"Dignify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Newlands. Lowes-water is tame at the head, but towards its outlet has a magnificent assemblage of mountains. Yet, as far as respects the formation of such receptacles, the general observation holds good: neither Derwent nor Lowes-water derive any supplies from the streams of those mountains that dignify the landscape ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... may be able to raise their heads. Wherefore stand by me, prevent judicial proceedings from going on regarding money. I profess myself the patron of the commons—a title with which my solicitude and zeal invests me. If you will dignify your leader by any more distinguishing title of honour or command, ye will render him still more powerful to obtain what ye desire." From this his first attempt is said to have arisen with respect to the obtaining of regal power; but no sufficiently clear account is ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... replied, good-humouredly, "some naturalists, and I believe the great Linnaeus amongst them, class me with the Castor or Beaver race, and dignify me with a very long and learned-sounding name, Zibethicus. But I am quite content, for my part, to own my relationship to the race of Mus, and to be known by the simple name Musk-Rat, which they give me ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... company taking leave, was heard in the front part of the house; and very soon a fashionably-dressed personage of a somewhat swaggering deportment, accompanied with many of those supercilious airs with which the colonial loyalists of the times often thought to dignify their carriage among despised republicans, made his appearance in the yard, where, equipped for riding, stood a stout, well-conditioned horse, which he approached and led out some distance into the road, preparatory to mounting. He then paused, and, with a hasty ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... wields the first scepter in the minds of all men. In a secondary sense, she is the maker of all men. This being the primary fact of human existence, her education is the first work in human progress. To cultivate her is to cultivate the race. To elevate and dignify her is to elevate and dignify the world. As she goes up she bears every thing human with her. Depress her, and the world sinks. If you would ennoble and dignify the world, do this for its women, and the work is done. If you legislate for the world, legislate for woman. If you ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... pretend that there was a peculiar peacefulness in Longfellow's noble mask, as I saw it then. It was calm and benign as it had been in life; he could not have worn a gentler aspect in going out of the world than he had always worn in it; he had not to wait for death to dignify it with "the peace of God." All who were left of his old Cambridge were present, and among those who had come farther was Emerson. He went up to the bier, and with his arms crossed on his breast, and his elbows held in either hand, stood with his head pathetically fallen forward, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... we regard as a virtue well-pleasing in the sight of God, and dignify with the name of faith, a state of mind which turns out to be nothing but a willingness to stand by all sorts of wildly improbable stories which have reached us from a remote age and country, and which, if true, must lead us to think otherwise of the whole course of nature ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... enthusiastic young men, which reminded one of Abelard among his pupils in the infant university of Paris. Cousin elevated the soul while he intoxicated the mind, and created a spirit of inquiry which was felt wherever philosophy was recognized as one of the most ennobling studies that can dignify the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... everywhere will still instinctively and gladly accept the high duties and helps of married life; but as society becomes more intelligent it will recognize the fitness of some persons, and the unfitness of others, making it impossible for these to accept such responsibilities and obligations, and so dignify and elevate home life instead ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... herself, when she at length discovered that genuine good will toward one's fellow men could beautify and dignify even a stout German teacher, who shoveled in his dinner, darned his own socks, and was burdened with ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... his tone from her. There was no more heavy beneficence, no more attempts to dignify the situation with poetry or the Scriptures. None of them dared or was able ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... have so momentary an existence that they may be safely neglected: but the abiding injury is to the most august interest which for the mind of man can have any existence,—viz. to his own nature: to raise and dignify which, I am persuaded, is the first—last—and holiest command [1] which the conscience imposes on the philosophic moralist. In countries, where the traveller has the pain of seeing human creatures performing the labors of brutes, [2]—surely the sorrow which the spectacle moves, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... self-sacrifice in the cause of suffering humanity having been absolute, and who have nobly vindicated every claim made by their sex to full equality with men in all that serves to dignify human nature. Her rightful place is among "the noble army of martyrs," for her life was undoubtedly very much shortened by her many cares and heavy responsibilities and excessive labors in behalf of the pitiable objects of her sympathy ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... children, one by one, suggesting sentences, which are shaped and corrected by the teacher and then written up on the blackboard, until there are enough of them to fill one page of an ordinary exercise book. Then the whole essay (if one must dignify it with that name) is copied out, very neatly and carefully, by every child in the class; and the result is shown to the inspector as original composition. At other times or in other schools the class teacher does not go quite so far ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... in England is one entitled "Modern State Trials" by William C. Townsend, in two octavos. In the Times of the second of January we find a reviewal of it, characteristically pungent. "Why Mr. Townsend conceived it necessary to dignify his collection with the above solemn title," says the critic, "we are at a loss to conjecture. Madame Tussaud does not invite a curiosity-seeking public to her museum of horrors by disguising the naked hideousness of her groups, or by lending them a factitious grace which it is hardly their ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... King; her summons brought him at once within the ban of that judgment to which she had called him. It would be well if one could believe the story; there would seem a dramatic justice—a tragic retribution—about it. Its very terror would dignify the story of a life that, on the whole, was commonplace and vulgar. But, for ourselves, we confess that we cannot believe in the mysterious letter, the fatal summons, the sudden fulfilment. There ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... management of your voice, in the excellence of your delivery, I see that you are one of the few who deem that the Divine Word should not be unworthily uttered. The debater on beer bills may be excused from studying the orator's effects; but all that enforce, dignify, adorn, make the becoming studies of him who strives by eloquence to people heaven; whose task it is to adjure the thoughtless, animate the languid, soften the callous, humble the proud, alarm the guilty, comfort the sorrowful, call back to the fold the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... narrow sphere of our particular and immediate relations and circumstances. But, as our notice is extended in the observation of those who have lived before us, our materials for reflection and sources of instruction are multiplied. The virtues we admire in our ancestors not only adorn and dignify their names, but win us to their imitation. Their prosperity and happiness spread abroad a diffusive light that reaches us, and brightens our condition. The wisdom that guided their footsteps becomes, at the same time, a lamp ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... that greet our ears are the noisy tones of some watermen, who are loitering on the building of wooden logs and boards, which we, as do the good people of Victoria, dignify with the undeserved title of PIER. There they stand in their waterproof caps and skins—tolerably idle and exceedingly independent—with one eye on the look out for a fare, and the other cast longingly towards the open doors of Liardet's public-house, ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... can perceive not one of those higher attributes of Poesy which belong to her in all circumstances and throughout all time. Here everything is art, nakedly, or but awkwardly concealed. No prepossession for the mere antique (and in this case we can imagine no other prepossession) should induce us to dignify with the sacred name of poetry, a series, such as this, of elaborate and threadbare compliments, stitched, apparently, together, without fancy, without plausibility, and without even an attempt ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... goatherd."[1334] The story told by Plutarch, of a voice heard crying on the coast of Epirus, "Great Pan is dead," arose from some misapprehension, but no precise explanation of its origin has been given.[1335] Poets like Pindar and Vergil, disposed to preserve and dignify the old traditions, treat Pan respectfully and sympathetically, but such constructions ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... should think, one of the community; he has, apparently, the manners of the well bred and accomplished gentleman." "And for that very reason, Sir, is the better qualified to 29 carry on his profession with impunity; he whom you dignify with the appellation of a well bred and accomplished gentleman, is all that you have expressed of him, with the exception of one word, that is, substitute for gentleman, swindler, and the character is justly delineated. This fellow, of desperate enterprize, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... and I was affraid that from the Goodness of their Hearts they might be indued to give their Suffrages for a Man, who, they might conceive had done them eminent Services in other Stations, without a due Consideration whether he possesses those excellent Qualities which should characterize and dignify their chiefe Magistrate. Our present Governors may probably stamp the moral as well as political Character of the People. I shall most heartily rejoyce, if the "Abilities and disinterested Zeal" of the Gentleman called to fill the Chair prove adequate to the strong ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... has a voice, I have got the ghost of it! When I pitch it low, you may say how weak it is, When I pitch it high, heavens! what a squeak it is! But I never mind; for what does it signify? See my graceful hands, they're the things that dignify; All the rest is froth, and egotism's dizziness— Have I not played with Phelps? (To Wenman) I'll ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... Orange River Constitutions and the great settlement resulting therefrom will be by itself as a single event sufficient to vindicate in the eyes of future generations the administration of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and to dignify his memory in Parliaments and periods which we shall not see. But our work abroad is not yet completed, has not yet come to its full fruition. If we should continue, as I expect we shall, to direct public affairs ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... dignify and sanctify all the external marks of the sect, and it becomes a cardinal principle of the sect to maintain them. Any neglect of them is regarded as disloyalty and is punished as heresy. Persecution may eventually, as was the case with the Puritans, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the Igorot illustrates what seems to be the first distinctively commercial activity. Preceding it is the stage of barter between people who casually meet and who trade carried possessions on the whim of the moment. If we wish to dignify this kind of barter, it may ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... think I wish to discourage all friendships with your own sex. Oh, no; they possess too great a charm to be thus rudely thrown aside. To me, there is hardly a more lovely sight in the world than the union of two congenial spirits in the tie of sincere and unselfish affection. But I do not dignify with the name of friendship those caprices of the moment, which so often assume its title and usurp its place. A young girl meets another at an assembly—she is pleased with her manners; thinks her amiable, because she smiles frequently; intellectual, ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... its true sense is supposed to ennoble and dignify a man; and love has shed refinements on innumerable Cymons. But Mr Pecksniff—perhaps because to one of his exalted nature these were mere grossnesses—certainly did not appear to any unusual advantage, now that he was left alone. On the contrary, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... may go far to dignify their daily needs," said Robert. "For instance, a poor man about to buy his to-morrow's dinner may feel his soul take a little fly above the prices ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and sleep. Idle men, who have not been at the pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves, are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very subject to decry those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes to discover. Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the name of critics, are the genuine descendants of these two illustrious ancestors. They are often led into these numerous absurdities in which they daily instruct the people, by not considering that, first, there is sometimes a greater judgment shown in ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... 1853, in spite of the Elector's opposition. In 1857 he was pensioned, and two years later died. He was born a musician and died one, and in his long and honorable life he was always true to his art and did much to ennoble and dignify it, notwithstanding the curious combinations in his musical texture. He never could understand or appreciate Beethoven. He proclaimed himself a disciple of Mozart, though he had little in common ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... far as to wrest from Chinese leaves, from Egyptian beans, from seeds of Mexico, their perfume, their treasure, their soul; going so far as to chisel the diamond, chase the silver, melt the gold ore, paint the clay and woo every art that may serve to decorate and to dignify the bowl from which he feeds!—how can this king, after having hidden under folds of muslin covered with diamonds, studded with rubies, and buried under linen, under folds of cotton, under the rich hues of silk, under the fairy patterns of lace, the partner of his wretchedness, how ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... find that the play-rhymes, originating from the "call" and "response," are really little dramas when presented in their proper settings. "Caught By The Witch" would not be ineffective if, on a dark night, it were acted in the vicinity of a graveyard! And one ballad—if I may be permitted to dignify it by that name—called "Promises of Freedom" is characterized by an unadorned narrative style and a dramatic ending which are associated with the best English folk-ballads. The singer tells simply and, one feels, with a grim impersonality of ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... character. The heart that has never known sorrow itself will seldom be feelingly alive to the pains and pleasures, the wants and wishes, of its fellow beings. It will seldom be overflowing with that warmth of brotherly love, those kind and amiable affections, which dignify the human character even more than the possession of the highest talents. Talents, indeed, though undoubtedly a very prominent and fine feature of mind, can by no means be considered as constituting the whole of it. There are many minds which have not been exposed to those excitements ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... is the complement or counterpart of the other, and that, alone, each is but a half sphere, and imperfectly rounded at that, I should more nearly approach to accuracy. To make the perfect whole which the Creator had in His idea, the two halves must be united. And so I dignify the oldest of human institutions—marriage. I accord to it the very perfection of wisdom, beauty, utility, adaptation. I am aware that in so speaking I hold to an old-fashioned belief, and tread incontinently, not only on a notion afloat among some of the strong-minded of my sex at ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Battle of Prague." Mrs. Tag-rag, a fat, showily dressed woman of about fifty, her cap having a prodigious number of artificial flowers in it, sat reading a profitable volume, entitled "Groans from the Bottomless Pit to Awaken Sleeping Sinners," by (as he was pleased to dignify himself) the Rev. DISMAL HORROR—a very rousing young dissenting preacher lately come into that neighborhood, and who had almost frightened into fits half the women and children, and one or two old men, of his congregation; giving out, among several similarly cheering intimations, that they must ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... true original of the well-known sign of Mother REDCAP. Who knows but that late posterity, when, what is regarded by us now as fashion, shall have long been classed among the superstitious observances of an age gone by, may dignify their signs with the antiquated personification of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... is, and tractable, though wild; And Innocence hath privilege in her, To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes And feats of cunning, and the pretty round Of trespasses, affected to provoke Mock chastisement and partnership in play. And, as a fagot sparkles on the hearth Not less if unattended and alone Than when both young ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... the Kingdom and the Empire—and so the modern Frenchman and Italian are accustomed to settle their differences by an appeal to what they still call 'arms,' for the sake of what modern society is pleased to dignify by the ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... are found locked on the inside—the man dead in a pool of his own blood. The clearing up of this mystery leads the reader through many exciting adventures. "Something exceptional in the way of detective stories. It is such stories as these that dignify the art of fiction ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... dead, and she is grieved. Six feet of earth is all he has, who formerly owned all this land, and who was indeed its ornament. [314] It is a pity he lived so short a while. A woman cannot bear a shield, nor does she know how to fight with lance. It would exalt and dignify her again if she should marry some worthy lord. Never was there greater need than now; do all of you recommend that she take a spouse, before the custom shall lapse which has been observed in this town for more than the past sixty years." At this, ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... fit for serene days and graceful gifts and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive and add rhyme and reason ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... come, but all the rest yielded easily to her entreaties. Mrs. Rose was delighted with the success of Lady Acacia and Mrs. Larch in their solicitations with the Forest and Fir Trees, whose majestic appearance and respectable characters she imagined would dignify her fete, never considering her own littleness might appear to them despicable; but from them she had nothing to fear, as they were too well bred to attend any meeting to ridicule it. 'Tis true when they did grace ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... vain, Seems recompens'd at full;—and so wou'd seem Did not maturer Sons of Phoebus deem My verse Aonian.—Thou, in time, shalt gain, Like them, amid the letter'd World, that sway Which makes encomium fame;—so thou adorn, Extend, refine and dignify thy lay, And Indolence, and Syren Pleasure scorn; Then, at high noon, thy Genius shall display The splendors promis'd in ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... year more may confirm my destiny and ripen hope into success: then—then, I may perhaps throw off a disguise that, while it befriended, has not degraded me, and avow myself to her! Yet how much better to dignify the name I have assumed than to owe respect only to that which I have not been deemed worthy to inherit! Well, well, these are bitter thoughts; let me turn to others. How beautiful Flora looked ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... has been said, it will be easy to imagine how and why, soon after Fortitude had been honoured with the Name of Virtue, all the other Branches of Conquest over our selves were dignify'd with the same Title. We may see in it likewise the Reason of what I have always so strenuously insisted upon, viz. That no Practice, no Action or good Quality, how useful or beneficial soever they may be in them selves, can ever deserve ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... strength and character of our army are thus impaired. Infected with the mercenary spirit of robbery and rapine, familiarized to the horrid scenes of savage cruelty, it can no longer boast of the noble and generous principles which dignify a soldier, no longer sympathize with the dignity of the royal banner, nor feel the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war, "that make ambition virtue!" What makes ambition virtue?—the sense of honor. But is the sense of honor consistent with a spirit of plunder, or ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... doubtful whether we should dignify by the name of ancestor-worship the older Roman festival of the Lemuria, which was held on the 9th, 11th and 13th of May. For the lemures were, like our unlaid ghosts, unburied, mischievous or inimical ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... any part in it, and without observing the characters of the persons, or the subjects of the conversation; but are either thinking of some trifle, foreign to the present purpose, or often not thinking at all; which silly and idle suspension of thought they would dignify with the name of ABSENCE and DISTRACTION. They go afterward, it may be, to the play, where they gape at the company and the lights; but without minding the very thing they went ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... it; and my hand shook so, I spilled some of my chocolate, and so put it down again; and they were all very good, and looked another way. My master said, when Abraham was out, I have a quite plain ring here, Mr. Peters: And I hope the ceremony will dignify the ring; and that I shall give my girl reason to think it, for that cause, the most valuable one that can be presented her. Mr. Peters said, He was sure I should value it more than the richest ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... will marry. If then you should ever think of marriage, think of it as a duty; and not merely as the means of self gratification, or the indulgence of some childish and irrational passion, which irrational people dignify with the name of love. Let the affection you conceive for woman be founded on the qualities ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... never ashamed! I ask for whatever I want, and I do not always wait to ask before I take it. Those who are deprived by their own diffidence dignify their privation by the name of modesty. The world into which we are born is the world of reality. When a man goes away from the market of real things with empty hands and empty stomach, merely filling his bag with big sounding ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... great number of particulars as to the burial customs of various nations, we find mention made of an odd way in which the natives of Thibet dignify their great people. They do not desecrate such by giving them to the earth, but retain a number of sacred dogs to devour them. Not less strange was the fancy of that Englishwoman, a century or two back, who had her husband burnt to ashes, and these ashes reduced to powder, of ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... to yourself without being neglected. Your bell may not be emulously answered by all the menials on the establishment, but a smug or shock-headed drawer appears in good time; and if mine host may not always dignify your dinner by the deposition of the first dish, yet, influenced by the rumour that soon spreads through the premises, he bows farewell at your departure, with a shrewd suspicion that you are a nobleman ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... more or less maudlin condition. The latter sensation quickly undermined the former; he turned his back on the rector and leant over the railings of the lane, shaken by something it is hardly worth while to dignify by the name of emotion. Robert stood by, a pale embodiment of mingled judgment and compassion. He gave the man a few moments to recover himself, and then, as Henslowe turned round again, he silently and appealingly held out his hand—the hand of the good man, which it was an honour ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... continue to act according to your wishes. I am not called upon to proclaim to the world and my acquaintance that I am the daughter of my own servant, and that you were kind enough to marry your estimable mistress after my birth in order to confer upon me what you dignify by the name of legitimacy. No. That is not necessary. If it could hurt you to proclaim it I would do so in the most public way I could find. But it is folly to suppose that you could be made to suffer by ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... the case of the stickleback, the father helps the mother to build a sort of nest, and does "sentry-go" outside it to keep off marauders. In this common care of the young we see what is in all essentials marriage, though some may prefer to dignify the word by confining it to those human associations which have been blessed by Church and State, even though the father throws the baby at the mother, or sends her into the streets to earn ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... the Baron, his eyes more friendly than those of his guest. "I, too, have taken to the highway, Poynter, on yonder motorcycle and I have lost my way." He sniffed in disgust. "I am dining," he added dryly, "if one may dignify the damnable proceeding by that name, on potatoes which I do not in the least know how to bake without reducing them to cinders. I bought them a while back at a desolate, God-forsaken farmhouse. Heaven deliver me ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... modest by living on a poultry farm, for there are constant expositions of the most deplorable vanity among the cocks. We have a couple of pea-fowl who certainly are an addition to the landscape, as they step mincingly along the square of turf we dignify by the name of lawn. The head of the house has a most languid and self-conscious strut, and his microscopic mind is fixed entirely on his splendid trailing tail. If I could only master his language sufficiently to tell him how ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... sharing with her for the first time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had always before been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to the first stages of courtships. This new experience appeared to dignify their relation, and weave them together with a new strand. ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... and funereal ceremonies mingled. It was an essential part of the lessons given the Initiates, to teach them the relations of their own souls with Universal Nature, the greatest lessons of all, meant to dignify man in his own eyes, and teach him his place in the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... never been written, at all events by his favourite theologian, whose sermons he read every Sunday afternoon, and annotated with that same loving appreciation and careful pencil with which a scholar annotates some classic; so true is it that it is we who dignify our ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... service, now embodied in a shape so wild and alarming, as seemed to justify him, on grounds of public safety, in turning against them the hole powers of his mind, and thus enabled him, opportunely, to dignify desertion, by throwing the semblance of patriotism and conscientiousness round the reality of defection and revenge. He saw the party, too, who, from the moment they had ceased to be ruled by him, were associated ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... no reason why the old gentleman's mental derangement should dignify his friend with titles he had never borne. She remarked to herself that his answer to Euphemia was evasive; she remembered his emotion and apology on seeing Mr. C. Kemble in Adelbert; and uniting with these ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... goal, the joyous sun His twelfth diurnal race begins to run. Meantime my train the friendly gifts prepare, The sprightly coursers and a polish'd car; With these a goblet of capacious mould, Figured with art to dignify the gold (Form'd for libation to the gods), shall prove A pledge and monument of ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... in most of the mechanic arts is, however, far simpler than the science of cutting metals. In almost all cases, in fact, the laws or rules which are developed are so simple that the average man would hardly dignify them with the name of a science. In most trades, the science is developed through a comparatively simple analysis and time study of the movements required by the workmen to do some small part of his work, and this study is usually made by a man equipped merely with a stop-watch ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... object? And would it be quite safe to assume so promptly that the quality q of a feeling is one and the same thing with a feeling of the quality q? The quality q, so far, is an entirely subjective fact which the feeling carries so to speak endogenously, or in its pocket. If any one pleases to dignify so simple a fact as this by the name of knowledge, of course nothing can prevent him. But let us keep closer to the path of common usage, and reserve the name knowledge for the cognition of 'realities,' meaning by realities things that exist independently of the feeling through which their cognition ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... one; and a few with whom, during the energetic middle stage of life, from political differences or other accidental circumstances, he lived less familiarly, had all gathered round him, and renewed the full warmth of early affection in his later days. There was enough to dignify the connexion in their eyes; but nothing to chill it on either side. The imagination that so completely mastered him when he chose to give her the rein, was kept under most determined control when any of the positive obligations of active life came into question. ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... like a scene in a great tragedy, and then I fully understood the worship she had won as belonging only to those consummate artists who have arisen to dignify and ennoble the lyric stage. As we left the house Procter said, "You are in great luck to-night. I never heard ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... is often added to names of things which we frequently hear personified, or which we wish to dignify, and to names of periods of time, and to words denoting value; as, the earth's surface, fortune's smile, eternity's stillness, a year's interest, a day's work, a dollar's worth, ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... self-forgetfulness, and self-sacrifice which women exhibit daily without being conscious that they have done anything especially creditable. They experience, so far as their own words and acts furnish evidence of their feelings, a sort of lukewarm emotion which they dignify with the name of love. But they not merely suspect without the slightest provocation, they give up the men to whom they have pledged the devotion of their lives, for reasons for which no one would think of abandoning ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... his invention to the country's legislators assembled in Congress, in order to obtain a generous appropriation to enable him properly to test it. But he had not taken into account that trait of human nature which I shall dignify by calling it "conservatism," in order not to ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... for there had grown a firm bond of sympathy between them. The old huskie had learned that a character may dignify a calling, and that a true heart often beats beneath a racing harness; while Baldy had long since discovered that Dubby's aloofness was but the inevitable loneliness of a Dog that ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... site of a bishopric until the Revolution, and has a cathedral which is visited by a certain number of tourists. In the spring of 1883 an Englishman arrived at this old-world place—I can hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants. He was a Cambridge man, who had come specially from Toulouse to see St. Bertrand's Church, and had left two friends, who were less keen archaeologists than himself, in their ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... statue—without feeling or failing; and yet the world in general hath given me a proud pre-eminence over them in profligacy. Yet I like the men, and, God knows, ought not to condemn their aberrations. But I own I feel provoked when they dignify all this by the name of love—romantic attachments for things marketable for ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... he could have given Sargent points. The main strength of her feeling for anyone, deep instinct told him, was an insatiable demand that they should feel sufficiently for her. And the chief difficulty—he refused to dignify it by the name of danger—was that Madame von Marwitz had her deep instincts, too, and had, no doubt, found out all sorts of things about him. He did not like her; he had not liked her from the first; and she could hardly fail to feel that he liked her ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... be reconciled to us, and we reconciled to it, are moderation, gentleness, a little indulgence to others, and a great deal of distrust of ourselves; which are not qualities of a mean spirit, as some may possibly think them, but virtues of a great and noble kind, and such as dignify our nature as much as they contribute to our repose and fortune; for nothing can be so unworthy of a well-composed soul, as to pass away life in bickerings and litigations, in snarling and scuffling with every one about us. Again and again, my dear,—we must be at peace with our species; ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... interesting, is the dull one. We have Boz described as he would be in an encyclopaedia, instead of through Forster, acting as his interpreter, and much was lost by this treatment. Considering the homeliness and every-day character of the incidents, it is astonishing how Forster contrived to dignify them. He knew from early training what was valuable and significant and ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... of every difficulty, and the addition of every fresh item of knowledge to their previous store; trained also in habits of healthfulness and of amiability; will not only cheerfully give themselves to study, but will also seek to dignify by their conduct and to improve by practice the knowledge they progressively acquire, soon understanding, among other things, why they are sent to school and the importance of that education, part of which they are to ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... That one night in the open had shaken his nerves. Until then there had been left to him at least a few grounds upon which he could base his unblushing demands upon his neighbours' stores. Now he must beg instead of borrowing. The most brazen sophistry could not dignify by the name of "loan" the coin contemptuously flung to a beachcomber who slept on the bare boards of the ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... unhardened by the commerce of the world. There is, indeed, an unpleasant side to his Confessions. Rousseau, like most explorers, became obsessed by his own discoveries; he pushed the introspective method to its farthest limits; the sanctity of the individual seemed to him not only to dignify the slightest idiosyncrasies of temperament and character, but also, in some sort of way, to justify what was positively bad. Thus his book contains the germs of that Byronic egotism which later became the fashion all over Europe. It is also, ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... again named them to the Queen at the moment they saluted her; if she and the tirewoman were absent, the first woman took the place and did that duty. The ladies of the bedchamber, chosen solely as companions for the Queen, had no domestic duties to fulfil, however opinion might dignify such offices. The King's letter in appointing them, among other instructions of etiquette, ran thus: "having chosen you to bear the Queen company." There were hardly any emoluments ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... that by the blood of Christ we have not redemption from law, and justice, as to the condemning part of both, but that rather this title is given to it for honour and glory, to dignify it; as the name of God is also given to him: for they that affirm the one, are bold to affirm the other. For as by them is concluded, that there is no necessity why the blood of Christ should be counted the absolutely necessary price of our redemption ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... conclusions. With organic infusions he obtained the results of his celebrated predecessor, but he did much more—the atoms and molecules of inorganic liquids passing under his manipulation into those more 'complex chemical compounds,' which we dignify by calling them 'living organisms.' [Footnote: 'It is further held that bacteria or allied organisms are prone to be engendered as correlative products, coming into existence in the several fermentations, just as independently ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... say that among the things purchased by Harold, and packed up in portable form, were a number of bales of common unbleached cotton, which is esteemed above everything by the natives of Africa as an article of dress—if we may dignify by the name of dress the little piece, about the size of a moderate petticoat, which is the only clothing of some, or the small scrap round the loins which is the sole covering of other, natives of the interior! There were also several coils of thick brass wire, which is ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... hunts, I after love: He leaves his friends to dignify them more; I leave myself, my friends, and all, for love. 65 Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me, Made me neglect my studies, lose my time, War with good counsel, set the world at nought; Made wit with musing ...
— Two Gentlemen of Verona - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... the hall, and about the same number of Indian caciques are daubed upon a piece of papyrus that is fastened upon the opposite wall. It requires the greatest possible stretch of liberality for one accustomed to Indian efforts of this kind to dignify such intolerable daubs with the name of paintings. And yet this is the picture-writing of the Aztecs, with which the world has been so edified for centuries. If there is or ever was an Iroquois Indian that should undertake to stain so miserably, I verily believe he would be expelled ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... the roots of the dead languages; but erudition does not naturally furnish them with its resources. The most ignorant, it sometimes happens, will use them most. The eminently democratic desire to get above their own sphere will often lead them to seek to dignify a vulgar profession by a Greek or Latin name. The lower the calling is, and the more remote from learning, the more pompous and erudite is its appellation. Thus the French rope-dancers have transformed themselves into acrobates ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... talk to mothers and their daughters on the responsibility, power and maternal duties of woman. These counsels should do much to dignify and elevate parenthood to the place intended by ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... this period, when the relation between the races seemed most strained, there loomed on the horizon the Booker Washington idea, "That the kind of education most needed by our people was that which would dignify, beautify, and make attractive and desirable country life and at the same time fit our people for high and useful citizenship." Mr. Washington further contended that any education which did not manifest itself in the practical daily life of the people was ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... sent for the nearest Jesuit priest to mediate, and he luckily, or unluckily, proved to be that Father Thadeus Ennis, who played so prominent a part in the futile rising which the enemies of the Jesuits have chosen to dignify with the high-sounding title of ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... occasionally vehement, but superficial and transitory, may consist too well with a course of conduct, exhibiting incontestable proofs of neglect and unkindness. But the passion, which alone the Holy Scriptures dignify with the name of Love, is a deep, not a superficial feeling; a fixed and permanent, not an occasional emotion. It proves the validity of its title, by actions corresponding with its nature, by practical endeavours to gratify the wishes and to promote ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... Granitarium. Worms'-meat is usually outlasted by the structure that houses it, but "this too must pass away." Probably the silliest work in which a human being can engage is construction of a tomb for himself. The solemn purpose cannot dignify, but only accentuates by ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... gleam of vivid colour was visible when they quickly turned, and Atma was in the act of parting the myrtle boughs, when, anticipating him, Lal Singh stepped forth from retreat. Silken attire and splendour of jewelled turban were insufficient to dignify his crestfallen demeanour, which, however, changed rapidly when he darted a glance of rage and hate at Bertram, who had greeted his sudden ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... have many, princess, judging from your standpoint; but you cannot right them by committing greater ones. Nothing can dignify or ennoble deliberate assassination, or wanton, cruel, secret murder. The nihilists ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... while for Thomson to pen such a passage as this:—'Your example sir, has recommended poetry with the greatest grace to the example of those who are engag'd in the most active scenes of life; and this, though confessedly the least considerable of those qualities that dignify your character, must be particularly pleasing to one whose only hope of being introduced to your regard is thro' the recommendation of an art in which you are a master.' ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... herd to one grovelling level—human swine rooting after the concrete token of power. Here, in later years, the wicked arm of power will be given golden hammers to beat down all before it. Here will that generation arise wherein the golden helmet can dignify the idle ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... neighbour has, we must have too, or we shall be mortified, envious. Nay, so strong is this temper of rivalry, of allowing no superiors, grown in us, that we have made now-a-days a god of what used to be considered the basest of all vices—the vice of envy— and dignify it with the names of equality and independence. Men in this temper of mind cannot be at peace. They are not content; ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... reformer, as editor, as teacher, above all as an example of the type of scholarly gentleman that the new world was able to produce, he perhaps did more than any of his contemporaries to dignify American literature at home and to ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... ensued, which I shall dignify with the name of the battle of Falling Waters, for a real battle it was, although it is not mentioned in the histories that I have read, and the number engaged was small. On one side were portions of ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... of wires or threads is made use of in measuring forces, I have arranged what I can hardly dignify by the name of an experiment. It is simply a straw hung horizontally by a piece of wire. Resting on the straw is a fragment of sheet iron weighing ten grains. A magnet so weak that it cannot lift ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... was born in Wexford, where her father kept a "general shop." Moore used to say playfully, that he was called, in order to dignify his occupation, "a provision merchant." When on his way to Bannow in 1835 to spend a few days with his friend Thomas Boyse,—a genuine gentleman of the good old school,—he records his visit to the house of his maternal ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... dreaming by the sight of three men coming up the hill. He smiled faintly in anticipation of the things Francis and the rest of them would say about the new Governor's arriving on foot. Leyman had requested that the inaugural parade be done away with—but one would suppose he would at least dignify the occasion by arriving in a carriage. Francis would see that the opposing papers handled it as a grand-stand play to the ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... accordingly, the Dutch are fond of it, as they are of smoaking, of the sedative influence of which, though he himself never smoaked, he had a high opinion[936]. Besides, there is in draughts some exercise of the faculties; and, accordingly, Johnson wishing to dignify the subject in his Dedication with what is most estimable in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... inseparable from it. We observe it in children, who at an early period discover a desire of information, and perpetually seek it by questioning those more advanced. The same disposition is resident in adults, and productive of the attainments in science which both delight the mind and dignify the man. In heaven, the glorified spirit, hath doubtless advantages for attaining the knowledge of God and divine things, and opportunity to satisfy his desire after it, if it can be satisfied; for it is itself a happiness. It gives a zest to information, and will probably continue, ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... scene of conflict. In a little triangular tract of country on the east shore of Jamaica, hemmed in between the sea and the Blue Mountains, twenty-five miles long and two thirds as wide, occurred in October last what Governor Eyre has seen fit to dignify with the name of an insurrection. The first act of violence was committed at Morant Bay,—a town where it is said that no missionary to the blacks has been permitted to live for thirty-five years,—in the parish of St. Thomas in the East,—that very St. Thomas, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... when the bell sounded the end of the class on Planetary Geography and it was time to go to the class on Animal Physiology, Plato picked himself up and walked out. One of the 'copter custodians looked at him suspiciously, but Plato didn't dignify the man by paying ...
— Runaway • William Morrison
... reasonings regarding the forces of nature, we perpetually make use of symbols which, when they possess a high representative value, we dignify with the name of theories. Thus, prompted by certain analogies, we ascribe electrical phenomena to the action of a peculiar fluid, sometimes flowing, sometimes at rest. Such conceptions have their advantages and their disadvantages; they afford peaceful lodging to the intellect for ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... the truncheons make a far better coal for gun-powder than that of alder it self; Scriblets for painters first draughts are also made of its coals; and the extraordinary candor and lightness, has dignify'd it above all the woods of our forest, in the hands of the Right Honourable the White-Stave officers of His Majesty's Imperial Court. Those royal plantations of these trees in the parks of Hampton-court, and St. James's, will ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... Suppose she should go, and all should be as it had been, only a little older, a little more quiet and peaceful? The very fancy filled her heart with sudden calm. A love so deep and sure, so broad and sweet—could it not dignify any woman's life? And she had been thought worthy and had refused this love! ...
— A Reversion To Type • Josephine Daskam
... ground or meaning of what they do, they feel content and safe if at least they have done it properly. Sacrifices are often performed in this spirit; and when a beautiful order and religious calm have come to dignify the performance, the mind, having meantime very little to occupy it, may embroider on the given theme. It is then that fable, and new religious sentiments suggested by fable, appear ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... He will regret the pain he has caused; he will want to forget and be forgiven quickly though he may not go through the formality of an apology. A formal apology and reconciliation will, in his judgment, dignify the episode and make a mountain out of a molehill. The wife will be wise to so regard it though it is an injustice to her. The husband will not underestimate the importance of the event, however, and in many ways will be a better ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... "Why you should dignify an ugly jealousy by fine words I don't know. For some women—women like our old friend—gratitude is hard. That is the moral of ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and generosity as belonging indefeasibly, if not exclusively, to the privileged orders. His notions of virtue were certainly aristocratic in the extreme, but his ambition was to entertain such only as would best support and dignify an aristocracy. His pride was magnanimous, not insolent; and his social prejudices were such as, in some degree, to supply the place of the power and habit of reasoning, in which he was totally deficient. One principle ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... interest; and Jerom, or Ambrose, might patiently acquiesce in the justice of an ineffectual or salutary law. If the ecclesiastics were checked in the pursuit of personal emolument, they would exert a more laudable industry to increase the wealth of the church; and dignify their covetousness with the specious names ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... absurdities of those who have gone before, and devising new errors and absurdities, to be detected by those who are to come after us. Theories are the mighty soap-bubbles with which the grown-up children of science amuse themselves while the honest vulgar stand gazing in stupid admiration, and dignify these learned vagaries with the name of wisdom! Surely Socrates was right in his opinion, that philosophers are but a soberer sort of madmen, busying themselves in things totally incomprehensible, or which, if ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... all which is peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth's theory, Mr. Southey dissents perhaps as widely and as determinately as Mr. Coleridge; dissents, that is to say, not as the numerous blockheads among the male blue-stockings who dignify their ignorance with the name of dissent—but as one man of illustrious powers dissents from what he deems after long examination the errors of another; as Leibnitz on some occasions dissented from Plato, or as the great modern philosopher of Germany occasionally dissents from Leibnitz. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... who has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes, ever after, the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers generally admire some half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the name of poet; his tawdry lampoons are called satires, his turbulence is said to be force, and his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... the fashion of these rebels," said he, "to dignify themselves as soldiers and claim the honours of war. But when we get hold of them they will learn that there is a difference between felony and warfare. Can you not persuade your brother out of it? I hear ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... that I—for you make the personal application—shall be better able henceforth to win men's love, because—ah, surely, Dr. Marmion, you do not dignify this impulse, this foolishness of yours, by the name of love!" She smiled a little satirically at ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... names upon the stage, the safety of individuals from those butcher slanderers was secured, and that safety begat tranquillity—thus the theatre was gradually purified and enriched; and shortly after Menander arose to dignify comedy and rescue the drama, and the public taste of Greece from barbarism. This is the third division alluded to, and is called the NEW COMEDY. A sad proof of the danger to a nation of allowing a false or corrupt practice to prevail for any time, arises ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... delicious snugness, a charming lack of formality, about the ceremony of afternoon tea in an English country-house—it is much too indefinite a rite to dignify it by the name of meal—which makes it the most pleasant reunion of the day. For English country-house parties consist, for the most part, of a succession of meals to which the guests flock the more congenially as, in ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... body of ignorant, superstitious, self-seeking and thoroughly dishonest men. One may, without prejudice, reasonably defend the Catholic clergy. They are men who, at worst, pursue an intelligible ideal and dignify it with a real sacrifice. But in the presence of the Methodist clergy it is difficult to avoid giving way to the weakness of indignation. What one observes is a horde of uneducated and inflammatory ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... party aspect, no influence of passion or prejudice, or any motive but the desire to promote the good of my country. Our national and material interests must be fully considered, as also those great moral principles and intellectual developments which exalt and dignify the character of man. I shall examine the subject inductively and deductively, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the great creators of wit in our mistresses. For Beatrix, she is a mere utterer of yes and no, and has no more sense than what will just dignify her to be an arrant waiting-woman; that is, to lie for her ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... composed, I was not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I should have endeavoured to dignify the subject by an attempt to celebrate his courage and his virtues. With some account of his life I have been furnished, by the kindness of a citizen of that republic, which is still proud of the memory of a man worthy of the best age of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... long-encouraged truckling to the sets of men, whom he was accustomed to dignify with the name of the public, had a profound deference or the principles, character, and station of Mr. Effingham, that no sophistry, or self-encouragement in the practices of social confusion, could ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... respects to Reuben. From Sarah, comforting herself behind her widow's weeds with the doctrine of original sin, to Archie, eager to give his sweetheart a drive, one and all had been moved by a genuine impulse to dignify as far as lay in their power the ceremonial of decay. Even Abner, the silent, had remarked that he'd "never heard a word said against Reuben Merryweather in his life." And now at the end of that life the neighbours had gathered amid the ridges of green graves in the churchyard to bear witness ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... cannot bring myself to dignify it with a higher name —is a wretched parody on the last French revolution. Were I King William, I would banish the Belgians, as Coriolanus banishes ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... in itself particularly mysterious; any one of a dozen explanations was possible (though none has occurred to me), yet it impressed me strangely, the more, perhaps, from my friend's effort to reassure me, which seemed to dignify it with a certain significance and importance. He had proved that no one was there, but in that fact lay all the interest; and he proffered no explanation. His silence was irritating ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce |
