"Momentous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I, for one, wish to appeal as earnestly, as solemnly as I can, to you English-speaking Protestants and Catholics of the Province of Quebec, for your help and succor in the solution of this momentous situation. I wish to again offer you my most grateful thanks for your very kind attention ...
— Bilingualism - Address delivered before the Quebec Canadian Club, at - Quebec, Tuesday, March 28th, 1916 • N. A. Belcourt
... one to whom it was no new thing to yield. Harland, when he wrote the story with the mock seriousness he was master of, suggested that the crime was in its having been committed by an irreproachable British author, the sober father of a family. More momentous to us, accessories to the crime, was the fact that the cake stuck, a conspicuous lump, in the peacock's conspicuous throat. For what seemed hours we waited in tense agitation, torn between our desire ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... of grave divergence is one that occurs at the very outset of the game. "Do you play with or without the roquet-croquet?" has now come to be the first point of mutual solicitude in a mixed party. It may not seem a momentous affair whether the privilege of striking one's own ball and the adversary's without holding the former beneath the foot, should be extended to all players or limited to the "rover"; but it makes an immense difference ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... for freedom, and its final achievement, was an act in the great drama of the world's history of such vast magnitude, and fraught with such momentous consequences upon the destinies of civilization throughout the world, that we can scarcely ever tire in contemplating the instrumentalities by which, under Divine guidance, it was effected. It has taught mankind that oppression and misrule, under ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... can no more be governed by imperial and royal decrees than can the forces of physical nature itself. He {39} had unconsciously anticipated in his own mind that doctrine of nationalities which afterwards came to play so momentous and so clearly recognized a part in the politics of the world. He saw how the policy of Castlereagh had made England the recognized ally of all the old-world theories of divine right and unconditional ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... bees swarmed it would be over by that time, he supposed, so Powell's return would not matter much one way or the other. A persuasion of something momentous about to be accomplished deepened in him. The madness of going, which had so pushed him earlier in the day, fell dead before it. For this concourse of living creatures must be gathered together to ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... after breakfast, rather—the momentous question rose as to where the next stand should be made. The company had already tested its ability as well as the forbearance of two audiences, and financially, if not artistically, came out fairly well. It is only fair to admit, however, not one individual member of the troupe made what is designated ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... vista that now opens to us is wider and more glorious than ever before. Gratification and amazement struggle for supremacy as we contemplate the population, wealth, and moral strength of our country. A trust momentous in its influence upon our people and upon the world is for a brief time committed to us, and we must not be faithless to its first condition—the defense of the free and equal influence of the people in the choice of public ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... that they were not equal to Mirabeau and other great lights in the Revolutionary period. They were comparatively inexperienced in parliamentary business, and were watched and fettered by a hostile government, and could not give full scope to their indignant eloquence without personal peril. Nor did momentous questions of reform come before them for debate, as was the case in England during the agitation on the Reform Bill. They did little more than show the spirit that was in them, which under more favorable ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... various occasions. She felt this downfall all the more deeply that she had been looking forward to so many long talks with Janey, and expected to live all her brief ten days' holiday over again, and to instruct her young sister's mind by the many experiences acquired in that momentous time. Poor Ursula! ten days is quite long enough to form habits at her age, and she had been taken care of, as young ladies are taken care of in society; accompanied or attended wherever she went, and made much of. To find herself ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... incarnation has various ways of making money to supply himself with nutriment so that the body may be able to exhiliarate its immortal tenant, 'the soul.' The one about which I shall speak is the Smith. This trade is of momentous importance.... It is quite amusing to hear him when he is mending a piece of malleable work; he has a way of striking the iron that makes it sound harmonious to the ear, and children very often ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... the nature of Christ's spiritual kingdom, founding a claim to her privileges on worldly character and property. It gives those blessed lips the lie, which said, "My kingdom is not of this world." It counteracts the nature of the church, as a voluntary society; thrusting men into a momentous relation to her, without, nay contrary to, her consent. It settles the ministerial office upon a very rotten foundation: for how hard is it to believe the man is a minister of a Christian congregation, who never ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... be made for the momentous coup Sir Rowland meditated were considerable. Mr. Newlington was yet to be concerted with and advised, and, that done, Sir Rowland had to face the difficulty of eluding the Bridgwater guards and make his way to Feversham's camp at Somerton ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... where a good boy could be found to act as messenger. Mr. Brooks and my uncle were enthusiastic draught-players, and it was over a game of draughts that this important inquiry was made. Upon such trifles do the most momentous consequences hang. A word, a look, an accent, may affect the destiny not only of individuals, but of nations. He is a bold man who calls anything a trifle. Who was it who, being advised to disregard trifles, said he always would ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... have said nothing indiscreet. I foresaw at Florence that her quiet, uneventful childhood must end, and it has ended. I realized dimly enough that she might take some momentous step. She has taken it. She has learnt—you will let me talk freely, as I have begun freely—she has learnt what it is to love: the greatest lesson, some people will tell you, that our earthly life provides." It was now time for him to wave his hat at the approaching trio. He did not omit to do ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... half-serious, half-comic, procession, worthy of a Frith! But what were the Cambs. officials to do? They had no promised land, no house in which to accommodate the immigrants! I think it is doubtful whether they accepted them, and whether that momentous event of "taking the sense of the parish" really came off I am ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... effect of this was at once to formulate all the claims which had before been vaguely asserted, and to give them the authority of unbroken tradition. The result to Christendom at large was in the highest degree momentous. It was impossible for future popes to recede from them, and equally impossible for other churches which valued their independence to acknowledge them. The last attempt on the part of the Eastern Church to arrange a compromise in this matter was made by the emperor ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... John Barclay as a man of moods. The Barclay Neal Ward saw was an electric motor rather than an engine. The power he had to perceive and to act seemed transmitted to him from the outside. At times he dictated letters of momentous importance to the young man, which Neal was sure were improvised. Barclay relied on his instincts and rarely changed a decision. He wore himself out every day, yet he returned to his work the next day without a sign of fag. The young man found that Barclay had one curious vanity—he ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... bush, no plant is ever suffered to escape the examination of their vigilant eyes, and thunder may mutter, and rain fall, without disturbing the abstraction of their reveries. Not so, however, with the disciple of Linnaeus, during the momentous period that it remained a mooted point at the tribunal of his better judgment, whether the stout descendants of the squatter were not likely to dispute his right to traverse the prairie in freedom. The highest blooded and best trained hound, with his game in view, could ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... case, though of vast and momentous professional interest, I shall reserve for a communication ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... This momentous decision was revealed to us on the 31st by a special edition of the Berliner Lokalanzeiger, distributed at every street corner. The announcement ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... science thus far were chiefly verbal. Cuvier now came forward and added a principle. He showed that all animals are built upon a certain number of definite plans. This momentous step, the significance of which is not yet appreciated to its full extent; for, had its importance been understood, the efforts of naturalists would have been directed toward a further illustration of the distinctive ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... be told that to the little Separatist settlement at Plymouth, still in the first decade of its feeble existence, the founding, within a day's journey, of this powerful colony, on ecclesiastical principles distinctly antagonistic to their own, was a momentous, even a formidable fact. Critical, nay, vital questions emerged at once, which the subtlest churchcraft might have despaired of answering. They were answered, solved, harmonized, by the spirit ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Mountains, and driving the darkness from the wilderness. The air was calm and peaceful as the Algonquins and Iroquois ranged themselves for battle. Many times had they met, and the great world had been no better—nor perhaps any worse—for their fighting; but this was to be a momentous conflict, affecting the welfare of the people of ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... most gratifying events of my life that my associates in this great and powerful association elected me their president, and I continued in office until the Supreme Court in a momentous decision declared that the railroads came under the provision of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law and dissolved these associations in the East, West, ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... saw and did, as well as vivid descriptions of the momentous events accompanying the great German drive is told in the fourth book of the series, "Air Service Boys in the Big Battle; or, Silencing the ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... "The most momentous novel that has come to us from France, or from any other European country, in a decade.... Highly commendable and effective translation ... the story moves at a rapid pace. It never lags."—E. F. Edgett in ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... shade settled upon the usually mild countenance. A question of momentous importance was to be decided. "To be or not to be" was the final answer. Each solution involved a corresponding number of conflicting doubts and anxieties, and left scarcely any choice in the mind of ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... jests his converts cause, He cannot give their erring zeal applause; But finds it inconsistent to condemn The flights and follies he has nursed in them: These, in opposing minds, contempt produce, Or mirth occasion, or provoke abuse; On each momentous theme disgrace they bring, And give to Scorn her poison and ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... to the whites avoided them, through intense hatred; and the whites never dreamed of this powerful inner circle that was gradually but persistently working its way in every direction, solidifying the race for the momentous conflict of securing all the rights due them according to the will ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... like. Never was any man amiable by force of these qualities. Those which engage our hearts, which impress us with a sense of loveliness, are the softer virtues; easiness of temper, compassion, kindness, and liberality; though certainly those latter are of less immediate and momentous concern to society, and of less dignity. But it is for that reason that they are so amiable. The great virtues turn principally on dangers, punishments, and troubles, and are exercised, rather in preventing the worst ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... been present at the ceremony were waiting for the motor lorries to take them back to Muslimie the momentous news was received that an armistice had been signed ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... Chatham was a momentous time and a turning point for the young Virginian. In a way it was epochal in his life. Though he was assimilated into the party as if he had been one of them from childhood, he found little opportunity to be alone with Conscience. Indeed the idea came to him at first ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... the mind of Western Europe had been wholly exhausted in the field of literature. I think it is very commonly forgotten that the revival of science, effected by the same agency, although less conspicuous, was not less momentous. ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... knocked down, and so coated with sweat and dust that they now resembled Negroes. Their hands were fairly cooked from the hot ropes' sizzling when the horses plunged. And at nine o'clock they were ready for the momentous twenty-five mile drive ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... summary of this momentous conversation, in which I have been chiefly careful to preserve the plums of the Commissary; but the remainder of the scene, perhaps because of his rising anger, has left but little definite in the memory of the Arethusa. The Commissary was not, ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... so impolitely into this room, I told you that I was in despair. And you, instead of urging me to tell you at once the cause of it, inquired for the great affairs of my life, and whether my affliction came from my parents or my affianced bride. You thereby wished to admonish me that these momentous affairs and relations of my life, not having lost their harmony, my grief was, perhaps, but a passing dissonance, and that it really might not be worth while to give way to despair on account of it. I am sure, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... The light of the moon witnessed the retreat of the royalist army, defeated and destroyed, seeking shelter in the city of Pasto; and the name of Bombon was written in history beside those of Boyac and Carabobo as among the most momentous, the most significant battles fought ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... might pass in the House on this momentous subject, it sat so late that no news could arrive. Sweeter and better news, however, was immediately at hand than any the whole senate could transmit; the account from the pages was truly cheering. With what joy did I hasten ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... that both worse equipped and for a better cause, is in form and essence a more noble hero than the soldier. Do you, by any chance, deceive yourself into supposing that a general would either ask or expect, from the best army ever marshalled, and on the most momentous battle-field, the conduct of a common constable at Peckham ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... right, he affirmed, to part with their western lands. Their laws, their ancient usages forbade it. They ought never to decide a question so momentous as this, without giving all the parties a hearing, who have any interest in its decision. They should be present and join in their deliberations. Their brethren at the west had a right to be consulted in ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... the afternoon of this same day—a day so momentous in the lives of more than one of London's millions—that two travelers might have been seen to descend from a first-class compartment of the ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... hand in token of assent; and a desultory conversation continuing for another half-hour, Miss Beaufort, who dreaded the wasting one minute in a day so momentous to her peace, sat uneasily until her aunt proposed retiring to her dressing-room a while, and requested Pembroke to assist ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... answered in the negative, as all had much to do. The time which the combined squadron took to get into the order of battle and sailing was invaluable to all of us, by enabling us to complete the arrangements so necessary upon so momentous an occasion. At length, every ship having announced her readiness for action, the Admiral made the signal for them to be prepared to follow his motions. He had already communicated with his captains his plan of attack, and no other signal was made, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... destined to form part of a momentous issue, now arose. Should Ticonderoga be attacked at once or not? It commanded the only feasible line of march from Montreal to New York; and no force from Canada could therefore attack the new republic effectively without taking it first. But the season ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... necessary to call to mind that any momentous innovation which rests on popular sentiment will take time; that consequently anything like a plebiscite on the question today would scarcely give a safe index of what the decision is likely to be when presently put to the test; and that as things ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... of the sixth century before Christ, one of the most momentous advances in literature was made by the genius of Aeschylus. European drama was created and a means of utterance was given to the rapidly growing democratic spirit of Greece. Before Aeschylus wrote, rude public exhibitions had been given of the life and adventures of Dionysus, the god of wine. ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... wish to consult you on a subject which, as you will perceive, is of a most momentous nature. You know how much reliance I place in your judgement and knowledge of what is proper, and, therefore, I write to you before speaking to any other living person on the subject: not even to mamma; for, although her judgement is good too, she has so many cares and troubles, ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... mere mention of his system brings up the delightful recollections of his desk-cleaning parties, Spring and Fall, events so momentous that they almost come under the classification of office holidays. The dust flies, torn papers fill the air and the waste-baskets, and odd memoranda come to light and must be discussed. While wielding ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... be merely potential; for it had come into being with the appearance of Euphues and his England. Here in the same writer, in the same book, and within the space of two years, we may observe one of the most momentous changes of modern literature in actual process. The Anatomy of Wit is still the moral Court treatise, coloured by the influence of the Italian novella; Euphues and his England is the first English novel. Lyly unconsciously symbolizes the ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... With her quick insight and deep knowledge of the world, she visualized the way of fire down which they must walk, and her soul was stricken with the thought of it! It was her work and the work of her chosen Army to help and save, but what could she do in such a momentous crisis as this? She had no money for new work. Opportunities had opened up so fast. The Treasury was already overtaxed with the needs on this side of the water. There were enterprises started that could not be given up without losing precious souls who were on the way toward becoming redeemed ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... to secure that members likely to be friendly were elected. In many cases together with the writs the names of those whose return the court desired were forwarded to the sheriffs.[13] The Parliament that was destined to play such a momentous part in English affairs met in 1529. It was opened by the king in person attended by Sir Thomas More as Lord Chancellor. At a hint from the proper quarter it directed its attention immediately to the alleged abuses of the clergy. The principal complaints put forward were the excessive ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... of a question such as that now at issue between the majority and the minority of the citizens of the United Kingdom, may well call to mind the conclusion of the noblest statement ever made by genius of a case involving momentous national interests:— ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... that was tried by a young, struggling attorney. I also remember a young judge who appeared in one of the rural counties, who sat and heard a case very similar to the one to which reference was made, and I remember the fight of the giants before him. Points were raised of momentous importance. They were to affect the policy of the State. One lawyer insisted upon the correctness of an objection and succeeded. He felt so elated over that success he in a short time objected again, and the judge ruled against him, but in his ardor he argued with ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... only on momentous occasions that he addressed her as daughter—"I brought you over here as a guest, not as manager o' my affairs. I've taken care of those affairs for some considerable years, an' I reckon I still have the qualifications. If you're a-goin' to act up obstrep'rous ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... the rivalry between them which was hereafter to have such momentous consequences was to be manifested there and then in a fashion much more serious than the hitting or missing of ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... of the third week of August, 1914, the atmosphere of every European capital became tense with the realization that a momentous crisis was impending. It was known that the French-British armies confronted German armies of equal, if not of superior strength. In Paris and London the military critics wrote optimistically that the Germans ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... succeeded to the May that proved so momentous to me; and I sought occupation in the fields. Occupation, however, would not do. Anneke was with me, go where I would; and glad was I when Dirck, about midsummer, in one of his periodical visits to Satanstoe, proposed that we should ride over, and make another ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... reigning family made her a personage of due importance in the eyes of her old friend the Burgomaster, and she was anxiously consulted by that worthy on the momentous occasion when the Prince made known his intention of coming in person to open a sanatorium outside the town. All the usual items in a programme of welcome, some of them fatuous and commonplace, others quaint and charming, had been ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... On this particular momentous evening, the Leather-bell, all hurry-scurry, rushed into the porch of the castle, where the old lord of the manor was nursing his invalided limbs in an ample easy chair, having so disposed himself as to be able to command a view of the western ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... Church passed through an internal crisis even more trying than the great persecutions of the following centuries and with results far more momentous. Of the conditions making possible such a crisis the most important was absence in the Church of norms of faith universally acknowledged as binding. Then, again, many had embraced Christianity without grasping the spirit of the new religion. Nearly all ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... this man out of all his former opinions and his deepest principles, and how an expected advantage will make that other man forget now an old alliance and now a deep antipathy! How often the side we take even in the most momentous matters is decided by the most unworthy motives and the most contemptible considerations! Unstable as water, Reuben shall not excel. Double-minded men, we, like Jacob's first-born, are unstable in all our ways. We have no anchor, or, what anchor we sometimes ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... one-third of the whole known mortgages of the country. Since about 1870, when the rate of wages began to rise in consequence of the formation of railways and the resulting increase in the demand for labour, a momentous change has taken place. Improvidence and fermage have sounded the knell of the old landed gentry. Their estates have in many cases been bought up by the fermiers, their sub-tenants; the peasantry have purchased considerable quantities ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... the question to myself; and feeling, as I unconsciously murmured aloud the few words which expressed it, that my life had purposes and duties, trials and achievements, which were yet to be fulfilled. How could I instantly solve the momentous doubt which had now, for the ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... it is!... What a sermon! Has the truth, as our Church holds it, no fitter expounders than such a preacher? Are these its stays, props, and pillars—teachers to guide, enlighten, and instruct people as cultivated and intelligent as the people of this country on the most momentous of all subjects? Are these the sort of adversaries to oppose to men like Channing? As for not going to church because of bad or foolish sermons, that is quite another matter, though I not unfrequently hear that reason assigned for staying away. ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... dog, eminently kickable. The man was heavily built about the legs, and the vigor of what he did may have been additionally inspired by his recognition of the mongrel as Joe Louden's. The impact of his toe upon the little runner's side was momentous, and the latter rose into the air. The Judge hopped, as one hops who, unshod in the night, discovers an unexpected chair. Let us be reconciled to his pain and not reproach the gods with it,—for two of his unintending ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... and maltreatment very readily, (since they must take it on themselves at any rate,) if the Government will let its justice begin at home, and pay them their honest earnings. It is of little consequence to a dying man whether any one else is to die by retaliation, but it is of momentous consequence whether his wife and family are to be cheated of half his scanty earnings by the nation for which he dies. The Rebels may be induced to concede the negro the rights of war, when we grant him the ordinary rights of peace, namely, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... trying to tell you? I wonder if you will? Or if I am too incoherent. I feel that perhaps I am. I started out to say things that were bubbling within me, and I am oddly reluctant to say them. I am like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. I am an explorer setting out upon a momentous journey. I am making an experiment that fascinates me. Yet I have regrets. I am uncertain. I am doing the thing which my nature and my intelligence impel me to do, now that I have the opportunity. I am satisfying a yearning, and stifling a desire that could grow very ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... glamour thrown around her new relationship by its very novelty, by unnumbered congratulations, and the excitement attendant on so momentous a step in a young lady's life, began to pass away. Every fine drive in the country surrounding the city had been taken again and again; all the fine galleries had been visited, and the finer pictures admired and dwelt upon in Mr. Beaumont's refined and quiet tones, ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... letter four days ago, and kept it back a little while in order to put in an enclosure from Bertha, who declared herself under an obligation to send to my friend a few words of apology for having stolen me, I had not the slightest presentiment that momentous events would come between me and the fulfilment of my ardent desires. The war in which we are engaged produces remarkably little excitement in my new fatherland; and if I were not in Ungama, I should not suspect that ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Wendover, and other places almost without inhabitants. Sir Charles Wetherell, Mr. Croker, and Sir Robert Peel, substantially took the same view; Lord Althorp, Mr. Hume, O'Connell, and others supported the government. Amid intense excitement, for everybody saw the momentous issues at stake, leave was at length granted to Lord John Russell to bring in his bill. No less than seventy-one persons in the course of seven nights spoke for or against the measure. The Press, headed by the "Times," rendered great assistance to the reform ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... rose to Moggie's lips, to die unformed under an imperious glance from Rene who, with shining eyes and set mouth, had stood apart to watch the momentous issue. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... been a momentous one. Brilliant reputations had been made and lost. The blood of many patriots had flowed freely, but, as regarded Canada, not in vain, for, in the words of the American historian, Schouler, "the war had impressed ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... lovers. Over the next six years, readers would enjoy the adventures of this youth and his three famous friends, Porthos, Athos, and Aramis, as their exploits unraveled behind the scenes of some of the most momentous events in French ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Madeline, talking a little, and thinking very hard over these momentous matters, I looked up and saw the ghost, not a dozen feet away from us. He was sitting on the railing of the porch, one leg thrown up before him, the other dangling down as he leaned against a post. He was behind Madeline, ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... It is acknowledged to be the oldest book in the world. Its records embrace the creation of the world, the origin of man, the introduction of evil, the fall and recovery of our race; and it contains the only rational account ever given of these momentous matters. We can trace the Bible to the time of the Caesars, beyond that to the translation of the Septuagint, and beyond that we can carry the proof up to the separation of the Jews and Samaritans; we can ascend up to the time when we discover that the law must have been given ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... It was a momentous question, and no one could answer it. Tom was doing some hard thinking those days. Two weeks passed and there was no change. Our friends were still captives in giant land. They had tried, by signs, to induce their ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... there are, too, for holding that THE CORDS OF VANITY is certain to make its second appeal to a many times multiplied audience. Since divers momentous transactions of the years just gone, the whole world stands in a moral position extraordinarily well adapted to the comprehension of just such a comedy of shirking; and especially the world of thought has received a powerful impulsion toward the area long occupied by Mr. Cabell's romantic ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... burning, blistering Arizona, all but Cranston's troop, excepted at the last moment and detailed for service at the School of Application. Agatha again came to stay with them, and here at last Margaret Cranston learned the momentous fact that, after all these years, something had ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... change was proceeding infinitely more momentous than the acquisition or loss of any province, than the rise or fall of any dynasty. Slavery and the evils by which slavery is everywhere ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... awake for a long time the night before, watching a strip of moonlight which lay like flickering silver across her wall. Who would have found it easy to sleep, with the consciousness beating at her brain that on the morrow something momentous was as surely going to happen as that the sun would rise? Did she want it to happen? Would she rather not run away and prevent its happening? There was no doubt that, being a woman, she wanted to run away. At the same time—being ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... began those contentions about ecclesiastical questions, church discipline and liturgies, at all times fraught with the seeds of discontent and danger to the common weal, and which in this case ultimately led to such sad and momentous consequences as only religious feuds can. Charles I. was playing the despot with his subjects, not only in Scotland, but in England. He was governing without a Parliament, defying and trying to crush the desires and aspirations of a people born to govern ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... well to briefly recall the circumstances under which this momentous battle was fought. One after another the English had been compelled to surrender to the victorious armies of Charles VII. their fortresses in Poitou, Angoumois, Guyenne and Gascony; so that of their immense province of ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... freed for a time from the pangs of gout only to be afflicted with a species of mental alienation bordering on insanity. This is the most satisfactory, as it is the most obvious, explanation of his utter indifference in presence of one of the most momentous problems that ever pressed for solution on an English statesman. Those who are able to read the history in the light of what occurred later may perhaps be convinced that no policy whatever initiated, after 1766 could have prevented or even materially delayed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... these momentous things, it could hardly be wondered at. The situation was one to give concern to the bravest man, and, after all, he was but a boy, though possessed of more than the average courage for ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... pursuit. Ay, dead or not, this was still the enemy. 'Time was that when the brains were out,' he thought; and the first word struck into his mind. Time, now that the deed was accomplished—time, which had closed for the victim, had become instant and momentous for ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lines of polemen pass from the prow to the stern on the narrow running-board of a keel boat, lifting and setting their poles to the cry of steersman or captain. The struggle in a swift "rife" or rapid is momentous. If the craft swerves, all is lost. Shoulders bend with savage strength; poles quiver under the tension; the captain's voice is raucous, and every other word is an oath; a pole breaks, and the next man, though half-dazed in the mortal crisis, does for a few moments the work of two. At last they ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... momentous struggle between China and Japan, while relieving the diplomatic agents of this Government from the delicate duty they undertook at the request of both countries of rendering such service to the subjects of ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... began to feudalize the country by dividing the land and building castles. These two operations, which we now turn to, opened the eyes of the Irish to the deception which had been practised upon them, and were the real origin of the momentous struggle which is still ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... villages, and had opened his doors to all who sought shelter, until every room was filled. It was a pitiful sight to see women, with their babies in their arms and their children gathered round them, sitting forlornly, almost indifferent to the momentous consultation which was going on, and thinking only of their deserted homes, and wondering what had befallen them. The men had, for the most part, been out in the streets gathering news. The tanner's wife, assisted by two ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... before me. I saw a prince, pious, just, debonnaire, enlightened, and seeking to become more so; with principles completely in accord with my own, and capacity to carry out those principles when the time for doing so arrived. I relished deliciously a confident so precious and so full upon the most momentous matters and at a first interview. I felt all the sweetness of this perspective, and of my deliverance from a servitude which, in spite of myself, I sometimes could not help showing myself impatient of. I felt, too, that I now had an opportunity of elevating myself, and of contributing ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... wanting. The Imperial factories could, in ordinary times, furnish monthly 20,000 stands of new arms; by the extraordinary activity and inducements offered this number was doubled. Workmen were also employed in repairing the old muskets. There was displayed at this momentous period the same activity in the capital as in 1793, and better directed, though without the same ultimate success. The clothing of the army was another difficulty, and this was got over by advancing large sums of money to the cloth manufacturers beforehand. The contractors delivered ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... country villages and in work-houses. The God who gave the wish and the talent, soon opens a way to still more public usefulness. In most cases, they enter upon a course of study, to fit them for their momentous labours; but many of our most valuable ministers have, like Bunyan, relied entirely upon their prayerful investigation of the Scriptures. his college was a dungeon, his library the Bible; and he came forth with gigantic power to grapple with the prince of darkness. No human learning could have ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... room, where she threw herself on the bed and sobbed bitterly; for the truth was that she was very, very fond of him. She, too, had built her little castles in the air as to what she would say and do when he put the momentous question. Girls do foresee these things, somehow; although they do pretend to be astonished ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... me from Wimbledon to come out and dine, and there had been an implication in Adelaide's note—judged by her notes alone she might have been thought silly—that it was a case in which something momentous was to be determined or done. I had never known them not be in a "state" about somebody, and I dare say I tried to be droll on this point in accepting their invitation. On finding myself in the presence of their latest discovery I had not at first felt irreverence ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... up late at Bar U ranch that night, for the day had been a momentous one. Then, too, the visit of Mr. Bellmore had created a little diversion. He and Mr. Carson sat up for some time after the others had retired, talking ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... This momentous transfer took place one hundred years ago, when almost nothing was known of the region so summarily handed from the government of France to the government of the American Republic. Few white men had ever traversed those trackless plains, or scaled the frowning ranges of mountains that ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... through her trunk. Betty sat looking at the ceiling, trying to decide the momentous question of dress for herself. Finally she announced: "I'll just wear white, then I'll harmonize with everybody, and can run up to the first one of you I happen to see when I need a spark of courage. I know I'll be terribly embarrassed. It makes me cold right ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... comedy all over again, from the minute when she started forth from home on the momentous day to fill her pan with raspberries. She traced her steps down the hill and up through the glades of the bluff wherever the ripe raspberries were hanging. She came to the minute when her stage directions called for ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... the colonies, so bold and so startling in its character, that, for many minutes, not a word or whisper was heard through the hushed assembly, whose bowed heads and working countenances showed how deeply their minds were engaged in trying to grapple with the momentous subject, upon which their action was thus unexpectedly required. At length, nowever, low murmurs of doubt or disapproval began to be heard; and soon the expressions, "unprecedented step!"—"doubtful policy!" and "injury to the cause" became distinguishable ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... these few words of Plutarch. But the task of the poet is more than this. To our imagination, that is, to the abstracting intellect roused by sympathy to a semi-creative state, he must present the haughty Roman so as to fill us with an image of him that shall in itself embody that momentous hour in the being of the young republic. He must dilate us to the dimensions of the man and the moment; he must so enlarge and warm our feeling that it shall take in, and delight in, the grandeur of the time and the actors. The life of Rome, of Rome yet to be so mighty, is threatened by ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... the session of 1614 lasted but three weeks and ended as a farce: the queen-regent locked up the halls and sent the representatives home—she needed the room for a dance, she said. It was not until the momentous year of 1789—after a lapse of 175 ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... the American Congress as the final conclusion of engineers of the highest standing. The Board, as I have said, divided upon the question, and by a majority of eight pronounced in favor of a sea-level against a minority of five in favor of a lock canal. Let us inquire how this conclusion, of momentous importance to the nation, was arrived at and whether the minutes of the ...
— The American Type of Isthmian Canal - Speech by Hon. John Fairfield Dryden in the Senate of the - United States, June 14, 1906 • John Fairfield Dryden
... did the community, already conscious of the momentous influence the steam engine was exerting upon the social and economic condition of the countryside, but yet to discover the not less remarkable potentialities of the electric or the petrol spark applied to the problems ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... twelve months the dams were full, the wells sending up their far-fetched priceless water, the wire fences erected, the shepherds gone, and 17,000 sheep cropping the herbage of Anabanco. Tuesday was the day fixed for the actual commencement of the momentous, almost solemn transaction—the pastoral Hegira, so to speak, as the time of most station events is calculated with reference to it, as happening before or after shearing. But before the first shot is fired which tells of the battle begun, what raids and skirmishes, what reconnoitring and vedette ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... our standpoint is another set of primitive animals, utterly insignificant in appearance, but of momentous importance on account of their later history. Among these reptiles were a few small creatures perhaps not much bigger than mice or moles. Their teeth were a little more complicated and specialized than the teeth of their ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... away from Bombay and in five weeks' time she landed at Southampton. There she resumed her name. She travelled into Sussex and stayed for a few nights at the inn whither Henry Thresk had come years before on his momentous holiday. She had a little money—the trifling income which her parents had left to her upon their death—and she began to look about for a house. By a piece of good fortune she discovered that the cottage ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... in oils and the three carbon photographs had been pushed under the bed. He was tired of discussing terms, of assisting at surveys, of all the routine of the business. What to the other parties was merely the sale of a ship was to him a momentous event involving a radically new view of existence. He knew that after this ship there would be no other; and the hopes of his youth, the exercise of his abilities, every feeling and achievement of his manhood, had been indissolubly connected with ships. ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... Aben Comixa, Muley, the royal standard-bearer, and other distinguished cavaliers bore this proposition to the Spanish court at Cordova, where they were received by King Ferdinand. Queen Isabella was absent at the time. He was anxious to consult her in so momentous an affair, or, rather, he was fearful of proceeding too precipitately, and not drawing from this fortunate event all the advantage of which it was susceptible. Without returning any reply, therefore, to the mission, he ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... for the pen of Ariosto to rehearse, in epic, the scolding of that momentous eve,—or rather, let me invoke the shade of Dante to inspire me, for none but the author of the Inferno could properly preside over such an attempt. But, perhaps, where the pen might fail, the pencil would succeed. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... nationalization of railways and for various undertakings, brought the whole debt of the nation to 2300 million yen in 1907, which is now being paid off at the rate of fifty million yen annually. It remains to be noted that, in 1897, Japan took the momentous step of adopting gold monometallism. The indemnity which she obtained from China after the war of 1894-1895 brought to her treasury a stock of gold sufficient to form a substantial specie reserve. Moreover, gold had appreciated so that its value in terms of silver had exactly doubled during ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... expected invasion, it afforded us the utmost satisfaction to receive a visit from Mr. Hobbs, the Wesleyan missionary, one of the persons who had visited the war-camp of the assembled chiefs, who were convened, on the death of our lamented friend George, to debate and decide upon the momentous question ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... bewildering rapidity: typhoid fever, diphtheria, cholera, tetanus, plague, pneumonia, gonorrhoea and, most important of all, tuberculosis. It is not too much to say that the demonstration by Koch of the "bacillus tuberculosis" (1882) is, in its far-reaching results, one of the most momentous ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... ball, rising, rising, until it topped the bar, then slowly turning over, over in its quickening descent. But the nearly silent west stand had broke again into loud cries of triumph, and upon the face of the Scoreboard appeared the momentous word, "GOAL!" ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the setting of vast dream-dramas he watched trailing their cloudy way across it, and Ishmael was not loth to share his plateau with him. The incursion of Vassie was another matter, but by this time—nearly a month after that momentous birthday—Ishmael felt helplessly drifting. He was enjoying himself, while Killigrew showed no signs of wishing to return to Paris and Vassie was blooming as never before. She sat to him for sketches that ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... It was a momentous question. I had gone out into the world to shift for myself, at the age of thirteen (for my father had endorsed for friends; and although he left us a sumptuous legacy of pride in his fine Virginian stock ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 10.—Odd to find proceedings in House to-day reminiscent of incident in a famous trial. Occasion recognised as supremely momentous. Marks, within defined limit of time, crisis of bitter controversy. Before Session closes fate of Ireland and of the Ministry will be settled. PREMIER'S speech awaited with gravest anxiety. Lobby thronged with animated groups. Before ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... with all the momentous consequences, mechanical, commercial, and economical, which it has entailed, might be brought forward as a witness on our side; for it was almost completely worked out in the laboratory before being ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... between the quilts, but he got up quickly, and when he had heard the message he sent for Head-nurse and Foster-mother and Old Faithful, for he felt that a most momentous decision had to be made. Yet the message was a very simple one. Those in charge of the child were to creep away that very night with the messenger, who would guide them in safety to King Humayon, who had found help ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... events which had occurred during the growth of St. Paul's cathedral we have to speak hereafter. As the momentous changes of the sixteenth century drew near, the godlessness and unbelief which did so much to alienate many from the Church found strong illustrations in the worldliness which seemed to settle down awhile on St. Paul's and its services. Clergymen appeared here ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... symptoms, each almost trifling in itself, which warn the practised physician of the approach of one of these fearful foes in time to allow him to make a defence. We can do little more than iterate the warning, that whenever, at this momentous epoch, any disquieting change appears, be it physical or mental, let not a day be lost in summoning skilled, competent ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... did not leave the house. La Briere went twice to walk past the Chalet, though always with a sense of despair, for he feared to displease Modeste, and the future seemed to him dark with clouds. The two friends came down to dinner on Monday dressed for the momentous visit. La Briere wore the same clothes he had so carefully selected for the famous Sunday; but he now felt like the satellite of planet, and resigned himself to the uncertainties of his situation. Canalis, on the other hand, had carefully ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... arrest and the men who had been its cause, Bob went over in his mind all the events that had transpired since that momentous happening, yet he had no regret at the ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... and in the liberality of sentiments in those momentous points, the freedom of enquiry, the right of private judgment and the liberty of conscience, of so much importance to be supported in the world, and imparted to all mankind, and which at this hour ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... which natural religion has assumed none probably has exerted so deep and far-reaching an influence on human life as the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead; hence an historical survey of this most momentous creed and of the practical consequences which have been deduced from it can hardly fail to be at once instructive and impressive, whether we regard the record with complacency as a noble testimony to the aspiring genius of man, who claims to outlive the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... knew it so fully that, instinctively, accustomed as he was to momentous political questions in which secrecy is of the utmost importance, he cast a glance toward the Prefect of Police, as though M. Desmalions's presence in the room ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... The new virtue, Unionism, of which he is the sole inventor, seemed to have fallen into premature unpopularity. All that he loved, hoped, or hated, hung in the balance. And the game of war was not only momentous to him in its issues; it sublimated his spirit by its heroic displays, and tortured him intimately by the spectacle of its horrors. It was a theatre, it was a place of education, it was like a season of religious ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were ended, however, and he was sitting in his library alone, he said with a subdued glee, "That is the way to do it,—the one I see first!" And Mr. Denner went to bed with a quiet mind, and the peace which follows the decision of a momentous question. ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... the thin, sad-looking stuff with increased speed downward. And here at its moment of most shivering tenuity, when the perfected and purified material seemed reduced to an extremity of weakness, came the magic change. Unseen in the whirring complexity of the spinner, it received the momentous gift that translates fibre to yarn. In a moment it changed from stuff a baby's finger could break to thread capable of supporting fifteen pounds of pressure. For now came the twist—that word of mighty significance—and the tiny thread of new-born yarn descended ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... original should not be lost. And he flatters himself, that the indulgence of the illustrious historian will not be wanting to a man, who, of his own motion, has taken the liberty to give this composition to the public, only from a strong persuasion, that this momentous argument will be useful, in a critical conjecture, to that country which he loves with an ardour that can be exceeded only by the nobler flame which burns in the bosom of the philanthropic author, for the freedom and happiness of all ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... purposes of the colonists at that precise moment. Hence it was, as a sagacious writer of that period has told us, that merely upon the adoption of these resolves by the committee of the whole, men recognized their momentous bearing, and could not be restrained from giving publicity to them, without waiting for their final adoption by the House. "A manuscript of the unrevised resolves," says William Gordon, "soon reached Philadelphia, having been sent off immediately upon their ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... none other than himself. He had deduced that, although the Ba-gcatya held cannibalism in abhorrence, yet from time to time human sacrifices of very awesome and mysterious nature took place, and that on certain momentous occasions—the accession or death of a king, of an heir to any branch of the royal house, or such a one as this now under discussion—the admission to full privileges of manhood of a scion of the same. And the sacrifice on this occasion was to consist of himself? ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... so determined a purpose were of no sudden growth, and had been probably maturing in his mind for years, when the gangrene was torn open by the Bishop of Tarbes, and accident precipitated his resolution. The momentous consequences involved, and the reluctance to encounter a probable quarrel with the emperor, might have long kept him silent, except for some extraneous casualty; but the tree being thus rudely shaken, the ripe fruit fell. The capture of Rome occurring almost at the same moment, Wolsey caught ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... and we would have to run this gauntlet, night and day, without rest or one moment of safety, for six hundred miles. As we looked on the river, rolling before us, we felt that it divided us from a momentous future, and we were eager to learn our fate. After an hour perhaps had elapsed, but which seemed a dozen, the gunboat backed out and steamed up the river. Her shells had nearly all burst short, doing no damage. The boats ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke |
