"Characteristic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and what we term pretty in Miss Milbanke. Her features were small and feminine, though not regular. She had the fairest skin imaginable. Her figure was perfect for her height; and there was a simplicity, a retired modesty, about her, which was very characteristic, and formed a happy contrast to the cold, artificial formality and studied stiffness which is ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... the first and last visit of Lord Cornwallis to "Charlotte town." He came flushed with victory, and firmly anticipated similar success in North Carolina. He departed laboring under vexation and sore disappointment; not without bestowing a characteristic name ("Hornets' Nest") upon the patriotic sons of Mecklenburg around which appellation cluster many thrilling historical and traditional associations, destined to enshrine their memories in the hearts of their countrymen, throughout all ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... country. It was carrying one back to the time of the "League" and the "Fronde," and I involuntarily cast my eyes to that balconied window in the Louvre, where Charles IX. is said to have stood when he fired upon the flying Protestants. The brooding calm that reigned around was both characteristic and strange. Here was an empire in jeopardy, and yet the population had quietly withdrawn into their own abodes, awaiting the issue with as much apparent tranquillity, as if the morrow was to be like another day. Use, and a want of sympathy between the governed and their governors, had begotten ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... understood." How, he demands, does the actual life of every day fit into "that view of the scheme of things which bids us believe that the silent God above us is principally anxious about just one thing, the moral recovery and ingathering of these individual souls one by one"? The answer is given with characteristic confidence: "It does not fit into it at all; if God be as anxious about that as we are assured He is, He has a queer way of ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... had all the advantages of esprit and beauty to as great a degree as if nature had taken pleasure in completing, in her person, a perfect work; but these qualities shone less brilliantly on account of one characteristic which led her to imbibe so thoroughly the sentiments of those who adored her that she no ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... Voyage of Captain Popanilla, with as much of the aforesaid qualities as the most listless drawing-room or boudoir reader could require. Nevertheless, "the voyage" has many touches of wit, humour, and caustic satire, and it has the soul and characteristic of wit—brevity; for we read the volume in little more than an hour; and, although Vivian may regard our analysis of his voyage like showing the sun with a lantern, we are disposed to venture upon the task for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... a schedule of prices; competing railways come to terms. Even among large businesses which enjoy no local monopoly, there are constant endeavours to maintain a common scale of prices. This condition of loose, irregular, and partial co-operation among competing industrial units is the characteristic condition of trade in such a commercial country as England to-day. Competitors give up the combat a outrance, and ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... been so characteristic a trait of Charles, and had added at once to the melancholy and majesty of his face, was now of a yellow waxen colour, which might be said to increase from minute to minute in lividness of hue. His large nose stood frightfully prominent from those ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... Netherlands in 1538, wrote to the king: "I have made a stay in my hands of two hundred ells of goodly tapestry; there hath not been brought this twenty year eny so good for the price." Henry VIII. had in his large collection many subjects, among them such characteristic pieces as: "ten peeces of the rich story of King David" (in which Bathsheba doubtless played an important part), "seven peeces of the Stories of Ladies," "A peece with a man and woman and a flagon," "A peece of verdure... having poppinjays at the nether ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... among an equal number of Italians or English, similarly taken; or thus: of a hundred Frenchmen and an equal number of Englishmen, fairly selected, and arranged according to the degree in which they possess a particular mental characteristic, each number, 1, 2, 3, etc., of the one series, will be found to possess more of that characteristic than the corresponding number of the other. Since, therefore, the comparison is not one of kinds, but of ratios and degrees; and since, in proportion as ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... it conducive to sleep. Andrew Carnegie, learning of this custom, made it his business to supply Scotch of his own special importation. The first case came, direct from Scotland. When it arrived Clemens sent this characteristic acknowledgment. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... forgotten his avocation in his electorship, and would quibble on the Franchise over Ophelia's grave, instead of more appropriately discussing the duration of bodies under ground. From this tendency, from this gradual attrition of life, in which everything pointed and characteristic is being rubbed down, till the whole world begins to slip between our fingers in smooth undistinguishable sands, from this, we say, it follows that we must not attempt to join Mr. Tatler in his simple division of students into Law, Divinity, and Medical. Nowadays ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is a small, slight, plain-looking man, of indefinite age, and of much humbleness of mien. A naturally retiring, modest disposition, and two external causes are the reasons for Muller's humbleness of manner, which is his chief characteristic. One cause is the fact that in early youth a miscarriage of justice gave him several years in prison, an experience which cast a stigma on his name and which made it impossible for him, for many years after, to obtain honest employment. But the world is richer, and safer, ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... damaged by going on with the improvements in Notting Hill. Not our interests, of course, for it has been the hard and quiet work of ten years. Not the interests of Notting Hill, for nearly all its educated inhabitants desire the change. Not the interests of your Majesty, for you say, with characteristic sense, that you never contemplated the rise of the lunatic at all. Not, as I say, his own interests, for the man has a kind heart and many talents, and a couple of good doctors would probably put him righter than all the free cities and sacred mountains in creation. ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... playing the flute, and by breathing into the thin, reedy tones he drew from it, all that he dreamed of, but would never know. For he presently came to a place in his life where two paths diverged, and he was forced to make a choice between them. It was characteristic of the man that he chose the way of least resistance, and having married, more or less improvidently, he turned his back on the visions that had haunted his youth: afterwards, the cares, great and small, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... manipulation. For this reason the loss of the thumb disables the hand far more than the loss of either of the fingers. This very significant opposition of the thumb to the fingers, furnishing the complete grasp by the hand, is characteristic of the human race, and is wanting in the hand of the ape, chimpanzee, ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... menace until the definite action of the Transvaal Government partially opened its eyes prior to the Johannesburg revolt. The hope was, however, still clung to in an undefined way that patience and forbearance would yet overcome Boer prejudice and disperse racial antipathies, and with characteristic self-confidence as well, things were allowed to drift rather out ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... at the close of a sultry day in July that Mr. John Louder and his neighbor Bly were returning from Boston in a cart. As usual, their conversation was of the solemn