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Primitive   Listen
adjective
Primitive  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to the beginning or origin, or to early times; original; primordial; primeval; first; as, primitive innocence; the primitive church. "Our primitive great sire."
2.
Of or pertaining to a former time; old-fashioned; characterized by simplicity; as, a primitive style of dress.
3.
Original; primary; radical; not derived; as, primitive verb in grammar.
Primitive axes of coordinate (Geom.), that system of axes to which the points of a magnitude are first referred, with reference to a second set or system, to which they are afterward referred.
Primitive chord (Mus.), that chord, the lowest note of which is of the same literal denomination as the fundamental base of the harmony; opposed to derivative.
Primitive circle (Spherical Projection), the circle cut from the sphere to be projected, by the primitive plane.
Primitive colors (Paint.), primary colors. See under Color.
Primitive Fathers (Eccl.), the acknowledged Christian writers who flourished before the Council of Nice, A. D. 325.
Primitive groove (Anat.), a depression or groove in the epiblast of the primitive streak. It is not connected with the medullary groove, which appears later and in front of it.
Primitive plane (Spherical Projection), the plane upon which the projections are made, generally coinciding with some principal circle of the sphere, as the equator or a meridian.
Primitive rocks (Geol.), primary rocks. See under Primary.
Primitive sheath. (Anat.) See Neurilemma.
Primitive streak or Primitive trace (Anat.), an opaque and thickened band where the mesoblast first appears in the vertebrate blastoderm.
Synonyms: First; original; radical; pristine; ancient; primeval; antiquated; old-fashioned.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Primitive" Quotes from Famous Books



... But the Britons, from having been detained longer in Greece than the other two nations, after the destruction of their country, and having migrated at a later period into the western parts of Europe, retained in a greater degree the primitive words and phrases of their native language. You will find amongst them the names Oenus, Resus, AEneas, Hector, Achilles, Heliodorus, Theodorus, Ajax, Evander, Uliex, Anianus, Elisa, Guendolena, and many others, bearing marks of their antiquity. It is also to be observed, that almost all words in ...
— The Description of Wales • Geraldus Cambrensis

... pathos, and sometimes some rather effective concerted music; but, for the most part, Donizetti was content to write his charming tunes, and to leave all expression to the singers. The orchestration of his Italian operas is primitive in the extreme, and amply justifies Wagner's taunt about the 'big guitar.' In works written for foreign theatres Donizetti took more pains, and 'La Favorite,' produced in Paris in 1840, is in many ways the strongest of his tragic works. The ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... over the pages of old authors, it is amusing to note how the mountains of our primitive ancestors have become mole-hills in the hands of the present generation! A few instances would, I think, be very instructive; and, to set the example, I give you the following ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various

... yourself" ("Aspects of the Social Problem," p. 313). The British gentleman, aware that his dinner does not agree with him unless he has put forth a certain amount of physical energy, reverts to one of the earliest and most primitive forms of work, viz., hunting. There is a small—a very small—class in the United States in the same predicament; but as a rule the worker there is not only more honoured, but also works more in accordance with the spirit of ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... and best kingdom in the world; but if we go there in the way that God commands and desires, and at the time appointed by His Divine Majesty (for we men cannot know), we shall make one of the largest conversions ever seen since the time of the primitive church. This is what the devil tries to hinder by spreading abroad the notion that the only way by which China can be entered is by force of arms. The truth is, that until now no people has been discovered ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair

... people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... or any way distinguished from the other days of the year, during the apostolic age. The former of these is not marked in the scriptures. Whether it happened on the twentyfifth of December, or at some other season is uncertain. So are the times in which the apostles and primitive Christians suffered martyrdom. These events are veiled. Divine providence hath hidden them from mankind, probably for the same reason that the body of Moses was hidden from Israel—to prevent its being made an object of idolatrous worship—or ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee

... primitive. We didn't have kerosene. Our only lights were tallow candles, mostly grease lamps, they were just a pan with grease in it, and one end of the rag dragging out over the side which we would light. There were ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kansas Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... the sage with citrine and lighten the slate with violet, and intersperse orange and green in a way permitted by the proportions at our command. When the work is completed we find a harmony of analogy which can be then relieved by touches of the primitive colors, blue and yellow, in ...
— Color Value • C. R. Clifford

... germ, and glories in history as one consistent epic.[7] Yet every student ought to know that mastery is acquired by resolved limitation. And confusion ensues from the theory of Montesquieu and of his school, who, adapting the same term to things unlike, insist that freedom is the primitive condition of the race from which we are sprung.[8] If we are to account mind not matter, ideas not force, the spiritual property that gives dignity, and grace, and intellectual value to history, and its action on the ascending life of man, then we shall not be prone ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton

... merely primitive form, the pouch is found useful by the small kangaroo. It is an ever-ready refuge from the prowling dingo dog, and any little kangaroo who breaks a window has always a capital hiding-place handy. Indeed, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... like this, Phineas? I do, very much. A dear, smiling, English valley, holding many a little nest of an English home. Fancy being patriarch over such a region, having the whole valley in one's hand, to do good to, or ill. You can't think what primitive people they are hereabouts—descendants from an old colony of Flemish cloth-weavers: they keep to the trade. Down in the valley—if one could see through the beech wood—is the grand support of the neighbourhood, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... incur all its heavy expenses for the sake of a seat in Parliament. But what our sentimentalists have not yet been told is that exactly the same thing applies to maternity as to government. The best mothers are not those who are so enslaved by their primitive instincts that they will bear children no matter how hard the conditions are, but precisely those who place a very high price on their services, and are quite prepared to become old maids if the price is refused, and even to feel relieved at their escape. Our democratic ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... of husbandry: the creaking carreta, with its block wheels; the primitive plough of the forking tree-branch, scarcely scoring the soil; the horn-yoked oxen; the goad; the clumsy hoe in the hands of the peon serf: these are all objects that are new and curious to our eyes, and that indicate the lowest ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... of social prominence and respectability was to unite with the church in her home town and desired the ordinance of baptism by immersion, preferring the primitive custom of going to the river. Among the number that gathered to witness the baptism was a little boy friend, Charlie, about four years old. The proceedings were entirely new to the child, and he looked on with strange ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various

... founded their first Convent, which bears the name of Chartrouse, and is to be sein at this day. Notwtstanding that their first institution bears that they stay far from the converse of men, yet (which also may be observed in the primitive Monachisme) they are creeping into the most frequented cities. Vitness their spatious Convent, neir halfe a mile about, ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... said Lady Maulevrier, looking at him critically, 'you are just the kind of person who ought to emigrate. You have ideas that would do for the Bush or the Yosemite Valley, but which are too primitive for an ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... beloved, while the other remained at home. (In my "Exotics and Retrospectives," under the title "A Question in the Zen Texts," the reader will find a typical Chinese story on the subject,—the story of the girl Ts'ing.) Some form of the primitive belief in doubles and wraiths probably exists in every part of the world; but this Far Eastern variety is of peculiar interest because the double is supposed to be caused by love, and the subjects of the affliction to belong to the gentler sex.... The term Rikomby[o] ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn

... earnest and almost worried kindliness which is the mark of those to whom selfishness, even justifiable selfishness, is really a thing difficult or impossible. In early life Robert Browning senior was placed by his father (who was apparently a father of a somewhat primitive, not to say barbaric, type) in an important commercial position in the West Indies. He threw up the position however, because it involved him in some recognition of slavery. Whereupon his unique parent, in a transport of rage, not only disinherited him and flung him out of doors, but by a ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... the primitive methods of discipline which had reached their apogee under the dominion of Keate were altogether incompatible with Dr. Arnold's view of the functions of a headmaster and the proper governance of a public school. Clearly, it was not for such as he to demean himself by bellowing and cuffing, ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... and, if the term may be used, the sexual imagination of the descriptive poet. The same conclusion may be deduced from another hint in the same episode of Musidora; for Thomson's notion of the privileges of favoured love must have been either very primitive, or rather deficient in delicacy, when he made his grateful nymph inform her discreet Damon that in some happier moment he might perhaps be the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... profound earnestness, was enough to make any one laugh, but Marcoy could not be blind to its side of oppression and tyranny. This was the way, then, that the humble and primitive gobernador, who had presented himself to the travelers barefoot, was enriching himself by the knaveries of office! Marcoy could not take heart to inform Juan of Aragon of the devastation behind him, but on the other hand he resolved to correct the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... the preceding section is, that there the stress was laid on the contents of the disciples' message, but that here it is laid on their sufferings. Not so much by what they say, as by how they endure, are they to testify. 'The noble army of martyrs praise Thee,' and the primitive Church preached Jesus most effectually ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... profusion and vigor are as wonderful as the variety. At a flower show in Santa Barbara were exhibited 160 varieties of roses all cut from one garden the same morning. The open garden rivals the Eastern conservatory. The country is new and many of the conditions of life may be primitive and rude, but it is impossible that any region shall not be beautiful, clothed with such a profusion ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner

... nothing more tragic in history than the spectacle of this man of unparalleled administrative and political genius, fettered by the past, and at length grown desperate, abandoning himself to his weird. The march into Russia is the return upon the daimonic spirit of its primitive instincts. The beneficent ruler is merged once more in the visionary of earlier times, dreaming by the Nile, or asleep on the heel of a cannon on board the Muiron.[5] Napoleon was fighting for a dead ideal with the strength of the men who had overthrown that ideal—how ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb

... subjected to this poison died, but for a few minutes after the life left his body the medicine men could still converse with him. The subject, though ostensibly and actually dead, answered the medicine men's every question. This was their primitive, though reportedly effective method of catching glimpses of what lay ...
— There is a Reaper ... • Charles V. De Vet

... savage (the primitive) do not distinguish the real from the fantastic. I remember very clearly that at five or six years of age I wanted to "send my heart" to a little girl with whom I was in love (I mean my material heart). I could see it in the middle of straw, in ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... work, with a long broad plank on it, occupies the middle of the room, and is covered with a cloth, the original colour of which it is impossible to determine. This is the guest-table. The dinner is served up in the most primitive fashion imaginable, all the viands being heaped up in one dish; beans and rice, potatoes and roast beef, onions and paradise apples, forming a curious medley. The appetites of the guests are keen, and no time is wasted in talking. At the end of the repast, a goblet of wine or water passes from ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous

... point of contact, and thence gradually decreasing till it becomes evanescent. "The extreme effect," says Dr. Berger, "presents a dark brown crystalline limestone, the crystals running in flakes as large as those of coarse primitive (METAMORPHIC) limestone; the next state is saccharine, then fine grained and arenaceous; a compact variety, having a porcelanous aspect and a bluish-grey colour, succeeds: this, towards the outer edge, becomes ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... reflayr, smell, odour; rote, decay. 1082 e reken fyel, the merry fiddle. 1094 lomerande blynde, the hesitating (slow, creeping), blind. The primitive meaning of lomerande seems to be that of ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various

... could afford themselves few tears. Earthly having and enjoying was a thing long since dismissed from their calculations. They were living on the primitive Christian platform; they "rejoiced as though they rejoiced not," and they "wept as though they wept not," and they "had wives and children as though they had them not," or, as one of themselves expressed ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... elemental instant there was loosed in the soul of Mary Gage a pent flood of emotion. She let her heart go, let in the wilderness of primitive things again. She was alive! She could see! She could be as ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough

... With what halos of romance we surrounded them! with what devotion we nursed the one with the broken head, in those early days when new heads were not to be bought at the nearest shop. And even if they could have been purchased for us, would we, the primitive children of those dear, dark ages, have ever thought of wrenching off the cracked blonde head of Ethelinda and buying a new, strange, nameless brunette head, gluing it calmly on Ethelinda's body, ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... The faculty, in short, which could produce those 3,000 fluent lines on the bare data of the stories of Venus and Adonis and Tarquin and Lucrece, with only the intellectual material of a rakish Stratford lad's schooling and reading, and the culture coming of a few years' association with the primitive English stage and its hangers-on, was capable of broadening and deepening, with vital experience and vital culture, into the poet of LEAR and MACBETH. But the vital culture must come to it, like the experience: this was not a man who would go out of his way to ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson

... Fleece there is an account of the ship Argo and her crew, which gives a good picture of this primitive ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... enmity. Her aspirations for him and for herself were buried in the little grave on the storm-swept hillside by Daddy Skinner. Like a borrowed mantle, the culture she'd gained under Professor Young's loving tuition slipped from her and the elemental passions of the primitive people that produced her assumed their sway. Subconsciously, the squatter's standards re-established themselves, and she hugged to her heart the hate she'd ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... disclaims the title of sociologist, bases her conception of the origin of Greek religion on a sociological theory, the theory namely that "among primitive peoples religion reflects collective feeling and collective thinking." Dionysius, the god of the Greek mysteries, is according to her interpretation a product ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... the contrary, divide bodies into their primitive particles. If, for instance, a neutral salt be acted upon by these, it is divided, as far as is possible, without ceasing to be a neutral salt. In this Chapter, I mean to give examples of this kind ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier

... Andrews in Covenanting Times": in the 'Year-Book of the Church of Scotland,' 1886, "Brief Sketch of the History of the Reformed Church of Scotland": in 'St Giles' Lectures,' First Series, 1880-81, "Pre-Reformation Scotland"; and in Fourth Series, 1883-84, "The Primitive or Apostolic and Sub-Apostolic Church," being the first of the lectures entitled, "The Churches of Christendom." To Dr Schaff's Encyclopaedia he contributed separate articles on "St Columba," "The Culdees," ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... torrent far down in the ravine. Now and then the horse stamped restlessly and tugged at the lariat that was pegged down within reach of Alton's arm, and once came up and looked down on him. Alton usually slumbered lightly in the bush, but man's primitive instincts reassert themselves in the wilderness, and because it is possible that his senses were not wholly dormant and there was some subtle sympathy between him and the beasts that served him he did ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... first operation for osteo-sarcoma of the lower jaw. In 1822 he introduced his original operation for immobility of the lower jaw. He was the first surgeon who removed the lower jaw for necrosis, and the first to tie successfully the primitive iliac artery for aneurism. Other of his original operations were cutting out two inches of the deep jugular vein, inseparably imbedded in a tumor, and tying both ends of the vein, and closing, with a fine ligature, wounds of large veins of a longitudinal or transverse kind, ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... make a better living by farming or hunting. Thomas was very fond of shooting and as he was a fine marksman he could provide game for the table, and other things which are considered luxuries to-day, such as furs and skins needed for the primitive wearing apparel of the pioneers. A daughter was born to the young couple at Elizabethtown, ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple

... the railroad among the mountains and in most of them woman suffrage never had been heard of; there was no one to advertise the meetings, nobody to meet her when she reached her destination, hotels were of the most primitive nature and there were few public halls. There were, of course, some oases in this desert, and occasionally she found a good hotel or was hospitably entertained in a comfortable home. At one place she spoke in the railroad station to about twenty-five men who could not understand ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... full. If he could have been alone with her in a quiet corner—the despised cottage at Westmore, even!—he fancied they might still have been brought together by restricted space and the familiar exigencies of life. All the primitive necessities which bind together, through their recurring daily wants, natures fated to find no higher point of union, had been carefully eliminated from the life at Lynbrook, where material needs ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... that these dialectic differences arise, not from the use of a different language, but a different mode of applying the same language—a language in which every syllable has a well-known primitive meaning. Thus, in the name for maple tree(8), the Chippewa means, spouted, or man tree (alluding to its being tapped for its sap), and the Ottawa, stoned, or cut tree, alluding to the same feature. The same terms are equally well known, and ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... Midi, to our own quarters for dinner. The Hotel de France, as it is called, is the best in Arreau, but is nevertheless not much more than a fairly large country inn. The rooms are very clean, and the food good, but the arrangements are somewhat primitive; yet for all this we were very well satisfied on the whole, though the necessity of starting at nine o'clock next morning prevented us indulging ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough

... Esq., in the office of the Secretary of State, is well known for his pre-eminent skill and experience in mastering the chirography of the primitive colonial times, and elucidating its peculiarities. He has been unwearied in his labors, and most earnest in his efforts, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... the common woodpecker entirely insensible to the wooing of the spring, and, like the partridge, testifies his appreciation of melody after quite a primitive fashion. Passing through the woods on some clear, still morning in March, while the metallic ring and tension of winter are still in the earth and air, the silence is suddenly broken by long, resonant hammering upon a dry limb or stub. It is Downy beating a reveille to spring. In the utter ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... ever, and as Delrio counselleth, [2805]"much better die, than be so cured." Some take upon them to expel devils by natural remedies, and magical exorcisms, which they seem to approve out of the practice of the primitive church, as that above cited of Josephus, Eleazer, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Austin. Eusebius makes mention of such, and magic itself hath been publicly professed in some universities, as of old in Salamanca in Spain, and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... earth bear some affinity together.' This reduces it to a question of definition, in which every one is free to use his own: to wit, What constitutes identity, or difference in two things, in the common acceptation of sameness? All languages may be called the same, as being all made up of the same primitive sounds, expressed by the letters of the different alphabets. But, in this sense, all things on earth are the same, as consisting of matter. This gives up the useful distribution into genera and species, which we form, arbitrarily indeed, for the relief of our ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims, To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling, Clad in [v]doublet and hose, and boots of [v]Cordovan leather, Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Captain. Buried in thought he seemed, with hands behind him, and pausing Ever and anon to behold the glittering ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... of those on board. We have reports of their ennui on the long voyage of seventy days, of their amusements and their devotions, for twice daily were prayers read on deck. They sailed into Newport on the 11th of July and the inhabitants of that still primitive spot illuminated their houses as best they could. Then the army settled down at Newport and there it remained for many weary months. Reinforcements never came, partly through mismanagement in France, partly through the vigilance ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... the gay capital of Moslem science, and still the busy haunt of men. Here our philosopher occupied himself with literary labors, the more sweet and soothing to his wounded spirit, that they tended to illustrate the faded glories of his native land, and exhibit them in their primitive splendor to the eyes of his adopted countrymen. "And I have no reason to regret," he says in his Preface to his account of Florida, "that Fortune has not smiled on me, since this circumstance has opened a literary career which, I trust, will secure to me a wider and ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... totally overlooked. Nor was ecclesiastical merit confined to the established church. Many instances of extraordinary genius, unaffected piety, and universal moderation, appeared among the dissenting ministers of Great Britain and Ireland; among these we particularize the elegant, the primitive Foster; the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... her. And a glimpse of light on the inexorable nature of sex antipathies strayed into a brain which, belonging to early Victorian civilisation—so much older than this of his old age—had never thought about such primitive things. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the voyage was anthropology. The cruise of the Rattlesnake provided one of the last opportunities of visiting tribes who had never before seen a white man. The young surgeon made a point of getting into touch with these primitive people at Cape York, and in the islands off New Guinea. He made a preliminary exploration through the uncharted bush of Queensland with the ill-fated Kennedy, and all but accompanied him on his disastrous journey to Cape York, when of all the party only two were rescued, through the devotion of ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley

... private enterprise in 1986. The results, starting from an extremely low base, were striking - growth averaged 6% per year in 1988-2006 except during the short-lived drop caused by the Asian financial crisis beginning in 1997. Despite this high growth rate, Laos remains a country with a primitive infrastructure. It has no railroads, a rudimentary road system, and limited external and internal telecommunications, though the government is sponsoring major improvements in the road system with possible support from Japan. Electricity is available in only a few urban areas. ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... strong in him—bestowed it on the white hair and venerable brow of age—on long-tried integrity—on solid wisdom and sad-coloured experience—on endowments of that grave and weighty order which gave the idea of permanence, and comes under the general definition of respectability. These primitive statesmen, therefore—Bradstreet, Endicott, Dudley, Bellingham, and their compeers—who were elevated to power by the early choice of the people, seem to have been not often brilliant, but distinguished by a ponderous sobriety, rather than activity of intellect. They had fortitude ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... accomplished the work enjoined upon her. For in this monastery, as in the first, she established the discipline of the regular life, and indeed, she taught there also, justice, piety, chastity, and other virtues, but especially the guarding of peace and charity; so that, after the example of the primitive church, no one there was rich and none poor, all things were common to all and no one had property. So great was her prudence, moreover, that not only ordinary persons in their necessity, but even kings and princes sought and received counsel of her. She made those ...
— Early Double Monasteries - A Paper read before the Heretics' Society on December 6th, 1914 • Constance Stoney

... and there are too many modern distractions about such a mode of progress. To our minds, the manner of our going should as nearly as possible be that of the pioneer himself—hence our skiff, and our nightly camp in primitive fashion. ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... by the interrogation of one of Meno's slaves, who, in the skilful hands of Socrates, is made to acknowledge some elementary relations of geometrical figures. The theorem that the square of the diagonal is double the square of the side—that famous discovery of primitive mathematics, in honour of which the legendary Pythagoras is said to have sacrificed a hecatomb—is elicited from him. The first step in the process of teaching has made him conscious of his own ignorance. ...
— Meno • Plato

... treasures more abundant and more genuine than were enjoyed by any nation under heaven. Even their southern neighbors, they thought, though separated from Rome, still retained a great tincture of the primitive pollution; and their liturgy was represented as a species of mass, though with some less show and embroidery.[***] Great prejudices, therefore, were entertained against it, even considered in itself; much more when regarded as a preparative, which was soon to introduce into Scotland all the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... low flat bottoms: while the general landscape is agreeably relieved from the monotony of too great uniformity by numerous mountains of fantastical shapes and appearance, entirely unconnected with each other, and all varying in the primitive ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... sake," cried Blaise, staring into the welter below, "give me something in my bare hand. Rats, he called us, rats, and I won't die like a rat, I won't, I won't." It was the cry of primitive nature ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... primitive Russian people, and everything that comes from us is truly Russian! Consequently it is the most genuine, ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... the healing art in Ancient Rome is shrouded in uncertainty. The earliest practice of medicine was undoubtedly theurgic, and common to all primitive peoples. The offices of priest and of medicine-man were combined in one person, and magic was invoked to take the place of knowledge. There is much scope for the exercise of the imagination in attempting to follow the course of early man in his efforts to bring ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... only low down, the gray arms reaching with bright, unstained blade. His own bloody bayonet clashed against it, locked, and felt the helplessness of the arms that wielded it. An instant of pause—a heaving, breathless instinct of impending exhaustion—a moment when the petrific mace of primitive man stayed at the return of the human—then with bloody foam on his lips ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... carpeted with mats of coloured grass. The walls are decorated with a native cloth, called tapa, which serves the purpose of tapestry. The house is divided into separate chambers at night by mats hung up on lines. The beds are primitive; a mat serves for every purpose, and a wooden roller as a pillow. Many of the Kanakas are well educated, and read and write not only their own, but several European languages likewise. There is ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... life of the sexes cannot leave either marriage or the family in their present state. It must vitally affect, and in time wholly sever, that oneness which has ever been at the foundation of the marriage idea, from the primitive declaration in Genesis to the latest decision of the common law. This idea gone—and it is totally at war with the modern theory of 'woman's rights'—marriage is reduced to the nature of a contract simply.... ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... a moment," I answered with a blank grin, determined to be cool and composed, though my sudden plunge had somewhat dazed me; and scrambling out of the primitive cistern, I regained the roof by means of a ladder standing against a cherry-tree ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... and mother love for children driving her back to the forest of her ancestors, and making her sacrifice all that her race had gained for her during thousands of years. Thus the most natural and primitive instincts of the human race will prevail against all ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)

... gold fields bring in view every trait of human character. The more vicious standing out in bold relief, and stamping their impress upon the locality. This phase and most primitive situation can be accounted for partly by the cupidity of mankind, but mainly that the first arrivals are chiefly adventurers. Single men, untrammeled by family cares, traders, saloonists, gamblers, and that unknown quantity of indefinite quality, ever present, content to allow others ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... You could not half understand how in these times, under the new government, and almost within a long day's ride from Rome, such things could take place as I am about to tell you of, unless I explained to you how very primitive that country is which lies to the south-east of the capital, and-which we generally call the Abruzzi. The district is wholly mountainous, and though there are no very great elevations there are very ragged gorges and steep precipices, and now and ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... Kensington Museum a carved oak chest, with a centre panel representing the Adoration of the Magi, about this date, 1615-20; it is mounted on a stand which has three feet in front and two behind, much more primitive and quaint than the ornate supports of Elizabethan carving, while the only ornament on the drawer fronts which form the frieze of the stand are moulded panels, in the centre of each of which is a turned knob by which ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield

... sort of primitive hut in Canadian architecture, and is nothing more than a shed built of logs, the chinks between the round edges of the timbers being filled with mud, moss, and bits of wood; the roof is frequently composed of logs split and hollowed with the axe, and placed side by side, so that the edges rest ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... of the ponderous-minded scholar, and the reader who embarks with me on the "long cruise" need bring with him only an open mind and a love for the strange and picturesque. He will come back, I hope, as I did, with some glimpses into the primitive customs of the long-forgotten ancestors of the white race, a deeper wonder at the mysteries of the world, and a memory of sun-steeped days on white beaches, of palms and orchids and the childlike savage peoples who live in the bread-fruit groves ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... chronological convenience. What is called modern history is in reality the formation of a new cycle of culture, connected in several stages of its development with the perishing or perished civilization of the Mediterranean states, as this was connected with the primitive civilization of the Indo-Germanic stock, but destined, like the earlier cycle, to traverse an orbit of its own. It too is destined to experience in full measure the vicissitudes of national weal and woe, the periods of growth, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... swung back to a primitive decision since the war commenced. The decision is the same for both men and nations. They can choose the world or achieve their own souls. They can cast mercenary lots for the raiment of a crucified righteousness or take up their martyrdom as disciples. Those men and nations who ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... scientists as well as the laity, and not until comparatively recent times have its origin, structure, and use been satisfactorily explained. Its meaning profoundly interested primitive men and stimulated their imagination scarcely less than the mystery of conception. Some uncivilized tribes believed that the after-birth was animated like the child; consequently they spoke of it as "the other half," and often saved it to give ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... jealousy, repentance and sinfulness, and all the similar crude emotions have been sufficient for the construction of most scenarios. The more mature development of the photoplay will certainly overcome this primitive character, as, while such an effort to reduce human life to simple instincts is very convenient for the photoplay, it is not at all necessary. In any case where this tendency prevails it must help greatly to excite and to intensify the personal feeling of life and to stir ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg

... and forty species that exceed thirty feet in height; in France there are but thirty that attain this size." Later botanists more than confirm his observations. Humboldt came to America to realize his youthful dreams of a tropical vegetation, and he beheld it in its greatest perfection in the primitive forests of the Amazon, the most gigantic wilderness on the earth, which he has so eloquently described. The geographer Guyot, himself a European, goes farther—farther than I am ready to follow him; yet not when he says: "As the plant is made for the animal, as the vegetable world is ...
— Walking • Henry David Thoreau

... World monkeys the forms to which man shows the greatest resemblance are the anthropoid apes, which, like him, possess neither tail nor ischial callosities. The platyrrhine and catarrhine monkeys have their primitive ancestor among extinct forms of the Lemuridae. Darwin also touches on the question of the original home of the human race and supposes that it may have been in Africa, because it is there that man's nearest relatives, the gorilla and the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... with the primitive weapon was too savage a picture for the remaining pair to contemplate at close quarters. Unas had made no movement to help in the assault. He had felt the weight of the sculptor's hand and had evidently published the savagery of the young man to his assistants. They ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... is advised of the quantity and asked what British goods will be acceptable by the Celestials in exchange. There will be international barter on a grand and equitable scale."[755] It is quite logical that the Socialists who wish to introduce the primitive Communism of the prehistoric ages (see Chapter XXIX.), wish also to reintroduce the aboriginal ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... those of our own well-known song, are known to every Chinese school-boy, and with hundreds, even thousands, of other similar songs, which used to be daily quoted as precedents by the statesmen of that primitive period in their political intercourse with each other, were later pruned, purified, and collated by Confucius, until at last they received classical rank in the "Book of Odes" or the "Classic of Poetry," containing a mere tenth part of the old "Odes" as they used to be passed from ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... There was still a marked separation between the Dutch and the English residents, though the Irvings seem to have been on terms of intimacy with the best of both nationalities. The habits of living were primitive; the manners were agreeably free; conviviality at the table was the fashion, and strong expletives had not gone out of use in conversation. Society was the reverse of intellectual: the aristocracy were the merchants and traders; ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... doomed never to reach the age of metal. Their civilisation corresponded with that of the Chinese in the days of Fo-hi. [Footnote: Abel Remusat tells us that of the two hundred primitive Chinese 'hieroglyphs' none showed a knowledge of metal.] The chief weapons were small triangles of close-grained basalt and iztli (obsidian flakes) for tabonas, or knives, both being without handles. They carried rude clubs and banot, or barbed spears of pine-wood with fire-charred ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... primitive or primary emotions (as I said in the note to III. xi.), namely, pleasure, pain, and desire. I have spoken of wonder simply because it is customary to speak of certain emotions springing from the three primitive ones by different names, when they are referred to the objects ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza

... frontier communities, where women are few and the primitive instincts have freer play than in more artificial societies, there blossoms a certain rough and ready chivalrousness which sets respect of womanhood above all laws and makes every man a self-constituted champion ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... The man's grim code of honour, inflexible as it was primitive, caused her, for no apparent reason, indefinite misgivings, and she made a little gesture of weariness. "I think," she said, "it would be better if we did not talk of Carnaby, and I was wondering if it would be possible to catch a trout if there is ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... don't matter. She had been laid up in Shadwell basin for ever so long. You may imagine her state. She was all rust, dust, grime—soot aloft, dirt on deck. To me it was like coming out of a palace into a ruined cottage. She was about 400 tons, had a primitive windlass, wooden latches to the doors, not a bit of brass about her, and a big square stern. There was on it, below her name in big letters, a lot of scroll work, with the gilt off, and some sort ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad

... the white, people, to announce to his children, that the misfortunes by which they had been assailed arose from their having abandoned the mode of life which He had prescribed to them. He declared that they must return to their primitive habits—relinquish the use of ardent spirits—and clothe themselves in skins, and not in woollens. His fame soon spread among the surrounding nations, and his power to perform miracles was generally believed. He was joined ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... sound in the faith, and well affected to primitive Wesleyan discipline, and when it came of age, the Methodist Episcopal Connexion allowed them, and aided them, to go to housekeeping by themselves. We knew of no objection on either subject, when we, with the kindest of feelings, have now hinted at the possibility of an ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... not good solo singers, but their chorus, as, like primitive fire-worshippers, they hail the return of light and warmth to the world, is unrivalled. There are a hundred singing like one. They are noisy enough then, and sing, as poets should, with no afterthought. But when they come after cherries to the tree near ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell

... of bark shook a little with embarrassment, and he was very red in the face; and before he could begin—I suppose you would call it reading—he had to wet his lips two or three times. I expected, of course, to hear the usual grunts and minor guttural sounds of the usual very primitive dialect. But Jonathan's own particular patent language was not that sort of thing at all. He began with the faintest, and most distinct rustling of leaves—I can't imagine how he made the sound at all. ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... further that the umbrella carried by DANIEL was a blue cotton umbrella—undoubtedly the most primitive ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various

... Greater, and confused the old State-system by enlarging the democracy. The net result of these events for Florence was, first, that the city became habituated to rancorous party-strife, involving exiles and proscriptions; and, secondly, that it lost its primitive ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... discussion is enough to prove to the most undiscerning that woman's place in society was not clearly recognized, and that there were many difficulties to be overcome before she could consider herself free from her primitive ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... discover the theme from the myth, but the poet has at least set us out on the right scent by making the first riddles very easy. The lapides Pyrrhae (I. 41) refer of course to the creation of man; Saturnia regna is, in Epicurean lore, the primitive life of the early savages; furtum Promethei (I. 42) must refer to Epicurus' explanation of how fire came from clashing trees and from lightning. The story of Hylas (I. 43) probably reminded Varus of Siro's lecture on images and reflection, Pasiphae ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... reprobated crimes." The fact can not be denied, that the mere laborer is now, and always has been, everywhere that barbarism has ceased, enslaved. Among the innovations of modern times, following "the decay of villeinage," has been the creation of a new system of slavery. The primitive and patriarchal, which may also be called the sacred and natural system, in which the laborer is under the personal control of a fellow-being endowed with the sentiments and sympathies of humanity, exists among us. It has been almost everywhere else superseded by ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... writing, and the great bulk of the Britons themselves seem to have been only superficially affected by the Roman supremacy. At the end of the Roman rule, as at its beginning, they appear divided into mutually jealous tribes, still largely barbarous and primitive. ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... inclined to believe that courage, physical and moral fortitude, self-denial, stoicism, the renunciation of every sort of comfort, the faculty of self-sacrifice and the power of facing death belonged only to the more primitive, the less happy, the less intelligent nations, to the nations least capable of reasoning, of appreciating danger and of picturing in their imagination the dreadful abyss that separates this life from the life ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck

... Was it not the ancient mode of representing human ideas as embodied in the forms of animals that gave rise to the shapes of the first signs used in the East for writing down language? Then has it not left its traces by tradition on our modern languages, which have all seized some remnant of the primitive speech of nations, a majestic and solemn tongue whose grandeur and solemnity decrease as communities grow old; whose sonorous tones ring in the Hebrew Bible, and still are noble in Greece, but grow weaker under the progress of successive phases ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac

... very simply, like genuine peasants, without any luxury, any amusement, save that of being together. Their gay, bright kitchen was redolent of that easy primitive life, lived so near the earth, which frees one from fictitious wants, ambition, and the longing for pleasure. And no fortune, no power could have brought such quiet delight as that afternoon of happy intimacy, ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... will of the country and its people. He fixed a system for the cultivation of the fields, and when hands were needed for the harvest he enlisted them forcibly. Yet agriculture made little progress under the primitive methods employed, a broad board serving for a plough, while the wheat was ground in mortars, and a piece of wood moved by oxen formed the sugar-mill. The cotton, as soon as picked from the pods, was spun on the spinning-wheel, and ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... nurture. And they who had opportunities to watch the process, said that it was curious to see him bruise the grain between large stones, knead the rude flour with fair water, mould his simple cakes, and then bake them in a primitive oven formed by his own labour in a dry bank of the coppice, and heated by rotten wood shaken from the tops of the trees, (which he climbed like a squirrel,) and kindled by a flint and a piece of an old horse-shoe:—such was his unsophisticated ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford

... Truly a primitive settlement was the 'Corner.' The dusk forest closed about its half dozen huts threateningly, as an army round a handful of invincibles. Stumps were everywhere that trees were not; one log-cabin was erected upon four, as it had been, legs ready to walk away with the edifice. 'Uncle Zack's' ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... which liberty has rallied the votaries of constitutional government in all its reforms. It was the magna charter extorted from King John at Runnymead—the trumpet call echoing and re-echoing by hill and through valley in our Declaration of Independence. Before Radama, although rude and primitive in form, it was the basic principle cherished by the people of Madagascar. The principal men of each district had to be constantly consulted and Kabary, or public assemblies like the Greek or the Swiss Communal assemblies, were called for the discussion of all ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... even now to be found. Some other writings of the same kind, even less known, such as "Zelinda," a very witty parody of a romantic tale by Voiture, the "Adventures of Covent Garden," illustrative of the novel and the drama in the seventeenth century, were found in the primitive and only issue nearer at hand, in that matchless granary of knowledge, whose name no student can pronounce without a feeling of awe, because it is so noble, and of gratitude, because it is so ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... to their descendants was the hush of their calm Saturday night, and their still, tranquil Sabbath,—sign and token to them, not only of the weekly rest ordained in the creation, but of the eternal rest to come. The universal quiet and peace of the community showed the primitive instinct of a pure, simple devotion, the sincere religion which knew no compromise in spiritual things, no half-way obedience to God's Word, but rested absolutely on the Lord's Day—as was commanded. No work, no play, no idle strolling was known; no sign of human life or motion ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... brought away a certain sense of physical warmth and well-being from the description which Patsy had given her, which comforted her. It was pleasant in the Bothy of Blairmore. Men had a strain in their blood, something primitive and savage, which made them like such things, at least for a time and as a change. She remembered her father saying that he was never happier than in the corner of a forest clearing waiting for the wild boar to charge, a flask ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... The plaintain leaf. The native loom. Weaving. Primitive goods. A store set up. Kitchen utensils. Bringing in ore and supplies. Sanitary arrangements. Home comforts. Native combs. Fish fins. An immense turtle. Tortoise shells. John and the war party. Illyas reported in front. Character ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay

... safely be left to the statute law. In the Swiss constitution, however, the line which separates these departments is not as clearly drawn, so that, in fact, a certain amount of confusion in their treatment becomes apparent. In the primitive leagues which were concluded between the early Confederates no attempt was made to draw up regular constitutions, and the one now in force dates only from 1848, with amendments made in 1874, 1879, and 1885, an instrument still somewhat imperfect, perhaps, but ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... as to the race which built the primitive stone monuments of Brittany is almost as futile as it would be to theorize upon the date of their erection.[6] A generation ago it was usual to refer all European megalithic monuments to a 'Celtic' origin, but European ethnological problems ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... The Character of James F. Reed Causes which Led to the Reed-Snyder Tragedy John Snyder's Popularity The Fatal Altercation Conflicting Statements of Survivors Snyder's Death A Brave Girl A Primitive Trial A Court of Final Resort Verdict of Banishment A Sad Separation George and Jacob Donner Ahead at the Time Finding Letters in Split Sticks ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan

... Before long my loyalty to McKnight would step between me and the girl he loved: life would develop new complexities. In those early hours after the wreck, full of pain as they were, there was nothing of the suspicion and distrust that came later. Shorn of our gauds and baubles, we were primitive man and woman, together: our world for the hour was the deserted farm-house, the slope of wheat-field that led to the road, the ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... felt less confident in the future could they have overheard a conversation being carried on in a room of the Timmons House. It was Miss La Rue's apartments, possessing two windows, but furnished in a style so primitive as to cause that fastidious young lady to burst into laughter when she first entered and gazed about. Both her companions followed her, laden with luggage, and Beaton, sensing instantly what had thus affected her humour, dropped his ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish

... in the valleys, where, they form bold and beautiful rivers. The brook trout are the fish which mostly inhabit them, and, a singular fact, in many of these streams this kind of fish treat the presence of a man with perfect indifference, which has led me to believe, that in their primitive state, the "shy trout" fear neither man nor beast. The Indians catch them, and it may be that this fish is first frightened by them. In the Rocky Mountains, south of the head waters of the Arkansas, comparatively speaking, there are but few small birds and squirrels. The ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... would have hesitated to obey the advice of an ignorant, prejudiced person, her inferior in station and intelligence. But in the whirl of astonishment, incredulity, and speculation created by the tale she had heard, she untied the string which formed the primitive fastening of the worn wallet, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... the village which supply the necessities of the valley is that of the shoemaker, indispensible indeed to man excepting in his most primitive condition. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... moved in well-trodden ways, through gardens of pleasure, lived a life where all would be made easy, where she would be shielded at every turn, and her beauty would be flattered by luxury into a constant glow. She was not so primitive, so unintellectual, as not to have thought of this, else her decision would have had less importance; she would have been no more than an infatuated, emotional woman with a touch of second-class drama in her nature. She ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... to have more faith in me than I had in myself. It was pretty hard to cook, however, without stoves, and awkward to eat without dishes. At first the cooking was done out-of-doors, in the old-fashioned, primitive style, in pots and skillets placed over a fire. Some of the carpenters' benches that had been used in the construction of the building were utilized for tables. As for dishes, there were too few to make it worth while to ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington

... said Lousteau, "but I find it impossible to go on without remarking to you how direct this Empire literature is, going to the point without any details, a characteristic, as it seems to me, of a primitive time. The literature of that period holds a place between the summaries of chapters in Telemaque and the categorical reports of a public office. It had ideas, but refrained from expressing them, it was so scornful! It was observant, ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... following this conversation I was at length allowed to be carried to the stoep, where they laid me down, wrapped in a very dirty blanket, upon a rimpi-strung bench or primitive sofa. When I had satisfied my first delight at seeing the sun and breathing the fresh air, I began to study my surroundings. In front of the house, or what remained of it, so arranged that the last of them at either end we made fast to the extremities ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... Christianity back again to Paganism. The God of ancient religion was either not a personal Being or not an omnipotent Being; the God of modern religion is both. For, indeed, civilisation is not opposed to faith. The idea of the Supreme Being in the mind of European society now is more primitive, more childlike, more imaginative than the idea of the ancient Brahman or Alexandrian philosopher; it is an idea which both of these would have derided as the notion of a child—a negotiosus Deus, who ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... principles and systems, and never yet has a note of personal vengeance been sounded whilst we have endeavoured to compass their destruction. It is quite obvious that a little relaxation from the cares of State, or reversion to more primitive conditions, a freer communion with Nature—viewed from an ox-waggon—are eminently desirable to restore His Honour's shattered nerves.—December ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... less desirable in the boy's eyes. Raised as he had been, almost away from civilization, he hardly knew the meaning of what the world called wickedness. Not that he was strong or good. There had been no occasion for either quality to develop; but that he was simple and primitive, and had been close to what was natural and elemental. His faults and sins were those of the gentle barbarian. He had not yet learned the subtler vices ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... which is as ancient as the fortress, as its quaint old Pottergate Tower attests. Roman remains have been found on the site, and it was also inhabited by the Saxons, the castle at the time of the Norman Conquest being held by Gilbert Tysen, a powerful Northumbrian chief. It was then a primitive timber fortress in a wild region, for the earliest masonry works are Norman, and are attributed to Tysen's descendants. Alnwick Castle is a cluster of semicircular and angular bastions, surrounded by lofty walls, defended at intervals by towers, and enclosing ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... This primitive national militia was not, it must be admitted, a very efficient force. It lacked coherence and training; it was deficient both in arms and in discipline; it could not be kept together for long campaigns. ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw

... ancient time-hallowed tree, coeval with the perished building, stretched out its giant arms. Even the sterner occupations of the farm had in their very variety a strong smack of enjoyment. We found one of the old man's sons engaged, during our one visit, in building an outhouse, after the primitive fashion of the Highlands, and during our other visit, in constructing a plough. The two main cupples of the building he made of huge trees, dug out of a neighbouring morass; they resembled somewhat the beams of a large sloop reversed. The stones he carried ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... in general, the character of the primitive artistic pantheism of the Orient, which either invests even the lowest objects with absolute significance, or forces all phenomena with violence to assume the expression of its world-view. This art becomes therefore bizarre, grotesque, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... relations,' as he called them, begins thus: 'I see the spirits assembling, they have hats upon their heads.' In another of these Memorabilia he receives from heaven a bit of paper, on which he saw, he says, the hieroglyphics of the primitive peoples, which were composed of curved lines traced from the finger-rings that are worn in heaven. However, perhaps I am wrong; possibly the material absurdities with which his works are strewn have spiritual significations. Otherwise, how ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... of life, higher in the cosmic setting, and these, finding encouragement in the presence of the earlier arrivals, fed upon them and remained. And so on up, to the forerunners of our present-day animals—coyotes and prairie-dogs. And after these, primitive man—to find encouragement in the coyotes and prairie-dogs—and to feed upon them and remain. Then after primitive man, the second type—the brown man; and after the brown man, the red man; and after the red man, the white ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... conventions and let loose among the natives on a remote island in the Pacific, proceeds apace and with little regard for the susceptibilities of civilisation and refinement. Familiar but rarely printed language is used when occasion demands; primitive passions stalk naked and unashamed; and when murder is to be done it is done brutally, forthwith and notwithstanding the respective merits, from an heroic point of view, of active and passive agents. Being myself so situated in life that I am never likely to take part in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various

... wonderful? Plain and bald and homely the house, unpretending the surroundings, simple and primitive the life, that sent forth the world's first beautiful woman, the Woman of the Secret! I have tried to set it all down exactly as it happened—the quaint, old-fashioned dialect, the homely ways, the bearded, booted men. For this place, just as it was, was the birthplace ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... however, meet such plant-forms used in ornament in the oldest extant monuments of art in Egypt, side by side with representations of animals; but the previous history of this very developed culture is unknown. In such cases as afford us an opportunity of studying more primitive though not equally ancient stages of culture, as for instance among the Greeks, we find the above dictum confirmed, at any rate in cases where we have to deal with the representation of the indigenous flora as contradistinguished from such representations of plants as were imported from foreign ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various

... expression of kind feeling. It had been a German face some two or three generations before, but an American climate,—political, I mean,—had tamed down the rude lines produced by ages of European despotism, and had almost restored it to its primitive nobility of feature. Afterwards, when better acquainted with American types, I should have known it as a Pennsylvanian face, and such in reality it was. I saw before me a graduate of one of the great medical ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... village of Ancient Lorette, a nine miles' drive from Quebec, where a pitiful moiety of Canada's noblest Indian tribe ekes out an existence by the making of baskets and beaded moccasins, and by that nonchalant culture of the soil which still marks the primitive man. ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... creatures upon the face of the earth cannot put a stop to that course, until the sun or the moon have recovered their glory. And thus it shall be now, the Lord is returned to visit the earth, and his people with his primitive lustre; he will not go back, nor slack his hand, until he has recovered what Antichrist has darkened of his. 'The anger of the Lord shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the thoughts ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... They could hear the rasp of the rope unrolling from a hand windlass attached to an enormous bucket. This was the primitive lift. ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... pathetic figures told the story of their lives. The warrior of other days gave himself up to mirthful tale, to boyhood's transports, to manhood's achievements, to the wild chase of the hunter, to the weaponry and woes of savage warfare, to the hallowed scenes of home life, to the primitive government of the tribe, and the busy and engaging activities of the camp; finally, to the royalty of the Great Council, when the chiefs assembled in solemn conclave to hold communion, to say a long and ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon

... many ages, centuries, perhaps, old, had only reached this point: Hatred, absurd war, fratricidal murder! Progress? Civilization? Mere words! No rest, no peaceful repose, either in fraternity or love! The primitive brute always reappears, the right of the stronger to hold in its clutches the pale cadaver of justice! What is the use of so many religions, philosophies, all the noble dreams, all the grand impulses of the thought toward the ideal and good? This horrible doctrine of the pessimists was true then! ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... frank, primitive, simple. They are masculine—and in their actions you never get a trace of coyness, hesitancy, affectation or trifling coquetry. They have nothing to conceal: they look at you out of frank, open eyes. They know the pains of earth too well to dance nimbly through life and laugh the hours away. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... making believe and childish play; this was reality. Could any white man, deprived of his treacherous, far-killing weapon, meet the resolute savage, face to face and foot to foot, and equal him with the old primitive weapons? Poor youth, this delusion will cost you dear! It was scarcely an equal contest when he hurled himself against me, with only his savage strength and courage to match my skill; in a few moments he was lying at my feet, pouring out his ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... piercing, unnatural, yet it had a note of wild exultation. Then came the stamp and surge, and then the upflinging of arms, and then the abrupt strange silence, broken only by a hiss or an escaping breath, like a sob. Beyond all Joan's power to resist was a deep, primitive desire ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... maternity are the circumstances in their lives, exhausting energy and earning nothing, that place them at a discount. From the stage when property ceased to be chiefly the creation of feminine agricultural toil (the so-called primitive matriarchate) to our present stage, women have had to depend upon a man's willingness to keep them, in order to realise the organic purpose of their being. Whether conventionally equal or not, whether voters or not, that necessity ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... into Molona and the youths alighted. The station was a primitive affair, consisting of a small platform and a building not ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer

... successful, almost primitive wail in it made Charlotte turn, and this movement attested for the Princess the felicity of her deceit. Something in her throbbed as it had throbbed the night she stood in the drawing-room and denied that she had suffered. She was ready to lie again if her companion ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... life like that of 3 per cent. for their money. They collected pictures, too, and were supporters of such charitable institutions as might be beneficial to their sick domestics. From their father, the builder, they inherited a talent for bricks and mortar. Originally, perhaps, members of some primitive sect, they were now in the natural course of things members of the Church of England, and caused their wives and children to attend with some regularity the more fashionable churches of the Metropolis. To have doubted their Christianity would have caused them both pain and surprise. Some ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... intention, doubtless: in that sense the hairs were numbered. But that there is a special direction and interference to-day for you and me—well, we won't argue, as I said; but I never can conceive it so; and I think a wider look at the world brings a question to all such primitive faith." ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... away on a desert island, I speak to be thrown away with you," she said. "There isn't another man of my acquaintance who could bring order out of these primitive conditions." ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller

... ornamental equal-armed crosses are partly signs of glory and victory, partly of light, and divine spiritual presence. [Footnote: See, on this subject generally, Mr. R. St. J. Tyrwhitt's "Art-Teaching of the Primitive Church." S. ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin

... plain and primitive cottage in the narrow street of a little Lincolnshire village—a village which was a relic of the old days, before the drainage system was introduced, transforming the fens into a fertile garden, which seems to bloom and blossom summer ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan



Words linked to "Primitive" :   primitive person, mortal, primitiveness, primitive art, somebody, Aryan, early, rude, soul, fine arts, expression, beaux arts, naive, autochthon, formula, mound builder, Piltdown hoax, word, savage, troglodyte, noncivilized, Piltdown man, missing link, someone, untrained, wild man, Indo-European, ape-man, cave dweller, Basket Maker, cave man, archaic, person, feral man, Homo heidelbergensis, barbarian



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