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Critical   /krˈɪtɪkəl/   Listen
Critical

adjective
1.
Marked by a tendency to find and call attention to errors and flaws.
2.
At or of a point at which a property or phenomenon suffers an abrupt change especially having enough mass to sustain a chain reaction.  "Critical mass" , "Go critical"
3.
Characterized by careful evaluation and judgment.  "A critical dissertation" , "A critical analysis of Melville's writings"
4.
Urgently needed; absolutely necessary.  Synonym: vital.  "Critical medical supplies" , "Vital for a healthy society" , "Of vital interest"
5.
Forming or having the nature of a turning point or crisis.  Synonym: decisive.  "The critical test"
6.
Being in or verging on a state of crisis or emergency.  "A critical illness" , "An illness at the critical stage"
7.
Of or involving or characteristic of critics or criticism.



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"Critical" Quotes from Famous Books



... critical point with regard to the present position of women in America is the question of work and wages. Here the pocket of man is touched. And the pocket is the most sensitive point with many men, not only in America, but all the world over. There can be no doubt ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... troubled hours when it is most needed. We owe more to our illusions than to our knowledge. The imagination, which is altogether constructive, probably contributes more to our happiness than the reason, which in the sphere of speculation is mainly critical and destructive. The rude charm which, in the hour of danger or distress, the savage clasps so confidently to his breast, the sacred picture which is believed to shed a hallowing and protecting influence over the ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... cut rates and the Guilford bad management. In consequence, any advance in the market value of the stock must be slow and uncertain under the skilfullest handling. But, while it might be advisable for Mrs. Brentwood to take what she could get, the transfer of the three thousand shares at the critical moment might be the death blow to all his hopes ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... exception of the bones of the hands and feet. The skull being wanting, it could not be determined whether the remains were those of an Indian or of a white man, but in either case the sepulture was peculiarly aboriginal. A careful exhumation and critical examination by Mr. Klingbeil disclosed the fact that around the lower extremities of the body had been placed a number of large stones, which revealed traces of fire, in conjunction with charred wood, and the bones of the feet had undoubtedly been consumed. This fact makes ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow

... younger than the Russian they had followed so far, but there could be no mistaking that sharp chin and frowning brow. They had doubtless followed that very man for hundreds of miles only to lose him at this critical moment. ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell

... cooking was not what we could have had at the Maison Doree and the service was a little off color, neither of us was disposed to be critical. ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... the performers during their studies, such as they are. Instead of giving them a good conductor, knowing the times of the different movements accurately, and proficient in the art of singing, to beat the time, and make critical observations: a good pianist, playing from a well-arranged pianoforte score, upon a good piano; and a violinist, to play in unison or in octave with the voices as each part is learned alone—instead of these three indispensable artists, they commit them (in ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz

... national life, there is no greater statesman and patriot than our beloved President, Theodore Roosevelt,—a young man to whom we are proud to point as a true type of American greatness and American manhood. Assuming control of the Nation at such a critical moment in her history, when so many dangerous rocks lay in her course, tremendous, indeed, was the responsibility thrust upon him. But by his inherent principle of rule, his unquenchable patriotism, his indomitable purpose, and the imperiousness of his will, founded ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given

... went away from Mr. Birtwell's about one o'clock," replied Doctor Hillhouse, "and his family are in great distress about him. Mrs. Voss, who is one of my patients, is in very delicate health and when I saw her at eleven o'clock to-day was lying in a critical condition." ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur

... did not much mind the accident. It was indeed curious to see how little she minded. Perhaps it would not be too much to say that, although she was going to do the critical deed of her life quite willingly, she experienced an indefinable relief at the postponement of her meeting with Heddegan. But her manner after making discovery of the hindrance was quiet and subdued, ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.

... or other, he felt that the moment was critical. Then a hand was laid quietly upon his arm, a man's ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... this and that picture, read this and that poet!" because it is just thus, by following direction too slavishly, that we lose our own particular inspiration. Indeed I care very little about fineness of taste, fastidious critical rejections, scoffs and sneers at particular fashions and details. One knows the epicure of life, the man who withdraws himself more and more from the throng, cannot bear to find himself in dull company, reads fewer and fewer books, ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... question, for he could not accept the creational theory, yet sought in vain among the transmutationists for any cause adequate to produce transmutation. He had had many talks with Darwin, and though ready enough to accept the main point, maintained such a critical attitude on many others, that Darwin was not by any means certain of the effect the published book would produce upon him. Indeed, in his 1857 notebook, I find jotted down under the head of his paper on Pygocephalus (read at the Geological Society),] "anti-progressive ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... and little would be the disappointment, though you should act in an imprudent or a vicious manner. The antiquity of your house fixes the eyes of your countrymen upon you. Your accession at so early a period to its honours and its emoluments, renders your situation particularly critical. ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin

... jaunty, wide-rimmed sombrero. She looked, indeed, precisely like the heroine of the prevalent Western drama. Her sleeves, rolled to the elbow, disclosed shapely brown arms, and her neck, bare to her bosom, was equally sun-smit; but she was so round-cheeked, so childishly charming, that the most critical observer could find ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... exclusively occupied in holding on their hats and blowing their blue noses to pay much attention to the improving harangues of Mr Stridge and myself; which was perhaps just as well, for men who have three or four highly critical and possibly hostile meetings to address later in the day are not likely to waste good things upon an assembly who probably cannot hear them, and will only say "Hear, hear!" in sepulchral tones ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... emulating Tess's example, she essayed to ride astride. It was wonderful. She could imagine herself a Centaur princess. And, curiously, she felt not at all embarrassed. Yet she was glad that, back there in the lot, she was screened by the big barn from probably critical eyes. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... Saturday were the 5th July, on which the fleet sailed from Lisbon, the 3d of August must have been on Thursday. But it does not seem necessary to insist upon such minute critical ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... could easily foresee the bad effects of so ill-timed and imprudent a quarrel. All the succors which he expected from England, and which were so necessary in this critical emergence, were intercepted by his brother, and employed in Holland and Hainault: the forces of the duke of Burgundy, which he also depended on, were diverted by the same wars: and besides this double loss, he was in imminent danger of alienating forever that confederate whose friendship was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... starting with the inevitable preformation and constitutional bias, we sought to build up a simpler and nobler edifice of thought, to be a palace and fortress rather than a prison for experience, our critical philosophy would still be dogmatic, since it would be built upon inexplicable but actual data by a process of ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... this time was agitated over two great questions: the question of slavery and that of secession. The South was ready to separate from the North, and the entire country was in a most critical condition. Such was the state of affairs when Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office as president of the United States. Lincoln was scarcely three weeks in office when the great war of the Rebellion between the North and the South broke out; a war of which there is no parallel in history. ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof

... soon spread. The Premier, conscious of his danger, had determined on a demonstration of his power. On the Sunday before that eventful, much-discussed Monday, when the critical clause was to come before the Legislative Assembly, he and his followers had decided to convene mass-meetings throughout the country, in every constituency whose member was a waverer, or suspected of being one of "Coxon's rats," as somebody—possibly ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope

... year 1855 the chair of philosophy in the University of Munich happened to be filled by a Catholic priest of great critical penetration, great learning, and great courage, who had borne the brunt of battle long before Doellinger. His Jesuit colleagues, he knew, inculcated the belief that every human soul is sent into the world from God by a separate and supernatural ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... bad "throw-off" in the critical line; whether it affect "le premier litterateur venu" or ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... acrimonious, vitriolic, arenous and gravelly, churlish, harsh and lean; (I mention them promiscuously) and whatever vicious quality they are perceptibly tinctur'd and impregnate with, being by no means proper drink for plants: Wherefore a very critical examen of this so necessary an element (the very principle, as some think, and only nutriment of vegetables){317:1} is highly to be regarded, together with more than ordinary skill how to apply it: In order to which, the constitution and texture of plants and trees are philosophically ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... Truly wise people—and by wisdom I mean an aggregation of those qualities and acceptances and compromises that make for a fairly unruffled progress through this difficult life—truly wise people are not fastidious. They are easily pleased, they are not critical, and—and this is very important—they allow of no exceptions among human beings. Originals bore them as much as they did Mr. Magnus. One of the astutest men that I know has achieved a large measure of his prosperity and general contentment ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas

... ally, yet so quickly and easily was this adjustment brought about that no one could say exactly how it happened. They themselves said nothing—just stood and stared at him; Daddy and Mother said the expected things, and Aunt Emily, critical and explanatory as usual, found it necessary to add: "You'll find it such a quiet house to work in, Felix, and the children will never interfere or get in your way." She was evidently proud of her relative and his famous books. "They'll be as good as gold—won't you, Judy?" by which name she ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... nothing to lessen our seriousness of purpose and enthusiasm for the future. They must not teach national vanity, but they must not on the other hand encourage a spirit which is in any way over-critical and cynical or supercilious. There must be political wisdom on the part of the people but not a sophisticated state of mind. These teachers must inspire a wholesome pride, without creating an inflamed sense ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge

... futile to characterize this new Reign of Terror as anything but an effort on the part of Northern rebels to help Southern ones, at the most critical moment of the war,—with the State militia and available troops absent in a neighboring Commonwealth,—and the loyal people unprepared. These editors and their coadjutors, men of brains and ability, were of that most poisonous growth,—traitors to the Government and the flag ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... past Miss Hammond's sense of humor had often helped her to overlook critical exactions natural to her breeding. She kept silence, and she imagined it was just as well that her veil hid her face at the moment. She had been prepared to find cowboys rather striking, and she had been warned not to ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... 'write something together' with me, I should like it still better. I should like it for some ineffable reasons. And I should not like it a bit the less for the grand supply of jests it would administer to the critical Board of Trade, about visible darkness, multiplied by two, mounting into palpable obscure. We should not mind ... should we? you would not mind, if you had got over certain other considerations deconsiderating to your coadjutor. Yes—but I dare not do it, ... I mean, think of it, ... just now, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... permit us to add any extended selections from the many critical notices of the poem. The verdict of Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review, on its first ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... in the shape of a newspaper is the product of any one lobe of brain tissue. Of what value are a hundred thousand copies of the best newspaper in this land, edited, revised and printed, if its circulation department break down at the critical moment? And what about the newsman? Who shall say that he does not belong to journalism? He's to the service what the Don Cossack is to the Russian hosts. He's the Cossack of journalism—our ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various

... moment, while Annie was pulled from beneath, wide awake and placid as usual; and she sat in one lap or another during the rest of the concert, sometimes winking at the candle, but usually listening to the songs, with a calm and critical expression, as if she could make as much noise as any of them, whenever she saw fit to try. Not a sound did she make, however, except one little soft sneeze, which led to an immediate flood-tide of ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... be thought clever, and a generation grew up which not only read Latin authors with pleasure, wrote Latin correctly, and had some acquaintance with Greek, but which took a lively interest in artistic matters, and constituted a real public for artists, a much larger and a much more critical one than could be found today among an equal population in any so-called civilized country. The era of collectors began then, and Mantegna's old master was the first of them. Every man of taste did his ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... in her critical tasting, when they had been at it some time. "I really believe that this is better than Huyler's hot fudge Sun-balls. And it is lots better than the candy that Lieutenant Logan sent you ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston

... diplomacy, and the French emperor's definite offer of Silesia for a hundred thousand men was rejected. With the thirty thousand which Saxony had put at his disposal, and with such an army as Austria herself could raise, the minister felt sure that at some critical moment she would be able, as a well-armed mediator, to command a peace in terms restoring to his country ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... of the rock was an impossibility achieved. They were petrified by it. By degrees, however, they began to hope again. Such are the insubmergable mirages of the soul! There is no distress so complete but that even in the most critical moments the inexplicable sunrise of hope is seen in its depths. These poor wretches were ready to acknowledge to themselves that they were saved. It ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... of God in your soul presents a most critical subject of inquiry; since the love of God will be acknowledged by all to be the great, the essential, principle of true religion. The simple question, then, to which I would call your attention, ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... been too many and too critical to permit him ever unequivocally to unite himself with any of the dissenters, who upon various accounts absolutely seceded from the national church. He had often joined in communion with such of the established clergy as approached nearest to the old Presbyterian model ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... press; but many more were dispersed fragments, originally written in pencil, afterwards inked over, the intended sequence of which in the writer's mind, it was extremely difficult to follow. These again were intermixed with journals of travel, fragments of poems, critical essays, voluminous correspondence, and old school-exercises and college themes, having no kind of ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens

... importance of the April election, but scarcely responsible for the critical character of the situation. He had not approved the alien and sedition measures, nor did he commit himself to the persecuting policy sanctioned by most Federal leaders, and although he favoured suppressing newspaper libels against the government, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... this critical instant that his faithful friend extended his hand to save him; but at the same instant another and mightier hand was also extended from ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... been fully discussed by Mr. Alger in his very able work, "Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life," and his conclusion is wholly opposed to the view which makes ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... is achieved in America often excites the derision of the literary foreigner; for although most American reviews are readable enough, they often lack the critical emphasis and literary scope and color so conspicuous in the literary criticism of the British and Continental reviews. But the foreigner overlooks the fact that American reviewers usually have something to say about every publication which claims to appeal ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... crowd, that strange congregation of passions and of fates which speaks in movements and is melodious in attitudes, which quarrels in all its parts, silently, yet is swayed through and through by large impulses, and as an intellect far more keen and assertively critical than the intellect of any one person in it. And now, when Julian began to feel the meaning of this surging mob of men and women, the hours danced, and he and all the crowd danced with them. And the music that accompanied ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... the form of men, of the lower animals, or any monstrous shape, and propagate their species like, and sometimes with, human kind—appear in imposing proportions in 'The Thousand and One Nights'—that rich display of the fancy of the Oriental imagination.[54] Credulous and confused in critical perception, the crusading adventurers for religion or rapine could scarcely fail to confound with their own the peculiar tenets of an ill-understood mode of thought; and that the critical and discriminating faculties ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... barons; "you are his fellow-priests and fellow-bishops, and it is for you to declare sentence." "Nay," answered the bishops, "this is not an ecclesiastical but a secular judgment, and we sit here not as bishops but as barons; if you heed our orders you should also take heed of his." The dispute was a critical one, leading as it did directly to questions about the jurisdiction of the Curia Regis over ecclesiastical persons, and the obligation asserted in the Constitutions of Clarendon, that bishops should sit with barons in the King's Court till it came to a question of blood. The king was seized with ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... not a critical man, but even at that moment I could not quite see his meaning, for it seemed as though God were divided against Himself, and that God the Son felt differently toward us from what God the Father felt, and this, to an unlearned man like myself, brought only confusion. Moreover, as he spoke, while ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... secret chambers of his palace. He was a burden to his party, and was regarded by them with contempt. Matthias was watching him, as the tiger watches its prey. To human eyes it would appear that the destiny of the house of Austria was sealed. Just at that critical point, one of those unexpected events occurred, which so often rise to thwart the deepest laid schemes ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... latter's work on "Poetics" is still valuable for its discussion of fundamental principles. Quintilian, Cicero, and Horace were distinguished Roman critics; and the poet's Ars Poetica, read in every college course, is an admirable presentation of many critical principles. But it is in modern times, and particularly during the nineteenth century, that criticism received its highest development. In England not a few of its leading literary men—Dryden, Pope, Addison, Johnson, Coleridge, Jeffrey, Macaulay, Carlyle, Matthew ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... these two, broke forth into tumult once more. Groans and mutterings arose among the Arab contingent, while the Wangoni uttered wild laughing whoops of defiance. Nothing would be easier than to slay the white leaders. A single volley would lay them low. The position was critical, perilous to ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... at whom he fired was bound to have been in the thicket beyond the open space," he said, "and it was there that he fell. He fell because at such a critical time the Great Bear would not have fired unless he was sure of his aim. We will look into ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... critical state of his army, he knew that the only safety lay in the promptest and sternest justice; and therefore the three foremost in accusing King James of treachery ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the sardonic humour of everything if he had not been too overcome with passionate desire to retain any critical sense. ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... a head, and the Government, recognizing that nothing could avert a strike and as the foreign situation was passing through a critical period, requested that a conference should be called in London, and invited the miners and the mine-owners to come together so that the Prime Minister and other statesmen could be present to try and adjust the grievance. It was a historic ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... an intimate acquaintance with several modern languages. In discovering and collating ancient manuscripts, for which his travels abroad gave him special opportunities, he displayed uncommon diligence. His work entitled Diatribae in Ausonium, Solinum et Ovidium (1524) is a monument of erudition and critical skill. He was the first editor of the Letters of Gassiodorus, with his Treatise on the Soul (1538); and his edition of Ammianus Marcellinus (1533) contains five books more than any former one. The affected use ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... the sweets of memory, she recalled that their first quarrel had arisen because she had insisted on getting out of bed to make the fires in the morning. Then, partly because the recollection appeared to reproach him, and partly because, not possessing the critical faculty, she had never learned to acknowledge the existence of a flaw in a person she loved, she edged closer to him, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... and schools than any yet published" but of so presenting "the rules and principles of general grammar, as that they may apply to, and be in perfect harmony with, the grammars of the dead languages"— Recommendations, p. iv. These are admirable professions for a critical author to publish; especially, as every rule or principle of General Grammar, condemning as it must whoever violates it, cannot but "be in perfect harmony with" every thing that is true. In this model for all grammars, Latin, Greek, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... greeted with greater love and welcome than this one. Not only was it the offspring of the physical union, but that of the souls. Welcome, thrice welcome, to the children born of such love. The physical condition of the Princess was very critical for several days. The Prince's grief and anxiety was almost unbearable; neither sleep nor food took a moment of his time during her severe illness, and often did he think that again Nu-nah's soul would take its flight and wend its way to ...
— Within the Temple of Isis • Belle M. Wagner

... currents. A thick fog came down on us, with zenithal aurora borealis, the electric action of which threw out every compass, standard and otherwise, on board. No seeing, no steering! After having been in a very critical position at the entrance of Forteau Bay, a point on the Labrador coast celebrated for wrecks, I took the frigate into the haven of Ingornachoix, where we made some considerable stay, necessitated by the condition of my crew's health. For ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... in case of fire, I believe," said my lord vaguely, as he rolled a critical eye over our faces. ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... pressed with such a conjuncture of things, as made it necessary to settle either the priority or justice of their claims—like a wise man he had refrained entering into any nice or critical examination about them: so that upon the dismission of every other project at this crisis—the two old projects, the Ox-moor and my Brother, divided him again; and so equal a match were they for each other, as to become the occasion ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... pressed her beaver-cap well down over her smooth white forehead until it hid her dark, arched eyebrows. He turned up her deep fur collar, and buttoned it in front until only her pretty hazel eyes and straight white nose were to be seen. Then he regarded her with critical gravity. ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... literary man would be interested in the books," said Carhaix, who had been watching Durtal. "You mustn't be too critical, monsieur. I have only the tools ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... at this island was the Salamanca. She had left the Cape a week before the Agra. Captain Robarts, with his characteristic good-breeding, went to anchor in-shore of Her Majesty's ship: the wind failed at a critical moment, and a foul became inevitable. Collier was on his quarter-deck, and saw what would happen long before Robarts did; he gave the needful orders, and it was beautiful to see how in half a minute the frigate's guns were run ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... nothing at first, but the old critical and defiant look came into her face again. It had now, however, in it a trace of the gently judicial. "I was mistaken," she said; "you are a ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... the fourth floor, next the Fursts, lived a pale, harassed teacher, with a family which had long since outgrown its accommodation; for the wife was perpetually in childbed, and cots and cradles were the chief furniture of the house. As the critical moments of her career drew nigh, the "Frau Lehrer" complained, with an aggravated bitterness, of the unceasing music that went on behind the thin partition; and this grievance, together with the racy items of gossip left behind the midwife's annual visit, like ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... pry with his cold-chisel forced this flimsy outer door away from its lock. Beneath it, thus lightly masked, stood the more formidable safe door itself. Durkin drew in a sharp breath of relief as he looked at it with critical eyes. It was not quite the sort of thing he had expected. If it had been a combination lock he had intended to tear away the woodwork covering it, pad the floor with the bed mattress, and then pry it over on its face, to chisel away the cement that ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... The Bible and Slavery. The Ambulance System. The Bibliotheca Sacra. Immorality in Politics. The Early Life of Governor Winthrop. The Sanitary Commission. Renan's Life of Jesus. The President's Policy. Critical Notices. ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... begun to show some signs of life. He was developing possibilities. Whereupon, at this critical stage in the story-writing game, the hair-washing mania seized Mary Louise. She tried to dismiss the idea. She pushed it out of her mind, and slammed the door. It only popped in again. Her fingers wandered to her hair. Her eyes wandered to ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... anus and rectum are very common, very numerous and of very critical consequences. This is especially true of the disease of chronic inflammation, one of whose symptoms is piles or hemorrhoids. In the writings of the early Greek and Roman physicians will be found minute descriptions of the latter ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... of some interest to my readers. I do not advance them in a dogmatic spirit nor as final judgments, but as the first tentative results of my gropings into a large and complicated subject. I will ask the reader, therefore, be he Western or Oriental, to follow me in a spirit at once critical and sympathetic, challenging my suggestions as much as he will, but rather as a fellow-seeker than as an opponent bent upon refutation. For I am trying to comprehend rather than to judge, and to comprehend as impartially as is compatible ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... and his pretty wife were quarrelling, as their custom was, in the drawing-room of the great house in Belgrave Square, but the Angel in the nursery upstairs knew nothing at all about that. She was eight years old, and was, at that critical moment when her father and mother were having words which might embitter all their lives, and perhaps sever them for ever, unconsciously and happily decorating ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... of estimating the comparative rate of progress of the movement in the preceding century is of no importance. Upon one point at least, the evidence is almost all that could be desired. The material for a comparison of the prices of wheat and wool throughout the most critical portion of the period has been made accessible by Thorold Rogers.[11] It is to this material that the defenders of the theory that enclosures are explained by the price of wool should turn, for they will find a fall ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley

... left hand seized the Surgeon by the shoulder, and was forcing him backwards preparatory to giving him the final thrust through the throat; the other scoundrels being engaged in beating down the bayonets of the guard. At this critical moment, and before a man of the wounded had been touched, about a score of troopers, headed by Carlton, appeared on the scene of action, and entirely changed the programme. With a single stroke of his flashing sabre, Arthur dealt their leader such a blow that he was fain ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... were employed trimming the trees. To these the captain next turned all his attention, just as he had encouraged the chaplain to persevere, by exclaiming, "out of all question, my dear sir"—though he was absolutely ignorant that the other had just advanced a downright scientific heresy. At this critical moment a cry from Little Smash, that almost equalled a downfall of crockery in its clamour, drew every eye in ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... with him one of the sweetest offices of love, one to you unknown. Youth on Earth is a stormy period of passion, chafing in restraint or rioting in excess. But the very passion whose awaking makes this time so critical with you is here a reforming and educating influence, to whose gentle and potent sway we gladly confide our children. The temptations which lead your young men astray have no hold on a youth of our ...
— The Blindman's World - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... twist Kenelm Chillingly round his finger; twist him, a man who thought himself so much wiser than his parents,—a man who had gained honours at the University,—a man of the gravest temperament,—a man of so nicely critical a turn of mind that there was not a law of art or nature in which he did not detect a flaw; that he should get himself into this mess was, to say the least of it, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... against their foreheads. There was a whisper, also, about securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from doing mischief, at the very suggestion of which the self-important man in the cocked hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh, comely woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. "Hush, Rip," cried she, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... come home for supper, but about an hour later he appeared with two other Indians, and informed Reynolds that the Big White Chief wished to see him. Reynolds now knew that the critical moment had arrived, so without the least hesitation he accompanied his guards, who conducted him at once to the big house ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... certainly—to pour out all one's thoughts and feelings before some sympathizing correspondent; but I owned none such. I could not have settled to read, no, not the most interesting novel that was ever penned, although I might have left it off the day before in an agony of uncertainty at the critical place which is always to be found near the conclusion of the second volume; and as for sleep—sleep, indeed!—I felt as if I should ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... the reign of Alexander II thus far, were suppressed and many of the leading writers were imprisoned and exiled. Among those thus punished was that brilliant writer, Tchernyshevsky, to whom the Russian movement owes so much. His Contemporary Review was, during the four critical years 1858-62 the principal forum for the discussion of the problems most vital to the life of Russia. In it the greatest leaders of Russian thought discussed the land question, co-operation, communism, popular education, and ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... man surveyed the great form of the other with a critical eye, as he returned, "Durned if I don't believe you'd push him mighty close, if he'd only play fair. But—but I 'lowed you ought to ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright

... by Lee at Chancellorsville (May 3). There "Stonewall" Jackson, one of the best and bravest of the Confederate generals, lost his life. Lee now crossed the river, and entered Pennsylvania. This was the critical moment in the struggle. Great pains were taken, by such people in the North as were disaffected with the administration at Washington, to manifest hostility to the war, or to the method in which it was prosecuted. A riot broke out in the city of New York while the drafts ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... the amity existing between the two, for Lincoln so won upon the envoy that he notified his premier, Lord Russell, at a critical instant when England and France were expected to combine to raise the Southern blockade, that it was wrong to prepare the American Government for recognition of the Confederacy. As for the Russian alliance with the powers, that ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... very soundly for a man in your case." said he, and the voice was that of my Lord Gambara, its tone quite coldly critical. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... analytical reasoning was new to MacRae, and it kept him from entering whole-heartedly into the joyous frivolity which functioned in the Abbott home that evening. He had never found himself in that critical mood before. He did not want to prattle nonsense. He did not want to think, and he could not help thinking. He had a curious sense of detachment from what was going on, even while he was a part of it. So ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... left Bangor, that I was coming to Europe to learn English! If I do learn it, I don't think you will understand me when I get back, and I don't think you'll like it much. I should be a good deal criticised if I spoke like that at Bangor. However, I verily believe Bangor is the most critical place on earth; I have seen nothing like it over here. Tell them all I have come to the conclusion that they are a great deal too fastidious. But I was speaking about this English young lady and her brother. I wish I could put them before you. She is lovely to look at; she ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James

... was not local. It aimed high as a purely literary and critical as well as progressive journal, and I must ever consider it a fault that it did not chronicle more of Brook Farm life. We look almost in vain through its pages for one word of its situation, finding none except in some allusions to it in the correspondence from abroad. ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... and a hard swearer." Cornelius had been very much bleached by the Patriarchal Institution, and he was shrewd enough to take advantage of this circumstance. In regions of country where men were less critical and less experienced than Southerners, as to how the bleaching process was brought about, Cornelius Scott would have had no difficulty whatever in passing for a white man of the most improved Anglo-Saxon type. Although a young man only twenty-three ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... lookout for the kind of thing he had put over. The Maitland Mill team had made a perfectly wonderful recovery in the last quarter, though he rather thought his friend Macnamara had helped it a little at a critical point. ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... life" when we are called upon to perform some positive duty, is one which is often very critical and full of solemn consequences to us. The duty may appear to be a very trifling one,—such as writing a letter, visiting a friend, warning some brother against evil, aiding another, or sympathising with a sufferer in his sorrow. But whatever the work may be, and in whatever way ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod

... enemy who were surrounding Cornwallis. The fort of New London was stormed after some desperate fighting, and great quantities of ammunition and stores and fifty pieces of cannon taken. General Washington did not allow his attention to be distracted. Matters were in a most critical condition, for although to the English the prospect of ultimate success appeared slight indeed, the Americans were in a desperate condition. Their immense and long-continued efforts had been unattended with any ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... with his hand spread out over his mouth. And I selected this critical moment to touch the powder off under ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... lightning. Nothing been seen like it since, the other night, I and seven other Members voted Four Millions sterling in Committee on Navy Estimates. COURTNEY put Clauses in batches of fifty. No one said him nay. Natural supposition was, that House in agreeing to this critical stage of important Bill knew all about it. Every line of its 342 Clauses must be familiar to every man present; otherwise how could he lay his hand on his heart, and say, "Aye," when COURTNEY asked him should he knock ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various

... them a frightful proportion were of those very rascal classes, against whom we ourselves had offered to be sworn in as special constables. O'Connor's courage failed him after all. He contrived to be called away, at the critical moment, by some problematical superintendent of police. Poor Cuffy, the honestest, if not the wisest, speaker there, leapt off the waggon, exclaiming that we were all "humbugged and betrayed"; and the meeting broke up pitiably piecemeal, drenched and cowed, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... days for rulers and owners are over. If there are still to be rulers and owners and managing and governing people, then in the face of the new masses, sensitive, intelligent, critical, irritable, as no common people have ever been before, these rulers and owners must be prepared to make themselves and display themselves wise, capable and heroic—beyond any aristocratic precedent. The alternative, if it is an alternative, ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... was in a very critical condition. For two days her life was like the fluttering of a lighted candle in the wind. Philip was constantly by her side, and she seemed to be conscious of his presence, and to cling to him, as one borne ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... several of the girls and to many of the guardians, but to none of the Meadow-Brook Girls. Tommy was interested, however. She managed to get close enough to the car to examine the gown of Miss Collier with critical eyes, and Tommy was something of a judge of clothes, for her parents entertained smartly-dressed friends from the city quite frequently. The little girl looked disdainfully at the newcomers, but ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge

... than I did, always thought that one day I should know all. It is 'knowing all' that kills love, and I never knew all. We were always together. She was a woman of very remarkable intelligence, loving music, literature, painting, with a most excellently critical love. Her friendship with me gave her, I do believe, a new youth and happiness. We became inseparable, and all my earlier life had passed away from me like worn-out clothes. I was happy—but of course I was not satisfied. I was jealous ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... fault was found with the Government's manner of dealing with Irish questions. In spite of the concessions to O'Connell, that formidable leader had not been won over. The Tories held that the Ministry had gone altogether too far. At this critical moment, on the King's birthday, the Irish prelates, with the Primate at their head, presented an address signed by fourteen Irish clergymen in which they deprecated the proposed changes in the discipline of the Church in Ireland. Instead ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... infamous lie!" cried Vanslyperken, drawing his sword. "Traitor that you are," continued he to the corporal, "take your reward." This was a very critical moment. The corporal did not attempt the defensive, but remained in the same attitude, and Vanslyperken's rage at the falsehood of the widow and the discovery of his treason was so great, that he lost all command of himself. Had not a third party come in just ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... who did not mean to be unpleasantly critical, but who was merely surprised. "But you have to be going up and down all ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells

... with the American, commanded by Captain Macdonough. It issued in the capture of the whole of the enemy's ships. The best praise for this officer and his intrepid comrades is in the likeness of his triumph to the illustrious victory which immortalized another officer and established at a critical moment our ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Madison • James Madison

... frequent use of dialogue and his dramatic effects of narrative, we must remember the tribunal to which the work of Herodotus was subjected. Every author, unconsciously to himself, consults the tastes of those he addresses. No small coterie of scholars, no scrupulous and critical inquirers, made the ordeal Herodotus underwent. His chronicles were not dissertations to be coldly pondered over and skeptically conned: they were read aloud at solemn festivals to listening thousands; they were to arrest the curiosity—to ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... unfortunate for him that Alf, as resolute as he, was just a little heavier, was as tough of fiber at that stage of their young careers, and was, in a general way, what a patron of the prize ring would term the better man. Grant went home licked as thoroughly as any country boy, not hyper-critical, could ask, and should have felt that all was lost save honor. But he did not feel that way. He did not consider honor at greater length than is generally done by any boy of ten, on the way to eleven, but he did want vengeance. To lose his siren and a portion ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... Mark Twain's greatest book of travel. The critical and the pure in speech may object to this verdict. Brander Matthews regards it second to A Tramp Abroad, the natural viewpoint of the literary technician. The 'Tramp' contains better usage without doubt, but it lacks the "color" which ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... that, to a critical observer, she had abundant preparation for hitting close to the mark; as when she told the girls that "somebody was coming." "It is a man," she went on gravely. ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... very forcibly that measurements obtained from the projection or fall of columns are unreliable, for the earlier tremors might cause the columns to rock, and their overthrow need not therefore measure accurately the maximum velocity of the critical vibration.[16] There can be no doubt that Mallet was alive to this difficulty, though he may not have appreciated it at its full value. Thus, at the Certosa de St. Lorenzo, a monastery near Padula, a vase projected from the summit of a slender gate-pier implied a velocity of 21-3/4 ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison

... the maple trees with provoking coolness; they would run along the fence almost within reach; they would cock their tails and sail across the road to the barn; and yet there was such a well-timed calculation under all this apparent rashness, that Noble invariably arrived at the critical spot just as the squirrel ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... and applause greeted William and his immortal sonnets; and if any critical reader or author will take pains to delve into and scan the poetry and philosophy of Spenser and Bacon with that of Shakspere, they will quickly and honestly come to the conclusion that the former writers are merely ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... thought Judith, for the Sister's face grew white, her lips dry, and her assertion that she was glad to be back at dear old York Hill seemed to be all that she could remember of her speech. Three hundred pairs of hands had clapped her a warm welcome, but now she confronted three hundred pairs of critical eyes. She faltered, began again, and finally looked appealingly, a schoolgirl once more, at her ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... knew it. Much of it had been nobly done. He knew that the nation was sure of this. And he now understands that even with the failures and the weaknesses of his administration, both as Conservative and Unionist Premier, we cordially concede to this high mediocrity a place in our critical affairs only second to the credit that he gained in England and in Europe as the head of a nation that had gloriously fought and magnificently won—in ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... prevent the greatest calamities. The truth was that he feared Pierre might escape him in the midst of the confusion which the entry of the insurgents would produce. However, the four big fellows followed him with exemplary docility, and knocked violently at the door of the Rougons' abode. In this critical situation Felicite displayed admirable courage. She went down and opened the ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... undeceived, and those who do not I have little interest in undeceiving. I have no particular desire that any but my acquaintance should think the author better than the beings of his imagining; but I can not help a little surprise, and perhaps amusement, at some odd critical exceptions in the present instance, when I see several bards in very reputable plight, and quite exempted from all participation in the faults of their heroes, who nevertheless might be found with little more morality ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... a critical frown, "they're not just the colour o' white men. Mayhap, they're a noo style o' savage, this bein' raither an ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... been more honest than the Right. The "Reds" comprising it favor direct action, that is, strikes and disturbances, rather than the use of the ballot, hoping thus to bring our country into such a critical condition that they may precipitate a rebellion, and then, though in a minority, assume control of the government by a sudden coup d'etat, as the Bolsheviki did in Russia. The Left Wingers opposed ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... than I was in those days, for besides the superstitions of my own country, I have, thanks to my travels, added to my stock all the superstitions of the other countries. I know them all now, and in any critical moment of my life they all rise up in armed legions, for or against me. I cannot walk a single step or make any movement or gesture, sit down, go out, look at the sky or the ground, without finding some reason for hope or for despair, until at last, exasperated by the trammels put ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... in spite of the progress of enclosure for centuries, were still farmed on the old common-field system. When anything out of the common was to be done on common farms, all common work came to a standstill. 'To carry out corn stops the ploughs, perhaps at a critical season; the fallows are frequently seen overrun with weeds because it is seed time; in a word, some business is ever neglected.'[444] As for the outcry against enclosing commons and wastes, people forgot that the farmers as well as the poor had a right of common and took special care ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... 2 The following critical study leaves, of course, completely untouched our recognition of the devotion which guided the respective observers in their work, and of the ingenuity with which some of their observations were devised and ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs

... me. As for war, after our late experience, I confess that I could be a Mr. Dick with it, but we are not apt in the country to dwell overmuch on war now it is over. We honour our beloved dead; those of us who have returned unbattered go now about our work with cooler, more critical eyes, but mostly with lips closed against our three or four years' experience. Khaki has disappeared; the war is over; let us forget it. If there is a people to be pitied, swarming and groping on this tormented earth, we say, it is the German people; but that seems an insufficient ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett

... current numbers of Der Sturm, a weekly paper published in Berlin in the defence of the new art. Illustrations by Marc, Pechstein, le Fauconnier, Delaunay, Kandinsky, etc. Also poems and critical articles. Price per weekly number 25 pfg. Der Sturm has in preparation an album of reproductions of pictures and drawings ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky

... long endurance of trials that would have tried the courage and shaken the fortitude of the strongest, a sort of sluggish indifference prevailed, that prevented the development of those active energies which were so necessary to support us in our critical position. The duties of our camp were performed as if by habit, and knowing how utterly useless complaint must be, the men seldom ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... a scholar. He had got through life very well without ever being at the university. In his day it was not considered such a necessity as now. And he was not at all critical of his son. So long as the boy got into no scrapes he asked no more of him. He was quite complacent when Theo brought home his school prizes, and used to point them out to visitors. "This is for his Latin verses," he would say. "I don't know ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... it all, and, after another critical examination of the patient, glanced about the room, straightened up, took a deep breath, ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... spiritual life. These, with the Song of Angels, are the only printed works that can be assigned to him with certainty, though many others, undoubtedly from his pen, are to be found in manuscripts, and a complete and critical edition of Walter Hilton seems still in the far future.[17] The Song of Angels has been twice printed since the edition of Pepwell.[18] In profoundly mystical language, tinged with the philosophy of that mysterious Neo-Platonist whom we call the pseudo-Dionysius, ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various

... drew the veil hastily over his face, as if, in a bloody tumult, the ideal life, so the ultimate happiness, were vanishing before his eyes. Taking the confessions of such as have been greatly tried, few men, few even of those renowned for courage and fine achievement, ever pass their critical moments of decision unassailed by alternative suggestions due to fear. Sergius heard them now. "Return to thy cell, and to thy beads, and prayer," they seemed to say. "What canst thou, a stranger in a strange land, if once the Academy ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... continued with the persevering and liberal encouragement of the Legislature, and, combined with corresponding exertions for the gradual increase and improvement of the Navy, prepares for our extensive country a condition of defense adapted to any critical emergency which the varying course of events may bring forth. Our advances in these concerted systems have for the last ten years been steady and progressive, and in a few years more will be so completed as to leave no cause for apprehension that our ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams

... intoxication of the man is assured. To do otherwise—that is, to confess, even post facto, to an anterior descent,—would expose her, as I have said, to the scorn of all other women. Such a confession would be an admission that emotion had got the better of her at a critical intellectual moment, and in the eyes of women, as in the eyes of the small minority of genuinely intelligent men, no treason to the higher cerebral centres could ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... thawed, lit his cigar and slackened his pace, for such frank appreciation of his merits was rare in a critical world. ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston



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