kind, characteristic of the Puritan. The many mysteries in nature and out of nature formed their principal topic. Each had had his long, ardent conflict with ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... or decay. Every jug not in daily use, every pot and vase, and half the many drawers, contain lines, copper nails, sail-thimbles and needles, spare blocks and pulleys, rope ends and twine. But most characteristic of the kitchen (the household teapot excepted) are the navy-blue garments and jerseys, drying along the line and flung over chairs, together with innumerable photographs of Tony and all his kin, the greater number of them ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... helped her. She saw a lean, nervous young man, whose flowing black hair and full beard were streaked with gray. His dark face, hollow in the cheeks and not too well-colored with the glow of health, seemed to get light and vivacity from his melancholy eyes. Seriousness was the characteristic expression. Once he laughed, in the whole evening. Once he looked straight into her face, with so fixed, so intense an expression, so near a gaze, so intimate and penetrating, that she ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... have something which will convince Mademoiselle that she is mistaken. I was able to get hold of one of his Majesty's collars which he had just worn. Its size is distinctly characteristic, being 18 inches. Now it would be very easy to verify the fact that the real King wears this size and also whether it fits the supposed impostor. In any case, Monsieur, from inquiries made among the hotel servants I find there can ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... part of Mr. Bartlett's book is the Appendix, in which he has got together a few proverbs and similes, which, it seems to us, do no kind of justice to the humor and invention of the people. Most of them have no characteristic at all, except coarseness. We hope there is nothing peculiarly American in such examples as these:—"Evil actions, like crushed rotten eggs, stink in the nostrils of all"; and "Vice is a skunk that smells awfully rank when stirred up by the pole of misfortune." These have, beside, an ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... forward in his chair, rested one elbow upon his untidy desk, and for several moments of silence jabbed an inky pen rhythmically into the largest rutabaga ever grown in Slocum County. At last he sat back and gazed upon me distantly from inspired eyes. Then, with his characteristic enthusiasm, he exclaimed:— ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... side, is fully transformed, changes his shape, acquires wings and wing-cases; nevertheless, like the female, he possesses, from the time when he is hatched, the pale lamp of the end segment. This luminous aspect of the stern is characteristic of the entire Glow-worm tribe, independently of sex and season. It appears upon the budding grub and continues throughout life unchanged. And we must not forget to add that it is visible on the dorsal as well as on the ventral surface, whereas the two large belts peculiar to the female ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... is a distinguishing characteristic that there is no great difference in level between the outside and the inside of a walled-plain, there are some very interesting exceptions to this rule, which are termed by Schmidt "Transitional forms." Among these he places some of the most colossal formations, such as ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... "This characteristic distinction, which perhaps escapes notice at first sight, appears clearly when the origin of the State is studied.'' Kropotkin, ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... to consider. It was characteristic of him and the stock he sprang from that he would never have admitted that he had borne with Nasmyth as long as possible out of kindness. The thing would have ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... pleasantly out. I had been awake all night, I had undergone the most violent agitations of mind and body, and it is not so much to be wondered at, as it was exceedingly unwise and foolhardy, that I should have dropped into a doze. From this I awakened to the characteristic sound of digging, looked down, and saw immediately below me the back view of a gardener in a stable waistcoat. Now he would appear steadily immersed in his business; anon, to my more immediate terror, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... load upon the shoulders. Haste not. * * * * Reproach none, but be forever watchful of thine own short-comings. * * * Forbearance is the basis of length of days." He proved in his life what he preached. A literary wit put a characteristic epigram into the mouths of three well-known personages in our history: to Nobunaga he attributed, "I will kill her, if the nightingale sings not in time;" to Hideyoshi, "I will force her to sing for me;" and to Iyeyasu, "I will wait till ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... last, to waken only to the sunlight streaming through the curtainless windows on his face. To his surprise the long shed was empty and deserted, except for a single Chinaman who was sweeping the floor at the farther end. As Reddy started up, the man turned and approached him with a characteristic, vague, and ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... these machines, which was one reason why he afterward came to be so ingenious a governor. His name according to the most authentic etymologists, was a corruption of Kyver—that is to say, a wrangler or scolder—and expressed the characteristic of his family, which for nearly two centuries had kept the windy town of Saardam in hot water, and produced more tartars and brimstones than any ten families in the place; and so truly did he inherit this family peculiarity that he had not been a year in the government ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... towns which held out for France, the Prince seldom stayed to subdue them, but contented himself with plundering and burning the town. Not a very glorious style of warfare for those days of vaunted chivalry, yet one, nevertheless, characteristic enough of the times. Every undertaking, however small, gave scope for deeds of individual gallantry and the exercise of individual acts of courtliness and chivalry; and even the battles were often little more than a countless number of hand-to-hand conflicts ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... With characteristic shrewdness he chose a wife of assured fortune—Mary, youngest daughter of Robert Arden, a wealthy farmer of Wilmcote in the parish of Aston Cantlowe, near Stratford. The Arden family in its chief branch, which was settled at ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... Bambilio. He was pious, but did not think it necessary to advertise it day and night unremittingly. He was not lax in religious matters, but he was no stickler for minute trifles. He inspired confidence by every characteristic of his appearance and behavior. He was a man somewhat over medium height, well built, neither heavy nor large, with an unusually dignified bearing and carriage, not a hint of self-assertion and with a genially comprehending ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... patriots to perform their share of the labor and follow the example of the modest General at the head of our armies, and sink all personal consideration for the sake of the country. I commend you to keep yourselves in the same tranquil mood that is characteristic of that brave and loyal man. I have said more than I expected when I came before you. Repeating my thanks for this call, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... diaries show a quality of clear authentic vision, which was afterwards so characteristic of her conversation. For those who remember their own youthful feelings, even the stiff occasional scraps of poetry she wrote at this time glow with a life not always discernible in the deft writing ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... and transfigured even the fairest natural landscape, is a dream-like vision of the little woodland lake of Nemi— "Diana's Mirror," as it was called by the ancients. No one who has seen that calm water, lapped in a green hollow of the Alban hills, can ever forget it. The two characteristic Italian villages which slumber on its banks, and the equally Italian palace whose terraced gardens descend steeply to the lake, hardly break the stillness and even the solitariness of the scene. Diana herself might ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... It seems that water is not the proper matter of Baptism. For Baptism, according to Dionysius (Eccl. Hier. v) and Damascene (De Fide Orth. iv), has a power of enlightening. But enlightenment is a special characteristic of fire. Therefore Baptism should be conferred with fire rather than with water: and all the more since John the Baptist said when foretelling Christ's Baptism (Matt. 3:11): "He shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... corporation with similar powers for twenty years, with express reservation in the same clause to modify or create any bank for the District of Columbia, so that the aggregate capital shall not exceed five millions, without enumerating other features which are equally distinctive and characteristic, clearly show that it can not be regarded as other than a bank of the United States, with powers seemingly more limited than have heretofore been granted to such an institution. It operates per se over the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... advocacy often blinds them to the proprieties and the requirements of candor and fairness. They fall into the same errors that their clients do, though with a better knowledge of their duties in this regard. They share what has been characteristic of our entire people in the last two decades. The minds of the great majority have been focused on business success, on the chase for the dollar, where success seems to have justified some departure from the strict line of propriety or fairness, so long as it has not brought on criminal ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... many of the traits which for a thousand years had been characteristic of the Phoenicians. It was a vast business-house, protected by a strong navy, indifferent to most of the finer aspects of life. The city and the surrounding country and the distant colonies were all ruled by a small ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... refined, somewhat pale, but indescribably lovely countenance; her bewitching little gestures; you would be just as much taken with her as the rest are,—you would find it difficult, as we all do, not to spoil her. She is a quiet little child, but very unlike her eldest sister. A predominating characteristic of Gabriele is love of the beautiful; she shows a decided aversion to what is ugly and inconvenient, and as decided a love for what is attractive. A most winning little gentility in appearance and manners, has occasioned the brother and sisters ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... place of honour—say the central panel in a pale yellow or rose Dubarry drawing-room, or a monumental easel placed so that it took the light through curtains of old Venetian point. The more modest place became the picture better; yet, as my eyes grew accustomed to the half-light, all the characteristic qualities came out—all the hesitations disguised as audacities, the tricks of prestidigitation by which, with such consummate skill, he managed to divert attention from the real business of the picture to some pretty irrelevance of detail. Mrs. Gisburn, ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... in her quick, characteristic manner, "the Great Mystery does not will us to find things too easily. In that case everybody would be a medicine-giver, and Ohiyesa must learn that there are many secrets which the Great Mystery will disclose only to the most worthy. Only ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... a platform exponent of his own pages. That event took place at the old Broad Street Music Hall in Birmingham, a building which was superseded by the Prince of Wales' Theatre. It was not easy to mistake so characteristic a figure for that of any ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... for few had the high spirit and energy to translate into action man's duty to the State. Vacillation, indecision, fitful outbursts of unhealthy activity followed by cowardly depression, selfish cruelty, and criminal weakness are characteristic of the public life of Greece from the struggle with Macedonia to the final conquest by the arms of Rome. No one can fail to be struck by the marked difference between the period from Marathon to the Peloponnesian War and ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... electoral districts. No attempt was made to secure absolute uniformity of population in the boroughs, but there were no glaring inequalities. With the regard for the practical which has always been characteristic of Englishmen, the Company seized upon the existing units, such as towns, plantations and hundreds, as the basis of their boroughs. In some cases several of these units were merged to form one borough, in others, a plantation or a town or a hundred ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... nights, when he fell asleep over his books, he had sunk slowly to the level of the small tobacco growers among whom he lived. With him also was the curse of apathy—that hereditary instinct to let the single throw decide the issue, so characteristic of the reckless Blakes. For more than two hundred years his people had been gay and careless livers on this very soil; among them all he knew of not one who had gone without the smallest of his desires, nor of one ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... characteristic style, seized on the true meaning that was in the man when he made to himself a suit of leather and became the modern hero of Sartor Resartus. The words fit William Carey's case even better than that of George Fox:—"Sitting in his stall, working on tanned ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... points of interest to be picked out of the following honest and straightforward bit of criticism, if we examine it closely: and, firstly, as to its author? Is there not something very characteristic in its general tone, something dimly sketching a shadowy outline of a kindly, fussy, busy, querulous old man, much given to tiny minuti, acareful copier with a clean pen, indefatiguable in collecting "contributions" to minor history; one ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... suffering. He denied the suffering, and she accepted his teaching; she followed him in denying disease and then matter, and kept on with her theory of negation and denial until she evolved her present theory. It was a natural reaction from all conceivable pains characteristic of hysteria, to no pain; from all conceivable diseases which different physicians had opined, to no disease; from the infirmity of body with its inhibitory discomfitures, to no body. The history of the founder ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... about this ruin has a very modern appearance, some of it having the characteristic surface finish and color of the Rio Grande ware. A small amount of ancient pottery also occurs here, some of the fragments of black and white ware displaying intricate fret patterns. The quantity of these potsherds is quite small, and they occur mainly in ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... It was characteristic of him that often when he himself was most personally affected, the situation became an object of reflection. What a strange pathos there was in this recognition of superiority and in the inability to rise ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... was characteristic of them, nevertheless, that no one made any mention of escape. Many could have stolen away in the night over the lower walls. Perhaps all could have done so, but not a single Texan ever spoke of such a thing, and not one ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a time when she felt no impulse to rouse him. The touch of curls upon her cheek she would not feel any more. They were gone, and that baby of hers was gone. When he presently awoke, his greeting was characteristic of his altered condition. He did not call to her, he did not crow with laughter of good feeling and fine health. He merely sat up and ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... talk, lad! That's the way!" and Skipper Zeb slapped him on the shoulder, his characteristic method of expressing approval. "You has the makin's in you of a fine trapper and hunter. You fits yourself to what you has to meet and to do, whether 'tis a bit hard or whether 'tis easy. 'Twere a long way for young legs that's not used to un. Bein' on the path settin' up traps is ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... at the conclusion of the story. "Eyah!" he said wistfully, "many's th' toime have I heard me father tell that same tale. They must have been shtirrin' times, thim!" In characteristic fashion his mood suddenly changed. His face hardened, as with upraised hand he silenced the burst of laughter he had provoked from his hearers. "Ginthlemen!" he resumed quietly, "we're none av us cowards here, but—no need tu ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... The characteristic trees are the live-oak, its wood almost as heavy as lignum-vitae, the trunk not high, but sometimes five or six feet in diameter, and extending its crooked branches far over the land, with the long, pendulous, funereal moss adhering to them,—and the palmetto, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... a score of Americans in the crowd, the non-sailors being "tramps royal," the men whose "mate is the wind that tramps the world." They were all cheerful, facing things with the pluck which is their chief characteristic and which seems never to desert them, withal they were cursing the country with lurid metaphors quite refreshing after a month of unimaginative, monotonous Cockney swearing. The Cockney has one oath, and one ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... tightly-fitting, single-breasted blue frock-coat and a pair of pink striped cotton trousers, while the younger candidly displayed the trousers of his brother's suit, as a harmonious change to a shining black alpaca coat and crimson neckerchief. Fairfax, who brought up the rear, had, with characteristic unselfishness, contented himself with a French workman's blue blouse and a pair of white duck trousers. Had they shown the least consciousness of their finery, or of its absurdity, they would have seemed despicable. But only one expression beamed ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... British nature not to disguise his identity under some such gallicised form of his name as BOITE, or LOGE. There is, perhaps, no surname in our language so truly national as Box. "JOHN BOX" might well be substituted for "JOHN BULL." It is characteristic of our ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... will understand him, and no indolence shall prevent us. Let us begin again, then, and re-examine some of our statements concerning the Sophist; there was one thing which appeared to me especially characteristic ...
— Sophist • Plato
... sold the farm?" I exclaimed, with sorrow and surprise. Mrs. Peet was too old and too characteristic to be suddenly transplanted from her native soil. "'T wa'n't mine, the place wa'n't." Her pleasant face hardened slightly. "He was coaxed an' over-persuaded into signin' off before he was taken away. Is'iah, son of his sister that married old Josh ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... secretaries mistrusted and were jealous of one another, and Fox was too ready to believe that Shelburne was secretly working in league with the king to counteract his negotiations, which was not the case. In concealing the Canada paper from his colleagues, Shelburne behaved with characteristic lack of openness, but as Franklin's proposition was informal and required no answer, the matter was trivial, and did not warrant the indignation which was expressed ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... opinion as to the nature of Happiness. The Platonic Idea of the Good criticised. The Highest End an end-in-itself. Virtue referable to the special work of man; growing out of his mental capacity. External conditions necessary to virtue and happiness. The Soul subdivided into parts, each, having its characteristic ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... encouraged, tuft on his chin. "He thinks me rather mad, but I've broken him in, and now he likes the place, he likes the company," said the old man. I embraced this fully after I had become aware that Brooksmith's main characteristic was a deep and shy refinement, though I remember I was rather puzzled when, on another occasion, Mr. Offord remarked: "What he likes is the talk—mingling in the conversation." I was conscious I had never ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... language towards him, but rebuke him with conciliatory words, whether he be in the company of friends or alone. Moreover, she should not be a scold, for says Gonardiya, "there is no cause of dislike on the part of a husband so great as this characteristic in a wife." Lastly she should avoid bad expressions, sulky looks, speaking aside, standing in the doorway, and looking at passers-by, conversing in the pleasure groves, and remaining in a lonely place for a long time; and finally she ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... two years afterwards, from the same boy,[33] there occurs the following characteristic trait:—"I think, by your last letter, that you are very much piqued with most of your friends; and, if I am not much mistaken, you are a little piqued with me. In one part you say, 'There is little or no ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... will do my heroine the justice to remember that she set out with only three, consequently her wish that another had been added, arose from a motive purely affectionate and characteristic. This benevolent trait, ingeniously insinuated, excites the interest of the reader for her, and adds horror to ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... Again he said, with characteristic energy, "If any one, during my administration, shall appeal, I will make him a foot shorter, and send the pieces to Holland and let him appeal ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... practice we may discover evidence of such magic in various forms. There is, for instance, what anthropology describes as 'sympathetic magic'—the attempt to influence the powers of nature by an imitation of the process which it is desired that they should perform. Of this we have a characteristic example in the ceremony of the aquaelicium, designed to produce rain after a long drought. In classical times the ceremony consisted in a procession headed by the pontifices, which bore the sacred rain-stone from ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey
... easy on the instant to find the English word. He explained the duties of his mission. It was singular to ask his enemy that he should see his papers handed to Count Frontenac if he were killed, but it was characteristic ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... been doing characteristic work. With three gunboats he attacked a force three times as numerous as his own. Impetuously boarding the first craft, after a discharge from his long boat, he engaged the numerous crew in a furious hand-to-hand struggle, in which all were made prisoners or forced to leap into the sea ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... natural and probable. The reduction or the exaggeration is made upon a mathematically calculated scale. For such verisimilitude Rabelais cares not a straw. His various inventions are recklessly independent one of another. A characteristic of Swift thus is scrupulous conformity to whimsical law. Rabelais is remarkable for whimsical disregard of even his own whimseys. Voltaire put the matter with his usual felicity,—Swift ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... broad social picture, in which, if there is any concentration of interest, it is upon Blanche and Warden. Sterling's suicide, then, though it does in fact cut the chief knot of the play, is to be regarded rather as a characteristic and probable incident of a certain phase of life, than as the culmination of a spiritual tragedy. It has not the artistic significance, either good or bad, that it would have if the character and destiny of Sterling ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... and a red moon, alternately illumined all parts. King Loc descended into the well and found Nur in his laboratory. Nur looked like a kind little old man, and he wore a sprig of wild thyme in his hood. In spite of his learning he had the innocence and candour characteristic ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... and a historian* draws a comparison, also in their favour, between them and the natives of Botany Bay, of whom THREE stood forward to oppose Captain Cook at his first landing. The ferocity subsequently displayed by natives of Van Diemen's Land cannot fairly be attributed to them therefore as characteristic of their race, at least until extirpation stared them in the face and excited them to acts of desperate ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... steadily driving down toward us, until at length she was so close, and so directly to windward of us, that I almost succeeded in persuading myself that there were moments when I could catch, through the strong salt smell of the gale, a whiff of the characteristic odour of a slaver with a living cargo on board. Nor was I alone in this respect, for both Simpson and the man who was tending the schooner's helm asserted that they also perceived it. But now a question arose which, for the moment at least, was ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... he was reading. James A. Garfield was then spoken of for the presidency; Edward wondered whether it was true that the man who was likely to be President of the United States had once been a boy on the tow-path, and with a simple directness characteristic of his Dutch training, wrote to General Garfield, asking whether the boyhood episode was true, and explaining why he asked. Of course any public man, no matter how large his correspondence, is pleased to receive an earnest letter from an information-seeking boy. General Garfield ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... formations are the volcanic mountains near Knin and on Lissa. Next follow the trias strata, as under the Velebits and westwards from Sinj, then the sandstone beds, the different eocene beds and alluvial strata, as in the plain of Dernis, north of the Vrana Lake, by Nona and Imoski. The principal characteristic of the Karst district (to which Dalmatia belongs geologically) is the way the water flows, sometimes above, sometimes under ground. Where the woods were cut down to supply the Romans and Venetians with material for constructing their fleets, and where natural afforestation ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... the girlhood of the delightful little heroine at Riverboro which were not included in the story of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," and they are as characteristic and delightful as any part of that famous story. Rebecca is as distinct a creation in the second volume as in ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... faculty, which not only consists with the poetical, but is invariably and necessarily associated with it, whenever the latter exists in an advanced stage of development, is in no writer more conspicuous as an intellectual characteristic than in Schiller. In this respect he is not excelled even by Wordsworth himself; but Homer sometimes snoozes, and Schiller's reasoning is not always consequential: as, for instance, when he denies two compositions of Ovid—the Tristia and Ex Ponto—to be genuine ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... band the story was the same. The grass rushed confidently in, bit off great chunks, then smaller, then smaller, until its movement ceased entirely. That part which embedded itself in the salt lost the dazzling green color so characteristic and turned piebald, from dirty gray through brown and yellow, an appearance so familiar in its normal counterpart ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... is a characteristic letter to General Crawford, concerning the dismissal of an officer, whom Cromwell would have restored. "Ay, but the man is an Anabaptist. Are you sure of that? Admit he be, shall that render him incapable to serve the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... It is characteristic that this man, who is probably a drunkard and shebeener and certainly in penury, refused the chance of a shilling because he felt that I did not like him. He had a curiously mixed expression of hardness and melancholy. Probably his character has given him a bad reputation ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... or spiritual principle supposed by alchemists to be transfusible into material things; an imparted characteristic or tendency. ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... sufficiently indefinite. "It appears to be characteristic of this young lady that she is either a vanished joy, or just on the point of becoming one. Have you any idea how far ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... me to judge how much truth there may have been in these reports; but in the one case every one believed, and in the other some suspected, that there had been foul play; and nobody dreamed for an instant of taking the authorities into their counsel. Now this is, of course, characteristic enough of the Mexicans; but it is a noteworthy feature that all the Americans in Monterey acquiesced without a word in this inaction. Even when I spoke to them upon the subject, they seemed not to understand my surprise; they had forgotten the traditions of their own race and upbringing, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I may say without flattery that I expect you. If I am disappointed, I still must bear witness to your courage and to a generosity not characteristic ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... danced, their dance, at first slow and melancholy, becoming gradually active, nervous, and interrupted by cries which resembled sobs. And the Hungarian czardas, symbolizing thus the dance of these martyrs, kept still, will always keep, the characteristic of contortions under the lash of bygone days; and, slow and languishing at first, then soon quick and agitated, tragically hysterical, it also is interrupted by melancholy chords, dreary, mournful notes and plaintive accents like drops of blood from a wound-from the mortal wound ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... generosity which is so prominent a characteristic of "Exchange" was very noticeable this morning. The number I asked for, which was faithfully repeated by the operator, was Mayfair 976. I was connected successively to Hammersmith 24, Museum 113, and Mayfair 5800. After a decent interval I ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... world of fact it is the rarest thing to encounter this absolute alternative; S1 is pink, but S2 is pinker, S3 is scarcely pink at all, and one is in doubt whether S4 is not properly to be called scarlet. The finest type specimen you can find simply has the characteristic quality a little more rather than a little less. The neat little circles the logician uses to convey his idea of P or not P to the student are just pictures of boundaries in his mind, exaggerations of a natural mental tendency. They are required for the purposes of his science, ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... where I find this remark appended to them: "Don't take leave of Lamartine on that contemptuous note; it will be easy to think of something more sympathetic!" Those friends of mine, mentioned a little while since, who accuse me of always tipping back the balance, could not desire a paragraph more characteristic; but I wish to give no further evi- dence of such infirmities, and will therefore hurry away from the subject, - hurry away in the train which, very early on a crisp, bright morning, conveyed. me, by way of an excursion, to ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... and the banks authorized by it alone issued money; but everybody who gave a dollar's credit issued money to that extent, which was as good as any to swell the circulation till the next crises. The great extension of the credit system was a characteristic of the latter part of the nineteenth century, and accounts largely for the almost incessant business crises which marked that period. Perilous as credit was, you could not dispense with its use, for, lacking any national or other public organization of the capital of the country, it was the ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... philosophy is called Prakriti. My utmost expectations will have been exceeded if it should happen that any considerations here offered should throw even a faint suggestive light upon the bearings of this great problem. It may be that the mere irreconcilability of all that is characteristic of the temporal Ego with the conditions of the superior life—if that can be made apparent—will incline you to regard the latter rather as the Redeemer, that has indeed to be born within us for our salvation and our immortality, than as the ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... sum up our contention so far, we may say that the most characteristic current philosophies have not only a touch of mania, but a touch of suicidal mania. The mere questioner has knocked his head against the limits of human thought; and cracked it. This is what makes so futile the warnings of the orthodox and the boasts of the advanced ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... charm was not one or two striking characteristics which distinguished him from other men, but it was a beautiful combination of many noble and lovely traits, in proportions so just, and in harmony so pleasing, that when I have attempted to select this and that characteristic for description, I feel that I have succeeded about as well, as if I had collected a bouquet from the valley of which I just spoke, and should give it to a friend as a picture of the landscape itself. The truth is, my young friends, you will never truly know your Grandfather unless you are ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... conflict in which the free States and the slave States should wrestle in deadly encounter. Douglas presented his indictment artfully and with singular force. The two speeches were in all respects characteristic. Each had made a strong presentation of his case, but the superior candor and directness of Mr. Lincoln had made a deep impression on the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... with that impatient despair which is equally characteristic of the man. "Go!" he said, "when you are called upon by law to vindicate a man's character, and that man your husband! I ought not to be surprised at anything with my experience, but, Elinor, you take ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... odd thing that a girl who could find the nerve to shoot a huge black ruffian rushing to kill her with a spear should have been so affected at the thought of it afterwards; but it is, after all, characteristic of the sex. Poor Flossie! I fear that her nerves will not get over that night in the Masai camp for many a long year. She told me afterwards that it was the suspense that was so awful, having to sit there hour after hour through the livelong ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... supporters renewed vigour, and, even to-day, the election of November, 1844, is remembered as one of the fiercest in the history of the colony. Politics in Canada still recognized force as one of the natural, if not quite legitimate, elements in the situation, and it was eminently characteristic of local conditions that, early in his term of office, Metcalfe should have reported that meetings had been held near Kingston at which large numbers of persons attended armed with bludgeons, and, in some cases, with firearms.[21] Montreal, with ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... some trivial local characteristic, were not at all translations of the native tribal names. For in their own dialects, Quiche, [c]iche, means "many trees;" Tuztuhil, [c,]utuhil, "the flowery spot;" Akahal, "the honey-comb;" and Cakchiquel, ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... his judge calmly. An American can meet death with even the stoicism so characteristic ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... Byronic manner, and ceases, fatigued with his task, before he has begun to get his story under weigh; and miscellaneous pieces. Some of these latter are simply lyrical exercises, and must have been written in Peter Corcoran's earlier days. The most characteristic and the best deal, however, with the science of fisticuffs. Here are the lines sent by the poet to his mistress on the painful occasion which we have described above, ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... New Year—and may you live to see many of them!"—The New Year is born with every characteristic of its defunct sire—seeming no better behaved (as some people would have little boys after a birthday or a breeching):—the old year died with a drizzle; and the young one, that everybody hoped promising, is ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... lucky number in the conscription, he went away from home, and got work, first at the farm of La Borderie and later at La Chamade. He was a true son of the soil, knowing nothing of the world beyond the narrow district in which he was born, and possessing that fierce passion for the land which is the characteristic of so many peasants. When Pere Fouan made a division of his property among his family, Buteau was dissatisfied with the lot which he drew, and refused to take possession of it. In this attitude he persisted for two ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... Jason was not long in ascertaining where we were bound. This was done in a manner so characteristic and ingenious, that I will ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... for Ransom to reach his dressing-room by a slight circuit through the passage; but it was characteristic of the relentless domesticity of their relation that he chose, as a matter of course, the directer way through his wife's bedroom. She had never before been disturbed by this practice, which she accepted ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... private character of Buffon," says Sir William Jardine in a characteristic passage, "we regret there is not much to praise; his disposition was kind and benevolent, and he was generally beloved by his inferiors, followers, and dependants, which were numerous over his extensive property; he was strictly honourable, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... she cried. "I have fared admirably. Why should I not? Life makes me as happy as though I were a child. Oh, I can always be happy.... That's characteristic of me. Nearly every day brings something new and usually something delightful.... And since I've been in love with you.... You mustn't take that for a banal declaration of passion, dear friend.... Just imagine you are ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... we should turn to the brute creation existing in these regions, noticing the interesting specimens of the vegetable kingdom as we proceed in our survey. As the camel is the characteristic animal of the sandy deserts of Arabia and Africa, the royal tiger of the jungles of Bengal, and the kangaroo of the wide-extending plains of Australia, so the llama brings to our recollection the lofty plateaus of the Andes, and the mighty condor ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... conference of leading State and city officials and other representative men who there and then mapped out a program tending to prevent the recurrence of such race riots—a program which up to the present time has successfully fulfilled its purpose. It is characteristic of Mr. Washington's methods that he turned this disaster into an ultimate blessing for the ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... encourages the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents and dependents. These are the most dangerous elements in the world community, the most devastating curse on human progress and expression. Philanthropy is a gesture characteristic of modern business lavishing upon the unfit the profits extorted from the community at large. Looked at impartially, this compensatory generosity is in its final effect probably more dangerous, more dysgenic, more blighting ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... Hohenhrn Sand. 14th Sept.—Nil. 15th Sept.—Under way at 4 a.m. Wind East moderate. Course W. by S.: four miles; N.E. by N. fifteen miles Norderpiep 9.30. Eider River 11.30.' This recital of naked facts was quite characteristic when 'passages' were concerned, and any curiosity I had felt about his reticence on the previous night would have been rather allayed than stimulated had I not noticed that a page had been torn out of the book just at this point. The frayed edge left had ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... most striking characteristic of Socrates never to become heated in discourse, never to utter an injurious or insulting word—on the contrary, he persistently bore insult from others and thus put an end to the fray. If you care to know the extent of his ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... characteristic adenoid faces, convincing yourself as to diagnosis by having the pupil say "l, m, n, o, p." Do not try to confirm the diagnosis of adenoids by a digital examination of ...
— Health Work in the Public Schools • Leonard P. Ayres and May Ayres
... his eyes flashed with anger; but, on second thought, the joke struck him as being too good, and the pleasant smile so characteristic of the Colonel wreathed ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... barely accessible with Yuranigh's assistance, and, on reaching an elevated summit, I saw still worse gullies before us, amongst which I could perceive no feature affording any cue to their final outlet, nor any characteristic of the structure of these labyrinths. I looked in vain for the rugged summits I had seen peeping over the plains when first discovered, and could not then be convinced (as I found long afterwards, on completing my map), that they were then under my feet. ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... duty to their country as Englishmen should. Lord Methuen described as dastardly the firing by the enemy on ambulance waggons, the shooting of a British officer by a wounded Boer, and the use of Dum-Dum bullets; but he refused to believe that these acts were characteristic of the enemy; he would give them credit until he was convinced to the contrary that they wished to fight fair and square. Addressing the Scots Guards, the General said that they had acted as he expected his ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... transparent substance having a smooth shining fracture and melting at about 135 deg. C. (275 deg. F.). The American variety possesses a characteristic aromatic odour, which is lacking in those from France and Spain. It is graded by samples taken out of the top of every barrel, and cut into 7/8 of an inch cubes, which must be uniform in size—the shade of colour of the cube ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons
... the companion of man. Such he is in all parts of the world; and although wild dogs exist, they appear, like savage human beings, to have retrograded from a state of civilisation. The mongrels and curs, too, have evidently deteriorated, and lost the characteristic ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... characteristic pig-headedness, gave no heed to the superior intelligence of the Indian where matters of direction in a wild country were concerned. He knew he was on the right trail. That was sufficient for him. But he surveyed the surrounding mountains well before he spoke. They had halted in a sort of cup-like ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... Plowden. Notwithstanding the confusion in its orders, owing to the different ages in which its several parts had been erected, the interior was not wanting in that appearance of comfort which forms the great characteristic of English domestic life. Its dark and intricate mazes of halls, galleries, and apartments were all well provided with good and substantial furniture; and whatever might have been the purposes of their original construction, they were now peacefully appropriated ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... blue colour; and his lower jaw was somewhat prominent. Smoothly shaved and well brushed, with stiff white neckcloth, shining boots, and silver-headed cane, there was something about his whole appearance which told of prosperity. Every word, every movement, even the peculiarly characteristic one with which he adjusted his chin in his stiff neckcloth, was the picture of propriety and precision. Precision was, in fact, a word which seemed made for the young Consul; both his appearance and his career reflected it ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... more than repaid," writes Peel, "by the personal satisfaction which I have had in doing that for which you return me warm and characteristic acknowledgments. ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with God, I have had innumerable trials, some of them tortures, but have been brought safely out of every one. I afterwards found that each trial was exactly what was needed for the alteration of some objectionable characteristic in myself. No trial that came was unnecessary. When its work ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... bad of coming from a Scotch Calvinist's house. No man in that age had so healthy an instinct for the actuality of positive evil. In The Master of Ballantrae he did prove with a pen of steel, that the Devil is a gentleman—but is none the less the Devil. It is also characteristic of him (and of the revolt from Victorian respectability in general) that his most blood-and-thunder sensational tale is also that which contains his most intimate and bitter truth. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a double triumph; it has the outside excitement that ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... Mr. T. will not require me to depict my feelings, when I inform him that I have become accustomed to hear Mr. Micawber assert that he has sold himself to the D. Mystery and secrecy have long been his principal characteristic, have long replaced unlimited confidence. The slightest provocation, even being asked if there is anything he would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish for a separation. Last night, on being childishly solicited for twopence, to buy ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... of strife between good and evil as interpreting the significance of existence arose that dissonance which lies at the root of nearly all his most characteristic works—that sense of want, that failure to find final satisfaction which may be only too readily detected. For the conflict within himself he knew no real mediatory: he was baffled to discover a higher category in which to unite ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... then, I say, is the most characteristic of him and of his Valois blood, and of the national spirit in general to which he belonged: for he, and it, and they, loved and love contrast, and the extra-meaning ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... But as for specialists in feminine diseases being at heart rakes and cynics, allow me to differ. Gynaecologists have to do with deadly prose such as you have never dreamed of, and to which perhaps, if you knew it, you would, with the ferocity characteristic of your imagination, attribute a worse smell than that of dogs. One who is always swimming in the sea loves dry land; one who for ever is plunged in prose passionately longs for poetry. All gynaecologists are idealists. Your doctor reads poems, your instinct prompted you right; I would add that ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... late thought, we should say that by it everything is made 'an antiquity.' When, in former times; our ancestors thought of an antiquarian, they described him as occupied with coins, and medals, and Druids' stones; these were then the characteristic records of the decipherable past, and it was with these that decipherers busied themselves. But now there are other relics; indeed, all matter is become such. Science tries to find in each bit of earth the record of the causes which made it precisely ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... horrified though he was, Bart Hodge realized that Frank had been stabbed. At that moment, with the lack of resolution that was characteristic of him on occasions of peril, and not through fear, he stood quite still ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... young man himself: nay, on the contrary, being grieved that he was even the cause of public odium and accusations to his father, that all the gods and men might know that he would rather afford aid to his father than to his enemies, he forms the design, characteristic of a rude and rustic mind no doubt, and though of a precedent not conformable to the rules of civil life, yet commendable for its filial piety. Having furnished himself with a knife, without the knowledge of any one he proceeds early in the morning into the city, and from the gate straightway ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... "The characteristic features of the Esquimaux," says Admiral Beechey, "are large fat round faces, high cheek-bones, small hazel eyes, eyebrows slanting like the Chinese, and wide mouths." They are generally under ...
— Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian - A Memoir • Thomas Boyles Murray
... our people have characteristic racial features which make it practically impossible for a Japanese to disguise himself as a Western European, so as to ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... however poorly told, offers a picture of real war: the war that is by no means one continuous stretch of heroism and martyrdom in excelsis, of guns galloping to death or glory, of bayonets dripping with enemy blood, of "our gallant lads" meeting danger and destruction with "characteristic British humour and cheerfulness," when they are not "seeing red." On that 29th of August, when Major Mallaby-Kelby assumed command, we knew that the campaign had taken a definite turn in our favour, but none of us expected the ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... standards of shame that exist even among the cultivated Japanese to-day.[19] Even among the Ainos, whom the Japanese look upon as savages, there is still much of the obscenity of speech which belongs to all society[20] in a state of barbarism; but it has been proved that genuine modesty is a characteristic of the Aino women.[21] A literal English translation of the Kojiki, however, requires an abundant use of Latin in order to protect it from the grasp of the law in English-speaking Christendom. In Chamberlain's version, the numerous cesspools are thus filled up with a dead language, and ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... subject of different kinds of air, I find myself at a loss for proper terms, by which to distinguish them, those which have hitherto obtained being by no means sufficiently characteristic, or distinct. The only terms in common use are, fixed air, mephitic, and inflammable. The last, indeed, sufficiently characterizes and distinguishes that kind of air which takes fire, and explodes on the approach ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... die, and some of these have been rescued and carried to foundling hospitals. The neighbourhood was so pestiferous that we could only pause a moment to look at 'an institution' which, although so horrible, is so characteristic of this race, who pay such unbounded reverence to the powerful dead who could harm them. Most of the bodies deposited here are those of girl babies who have been intentionally put to death, but older children are ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... apostasy from God does not denote the special sin, but rather that general condition of every sin, consisting in its turning away from God. It may also be said that apostasy from God is said to be the beginning of pride, because it is the first species of pride. For it is characteristic of pride to be unwilling to be subject to any superior, and especially to God; the result being that a man is unduly lifted up, in respect of the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... attachment to the fair sex extended even to a dead queen. The record of this royal salute on his natal day is very characteristic. The story told him in Westminster Abbey appears to have been correct; for Neale informs us ("History of Westminster Abbey," vol. ii., p. 88) that near the south side of Henry V.'s tomb there was formerly a wooden chest, or coffin, wherein part of the skeleton and parched body of Katherine ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... railroad transportation might have been discouraged by this discovery, but it is a characteristic of an inventor that he is not set back by opposition, which, in fact, only serves to stimulate his zeal. The projectors of inclined roads and mountain engines kept steadily on, and in France, Germany, England, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... transition from these homely scenes, which humor commends to our liking, to the chivalrous pageant unrolled for us in the "Conquest of Granada." The former are more characteristic and the more enduring of Irving's writings, but as a literary artist his genius lent itself just as readily to Oriental and mediaeval romance as to the Knickerbocker legend; and there is no doubt that the delicate perception he had ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... step into the office to inquire after my comrades. One of the whey-faced clerks said with the supercilious asperity characteristic of ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... further, let us look at some of the circumstances which were characteristic of the period with which we are dealing. Liberty of the subject and public opinion are inseparably wedded together, and this seems inevitable in every country whose government partakes largely of the representative system. For in such States, unlike the conditions which ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... property; he has no important vices and no inclination to commit robbery on a large scale; but if he can get ahead of you in the horse business, he will take a genuine delight in doing it. This traits is characteristic of horse jockeys, the world over, is it not? He will overcharge you if he can; he will hire you a fine-looking horse at night (anybody's—may be the King's, if the royal steed be in convenient view), ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... take time. Sometimes we can trace how new methods were carried about. Those who were brought over from Normandy by the Norman kings of England to be abbots in English monasteries, brought with them their characteristic style of building; and at the end of the twelfth century this had entirely superseded the old English style. One monastery passed on the new fashion to another, as Simeon, at Ely, came fresh from the great work being ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... as you have done in substance, that this is no longer the characteristic of Romanism. Why is it not? Has she ever changed for the better? When did she renounce her doctrines and practices? Never! Rome is the same tyrannical system now, where she has the power, that she ever has been, and for ever must be. ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... illustrates this teaching in a most remarkable way. Back through twenty-five hundred years we can follow the line of the imperial succession, till it vanishes out of sight into the mystery of the past. Here we have evidence of that extreme power of resisting all changes which is inherently characteristic of religious conservatism; on the other hand, the history of shogunates and regencies proves the tendency to disintegration of institutions having no religious foundation, and therefore no religious power of cohesion. The remarkable duration of the Fujiwara rule, as compared with others, may perhaps ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... political opinions, nor to the critical decisions of the Edinburgh Review; but we must do justice to the talent with which they are supported, and to the tone of manly explicitness in which they are delivered.[A] They are eminently characteristic of the Spirit of the Age; as it is the express object of the Quarterly Review to discountenance and extinguish that spirit, both in theory and practice. The Edinburgh Review stands upon the ground of opinion; it asserts the supremacy ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... not at once reply. He was standing in one of his characteristic attitudes, his hands clasped behind him, his head a little thrust forward, watching with every appearance of courteous interest the roomful of guests, stationary just now, listening to the performance of a famous violinist. It was, perhaps, by accident ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... insight he anticipated the arguments of his attorney. He presented them fairly and generously to the court and jury. According to Samson the opposing lawyers admitted in a private talk that Lincoln had thought of presumptions in favor of Davis which had not occurred to them. Therein lay the characteristic of Mr. Lincoln's method in ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller |
