"Element" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... large ship, belonging to the same owners, and then lying in Carlisle Bay, to proceed homeward by the same convoy, had so ingratiated himself with a wealthy widow residing upon the island, that rather than he should again trust himself to the fickle element, she had been induced to surrender up to him her plantation, her negroes, and her fair self, all equally bound to honour and obey through ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and chariots of fire.' Not the Temple courts only, but all places are full of divine messengers, and we should see them if our vision was purged. But such considerations are not to weaken the supernatural element in the appearance of this angel with his message. He was sent, whatever that may mean in regard to beings whose relation to place must be different from ours. He had an utterance of God's will ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... colour he does in his own peculiar fashion fitly express the purpose of his being. And whatever adequately expresses a definite purpose is beautiful. Where a dainty antelope would be altogether out of place, the ponderous rhinoceros may be completely in his element. Where a tender-skinned horse would be driven mad by insects, the thick-skinned beast passes the time untroubled. In a drawing-room a daintily-dressed lady is a vision of loveliness. In a ploughed field she would look ridiculous. In a drawing-room a peasant would look uncouth. In a field, as Millet ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... white cross that extends to the edges of the flag; the vertical part of the cross is shifted to the hoist side, and that design element of the Dannebrog (Danish flag) was subsequently adopted by the other Nordic countries of ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... they hurled him upon a sort of bench or bed with violence, but no damage; for the settee, or whatever it was, seemed to be comfortably cushioned for his reception. Their violence had in it a great element of haste, and before he could rise they had all rushed for the door to escape. Whatever bandits they were that infested this desert island, they were obviously uneasy about their job and very anxious to be quit of it. He had the flying fancy that regular criminals would hardly be in such a panic. ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... learned to know her husband's character during the early years of their marriage, led a life of perpetual terror; she represented sound sense and foresight in the partnership; she was doubt, opposition, and fear, while Cesar represented boldness, ambition, activity, the element of chance and undreamed-of good luck. In spite of appearances, the merchant was the weaker vessel, and it was the wife who really had the patience and courage. So it had come to pass that a timid mediocrity, without education, knowledge, or strength of character, a being who could ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... to him in his yearly journey to Ireland. He loved his father and mother and sisters as well as do other men; but there was a falling off in the manner of his life which made him feel that he had been in some sort out of his own element in London. He would have liked to have shot grouse at Loughlinter, or pheasants at Saulsby, or to have hunted down at Willingford,—or better still, to have made love to Violet Effingham wherever Violet Effingham might have placed herself. But all this ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... duty, but only a happy dream. There has been in my family, here and there, a vein of fancy, or of mysticism turning sometimes to religious fervour, again sometimes to soldierly enthusiasm and a knight-errantry in arms, the ruin and despair of cool statesmanship. On this element Owen's teaching laid hold and bent it to a more modern shape. I would not be a monk or a Bayard, but would serve humanity, holding my throne a naked trust, whence all but I might reap benefit, whereon ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... his love of skylarking, and the freedom of his manners, his name has never been associated with any questionable story, save by the gutter element of the Parisian press, which endeavored to drag him into the Dreyfus case by declaring that Germany's strange attitude in the affair was due to the alleged knowledge the French War Department of terrible immorality proved to have been committed ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... head. In less than ten minutes she was joined by Waife, attired in respectable black; his hat and shoes well brushed; a new green shade to his eye; and with his finest air of Pere noble. He was now in his favourite element. HE WAS ACTING: call it not imposture. Was Lord Chatham an impostor when he draped his flannels into the folds of the toga, and arranged the curls of his wig so as to add more sublime effect to the majesty of his brow and the terrors of its nod? And certainly, considering that Waife, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... four hundred rupees a month, and house rent; not much, I admit, considering the fall of the rupee and Rangoon prices; but we have been compelled to modify expenses, our profits are run so fine, thanks to an active German mercantile element. Well, what ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... that there might be indiscretions known to the lawyer of a chief of police which the chief might not wish known to the world, but because, with the addition of this new coil to his nephew's affairs, he was suddenly struck with the possibility of still other coils in any one of which the saving element of ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... having a letter of consequence to send to Paris, I begged Alexander to carry it to the post himself, and to deposit me upon the quay, and there to join me. As the weather was very fine I stood near the sea, wistfully regarding the element on which depended all my present hopes and views. But presently my meditations were interrupted, and my thoughts diverted from mere self by the sudden entrance, in a large body, of my friends the Spanish prisoners, who all bore down to the very place where I was stationed, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... secretion, structure of the nervous system—in fact, be taught something of how their own bodies are made and how they work? Teaching of this kind ought to, and will, in some more civilised age and country, be held a necessary element in the school course of every child, just as necessary as reading, writing, and arithmetic; for it is after all the most necessary branch of that "technical education" of which we hear so much just now, namely, the technic, or art, of ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... of this sad story of their punishment was relieved by an element of hope. The man and his wife are not beyond the pale of God's love. There is given a promise (3:15) which assures the coming of one, who would contend with the tempter and would finally crush his head and repair ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... the natives of some far-off islands dive into the sea and do battle with sharks; but no boy ever lived who could dive into a pool and catch a prawn in his native element—at least I never knew one who could, and we were going to give it up after a few frantic thrusts with our nets, when an idea ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... Dominion to be the grand mother, not only of States, but of the men by whom States and empires are formed, it might be curious were it possible for us to inquire. Unquestionably, Mr. President, there is in this problem the element of race; for he is blind to all the truths of history, to all the revelations of the past, who does not recognize a select race as we recognize a select individual of a race, to make all history; but pretermitting all speculation ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... conscience as an automatic moral mechanism, a kind of inner mind, to act in his absence; but conscience is not a single faculty. It includes many faculties, and is complex in nature. It has an intellectual element, and this is distinctly fallible and capable of education. Witness the Indians, believing it to be right to kill aged persons. Witness savages of old, sacrificing their children to appease the gods. Just as there has been an evolution in tools, in laws and in institutions, so has there ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... also, and wore more of woollen in the material of their garments. Chow-chow appeared more abundant, and the children were the fattest little rascals I have ever seen. But I cannot commend them for cleanliness, and must admit that their countrymen nearer the sea make a better use of that cleansing element,—possibly because it was spread before them ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... of cycles involving the whole universe, it is plain that not one single atom must be excluded. Exclude a single molecule of hydrogen from the ring, or vary the relative positions of two molecules only, and the charm is broken; an element of disturbance has been introduced, of which the utmost that can be said is that it may not prevent the ensuing of a long series of very nearly perfect cycles before similarity in recurrence is destroyed, but which must inevitably prevent absolute ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... shimmer on the horizon—with the same sky on an unclouded frosty night. He did not trouble himself to ask where the constellations and the planets were gone, or to regret the "black-blue" serenity of the air-ocean which those white islets stud, and which another ocean, of heavier and denser element, now rolled below and concealed. He just doggedly pursued his way, leaning a little forward as he walked, and wearing his hat on the back of his head, as his Irish manner was. "Tramp, tramp," he ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... of the personal element to be exploited in dealing with the sculptors in the Middle Ages. Until the days of the Renaissance individual artists were scarcely recognized; master masons employed "Imagers" as casually as we would employ brick-layers or plasterers; ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... mistak; Tha'rt aght o' thi element here; Tha may weel goa an peark up o'th' thack, Thi bonny wings shakin ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... first exclaimed against it with evident horror, but at last, he was chairman of the committee of compromise. Even the slave States themselves, seem to have been a little embarrassed with the discordant element. A curious proof of this is given in the language of the Constitution. The ugly feature is covered as cautiously as the deformed visage of the Veiled Prophet. The words are as follows: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the States according ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... there was a remarkable element, an element whose influence upon the course of American history has been but imperfectly understood which now looms into prominence as the vanguard of the army of westward expansion. There were some of the Regulators who, though law-abiding and conservative, were deeply imbued ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... it that fire (vital force) in combination with the earthly element (matter), becomes the corporeal tenement (of living creatures), and how doth the vital air (the breath of life) according to the nature of its seat (the muscles and nerves) excite to action (the corporeal frame)?' Markandeya said, 'This question, O Yudhishthira, having ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the influence of such an experience as he relates may have done to strengthen the moral fibre, are points on which I can express no opinion, any more than I can pledge myself to the credibility of the supernatural element of his story. ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... has been used to explain the Greek element in Shakespeare's work, namely, "congruity of genius," which is apt to be resented by Baconians. Perhaps they have a right to resent it, for "genius" is hard to define, and genius is invoked by some wild wits to explain feats ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... a remarkable fact that HERSCHEL was the first observer to recognize the real importance of the aperture or diameter of a telescope. Before his time it was generally assumed that this element only conditioned the amount of light transmitted to the eye, or, in other words, merely determined the brightness of the image. Hence the conclusion that if an object is sufficiently bright, the telescope may be made as small as desired without loss of power. Thus, in observing the sun, astronomers ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... been a great social success; he had introduced an absolutely foreign element into the Bush party. His pose of the cynical, dashing, amiable aristocrat, with a cheerful contempt for all aristocratic pretensions, was admirably sustained. His ready good-fellowship pleased the men; his good looks, his facility in adopting a deep interest in his companion for ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... with equal unexpectedness hooks his legs with a stick and brings him heavily to the ground? Why did we laugh at the adventures of Mr. Penley in "Charley's Aunt"? In all of these "ludicrous" affairs there is an element of surprise, a slight shock which puts us off our mental balance, and the subsequent laughter, when we realise either that no serious harm has been done or that the whole thing is make-believe, seems to partake of the character of ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... very element Of bondage, that here holds me pent, I'll make my furious sonnet: I'll turn my noose To tightrope use And madly dance ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... an agreeable cruise, I dare say, with a pleasant set of messmates; Hubert de Vaux is a good fellow himself, and Stryker is in his element on ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... long-time opponent of Adams and the New England element in politics, executed his surprising somersault in February, 1825, and thus made the eastern leader President and then himself became Secretary of State, occasion was given to a second Jefferson to arouse ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... wolf and panther slept. He came to the green ocean's brim And saw the wheeling sea-birds skim, Summer and winter, o'er the wave, Like creatures of a skiey mould, Impassible to heat or cold. He stood before the tumbling main With joy too tense for sober brain; He shared the life of the element, The tie of blood and home was rent: As if in him the welkin walked, The winds took flesh, the mountains talked, And he the bard, a crystal soul Sphered ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... hung with tapestry representing scenes from the book of Esther. This tapestry made a very great impression upon me. A knowledge of the difficulties to be overcome in the material part of painting is undoubtedly an unsuspected element of much of the pleasure we derive from it; and for this reason, probably, this tapestry appeared to us better than paintings executed with equal spirit in oils. We admired it exceedingly, entirely careless what critics might think of us ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... Syracuse and sold them as slaves to be carried away from Sicily: and the same thing he did moreover to the men of Euboia in Sicily, making a distinction between them: and he dealt thus with these two cities because he thought that a body of commons was a most unpleasant element ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... ate a soft-boiled egg he concentrated on it. He treated it as a great adventure. Which, after all, it is. Few adjuncts of our daily life contain the element of chance that is to be found ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... could put his benevolent scheme into execution, his attention was unexpectedly diverted, a quite new element ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... A mile in rear of our lines stood a church, a substantial frame building, which, for want of better use, was converted into a theater. As in the recent drafting every department of life had been invaded, a very respectable element of a histrionic turn was to be found in the ranks. The stage scenery, as one would imagine, was not gaudy and, of course, did not afford equipment for high art in the strict sense; but the doleful conditions of home life now in vogue in the South and the desperate straits ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... how sad the request was when I told her what had already passed; for David had looked so confident and bright when he was talking to her, that the sorrowful element was absent. ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... withdrawing makes abstract in common speech a euphemism for appropriate (unlawfully), purloin, steal. In mental processes we discriminate between objects by distinguishing their differences; we separate some one element from all that does not necessarily belong to it, abstract it, and view it alone. We may separate two ideas, and hold both in mind in comparison or contrast; but when we abstract one of them, we drop the other out of thought. The mind is abstracted when it is withdrawn from all other ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... studded with the roofs and towers of populous cities. The running posts of the Aztecs rivalled in speed and regularity their brethren in Cathay, and Montezuma could boast that his dominions displayed at least one element of civilization—rapid communication between the provinces and the capital—which in that age and long afterwards was unknown to the empire of his rival and conqueror, the 'white king beyond the seas.' The roads of Peru were however more wonderful than even those of Mexico. ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... piano part—although he is far, indeed, from writing mere accompaniments: the support which he gives the voice is consistently important, for he brings to bear upon it all his rich resources of harmonic expression. But though he makes the voice the paramount element, he uses it, in general, rather as a vehicle for the unconscious exposition of a determined lyricism than as an instrument of precise emotional utterance. When one thinks of how Hugo Wolf, for example, or Debussy, would have treated the phrase, "to ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... diverged here. It was easier to skirt it than to crash through it. Presently a broad deep river came in view. There was no looking for a ford, no checking the pace. In they went with sounding plunge, as if water were their native element, breasted the foaming tide, and gaining the opposite bank, went ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... waiting and wondering, and then a curt telegram of the night before, saying, "Release her." So much the better. What his employer's motives were did not interest him half so much as the fact that he had a thousand francs in his pocket, and that all element of danger had been done away with. True, the singer herself would move heaven and earth to find out who had been back of the abduction. Let her make her accusations. He ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... the new age. But whilst actively engaged in these pursuits and pleasures, he remained indifferent to the care and the spiritual welfare of his flock, whom as Christ's vicar he had undertaken to feed. The frivolous tone of morals that ruled at the Papal see was looked upon as an element of the new culture. As regards the Christian faith, a blasphemous saying is reported of Leo, how profitable had been the fable of Christ. He had no scruples in procuring money for the new church, which, as he said, was to protect and glorify ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... the sea, feed more on fish than on flesh, and often encounter that boisterous element. This renders them more bold and enterprising; this leads them to neglect the confined occupations of the land. They see and converse with a variety of people, their intercourse with mankind becomes extensive. The sea inspires them with a love of traffic, a desire of transporting ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... visitors were perambulating about the garden. Mr. Jones was escorted on one side by Polly Jenkins, on the other, he, in his turn, tried to escort Mabel Bertram, who did not talk a great deal and seemed somewhat out of her element. Catherine and Beatrice walked together, and Mrs. Meadowsweet, still sitting in her arm-chair, smiled ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... But there was an element of the grotesque in a bird's-eye view of a lady making shots at her mouth with a spoon and trying to smile and look spirituelle between ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... flourishes to a great extent in Perak and its stems may be cut off twice a year. It only needs to be cultivated, for industry to be provided with a new and precious element. In fact there are few who do not know that the greater part of Chinese silk stuffs are woven with the ramie fibres, but its utility might have a much larger extension if it were made an object of study by those capable of ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... his adventures, more hereafter. The young nobles, of whom there were many, were volunteers, who had paid their own expenses, in expectation of a golden harvest, and they chafed in impatience and disgust. The religious element in the colony—unlike the former Huguenot emigration to Brazil—was evidently subordinate. The adventurers thought more of their fortunes than of their faith; yet there were not a few earnest enough in the doctrine of Geneva to complain loudly and bitterly that no ministers had been ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... of this attack from the rear. This diversion came at the right moment, and proved effective. There were now but six of the enemy in fighting condition, and these six were more demoralized by the sudden and unknown element of a rear attack than by the loss of their thirteen comrades. They hesitated, and half turned to look, and two of them fell under the blows of Jack and Jarvis. As the rest turned to escape, the Swede's club felled one, and the other three ran for dear life. They did not escape, ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... America, and a full complement of artillery. Rosas, on his part, by extraordinary efforts, has got together some 20,000 men, many of whom are raw recruits, and none of whom retain that faith in the invincibility of their leader which has been an important element in his previous successes. The supple legislature of Buenos Ayres has, in these circumstances, outdone itself, and has not only made him absolute and irresponsible dictator during the war, but for three years after the victory. That victory, however, we opine he will ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... do not find these elements merely mixed with other elements to form a soil. They unite in definite proportions by weight to form chemical compounds. As conditions change, many of these compounds undergo change, giving up one element, or group of elements, and uniting with another element or group from a different compound. Heat, moisture and the action of bacteria are factors in promoting the changes. There is no more restless activity than may be found among the ...
— Right Use of Lime in Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... by his sudden disappearance, as may be imagined, added a new element of wretchedness to the situation at Maxfield. Telegrams, letters, inquiries, alike failed to discover his whereabouts or the secret of his silence. As post after post came and brought neither message nor tidings, the hearts of the watchers grew sick. ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... water retiring had left it there buried, and—as we have already mentioned in reference to alligators—when the first shower of the rainy season fell it was led by instinct to burst its earthy prison, and seek its native element. ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... most of my problems in morphology—that you have the theme in one of the old master's works followed out in all its endless variations, always appearing and always reminding you of unity in variety. So in painting; what is called "truth to nature" is the intellectual element coming in, and truth to nature depends entirely upon the intellectual culture of the person to whom art is addressed. If you are in Australia, you may get credit for being a good artist—I mean among ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... labour. After this he moved to the United States, and re-established his paper there in New York, in May 1886. During this period there were several Anarchist congresses in the United States. In one at Albany, in 1878, the revolutionary element, led by Justus Schwab, broke away from the others; at Allegheny City, in 1879, again there was a rupture between the peaceful and the revolutionary sections. The Voice of the People at St Louis, the Arbeiter Zeitung at Chicago, and the Anarchist at Boston, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... himself securely; in the wakeful night time he experienced a different and novel self, a bare-minded self, bleakly fearless at its best, shamelessly weak at its worst, critical, sceptical, joyless, anxious. The anxiety was quite the worst element of all. Something sat by his pillow asking grey questions: "What are you doing? Where are you going? Is it really well with the children? Is it really well with the church? Is it really well with the ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... opened out before us, but the fire was by this time close on one hand, and the flames were curling up some tall palms which we the instant before had passed. Crash followed crash as the trees sank before the devouring element. Already it had gained the edge of the path and ignited the wood on the opposite side. We had to pass under an arch of fire. I entreated Oliver to keep close behind us. He and Macco sprang forward. At that moment there came ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... wood which is supported at either end by an upright beam. The halves of the strips hanging in front are then split into strands of the desired width and a line of fine twining woven across to hold them securely. The checker weaving of the mat is now begun at the left edge by doubling the weft element over the last warp and then weaving with the doubled element over and under one warp until the right edge is reached where it is turned back and slipped under an inch of the weaving just completed. Figure 1 shows a squaw ...
— Aboriginal American Weaving • Mary Lois Kissell
... on Waters, "that no one except a man named Minter has done such work in meeting the criminal element on their own ground. You have kept your county peaceful. I believe that ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... discordant element developed. Close by—the lights were so low she could not tell where—a conversation, kept up in low whispers, began by degrees to intrude itself upon her attention. Try as she would, she could not shut it out, and now, as the music ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... committed by a few against themselves, by a tenfold fouler wrong against all men, against society itself. For a system which consists in defying the laws, is a systematic waging of war against the very element that binds men in society—it is a casting off of civilization, a return to miserable dependence on animal strength alone, on brutish cunning, or midnight hiding in the dark, for all we enjoy. It seems well known that the farmers themselves are the Rebeccaites, aided ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... the spectroscope, a great change is wrought; a reversal takes place, and the original black bands reappear. A new law of nature was discovered, thus: "Vapors of all elements absorb the same rays of light which they emit when incandescent." Every element makes a different spectrum with lines in different places and of different widths. These have been memorized by chemists, so that when an expert having a spectroscope sees anything burn he can tell what it is as well as read a printed page. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... performed and the mechanism by which the emotions are expressed are one and the same. These acts in their infinite complexity are suggested by association— phylogenetic association. When our progenitors came in contact with any exciting element in their environment, action ensued then and there. There was much action—little restraint or emotion. Civilized man is really in auto-captivity. He is subjected to innumerable stimulations, but custom and convention frequently prevent physical ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... up with the idea that it is better to take the first chance than to risk waiting for a second, which may never come. To these, marriage is a very uncertain lottery; and if they draw a prize, they are not easily persuaded to throw it back into fate's bag, and play for another. The very element of uncertainty lends excitement to the game, and they readily attribute all sorts of perfections to the imaginary stranger who is to be ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... formation. I was to share with him my fortune, and he would enlighten me in turn. Perhaps also there was a shade of irony in my reflections, and I was eager to see if he would find the role of a merchant-prince so easy to play as he seemed to fancy. Then, too, there was a delightful element of uncertainty and mystery about it all. I was original; I was not copying every one else. Although of Mr. Prime in a personal sense I scarcely thought at all, there was a romantic flavor to the episode that ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... harmless vanity of the lower, the middle and the upper classes of Pickie; and for a time they were "ill to thole" on account of the swollen condition of their heads, and it became necessary to utter sneers at "ham-and-egg parades" and "the tripper element" and to speak loudly and frequently of the superior merits of Portrush, "a really nice place," before they could be persuaded to believe that Pickie, like other towns, is inhabited by ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... draw him from his plain tale into a digression. Such inducements occur at times when he is writing of the Indians, for he recognized that Europe was eager to hear in full detail of their traits and customs. Thus set passages of description, inserted with a sparing hand, seemed to him a proper element of the text, but anything like conscious embellishment of the narrative he avoids—probably more through mere naturalness than ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... were they inefficient from a military point of view, but their practice, confirmed by long immunity, had been to prey on the unoffending population. They thus brought the Government into disrepute, at the same time that they were an element of weakness in its position. Gordon saw that if the Khedive had no better support than their services, his authority in the Soudan was liable at any moment to be overthrown. It had been the practice of the Cairo authorities to send up, whenever reinforcements ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... affairs at the mines improved not one whit as the months dragged on. There was a smouldering core of discontent which might break into flame at any moment—or into disastrous explosion if the necessary element were added. ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... more wagers were laid, and the civilian element began to plunge a bit on Orme, word having passed that he was an old hand at the game, whereas I was but a novice. Orme took some of these ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... a man who knew about his grandfather, felt in his own element. In fact, he was so delighted with Dr. Boomer and the Nigerian rubber tree and the shaded pictures and the charm of the whole place and the certainty that half a million dollars was easily findable in it, that he put his eyeglass back ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... gentlemen—evidently early visitors like ourselves—anxiously whipping the river for fish, but they caught nothing; in fact, they told us afterwards that it was done with hardly any hopes of catching, since the "professional"—save the name—element came out with rods and nets, so that if the rods didn't answer they could net the pools instead. It seemed to us a remarkably good thing that "professionals" can't do the ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... element of charm in all he could discern. Even the thin limbs appealed to him oddly. Possibly the big hat helped to conceal or accentuate—at any rate, the effect was somewhat elfish. As for those great and luminously soft black eyes, he could not for the life of him have said what he saw in them to ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... 500,000 Germans are not the dominating power, nor are the 100,000 Swedes. The 10,000 Irish are said absolutely to control the political situation. You will ask if I believe that this monster foreign element can be reduced to a homogeneous unit. I reply, yes. Fifty years from to-day they will all be Americans, and a majority will, doubtless, show you their family tree, tracing their ancestry back ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... Elsinore is the same kind of tale as its famous predecessor, and by those who have read it, it is pronounced even more stirring. Mr. London is here writing of scenes and types of people with which he is very familiar, the sea and ships and those who live in ships. In addition to the adventure element, of which there is an abundance of the usual London kind, a most satisfying kind it is, too, there is a thread of romance involving a wealthy, tired young man who takes the trip on the Elsinore, and the captain's daughter. The play of incident, on the ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... so," replied Jack Benson, with a wry smile, "but he let me see that he thought I was out of my element on a submarine boat." ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... behind the authority of the throne, if he require one. The aristocratic part of society supports him in some countries, and the democracy in others. But in a nation where democratic institutions exist, organized like those of the United States, there is but one sole authority, one single element of strength and success, with ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... out of clothes, you know. My entire wardrobe has been consumed by the devouring element, as the reporters say. Now, being a young man of fashion, I don't quite like being reduced to one suit and one shirt, with other things ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... not deny that it was the intellectual rejuvenation which made the religious reformation possible or, at all events, effective. Nor can it be denied that after the Revolution, in the Protestant communities the intellectual element was thrust into the background. The practical and devotional prevailed. Humanism was for a time shut out. There was more room for it in the Roman Church than among Protestants. Again, the Renaissance itself had been not so much ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... fighting spirit of German soldiers—about the treatment German civilians had received in France. He could think of one French family which he knew as being kind, but not of the whole French people as a family. As soon as the national and racial element were considered the enemy became ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... influence of another cause), nor the senses per se, would fall into error; the former could not, because, if it acts only according to its own laws, the effect (the judgement) must necessarily accord with these laws. But in accordance with the laws of the understanding consists the formal element in all truth. In the senses there is no judgement—neither a true nor a false one. But, as we have no source of cognition besides these two, it follows that error is caused solely by the unobserved influence of the sensibility upon the understanding. And thus it happens that the subjective grounds ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... traditional Scotch law, not to be lightly broken by either rich or poor. Its non-observance usually implied some sorrowful element, and Mary's national, as well as natural desire, as therefore toward an elaborate festal ceremony. As soon as this intention was put into words their very echo seemed to be a prelude ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... multitude crowd thick and fast upon her all the night, and dawn of day discovers the untiring train yet bearing down upon the ship in an eternity of troubled water, onward she comes, with dim lights burning in her hull, and people there, asleep; as if no deadly element were peering in at every seam and chink, and no drowned seaman's grave, with but a plank to cover it, were yawning in the ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... add that the night after I had cleaned out this deadly element the maid slept the sleep of the just—and would have been all right when next I saw her but for the interference of the unjust on whom I had ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... flesh and blood without a doubt; yet they had come into my life so strangely, and passed into so wonderful a place there, that I thought of them with something of the awe which belongs to things having in themselves some element of the mystic, if not of the supernatural. The blue of her eyes was not more wonderful than the flawless grace of her person and her environment. I could compare her only with visions one has read and dreamed about in the unreal worlds of poetry and romance. Her ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the simplest strains to be heard,—as simple as the curve in form, delighting from the pure element of harmony and beauty it contains, and not from any novel or fantastic modulation of it,—thus contrasting strongly with such rollicking, hilarious songsters as the bobolink, in whom we are chiefly pleased with tintinnabulation, the verbal and labial excellence, and the evident conceit ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... out of his true element here. If you want to see him in all the glory of his native county you should go west of Truro. From Truro to Hayle is the land of the Manylodes. And a singular species it is. But, Tudor, you'll be surprised, I suppose, if I ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... the alleged social compact has in it no social or civil element. It does not and cannot create society. It can give only an aggregation of individuals, and society is not an aggregation nor even an organization of individuals. It is an organism, and individuals live in its life as well as it in theirs. There is a ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... was no fresh element in the misunderstanding. Thus the two argued time and again. Gwendolyn almost knew ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... a faery vision Of some gay creatures of the element, That in the colors of the rainbow live And play i' th' plighted clouds. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... perhaps, only morbidness that Ivan should have allowed the death of Sosha, a man of eighty-four, to affect him as it did. Yet the following weeks taught him that all his recent gloomy meditations and self-analyses had had in them an element of affectation incompatible with real grief. Was it not real grief, then, that he was suffering now? For weeks he lived in the blackness that was horrible to those who watched him. And finally Piotr, who dared anything ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... normal man and incline toward the insane through numerous gradations. As soon, however, as their abnormality manifests itself in distinct incorrigible antisocial tendencies, the right of society to protect itself from such an element must be considered. When free from actual psychotic manifestations (which very easily engraft themselves upon this degenerative soil) these individuals do not belong in a hospital for the insane. Here they serve only as ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... days presented some curious combinations, most of them growing out of the heterogeneous human mixture that attempted to form a settlement. The famous Green-Russell party, on its way from Georgia to the Pike's Peak country, had passed through Missouri and Kansas in 1858, and there found an element ripe for any daring and adventurous deeds in unknown lands. Many of the border desperadoes, then engaged in that hard-fought prelude to the civil war, found it desirable and expedient to leave a place where their violent deeds became too well known; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... rate of 335 pounds for the part which we occupy. This, like all the other houses in the neighborhood, was evidently built to be sold or let; the builder never thought of living in it himself, and so that subtile element, which would have enabled him to create a home, was entirely ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... misuse of terms. If there are such things as angels, their changes of place cannot be described as motion, seeing that from the very nature of things such changes must be instantaneous, not involving time as a necessary element. Have you ever thought much about angels? By-the-bye, pardon my abruptness, but as there is no one to introduce us, ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... understood their art and knew how much more easy it is to produce a fiction of continuity where an element of confusion is introduced by the multitude and variety of the quickly succeeding impressions and almost destitute of incident. One occurrence, indeed, he remembered with extraordinary distinctness, and could have affirmed under oath in all its details. It had taken place in ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... innumerable branches, covered with every variety of curious birds, their plumage appropriately imitated by the corresponding tints of precious stones, which warbled in beautiful melody as they poured forth from their bills the musical and refreshing element. ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... they have done is not interred with their bones; and their example will yet find many imitators, as men more generally and more perfectly realize the importance of faith in childhood and youth, as the element of a true faith in our race. If this enterprise, in the judgment of its founder, was not an experiment ten years ago, it cannot be so regarded now; yet the public will look with anxiety, though with hope, upon every ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... Titian, Poussin,—in a word, every painter deserving the name of master: for lines here may be called the tracks of thought, in which we follow the author's mind through his imaginary creations. They hold, indeed, the same relation to Painting that versification does to Poetry, an element of style; for what is meant by a line in Painting is analogous to that which in the sister art distinguishes the abrupt gait of Crabbe from the sauntering walk of Cowley, and the "long, majestic march" of Dryden from the ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... slippers, each one seemed To be exactly in her element, While from each dimpled cheek a beauty beamed, A rosy flush, of blossoms redolent; Moreover each one's deshabille had lent A careless grace which numbers can't convey, As tho' fair Venus all her arts had spent In rendering them beautiful ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... not always a subject that interested Scott, patriotism was a constituent element of his character. He had a keen sense of national dignity and honour—as the extract from his Flodden letter alone sufficiently testifies— and, had circumstances demanded it of him, he would almost certainly ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... observe, dear comrade, what an element of caricature lurks in clothes? A short, round coat on a stout man seems to exaggerate his proportions to such a ridiculous degree that the profile of his manly form suggests "the robust ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... consider their peace of mind by leaving him alone. For ourselves, we are unable to see by what right, if he rejects the miraculous part of the narrative, he retains the rest; the imagination and the credulity which invent extraordinary incidents, invent ordinary incidents also; and if the divine element in the life is legendary, the human may be legendary also. But there is one lucid passage in the introduction which we commend to the perusal ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... I will most gladly therefore rejoice in mine infirmities (2 Cor 12). But this cannot be done where there is no hope, nor but by hope: for it is hope, and the exercise of it, that can say, Now I expect that God should bring good out of all this. And as for the dark, it is its element to act in that: 'But hope that is seen is not hope' (Rom 8:24). But we must hope for that we see not. So David, 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul? hope thou in God.' Christians have no reason to mistrust the goodness of God, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Constantinople was most accessible on the side of the sea and the harbor. The latter might assert with honor, that they had long enough trusted their lives and fortunes to a frail bark and a precarious element, and loudly demanded a trial of knighthood, a firm ground, and a close onset, either on foot or on horseback. After a prudent compromise, of employing the two nations by sea and land, in the service best suited to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... trouble to speak of. Our route lay over the old Hays' and Elsworth trail, one of the best known cattle trails in the west, then by way of Olga, Nebraska, at that time a very small and also a very tough place. It was a rendezvous of the tough element and the bad men of the cow country. There were a large number of cow boys there from the surrounding ranges and the place looked very enticing to our tired and thirsty crowd, but we had our herd to look after and deliver so we could not stop, but pushed on north crossing the Platte river, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... feeling of admiration for moral, but for intellectual, beauty. She could dissect a character with wonderful skill, but always passed the quality of goodness as not taken into account. In her view this quality did not seem to be a positive element. ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... babes are included in the general command of Baptism, that is, as soon as they are baptizable. But Baptism supposed both repentance and a promise; babes are not capable of either, and therefore not of Baptism. For the physical element was surely only the sign and seal of a promise by a counter promise and covenant. The rite of Circumcision is wholly inapplicable; for there a covenant was between Abraham and God, not between God and the infant. "Do so and so to all your ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... manfully. But, after all, what is the meaning of it? Looking at the matter superficially, one would say that a striking difference between our science and that of the world's gray fathers is that there is every day less and less of the element of wonder in it. What they saw written in light upon the great arch of heaven, and, by a magnificent reach of sympathy, of which we are incapable, associated with the fall of monarchs and the fate of man, is for us only a professor, a piece of chalk, and a blackboard. ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... ignorant, uneducated, neglected Russian workman is perfect and well-prepared soil for such propaganda. He found himself bound hand and foot in the meshes of this professional element, who did not belong to his class and, except in theory, knew nothing of his difficulties. When this professional element had misled, bamboozled and deserted him, in a frenzy of despair he determined to destroy this thing called education, ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... went back to his search for the unknown element which had given to his son's elixir the power that had been exhibited in such wonderful fashion. But he did not succeed in finding the right ingredient, for as often as he called Frau Vorkel to come and inhale the new mixture, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... account; with little speeches now and then, and delicious mamma-like airs for the tiny children whom it is necessary to ask to these juvenile routs, however dangerous and difficult to manage that element may be. ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... this atmosphere of misunderstanding and uncertainty, intruded a fresh element. A first-cousin of Lord Ingleby's, to whom had come the title, minus the estates, came to the conclusion that title and estates might as well go together. To that end, intruding upon her privacy on every possible occasion, he ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... in no hurry to appear; as a matter of fact, the men whom Margaret met were openly anxious to evade marriage, even with the wealthy girls of their own set. Margaret was not concerned; she was too happy to miss the love-making element; the men she saw were not of a type to inspire a sensible busy, happy, girl with any very deep feeling. And it was with generous and perfect satisfaction that she presently had news of Julie's happy engagement. Julie was to marry a young and popular ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... What we actually obtain in this way is an artificial imitation of the internal life, a static equivalent which will lend itself better to the requirements of logic and language, just because we have eliminated from it the element of real time. But, as regards the psychical life unfolding beneath the symbols which conceal it, we readily perceive that time is just the stuff it ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... important Element of Mental Power.—The brain is universally admitted to be the organ of the mind; and it is almost as universally admitted, that size of brain is one of the most important of the elements which determine ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... respect of your friends besides. You can go into politics. That is a field within the pale of the law and in it you can have scope for all the energy and activity and intensity of life you long for, with all the element of chance which you find so attractive." And when the young man has had his fling there and tires of it then something else can be attempted. But to try to crush desire and curb the outrushing life is both foolish and impossible. We can only ...
— Self-Development and the Way to Power • L. W. Rogers
... to be warned not to think of him as a saturnine and Machiavellian Italian. He was a son of the Bourbon Charles III. of Spain. His character was that of a jovial, rather stupid farmer, whom a freak of fortune had made a king from infancy. A sort of grotesque comic element runs through his life, and through every picture drawn by persons in actual intercourse with him. The following, from one of Bentinck's despatches of 1814 (when Ferdinand had just heard that Austria had promised to keep Murat in Naples), is very characteristic: "I found his Majesty very much ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Normandy and Brittany, and to the west. The Nation of England gathered those who came from the British Isles, as well as from the extensive territories in southwestern France long held by the kings of England. After the reconquest of Guyenne, however, the German students became the controlling element in the fourth nation, and the designation was changed to the Nation of Germany. The Rector of the university and the four Procurators of the nations were entrusted with the administration of the general interests of ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... and went down the stairs to the nursery. Her two babies were sleeping sweetly. Mabel was asleep in her room, and all was quiet. The hush seemed oppressive after so much gay confusion. Now she was in another element. Now she was the mother, then she was a fashionable woman. She hastened back to her room, once more gazed without and then ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... stock of bees during the winter; and the security of the hive is known mainly to depend on a large number of bees being supported. Hence the saving of wax by largely saving honey, and the time consumed in collecting the honey, must be an important element of success any family of bees. Of course the success of the species may be dependent on the number of its enemies, or parasites, or on quite distinct causes, and so be altogether independent of the quantity of honey which the bees can collect. But let us suppose that this latter circumstance ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... skill has been wasted upon a series of hypotheses which a breath of common-sense criticism dissipates. If one is asked to explain the weakness in this particular department of so otherwise strong a mind, the answer would seem to be that the element of fancifulness in Mr. Gladstone's intellect, and his tendency to mistake mere argumentation for verification, were checked in practical politics by constant intercourse with friends and colleagues as well as by the need of convincing visible audiences, while in ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... walked through London, and listened to the universal chorus, he might have constructed a very pretty theory upon the love of the English for the sea-service, and our acknowledged superiority over all other nations upon that element. "No wonder," he might have said, "that this people is invincible upon the ocean. The love of it mixes with their daily thoughts; they celebrate it even in the market-place; their street-minstrels excite charity by it; and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... to be called a decent human being. And this, because there was every reason to suppose that they had been doing it; and that they would not tell of themselves, if they could possibly avoid it. So the Confessional arose, as a necessary element for educating savages into common morality and decency. And for the same reasons we employ it among the Negroes of Trinidad. Have no fears lest we should corrupt the minds of the young. They see and hear more harm daily than we could ever teach them, were we so devilishly minded. There is ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... till that time, for half a life-span, I had heard men shout "Deucalion" as a battlecry, and in my day had seen some lusty encounters. But this sea-fight surprised even me in its savage fierceness. The bleak, unstable element which surrounded us; the swaying decks on which we fought; the throwing fire, which burnt flesh and wood alike with its horrid flame; the great gluttonous man-eating birds that hovered in the sky overhead; the man-eating ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... were spurred on to the utmost, and Thaouka led the way, bounding over the water as if it had been his natural element. Certainly he might justly have been called a sea-horse— better than many of the amphibious animals who bear ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... fate of Charles Montague and of men like him. When he attempted to soar into the regions of poetical invention, he altogether failed; but, as soon as he had descended from that ethereal elevation into a lower and grosser element, his talents instantly raised him above the mass. He became a distinguished financier, debater, courtier, and party leader. He still retained his fondness for the pursuits of his early days; but he showed that fondness not by wearying the public with his own feeble performances, but ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Sandwich islands (Kanackas, as they are called) are, without doubt, the most expert watermen in the world. Their performances in swimming and diving are so extraordinary, that they may almost be considered amphibious in their natures and instincts. Water appears to be as much their natural element as the land. They have straight black hair, good features, and an amiable and intelligent expression of countenance. Their complexion resembles that of a bright mulatto; and, in symmetrical proportions and muscular developments, they will advantageously compare with any race ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... reached Gravesend, he summoned the whole village together and read to them the dispatch. The British element was there strongly in the ascendency, even the magistrates being mainly on that side. As Christie was reading the treasonable document, one of the Dutch magistrates, sheriff Stillwell, faithful to his oath, arrested him. The other magistrates ordered the arrest of Stillwell. ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... character. If all this be a truthful picture, and really we see no reason for doubt, it does but add another to the many proofs of the springing elasticity of that element of light-hearted short-sightedness which is so proverbially characteristic of the French. But we will say no more, for our paper has already exceeded the limits we had assigned to it; and the things that ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... so. I shall not go so far as to say that he hectored his parents into sending him to our school. They were probably feeling, on their own account, that they had come to town for better things than they had been getting; and likely enough they met his demands halfway. There was usually a certain element of cheeriness in his nagging; but the cheeriness was quite ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... completed, was consecrated to God by the unction of oil. Among the Pagan nations, the consecration of their temples was often performed with the most sumptuous offerings and ceremonies; but oil was, on all occasions, made use of as an element of the consecration. The lodge is, therefore, consecrated to denote that henceforth it is to be set apart as an asylum sacred to the cultivation of the great masonic principles of Friendship, Morality, and Brotherly Love. Thenceforth ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... account for a strong or a weak memory; but after all is said, we find that the surprising difference between different memories is unaccounted for; as unaccountable, indeed, as what differences the man of genius from the mere plodder. The principle of association of ideas is doubtless the leading element in a memory which is not merely verbal. We associate in our minds, almost instinctively, ideas of time, or space, or persons, or events, and these connect or compare one with another, so that what we want is called up or recalled in memory, by a train of endless suggestion. We all have ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... association, that those charred sticks instantly call him to mind, as if we had come upon the place of his last campfire. At any rate, it is something to know that man, when he did come, did not have to discover or invent fire, but that this element, which has played such a large part in his development and civilization, was here before him, waiting, like so many other things in nature, to be his servant and friend. As Vulcan was everywhere rampant during this age, throwing out enough lava in India alone to put ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... hint and every specious argument of despondency by a powerful faction at home, was either contemptuously sceptical or actively hostile. It would be hard to over-estimate the force of this latter element of disintegration and discouragement among a people where every citizen at home, and every soldier in the field, is a reader of newspapers. The pedlers of rumor in the North were the most effective allies of the rebellion. A nation can be liable to no more ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... was not deceived; for a light cutter, that played like a bubble on its element; was soon approaching the shore, where the three expectants were seated. When it was near enough to render sight perfectly distinct, and speech audible without an effort, the crew ceased rowing, and permitted ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... portion of the article devoted to the general principles of beauty as applied to architecture he gives a clear and concise statement of the reasons why beauty is in itself a necessary and desirable element in architecture, and roughly analyzes the conditions ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 7, - July, 1895 • Various
... as I apprehend it will be, that Christianity is chargeable with every mischief of which it has been the occasion, though not the motive; I answer that, if the malevolent passions be there, the world will never want occasions. The noxious element will always find a conductor. Any point will produce an explosion. Did the applauded intercommunity of the pagan theology preserve the peace of the Roman world? did it prevent oppressions, proscriptions, massacres, devastation? Was it ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... would soon join or acquiesce in the effort to secure for him at least a fair share of those rights. Unfortunately, however, in these Southern communities the opinion of such persons cannot have such weight as it would in ours. The spirit of caste, of which I have already spoken, is an element figuring largely against them in any contest involving principle,—an element of whose practical workings we here know very little. The walls between individuals and classes are so high and broad, that the men and women who ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... of a coward, however passive, brings an element of treachery into a dangerous situation. Nostromo's nervous impatience passed into gloomy thoughtfulness. Decoud, in an undertone, as if speaking to himself, remarked that, after all, this bizarre event made no great difference. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... he must first prepare the soil of battle with the critics in their own element—ink-slinging. On this fact Mr. Finck ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... remain in the ranks of photoplaywrights when once the various manufacturers have drawn out enough competent writers to keep them supplied with scripts. There will always be room for the competent writer, but a competent writer he must be. And as one element in competency this matter of the title is important, vitally important, when it comes to ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... longed for—so he fought. And if nature had been niggardly in one respect, she had been generous in others; Toddles, for all his size, possessed the heart of a lion and the strength of a young ox, and he used both, with black and bloody effect, on the eyes and noses of the call-boys and younger element who called him Toddles. He fought it all along the line—at the drop of the hat—at a whisper of "Toddles." There wasn't a day went by that Toddles wasn't in a row; and the women, the mothers of the defeated warriors whose eyes were puffed and whose noses trickled crimson, denounced him ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... that the mercantile profession is incapable of developing the element of greatness in the mind of man, find a perfect refutation in the career of the subject of this memoir, who won his immense fortune by the same traits which would have raised him to eminence as a statesman. It ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... is a rare disease, variously viewed as an unusual form of urticaria and as an urticaria-like eruption in which there is an element of new growth in the lesions. It begins usually in infancy or early childhood and continues for months or years, and is characterized by slightly, moderately, or intensely itchy, wheal-like elevations, which are more or less persistent and leave yellowish, orange-colored, ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... The element boron is present in various complex boro-silicates, such as datolite and tourmaline, the latter of which is used as a precious stone (pp. 290, 293). None of these are commercial sources of borax. The principal boron minerals are borax ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... different from the general work of Dickens that it is permissible to wonder how far Dickens was proud of it. The book, effective as it is, is almost entirely devoted to dealings with a certain artistic element, which (in its mere isolation) Dickens did not commonly affect; an element which many men of infinitely less genius have often seemed to affect more successfully; I mean the ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... concerned primarily with fiction, and with fiction of no great length. In writing of this sort the first essential is that something shall happen; a story without a succession of incidents of some kind is inconceivable. We may then settle upon incident as a first element. As a mere matter of possibility a story may be written without any interest other than that of incident, but a story dealing with men will not have much interest for thoughtful readers unless it also ...
— The Writing of the Short Story • Lewis Worthington Smith |
