"Moot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had a different original tradition, and have altered it, just because they are now such fervent ancestor-worshippers. Unkulunkulu was prior to Death, which came among men in the usual mythical way.[36] Whether Unkulunkulu still exists, is rather a moot question: Dr. Callaway thinks that he does not.[37] If not, he is an exception to the rule in Australia, Andaman, among the Bushmen, the Fuegians, and savages in general, who are less advanced in culture than the Zulus. The idea, then, of a Maker of things who has ceased ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... Dipterus has not been confirmed. And as the Old Red Sandstones of Scotland have no true fossiliferous base, but rest on primary rocks both to the south and north of the Grampians, it may be regarded as in some degree a moot point whether the lowest fossiliferous beds to the north be older or newer than those to the south, or, what is quite possible, of the same age. Provisionally, however, I have arranged my paper on the supposition that the Coccostean formation of the north is the lowest and oldest ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... have life and wit; and yesterday, upon Charlotte's raving against me upon a related enterprise, I told her, that I had had in debate several times, whether she were or were not too near of kin to me: and that it was once a moot point with me, whether I could not love her dearly for a month or so: and perhaps it was well for her, that another pretty little puss started up, and diverted me, just as I was ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... moot a higher question: Is he fit for the pulpit,—for that great conservative power by which religion, and morals, and freedom, must be maintained among us? "I do not believe," he declares, in one of his sermons, "the miraculous origin of the Hebrew church, or the Buddhist church, or of the ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... reveals the artistic skill and taste of our forefathers, and recalls the wonders of old-time. It will be our endeavour to tell of the old country houses that Time has spared, the cottages that grace the village green, the stern grey walls that still guard some few of our towns, the old moot halls and public buildings. We shall see the old-time farmers and rustics gathering together at fair and market, their games and sports and merry-makings, and whatever relics of old English life have been left for an artist and scribe of ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... to her. Was it all over? and no more such kindly ministry and delightful sympathy to be ever hoped for any more? Had Pitt forgotten her? It gave Esther pain, that nobody guessed, to be obliged to moot this question; and it busied her a good deal. Sometimes her thoughts went longingly back beyond Pitt Dallas to another face that had always been loving to her; soft eyes and a tender hand that ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... about that," said Lord Valentine; "that is the very point at issue. I do not think the great majority are the best judges of their own interests. At all events, gentlemen, the respective advantages of aristocracy and democracy are a moot point. Well then, finding the question practically settled in this country, you will excuse me for not wishing to agitate it. I give you complete credit for the sincerity of your convictions; extend the same confidence ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... they strongly suspected, the blockhouses in sight accommodated a few men, none of their occupants revealed their presence nor made the slightest attempt to interfere with the uninvited visitors. It was a moot point between Dick and Grosvenor whether they should not take the bull by the horns, as it were, by riding up to the nearest blockhouse and attempting to get into communication with its occupants at once; but Grosvenor was very strongly opposed to any such step, ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... deserted, even in broad day, when he passed through. Men, women, and children fled before him. Even the dogs and pigs got out of the way, while the king was not above hiding under a mat. The two prime ministers lived in terror of Bunster, who never discussed any moot subject, but struck out ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... and pleasure, when we shall thinke good to see them during our pleasure.' The Globe Theatre was noted as the customary scene of their labours, but permission was granted to them to perform in the town-hall or moot-hall of any country town. Nine actors are named. Lawrence Fletcher stands first on the list; he had already performed before James in Scotland in 1599 and 1601. Shakespeare comes second and Burbage third. The company to which they ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... his own prophecies is a moot point. It is said that he bought the lease of a house, which expired about twenty-five years after his date ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... strategical position to me, struck me as a man of great clearness of vision, middle-sized, straight as a dart, with an eagle face grained and coloured like an old walnut. The whole of the staff work is, as experts assure me, moot excellently done. ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... disappeared—and the suspected book on the Therapeutic sect known by the title "On the Contemplative Life." Whether they received this generic name because they are suggestions for the Jewish cause, or because they are written to answer the insinuations ([Greek: kath' hypothesin]) of adversaries, is a moot point. But their general purport is clear: they were an apologetic presentation of Jewish life, written to show the falsity of anti-Semitic calumnies. The Jews are good citizens and their manner of life is humanitarian. The Essene sect is a ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... student as regards the ensemble of violin and piano will be recalled by all who have enjoyed the 'Sonata Recitals' he has given together with Mrs. Mannes. And as an interpreting solo artist his views regarding the moot question of gut versus wire ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... there were Kings, to have two ceremonies—one carried out by the official head of the national Church, the Greek Church; the other by the people in a ritual adopted by themselves, on much the same basis as the Germanic Folk-Moot. The Blue Mountains is a nation of strangely loyal tendencies. What was a thousand years ago is to be to-day—so far, of course, as is possible under ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... straw," and like devices came into vogue. The arbitration of a bystander, particularly of "a big boy who could whip the others," and the "expedient of laying a wager to secure the postponement of a quarrel," are very common. But the most remarkable institution at McDonogh is undoubtedly the boy-moot, one of whose decisions is reported in detail by Mr. Johnson,—an institution in action "almost daily," and part and parcel of the life of the school. None but the author's own words can justly portray ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... what kind of a shop. It is not clear whether it will pay to use that farm land for a building scheme; and, within the domain of agriculture, which of course comprises an immense variety of really different industries, it is often a very moot point indeed whether a certain field should be left under grass, or brought under the plow. Cases of this sort are not phantoms of the imagination; they emerge on every side as concrete problems with which some one or other is dealing every day, and it is ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... foregoing paragraph, it was of course necessary to extend protection to as many of her "hands", as were essential to her safe and efficient working. How many were really required for this purpose was, however, a moot point on which ship-masters and naval officers rarely saw eye to eye; and since the arbiter in all such disputes was the "quarter-deck gentlemen," the decision seldom if ever went in favour of ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... for drawing dismal pictures, and was very severe in his denunciations, while he quite forgot to offer a word of encouragement to the humble seeker after good. Upon the Sabbath in question Mrs. Talbot returned from church, and seated herself at the dinner table with a countenance of moot woeful solemnity. Her husband at length enquired, how she had enjoyed the sermon. "O!" replied she, "he is a preacher after my own heart, and his sermon explained all my views clearly." "Indeed," replied Mr. Talbot, "he must have a wonderful ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... were not founded or modeled on precedent" at all. Mr. E.A. Freeman, however, puts it more truthfully in saying: "The circumstances of New England called the primitive assembly (that is, the Homeric agora, Athenian ekklesia, Roman comitia, Swiss landesgemeinde, English folk-moot) again into being, when in the older England it was well-nigh forgotten. What in Switzerland was a survival was in New England ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... mena, mina, moot, Le'me catch you by the foot; Fill your eyes and mouth with soot, Pull a ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... show in a field by the market-town, which stood in a hollow among the moors. The grass sloped to a river that sparkled in the sun and then vanished in the alders' shade. Across the stream, old oak and ash trees rolled up the side of the Moot Hill, and round the latter gray walls and roofs showed among the leaves. A spire and a square, ivy-covered tower rose above the faint blue haze of smoke. A few white clouds floated in the sky and their cool shadows ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... man has Europe or Asia in his backyard, nor a lifetime of leisure for research, for special learning, on the moot questions of church-scholarship. Progress consists in each man's doing his best to advance the interests of the kingdom of God in his own special sphere. From others he must take something for granted. The ear of the Church ought always to be open ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... This is the moot point for psychoanalysis. But let us look at sex, in its obvious manifestation. The sexual relation between man and woman consummates in the act of coition. Now what is the act of coition? We know its functional purpose of ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... The poore Pedler, by name Iohn Law, being in the Castle about the Moot-hall, attending to be called, not well able to goe or stand, being led thether by his poore sonne Abraham Law: My Lord Gerrard[R3a] moued the Court to call the poore Pedler, who was there readie, and had attended all the Assizes, to giue euidence for the Kings Majestie against ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... —The moot point is did he forget it, J. J. O'Molloy said quietly, turning a horseshoe paperweight. Saving princes ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... a difference of opinion among scholars, Elijah was usually questioned as to how the moot point was interpreted in the heavenly academy. (79) Once, when the scholars were not unanimous in their views as to Esther's intentions when she invited Haman to her banquets with the king, Elijah, asked by ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... London, having this object among others of a very pressing nature on his mind. His saddler had to be seen,—and threatened,—on a certain matter touching the horses' backs. A draught of hounds were being sent down to a friend in Scotland. And there was a Committee of Masters to sit on a moot question concerning a neutral covert in the XXX country, of which Committee he was one. But the desire to punish Slide was almost as strong in his indignant mind as those other matters referring more especially to the profession of his life. "Phineas," he said, "you are ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... the classical course as he was too poor to pay the tuition fee, nor did he join any of the clubs, as he could not afford it. He seldom appeared in debates or the moot courts, for he was so shabbily dressed he felt he would not be welcome. It was undoubtedly these humiliating experiences, combined with certain of his studies and reading, that caused him to drift into an ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... Contarini and the moderate Catholics secured a more favourable reception of plans of reconciliation. In April, 1541, conferences for this purpose were in fact opened at Augsburg in which Contarini, as Papal legate, accepted a definition of the moot question of justifications by faith which satisfied Bucer and Melancthon. On the other side, the Landgrave of Hesse and the Elector of Brandenburg publicly declared that they believed it possible ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... given by a chart with which they had been furnished. [**] This "open passage" can hardly refer to anything else than Torres Strait. But in that case it is clear that Jansz. cannot have solved the problem, but must have left it a moot point. At all events he sailed past the strait, through which a few months after him Luiz Vaez de Torres ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... graceful ghost through the city streets, and the sight sent his heart plunging against his side like an inward sledge-hammer. Would one pulse in her heart stir ever so faintly at sight of him? Just as he asked himself the question, and was stepping forward to moot her, feeling very like the country swain in love—"hot and dry like, with a pain in his side like"—he suddenly stopped. Another figure came forth from the shadow of an opposite house, and softly pronounced her name. It was a short figure—a woman's figure. ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... first marked recognition of his skill as a workman; and he used afterwards to say that it was the biggest sum of money he had up to that time earned in one lump. Ralph Dodds, however, did more than this. He released the brakesman from the handles of his engine at West Moot, and appointed him engineman at the High Pit, at good wages, during the time the pit was sinking,—the job lasting for about a year; and he also kept him in mind for ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... this time so well advanced that the hour for the first meal of the day was past, and it became a moot point with Arima whether to seek Umu at his house or at the barracks of the Inca's bodyguard. He decided, however, upon trying the house first, and it was well that he did; for, although Umu was not at home, neither, it seemed, ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... fifteen years before, in which that eloquent statesman, a man by no means inclined to a timorous policy, had declared that "no feeling of wounded pride, no motive of questionable expediency, nothing short of real and demonstrable necessity, should ever induce him to moot the awful question of the transcendental power of Parliament over every dependency of the British crown. That transcendental power was an ordinance of empire, which ought to be kept back within the ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... Mr. Wilton, "I have sent for you and Ermengarde together, in order that I may ask for an explanation. I did not moot the question yesterday, although the circumstance which aroused my displeasure occurred the day before. Pray take this chair, ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... if one well-established rule has been overthrown, another, believed to be quite as wrong and perhaps not so well fortified by time and subsequent cases, may share the same fate. Shall counsel risk advising his client not to prosecute his claim or defence, when another bolder than he, may moot the point and conduct another cause resting upon the same question to a successful termination? The very foundations of confidence and security are shaken. The law becomes a lottery, in which every man feels disposed ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... arming slaves is in my opinion a moot point, unless the enemy set the example. For, should we begin to form Battalions of them, I have not the smallest doubt, if the war is to be prosecuted, of their following us in it, and justifying the measure upon our own ground. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... name of friendship to sexual love; quoted; on bravery; unmetrical line of; on man's wretched lot; on modesty; on advantages of music; order of different kinds of exercises according to; on intercourse between men and their wives; calls salt divine; epithets applied to liquids by; a moot point in third book of Iliad; essay on life and poetry of; biographical sketch of; the two works of; metre and dialects used by; epithets used by; tropes found in; figures of speech in; various styles used by; on constitution of the universe; natural philosophy of; on God and the gods; ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... international status of Egypt and Ireland, and much else, had these innovations been compatible with his own special object. But they were not. He was apparently minded to test the matter by announcing his resolve to moot the problem of the freedom of the seas, but when admonished by the British government that it would not even brook its mention, he at once gave it up and, presumably drawing the obvious inference ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Welsh refiners, while some of it is sent to the Continent. Of the remaining works, 16 refine the crude oil only. There are altogether 3804 retorts in operation, both vertical and horizontal. It is a moot point, which is now engaging the attention of those in the trade, whether vertical or horizontal retorts are the best suited for the purposes in view. At Mr. Young's works, which are the largest and most important in Scotland, nothing but vertical retorts are used, it being ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... "caffetannic acid" is the "harmful" substance in coffee, and that it is concentrated in the outer layers of the coffee beans. If these be his precepts, the question of their correctness and of the efficiency of his process becomes a moot one. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... genuineness of the Prologues of these plays has long been a moot question. The tendency of the more recent investigators has been to hold that all were, at least in part, written ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... a moot point whether Tom-all-Alone's be uglier by day or by night, but on the argument that the more that is seen of it the more shocking it must be, and that no part of it left to the imagination is at all likely to be made so bad as the reality, day carries it. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... doesn't hurt anybody; except art Parasitically clinging on to the effortless close of a life Private possession underlay everything worth having Purpose of marriage was children, not mere sinful happiness Question so moot that it was not mooted Quiet tenacity with which he had converted a mediocre talent Spoiled their rods, spared their children Take himself seriously, yet never bore others Tarred with cynicism, realism, and immorality like the French The young have such cheap, hard ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger
... had just to moot the question And say you felt the closing hour had come And we should simply jump at your suggestion And all the Hague with overtures would hum; You'd but to call her up, And Peace would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... say that he WAS Charolais," said Guerchard. "It is quite a moot point. On the whole, I'm inclined to think that he was not. The theft of the motor-cars was a job for a subordinate. He would hardly ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... he knew that the mastership or pupilship of Fra Lippo to Masaccio (called 'Guidi' in the poem), and vice versa, was a moot point; but in making Fra Lippi the master, he followed the best authority he had access to, the last edition of Vasari, as he stated in a Letter to the 'Pall Mall' at the time, in answer to M. Etienne {a writer in the ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... have referred to, upon which the public is divided. But the matters referred to in that correspondence are insignificant compared with the taking in public an active part on either side of such moot questions as I have referred to. The conclusion that Mr. Smith's usefulness was gone, does not depend on the truth or untruth of them; it was therefore not necessary or proper to discuss them further with Mr. Smith upon the theory that they were material ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... land grant made by a preceding Legislature. On any of three grounds Marshall might easily have disposed of this case before coming to the principal question. In the first place, it was palpably a moot case; that is to say, it was to the interest of the opposing parties to have the rescinding act set aside. The Court would not today take jurisdiction of such a case, but Marshall does not even suggest ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... found to be the Fact, how absurd must appear the Praises of such an Editor? It seems a moot Point, whether Mr. Pope has done most Injury to Shakespeare as his Editor and Encomiast; or Mr. Rymer done him Service as his Rival and Censurer. Were it every where the true Text, which That Editor in his late pompous Edition gave us, the Poet deserv'd not ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... Overbeck and his works stand to nature, to historic precedent, and lastly, to inward consciousness or individual character. We have seen that the notion prevalent in Rome, that the living model was wholly discarded, is inaccurate; bearing on this moot point may be here told an anecdote. It is related how one morning, when the artist was engaged on the Tasso frescoes, in the Villa Massimo, he had need of the life for a muscular arm, and so sallied forth into the neighbouring Piazza of the ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... institutions which freemen have always and everywhere held fundamental. For a long time there has been no sufficient opportunity of counsel among the people; no place and method of talk, of exchange of opinion, of parley. Communities have outgrown the folk-moot and the town-meeting. Congress, in accordance with the genius of the land, which asks for action and is impatient of words,—Congress has become an institution which does its work in the privacy of committee rooms and not on the floor of the Chamber; a body that makes laws,—a legislature; not ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... a moot question whether Mr. Harrihan resembled his dog, or whether his dog resembled him. That there was a marked similarity admitted of no discussion. If Corp's nose had been encouraged and his lower jaw suppressed, ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... it has been taken for Tarracino and Taranto. I have a project to joyn Sicily to my lands on the continent, that when I have a mind to go into Africa, I may sail by my own coasts. But prithee Agamemnon tell me what moot-point was it you argued to day; for tho' I plead no causes my self, yet I have had a share of letters in my time; and that you may not think me sick of them now, have three libraries, the one Greek, the other two Latin; therefore ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... Hrunting, an ancient heritage. Steel was the blade itself, tempered with poison-twigs, Hardened with battle-blood: never in fight it failed Any who wielded it, when he would wage a strife In the dire battlefield, folk-moot of enemies." ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... of my countrymen, officers in the service of France. My next will be from Paris. Remember me to our friends at A—'s. I am a little heavy-hearted at the prospect of removing to such a distance from you. It is a moot point whether I shall ever return. My health is ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... days of Pythagoras down to the present time it has been a moot question whether a vegetable or meat diet was best for man. Each side can present equally strong arguments; each can point to exceptional instances of physical development under the different methods; each can point to ill results that follow ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... have had more written about them than the bustard, much is unsettled with regard to its economy. A moot point, which will most likely always remain undecided, is whether the British race was migratory or not, though that such is the habit of the species in most parts of the European continent is beyond dispute. Equally uncertain ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... alkaline salts appear in any analysis, they must be assumed to consist almost entirely of that substance generally in the form of common salt, and be valued accordingly. Sulphate of lime and organic matter though abundant constituents of most manures, add but little to their value, and it is a moot point whether they ought to be taken into consideration, although most persons allow a small value for them. Carbonate of lime, sand, or siliceous matter, and water, ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... once moot the question whether Fleda should not join Marion at her convent. But his wife looked very grave and said that she was too tender and delicate a little thing to be trusted to the hands of strangers; Hugh pleaded, and argued that she might share all his lessons; and Fleda's own ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... manners. They had become "upper class" and now their name would be formally recorded in the Stud Book, their money joined to land. Whether this was a little late in the day, and those rewards of the possessive instinct, lands and money, destined for the melting-pot—was still a question so moot that it was not mooted. After all, Timothy had said Consols were goin' up. Timothy, the last, the missing link; Timothy, in extremis on the Bayswater Road—so Francie had reported. It was whispered, too, that this young Mont was a sort ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in 1904. In 1899 our local pack of hounds, the South Wold, ran a badger, instead of a fox, over several fields, until he took to ground, and was afterwards killed by one of the party, as he kept his head out of the hole. It should hardly be a moot point whether the extermination of the badger is an advantage or not, although a good deal has been written on both sides of the subject. Its skin makes the “sporran” of the kilted Highlander, and its hair makes our shaving brushes. ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... impatient thing for me to hear Betsy working out the afternoon with perpetual chatter and challenge of prices, combating now as a lodger all those points which as a landlady she never would allow even to be moot questions. If any applicant in European Square had dared so much as hint at any of all the requirements which she now expected gratis, she would simply have whisked her duster, and said that the lodgings for such people must be looked for down the alley. However, Mrs. Busk, our new landlady, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... it gives an atmosphere of art which nothing else can impart; and certainly a collection of household curios cannot be complete without some musical instrument, although but a humble example. It may be a moot point among collectors whether the insignificant whistle or primitive call can be regarded as sufficiently musical to rank in this category. It is certain, however, that it is one of the commonest of sound producers; if there is a boy in the home there is almost sure ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... what the lawyer thought he did not know—that Five Oaks was held by the lawyers to be possibly without those unfortunate limitations which affected all the rest of the estate. It was only a moot-point; but the doubt had led Mr. Jos. Larkin to ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... out, in universal frenzy, that she was guilty, that she should die; and that the barbarians, when they heard of the punishment inflicted on their secret adherent, would retire in dismay from Rome. This also was a moot point of argument, on which I vainly endeavoured to decide; but the Senate and the people were wiser than I; and Serena was condemned to be strangled to-morrow by the public executioner. She was a woman of good report before this time, and is the adopted mother ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... Squires of old, and courtly Dames, Kings, Emperors, Popes. Next under these should stand The hands of famous Lawyers—a grave band— Who in their Courts of Law or Equity Have best upheld Freedom and Property. These should moot cases in your book, and vie To show their reading and their Serjeantry. But I have none of these; nor can I send The notes by Bullen to her Tyrant penn'd In her authentic hand; nor in soft hours Lines writ by Rosamund in Clifford's bowers. The lack of curious Signatures I moan, And want the courage ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Academy. Whether the essential and peculiar features of this ornamentation are purely indigenous, as Professor Westwood contends, or whether they are of Gallo-Roman origin, as Fleury argues, is a moot point, calling for complicated discussion which would be ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... Estates'—Monarch, namely, Barons, and Clergy. It is made up