"Desirability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Green apartment in the background of his mind as something that he could return to as altogether more suitable. He conducted some simultaneous negotiation for a furnished house, which enhanced still more the desirability of the Grosvenor Green apartment. Toward evening he went off at a tangent far up-town, so as to be able to tell his wife how utterly preposterous the best there would be as compared even with this ridiculous Grosvenor Green gimcrackery. It is hard to report the processes ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... before (a) old men, (b) young men, (c) women the desirability of men's giving up their seats in street cars to women. (Also modify the question by requiring only young men to give up their seats, and then only to old people of either sex, to sick people, or to people with ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... acknowledging the receipt of some money which had evidently been requested by the writer, and for which the thanks were almost fulsome; and then, by the quietest transition in the world, he went on to consult her as to the desirability of his marrying some girl in the place from which he wrote, saying that this Anna Somebody was only eighteen and very pretty, and her father a well-to-do shopkeeper, and adding, with coarse coxcombry, ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... sentences and the lightness of his conversation. He occasionally worked himself up into a sort of theoretic rage about certain particular offenders, such as the men who took pokers to their wives, talked in a loose, sentimental way about the desirability of flogging them, and was hopelessly bewildered by the fact that the wives seemed even more angry with him than with their husbands. He was a tall, spruce man, with a twist of black moustache and incomparable morning dress. He looked like a ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... atmosphere, in which unborn suits of clothes contentedly await creation in rolls of cloth, and the styles of the season are exhibited by pictures of gentlemen whose completely vacuous countenances comfortably repudiate the desirability of being 'leaders of men.' On the table the Geographical Magazine invites to unexciting wonder at the way other people dress. From the next room one hears the voice of the tailor, leisurely reporting to his assistant as he tape-measures a customer. In the lineage of a vocation it is odd ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... Garden and the London Opera House)," says the Musical critic of The Daily Mail, "is a singer you can watch as well as listen to." The desirability of concealing the faces of some of our principal singers in the past is undoubtedly one of the reasons why England has lagged behind in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... Atkins is never twice alike. He is unanimous on few debatable matters. One of them, as I have said, is the desirability of finishing the war—in the proper way. (But even here there are differences as to what constitutes the proper way.) Another is (I trust I shall not shock the reader) the extreme displeasingness of life at the front. I would not say that our hospital ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... get the attention of the workmen and employers at the Smith Works to the desirability of their listening to each other, the users of Smith blades throughout the country will shave themselves with their fathers' ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... latterly the somewhat profligate excesses of the government of occupation—decently covered with diplomatic parables on benevolence and legality—have been dictated by military convenience, particularly by the need of forced labor and the desirability of a reduced population in the acquired territory. So also the "personally conducted" dealings with the Armenians by use of the Turks should probably also best be explained as an endeavour to reduce the numbers of an undesirable population beforehand, without incurring unnecessary ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... and loathing that she should have been expected to unite herself with an outworn life, full of backward secrets which must have been more keenly felt than any association with her. True, the question of love on her own part had occupied her scarcely at all in relation to Grandcourt. The desirability of marriage for her had always seemed due to other feeling than love; and to be enamored was the part of the man, on whom the advances depended. Gwendolen had found no objection to Grandcourt's way of being enamored before she ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... came to be more and more polarized by the rise of English sea-power. Even under Charles, when France had been the chief enemy, {432} [Sidenote: Spain vs. England] the Hapsburgs saw the desirability of winning England as a strategic point for their universal empire. This policy was pursued by alternating alliance with hostility. For six years of his boyhood Charles had been betrothed to Mary Tudor, Henry VIII's sister, to whom he sent a ring inscribed, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... promenaded. They crowded the porch to watch the fireworks on the mountain; they swept over the smooth space and the roadway in front of the Inn, looking up at it and remarking upon the quaint charm of it, the desirability of its location, its attractiveness as a resort. Tom heard one pretty girl planning a luncheon here next week; he heard a group of men talking about entertaining a visiting delegation of bankers up here at ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... has been such as to win the respect of every sportsman, whatever his opinion of the desirability of the change of management, but with individual players of the first class might not another manager be able to attain better results was the argument. He is to be succeeded by a man who worked with him as a fellow-member ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... purpose that the fleet in question had entered the Bay of Yedo. It was under command of Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who bore a letter from the President of the United States to the Emperor of Japan, suggesting the desirability of commercial relations between the two countries, requesting the supply of American vessels with coal and provisions, and demanding the kind treatment and prompt return of shipwrecked mariners. This letter, splendidly engrossed, was enclosed in ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Her faith in the desirability of human life in general had been rudely shaken. She therefore kept her eyes fastened sadly on the immoral couple, and wondered how two such sinful beings could eat and talk ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... cage, when, like the bird, he had crossed his prison, he saw the vast immensity of space beyond it. That vision of the Infinite left him forever unable to see humanity and its affairs as other men saw them. The insensate fools who long for the power of the Devil gauge its desirability from a human standpoint; they do not see that with the Devil's power they will likewise assume his thoughts, and that they will be doomed to remain as men among creatures who will no longer understand them. The Nero unknown to history who dreams of setting Paris on fire for his private entertainment, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... husband assigned to her, though she did so with much nervous trepidation, and many fears lest the desired object should be lost through her own maladroit management. With her, there was at least no doubt as to the thing to be done—no hesitation as to the desirability of securing Harry Clavering for the Burton faction. Everything in her mind was to be forgiven to Harry, and he was to be received by them all with open arms and loving caresses, if he would only abandon Lady Ongar altogether. ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... For sometime I have been considering the desirability of changing the name of the Northern Nut Growers. I am inclined to think that maybe some of our southern friends or from the Far West or Southwest would be a little dubious of joining the Northern Nut Growers, because they think we are ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... camp at the confluence of the Firehole and Gibbon rivers, as is related in this diary. After the return home of our party, I was informed by General Washburn that on the eve of the departure of our expedition from Helena, David E. Folsom had suggested to him the desirability of creating a park at the grand canon and falls of the Yellowstone. This fact was unknown to Mr. Hedges,—and the boundary lines of the proposed park were extended by him so as to be commensurate with the ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... was no more for me to say. I dared not let him believe that his movements were either watched or under the slightest shadow of restraint. I knew it was useless to urge on him the desirability of inaction until the army moved. Be might perhaps have understood me and listened to me, were the warfare he was now engaged in only the red knight-errantry of an Indian seeking glory. But he had long ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... factors played a part in the establishment of the sanctity of the number four. Professor Lethaby has suggested[405] that the four-sided building was determined by certain practical factors, such as the desirability of fashioning a room to accommodate a woven mat, which was necessarily of a square or oblong form. But the study of the evolution of the early Egyptian grave and tomb-superstructures suggests that the early use of slabs of stone, wooden ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... remarkable than his excesses. His sentences have both force and flow; his backgrounds are crisply but carefully sketched; his characters and caricatures have their own logical consistency. Finally, granted the desirability of the theatric finale, it is necessary to admit that Harte always rings down his ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... to prevent its getting to their enemies, but it placed the United States in a humiliating position and if we had not been in sympathy with their side it would have aroused more resentment than it did. But it made evident the desirability of having at least part of our supply under our own control and, if possible, within our own country. Rubber is not rare in nature, for it is contained in almost every milky juice. Every country boy knows that ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... follow, the writer has had in view the desirability of familiarizing the youth of Georgia with the salient facts of the State's history in a way that shall make the further study of that history a delight instead of a task. The ground has been gone over before by various writers, but the narratives ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... suspicious, become the all-sufficient cause of everything deplorable in human conditions. No true-hearted observer can conclude that the first consideration of life should be wealth. On the other hand, no right-minded person will ignore the desirability and the duty of judiciously providing the means for a reasonable degree of comfort and self-respect, with a surplus for the furtherance of human welfare in general, and the relief of misfortune ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... it condenses the maximum amount of water with the minimum of loss of heat. If the supply of water at D be carefully regulated, it will be found that a continuous current will be passing into the still at a temperature of about 180 deg. F., or, if practice suggest the desirability of running in the water at intervals, this can be easily arranged. It is necessary that the level at A should be two inches or thereabout higher than the level of the bend at C, otherwise there may not be sufficient head to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... to observe, on jumping up and looking out, that there was not a cloud to be seen, save, indeed, the shadowy gray morning mist that was fast dispersing over the sea. I pattered hastily into Aleck's room before proceeding to the business of the toilet, to awaken him, and to urge upon him the desirability of getting up as soon as possible, and coming down with me into the garden to gather a nosegay for my mother, an institution of three years' standing, and which I would not upon any account have dispensed with. Aleck murmured such a very sleepy assent to my views, that I was ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... game, and, believe me, it gets the least gratitude"—gave her instructions in the tactics of "presenting a proposition to a client," "convincing a prospect of the salesman's expert knowledge of values," "clinching the deal," "talking points," and "desirability of location." ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... contends that this process consisted, as a matter of history, in the establishment of government by discussion. Matters of principle came to be talked over; the desirability of this or that measure was submitted to the people for their approval or disapproval. This method served to stimulate definite and practical thought on a wide scale; it substituted the thinking of the many for the thinking of the few; it stimulated independent ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... higher the vacuum the greater will be the increase in the economy for a given addition to the vacuum. Thus, raising the vacuum from 27 to 28 inches has a greater effect than from 23 to 24 inches. For this reason the engineer will readily perceive the great desirability of maintaining the vacuum at the highest possible point consistent with the satisfactory and economical operation of ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... fine that no one can see more than a technical difference. For instance, under an indictment for obtaining money by false pretenses, one may make all sorts of statements as to the quality, value, style and desirability of the article sold, if he does not make a specific statement of a fact regarding the material contained in them or the amount, number, quality or the like. He may lie, but to be safe he must know the kind of lie the law permits. Many lies pass as "puffing goods" and are ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... degenerate weakling, stunted in figure, uncomely of face. He was shy and timid, shunning active exercises, and though at the time of his marriage (1558) he was too young to have been actively engaged in the vices of the outwardly devout court, he appears to have been fully alive to the desirability of his bride. Mary was precocious and ambitious; she was surrounded by profligates, male and female, and, though she can hardly have been in love with her young husband, she appears to have been fully reconciled ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... the advice of his two uncles, Kikkawa and Kohayakawa, both men of profound insight. They fully admitted the desirability of peace, since Hideyoshi's army effectually commanded the communications between the eastern and western parts of Chugoku, but they resolutely rejected the notion of sacrificing the life of Shimizu on the altar of any compact. When the priest carried this answer ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... whole western world to be alike concerned. To these ends I caused to be addressed to the several powers occupying territory and maintaining spheres of influence in China the circular proposals of 1899, inviting from them declarations of their intentions and views as to the desirability of the adoption of measures insuring the benefits of equality of treatment of all foreign ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... pundits,—by the very men whose opposition he had feared when the idea of marrying Linda was first suggested to him. They had told him that Linda was all right, that the elopement had been in point of fact nothing. "Young girls will be young before they are settled," Herr Molk had said. Then the extreme desirability of the red house had been mentioned, and so Peter had been persuaded. But now, as the day drew near, and as Linda's words sounded in his ears, he hardly knew what to think of it. On the evening of the third day of his contemplation, ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... print, we greet them with the cordiality bestowed on the proverbial long-lost friend. Local news interests readers because it concerns people and places immediately around them. Every newspaper man understands the desirability of increasing the attractiveness of a news event that happens elsewhere by rinding "local ends," or by giving it "a local turn." For special feature stories in newspapers, local phases are no less important. But whether the article is to be published in a newspaper or a magazine, familiar ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... private room; to those who did not he proved himself an almost insuperable obstacle. Unfortunately Borrow's standards were those of the physiognomist rather than the lawyer; he inverted the whole fabric of professional desirability by admitting the goats and refusing the sheep. He turned away a knight, or a baronet, and admitted a poet, until at last the distressed old gentleman in black, with the philanthropical head, his master, was forced to expostulate and ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... Chesters pressed on her husband the desirability of entering Parliament, he protested that he had only seven skins; and when she wished to pay a round of visits to distinguished people he maintained that they ought to reside at Chesters ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... one else would have to be convinced before anything could be done; somebody who would provide ships and men and money and provisions. Altogether rather a large order; for it was not an unusual thing in those days for master mariners, tired of the shore, to suggest to some grandee or other the desirability of fitting out a ship or two to go in search of the isle of St. Brandon, or to look up Antilia, or the island of the Seven Cities. It was very hard to get an audience even for such a reasonable scheme as that; but to suggest ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... knowledge must be marvellous indeed. And yet, the only remedy was hardly to be hinted at; I felt so certain that he would be miserable in a great capital that I never mentioned the possibility of living in one of them; he was sufficiently aware of its desirability. ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... thistles, as to secure a desirable disposition out of undesirable moods. A sunny disposition never comes from gloomy moods, nor a hopeful one out of the "blues." And it is our disposition, more than the power of our reason, which, after all, determines our desirability as friends ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... of reflection flew to the winds, and he thought only upon the desirability of getting help at once. He tore upstairs, his heart in his mouth. Barclay must come to his aid. This matter was serious—perhaps horribly serious. Taking the money, or giving a receipt, or having anything at all to do with it became an impossibility. Here was crime. He ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the volunteers' habit of entering their dwellings and tampering, in a free and easy manner, with their goods and the modesty of their women. They were specially disgusted with the coloured regiments, whose conduct was such that the authorities saw the desirability of shipping them all back to the United States as soon as other troops were available to replace them, for their lawlessness was bringing discredit ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Bok was dumbfounded! He made inquiries in certain channels from which he knew he could secure the most reliable information, and after all the importers had been interviewed, the conviction was unescapable that just in proportion as Bok had dwelt upon the desirability of the aigrette as the hallmark of wealth and fashion, upon its expense, and the fact that women regarded it as the last word in feminine adornment, he had by so much made these facts familiar to thousands of women who had never before known of them, and had ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... What Livy said about the Roman Empire is true now of knowledge: magnitudine laborat sua; so that the labour of specialising and distinguishing has for many centuries been all-important. Not only do we disbelieve in the desirability of smearing honey upon the lip of the medicine-glass through which the draught of erudition has to be administered; but we know for certain that it is only at the meeting-points between science ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... that moment the possibility and desirability of freedom from the depressing passions has been a reality to me, it took me some months to feel absolute security in my new position; but, as the usual occasions for worry and anger have presented themselves over and over again, and I have been unable to feel them in the slightest degree, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... already intimated to her the desirability of her quitting a home where she is no longer respected," the old gentleman declared. "She leaves on the 10.45 train. Her conduct this morning at the house of Mrs. Webb—who perhaps you do not know ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... something of both pension-list and college-lectureship, without the drawbacks of either. It was not enough considered that schemes for self-help, to be successful, require from those they are meant to benefit, not only a general assent to their desirability, but zealous and active co-operation. Without discussing now, however, what will have to be stated hereafter, it suffices to say that the enterprise was set on foot, and the "Guild of Literature and Art" originated at Knebworth. A five-act comedy was to be written by Sir Edward Lytton, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... unquestionably wanted her niece to stay with her. She was even beginning to hint at the desirability of making the present arrangement a ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... underclothing for the minister's boys, the fresh hair-ribbons for the minister's daughter, and the serviceable coat for the minister himself, to say nothing of uncounted books, games, and household articles of a worth and desirability likely to make a missionary minister's family exclaim with surprise and delight—until they found the generous roll of bills in the minister's coat pocket, when they would be dumb with a great wave of reverent gratitude to a God who could make human ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... often strongest when the adornment is most minute, others have no such repugnance or are quite indifferent whether or not their aprons are accurately adjusted. The mere presence or possession of the article gives the required sense of self-respect, of human dignity, of sexual desirability. Thus it is that to unclothe a person, is to humiliate him; this was so even in Homeric times, for we may recall the threat of Ulysses to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... abroad. For generations, no person was allowed to choose a seat in church, a committee, usually the magistrates, settling the places of all. In the beginning, after the building of any meeting-house, the seats were all examined and ranked according to their desirability, this process being called, "dignifying the pews." All who held the highest social or ecclesiastical positions were then placed; and the rest as seemed good, the men on one side, the women on another, and the children, often on a low bench outside the pews, where they were kept in order by the tithing ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... 1804. He was himself doubtful about the desirability of a second tenure, but the appearance at the moment of a series of particularly foul attacks upon his private character made him feel that to retire would amount to something like a plea of guilty. Perhaps it would ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... servant, with comparisons in plenty unfavorable to the factory occupations into which girls still persist in drifting. Yet in freedom and in social status, two of the tests by which to judge the relative desirability of occupations, the paid domestic employments take inferior ranks. Again, they offer little prospect of advance, ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... at an easy pace, that mademoiselle might not be made to suffer from fatigue. Aside from the desirability of our reaching safe territory, there was no reason for great haste. M. de Varion had not yet been tried, and the attempt to deliver him from prison need not be made immediately. Time would be required in which I might form a satisfactory ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... gun!" Joyce was sitting in a rocking-chair under the glow of the lamp. She was darning one of Keith's stockings, and to the young man watching her—so wholly winsome girl, so much tender but business-like little mother—she was the last word in the desirability of woman. "That's the very way to find trouble, Dad. He's been doing his best to keep out of it. He can't, if he stays here. So he must go away, that's all there ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... renewed enthusiasm into his old occupation. His observation of northern agriculture and conversations with other farmers had broadened his views and he was more than ever progressive. He was now thoroughly convinced of the great desirability of grass and stock for conserving the soil and he was also wide awake to the need of better tools and methods and wished to make his estate beautiful ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... she said—"otherwise I could not live. It is a necessary muscle. But what YOU call 'heart'—and what the dear elusive poets write about, is simply brain,—that is to say, an impulsive movement of the brain, suggesting the desirability of a particular person's companionship—and we elect to call that 'love'! On that mere ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... consider it advisable to carry out this alteration during the war, and it was also difficult under the hour to hour stress of war to rearrange all the duties of the Naval Staff in the manner most convenient to the conduct of Staff business, although its desirability was recognized ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... nobody to whom money was a concern could possibly afford to live in a place like this. If Croesus and the Count of Monte Cristo had applied for lodging there, the authorities would probably have looked on them a little doubtfully at first and hinted at the desirability of ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... showed signs of irritation. He at once declared that it met with his strongest disapproval. When Mr. Taft remarked that the result of such an enterprise would be to draw Great Britain and the United States more closely together, Mr. Wilson replied that he seriously questioned the desirability of drawing the two countries any more closely together than they already were. He was opposed to putting the United States in a position of seeming in any way to be involved with British policy. There were divergencies of purpose, he said, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... advanced on approved and traditional lines. She slid into the special topic from a general survey of matrimonial desirability; May did not shy, but seemed ready to listen. Mrs. Baxter ignored the possibility of any serious purpose on May's side and pointed out with motherly gentleness that her impulsive interest in Quisante ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... the desirability of escaping before a visit should be made him by his captors, tried hard to work himself out of his bonds, but only succeeded in confining ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... manifest themselves as early as 1742, as a reaction from the intense revivalism of that Period.[59] Rev. Chandler Bobbins, who was strictly Calvinistic in his theology, was the minister from 1760 until his death in 1799. In 1794 a considerable number of persons in the parish discussed the desirability of organizing another church, in order to secure more liberal preaching. It was recognized that Mr. Robbins was an old man, that he was very much beloved, and that in a few years the opportunity desired would be presented without needless agitation; ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... protests against the use of military drill in schools by way of physical exercise, and suggests the formation of brigades for saving life rather than of a quasi-military character; and urges the desirability of impressing on the Board of Examiners who formulate the questions for examination the propriety of guiding the minds of children ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... sufficient hard work and worry can be supplied to prevent either party to the separation thinking too long or too intensely of the absentee. Within a decent period following Nan's hoped-for departure from Port Agnew, Mr. Daney planned to impress upon The Laird the desirability of a trip to the Orient, while he, Daney, upon the orders of a nerve-specialist, took a long sea voyage. Immediately the entire burden of seeing that the Tyee Lumber Company functioned smoothly and profitably would fall upon Donald's young and ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... all emergencies. But it is obvious that the record had to be carried away to the brokers' offices and other places by messengers; and the delay, confusion, and mistakes soon suggested to Doctor Laws the desirability of having a number of indicators at such scattered points, operated by a master transmitter, and dispensing with the regiments of noisy boys. He secured this privilege of distribution, and, resigning from the exchange, devoted his exclusive ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... lunch at the club house is occasionally enlivened by a friendly tiff over the possession of a piazza table where is offered a view of the course combined with the comforts of repletion, and is, in consequence, considered a vantage point of desirability. We meet the same people, and we eat of the same dishes disguised in the same service, that daily play the routine of our fashion; for, as Thackeray says of his British, wherever we may go, we carry with us our pills and our prejudices. ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... did not of course lose the opportunity to impress upon so influential a person as the Senator the desirability of improving the navigation of Columbus river. He and Mr. Brierly took the Senator over to Napoleon and opened to him their plan. It was a plan that the Senator could understand without a great deal of explanation, for he seemed to be familiar with the like improvements elsewhere. When, ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... already an acceptable draftsman, and under the tutelage of Professor Robert Weir he made progress. West Point does not teach such a soft and feminine thing as picture-painting—it draws plans of redoubts and fortifications, makes maps, and figures on the desirability of tunnels, pontoons and hidden mines. Robert Weir taught all these things, and on Saturdays painted pictures for his own amusement. In the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington is a taste of his quality—the large panel entitled, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... observe that the seedlings of the old heartnut tree that were apparently of hybrid origin were not injured in the least and bore good crops of nuts this year, but the seedlings that were pure heartnuts were injured slightly. This point suggests the desirability of crossing the finest heartnuts with the best butternuts to get a combination of the hardiness of the butternut with the good qualities ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... Holden had ever seen a team of researchers plow into a problem, running a cold and icy scientific investigation to ascertain precisely how much cause produced how much effect. Holden, who had taken what he wanted or needed as the time came, began to understand the desirability of full and careful programming. The whole affair intrigued him and interested him. He plunged in with a will and gave them ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... modification of the old sod method, known as the sod "mulch" system, has attracted much attention because of the success with which a few men have practiced it. For a correct understanding of these practices and of the relative desirability of these systems we must again turn to ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... desirability of individual piece work instead of gang work came to our attention at Bethlehem. Several of the best piece workers among the Bethlehem yard laborers were informed by their friends that a much higher price per ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... Pickering, of Massachusetts, who was his Secretary of War with the management of Indian affairs, may have strengthened Washington in this design, for he was much interested in Indian improvement, but Washington's own experience had shown him the desirability of some such plan, and he had written to this effect as early as 1783.[213] The objects of Congressional policy in dealing with the Indians were stated by speakers in 1794 as follows:[214] 1. Protection of the frontiersmen from the Indians, by ...
— The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin • Frederick Jackson Turner
... desirability of mingling pleasure with profit in his poetry in order to gain the greatest popularity, the poet does have an educational value in the training of youths by presenting in an attractive manner examples of noble conduct which the young ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... against the window, peering in. As Johnnie settled his hat he recalled something Father Pat had once said about the desirability of putting one's self in another person's place. Johnnie did that, and realized what a fortunate boy he was—with his wonderful friend at his side, his uniform on his back, and "a dandy hair cut." So as he went out in One-Eye's wake, "Hullo!" he called to the boys ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... something foreign to your true being. It even believes that in a more or less spiritual manner your very body will survive. It essentially clings to the ego. What it inculcates is really present endeavor sanctioned by the prospect of future bliss. It tacitly takes for granted the desirability of personal existence, and promises the certainty of personal immortality,—a terror to evildoers, and a sustaining sense of coming unalloyed happiness to the good. Through and through its teachings runs the feeling of the fullness of life, that desire which will not die, that wish of the ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... lady-love, doing his best to render himself agreeable, and placing the ship and all hands at her disposal. Francesca, however, young as she was, had a perfect knowledge of "the proprieties;" she felt out of place on board ship, and clearly recognised the desirability of at once placing herself under her aunt's care: she therefore thanked the skipper very gracefully for his generous offer, and said she would merely trouble him so far as to avail herself of his aid in making her way to the quarters of her ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... considering. Noting this, the prudent, far-seeing Miromesnil ventured to develop the arguments at which Rohan had hinted, laying stress upon the desirability ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... was also instructed to look about for a desirable site on which to build the works. This raised the hopes of the towns within the iron districts. Delegates from several States have appeared before the board to extol the desirability of their various townships. As yet, however, it is not decided whether the Government will build the works at all, and so the matter of place has not been taken into ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 47, September 30, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... with ample funds at his disposal, was able to meet calls for financial help that were frequent and pressing, and recognizing the desirability of experienced and competent assistance in making the necessarily intimate inquiries, to determine if applicants for relief were worthy, he applied to Mr. Robert W. DeForest, President of The Charity Organization ...
— The New York Stock Exchange in the Crisis of 1914 • Henry George Stebbins Noble
... collective presentation they spoke of the desirability of making further concessions to Bulgaria, and in the special note to Bulgaria they stated that it was probable that the causes of friction would be removed and a union brought about. Bulgaria, however, was not satisfied, and Radoslavov, the Premier, in an ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... of the reasons—and there are many of them—why the social ideal of Herbert Spencer, in which the adjustment of life is so perfect that friction is impossible, can never be attained. Putting aside the question of the desirability of such an ideal it is impossible to see how it could be achieved, either along the line of working at Heredity, or along the line of working at the Environment. Even the most keenly intellectual people that ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... garden. Charles Baxter says that on these occasions he is asking his gardener the names of the vegetables. However that may be, he has seemed to our community the very incarnation of contentment and prosperity—his position the acme of desirability. ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... of care and kennel management, we may start with the puppy. It is obvious that where bone and substance are matters of special desirability, it is essential to build up in the infant what is to be expected of the adult. For this reason it is a great mistake to allow the dam to bring up too many by herself. To about six or seven she can do justice, but a healthy ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... had for some time tentatively revolved in his mind the desirability of something to ride, this struck him as being a good idea. All Westerners had horses—in the books. So he abandoned Aliris: A Romance of all Time, for the morning, and drove down to ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... sportsman cannot invariably discern one when it is pointed out to him, and the bush deer very seldom stand silhouetted against the sky. Their pale tinting blends with that of the fir trunks and the tall fern, and they seem to recognize the desirability of always having something near them that breaks their continuity of outline. Besides, to hunt in the thick bush needs the keenest powers of observation of both ear and eye, and an infinite patience, of which a worn-out, famishing white man is very rarely ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... undergone extensive modification in recent years. Political opinions are subject to constant change. Sixty years ago the secret ballot was feared as one of the worst of evils, lest voters might then wreak awful vengeance upon those in authority; now its desirability is unquestioned. ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... of desirability for planting I would make a list about as follows: Niblack, Major, Greenriver, Busseron, Indiana. I list the Niblack as first choice because it seems to be about as productive as any of the other varieties, and because of its excellence ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... Sylvia's foolish move upset everything and everybody. It was with reluctance that he accompanied Edna this morning, but her earnestness would not be gainsaid. He was forced to listen to assurances of his niece's gift, of the desirability of developing it, of the strength of the motive-spirit she had evidenced in the pains taken to carry out her desire. Then Edna unfolded to him the plans that had come to her during a wakeful night, and bespoke his cooperation. The judge scowled at the passing billows, and listened. Edna ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... balls which, though they did not hurt Excalibur, kept him awake. It did not occur to him to convey himself elsewhere, for his mind moved slowly; and the united blandishments of the players failed to bring the desirability of such a course home to him. He continued to lie in his favorite spot on the sunny side of the court, looking injured but forgiving, or slumbering perseveringly amid the storm that ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... must certainly be sounder than its head, for his lucubrations were received with favour. That entitled, "How to Live Cheerfully on Forty Pounds a Year," created a sensation among the unemployed. "Education: Its Aims, Objects, Purposes, and Desirability," gained him the respect of the shallow-minded. As for his celebrated essay on "Life Insurance Regarded in its Relation to the Masses," read before the Working Men's Mutual Improvement Society, Isle ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... obtained permission to build a stable for his pony and trap. When asked for his references, Peace replied by inviting the agent to dine with him at his house in Greenwich, a proceeding that seems to have removed all doubt from the agent's mind as to the desirability ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... invent a suitable costume, as their present style of dress is quite inappropriate to any kind of mechanical labour, and must be radically changed before they can compete with men upon their own ground. As to the question of desirability, M. Sarcey refuses to speak. 'I shall not see the end of this revolution,' he remarks, 'and I am glad of it.' But, as is pointed out in a very sensible article in the Daily News, there is no doubt that M. Sarcey has reason and common-sense on his side with regard to the absolute unsuitability ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... have appreciated the desirability of collecting and preserving these works. Don Pio Perez was the first to do so, and of living Yucatecan scholars particular mention should be made of the Rev. Canon Don Crescencio Carrillo y An cona,[TN-3] who has written a good, and I believe the only, description of them which has yet ...
— The Books of Chilan Balam, the Prophetic and Historic Records of the Mayas of Yucatan • Daniel G. Brinton
... derived a sense of the large part which destiny plays in our lives and the wisdom of conforming our lives to necessity; the importance of conceiving of life as directed toward a simple, large, and noble end; and the desirability of maintaining a balance among the demands that life makes on us, of adapting fit details to the main ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... fleet was unable to control the trade. Captain Hallam pointed out to him the desirability of making it adequate and dominant. Within two days the two had formed a partnership which included a number of New York bankers and investors as unknown and silent stockholders in the enterprise, and an abundant capital was provided. An order was ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... be transferred from one to the other in a mode less expensive than was afforded by the sea route between Adelaide and the Swan River. Eyre did not believe in the possibility of establishing a practicable route, but urged, through the press, the desirability of exploring the vast regions to the north, which he anticipated would afford a good and profitable field for adventurous enterprise. He offered to lead an expedition which should explore the country around the great salt lake lying ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... book; eminently instructive. The newest political thought is addressed to the beginnings and the desirability of a complete transformation of the British Empire. They are not all dreamers and faddists who commend the change and would hasten it. Of such is Mr. Bernard Holland, a man whose studies, whose sagacity, ...
— Mr. Edward Arnold's New and Popular Books, December, 1901 • Edward Arnold
... not transmit the earth's electricity to the body. Men's hair, not having a proper amount of electrical food, died and fell out. Of course he had a remedy—a little copper plate that should be nailed on the bottom of the shoe. He pictured in enthusiastic and vivid terms the desirability of escaping baldness—and paid tributes to his copper plates. Strange as it may seem when the story is told in cold print, the speaker's enthusiasm had swept his audience with him, and they crushed around ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... better means of communication. The Government was straining to what seemed the breaking point, their credit and resources to carry on the war and as a Government enterprise the building of a Pacific Railway was out of the question. All were convinced of not only the desirability of such a line but of the absolute necessity thereof, and it had resolved itself into a question of ways and means. Previous discussions had thrashed out the chaff and it now remained for Congress to winnow the wheat. Government ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... small need for the quarter-breed's parting injunction. The four Indian canoemen evidently keenly alive to the desirability of placing distance between themselves and MacNair's retainers, bent to their paddles with a unanimity of purpose that fairly lifted the big canoe through the water and sent the white foam curling from its bow in tiny ripples ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... makes choice of alternatives possible. If we can predict the outcome of acting this way or that, we can then compare the value of the two courses of action; we can pass judgment upon their relative desirability. If we know that stagnant water breeds mosquitoes and that they are likely to carry disease, we can, disliking that anticipated result, take steps to avert it. Since we do not anticipate results as mere intellectual onlookers, but as persons concerned in the outcome, we are partakers in ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... one could dispute the desirability of ridding the country of the brute which came so near eating little Nellie Ribsam; and, where there was so much talk, something was done, or at ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... a precise, old-fashioned, kind-hearted nonentity, a simple tool of more intelligent Conservatives; and Henry Smith, an Irishman of the keenest order of intelligence, ready to give an intellectual assent to the abstract desirability of the best and highest in all things. On another of the names originally suggested I may quote Smith himself, for when Dean Burgon's appointment was attacked in the House of Commons by me and others, Smith, approaching Lord Salisbury at a party, and engaging in conversation upon the matter, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... said to have reached its height in extravagance and millennial expectation in 1847-48. In "Alcuin" are anticipated most of the subsequent discussions on the right of women to property and to self-control, and the desirability of revising the marriage relation. The injustice of any more enduring union than that founded upon the inclination of the hour is as ingeniously urged in "Alcuin" as it has been in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... must be undertaken. Not everything is practicable which may seem desirable. We must not forget that there are dangers associated with the sexual enlightenment. It will not be right simply to ignore a reason often alleged against the desirability of sexual enlightenment, namely, that in this way it is possible that the child's thoughts will be turned in the sexual direction. This is unquestionably possible, and the danger can only be avoided by great adroitness. But when we remember that such adroitness is not found everywhere, ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... compelled them to consider some sort of federation. The second Continental Congress had hardly opened its work before the most sagacious leaders began to urge the desirability of a permanent connection. As early as July, 1775, Congress resolved to go into a committee of the whole on the state of the union, and Franklin, undaunted by the fate of his Albany plan of twenty years before, again presented a draft ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... and should also discuss in a pertinent way the question of disarmament. This question has to-day reached a stage much beyond that of mere desirability. It is now a question of commanding necessity, one can justly say of life and death of the reached stage of civilisation. Not pious wishes or theoretical expositions will in regard to it now suffice. ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... three and one-half billions of dollars are now invested in farm buildings, and it will require some motive more powerful than that inspired by academic logic to transfer, even gradually, this investment to village groups. Moreover, it is possible to dispute the desirability of the remedy. The farm village at best must be a mere hamlet. It can secure for the farmer very few of the urban advantages he may want, except that of permitting closer daily intercourse between families. And it is questionable if the petty society of such a village can compensate for the freedom ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... conceivably within the limit of possible attainment. The man desires to catch a train, to run that he may attain that end; his mind is little occupied with the desire to fly, nor does his longing center upon the carpet of Solomon. To the desirability of dismissing from the mind futile desires current ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... out the revolution that would take place in Parliamentary reporting, and in the diffusion of political instruction through the press, by the system of printing the speeches direct. The full importance of this result will be more apparent in a little. There has been much talk of late about the desirability of a more perfect system of reporting, with a view to the preservation of the debates. Yet it may be very much doubted, whether the House of Commons would ever incur the expense of making up for the defects of newspaper ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... time of writing there is talk in the House about payment of members. A private member has placed on the paper a resolution affirming the desirability of adopting the principle, and it is even said—(which I take leave to doubt)—that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has a card up his sleeve intended to win this game. It would be rash to predict stubborn resistance on the part of a body that has so often proved ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... all she means is that Lady Elizabeth lives somewhere, and that the secretary had better look up the proper address and write it in before posting the letter. Every now and then the secretary forgets to do this, and the letter comes here. This may be a compliment to the desirability of our house, but it is a compliment of which we are getting tired. I must ask that ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... at Gyp's birth, was in a queer state. The obvious desirability of such events to one of motherly type defrauded by fate of children was terribly impinged on by that old memory, and a solicitude for her "pretty" far exceeding what she would have had for a daughter of her ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... satisfaction at the convenience of these domestic arrangements. The beat, beat of the great water wheel was always in their ears to remind them; but no misgivings had yet assailed our forefathers as to the desirability of drinking water polluted by sewage and other abominations. True, the plague was constantly desolating the city, and had been raging so violently but a single year back that the King's coronation had well ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... experience we were strangely unanimous as to the desirability of going through in some less risky manner (we accused each other of "funking" afterwards), and accordingly sought the aid of a man, a boy, and a wheelbarrow, and in this unconventional manner conveyed our goods and chattels overland to the ...
— Through Canal-Land in a Canadian Canoe • Vincent Hughes
... or rather constitutes a single formal interest, the interest in harmony. When two interests are simultaneous and fall within one act of apprehension the desirability of harmonising them is involved in the very effort to realise them together. If attention and imagination are steady enough to face this implication and not to allow impulse to oscillate between irreconcilable tendencies, reason comes into being. Henceforth things actual and things ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... would freely, without hesitation, act in accordance with their true interests. But human nature is framed in a different fashion: every one, indeed, seeks his own interest, but does not do so in accordance with the dictates of sound reason, for most men's ideas of desirability and usefulness are guided by their fleshly instincts and emotions, which take no thought beyond the present and the immediate object. Therefore, no society can exist without government, and force, and laws to restrain and repress men's desires and immoderate impulses. ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... fuller and more durable co-operation between the two. For the time being the Socialists have subordinated to the establishment of universal and equal suffrage all other features of their political and industrial programme.[768] Upon the desirability of maintaining (p. 548) proportional representation all parties are agreed, and it is probably but a question of time until the principle will be applied fully, as it is not to-day, in the elections ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... While the desirability of particular soils is related in a broad way to the character of the parent rocks, and while by geologic knowledge certain territories can be predicated in advance as being more favorable than others to the development of good soils, so many other factors enter into the question ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... left quiet and troubled; and when Alice, sympathizing with the goaded man, inquired of her mother why these tiresome bickerings had been renewed, she always got the brooding and cryptic answer, "He COULD do it—if he wanted to." Alice failed to comprehend the desirability of a glue factory—to her mind a father engaged in a glue factory lacked impressiveness; had no advantage over a father employed by Lamb and Company; and she supposed that Adams knew better than her mother whether such an enterprise would be profitable or not. ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... sense. That doctrine of loving and forgiving one's enemies is based on sheer funk; our pity for others is dangerously akin to self-pity, most odious of vices. Catholic teaching—in practice, if not in theory—-glides artfully over the desirability of these imported freak-virtues, knowing that they cannot appeal to a masculine stock. By placid I mean steady, self-contained.] to dilute envious thoughts and the acts to which they lead, is at bottom a question of nutrition. One would like to know for how much ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... have your letter of April 17th asking for further particulars on the property which I advertised for sale in last Sunday's Republic. I think that by inspecting this property you can gain a much clearer idea of its desirability than I can possibly convey to you in a letter. If you will telephone to me, I will arrange any appointment that ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... cross the continent to the Pacific. The explorers were carefully instructed to report upon the geography, physical characteristics, and zoology of the region traversed, as well as upon its wild human denizens. Jefferson was fond of science, and in appreciation of the desirability of non-remunerative scientific observation and investigation he stood honorably distinguished among the public men of the day. To him justly belongs the credit of originating this first exploring expedition ever undertaken ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... through the winter in mummied fruits and diseased wood, the desirability of destroying these mummied grapes and the leaves and prunings of infected vines as soon as possible is apparent. This treatment, however, is not sufficient, and the disease can be effectually controlled only by thorough spraying with bordeaux mixture (4-4-50). The first application should be ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... desirability of modifying the system of descent and inheritance through females is felt first in connection with situations of honor and profit. At the time of the discovery of the Hawaiian Islands the government was a brutal despotism, presenting many ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... rendering homage to us. And, finally, that Lualamba might be properly impressed with our powers, we took him for a short excursion into the air, and then sent him back, a humbled, frightened, and profoundly impressed savage, to make his report to his master and urge upon him the very great desirability of paying a ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... imagine the greater desirability of another world merely shift their desires from the earth to the skies. It remains to be seen how high their gushing fountain will play, and for how long. But this much is certain: women were not created for these ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... the Council of the League of Nations the {160} desirability of conferring at once with the several Governments concerned with a view to securing a general reduction of the crushing burdens which, on their existing scale, armaments still impose on the impoverished peoples of the world, ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller |
