday School Teacher Training; one, New Testament History; one, Philosophy of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... Mitchell, attorney and counselor at law, sauntered down River Street, with the cheerful and optimistic poise of one who has lunched well. A well-set-up man, a well-groomed man, as-it-is-done; plainly worshipful; worthy the highest degree of that most irregular of adjectives, respectable; comparative, smart; superlative, correct. ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... The changes in the union of two vowels are various, depending upon their comparative strength, position, and relation to the long vowels, or diphthongs respectively. They ...
— Greek in a Nutshell • James Strong
... more hurried retreat is daily accumulating speed. This time it is the invader who, in order to avoid final disaster, is racing back to the comparative safety of his own country, whilst French and British, elate with repeated victory, hang with uncomfortable closeness on ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... were not slow to take this advice. In a short time all were more or less busily engaged with venison steaks, marrow-bones, goose drum-sticks, and fish; and comparative silence prevailed while the cravings of nature were being appeased. After supper, pipes were lighted, and conversation became animated for some time; but they were all too much fatigued to prolong this period, ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... care at all for this treatment, especially from a comparative stranger. But he saw his adored master looking so idiotically happy—over that or something else—that the ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... thought her,) I called her. I acknowledged the superiority of her mind; and was proceeding—but she interrupted me—All human excellence, said she, is comparative only. My mind, I believe, is indeed superior to your's, debased as your's is by evil habits: but I had not known it to be so, if you had not taken pains to convince me ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... only at the remembrance of having confided to this comparative stranger his bosom's secret under the ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... loves and admires all that is great and noble in the history of that famous republic, and can have no hereditary bias as to its ecclesiastical or political theories, may at least attempt the task with comparative coldness, although conscious of inability to do thorough justice to a ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... from drunkenness to sobriety, from ignorance to comparative intelligence, from theft and falsehood to honesty and truth, from shameless indecency to purity and chastity, from the violation of the whole ten commandments to the sacred observance of these ten, from barbarism to civilization and refinement, from brutish idolatry ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... L'Estrange,—but one. You will not hear me. I am a comparative stranger, but you have a friend, a friend dear and intimate, now under the same roof. Will you consent, at least, to take counsel of Mr. Audley Egerton? None can doubt his friendship for you; none can doubt that whatever he advise ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that Wallace had suggested to the present writer that he should undertake a new work, to be called "Darwin and Wallace," which was to have been a comparative study of their literary and scientific writings, with an estimate of the present position of the theory of Natural Selection as an adequate explanation of the process of organic evolution. Wallace had promised to give as much assistance as possible in selecting ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... negotiate. Owing to the unusually heavy snows of last winter, which had not commenced to melt on the mountain-tops until July, the river was high. In a normal summer, I believe that this trip could be taken—although always the boatmen must be expert in river rapids—with comparative safety and ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... second of July. He found the spirit of the troops admirable, but their discipline wretched, and the leaders divided by dissension in regard to the commands. He labored assiduously and successfully to bring order out of comparative chaos. The Congress made another effort to prevent a conflict with Great Britain by sending a respectful statement of America's case in a petition to the King. He refused to receive it, and issued a proclamation calling for troops to put down the rebellion in America. King George showed how ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... developed tradition, but have immensely increased consciousness, or reflection, out of proportion to art It was from India and Egypt in a positive form that Man drew the poison of sentimental Egoism which became comparative in the Middle Ages and ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... fancy the little man on the top of Skiddaw, with his mind full as usual of quips and pranks, and struggling with the emotions of mountain-land, so new and strange to a Cockney, such as he truly described himself. His loving readers do not forget his statement of the comparative charms of Skiddaw and Fleet Street; and on the spot we quote his exclamations about the peak, and the keen air there, and the look over into Scotland, and down upon a sea of mountains which made him giddy. We are glad he came and enjoyed a day, which, as he said, would stand out like a mountain ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... of seeking for a North Pole is one of only comparative antiquity. Its conception is well within the historic era, and must, therefore, be classed as an acquired habit and one not inherent in man. I have not observed that any other animals are addicted to this peculiar ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... annoyed one evening by the familiarity of a young gentleman, who, though a comparative stranger, was encouraged by Smith's jocular reputation to address him by his surname alone. Hearing the young man say that he was going that evening to see the Archbishop of Canterbury for the first time, the reverend wit interposed, "Pray don't clap ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... our "head of affairs," and such the small force he had at first to provide for. As we passed out of India, and got further from regions of comparative civilisation, his cares increased: cellar, kitchen, larder, farm-yard, tents, &c. had then to accompany our wandering steps, and the expedition gradually increased in size, until it attained its maximum ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... Bainbridge had arrived at a time of comparative liberty for him. "I wonder what the doctor says to himself?" he observed. "He may be ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... time he had been chief of all the piratical bands that then infested the shores of Cuba. They plied their fearful trade with comparative impunity; the numerous lagoons on the coast, only accessible through tortuous and shallow channels, and hidden by mangrove bushes, affording safe shelter; while they could easily intercept many vessels passing through the narrow ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... members of the Coalition. Ministers do not often resign in September,—nor would it be expedient that they should do so. Lord Drummond and Sir Timothy were safe, at any rate, till next February, and might live without any show either of obedience or mutiny. The Duke remained in comparative quiet at Matching. There was not very much to do, except to prepare the work for the next Session. The great work of the coming year was to be the assimilation, or something very near to the assimilation, of the county suffrages with those of the ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... at one time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres — well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title — accords to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of some surprise, as no known ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... might have seemed the most obvious way, but the dogged English hatred and contempt of foreigners would have rendered this impossible, even if Abenali himself would have consented to give up his comparative seclusion and live in ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... and often foggy voyage, and the rocky landing, could scarcely be attempted by sane folk; well-to-do people found the money, and jeopardized neither their own bodies, consciences, nor good repute. And perhaps this fact had more to do with the comparative mildness of the men than difference of race, superior culture, or a loftier mould of mind; for what man will fight for his employer's goods with the ferocity inspired by his own? A thorough good ducking, or a tow behind ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... everything, in fact, was in the boy's favour as, with beating heart, he wormed his way out of the wigwam and crawled stealthily on his belly from the camp towards the dense gloom of the forest. Then, almost as he had succeeded in gaining the comparative safety of the trees, beneath his moccasined foot a stick snapped, and a cursed Indian dog gave tongue, rousing the entire pack, and the sleeping camp, like an angry swarm of bees, woke ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... between these two excellent individuals might have been ruined and annihilated for a comparative trifle, had not a surprising and indeed almost miraculous thing happened, by some kind of freak of destiny, in the nick of time. Mr Sandbach was sticking close to Mr Gale, and Mr Gale was following in the leisurely footsteps ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... Barlow knife, and his younger sister's picture-book. To the juvenile imagination of those times, Sheffield was a huge jack-knife, Colebrook Dale a porridge-pot, and Paternoster Row a psalm-book, each in the generative case. How we young reapers used to discuss the comparative merits and meanings of those mysterious letters on our sickles, B.Y and I.R! What were they? Were they beginnings of words, or whole words themselves? Did they stand for things, qualities, or persons? "Mine is a By sickle; mine is an Ir one. Mine is the best," says the last, "for ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... able to comprehend. Although apprehending is included in comprehending; yet to comprehend is more. To comprehend is to know a thing fully; or, to reach it all. But here we must distinguish, and say, that there is a comprehending that is absolute, and a comprehending that is comparative. Of comprehending absolutely, or perfectly, we are not here to speak; for that the Apostle could not, in this place, as to the thing prayed for, desire: For it is utterly impossible perfectly to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... evening, influenced perhaps by his comparative weal, Dennis decided that he would purchase a ticket to the Olympus, and climbing the rear approach to that elevation, found himself seated shortly with the gallery gods, viewing with uncritical contrasts the relative merits of the clown, the ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... momentarily in getting past our outworks. The Russian sailors who furnish these posts have been having a very easy time with nothing to do but to eat and to sleep, and to mount guard, turn and turn about. Of course, this comparative idleness in all the storm and stress around us gave them time to look around and to loot the vacant houses near them. Not content with this, some of them discovered that a large number of buxom Chinese schoolgirls from the American ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... an interruption of a kind never before witnessed during any proceedings of the Lumen Society. It came from neither of the debaters, who still remained standing at their desks until the vote settling their comparative merits in argument should be taken. The interruption was from the rear row of seats along the wall, where sat new members of the society, freshmen not upon the program for the evening. A loud voice ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... splendour of his offer, that she longed to tell him what she thought of it. The grandeur of that offer was enhanced tenfold in her mind by the fact that it had been so framed as to include her in this comparative poverty with which Owen himself was prepared to rest contented. He had known that she was not to be bought by wealth, and had given her credit for a nobility that was akin ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... position, and as regards the number of their troops, the French had the advantage. The comparative weakness of the English force—which, all told, could only count about four thousand men to carry on the siege—is to be accounted for by the garrisons which were left in the conquered places over the north and south ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... action of the earth by the proximity of a loadstone, loses its sense of direction. With a tiny magnet fastened on its thorax, parallel with the nervous system and more powerful than the terrestrial magnetism by reason of its comparative nearness, the insect will lose its bearings. Naturally, in setting down these lines, I take shelter behind the mighty reputation of the learned begetter of the idea. It would not be accepted as serious coming from a humble person like myself. Obscurity ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... in this country to erect windscreens in order to break the force of the wind at the mouth of the shed. These screens are covered with corrugated sheeting, but it is a debatable point as to whether the comparative shelter found at the actual opening of the shed is compensated for by the eddies and air currents which are found between the screens themselves. Experiments have been carried out to reduce these disturbances, in some cases ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... stone thus fitted for its appropriate position in the temple,—becomes not only a symbol of human perfection (in itself, of course, only a comparative term), but also, when we refer to the mode in which it was prepared, of that species of perfection which results from the concord and union of men in society. It is, in fact, a symbol of the social character of ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... and forgotten at the first shot fired in a war between England and a great continental nation? I am convinced that that first shot must cause the scales to fall from men's eyes; that it must make every one realise that our divisions are comparative trifles and that for years we have been wasting time over them. But if we wait for the shock of war to arouse us to a sense of reality and to estimate our party differences at their true value, it will ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... clouds blowing over it from the southward. The wind had shifted at last; but, pure as the heavens were, the breeze was piping briskly with the weight and song of a small gale, and its fangs of frost, even in the comparative quiet of the sheltered deck, bit with a fierceness that had not been ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... When comparative quiet was restored he raised his head. "Peter Dreyer is dead!" he said in a voice that was heard by every one. Whispers passed through the crowd, and they looked questioningly at one another as though they had not heard correctly. He saw from their ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... one after another of the ornaments before her, and looked at them with a musing air and manner, that seemed to denote that her thoughts were not upon them. She was thinking how erroneous an estimate those ladies form of the comparative value of the different sources of happiness within the reach of women who sacrifice the confidence and love of their husbands to the possession of a pearl ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... explanation Barney had been casting about in his mind for some means of rescuing the princess without so great risk of detection, and as the plan of the secret passageway became clear to him he thought that he saw a way to accomplish the thing with comparative safety in so far as ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... physical labour of it is enormous, and there can be no rest; it is too bitterly cold in that blast to stop. For a mile or two we struggle and slave to beat our way around that mountain shoulder and then drop down to the creek again. The blessed relief it is to get out of the fury of that wind into the comparative shelter of the creek, to be done with the ceaseless toil of holding the heavy toboggans from hurtling down the hillside, to be able to keep one's feet without continually slipping and falling on the wind-hardened snow, no words can adequately convey. We are all frozen again a little; ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... Gospel she came in, walking slowly down the aisle and taking her place as though unaware of the hundred covert glances that followed her. Wealth is comparative, and Mademoiselle N——, with perhaps a few hundred thousand dollars in cash and cocoanut-grove, stood to the island people as Rockefeller to us. Money and lands were not all her possessions, for though she ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... Mr. Hardy then placed on a round shelf nailed to the flag-staff, at about eight feet from the ground, a blue-light, fitting into a socket on the shelf. The shelf was made just so large that it threw a shadow over the top of the tower, so that those standing there were in comparative darkness, while everything around was in bright light. There, with a match in his hand to light the blue-light, he awaited ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... as he uttered those interjections, and the tones of his voice were as if the words were positive, comparative, and superlative. ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... leaving her alone with her son, she refused to answer any of his queries, and burying her face in her pillow, she wept with convulsive and irrepressible violence. At length the very vehemence of her grief seemed, by exhausting itself, to restore her to comparative calm: her tears ceased to flow, her heavy sobs no longer shook her frame, and she remained for some time perfectly quiet and ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... whole judiciously omitted from the author's collected works, are characterised by marks of great industry, commonplace, and general fairness, with a style singularly formal, like that of the less im pressive pages of Johnson. The following, among numerous passages, are curious as illustrating the comparative orthodoxy of the writer's early judgments: "The brilliant hints which Montesquieu scatters round him with a liberal hand have excited or assisted the speculations of others in almost every department of political economy, and he is deservedly mentioned as a principal ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... by Edward Fitzgerald. A correct version of the text of the Fourth Edition, with accurate notes, a biography of both Omar and Fitzgerald, and a Poetical Tribute by Andrew Lang, together with a remarkable descriptive and comparative article by Edward S. Holden. Beautifully printed in two colors on deckel edge paper, with decorative borders, fourteen half-tone illustrations by Gilbert James, and a portrait of Fitzgerald. Gilt tops, attractively bound in cloth ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... of a back-corner and an accommodating companion opposite to you. Last of all was the Rotonde, with its entrance from the rear, its seats length-wise, room for six, and compensating in part for its comparative inferiority in other respects by leaving you free to get in and out as you chose, without consulting the conductor. This, however, was but the first story, or the rooms of state of this castle on wheels. On a covered dicky, directly above the coupe, and thus on the very top of the whole machine, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... 1797). This map was executed just before the fall of Constantinople (1453), and gives a view of the world as imagined in the 15th century. It is very fantastic and unscientific, but remarkable among its kind for its comparative freedom from ecclesiastical influence. ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... established in the educational field in the city or town where both the man and the woman concerned find it easy to choose to live after marriage, there is a probability that she can continue her work after marriage with comparative ease. The laws that used to penalize the woman teacher who married are rapidly ceasing to operate, and although the common legal requirement for a two years' vacation from public school employment when a child is to be born may exert a strong influence upon the birth-rate (either ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... comparative slowness of the rifle fire was broken by the staccato explosions of a machine-gun. It opened on the left of the position taken up by Jimmy and his chums, and in an instant ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... policy, we have witnessed a systematic determination to frustrate measures framed in recognition of the rights and wants of the people. As to their education, it continues abandoned to the efforts and totally inadequate means of private individuals and societies; except a comparative trifle from the State, not so much for the whole nation for the whole year as the cost of some useless, gaudy, barbaric pageant of one day.—It is evident the predominant portion of the higher classes trouble themselves very little about the mental condition of the populace. It is even understood ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... husband indulged in a foolish optimism, only to learn that the habit of matrimonial blackmail, once acquired, is not easily shed. Scarcely had he settled down to the belief that by the gratification of her supreme desire he had achieved comparative peace, than he began to suspect her native self-confidence of cherishing visions of a career contemplating nothing less than the eventual abandonment of Hampton itself as a field too limited for her social talents and his ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... would have discovered yet further reason to doubt the fitness of the profession chosen for him; and if they had ever seen him at school, it is possible the doubt of fitness might have strengthened into a certainty of incongruity. His comparative inactivity amongst his schoolfellows, though occasioned by no dulness of intellect, might have suggested the necessity of a quiet life, if inclination and liking had been the arbiters in the choice. Nor was this inactivity ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... to great misery. Their only domestic animal was the pig which roamed about half wild and in no great numbers, for they had never taken the trouble to breed it in captivity. Their resources, therefore, were limited, which accounted for the comparative smallness of the population, further reduced as it was by a wicked habit of infanticide practised in order to lighten the ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... scriptural tale of three score years and ten, and, in commemoration of the anniversary, is now made the recipient of such a tribute of grateful and whole-souled admiration as few men have ever won, and none have better deserved. It would be certainly invidious, and probably futile, to attempt a nice, comparative estimate of the services of these three men to the common cause of humanity; let us be content with the admission that Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson is primus inter pares, and make no attempt to exalt him at the expense of his great contemporaries. Writing now eight years later, at the time when Bjoernson's ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... began to influence the mob; the hisses and groans died away into silence, such comparative silence, that is, as was compatible with the greatness of the assembly. Then Raeburn braced himself up; dignified before, he now seemed even more erect and stately. The knowledge that for the moment he had that huge crowd entirely under control was stimulating in the highest degree. In a minute his ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Meanwhile the comparative deadlock in the Somme fighting rendered necessary vigorous measures against the enemy elsewhere on the front. A gas attack from the Fauquissart sector was planned but never carried out. Trench mortars and rifle grenades were continuously employed to make life as unpleasant ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... she had need of shelter elsewhere. Though that shelter could not again be under a father's roof—and though Darrell would have taken no steps to separate her from the husband she had chosen, still, in secret, he would have felt comparative relief and ease had she herself sought to divide her fate from one whose path downwards in dishonour his penetration instinctively divined. With an idea that some communication might be made to him, to which ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in this state of comparative luxury when at last, by the merest accident, I foregathered with him once more. I had pulled up to Streatley one afternoon, and, leaving my boat, had gone for a long ramble on the glorious North Berkshire Downs to stretch my legs before ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... believed, mistakenly, that I had made public the round robin, and was naturally irritated, and I suddenly received from him a published telegram, not alluding to the round robin incident, but quoting my reference to the comparative merits of the cavalry regiments and the National Guard regiments and rebuking me for it. The publication of the extract from my letter was not calculated to help me secure the votes of the National Guard if I ever became a candidate for office. However, I did not mind the matter much, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... D., Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, and Professor of Comparative Literature, University Of Colorado, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... the attitude of Morselli. Dr. Foa believes the phenomena to come within the domain of natural law, and to result from a transmutation of energy accumulated in the medium. He calls this 'vital energy' or 'psychic energy,' and adds: 'If these phenomena appear strange by virtue of their comparative rarity, they are not really more marvellous than the biological phenomena which we witness ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... continued the Agent of the Sauks and Foxes, a sad record might have been spared,—we should assuredly not have been called to chronicle the untimely fate of his successor, the unfortunate M. St. Vrain, who, a comparative stranger to his people, was murdered by them, in their exasperated fury, at Kellogg's Grove, soon after the commencement ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... regret, now that I am concluding my story, how little I am able to contribute to the discussion of the many debatable questions which are still unsettled. In one respect I shall certainly provoke criticism. My particular province is speculative philosophy. My knowledge of comparative physiology is confined to a book or two, but it seems to me that Carver's suggestions as to the reason of the rapid death of the Martians is so probable as to be regarded almost as a proven conclusion. I have assumed that in the body ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... late election has subsided, and our parish being once again restored to a state of comparative tranquillity, we are enabled to devote our attention to those parishioners who take little share in our party contests or in the turmoil and bustle of public life. And we feel sincere pleasure in acknowledging here, that in collecting materials ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... record of years, it is impossible to know his age, but it is believed that sufficient comparative data have been collected in Bontoc to make the following ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... days in comparative calm; between two storms my company is deserving of special rest. Also I am thoroughly enjoying this month of October. Your fine letter of October 2 reaches me, and I am now full of happiness, and ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... "Illustrated London News," on which his services were warmly welcomed and continuously employed, with such brilliant results to itself and to the black-and-white art in England. I was one day conversing with a distinguished foreign artist on the comparative merits of Gilbert and Dore, whose fecundity in their art was equal, and I ventured to assert the great artistic superiority of Gilbert. "You are right!" cried my enthusiastic friend, with more judgment of art than accuracy ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... 140. Additions to the discussion on the rank of the Papilionidae, and on the principles which determine the comparative rank of groups in the ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... disappeared, no one lurked anywhere in the gloom. There was not a sound to disturb the night. She almost held her breath as she opened the door silently and crept out into the hall. Stella possessed no knowledge of any back stairway, but the dim light enabled her to advance in comparative quiet. ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... it is true," admitted the sage, "but regarding its comparative importance a thoroughly loyal subject may be permitted to amend the remark of a certain wise Emperor of a former dynasty: 'Any person in the City can discover a score of gold mines if necessary, but One only could possibly have written ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... The comparative strength of the two vessels was as follows: The Ranger carried 18 guns and 123 men, the Drake 20 guns and 160 men, a number of the latter being volunteers for the fight, which lasted one hour and four minutes, ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... Balfour, I know you so well by reputation that you seem like an old friend. Your 'Handbook of Electricity' and your 'Comparative Voltage' are text books at the Institute. The whole scientific world mourned your supposed death. But how do you happen to be up here, and how have you managed to establish an electric plant in this wilderness? Why are you masquerading ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... difference of opinion as to the comparative value of a new discovery and a new invention, and the difference between these terms should be clearly apprehended. While they are to a certain extent interchangeable, the word "discovery" in science is usually applied ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... the reins of his brother's horse, and urging it with his own to their fullest speed, took the most unfrequented path, and dashing over every obstacle, through brake and briar, and over hedge and ditch, placed him in comparative safety. ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... artists elaborately trained to heighten the eloquence of words into the reverent ear of assembled Greece. Hence the multitude of dramatic poets; hence the mighty fertility of each; hence the life and activity of this—the comparative torpor and barrenness of ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... the mate, as well as the men, that the only way to overcome Rosco was to take his life; and as Redford had not sufficient courage, and the men no desire, to do that, they pursued their evil courses in comparative harmony. Nevertheless, the pirate captain knew well that the savage Redford was more acceptable to the pirates than himself so he determined to carry out intentions which had been simmering in his brain for some time, and rid the ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... sundry dark forms, looking more like bundles of dirty rags than anything else, rolled and tossed helplessly. These were dead and drowning men. Already the European sailors were at work, some cutting away useless top-hamper, others attempting to drag the terror-stricken Malays to a place of comparative safety. Luke FitzHenry took command of these men, as was his duty, working like one of them, with infinite daring. He could only communicate with his captain by signs, speech being impossible. It was a seaman's fight. Each man did that which seemed to ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... Stover, loud enough for Dennis down the hall to hear, "at the Superiority of the Superlative over the Comparative." ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... appreciate the comparative happiness he was conveying to the woman, he felt the sharp pricks of the thorny burden he was bearing. He smiled in the growing darkness, and told himself that there was no disaster that brought happiness to any one but must be ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... after a certain period, to revert unimpaired to him and his successors; and that he could not, consistently with his honour, break the Irish treaty, which he had, after mature deliberation, subscribed and ratified. Much of the time was spent in debates respecting the comparative merits of the episcopal and presbyterian forms of church government, and in charges and recriminations as to the real authors of the distress and necessity which had led to the cessation in Ireland. On the twentieth day nothing had been concluded. ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... picturesque hills, of which Monte Grosso (1319 ft.) is the culminating point. The road here passes through firs, umbrella pines, carouba trees, cypresses, evergreen oaks, arbutus trees, and some fine shrubs of Phillyrea angustifolia, with here and there just enough olive trees to afford evidence of the comparative mildness of the climate. About half-way between Varazze and Cogoleto is the village ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... all nations, because weakness is always comparative, not absolute. A combination of several leagued powers can reduce to the condition of comparative weakness even the strongest power on earth. Without the law of nations there is therefore no security ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... the German trenches died down and the front regained its former state of comparative quiet. Once again Dubois jerked his arm and again came the sound of the bell, followed by the sudden burst of machine-gun ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay
... after fault—shall have been reckless, improvident, perhaps profligate, yet be fitter after all for the kingdom of heaven than the Pharisee—fitter, because against the catalogue of faults there could perhaps be set a fairer list of acts of comparative generosity and self-forgetfulness—fitter, because to those who love much, much is forgiven. Fielding had no occasion to make Blifil, behind his decent coat, a traitor and a hypocrite. It would have been enough to have coloured him in and out alike in the steady hues of selfishness, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... relapsed into comparative cheerfulness a few days before his departure on the receipt of a bulky letter which, in spite of the wear and tear of travel, remained heavily scented, coupled with Bart's assurance that he could remain in America another four weeks ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... comparative seclusion for a long time after that. Joan tried to think of plans, but her mind seemed, unproductive. She felt half dazed. Jim, too, appeared to be laboring under the same kind of burden. Moreover, responsibility had been added ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... his sister were both known to Mrs. Ives, and both were favorites. She was pleased to see them, and after reproaching the brother with compelling her son to ask a favor of a comparative stranger, she turned to Emily, and ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... us?" she murmured, when the comparative sanctuary of the drawing-room had been reached. "I see that I have interrupted you," she added, glancing at the flowers strewn upon the floor. A moment later she inquired, "Was some one sitting with you?" noticing a handkerchief that Cassandra had ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... can come of a comparative study of English and French literature. The political intercourse of the two countries has involved them in an endless series of broils. But between the literatures of the two countries friendly relations have ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... to the last the simple form of wire-ring, which originated, as we have already shown, with the most ancient people. Its comparative cheapness and ease of construction were no doubt its great recommendations. Similar rings are still made for the poorer classes in the East: the author has seen such worn in modern Egypt. Specimens have been obtained in Anglo-Saxon grave-mounds in England, and others, identical in form, ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... comparative value of satire as used by Burgoyne and Mrs. Warren, because the Burgoyne play is not in existence. But, undoubtedly, our Revolutionary enthusiast knew how to wield her pen in anger, and she reflects all of the bitter spirit of the time. Not only is this apparent in ...
— The Group - A Farce • Mercy Warren
... the assurances which they have given us, but excludes all practical possibility of reconsidering our policy freely to the end of taking a decision in a favourable direction. For the rest, Greece divided would not be of any use as an ally. It is necessary that there should return in the country comparative calm and the feeling of independence, indispensable for taking extreme resolutions. It is necessary that confidence in the sympathy of the Entente should be restored. A resolution to participate in the war taken under ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... spoil—ibex, deer, wild sheep, and even a wild ass among the slain. The latter had fallen to the governor's own rifle. There is plenty of sport to be had in Persia, if you only take the trouble to look for it, and in comparative comfort too, with tents, stores, cooking apparatus, etc., if time is no object. The country swarms with wild animals—tiger, bear, and leopard in the forests by the Caspian Sea; wild asses, jackals, and wolves in the desert regions; ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... comparative darkness behind the screen, he sat down on the sofa, put his arms on the table, and his head on his arms. He was exhausted, and found he must have slept as he sat; for when he lifted his head again, the hands of the clock had moved forward by ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... which the stories in this volume are printed is not intended as an indication of their comparative excellence; the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... you don't mean that. As a matter of fact, I'm merely a mild-mannered person of studious instincts hired to carry out a most valuable experiment in comparative psychology." ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... in relation to Nature and the History of Man," 48, 67; Varenius (Bernhard), General and Comparative ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... some investigation. For though there were times when the thought of her brother having brought home a bag of diamonds seemed mythical, and the birth of his diseased imagination—especially as he never named them now—at other times visions of comparative wealth had come to her, in the midst of which she seemed to see herself with Hendon, and her old companion and ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... As I have stated in another place,(18*) a nation which very greatly gets the start of its neighbours in riches, without any peculiar natural facilities for growing corn, must necessarily submit to one of these alternatives—either a very high comparative price of grain, or a very great dependence ...
— The Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of Restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn: intended as an appendix to "Observations on the corn laws" • Thomas Malthus
... maintained by improper food, and without a sufficient supply of pure air, or a due amount of exercise—has a most deleterious influence upon the process of labor; and not that a toilsome existence, embittered with all the pains and anxieties of poverty, gives comparative immunity from danger in the hour of childbirth.' One of the discomforts ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... later years, when I had made my name by sheer hard work, but I fancy that every Secularist lecturer could tell of similar experiences in the early days of "winning his way." The fact is that from Mr. Bradlaugh downwards every one of us could have earned a competence with comparative ease in any other line of work, and could have earned it with public approval instead of amid popular reproach. Much of my early lecturing was done in Northumberland and Durham; the miners there are, as a rule, shrewd and hard-headed men, and very cordial is the greeting given by them to those ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... them forgive everything to the other. She returned that all her son had to forgive was her loving him more than her life, and she would have challenged Peter, had he allowed it, on the general ground of the comparative dignity of the two arts of painting portraits and governing nations. Our friend declined the challenge: the most he did was to intimate that he perhaps saw Nick more vividly as a painter than as a governor. Later he ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... the scattered shouting sounded strange and thin in the comparative silence. Then the piping voice of the Chief came over the loudspeakers ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... has been approved by the Department of English and Comparative Literature in Columbia University as a contribution to ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... pretence to be a guide to all the mythologies, or to all the religious practices which have prevailed in the world. It is intended to aid the student who desires to obtain a general idea of comparative religion, by exhibiting the subject as a connected and organic whole, and by indicating the leading points of view from which each of the great systems may best be understood. A certain amount of discussion is employed in order to bring clearly before ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... and who for my sake had, in the course of these, rejected wealth and high standing in life. The heart that, for the sake of leal faith and love, could despise wealth and its concomitants, and brave the risk of embracing comparative poverty, even at its best estate, was not one likely overmuch to fear that poverty when it appeared, nor flinch with an altered tone from the position which it had adopted, when it actually came. This, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... notice the two chapters on the preparation of oils, and on the oleo-resinous vehicles, though to the general reader the recipes contained in them are of little interest; and in the absence of all expression of opinion on the part of Mr. Eastlake as to their comparative excellence, even to the artist, their immediate utility appears somewhat doubtful. One circumstance, however, is remarkable in all, the care taken by the great painters, without exception, to avoid the yellowing of their oil. Perfect and stable clearness ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... men, it was thought sufficient to protect itself, could it be brought to act together; whereas, now, when ten times twenty were left at home, unusual caution was deemed necessary, because the colony was weakened by this expedition of so many of its members. But everything is comparative with man. ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... the day would never end. To a man of his active strength to walk about a room is not exercise; it hardly seems like motion at all, and yet Giovanni found it harder and harder to sit still as the hours wore on. After an interval of comparative peace, his love for Corona had overwhelmed him again, and with tenfold force. To be shut up in a cell without the possibility of seeing her, was torture such as he had never dreamt of in his whole life. By a strange revulsion of feeling it appeared to him that by ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... parallel. As we review the course of that progress, wonder and amazement arrest our attention at every step. The present occasion, although allowing of no lengthened remarks, may yet, perhaps, admit of a short comparative statement of important subjects of national interest as they existed at that day, and as they now exist. I have adopted for this purpose the tabular form of statement, as being the most ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... was not profoundly modified when applied to life. Socialism as a theory is already touching life at a hundred points, and among many peoples—Socialism has been a faith. It is slowly becoming scientific, in a sense and to the extent that it submits its claims to the comparative tests of experience."[5] ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... claim-jumpers took possession, and soon cleared out the pocket, which yielded twenty thousand dollars. It was one of the most fortunate accidents in Mark Twain's career. He came within one pail of water of comparative wealth; but had he discovered that pocket, he would probably have settled down as a pocketminer, and might have pounded quartz for the rest of his life. Had his nerve held out a moment longer, he would never have gone to Angel's Camp, would never have heard The Story of ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... of culinary fire, man could not gratify his carnivorous propensities. He would be obliged to content himself with a vegetable diet; for, according to the comparative anatomists, man is not structurally a flesh-eater. At any rate he is not fanged or clawed. His teeth and nails are not like the natural cutlery found in the mouths and paws of beasts of prey. He cannot eat raw flesh. Digger Indians are left to do that when the meat is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... suitable horses, the unsuitable character of the saddlery, cumbersome camp equipment, and deficiency of knowledge regarding the seasons in the interior, all combined to defeat the first explorers in districts which have since been traversed with comparative facility. ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... the Comet The Callisto was going straight up The Signals from the Arctic Circle Diagram of the Comparative Sizes of the Planets The Ride on the Giant Tortoise A Battle Royal on Jupiter The Combat with the Dragons Ayrault's Vision They look ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... coincidence the brothers Foxley had been led to her glowing fireside and her motherly arms brimming over with zeal and kindness for the whole human race, does not matter. It is sufficient that they found her and found with her a sense of comparative peace and security which compensated for the one big slice of trouble Fortune had treated them to before their departure from England. For them did the wall flowers bloom and the mignonette at the window, for them did the oleander blossom and the old clock ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... to the 6th of December inclusive, the weather remaining much the same in America, the great European instruments of Herschel, Rosse, and Foucault, were constantly directed toward the moon, for the weather was then magnificent; but the comparative weakness of their glasses prevented any ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... possible, the scattered denizens of the Queen City had returned to their scarred homes. Many who at the time of their departure counted their thousands, and even millions, came back in comparative beggary. Yet back, back, back, they came, who could, to this mutilated ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... falsehood, might have been apparent. Momus must have been blear-eyed, to have such ideas about men; but you have sharper eyes than Lynceus, and pierce through the chest to what is inside; all is patent to you, not merely any man's wishes and sentiments, but the comparative ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... facilitated the maintenance of a comparative independence by these as yet unconquered Indians, at the same time that it facilitated the flight of those who, having bent their necks to the yoke, found it unbearably heavy. According to "Regidor" (Prefect) Hernando de Mogollon's letter to the Jerome fathers, fully one-third of the "pacified" ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... regarded as a brave, dashing, but reckless officer who needed a guiding hand. Among regular army officers as a class he cannot be said to have been a favorite. The meteoric rapidity of his rise to the zenith of his fame and success, when so many of the youngsters of his years were moving in the comparative obscurity of their own orbits, irritated them. Stars of the first magnitude did not appear often in the galaxy of military heroes. Custer was one of ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd |
