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Certain   /sˈərtən/   Listen
Certain

adjective
1.
Definite but not specified or identified.  "To a certain degree" , "Certain breeds do not make good pets" , "Certain members have not paid their dues" , "A certain popular teacher" , "A certain Mrs. Jones"
2.
Having or feeling no doubt or uncertainty; confident and assured.  Synonym: sure.  "Was sure (or certain) she had seen it" , "Was very sure in his beliefs" , "Sure of her friends"
3.
Established beyond doubt or question; definitely known.  "It is certain that they were on the bus" , "His fate is certain" , "The date for the invasion is certain"
4.
Certain to occur; destined or inevitable.  Synonym: sure.  "His fate is certain" , "In this life nothing is certain but death and taxes" , "He faced certain death" , "Sudden but sure regret" , "He is sure to win"
5.
Established irrevocably.  Synonym: sealed.
6.
Reliable in operation or effect.  Synonym: sure.  "A sure way to distinguish the two" , "Wood dust is a sure sign of termites"
7.
Exercising or taking care great enough to bring assurance.  Synonym: sure.  "Be sure to lock the doors"



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"Certain" Quotes from Famous Books



... unfavorable examples of his power, and have been generally, as yet, in places where all that is best in them is out of sight. I look to him, nevertheless, unless he lose himself in over-reverence for certain conventionalisms of the elder schools, as one of the probable renovators and correctors of whatever is failing or erroneous in the practice of ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... was no one there save the ticket agent, and he did not notice particularly. It is certain that he had no idea that in the black-haired man who went away was old ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter

... politic, which either did not recognise this necessity, or attributed the disasters incurred to bad management. The man most trusted by the King fell a victim to the public hate. But, besides this, there arose—awakened by these events and in a certain analogy with what happened in France—the recollection of the rights which had been set aside by the accession of the house of Lancaster. Their representative, Richard Duke of York, had hitherto ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... And one is of an old half-witted sheep Which bleats articulate monotony, And indicates that two and one are three, That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep: And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times, Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst; At other times-good Lord! I'd rather be Quite unacquainted with the A, B, C, Than write such hopeless rubbish as ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... In certain cases where there are several current pronunciations, the author has been forced to make a selection, arbitrarily. Thus a seaport in Greece, which has changed hands recently, has no less than five names. Its Greek name is pronounced Thessalonyi'ki, while other nations ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet

... Prussian System of Public Instruction, in each neighbourhood—saying that the law had not been changed at all since I was in Prussia; that the Government did nothing but inspect, and see that each locality had a school of a certain kind, and that each person educated his children; but that each locality taxed itself for the support of its school. He told me I could find nothing suitable to my purpose in Prussia, in respect to the militia organization in connection with the school system, as there was no ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... in the orchestra as a statue does in the marble; but it remained for the artist to bring them out; and that Mozart was bound to have them is shown by the anecdote of a musician who complained to him of the difficulty of a certain passage, and begged him to alter it. "Is it possible to play those tones on your instrument?" Mozart asked; and when he was told it was, he replied, "Then it is your ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... however, the flap method, though exceedingly easy, and capable of very rapid performance, has certain defects; the chief of these being the tendency which the muscular flaps (the necessary result of transfixion) have to cause undue retraction, and hence protrusion of the bone. This is seen specially in ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... courage, her skill with her weapons, all won the heart of the old king; and I believe that his strong attachment to her arose more from her possession of the above qualities than from any other cause. Certain it is, that the old savage doted on her—she was the only being who could bend his stubborn will. As his age prevented him from joining in the chase, he always appeared to part with her with regret, and to caution her not to run into ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... of each and every one of the seventy-odd elements. There are, indeed, as we shall see, experiments that suggest the dissolution of the atom—that suggest, in short, that the Daltonian atom is misnamed, being a structure that may, under certain conditions, be broken asunder. But these experiments have, as yet, the warrant rather of philosophy than of pure science, and to-day we demand that the philosophy of science shall be the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... war was coming to an end, trade began to get dull. I had been wanting to get out of the store and "try my wings" at something else. When I began to cast my eyes about for something different from the routine of store work, I met a certain Mr. Joe Dillon, who offered me the opportunity ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... atonement in my power? Take the cylinders and hear them. The first half-dozen of them are personal to me, and they will not horrify you. Then you will know me better. Dinner will by then be ready. In the meantime I shall read over some of these documents, and shall be better able to understand certain things." ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... this world at least, again. I then endeavoured to lessen all those objects which alarmed her most, and particularly the danger I was to encounter, upon which head I seemed a little to comfort her; but the probable length of my absence and the certain length of my voyage were circumstances which no oratory of mine could even palliate. 'O heavens!' said she, bursting into tears, 'can I bear to think that hundreds, thousands for aught I know, of miles or leagues, that lands and seas are between us? What is the prospect ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... appear to be excited. The duke mentally rocked with gleeful appreciation of certain things Mrs. Braddle detailed. She gave, of course, Burrill's version of the brief interview outside the dining-room door when Miss Alicia's status in the household bad been made clear to him. But the duke, being a man endowed with a subtle sense of shades, was wholly ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... his band was ever known to question an order issued by him. He had himself founded the Order of the Silver Key, and it was always my father's opinion that, but for the coming of San Martin, he would in time have transformed Peru into an Indian kingdom. I am at least certain that his ambition ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens

... approval at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. The medical schools and hospitals of Paris were then, as now, famous for their men of science, and for the useful discoveries which clinical instruction—bedside ingenuity and industry—is morally certain to carry along with it. Whatever may be said of the French practitioners as a body—and my professional brethren, I know, bring against them, as a national reproach, the charge of inefficiency in the treatment of disease, (remarkable for acuteness and truth as their diagnosis is allowed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... NATIONAL GAME PRESERVE of northern Arizona, embraces the entire Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, for a meandering distance of 101 miles, and adjacent territory to an extent of 2,333 square miles (1,492,928 acres). Owing to certain conditions, natural and otherwise, it is not the finest place in the world for the peaceful increase of wild game. The Canyon contains a few mountain sheep, and mule deer, but Buckskin Mountain, on the northwestern side, is reeking with mountain lions and gray wolves, ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... on the ancient Tuscan rules, it might have been conceived by an English poet of Elizabeth's time, after a story from the Decameron, and it breathed something of the strange and delicious charm of certain of ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... and tune could hardly have been in truer accord. The hour was of the quietest, the strain was of the simplest, and the bird sang as if he were dreaming. For a long time I let him go on without attempting to make certain who he was. He seemed to be rather far off: if I waited his pleasure, he would perhaps move toward me; if I disturbed him, he would probably become silent. So I sat on the end of a sleeper and listened. ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... when, as Aristotle long ago said, the embryo of the highest animal has the form of a mere worm; and, devoid of internal and external organisation, is merely an almost structureless lump of polype substance. Notwithstanding the origin of organs, it still for a certain time, by reason of its want of an internal bony skeleton, remains worm and mollusk, and only later enters into the series of the Vertebrata, although traces of the vertebral column even in the earliest periods testify ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley

... an exercise of arbitrary authority, for in the House itself were certain elements which Dink perfectly understood, and whose spheres of influence he was resolved to ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... before, nor was his self-appreciation materially diminished. If the world did not recognize his claims, there was one comfort, his mother appreciated him, and he appreciated himself. As to his cousin, he did not feel quite so certain. ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... the rills of pure water which lisped from the open down beyond?" Making what was really a boy's experience, he had a wholly boyish delight in his holiday, and certainly did not reflect how much we beget for ourselves in what we see and feel, nor how far a certain diffused music in the very breath of the place was the creation of his own ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... for the time, to remain where she was. Probably word would come to her there. She might be able to do more from there than elsewhere. It was not even certain Ann had gone to Chicago—by no means certain. And even if she had—how find her there if she did not wish ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... marry you—I've wanted to marry you ever since I knew you—but if you think I'm such a fool as to go about it in the way you say I've done, well, then, I'll put right in for the Balmy Stakes and win 'em sure and certain. Don't you see that the boot's just on the other leg right along? I win your money because I want you to think I'm a decent sort of chap when I don't take it. As for the bookies who hissed the horse on the course—who's to pity them? Didn't they see the old gee in the paddock—eh, what! Hadn't ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton

... attention on him, "a point in the orderly advance towards Total Insight at which further progress becomes greatly simplified and accelerated, because the student has now developed the capability to augment his personal efforts by the use of certain instruments." ...
— Ham Sandwich • James H. Schmitz

... Christopher Dale was, if anything, superior to the average of the family. Those whom he did love he loved dearly. Those whom he hated he did not ill-use beyond the limits of justice. He was close in small matters of money, and yet in certain family arrangements he was, as we shall see, capable of much liberality. He endeavoured to do his duty in accordance with his lights, and had succeeded in weaning himself from personal indulgences, to which during the early days of his high ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... stuffed with cotton wool. Yet, according to the English proverb, The burnt child dreads the fire; notwithstanding their leathern coats, none of them are hardy enough to attempt this new breach, though much easier to enter than the former, any farther than to pillage certain bales of bastas and other stuffs which have fallen down from a barricade or breast-work, thrown up by the Portuguese for defending the top of the breach from the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... lieutenant, commander, and post-captain. On receiving the latter step, he was at the same time appointed to the frigate in question, one of the finest which belonged to his majesty's service. In order, however, that he should to a certain degree be in leading-strings, a very old and efficient officer had been selected by the admiral as his first-lieutenant. Whether, in common justice, the captain and his subordinate ought not to have changed places, I leave ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... go to you if anything should go wrong with me under the operation or after it. I am a little bothered about my 'papers.' I have a certain amount of verse that I think would be worth preserving, possibly also the 1st and 3rd acts of 'Deirdre,' and then I have a lot of Kerry and Wicklow articles that would go together into a book. The other ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats

... for the benefit of these unbelievers we are now writing. Our object is to present such an array of facts guaranteed by such respectable names, they shall have no hook to hang a doubt upon—no reason—no justifiable excuse for any sane man longer to neglect to apply an article of such positive, certain benefit ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson

... calls for the book, which could not be answered, and I have been urged by many friends as well as by Harriet herself, to prepare another edition. For another necessity has arisen and she needs help again not for herself, but for certain helpless ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford

... some of his possessions were forfeited. Later in the same year (A.D. 1204) he received a safe conduct to proceed to the King. It is probable that he was confined in the Tower of London for some time; but it is now certain that he revisited Ireland in 1210, if not earlier, in the service of John, who granted him an annual pension.[318] It is supposed that he died about 1219; for in that year Henry III. ordered his widow, Affreca, to be paid her dower out of the lands which her late husband ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... walk on our way when we happened to be early, and I don't exactly know why we did not do so this time. But certain it is that instead of reaching the office at half-past nine, we found ourselves there a few ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... pause. Love had not come her way. Of course there was Ray McCrea. But he was only a possibility. She wondered if she would turn to him in trouble. Of that she was not yet certain. It was pleasant to be with him, but even for a gala occasion she was not sure but that she was happier with Honora Daley than with him. Honora Daley was Honora Fulham now—married to a "dark man" as the gypsy fortune-tellers would have called him. He seemed very dark to Kate, ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... on a certain memorable day in April, 1907, died Andre M. Joseph Baraduc, at the age of nineteen years. Throughout his life there had been a close bond of affection between himself and his father, and we are assured that during the lifetime of the son, telepathic communication had been frequent between them. ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... which we have spoken as though they were matters of choice were, in reality, forced upon their apparent authors by the necessity of the times. But, in truth, they should be considered as the presentations of a certain phase of life which nations in their onward course sooner or later assume. In the individual, how well we know that a sober moderation of action, an appropriate gravity of demeanour, belong to the mature period of life; ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... and Villeneuve are taken, and are on our side. Cardinal de Lorraine is dead, and the king is in our power." This aroused the failing energies of the assassins. They joined the captain, and demanded that the houses round the palace should be searched, as it was almost certain that the bishop, who had, as may be remembered, escaped the day before, had taken refuge in one of them. This being agreed to, a house-to-house visitation was begun: when the house of M. de Sauvignargues was reached, he confessed ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... without a practical certainty of getting a crushing defeat. Such a result would have laid the kingdom open: a defeat of the allied fleet, says Mahan, 'if sufficiently severe, might involve the fall of William's throne in England.' Given certain movements of the French fleet, Torrington might have manoeuvred to slip past it to the westward and join his force with that under Killigrew, which would make him strong enough to hazard a battle. This proved impracticable. ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge

... affair, it does not seek publicity in the newspapers. That, I should suppose, must always be a fundamental condition of frank and free conversation between governments as between gentlemen. There is a certain kind of reserve ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke

... other physical disadvantages in cheapening his ideas, unless they are those of a Peter the Hermit who has a tocsin for the rabble. But he was too sane and generous to attribute his spiritual banishment solely to the excusable prejudices of others; certain incapacities of his own had made the sentence of exclusion; and hence it was that his imagination had constructed another man who would be something more ample than the second soul bestowed, according to the notion of the Cabbalists, to help out the insufficient first—who would be a blooming ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... by which they were rendered water and air tight, could be made useful in many ways. Taken separately, they could be used as seats. Four placed in a row, answered the purpose of a bedstead. Three could be used as seat and table. The combination of four, used in a certain manner, made a punt, or boat, of quick, solid, and easy construction, with which an unfordable river could be crossed, or for taking soundings in the still waters of unexplored lakes. The cases could be used as tanks for photographic work. In case of emergency they might serve even as water-casks ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor

... aspects even on an open plain. Most often they show pure white; sometimes a jet black; only when within a few hundred yards does one distinguish the stripes. Almost always they are very easily made out. Only when very distant and in heat shimmer, or in certain half lights of evening, does their so-called "protective colouration" seem to be in working order, and even then they are always quite visible to ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... which none shall know, upon that mountain height beyond shall stretch the eternal witness to our faith and to our Redeemer's love, minding all that look thereon, not of the pains and the punishments of the Jew, but of the exceeding mercy of our blessed Lord, and of the certain eternal peace that cometh ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field

... sting of death indeed, worse than a thousand deaths to a soul that apprehends it; and the less it is apprehended, the worse it is; because it is the more certain, and must shortly be found, when there is no brazen serpent to heal that sting. Now, what comfort have you provided against this day? What way do you think to take out this sting? Truly, there is no balm for it, no physician for it, but one; and that the Christian only is acquainted with. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... abolished. There should be no effort made to prevent those experiments which involve no suffering for animals, and all animal experimentation should be brought under the direct supervision and control of the State. 'The practice, whether in public or private, should be restricted by law to certain definite objects, and surrounded by every possible safeguard against license and abuse.' That this is not an aim impossible of attainment has been attested by so famous a scientist as Herbert Spencer, and by a large number ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... to give an opinion, as I did not share in the hope entertained by Flint. Detection was so certain, that I doubted if so cunning a person as Chilton appeared to be would have ventured on a fraud so severely punishable. "Suppose," I said, avoiding an answer, "as this note appoints an interview at three o'clock to-day at Seyton House, we meet him there instead ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... not clearly remember. He thought that some one told him how fast an engine goes, and that some one else shouted, he ought to buy boots. Later on he was seized by his arms and legs and carried to the stable. One thing was certain, he returned without a penny. Slimakowa would not look at him, and Slimak said: 'You are hopeless, Maciek, you'll never get on, for the devil always ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... same tone he wrote his last letter to his sister-in-law from Boston. "My notion of the farewells is pretty certain now to turn out right. We had L300 English here last night. To-day is a Fast Day, and to-night we shall probably take much less. Then it is likely that we shall pull up again, and strike a good reasonable ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... dump in town, as you know. They're all crooked enough, but I've heard strange whisperings about certain ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins

... preparation brings nearer the day when the Germans will not be in France. That is certain. An immense expectancy hangs over the land, ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett

... the numerous finds of this nature have disappeared in small private collections and out of the many barrows that have been explored only in a certain number of instances have any accurate records been taken. It is thus a somewhat difficult task to discover how much or how little of the plunder of the burial mounds belongs to the Neolithic and how much to the Bronze and ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... that once, when having a quarrel with Lubotshka, who had called her "a stupid girl," she (Katenka) retorted that EVERYBODY could not be wise, seeing that a certain number of stupid people was a necessity in the world. However, on the present occasion, I was not satisfied that any such inevitable necessity for "changing ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy

... certain it is that if those schoolmen to their great thirst of truth and unwearied travail of wit had joined variety and universality of reading and contemplation, they had proved excellent lights, to the great advancement of all learning ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... she might have accepted the situation without illusion, but without disgust. Everybody, her mother said, was married by arrangement, some for one advantage, some for the sake of another. After all, San Miniato was better than most of the rest. There was a certain superiority about him which she would like to see in her husband, a certain simple elegance, a certain outward dignity, which pleased her. But when her mother had spoken in her languid way of the marriage, Beatrice had resented the denial of her free will, and had answered ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford

... we have the great sun-kindled, constructive imaginations, and a far more numerous class of poets who have a certain kind of moonlight-genius given them to compensate for their imperfection of nature. Their want of mental coloring-matter makes them sensitive to those impressions which stronger minds neglect or never feel at all. Many of them die young, and all of them are tinged ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... then! With their own hands they had already given themselves a Protestant church-system, which was national in a high degree, and somewhat opposite to the English one. So long as it existed, the influence England would gain by giving them help could never become the supremacy, at which it is certain attempts had previously ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... she was by the side of Cortes, translating his proposals of peace to the Aztecs. Among those proposals was one which showed me that de Garcia had not been idle. It asked that the false white man who had been rescued from the altars of the gods upon the teocalli should be given in exchange for certain Aztec prisoners, in order that he might be hung according to his merits as a spy and deserter, a traitor to the emperor of Spain. I wondered as I heard, if Marina knew when she spoke the words, that 'the false white man' was none other than the ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... of Jesus is one which may be disentangled from those with which it is intertwined without any great difficulty. We may fairly here aid our study by reference to those records of the past which experts can reverify for themselves, and from which certain details regarding the Hebrew Teacher have been given to the world by H. P. Blavatsky and by others who are experts in occult investigation. Now in the minds of many there is apt to arise a challenge when this word "expert" is used ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant

... Scotland and England, he could never gain the confidence of the Catholics, who would still entertain reasonable doubts of his sincerity: that by advancing a present claim to the crown, he forfeited the certain prospect of his succession; and revived that national animosity which the late peace and alliance between the kingdoms had happily extinguished: that the whole gentry and nobility of England had openly declared themselves for the execution of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... Britain's will. But suppose the dispute had been with a great Power, and that in such a case the military view had been shut out from the day the negotiations began until the great Power was ready? The result must have been disaster and defeat on a great scale. Disaster and defeat on a great scale are as certain to come as the sun to rise to-morrow morning unless the Government arranges to take the military view of war into its midst. There will have to be a strategist in the Cabinet if the British Empire is to be maintained. This is another unpopular ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson

... and other rivals of Michael Angelo that he should make him paint the vault of the chapel of Sixtus the Fourth, in the Vatican, making him believe that he would do wonders. This was done maliciously, to distract the Pope from works of sculpture; and because they thought it was certain, either, that by his not accepting such a commission, he would stir up the Pope's anger against himself, or that by accepting it he would come out of it very much inferior to Raffaello da Urbino, whom they heaped with favours on account of their hatred ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd

... Frances, beginning to feel alarmed; 'you are indeed! I know Frances Seymour has no attachment. I know that till she saw you—I mean that—I am certain she has no ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various

... she was leaving the roof of the hospitable parson. Surmising her wish to walk alone once more through the country which was so dear to her, he had not offered his company. Lucy's heart was full of sadness, but there was a certain peace in it, too; the peace of her father's death had entered into her, and she experienced a new feeling, ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham

... tell where her highness and her nurse were to be at a certain hour of the day. Nothing more was necessary. My running away was the expression of my guilt; otherwise they would never have ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... who can then, on such a day, be patient with a patience pleasant to other people, is, I repeat, one worth knowing—and such there are, though not many. Mrs. Raymount, half the head and more than half the heart of a certain family in a certain lodging house in the forefront of ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... east of the Black River we observe nothing that indicates mines; but to the west one might affirm there should be some, from certain marks, which might well deceive pretended connoisseurs. As for my part, I would not warrant that there were two mines in that part of the country, which seems to promise them. I should rather be led to believe that they are mines of salt, at no great depth from the surface of the earth, which, ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... are frequent inconsistencies in the spelling of certain proper names. These have been retained as they appear in the original, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... element than they uttered a horrible succession of roars, and made straight for the oomiak. A rip in the side of the skin boat would have been fatal, or, if one of the animals were to hook on to it with his tusks, an upset would be certain. Oolalik therefore grasped his long lance, while Nazinred steered so as to keep the bow end-on to the assailants. Another moment and Oolalik dealt the oldest bull a thrust in the neck that sent it back roaring. The cry seemed to be a summons, ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... self is not always widespread. There are many who, for one reason or another, prefer to have their books found out for them. But for the complete zealot nothing transcends the zest of pioneering for himself. And therefore working for a publisher is, to a certain type of mind, a never-failing fascination. As H. M. Tomlinson says in "Old Junk," that fascinating collection of sensitive and beautifully poised sketches which came to us recently with a ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... a certain boyish admiration for the tall, lithe girl who bore such a record for bravery, though not for the world would they have admitted the fact, even to each other; and they could not resist plaguing her on the sly whenever a chance presented itself. But to tease her openly was out of ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown

... of Orleans created De Musset Librarian in the Department of the Interior. It was sometimes stated that there was no library at all. It is certain that it was a sinecure, though the pay, 3,000 francs, was small. In 1848 the Duke had the bad taste to ask for his resignation, but the Empire repaired the injury. Alfred de Musset died ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... sentiments that ever adorned the human breast was loudly proclaimed in all her councils. Deeply penetrated with the sense of equality, they held it as a fixed principle, 'that all men are by nature, and of right ought to be, free; that they were created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Nevertheless, when the blessings of peace were showered upon them; when they had obtained these rights which they had so boldly contended for, then they became apostates ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole

... his fate as an artist is sealed. No teacher can get on to the higher rungs of the ladder, and no inspired musician be a satisfactory teacher. If the artist is obliged to share his art, his pupils, should they be intelligent, may pick up something of his skill, learn the trick of certain things; but the moment he begins to set up dogmas, it is the end of him.—As if it were possible for one person to prescribe to another, of a totally different temperament, how he ought to feel in certain passages, or be affected ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... possession of a Portuguese nymph more hideous than the queen's maids of honour, whom he had taken from him, as well as two of his names. Besides these, there were six chaplains, four bakers, a Jew perfumer, and a certain officer, probably without an office, who called himself her highness's barber. Katharine de Braganza was far from appearing with splendour in the charming court where she came to reign; however, in the end ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... unconsciously followed the swing of his pencil. It seemed certain that he was making conversation with the sole purpose of entertaining the old woman. With a pleased laugh and a shake of her ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... this brightening function with considerable seriousness: each of them learned by heart a humorous piece of literature, generally verse, for reciting; and they performed two charades in a very painstaking fashion. They had but little dramatic talent; but they derived a certain grave satisfaction from the discharge of this enlivening social duty; and their efforts were always ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... Tocane's, I never thought I was pointed out to direct you to a monastery; ah, you see I must evidently belong to that category of people whom I may call mere bridges, involuntary brokers of souls who are imposed on you for a certain end which you do not suspect, and of which ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... usual group was gathered at the Heavenly Bower. There were the same merry jests, the reminiscences, the conjectures how certain diggings would pan out, the small talk and the general good feeling. Common hardship and suffering had brought these rough men close to one another. They were indulgent and charitable and each one would have eagerly risked his life for the sake of the rest. ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... spot, the personal touch and presence of value; arranged by correspondence it becomes another thing at once and loses spontaneity. The accent lies on the wrong details. Sympathy is watered by the post.... Importance lodges in angles not intended for it. Master of his time, with certain means at his disposal, a modicum of ability as well, he was free to work hard on the side of the angels wherever opportunity might offer; yet he had wasted all these weeks upon an unnecessary holiday, frittering the time away in ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... was ready to sign an agreement that all else connected with it should be left entirely to Mr. Drake. He begged to be allowed to see her sometimes, for, long ere a suspicion had crossed his mind that she was his, the child was already dear to him. He was certain that her mother would have much preferred Mr. Drake's influence to his own, and for her sake also, he would be careful to disturb nothing. But he hoped Mr. Drake would remember that, however unworthy, he ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... I therefore took up my abode again with her, and for the time being went back to my old bed-room. Madame Guerard had told me in a letter that my grandmother on my father's side had at last agreed to the proposal made by my mother. My father had left a certain sum of money which I was to have on my wedding-day. My mother, at my request, had asked my grandmother to let me have half this sum, and she had at last consented, saying that she should use the interest of the other half, but that this latter half would always ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... is, he said once—to a tolerably impudent fellow whom he had disconcerted with a capital retort, "You may try to be a gentleman, and blunder at it, but if you will only try to be his humble servant, we are certain to establish a common footing." Jorian, let me tell you, is a wit worthy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... A certain road leading outwards from a suburb, enters at once among fields. It soon passes a thick hedge dividing a meadow from a cornfield, in which hedge is a spot where some bluebells may be found in spring. Wild flowers are best seen when in masses, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... nothing, and now you are Abbot of Blossholme, and, if the King had not faced the Pope, would be more. But you forget yourself at times, for the Southern blood is hot, and when the wine is in, the truth is out. There were certain words you spoke not a year ago before me and other witnesses of which I will remind you presently. Perhaps when Secretary Cromwell learns them he will cancel his gift of my lands, and mayhap lift that plotting head of ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... consequence of the gale, the tide was coming in more rapidly than usual, and the men, after having worked three hours, left off and went to look for the boats. It was found that one of them had drifted away with the "Smeaton." The men looked at one another in silence. It seemed certain that all could not escape, and there was an awful time of suspense and despair. Stevenson felt it so keenly that when he tried to speak he found his mouth so parched that it was impossible. He stooped to moisten his lips by drinking ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope

... himself wholly to his work is certain to accomplish something; and if he have ability and common sense, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... waters and air space serve as transshipment zone for US- and European-bound drugs; established the death penalty for certain drug-related ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Scotch preacher, on his way to a session of his church had with him a small hunch-back member of his church, a dwarf in size but an earnest worker. Crossing a certain stream a storm struck the boat and the waves were sending it toward the rocks. A boatman ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... couldn't have done differently. I had to find out things for myself. Of course, life is all just the same everywhere, but then I didn't know it. I used to think that one had only to travel a certain distance and one would pass the boundary of the commonplace and come into the country of adventure. It was silly, of course, but you see I didn't know any better. It was the fret of youth, I suppose, ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... Peripatetics think that freedom from emotion is unattainable by men. They bring in a certain mean; by taking away excess of feeling, they define virtue by moderation. And Homer brings in the best men neither feeble nor altogether fearless nor devoid of pain, but yet differing from the worst in not being overcome extravagantly by their feelings. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... vols. but the changes not always observed by man's self.—From pleasure to bus. [business] to quiet; from thoughtfulness to reflect. to piety; from dissipation to domestic. by impercept. gradat. but the change is certain. Dial[614] non progredi, progress. esse conspicimus. Look back, consider what was ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... not marking time; we are forging ahead. Every park, every playground, every bath-house, is a nail in the coffin of the slum, and every big, beautiful schoolhouse, built for the people's use, not merely to lock the children up in during certain hours for which the teachers collect pay, is a pole rammed right through the heart of it so that even its ghost shall never walk again. For ever so much of it we thank that association of men of splendid courage and public spirit. ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... allegorised into an emblem of the stag at bay, or ready in his ire to push at his assailant. The cabar is the horn, or, rather, the "tine of the first-head,"—no ignoble emblem, certainly, of clannish fury and impetuosity. The difficulty of the measure compels us to the use of certain metrical freedoms, and also of some Gaelic words, for which is craved ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... perchance he might afterwards boast. Well, in the hotel there had arrived, a day or two before Monsieur Nicholas, a young and beautiful lady, the effect of whose personal attractions was intensified by certain mysterious circumstances. No one knew her; she had no one with her—not even a servant to be bribed—and although eminently fitted to shine in society, she went neither to the opera nor the dance. As may be readily understood, she was soon the sole topic of conversation in the hotel. Every one talked ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... (many-dotted); Fig. 40.—In the form of the stem of this species we have a good illustration of how widely a plant may differ from others of the same genus in certain of its characters, for the spines are almost totally suppressed, and the ridges are regular, deep, and smooth. There are usually five or six ridges, a transverse section of the stem revealing a form exactly like the common star-fish (Astrophyton), a resemblance to which the name ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson

... secret instructions for his guidance on July 6, 1776. His chief object was to find a passage from the Pacific into the Atlantic. He was to leave the Cape of Good Hope early in November, and first to search for certain islands said to have been seen by the French, south of the Mauritius. He was not to spend much time in looking for them, nor in examining them if found, but to proceed to Otaheite, touching at New Zealand, should he consider it necessary to refresh his crews. Thence he was to proceed direct ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston

... least some color for their iron conservatism. European humanity did not agree with us; but we of America are more tropical in our feelings, and so we made up our minds that it was too bad to cut one another's throats for the sake of benefiting certain 'fat and lazy niggers,' who were probably rather better off as chattels than as free men. But it is not from this point of view that the world is now beginning to view the subject. Common-sense has ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... the Postmaster-General suggests certain improvements in the establishment designed to reduce the weight of the mails, cheapen the transportation, insure greater regularity in the service, and secure a considerable reduction in the rates of letter ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren

... would leave the river and strike for the coast. Having unloaded their goods and discharged the boat, Jethro hired a small house until arrangements were made for their journey to the seacoast. El Makrif[D] was a place of no great importance. A certain amount of trade was carried on with the coast, but most of the merchants trading with Meroe preferred the longer but safer route through Axoum. Still parties of travelers passed up and down and took boat there for Meroe; but ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty

... many things which exist for him as theories only. Indeed, we know as facts several things which he has not yet divined even by theory. For example, he does not suspect that there is no life but animal life, and that all atoms are individual animals endowed each with a certain degree of consciousness, great or small, each with likes and dislikes, predilections and aversions—that, in a word, each has a character, a character of its own. Yet such is the case. Some of the molecules ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... brill, the sole, and the turbot, is also known to spawn near the surface. The eggs of the mackerel and the garfish have likewise been found floating, and successfully hatched. Now, no fish comes so close to the land as does the mackerel, yet it is certain that it never makes its way into the estuaries and inlets till after spawning is finished—for that it spawns in the open sea is almost without a doubt. These facts consequently do away altogether with the ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... is not you who receive it, remember, it is the little girl, so do not talk of thanking me. I only wish I had been rather more certain of what Mrs Cobb would say, or that I felt considerably more sure than I do that she would be pleased, and I should have liked to have had the Little Lady myself. It would have been a matter of interest to hear about her when one ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston

... speed, my light-footed comrade and I; for well we knew what was certain to be our fate if caught even by the kind-hearted farmer. We were ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.

... one so well-beloved. At last, against his will, he sullenly consented that the banishment of his cousin should content him. But it was with infinite bitterness and regret that he passed his word, for his jealousy was of a quality that nothing short of Francesco's death could have appeased. Certain it is that nothing but the fear of the consequences, which his mother had instilled into his heart, could have swayed him to be satisfied that the Count of Aquila should ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... possible when he went back to take up the reins at Cloom. With that burning grudge went another sensation—the realisation that if all things had been otherwise, been normal, Cloom would, after all, never have been his, and he was struck by a certain unfairness that it ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... excitement was due to having come across some correspondence bearing the signature of a man to whom a certain letter had been addressed, which had been entrusted to her charge by Betty's dying father and taken from her by his wife. For years she had been worried about that, and yet she had no absolute reason ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill

... I saw man in my life, word by word what it was that he swore to, and though, God forgive me, I could have been almost naturally willing to have let him ignorantly have sworn to something that was not of itself very certain, either or no, yet out of his own conscience and care he altered the words himself so as to make them very safe for him to swear. This I carrying to my clerk Wilkinson, and telling him how I heard matters ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... and wife sat alone one evening, indulging in confidential discourse, as 'tis said conjugal mates are wont to do on certain occasions. ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... of a huge and terrific serpent said to exist in the Dichwi district of Mashonaland, that in many particulars resembled the snake of the story, whose prototype, by the way, really lives and is adored as a divinity by certain natives in the remote province of Chiapas in Mexico. Still, the tale being in type, the alteration was suffered to stand. But now, if the Zoutpansberg Review may be believed, the author can take credit for his crocodile also, since that paper states that in the course of the recent campaign ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... effect of the impending Home Rule Bill on some of the commercial community. A well-known tradesman says: "A man in Newcastlewest owed me L24 for goods delivered. He had a flourishing shop and also an excellent farm. He was so slow in paying, and apparently so certain that in a little while he would escape altogether, that I sued him for the amount. It was a common action for a common debt, between one Irish tradesman and another. But I am a Unionist, and therefore fair game. I got judgment, but no instalments were paid. I remonstrated over and ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... superstructure. It is not agreed among all philosophers that matter is naturally indestructible, for the very satisfactory reason that none of them can tell what matter in its own nature is. All that they can undertake to say is, that they have observed certain properties of matter, and, among these, that "it is indestructible by any operation to which it can be subjected in the ordinary course of circumstances observed at the surface of the globe."[1] The very utmost which any man can assert in this matter ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... a circumference of three leagues will not be justified by the ruins of Erbe or Lambesa, the ancient metropolis of that inland country. As we approach the seacoast, the well-known titles of Bugia,[148] and Tangier[149] define the more certain limits of the Saracen victories. A remnant of trade still adheres to the commodious harbour of Bugia, which, in a more prosperous age, is said to have contained about twenty thousand houses; and the plenty of iron ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... international: uncontested dispute with Brazil over certain islands in the Quarai/Cuareim and Invernada streams and the resulting ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... carpets and Boule furniture, its plenitude of massive plate and Italian pictures, its air of regal luxury and splendor; the abbey near Ringwood, with its tapestries, pictures, curios, and secret passages, were burdened with a certain condition which for Lady Judith reduced their value ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various



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