"Significant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... public—which is the only critic that counts in the long run—does not demand grammar, much less style; and the novel of the season may bristle with passages that could be set for correction at examinations in English. It is a little thing, but it seems to me significant, that the announcement of terms of the local branch of Mudie's, in the little town at which I am writing these ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... eighteen full hands. They have planted and are cultivating sixty-three acres of cotton, fifty of corn, six of potatoes, with as many more to be planted, four and a half of cow-peas, three of pea-nuts, and one and a half of rice. These facts are most significant. The instinct for land—to have one spot on earth where a man may stand, and whence no human being can of right drive him—is one of the most conservative elements of our nature; and a people who have it in any fair degree will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... whatever?" Bud looked away from her eyes—toward the uncurtained, high little window. A face appeared there, as if a tall man had glanced in as he was passing by and halted for a second to look. Bud's eyes met full the eyes of the man outside, who tilted his head backward in a significant movement and passed on. Marian turned her head and caught the signal, looked at Bud quickly, a little flush ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... you ask why I believe that Sand left Chopin when she was bored with him? The words "some days afterwards" are significant. I print the Pagello story not only because it is new, but as a reminder that George Sand in her love affairs was always the man. She treated Chopin as a child, a toy, used him for literary copy- -pace Mr. Hadow!—and ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... him every detail of my talk with the Secretary of State; he heard me, silently, meditatively. When I concluded with Mr. Blaine's assurance that we should not be harmed "this time," but must "get into line," he looked up at me with a significant steadiness of eye. "President Woodruff," he said, "has been praying.... He thinks he sees some light.... You are authorized to say ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... diplomatist, and he writes of other diplomatists, and one in particular, with most significant detail. It need not be supposed that he intends the "arch intriguer" Aerssens to stand for himself, or that he would have endured being thought to identify himself with the man of whose "almost devilish acts" he speaks so freely. But the sagacious ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... being significant. Both the father and the son had assured me, independently of each other, that if I were told what the peril was, I would hardly realise its significance. How strange and bizarre must the fear be which can scarcely be expressed in ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... must have a meaning congenial with the purposes of the Constitution." Those purposes, of course, are expressed in its preamble, or in the body of the instrument, or in both. The preamble itself, in this case, is sufficient to show them. It commences with the significant words: "We THE PEOPLE of the United States"—words, instinct with the very consciousness of the possession of that supreme power by the People or public, which made this not only a Nation, but a Republic; and, after stating the purposes or objects sought ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... suffer no one to manifest contempt for either, if in her power to prevent it. It is seldom one so young, so mirthful, so ingenuous and innocent in the expression of her countenance, assumed so significant and rebuking a frown as did pretty Rose Budd when she heard the mate's involuntary exclamation about the "twelve masts." Harry, who was not easily checked by his equals, or any of his own sex, submitted to that rebuking frown with the meekness of a child, and stammered ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... translation ignore, in the great majority of cases, the contribution of their predecessors and contemporaries. Towards the beginning of Elizabeth's reign a small group of critics bring to the problems of the translator both technical scholarship and alert, original minds, but apparently the new and significant ideas which they offer have little or no effect on the general course of theory. Again, Tytler, whose Essay on the Principles on Translation, published towards the end of the eighteenth century, ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... pretty colored girl like you may walk the streets without being subjected to obscenity on every corner." His tone unconsciously patronized Cissie's prettiness with the patronage of the male for the less significant thing, as though her ripeness for love and passion and children were, after all, not comparable with what he, a male, could do in the way of significantly ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... housekeeper and parent's assistant and family counsellor all in one. He advised Professor Anstice as to the weight of overcoat called for by the temperature outside. He reminded Jimmy of his mittens and rubbers, and his respectful but significant glances informed Winifred of the exact estimation in which he ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... and sisters had worn for that last lugubrious ceremony; that is to say, a white gown and red shawl, with their hair cut short at the nape of the neck. Some added to this costume, already so characteristic, a detail that was even more significant; they knotted around their necks a thread of scarlet silk, fine as the blade of a razor, which, as in Faust's Marguerite, at the Witches' Sabbath, indicated the cut of the knife between the throat and the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... health shine again in his eyes as it used to shine when he was at college. So it was not emotion that was to restore him! It was the ancient masculine delusion, as invulnerable as truth, that the impersonal interests are the significant ones. Well, she was not quarrelling with delusions as long as they were beneficent! And since it was impossible for her fervent soul to care greatly for general principles, or to dwell long among impersonal ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... Perhaps the most significant and most important of these was the effect of the child-study movement on the formal and external side of Kindergarten work. It is first of all to America that we owe this, to the pioneer Stanley Hall, and more especially here to Mr. Earl Barnes. Very slowly, but surely, it was evident to ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... a significant look at Kennedy, I felt that it was no wonder that Marlowe was alarmed for the safety of the ship. Millions were at stake for just that ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... additional aids to their nefarious acts. A briber must make sure that the bribed carries out his part of the contract. Whenever it is easy to check up the results of the bribe, corruption may reign supreme with little risk of being found out. A study of some of the recent suffrage votes gives significant food for reflection. It shows how the form, color and arrangement of the ballot may help the corrupt politician to organize ignorant voters to do his will. In Georgia and Louisiana no party names are printed on the ...
— Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment • Various
... the muscular strength in their wings should be so generally affected with albinism, is a significant fact to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... those of the palms, must be cut into rollers; and the dragging of the huge log over them will be a work of weeks, especially in the wet season. But it can be done, and it shall be; so he leaves a significant mark on his new-found treasure, and leads you on through the bush, hewing his way with light strokes right and left, so carelessly that you are inclined to beg him to hold his hand, and not destroy in a moment things so beautiful, so curious, things which ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... least not advancing. Whether it was due to his own hints to Elizabeth, or to Anderson's chivalrous feeling, he did not know. But he wrote every mail to Mrs. Gaddesden, discreetly, yet not without giving her some significant information; he did whatever small services were possible in the case of a man who went about Canada as a Johnny Head-in-air, with his mind in another hemisphere; and it was understood that he was to leave them at Vancouver. In the forced association of their walks ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to his opinions by asking the significant question, "Whether the men who went into the rebellion did not by connecting themselves with a foreign government, by every act of which they were capable, denude themselves of their citizenship—whether they are not to be held and taken by this Government now as men denuded ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... sun which has risen, stirring the only emotion in the landscape, will rise upon a tragic, significant, or patient human group, for whom sun and seasons and the wide heavens are small, whose emotion is yet contained within the room of a mean dwelling and whose destiny is ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... It is significant, too, that just as America produced the first submarine, and then failed as a nation to develop it to its highest state of efficiency for military use, so American inventors were pioneers in the construction and successful operation of aeroplanes, ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... the labyrinthine plot of a novel, long as Gibbon's way through the Dark Ages, yet, when we have finished it, the bubble collapses, the little heavens which had been framed about us roll away, and most rarely does a character remain poetically significant in the mind. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... shrubbery were putting out their pale new buds. Audrey, bending forward in the car, found it very lovely, and because it belonged to Clay, was to be his home, it thrilled her, just as the towering furnaces of his mill thrilled her, the lines of men leaving at nightfall. It was his, therefore it was significant. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Jervy's foot under the table, and gave it a significant kick. "I have done nothing to be ashamed of, miss," she said, addressing her answer defiantly to Phoebe. "Being too poor to keep the little dear myself, I placed it under the care of a good lady, ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... portents to-day that the evil of war, which is not more deeply rooted than was slavery a hundred years ago, will, ere long, meet a similar fate."[526] And what are the "signs and portents" upon which the belief is based that war will be abolished? "It is a significant fact that whenever the working classes meet to discuss this question of war, they invariably express themselves in favour of its speedy end. A few days ago, when the Trades Union Congress met at Liverpool, when delegates ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... is by agreement on the part of all great colorists impossible through impasted color or that applied flatly to the surface, which they declare cannot be as powerful, as significant or as beautiful as that which vibrates, either by reason of the juxtaposition of color plainly seen, as with the impressionists, or of its broken tone, or by virtue of the influence of a transparent glaze of color which enables two colors to ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... the first two games. This success, together with the liquor, which was strong, almost wholly dethroned his reason, and in his mad, drunken excitement he began to stake large sums. The eyes of his companions grew more wolfish than ever, and, after a significant flash toward each other, the gamblers turned fortune against their victim finally. The brandy was now placed within his reach, and under its influence Haldane threw down money at random. The first package was soon emptied. ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... he was rewarded with a baronetcy. The Governor after months of reflection, in England, on reviewing in an elaborate letter the political path he had travelled, indicated both his deep chagrin and his increase of wisdom in the significant words,—"I was obliged to give up, a victim to the bad policy and irresolution of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... not less significant than his prose works, are Luther's poems, those stirring songs which, as it were, escaped from him in the very midst of his combats and his necessities like a flower making its way from between rough stones, ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... understood; yet must be so rendered in relation to the neighboring material as to seem an integral part of the whole. In addition, it is of course necessary to emphasize the important words in a language phrase and the most significant tones in a musical one, as well as to subordinate the comparatively unimportant parts, in such a way that the real significance of the whole may be clear. Phrasing is thus readily seen to be an extremely important factor in the expressive reading of language, ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... those eyes of the young farmer dilate with surprise as he gave a long and significant whistle and turned toward home, doubtless thinking to surprise Hal and Mary with this ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... theme, Aratoff could stand it no longer, and slipped away, bearing in his soul a confused and oppressive impression, athwart which, nevertheless, there pierced something which he did not understand, but which was significant and even agitating. ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... deep orbit of the more narrow, sharp-featured face of the American type. The eye of the German standing out more prominently, and, in consequence, less protected, is thereby more prone to grow into a near-sighted eye. One of the significant results of hard study was recently brought to my notice by looking over the statistics on the schools of Munich in 1889. In those schools 2,327 children suffered from defective sight, 996 ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... rather the other way," Trednoke replied, taking one of his daughter's hands in his, and caressing it. "We are appendages to Kamaiakan. You look so natural, sitting there, Meschines, that I forget it's thirty years since we met, and that all the significant events of my life have happened in that time,—the Mexican war, my marriage, and the rest of it! I have ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... and I am determined that none but good company shall be in this room to-night. So if you will be kind enough to calm yourself, Mr. Atwater, you and I may yet enjoy ourselves, but if not—" the action he made was significant, and I felt the cold sweat break out on my forehead through all the heat ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... be worse," replied Bevan, while a peculiarly significant smile played for a moment ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... learned my lesson pretty well before I came out, thanks to you," the young man answered, in a tone that was a trifle over-significant. ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... usually favored the measures proposed by various governors for bettering the militia and for giving aid to neighboring colonies, but this was due more to a desire to keep in harmony with the executive than to military ardour. And it is significant that when troops were enlisted for distant expeditions, the wealthy planters were conspicuous by their absence. We see not the slightest inclination on their part to rush into the conflict for the love of fighting and adventure that was so typical of the aristocrat of the Middle ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... super-dense class, still smaller, poorer in hydrogen, than the inner planets of the solar system. The ratio of occurrence of hydrogen-ammonia planets and these super-dense water-oxygen worlds of theirs over the entire Galaxy—and remember that they have actually conducted a survey of significant sample volumes of the Galaxy which we, without interstellar travel, cannot do—is about 3 to 1. This leaves them seven million super-dense worlds for exploration ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... study are more than mere notes; they aid in making significant the larger purposes of the literature. These ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... of the serai and summer-houses [on the Bosphorus] have received these significant, or rather fantastic names: one is the Pearl Pavilion; another is the Star Palace; a third the Mansion of Looking-glasses."—Travels in Albania, 1858, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... a metal chest. In the bottom drawer was the all-significant answer. Hawk Carse crossed the room and slid ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... sensitiveness to every detail of their surroundings, to the colors of the room, to the shades of meaning in the words of the Monsignor, to his tricks of speech and tone, quite unusual in Horace's habit. Sonia complained that he never could tell her anything clear or significant of places he had seen. The room which had been secured from the landlord was the parlor of the tavern; long and low, colonial in the very smell of the tapestry carpet, with doors and mantel that made one think of John Adams and General Washington. The walls had a certain ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... of the lower classes of both sexes in Paris, behave themselves with as much propriety as the more refined visiters; though their remarks, perhaps, may be expressed in language less polished. In conspicuous places of the various apartments, boards are affixed, on which is inscribed the following significant appeal to the uncultivated mind, "Citoyens, ne touchez a rien; mais respectez la Propriete Nationale." Proper persons are stationed here and there to caution such as, through thoughtlessness or ignorance, might ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... information for which she had been seeking. Her role of looker-on from a tactful distance had necessarily left her much in the dark concerning the progress of the all-important wooing, but during the last few hours she had, on slender though significant evidence, exchanged her complacent expectancy for a conviction that something had gone wrong. She had spent the previous evening at her brother's house, and had naturally seen nothing of Comus in that ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... with a significant cough, "I ain't no one to stand by and see the hull Center pokin' the finger er shame at Willum and his furniture. The vanilla ... well, what's done is done, and it can't be helped: seems it's what they set their hearts on and some folks like to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... hygrometer) with atmospheric appearances. What is more varying than the aspect of the sky? Colour, tint of clouds, their soft or hard look, their outline, size, height, direction, all vary rapidly, yet each is significant. There is a peculiar aspect of the clouds before and during westerly winds which differs from that which they have previous to and during easterly winds, which is one only of the many curious facts connected ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy
... looked highly pleased at the compliment Mr Harwood was paying her son, and thanked him with one of her beaming smiles, although Cousin Nat screwed up his lips in a peculiar manner and gave a significant look at Jack. ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Very significant of Harriet's altered outlook was this casual summoning of the Street's family doctor. She was already dealing in larger figures. A sort of recklessness had come over her since the morning. Already she was learning that peace of mind is essential to successful endeavor. Somewhere Harriet had read ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of town Trevison met Corrigan. The latter halted his horse when he saw Trevison and waited for him to come up. The big man's face wore an ugly, significant grin. ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... coffee-house where stood a bust of the emperor, which they insisted should be given up to them. Verdier, hoping to calm, what he took to be a simple street row, gave orders that the bust should be brought out, and this concession, so significant on the part of a general commanding in the emperor's name, convinced the crowd that his cause was lost. The fury of the populace grew greater now that they felt that they could indulge it with impunity; they ran ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not an event calculated to calm the uneasy and dissatisfied temperament of Endymion. The past rendered it impossible that this announcement should not in some degree affect him. Then the silence of his sister on such a subject was too significant; the silence even of Waldershare. Somehow or other, it seemed that all these once dear and devoted friends stood in different relations to him and to each other from what they once filled. They had become more near and intimate ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... term of the compact having expired, the devil appeared and carried him off amid display of horrors to the abode of penal fire. This myth, which has been subjected to manifold literary treatment, has received its most significant rendering at the hands of Goethe, such as to supersede and eclipse every other attempt to unfold its meaning. It is presented by him in the form of a drama, in two parts of five acts each, of which the first, published in 1790, represents "the conflicting ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Brunehild lived till 614, thirty-nine years after the death of her husband Sigebert, and through the reigns of her son and two of her grandsons, who were but puppets in her hands. Her later years were marked by lack of womanly virtue, and by an unscrupulousness in ridding herself of her enemies significant of barbarous times. At length, when she had reached the advanced age of eighty years, she was deserted by her army and her people whom the crimes imputed to her had incensed, and fell into the hands of her mortal foe, Clotaire II., ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... in a significant tone. "They began to see that you were not so helpless as they thought you were, and that it might be to their interest ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... the door of the library; and here the exhibit is still more marked, significant and gratifying. The census figures are, for many reasons, extremely confused, but in the general result they cannot be outrageously wrong, and they can mislead us only in degree as to the immense multiplication of books in both public and private libraries. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... him with a mixture of suspicion and animosity. He took what was to him the most significant part of de Spain's greeting first and threw his response into words as short as words could be chopped: "What do you ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... "contemplative life", little else would be left than the unchangeable spirit, the created spirit, and the ethic. But no one is justified in subjecting it to this process.[814] The method according to which Origen preserved whatever appeared valuable in the content of tradition is no less significant than his system of ethics and the great principle of viewing everything created in a relative sense. Supposing minds of a radical cast, to have existed at the close of the history of ancient civilisation, what would have been left to us? The fact ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... a chorus of similar denials on the part of every woman present. At Dundee's significant pressing of the same question upon the men, he was met with either laconic negatives or ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... to portend peace: but it is significant that on June 28th Napoleon wrote to Eugene that all the probabilities appeared for war; and on June 30th he wrote his father-in-law a cold ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Nigerian economy continues to be hobbled by political instability, corruption, and poor macroeconomic management. Nigeria's unpopular military rulers have failed to make significant progress in diversifying the economy away from overdependence on the capital intensive oil sector which provides half of GDP, 95% of foreign exchange earnings, and about 80% of budgetary revenues. Regime officials also appear divided on how to redress fundamental economic imbalances that ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... put his hand in his pocket and counted out the money. The caller took it, said something in those same blithe significant accents about what would happen if the other made a move in the next two or three minutes, then vanished from the store. He did not keep to the busy thoroughfare now, but shot into a side street. Would the pawnbroker hide the frame and then call the police? It was quite possible he might ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... thing which both of them seemed to expect, for they smiled at one another in a significant manner, and nodded with the air of men who are quite ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... new light to illumine their pages. The result is that in the Old Testament the Christian world is discerning a new heritage, the beauty and value of which is still only half suspected even by intelligent people. This fact is so significant and yet so little recognized that one feels impelled to go out and proclaim it on the housetops. The Old Testament can never be properly presented from the pulpit or in the class-room while the attitude of preacher ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... the significant stress on the word "this." She saw that Kennedy was watching. Margaret Ashton might have made a good actress, that is, in something in which her personal feelings were not involved, as they were in this case. She was now ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... but it was very significant. He wrote that now he had inherited Greenbushes and all his Aunt Laura's money, he was rich enough to resign from the navy, and he need not go to sea any more, nor ever part with me again; but that he could stay home, repair and refurnish the house, improve the land, and farm ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... their opinions misrepresented and their phraseology garbled, until they seem to say that the structural differences between man and even the highest apes are small and insignificant. Let me take this opportunity then of distinctly asserting, on the contrary, that they are great and significant; that every bone of a Gorilla bears marks by which it might be distinguished from the corresponding bone of a Man; and that, in the present creation, at any rate, no intermediate link bridges over the ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... purpose, by telling the old gentleman that he looked extremely well, considering the little sleep he had enjoyed last night. To this compliment Medlar made no reply, but by a stare, accompanied with a significant grin; and Banter went on thus; "I don't know whether most to admire the charity of your mind, or the vigour of your body. Upon my soul, Mr. Medlar, you do generous things with the best taste of any man I know! You extend your compassion to real objects, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... "I have, however, seen his picture, and one must admit that he's reasonably good-looking. In fact, I've seen quite an assortment of them, but it's, perhaps, significant that the last was ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... Wenceslas arrived, and the Baroness, as she saw all her family about her, gave the Marshal a significant glance understood by none ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... a tone which surprised her ladyship. She looked immediately with a significant smile at Belinda. "Why do not you echo evils, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... said little Merdek, with a significant shake of the head: "a word to the wise." And away he capered, obviously ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... thoughtful; but the eyes were by turns eager, absent, or sad, and there was much pride in the carriage of the small head with its hair of wavy gold gathered into a green snood, whence little tendrils kept breaking loose to dance upon her forehead, or hang about her neck. A most significant but not a beautiful face, because of its want of harmony. The dark eyes, among their fair surroundings, disturbed the sight as a discord in music jars upon the ear; even when the lips smiled the sombre shadow of black lashes seemed to ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... out and TAKE the isle of Muck; and then he laughed with uncommon glee, and could hardly leave off. I have seen him do so at a small matter that struck him, and was a sport to no one else. Mr Langton told me, that one night he did so while the company were all grave about him: only Garrick, in his significant smart manner, darting his eyes around, exclaimed, 'VERY jocose, to be sure!' M'Leod encouraged the fancy of Dr Johnson's becoming owner of an island; told him, that it was the practice in this country to name every man by his lands; and begged leave to drink to him in that ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... Naomi, whose arrival "similar to a spring breeze," should "dissipate the dark night of solitude and isolation." This despatch written in the common cant of the people, concluded with quotations from the Prophet on brotherly love and a significant and more sincere assurance that the Basha would not admit of excuses "of the ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... very earnest, very eloquent, very dark, and tender with thought; there was a vein of grave, even of intense feeling, that ran through the significant words to which tone and accent lent far more meaning than lay in their mere phrases; the little bohemian lost her insolence when she pleaded for her "children," her comrades; and the mischievous pet of the camp never treated lightly what touched the France that she loved—the France that, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... that respect. He is studying all the time. Have you noticed he has learned an astonishing lot of German from Baeur since he came? I believe he can almost read Hermann and Dorothea now." Helen said it with a significant emphasis which made Miss Gray blush again. And then she added—"Lucy, you said you thought you did not love him and that was the reason you said no. Have ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... intentions when ifc was too late, hastened after them with a handful of followers, and coming up with them, besought them not to desert their national gods, their wives, and their children. He had nearly prevailed on them to return, when one soldier, with a significant gesture, intimated that while manhood lasted they had power to create new families wherever they might chance to dwell. The details of this story betray the popular legend, but nevertheless have a basis of truth. The inscriptions from the time of Psammetichus ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... sorrow for the tragical death of Laura, had forgotten the occasion of her coming, gave a sudden start, and her heart died within her. She turned her sharp eyes with a searching look upon the Duke de Chartres, hoping for some significant glance that would reassure her as to his intentions. But the young duke's eyes were turned another way: he was following the master of ceremonies, and making a profound inclination before ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... deceptive as the costume of a bal masque. She showed that abysses may exist inside a governess and eternities inside a manufacturer; her heroine is the commonplace spinster, with the dress of merino and the soul of flame. It is significant to notice that Charlotte Bronte, following consciously or unconsciously the great trend of her genius, was the first to take away from the heroine not only the artificial gold and diamonds of wealth and fashion, but even the natural gold and diamonds of physical beauty and grace. Instinctively ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... It was a significant glance, and said as plainly as so many words: "What do you think of it? You said there was no motive, and, provided Carboys fell heir to something of which we know nothing as yet, here are two! If that will was destroyed, one man would, as heir-at-law, inherit; ditto ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... seclusion of the study, but whether it works. If it fails in actual life, it fails altogether; and the one fatal objection to this particular system is that it does not work. Nothing could be more significant than the admission of so representative an exponent of Pantheism as Mr. Allanson Picton, who tells us that one, if not more, of Spinoza's fundamental conceptions "have increasingly repelled rather than attracted religious people." [1] It is the object of ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... slaughter and massacre of our troops current in the enemy's camp at the time were greatly exaggerated. Some of our men were probably cut down most wantonly in the pursuit through the woods, both by British and Hessians, but the number was small. It is a noticeable and significant fact that the American accounts make no mention of any such wholesale cruelty, and certainly our soldiers would have been the first to call attention to it. That word "massacre" should have no place in any ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... last with a significant smile the solemnity of our immediate greeting, "and the great Madonna? Have you ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... to a Greek ear dancing, as the leading element in the choral functions. Was it because dancing with us is never used mystically and symbolically never used in our religious services? Still it would have been possible to invent solemn and intricate dances, that might have appeared abundantly significant, if expounded by impassioned music. But that music of Mendelssohn!—like it I cannot. Say not that Mendelssohn is a great composer. He is so. But here he was voluntarily abandoning the resources of his own genius, and the support of his divine art, in quest of a chimera: ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... business. Perfectly normal and marvelously wholesome-minded people are as likely to succumb to it as anybody else. It is significant that the Purity League meeting in the city a few weeks ago discussed the dangers which lay in exposing even decent, law-abiding people to art, ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... and the Life (chapter xvi:6); and I am the true Vine (chapter xv:1). But this does not exhaust at all what He is and will be now and forever to those who belong to Him. In the Old Testament there are seven great names of the "I AM" which are deep and significant. In them we can trace His rich and wonderful Grace. Jehovah.—Jireh —The Lord provides. The lamb provided (Genesis xxii). Jehovah Rophecah—I am the Lord that healeth thee (Exodus xv). Jehovah —Nissi—The Lord is my banner, He giveth ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... "Superstition is the belief in something that is ugly and bad and unmeaning. That is the difference between superstition and religion. Religion is the belief in something that is beautiful and good and significant—something that throws light into the dark places of life—that helps us to see ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... were on Sebastian Dolores as on Jean Jacques. "It's the bad blood that was in her," said a farmer with a significant gesture towards ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had hardly taken his seat, when the long and significant silence of the Opposition was broken by Mr. Whiteside. This gentleman represents Dublin University, has been Attorney-General and Solicitor-General for Ireland, and was one of the most able and eloquent defenders of O'Connell and his friends in 1842. He is said to be the only ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... from the one upon whom he had just turned his back with so little ceremony; and there appeared to be no good reason for the change. He had not noted in his preoccupation, how George, at sight of his stooping figure, had made a sudden significant movement, and if he had, the pulling of a necktie straight, would have meant nothing to him. But to Sweetwater it meant every thing, and it was in the tone of one fully at ease with himself that he now dryly remarked: "Mr. Brotherson, if you feel quite clean; ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... what has occurred this afternoon, for, at my age, I am capable of judging for myself upon all moral and religious questions, and I think you may feel at liberty to give me any information that I may seek from you. I have not done with you, either," she added, with a significant smile, "for you have given me to-day a glimpse of something which I believe will change the universe for me. Ah! whom ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... himself. Never can any outside voice call us by the name of "I." We can apply it only to ourselves. I am only an "I" to myself; to every one else I am a "you," and every one else is a "you" to me. This fact is the outward expression of a deeply significant truth. The real essence of the ego is independent of everything outside of it, and it is on this account that its name cannot be applied to it by any one else. This is the reason why those religions confessions which have consciously maintained their connections ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... She may be a popular music-hall favourite, or one of those peculiarly clever creatures known as the American newspaper woman, against whom we have been warned. Don't you regard it as rather significant that of all the people on this ship she should be one to attach herself to the unrecognised Prince of Graustark? Put two and two ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... a significant glance at Hierax and Cleopatra, went quite close up to the king, whispered a few words into his ear, and answered his brief ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... obtained a fourfold election. A vote of the Assembly declared the election valid. With unwonted self-command the Prince declined to take his seat, on the ground that it might embarrass the government in its difficult situation. His letter to the president of the Assembly ended with the significant declaration that if duties should be imposed upon him by the will of the people he would know how to ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... it is made known in Parliament that our Government was granted a loan of 7,000,000 Pounds by the British Government. This is very significant. Any one can have his own thoughts about this. In the absence of legitimate grounds for the annexation policy of the Government you endeavour to intimidate the public by declaring that the Government are in possession of information showing ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... affection, was too full of himself to be always careful about the feelings of others. How much Balzac owed to La Touche we do not know; but though, as we have already seen, there were other reasons for his sudden stride in literature between 1825 and 1828, it is significant that "Les Chouans," the first book to which he affixed his name, and in which his genius really shows itself, was written directly after his intercourse with this literary teacher. No doubt La Touche, who was cursed with the miserable fate of possessing ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... part the Christian church played in society; how the monks lived and what they did for mankind. In short, the object of an introduction to medival and modern European history is the description of the most significant achievements of western civilization during the past fifteen hundred years,—the explanation of how the Roman Empire of the West and the wild and unknown districts inhabited by the German races have become the Europe of Gladstone and Bismarck, of ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... force of arms. The cordial understanding soon showed itself. Nepos publicly accepted (Dec. 691) the democratic view of the executions recently decreed by the majority of the senate, as unconstitutional judicial murders; and that his lord and master looked on them in no other light, was shown by his significant silence respecting the voluminous vindication of them which Cicero had sent to him. On the other hand, the first act with which Caesar began his praetorship was to call Quintus Catulus to account for the moneys alleged to ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... When, with nourishing food, her body took on a little flesh, her cheeks a little color and she began to have something of the aspect of a woman, they took great liberties with her and grew bolder. There were attempts at familiarity, significant gestures, advances, which she eluded, and from which she escaped unscathed, but which assailed her purity by breathing upon her innocence. Roughly treated, scolded, reviled by the master of the establishment, who ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... feature. It is—hum!—Roman, and some fastidious folks think a trifle too large. But I think it suits well her keen eyes and slightly haughty mouth. She has fine hands, a tall figure, and an independent "grand action," that is not wanting in grace, but is more significant of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... to the party are significant. It was at first popularly styled the Abolition party, then officially in turn the Liberty party, the Freesoil party, and finally the Republican party. Republican was the name first applied to the Democratic party—the party of Jefferson. The term Democrat was gradually substituted ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... notice anything. Having found her scissors, and deliberately cut around the old-fashioned seal, Mrs. Primkins opened the sheet and glanced at the name at the bottom of the page, then turned her eyes hastily toward Nimpo, with a low, significant "Humph!" ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... Gomes as ambassador to Ismail Shah, and the instructions which he took with him are very significant of Albuquerque's wide range of policy. Ruy Gomes never reached the Persian Court, being poisoned upon the way at Ormuz, but part ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... recommendations and offer advice, as it had no authority to execute any of the plans that it might make; and although the records of its meetings are lengthy and give evidence of elaborate discussion of important matters, the results of its deliberations cannot be said to be particularly significant. ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... to breakfast at General Soult's, he observed the countenances of his soldiers rather inclined to laughter than to wrath; and he heard some jests, significant enough in the vocabulary of encampments, and which informed him that contempt was not the sentiment with which your navy had inspired his troops. The occurrences of these two days hastened his departure from the coast for Aix-la-Chapelle, where the cringing of his ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... that in marriage the first trivial events are significant of what will happen thereafter, like straws upon the stream betraying which way the current flows. Possibly Archie's question indicates the quality of this marriage, also the fact that ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... grouped up in no small measure this later missionary activity. And it is probably quite within the mark to say that no stronger, abler men can be found in any of the great activities of life to-day in either of these two great English-speaking peoples. It is surely significant that the modern missionary movement ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... and so in like proportion for all others. This absolute dependence renders them dissolute parasites. When the Mogul gives advancement to any one, he adds a new name or title, as Pharaoh did to Joseph. These names or titles are very significant; as Mahobet Khan, the beloved lord; Khan Jahaun, the lord of my heart; Khan Allum, the lord ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... more significant that Captain von Wegstetten had a letter from his brother-in-law, the head of the first mounted battery, also written in a remarkably Ambrosian vein. "I can tell you"—it ran—"we two heads of batteries thank God ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... I had been married some months, Mr. Dick put his head into the parlour, where I was writing alone (Dora having gone out with my aunt to take tea with the two little birds), and said, with a significant cough: ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... kina, and pointing to each, we learned, after he understood us, that one was named Wutchee, and the other Wunchee. The meanings of these words I have no need to translate: they were decidedly significant, and amused us a good deal. For sewing the hides together they used an awl of bone. The thread, which was of the sinew of some animal, was thrust through the awl-holes like a shoemaker's waxed-end, and drawn tight. When they ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... town had not turned up at the ball, and that Lembke himself was so upset about it that "his mind had given way," and that, crazy as he was, "she had got him in tow." There was a great deal of laughter too, hoarse, wild and significant. Every one was criticising the ball, too, with great severity, and abusing Yulia Mihailovna without ceremony. In fact it was disorderly, incoherent, drunken and excited babble, so it was difficult to put it together and make anything of it. At the same time there were simple-hearted people ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... system of law controlled by the amir, although civil codes are being implemented; Islamic law is significant in personal matters ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... play. His library would have satisfied the ambition of a student of history or belles-lettres. His gardens, lawn, shrubbery, and flowers would grace the mansion of an independent gentleman. He had an eye to the picturesque as well as practical. But I could not but notice, as significant of the tendency to which I have referred, that, on passing a large, outbranching oak standing in the boundary of two fields, he remarked that the detriment of its shadow could not have been less than ten shillings a year for half a century. As we ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... official documents what the total of the alleged decline had been, or whether or why in some districts it had been greater or less than in others. The two voluminous works known respectively as the Old and New Statistical Accounts of Scotland were full of significant, but wholly undigested details. How should I succeed where so many others had failed? Where should I find records which would enable me to complete incompleteness and reduce chaos to some comprehensive ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... over church and state alike we seem to be back again in the anarchy of the eleventh century. And it was not against the feeble feudal princes of the days of Hildebrand that Innocent III had to contend, but against strong national kings, like Philip of France and John of England. It is significant of the change of the times, that Innocent sees his chief antagonist, not so much in the empire as in the limited localized power of the national kings. When Richard of England had yielded before Henry VI, the national state gave way before the universal authority of the lord of the world. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various |