in nearly three equal parts of ingenuity, wit, and grossness. It is a drama, and was acted several times—first, in 1535, at Cupar-Fife, on a large green mound called Moot-hill; then, in 1539, in an open park near Linlithgow, by the express desire of the king, who with all the ladies of the Court attended the representation; then in the amphitheatre of St Johnston in Perth; ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... these hostile feelings are shared by few. It is much to be desired that some notice of the subject may be taken in Parliament, when, by being treated in a proper manner, it may be effectually stopped. Lord Aberdeen has spoken to Lord John Russell, who will be quite prepared to moot it ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... thought, material for thought; food for the mind, mental pabulum. subject, subject matter; matter, theme, [Grk], topic, what it is about, thesis, text, business, affair, matter in hand, argument; motion, resolution; head, chapter; case, point; proposition, theorem; field of inquiry; moot point, problem &c. (question) 461. V. float in the mind , pass in the mind &c. 451. Adj. thought of; uppermost in the mind; in petto. Adv. under consideration; in question, in the mind; on foot, on the carpet, on the docket, on the tapis[obs3]; relative ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... wrestled better than I, the master, though a tall and tolerably robust fellow, found the feat considerably more difficult than he could have supposed. We swayed from side to side of the school-room, now backwards, now forwards, and for a full minute it seemed to be rather a moot point on which side the victory was to incline. At length, however, I was tripped over a form; and as the master had to deal with me, not as master usually deals with pupil, but as one combatant deals with another, whom he has to beat into submission, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... that it is important to avoid the too free use of condiments and stimulating foods. We have used salt so long that our bodies seem adapted to it, and it is usually considered essential to the welfare of domestic stock; therefore it is a moot question as to whether it is advisable for human beings to avoid it altogether. Yet the excessive use of it to which we are prone is certainly harmful. How is this to be avoided? If we eat our food in a hand, I have found that the longer ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... from the bridge, the High Street was so wide that the houses on either side were separated by a space of over two hundred feet. This elongated space was the market-place. In the centre was the Moot Hall, a quaint little building, supported on oak pillars, and in the shelter underneath the farmers assembled on market day. All round the Moot Hall, and extending far up and down the street, were cattle-pens and sheep-pens, which were never removed. ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... against his wife to send him downstairs at the lady's heels. The fellow was a perfect riddle, hard to read as the zebra lines on the skin of a wild jackass—if Providence intended any meaning when she traced them! and it's a moot point: as it is whether some of our poets have meaning and are not composers of zebra. 'No one knows but them above!' he said ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of Monmouth there were more than seven hundred black men in the field. Rhode Island formed a battalion of negroes, giving liberty to every slave enlisting, with compensation to his owner; and the battalion did good service. But Washington always considered the policy of arming slaves "a moot point," unless the enemy set the example; and though Congress recommended Georgia and South Carolina to raise three thousand negroes for the war, giving full "compensation to the proprietors of such negroes," South Carolina refused to do so, and Georgia had been already overrun ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... your tonsils out now, won't you?" The question of a tonsilectomy had been a moot one for years. Nancy had always been anxious to have them out, having been told that it was merely a case of "snip, snip, and a day on ice cream." Henry, who regarded tonsilectomy skeptically as a fad, and who knew, furthermore, that it was a major operation ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... was concerned in the abortive attempt of Catiline at revolution in 65, is a moot point. He was now aedile, and acquired great popularity by the splendid shows which he gave to the people, and by his restoration of the statue and trophies of Marius. In 64, as president of the quaestio ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... visit to the Highfield was paid, I think, purely from sport-loving motives. He was not on our trail. He came merely to see if Comrade Brady was proficient with his hands. Subsequent events must have justified our fighting editor in his eyes. It seems to be a moot point whether he ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... experiments in tragi-comedy, but, in general, classical comedy was pure comedy—the prose comedy of manners—and classical tragedy admitted no comic intermixture. Whether tragedy should be in rhyme, after the French manner, or in blank verse, after the precedent of the old English stage, was a moot point. Dryden at first argued for rhyme and used it in his "heroic plays"; and it is significant that he defended its use on the ground that it would act as a check upon the poet's fancy. But afterward he grew "weary of his much-loved mistress, rhyme," and went back to blank ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... sport." The assertion as to the strict and uniform obedience of the company at its captain's word, requires, as we have seen, some qualification in a democratic sense. Whether Lincoln was ever beaten in wrestling is also one of the moot points ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... don't question but you'll there find Mrs. Behn writ as often in black characters, and stand as thick in some places, as the names of the generation of Adam in the first of Genesis.' How far credence may be given to anything of Brown's is of course a moot point, but the above passage and much that follows would be witless and dull unless there were some real suggestion of scandal. Moreover, it cannot here be applied to Hoyle, whereas it very well fits Ravenscroft. This letter which ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... moot the question, whether Fleda should not join Marion at her convent. But his wife looked very grave, and said that she was too tender and delicate a little thing to be trusted to the hands of strangers. Hugh pleaded, and argued ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the prisoner in his dungeon cell tames and pets the conventional mouse. To educate Albert, to raise him above his groove in life and develop his soul, appealed to her romantic nature as a worthy task, and as a good way of filling in the time. It is an exceedingly moot point—and one which his associates of the servants' hall would have combated hotly—whether Albert possessed a soul. The most one could say for certain is that he looked as if he possessed one. To one who saw his deep blue eyes and their sweet, pensive expression ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... matter to be settled before I go," Benjulia proceeded. "Here are some papers, which I have received from your lawyer, Mr. Moot. They relate to a slander, which your wife ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... with a certain sun-like quality; but his age, the recession of his locks, and the advancement of his waist were beginning to dim his lustre, so that whether he was moth or candle was becoming a moot point. It was moot to me, watching him and Miss Sabine Monroy at Charleston throughout the month of March. The casual observer would have said that she was "playing him up," as a young poet of my acquaintance puts it; but I was not casual. For me Vaness had the attraction of a theorem, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... the people stood to the covenant." The stone connected with the ceremony was regarded as the most sacred attestation of the engagement entered into between the newly-elected king or chief and his people. It was placed in some conspicuous position, upon the top of a "moot-hill," or the open-air place of assembly. Upon it was usually carved an impression of a human foot; and into this impression, during the ceremony of inauguration, the king or chief placed his own right foot, in token that he was installed by right into ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... Noblesse and Clergy united? Shall the States-General, when once assembled, vote and deliberate, in one body, or in three separate bodies; 'vote by head, or vote by class,'—ordre as they call it? These are the moot-points now filling all France with jargon, logic and eleutheromania. To terminate which, Necker bethinks him, Might not a second Convocation of the Notables be fittest? Such ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... a toot-moot o' that kin' afore I left, but I thocht it better to tak' nae notice o't. I'll be wi' ye a' day the morn though, an' I'm thinkin' I'll clap a rouch han' on their mou's 'at I ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... the goodness of his heart as we did, some men of all nations would grieve as we do. When I frequented Morgan's[K] I used him as a touch-stone, to try the hearts of other men upon; for, as he was not rich, he was out of the walk of knaves and flatterers, and such men, who were moot prejudiced in his favour at first sight, and coveted not his company after a little acquaintance, I always avoided as beings made of base metal. It was for this reason I despised that ****** ****, (you know who I mean) for you too have ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... very high mountains, the points that have reared themselves nearest to the sun but farthest out of the sheltering blanket of the earth's atmosphere. The actual temperature of the moon's surface by day is a moot point. It may be below the freezing-point or above the ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... backs to the long slope which leads up to the old chapel on the hill. In front of them was the dark ragged edge of the wood, with a sharp twinkle of steel here and there in its shadows which spoke of these lurking foes. But now there was a long moot upon a horn, and at once a score of russet-clad bowmen ran forward from amid the trees, spreading out into a scattered line and closing swiftly in upon the travelers. In the midst of them, upon a great gray horse, sat a small misshapen man, waving and cheering as ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 1898, a joint high commission sat at Quebec and canvassed all moot matters between the two countries, among them that of the Alaska boundary. It adjourned, however, without settling the question, though a temporary and provisional understanding was reached and signed October ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... competence neither of the Irish Parliament, nor of the body which I have distinguished as the Imperial Parliament, which, it will be remembered, consists of the British Parliament with the Irish representatives summoned thereto. Whether the British Parliament has or has not any further powers is a moot question which I purposely leave for the moment untouched. What is admitted on all hands is that a Parliament in which Irish representatives have no voice whatever can legislate on every matter affecting England, Scotland, or the British Empire, and also on the topics specially ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... object is to state facts, rather than to moot theories, I leave this debatable ground to others, and here close a narrative, compiled with much care, of this interesting and instructive case. I was the rather disposed to examine it critically and report it in detail, because it seems to suggest valuable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... time allowed—and of course there was no knowing what effect the resistance of Dublin might have on the country—it may be a moot point whether it might not have been advisable to separate the two questions of the sentence of death and the actual executions, and one can well imagine the conciliatory effect of a Royal Act of Clemency in the event of maturer consideration ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... old system of sowing seed by hand is discarded, and seed-planting machines are now coming into general use. The distance apart which the seeds (about five or six in one hole) should be set, is still a moot question, but it is generally admitted to be unsafe to plant at greater distances than 12 inches. When sown, a light covering is put over, and in a few days—about twelve generally—the tiny plants ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... is a moot point whether even Dick Vaughan's voice would have served to penetrate the cloud of fury in which Jan moved. He became very terrible in his wrath. One saw less of the bloodhound and more, far more, of his sire, of royal Finn, the fighting wolfhound of the Tinnaburra ranges, in his ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... arrested the encroachments of the sea, which submerged a former site of Aldeburgh. The church of St Peter and St Paul is Perpendicular, largely restored, and contains a monument to the poet George Crabbe, born here on the 24th of December 1754. A small picturesque Moot Hall of the 16th century is used for corporation meetings. Slaughden Quay on the Alde admits small vessels, and fishing is carried on. Aldeburgh is governed by a mayor, 4 ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... back the line from Oswestry till, as a newspaper writer put it, "a rival to Shrewsbury is brought into condition to do it damage." Another was for complicating it with other new schemes. One of the sternest of all controversies still raged round the moot point whether the line was to run from Oswestry to Newtown or from Newtown to Oswestry, and even private friends fell out as to the exact spot on the proposed route at which the actual work should begin! "Discord ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... to the road, and walked on and on, following the way his eyes led him. And he journeyed for ten days and ten nights, until at length he came to a great city; and as he was entering the gates, he saw a crowd of people assembled, holding a moot; for their Tsar was dead, and they did not know whom to choose to rule over them. Then they agreed that whoever first passed through the city ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... "metallic rolled cartridges, centre-primed," when she had to get away, as the daylight began to play the informer. She dropped down towards Bayonne, and appears to have reached a point some four miles from the French shore (the exact distance is a moot question), where she laid to and allowed her furnaces to cool The men were "dead tired out" after their night's work, and the captain considered that he was within the protection of French waters. But there is a very ancient proverb about a pitcher and a veil, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... stamping heavily across the floor, and Will mechanically pushed down his spectacles and dipped a pen in ink, slewing the register round for the guest's signature. He says he knew at a glance that The Mysterious Stranger was no travelling man, but this is a moot point, Tracey's memory being minutely accurate and at variance ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... the District for acts committed in violation of District law were transported to Virginia-alien territory-to serve their terms. It was a moot point whether prisoners were so treated with sufficient warrant in law. Eminent jurists held that the District had no right to convict a person under its laws and commit that person to confinement in another ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... much about her—where she came from or why she came. She gave no confidences and invited none. In a general way it was known that she was a widow. Her husband had gone away and never returned, and it was a moot question in San Pasqual whether the Widow Corblay was grass or natural. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the absent one was missed and that his wife remained faithful to his memory, as several frontier gentlemen, who had sought her hand ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... plan for carrying on the internal affairs of the country, and the idea was to leave each district to manage its own affairs. This is only a return to the original Saxon plan. In every village there was a moot-hill, or sacred tree, where the freemen met to make their own laws and arrange their agricultural affairs. Here disputes were settled, plough lands and meadow lands shared in due lot among the villagers, and ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... sibilantly, and other people had whispered, in the long intervals of the organ. She had removed him from the church before the collection for the Red Cross, and when they had eaten a sort of dinner she had borne him away to the Russian dancers in the Moot Hall. ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... seaport soon after nine, carrying the hospital mailbag and as many messages as a village carrier. The life of the driver was far more exciting than his occupation would suggest, and it was always a moot point whether or not he would succeed in getting back the same night. The road was of the usual Belgian type, with a paved causeway in the middle just capable of allowing two motors to pass, and on each side was a morass, flanked on the right by a canal and on the left by ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar |
