"Meaning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... name is aw-li on-nam ot-tjin, meaning: playon-nam fish. An essential of the game is an oblong block of heavy wood which on its upper surface is provided with two rows of shallow holes, ten in each row, also a larger one at each end. The implement is called tu-tung ot-tjin, as is also both of the large single holes at the ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... ordering George were those of the softest entreaty which command ever wore. He loved to rely upon George, who was such a broken reed in some things, though so stanch in others, and the fervent Republican in politics that Clemens then liked him to be. He could interpret Clemens's meaning to the public without conveying his mood, and could render his roughest answer smooth to the person denied his presence. His general instructions were that this presence was to be denied all but ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... hands clasped in front of her, and looking ahead into the vista of soft mysterious lights and dark shadows that the moon cast upon the road. Neither of them spoke, and as the silence continued unbroken, it took a weightier significance, and at each added second of time became more full of meaning. ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... and noisy soldiers, and the shopkeepers and their apprentices, and the general people in the streets. At that time the King's friends called the crowd, Roundheads, because the apprentices wore short hair; the crowd, in return, called their opponents Cavaliers, meaning that they were a blustering set, who pretended to be very military. These two words now began to be used to distinguish the two sides in the civil war. The Royalists also called the Parliamentary men Rebels and Rogues, while ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... me, nor could any throw so far with the sling or spear. And I much yearned to hunt the lion; but he whom I called my father forbade me, telling me that my life was of too great worth to be so lightly hazarded. But when I bowed before him and prayed he would make his meaning clear to me, the old man frowned and answered that the Gods made all things clear in their own season. For my part, however, I went away in wroth, for there was a youth in Abouthis who with others had slain a lion which fell upon his father's herds, and, being envious of my strength and beauty, ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... his heart: and if he had hoped to find pardon for the fault he had committed, there is no doubt that he would have gone back. Indeed, to try his fortune, he sought to see whether his talents might be helpful to him in the matter. Thus he painted a picture of a half-naked S. John the Baptist, meaning to send it to the Grand Master of France, to the end that he might occupy himself with restoring the painter to the favour of the King. However, whatever may have been the reason, he never sent it after all, but ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... sympathizes with him. He is afraid to be afraid, he is ashamed to be ashamed. Nothing can equal this moment of agony. The whole room looks black before him as some chipper little girl, who knows not the meaning of the word "embarrassment," comes to greet him. He crawls off to the friendly shelter of a group of boys, and sees the "craven of the playground, the dunce of the school," with a wonderful self-possession, lead off in the german with the prettiest girl. As he grows older, and becomes the young ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... Fox's sallow face. Knowing the game to be in his own hands, he could quietly bide his time; so, assuming a tone of much moderation and dignity, he replied, he had no wish to be hard, and could be reasonable also. "But," added he, in a meaning tone, "there must be no double work in this matter. Mr. Allen must see what I am worth to him—nothing could be plainer. His best policy now is to act promptly and liberally toward me, for I pledge you my word that if I see any disposition to evade my requirements I will ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... make it better known. Except in a very few instances—as Haydn's 'Seasons,' e.g.—Oratorios, from some conventional idea of Lent, we may suppose, seem obligated to concern matters sacred. Of course, every body is aware of the prayerful meaning of the name; but we know also that a madrigal has long ago put off its monkish robe of a hymn to the Virgin, and worn the more laic habit of a love song. Now, it is a fact, that very many good men who delight in Handel's melody, and of course cannot object ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Secretary and Treasurer to grant the insignificant sum of two hundred pounds to the necessitous widow of Samuel Wilson, who was killed by being run over by a trolley on our beautiful jetty. Does the Colonial Secretary know the meaning of the word ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... readily be inferred that the idea of making this the starting-point of a new life was clearly in his mind; while Darwin simply accepted the opportunity when it came, and was only brought to a consciousness of its full meaning and bearing on his future career whilst studying the geological aspect of Santiago when "the line of white rock revealed a new and important fact," namely, that there had been afterwards subsidence round the craters, which had since ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... Bath, a quiet and mild mannered youth, greatly distinguished himself. Captain McKessock was operating his machine guns like mad. One of the guns he turned over to "Rolly" Carmichael, the tallest man in the regiment, a daredevil who did not know the meaning of fear. With a wound in his shoulder McKessock took one gun out of the forward line, mounted it in rear of a ruin about two hundred feet behind its original position and began ripping holes through the German ranks that were appalling. He was finally overcome ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... ruler of mankind, he may be proposed as a model. Deeply impressed with the original rights of human nature, he never forgot that the end, and meaning, and aim of all just government was the happiness of the people. ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... t'ing puh lai." Knowing then that my "hearing had not come," he requisitioned my boy, for the aide-de-camp by this time was glumly peering into my doorway; but to his disgust Lao Chang also was equally unsuccessful in making me tumble to their meaning. The best room, ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... was of opinion that Mary had divined the meaning of our sign. He had said to Uncle Jake: "I go. Me ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... it with some curious, heartfelt meaning in the common words. He disappeared slowly down the passage, shading the candle with one hand to pick his way, and Rogers watched him out of sight, then turned and entered his own room, closing the door as softly ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... summer she had a letter from the place. It was from Dr. Zimmermann. There is no need here to trace the quaint German phrases, the formalism, the cold terms of science in which he made his meaning plain. It spoke of erosion; of the movement of the summer; of the action of the under-waters on the ice. And it told her, with tender sympathy oddly blended with the pride of scientific success, that he had given a year's most careful study to the place; with all his instruments of measurement he ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... but they were not satisfied. They wanted something besides promises. Some were in favor of granting supplies "in gratitude to his majesty for his gracious answer." Others thought differently. They did not see the necessity for raising money for this foreign war. They had greater enemies at home (meaning Buckingham and popery) than they had abroad. Besides, if the king would stop his waste and extravagance in bestowing honors and rewards, there would be money enough for all necessary uses. In a word, there was much debate, but nothing done. The king, after a short time, sent a ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the meaning of all this?" said Maulear to himself, as he hurried towards the villa. "Twice my being with Aminta has exercised the same effect on this unfortunate being. Can she love him? Can ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... and live in an attic with a vulgar trollop who deceives me with hair-dressers and garcons de cafe; I translate wretched books for the British public, and write articles upon contemptible pictures which deserve not even to be abused. But pray tell me what is the meaning of life?" ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... the problem of exploration has also proved advantageous on the business or financial side. A successful backer of mineral enterprises once remarked that his best prospecting was done from the rear platform of a private car,—meaning that this mode of transportation had carried him to the center of important mining activities, where the chances for large financial success showed a better percentage than in more ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... interpreter was Madame Von Marenholz. His system of education had this peculiarity which made it different from any other plan of teaching ever given to the world—it was first grasped in its full significance by women. They, sooner than men, saw its truth to nature, and its grand, far-reaching meaning, and became at once its enthusiastic disciples. But the German women are in a bondage almost unknown to their sisters of the other civilized races, therefore Froebel's reform progressed only slowly. Had his principles ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... proceeded, with her usual volubility, to relate the little nothings that had passed since the winter, flying from subject to subject, with no meaning but to be heard, and no wish but to talk, ever rapid in speech, though minute in detail. This loquacity met not with any interruption, save now and then a sarcastic remark, from Mr Gosport; for Cecilia was too ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... she gave him a worse dinner again; and then the third woman was told to give it to him, and she spread a nice table, and put the best of everything on it, and he ate and drank; and then he asked the head what was the meaning of ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... with your own singing?" Mr. Red-winged Blackbird asked him—meaning that in his opinion Mr. Meadowlark had no reason to be ashamed of ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... which promotes the material or intellectual well-being of the race, every ear of corn or boll of cotton which grows, is national in the same sense, for each one of these things goes to swell the aggregate of national prosperity and happiness of the United States; but it confounds all meaning of language to say that these things are "national," as equivalent to "Federal," so as to come within any of the classes of appropriation for which Congress is authorized by ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... a drink of water," said Anne hastily. When she came back it cost her some time and trouble to explain to Davy that a certain comma in the said catechism question made a great deal of difference in the meaning. ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... individual assent but on tradition for its sanctions. I loathed militarism in all its forms. Now ... well, I am inclined to reconsider my judgment. Seeing the end of military discipline, has shown me something of its ethical meaning—more than that, of its ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... was so by discipline. In the whole as well as the parts he requires finish and proportion. Within him there is a momentum which fills out his thought and its worded envelope to warm convexity. Only he has the fine tact and discernment to know the full meaning of each word he uses. The best style is organic in its details as well as its structure; it shows modeling, a handling of words and phrases with the pliancy and plastic effects of clay in the hands of the sculptor. ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... content to leave expert knowledge of art to the expert, to the artist and to the connoisseur. For his part as a layman he remains frankly and happily on the outside. But he feels none the less that art has an interest and a meaning even for him. Though he does not practice any art himself, he knows that he enjoys fine things, a beautiful room, noble buildings, books and plays, statues, pictures, music; and he believes that in his own fashion he is able to ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... sphere of what is to be terminated by that knowledge, your statement would be no less absurd than if you were to say 'everything on the surface of the earth has been cut down by Devadatta with one stroke'—meaning thereby that Devadatta himself and the action of cutting down are comprised among the things cut down!—The second alternative, on the other hand—according to which the knowing subject is not Brahman ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... very clearly put, but the meaning is that much more money was lost at Crockford's than on ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... bad enough to have mother examining my poor empty cottage, without having him to look on all the time through those horrid spectacles, that will magnify every defect. Just hear now how mother is thanking him for all that he has done for her children, and see what a sly meaning glance he is casting at me, looking through his glasses, as much as to say—'There's one stupid dunce of a fellow; I could never ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... and Daisy Dow are spreading?" asked Van Reypen, looking at her, quizzically, but with a glance full of meaning. "They say you and I are to announce our engagement tonight. I'm so delighted to hear it, I can't see straight; but I want your corroboration of the rumour. Oh, Patty, darling girl, you do mean it, ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... "Now," he explained kindly to Lawrence, "the ball from one of these infernal rifled concerns goes gyrating and tearing its way through you, and makes an orifice like a posthole." He illustrated his meaning with a sweeping spiral motion of ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... me in these things is that, having happened, there can be no doubt that they have some valuable and worthy meaning for me and for other people that I ought to get ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... him an ill turn, in that you are supplanting his rich father by a poor one.' He answered, 'I am sure that you would care for him as if he were your own, fearing naught that you might thereby give offence to these others' (meaning the physicians). I said, 'It would please me well to work with them in everything, and to win their support.' I thus blended my words, so that he might understand I neither despaired of the child's cure, nor was ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... a hundred yards of the signpost, the doctor stood still and uttered an exclamation, the meaning of which they were able to guess only too readily. Straining their eyes in the direction indicated, they could discern a white shadowy form hovering in the road before them. "What's that?" exclaimed the doctor in a whisper. Dell was conscious of a secret nudge as Morgan gasped—"Oh, it ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... "Are you really meaning that?" he asked wonderingly. "Only think, Angel, we did the right thing! She won't lose her picture through the carelessness of us, when she's waited and soaked nearly two hours. She's not angry ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... widely circulated are only a by-product. Aside from their service in the field of folk-lore they grappled with many another mighty task. The vast dictionary, in which German words are not only set down in their present meaning but followed throughout every stage of their etymology with their relations to their congeners in other tongues indefatigably traced out, is a marvel of erudition. Theirs also was the great Deutsche Grammatik, a philosophical ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... make huge silver candelabra, and at Fontainebleau to restore the castle gate. For the chateau of Fontainebleau Cellini executed the nymph in bronze, reclining among trophies of the chase, which may still be seen in the Louvre. It is a long-limbed, lifeless figure, without meaning—a snuff-box ornament enlarged to a gigantic size. Francis, who cannot have had good taste in art, if what Cellini makes him say be genuine, admired these designs above the bronze copies of the Vatican ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... these trying moments that the sailors were astounded to hear, amid the babel of voices, several words spoken in English. Staring about them to learn the meaning of such a strange thing, they saw a man attired as were the others, that is with only a piece of cloth about his hips, whose complexion and features showed that he belonged to the same race ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... the aptest and clearest mode of expressing much in little. No other form of speech will convey so much thought in so few words. They often compress into a few words what would else require as many sentences. But even such condensations of meaning did not—so it appears—always answer Shakespeare's purpose: he sometimes does hardly more than suggest metaphors, throwing off several of them in quick succession. We have an odd instance of this in one of Falstaff's speeches, Second Part of King Henry the ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... which they were blazoned. Accordingly, in different examples of the same Label the number of the repetitions of the Charges sometimes is found to differ. At the same time, in the earliest examples of charged Labels, the repetitions of the Charges, while devoid of any special differencing aim or meaning, may be considered to have been suggested by the sources from which the Charges themselves were derived. For example: the Label of Lancaster, No. 338, of Earl EDMOND, derived directly from the Shield of France ancient, No. 247, with its ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... culture, their intellectual powers, were the foundation upon which their little world was built. The great people who were to be found among them were proud to know these scholars and sages—it was they, and not an occasional family of rank, or still more rare man of wealth, who gave character and meaning to Edinburgh. To be received in such society was the highest privilege which a young poet could desire; and it was worthy to receive and foster and encourage that new light that came ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... mastered was "man," and the second "Mooney"—which Cavor on the spur of the moment seems to have used instead of "Selenite" for the moon race. As soon as Phi-oo was assured of the meaning of a word he repeated it to Tsi-puff, who remembered it infallibly. They mastered over one hundred English nouns ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... a tall upstanding bonnet, mitred at the top exactly like a bishop's, with the exception that it has three incisions at the side instead of a single one. These separate incisions had no doubt a symbolical meaning amongst the native races, although their allusive properties are unknown to us; but it is not an unwarrantable inference, nor inconsistent with the customs of these nations as enduring at this day, to conclude that the numbers of one, two, or three, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... To formulate requires getting outside of it, seeing it as another would see it, considering what points of contact it has with the life of another so that it may be got into such form that he can appreciate its meaning. Except in dealing with commonplaces and catch phrases one has to assimilate, imaginatively, something of another's experience in order to tell him intelligently of one's own experience. All communication is like art. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... and his friend (the artist) were visited by an ambassador from her ladyship to inquire the meaning of what she had seen. The reply was, that Mr. Murray must have her portrait, and was compelled to take what she refused to give. The result was, Wright was requested to visit her, which he did; taking with him, not the sketch, which was very good, but another, in which there was a ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... expect you to amuse me to-morrow—I want you to tell me all about yourself, and how you came to visit these wild islands of ours. Perhaps, as the days go on, and we get better acquainted, you will take me a little more into your confidence, and tell me the true meaning of that story of sorrow which I read on your face while you were asleep? I have just enough of the woman left in me to be the victim of curiosity, when I meet with a person who interests me. Good-by till to-morrow! I wish you a tranquil ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... kind of being gathered to his grave in peace when he fell on the fatal field of Megiddo, and 'his servants carried him in a chariot dead, ... and buried him in his own sepulchre' (2 Kings xxiii. 30). But the promise is fulfilled in its real meaning by the fact that the threatenings which he was inquiring about did not fall on Judah in his time, and so far as these were concerned, he did come to his grave ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... is much to be regretted that these books, in common withall Mr. Bunyan's Works, were grossly corrupted in the text in all the editions published since 1737,—'poor peace indeed,' was changed to 'pure peace indeed'; 'here is Rome enough,' meaning popery enough, was altered to 'here is room enough'; 'Baptist,' was printed 'Papist,' &c., &c.: all the typographical errors have now been carefully corrected by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... any uncle. He had nothing to do with their disposal in marriage; and the mother's spirit was already up in arms and prepared to do battle for her own independence, and for that of her children. "If Bernard would marry well," said she, "I have no doubt it would be a comfort to you,"—meaning to imply thereby that the squire had no right to trouble himself about any ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... home and friends who understood him. But for the horse's sake I tried not to break down. I told her that first of all she must teach the horse to love her. That was an awfully hard thing to say, I assure you, and I doubt if the woman understood my meaning after all. When I told her not to pull on his mouth she looked amazed, and said, "Why, he would run away with me if I didn't!" But I assured her that he would not—that he had been taught differently—that he was very nervous and spirited—that the harder she pulled the more excited he would ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... which might have been one of gentle duty and pure compassion, was at this moment unspeakably bitter to him. It seemed as if he were putting his sign-manual to that association of himself with Bulstrode, of which he now saw the full meaning as it must have presented itself to other minds. He now felt the conviction that this man who was leaning tremblingly on his arm, had given him the thousand pounds as a bribe, and that somehow the treatment of Raffles had been tampered with from an evil motive. The inferences were closely ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... mechanical craft for his culture."—That he cannot give up labor without suffering some loss of power. "How can the man who has learned but one art procure all the conveniences of life honestly? Shall we say all we think?—Perhaps with his own hands.—Let us learn the meaning of economy.—Parched corn eaten to-day that I may have roast fowl to my dinner on Sunday is a baseness; but parched corn and a house with one apartment, that I may be free of all perturbation, that I may be serene and docile ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... serious impression or solemn thought they may have had by a stream of small talk in which they indulge with their own family or their intimate friends, after what they call the Sabbath is past. Do you know there are hundreds of people, good, well-meaning—in fact, Christians—who seem to think that the old Puritan rules in regard to hours hold yet, in part. It begins at eight or nine o'clock, when they have their nap out; and at the very latest it closes with the minister's benediction after the second service; and ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... character is conceit, wrong-headedness, obstinacy, and passion. Those who speak most favorably of him allow all this; they only add that he is an honest man and means well. If that be true, as perhaps it may, I only wish him a better place, where only honesty and well-meaning are required, and where his other qualities can do no harm.... I hope, however, that our affairs will not much longer be perplexed and embarrassed by his perverse and senseless management." But for the present Franklin ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... stands for a Hindu widow all India over; because, when her husband dies, a woman's bracelets are broken on her wrists. Trejago saw the meaning of the little bit of the glass. The flower of the dhak means diversely "desire," "come," "write," or "danger," according to the other things with it. One cardamom means "jealousy"; but when any article is duplicated in an object-letter, it loses its symbolic meaning ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... though enjoined in the holy Scriptures, is to be my real aim and intention, when I am taught to pray for other persons, why is it that I do not plainly so express it? Why is not the form of the petition brought nearer to the meaning? Give them, say I to our heavenly father, what is good. But this, I am to understand, will be as it will be, and is not for me to alter. What is it then that I am doing? I am desiring to become charitable myself; and ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... tenderly softened sunshine of early evening. And as I gazed, I longed the more to be able to carry away a picture of that scene, with all its tones and tints, that would last in the memory, as I also wished to draw out of it all the meaning of what I felt. I left with a sense of failure, of weakness, of confused impressions, which was to me like a gnawing weevil of the mind, on the road ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... little Blot! She was a pathetic spectacle, and her end was quite in keeping with the rest of her hard fate. Trying one day to make her come and be cuddled, she retreated to the hearth, and when I pursued her, meaning to catch and pet her, she took a distracted skip right into a bed of hot coals. One wild howl, and another still more distracted skip brought her out again, to writhe in agony with four burnt paws ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... am I, and far from guile, The more is my woe the while: Falsehood, with a smooth disguise, My simple meaning hath abused: Casting mists before mine eyes, By which my ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... the squire was reading the county paper, while his sister was superintending the preparations for breakfast, and her two nephews were seated near her, Mr Huntingdon exclaimed suddenly, in a tone of angry excitement, "Why, whatever is the meaning of this? Walter, my ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... moment's silence in which the two pairs of eyes dwelt on each other with the deepest meaning, and then Loristan rose ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... list." For his wife, he is little more than an agent, a frame of bone and sinew for her fiery spirit to command. The nature of his feeling towards her is rendered with a most precise and delicate touch. He always yields to the woman's fascination; and yet his caresses (and we know how much meaning Salvini can give to a caress) are singularly hard and unloving. Sometimes he lays his hand on her as he might take hold of any one who happened to be nearest to him at a moment of excitement. Love has fallen out of this marriage by the way, and left a curious friendship. Only once—at the very ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this sense, I ask? A fine way to paint soul, by painting body So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further 200 And can't fare worse! Thus, yellow does for white When what you put for yellow's simply black, And any sort of meaning looks intense When all beside itself means and looks naught. Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn, Left foot and right foot, go a double step, Make his flesh liker and his soul more like, Both in their order? ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... the meaning of all this, Monteagudo? Are these people so base as to be determined to force the squadron to mutiny? And are there others so blind as not to foresee the consequences? Ask Sir Thomas Hardy, and the British captains, or any other officers, what will be ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... new acquaintance and myself; and we pursued our walk, discussing the details necessary to the execution of our project. After an hour or two passed in this manner, I invited my companion to go to my hotel, meaning that he should partake of my board until we could both depart for England, where it was my intention to purchase without delay a vessel for the contemplated voyage, in which I also had decided ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to the popes, probably in the fourth century. And the fact that it is the emperor and not the pope who bestowes it upon the archbishop of Ravenna in the fifth century, if it be true, can have no meaning at all in the question ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... sure of it. The passion and fire of his heart are yet concealed under the veil of youth. He is unmoved by a woman's tender smiles and her speaking and promising glances. He does not understand their meaning." ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... Letter. And if we misse to meete him hansomely, Sweet huntsman, Bassianus 'tis we meane, Doe thou so much as dig the graue for him, Thou know'st our meaning, looke for thy reward Among the Nettles at the Elder tree: Which ouer-shades the mouth of that same pit: Where we decreed to bury Bassianuss Doe this and purchase vs ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the early morning air was like wine, sparkling, tingling in the blood. The smell of resinous woods was insistent, the fine bouquet to the rare vintage. The day, the world, themselves—all were young together—all awakening to the full, true, and triumphant meaning of life. They rode a mile with never a spoken word but in a never-broken communion; then it was Gloria who spoke first, saying, as she had said once ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... work-a-day "Amen," the Passover melodies and the Pentecost, the minor keys of Atonement and the hilarious rhapsodies of Rejoicing, the plain chant of the Law and the more ornate intonation of the Prophets—all this was known and loved and was far more important than the meaning of it all or its relation to their real lives; for page upon page was gabbled off at rates that could not be excelled by automata. But if they did not always know what they were saying they always meant it. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... do you think," added she, "that I am unmindful of your future security, or will be negligent in settling the succession? That is the chief object of my concern; as I know myself to be liable to mortality. Or do you apprehend that I meant to encroach on your liberties? No: it was never my meaning; I only intended to stop you before you approached the precipice. All things have their time; and though you maybe blessed with a sovereign more wise or more learned than I, yet I assure you that no one will ever rule over you who shall be more ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... described. The brightness and glory that shone around him exceeded that of the noonday sun. But there is no particular description given Moses and Elias. We are not told how they looked. It is only said of them that—"they appeared in glory." St Luke ix: 31. I suppose the meaning of this is that they shared in the glory which Jesus himself had when he was transfigured. Their raiment was as white as his; and the same brightness and beauty beamed forth from their faces which made his so glorious. They shared their Master's glory. And, if we are ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... to our modern taste almost shocking metaphors. Surely, however, we want the whole just as Catherine poured it out; full of intense excitement, her emotions clearer than her ideas, lifted into a region where taste and logic have no meaning, and using, to convey the inexpressible feelings quickened by the events she describes, homeliest figures of speech, such as her commercial surroundings naturally suggest to her. For the matter of that, modern congregations sing ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... cursed softly and she learned the meaning of the dramatic finale to a superb but rather dull function. There had been no attempt at assassination. A lead fuse had melted; the ambassador, who had taxed his imagination to honor his King, had forgotten to give the order that electricians remain on guard to avert just such a calamity ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... If this be the sense, that there were some ministers fixed, and limited to particular places and churches; others unfixed, having an unlimited commission, and these are to be especially honored: then the meaning is, that the apostles and evangelists who were unfixed, and had unlimited commissions, and laid the foundation, were to be especially honored above pastors and teachers that were fixed and limited, and only built upon their ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... and Man were said to be against faith in the rule of a God, wise, just, and merciful. In 1710, after Bayle's death, Leibnitz, a German philosopher then resident in Paris, wrote in French a book, with a title formed from Greek words meaning Justice of God, Theodicee, in which he met Bayle's argument by reasoning that what we cannot understand confuses us, because we see only the parts of a great whole. Bayle, he said, is now in Heaven, and from his ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... shivered as she stood examining the contents of the shelves. The tins and packets were all in confusion, large and small jostling one another; and many had their descriptive labels turned to the wall. Sally read upon some of them words the meaning of which she could not understand. Nearly all of them were chemicals relating to the enrichment of soil or to the general improvement of farm produce. Some were quite tiny, with little crystals in them. Others were large, and still within wrappings. She hurriedly ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... salmon!" Ned looked at Gladys expressively and Sahwah read his meaning. "Oh, she swims beautifully ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... right. They are brothers, with well-nigh a lifetime between their deaths. Is that the meaning ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hardiest thinkers, the question, what it is that thinks and wills—what is the origin and guarantee of the faculties by which men know anything at all and form rational and true conceptions about nature and themselves, whence it is that reason draws its powers and materials and rules—what is the meaning of words which all use but few can explain—Time and Space, and Being and Cause, and consciousness and choice, and the moral law—Bacon is content with a loose and superficial treatment of them. Bacon certainly was not a metaphysician, nor an exact and lucid reasoner. ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... the change which has certainly come over people's minds with regard to the training and education of girls? It is not now considered a thing to be proud of that a girl should be delicate and useless. Such expressions as "young ladyish" and "missish" have far less meaning now than they used to have; for girls of all classes are more sensible, strong, and courageous, than they were at one time. Some heroic actions are performed by young women every day; and it may be they have gained their inspiration from the story of the maiden of the Farne Isles. ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... What is my true bearing? It takes less time to send the letters than to spell out the entire sentence and therefore a simple code which means the same in all languages is used. When such a call is received the operator replies: Q T S (meaning: Your true bearing is) and then follows it with the number of degrees from his radio post stated in words, and also the name of the station responding to the message. It is a general rule, by-the-by, that all numerals used in ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... had the look of those who bate breath and swarm their wits to catch a sound. At last he remembered that the summoning bell had been in his ears a long time back, without his having been sensible of any meaning in it. He started to and fro. The treasure he held declined to enter the breast-pocket of his coat, and the other pockets he perhaps, if sentimentally, justly discarded as being beneath the honour of serving for a temporary casket. He locked it up, with a vow to come early to rest. Even ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Nay, not lucre: for the gold watches, rings, money of the Massacred, are punctually brought to the Townhall, by Killers sans-indispensables, who higgle afterwards for their twenty shillings of wages; and Sergent sticking an uncommonly fine agate on his finger ('fully meaning to account for it'), becomes Agate-Sergent. But the temper, as we say, is dull acquiescence. Not till the Patriotic or Frenetic part of the work is finished for want of material; and Sons of Darkness, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Testament "the new birth," "regeneration," "to be born again," "conversion," "a new creation," "to be born of God," "to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire," "to put off the old man," "to have Christ formed within us." It is a very superficial view which explains away the meaning of all these profound expressions, and supposes that they only signify a little outward improvement and reformation. We need just such a change as is here described—a radical one, not a superficial one. All need it. Those ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... He who accuses wrongfully sins both against the person of the accused and against the commonwealth; wherefore he is punished on both counts. This is the meaning of what is written (Deut. 19:18-20): "And when after most diligent inquisition, they shall find that the false witness hath told a lie against his brother: they shall render to him as he meant to do to his brother," and this refers to the injury done to the person: and afterwards, referring ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... triumph" (p. 90), and further on in his speech he urges them to persevere up to the day "when you shall place your hand upon the purse strings of the country and the government," for, he continued, "once you control the finances, you will taste the true meaning of power and freedom." ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... Clanwilliam, who Agar said was the quickest man he had ever known; Luttrell said he and Rogers were 'the quick and the dead.' Looking over the 'Report of the Woods and Forests and the Cost of the Palaces,' somebody said 'the pensive' (meaning the public: see Rejected Addresses) must pay; Luttrell said 'the public was the pensive and ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... are vague and such ideas are inadequate, but their meaning is unmistakable. What the colleges—teaching humanities by examples which may be special, but which must be typical and pregnant—should at least try to give us, is a general sense of what, under various disguises, superiority has always signified and may still signify. The feeling for a good ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... I watched the faces—those faces of toil and sorrow, those faces from many lands. They were fired by your vision of their coming brotherhood, lulled by your dream of their land of rest. And I could see that you were right in speaking to the people. In some strange, beautiful, way the inner meaning of your music stole into all ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... to engage Edwin's attention. It was music of a kind quite novel to him. Most of it had no meaning for him, but at intervals some fragment detached itself from the mass, and stood out beautiful. It was as if he were gazing at a stage in gloom, but lighted momentarily by fleeting rays that revealed a lovely detail and were bafflingly cut off. Occasionally he thought he noticed ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... slave," he returned, sensing her meaning. "I will go thus. 'Twere not good that these dogs should know their wounds can hurt. Such scratches are nothing. They ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... held principles of art which would not allow him to consider either history or local color as ends in themselves. He believed they must be employed, when employed, as elements contributory to some general effect of beauty or of meaning. He has built up beauty with the most deliberate hands, and he has sought to express the highest meanings in his art, seeking to look through the "thin-aired regions of consciousness which are ruled over by Tact to the underworld of consciousness ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... of it too, now that you mention it," replied nurse, looking aghast at the thought. "Miss Joan was fair wild to get a squirrel; and Master Darby, he's that venturesome he would face anything. He doesn't know the meaning of fear for all he's so gentle and innocent-like. And Miss Joan follows him just like a dog. Dear, dear—to ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... taken in the meaning of Mabel's words she ran off without uttering a word, to beg her father's permission to undertake this errand of mercy. He was very reluctant, naturally, but at last yielded, on condition that she could get one of her brothers to ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... The coldness that had held them apart since that midnight meeting had been ice over fire. It was jealousy that had made him so angry. No word of love, directly spoken, had ever offended her ear; but there had been many a speech of double meaning that had ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... to the man's meaning. He stared curiously at the stained blade in his hand, then passed it up with a shudder. He rejoined Little in silence, and they walked to the ship together, the Mission visit shelved for the time being. Arriving on board, ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Jamestown was made near Barnstaple, in North Devonshire, probably after 1640. The reddish-brown floral and geometric designs which decorate the vessels are unusually attractive against colorful yellow backgrounds. Sgraffito is an Italian word meaning scratched. ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... but to cross the broad Pacific Ocean, which was so named by him on account of the quietness of its waters. Because he saw the fires built by the natives blazing on the islands along the south side of the channel, he called them Tierra del Fuego, meaning "Land of Fire." ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... and although with some effort to her pride, took Andree's hand, and said: "What is the meaning of this foolish resolution? Have you not to-day, like yesterday, a father and a brother? and were they different yesterday from to-day? Tell me your difficulties. Am I no longer ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... let it be, A heavenly oracle! He loveth thee! Know'st thou the meaning of, He loveth thee? ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... his text, he commenced his sermon, but it was evidently hard for him to say anything; he tried and tried, rolled his eyes up and all around, clasped his hands, uttered a few sentences, scratched his head, and exclaimed, "Friends, I'm plogged" (meaning he could not go on), "she weant goa; if this is preaching trial sermon, I'll niver try another; we'll be like to swap texts" (try another text). Now while he was finding another text, the congregation sang a hymn, and by the time this was done, Abe was ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... back on him and cut the end of a cigar. "Do you grasp my meaning?" he enquired at length, as ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... she practise her witch tricks?" asked Arthur, who did not very clearly understand his brother's meaning. ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... mean? Simply this, gentlemen, that we five- sensed people have failed to grasp the true meaning of the word 'Infinity.' We look out toward the stars, fancying that only in unlimited space can we find the infinite. We little suspect we ourselves are infinity! It is only our five ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... my mouth. Had Reuben betrayed me! What did this talk of "mother" and "Salome" mean? When he first spoke the word "mother," I had paid no particular attention to it; but when coupled with that other name, it took a deeper meaning. ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... meaning of "credit" is this—when a customer buys a bar of soap, instead of the customer pulling out a purse and paying for it—she says she will ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... equal solemnity and elocution. He exclaimed against the jesuits, and the farmers of the revenue, who, he said, had ruined France. Then, addressing himself to me, asked, if the English did not every day drink to the health of madame la marquise? I did not at first comprehend his meaning; but answered in general, that the English were not deficient in complaisance for the ladies. "Ah! (cried he) she is the best friend they have in the world. If it had not been for her, they would not have such reason to boast of the advantages of the war." ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Scanderoon) by the Venetian Ambassador, who told the King it was very strange that his Majesty should slight so much his ancient amity with the most noble state of Europe, for the affections which he bore to a man (meaning Sir Kenelm) whose father was a traitor, his wife a ——, and himself a pirate, altho' he made not the least reply (as long as the ambassador remained in England) to those great reproaches, yet after, when the quality of his enemy was changed (by his return) to that of a private ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... the words held no sinister meaning, nor to Bettina. In their hearts was no fear of the future, nor of the storms which might ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... but could find nothing deposited; saw the remains of broken bottles and fancied from the broad arrow being pointed upwards that a document in a small bottle might have been suspended high up in the tree and got at by the natives, but on after consideration I took the meaning of the arrow being up that up the river was his course; we saw the traces of his horses at the marked trees, but the tracks must be quite obliterated up the river or we must have seen something of them; indeed the heavy rain that inundated the whole country south commenced ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... exclaimed the captain, in a very meaning tone, addressing an officer that stood by his side, and whom David fixed as the first mate. "Sie sprechen ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... home of Titans, whose employ is political and martial. When his imagination deals with earthly realities, the noble melancholy of the Greeks lies upon it. His last word on human life might be translated into Greek with no straining and no loss of meaning— ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... absolutely hypothetical and beside the truth. Le Duchat had already given too much importance to the false historical explanation. Here it is constantly coming in, and it rests on no evidence. In reality, there is no need of the key to Rabelais by which to discover the meaning of subtle allusions. He is neither so complicated nor so full of riddles. We know how he has scattered the names of contemporaries about his work, sometimes of friends, sometimes of enemies, and without disguising them under ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... but a remark made by Mr. Snyder during the 1930 convention, and passed on to him by Dr. Deming, would indicate that grafts were made as early as 1914. It was, "a Cedar Rapids shagbark grafted on a hickory (probably meaning shagbark), bore in its third year and has borne every year since, but the same variety grafted 16 years ago on a bitternut has not borne." In various comments made by Mr. Snyder from time to time, especially in connection with the Iowa meetings of the State Horticultural ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... the heart, towards the person greeted. A stranger making his appearance on the frontier line of an Indian camp seldom fails to recognise the true sentiment of the chief's salutation, the extended fingers on the left side meaning— ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... clasping her arms about his neck, whispered into his ear the meaning of this last kiss, and at the honeyed sound of her whispering his strength came back for a moment, and he strove to rise. The level sunlight through the open window smote full upon his face, which was very glad. Melite was conscious of her ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... and plunge into the simpler passages from Caesar, Virgil, or Horace, as the case might be, in his purblind stumbling way, and with an expenditure of labour that would have made a tender-hearted pedagogue shed tears; yet somehow getting at the meaning of what he read, and divining rather than beholding the spirit of the original, which often to his mind was something else than that which he ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... falsehood, licentiousness, and impiety! The first four or five charges might have been proved with little difficulty, if it were worth while to break a butterfly on a wheel, but it was necessary to distort the meaning and even the text of the original in order to give any colour to the ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... could have but one meaning, and it was important to disabuse his mind concerning Ben. Nor was she the only one in the family who entertained that thought. Of late her grandmother had often addressed her in an unusual way, more as a woman than as a child; and, only the night before, had retold the old story ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... God but one, the Merciful, Who gave this perfect woman to my soul That I might learn through her to worship Him, And know the meaning of immortal Love. ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... the inhabitants of the village. He had puzzled over the unknown word "telegraphist" until his mind was in a hopeless state of bewilderment, but had not been able to give even the wildest conjecture as to its probable meaning. "Operator," however, had a more familiar sound; it was not spelled exactly in the way to which he had been accustomed, but it was evidently intended for "Imperator," the Emperor!—and with his heart throbbing with the excitement of this startling ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... find out something, decide something; she ought, if she did her duty, to take Constance aside and say: "Now, Constance, my mind is freer now. Tell me frankly what has been going on between you and Mr. Povey. I have never understood the meaning of that scene in the cutting-out room. Tell me." She ought to have talked in this strain. But she could not. That energetic woman had not sufficient energy left. She wanted rest, rest—even though it were a coward's rest, an ostrich's tranquillity—after the turmoil of apprehensions caused by Sophia. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... one takes off from one's own person, to bestow upon a messenger of good tidings or any other whom it is desired especially to honour. The literal meaning of the phrase, here rendered "he bestowed on him a dress of honour," is "he put off on him [that which was upon himself." A Khilaah commonly includes a horse, a sword, a girdle or waist-cloth and other articles, according to the rank of the recipient, and might more precisely be termed ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... elbow and drew her toward him. He stooped to her, meaning to kiss her. Sylvia did not resist, but she drooped her head so that her forehead, not her lips, was presented to his embrace. And the kiss was never given. She remained standing, her face lowered from his, her attitude one of resignation and ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... life, particularly of one very charming young woman, Lady Harman, who finds herself so bound in by convention, so hampered by restrictions, largely those of a well-intentioned but short-sighted husband, that she is ultimately moved to revolt. The real meaning of this revolt, its effect upon her life and those of her associates, are narrated by one who goes beneath the surface in his analysis of human motives. In the group of characters, writers, suffragists, labor organizers, social workers ...
— Sight to the Blind • Lucy Furman
... storm burst upon the travellers at this moment, and Will with his friends had to ride to a neighbouring cliff for shelter before he could ask the meaning of the peculiar conduct of the stranger. The guide soon cleared up the mystery by telling him, through Bunco, that the traveller was an inhabitant of the town which had been so recently destroyed by the earthquake. "I happened to know him by name," continued the guide, ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... impulsively, and she regretted her words the moment they were uttered. But Absalom only half comprehended her meaning. ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... heaven, and those who have the power of disposing you, shall approve:—in the mean time I implore no more than your permission to admire you, and to convince you, by all the honourable services in my power to do you while you continue here, how much my words are deficient to denote my meaning. ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood |
