"Decisive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heavenly teacher, however, if he touched the subject, would surely have taught the Bāb better Arabic. It is a psychological problem how the Bāb can lay so much stress on his 'signs' (ayât) or verses as decisive of the claims of a prophet. One is tempted to surmise that in the Bāb's Arabic work there ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... friend Charlie whistled and sang through this day, building all sorts of pleasant castles about his future life, little thinking what a train was being laid, to which, if the match were applied, he and his castles would be blown up in a more sanguinary, if not more decisive manner, than these airy fabrications generally have to ...
— Legend of Moulin Huet • Lizzie A. Freeth
... years' war of Scottish independence was drawn to a close by the decisive campaign of 1314. The second Edward prepared an overwhelming force for this expedition, summoning, as usual, the Norman-Irish Earls, and inviting in different language his "beloved" cousins, the native Irish ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... harm to American and other foreign interests, and danger of international complications (a British and a French man-of-war were already solicitously hovering off the capital), the American government took decisive action. With the consent of President Jimenez, it landed marines at old San Geronimo castle, on the Guibia road, ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... too fast, young people! You've only known each other a few weeks, after all; you must be pretty sure of yourselves before taking anything like a decisive step. Plenty of time—plenty of time. Mr. Lloyd can go back to his mine, and Cherry will wait ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... decisive, and at the same time conclusive as to the facts. She had not only seen Savareen sitting on his black mare at the door, immediately after the town bell ceased ringing for eight o'clock; but she had listened to the conversation between him and her husband, ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... gone on to further details, but as they crossed the hall to the west wing, the knocker on the front door banged with a decisive sound, and Sally opened to find ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... the conductor must first previously warn the players against such inexactness, into which they almost all are led to fall unawares; and then, while conducting, must cast a glance towards them at the decisive moment, and anticipate a little, by beating the first beat of the bar where they come in. It is incredible how difficult it is to prevent trumpet-players from doubling the value of ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... their crimes of loyalty and courage, had already found a refuge beyond the reach of his spies and torturers that he opposed even now to bonds and blows a resistance that no armed force could overcome. If he saw the smiles at all, he took them for a tribute to his brisk, decisive ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... halted beside a huge, pyramidal and towering rock not far from Surlei. It was then that the thought struck me. Looking back now, I find that exactly two months previous to this inspiration, I had had an omen of its coming in the form of a sudden and decisive alteration in my tastes—more particularly in music. It would even be possible to consider all 'Zarathustra' as a musical composition. At all events, a very necessary condition in its production was a renaissance in myself of the art ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... that discipline of Nature, I recognize the PEOPLE. I acknowledge something that perhaps equals, and ought always to guide, the sovereignty of convention. In all things the voice of this grand chorus of national harmony ought to have a mighty and decisive influence. But when you disturb this harmony,—when you break up this beautiful order, this array of truth and Nature, as well as of habit and prejudice,—when you separate the common sort of men from their proper chieftains, so as to form them into an adverse army,—I no longer know ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... could be defeated, and their fortress razed, it was not probable that a fourth could be equipped and pushed forward, with a view to offensive operations, in sufficient time to accomplish any thing decisive before the winter should set in. Tecumseh, who had just returned from collecting new bodies of warriors, warmly approved the project, and undertook to bring two thousand men into the field, as his quota of the expedition, the departure of which was ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... may be there, but whether it is so, or not, no one knows, for every thing connected with this effort to extend the Executive power is kept as profoundly secret as were the arrangements for the Napoleonic coup d'etat of the 2d of December. Secrecy and prompt and decisive action are the characteristics of centralized governments—publicity and slow action those of decentralized ones. Admit, however, that such limitations be found in the treaty, by what right are they there? The basis of such a treaty is the absolute right of the ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey
... was in his eighteenth year that an event occurred which he regards as decisive in his development. He read Plato. A new world opened, and he felt that his own nature had been revealed. Next year he formed a passionate, but pure, friendship with a boy of 15. Personal contact ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... character: the success of Spinoza's supposed rival—a fellow-student by name, Kerkrinck—is attributed to the seductive powers of a pearl necklace. In spite of the fact that tradition reckons this gift to have been of decisive importance, one does not like to believe that a girl of high intellectual and artistic ability could be so easily and fatefully overcome by a mere trinket. Still less does one like to believe that Spinoza fell in love with a girl whose mind was so far removed from the joys that ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... stores with which the question of women relates itself inevitably, I have cursorily assumed our priority in them, and the more I think of them, the more I am inclined to believe myself right. But that is a matter in which women only may be decisive; the nice psychology involved cannot be convincingly studied by the other sex. I will venture, again, however, so far into this strange realm as to say that the subordinate shops did not seem so ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... observers judged elections to be largely free and fair since the restoration of political stability following the collapse of pyramid schemes in 1997. In the 2005 general elections, the Democratic Party and its allies won a decisive victory on pledges of reducing crime and corruption, promoting economic growth, and decreasing the size of government. The election, and particularly the orderly transition of power, was considered an important ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Armies incapable of any offensive operation on a large scale for several months. Hence the Battle of Arras, which had begun so happily, degenerated towards the end of April into a series of furious struggles, each of which showed less promise of decisive importance than the last. The centre of gravity shifted to the north, where preparations on a vast scale were pushed forward for the main attack in Flanders, which opened on 31st July. Accordingly, the southern sector in which the Battalion ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... "I've decided, now I've seen it a second time, that I don't want it. I only wished him to look at it," she added, scornfully aware that she was taking up the cudgels in his behalf. But she could not bring herself, in Brent's presence, to declare that the argument of the rent seemed decisive. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to notice is as the field of the decisive battle of 1265, ending in the defeat and death of Simon de Montfort, and the allies still remaining faithful to their leader. This event, we know, added much to the fame of the monastery, and reacted on the town by bringing many ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... squad, entered, pausing abruptly at sight of Anderson. Giving the latter no time for words, Mr. Burns issued his instructions. On the instant he was the trained newspaper man again, cheating the clock dial and trimming minutes: his words were sharp and decisive. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... placed on the authority of the proprietors; a number of the worst specimens of the class were removed from the administration of their estates; a few who were convicted of atrocious cruelty were exiled to Siberia;* and some thousands of serfs were actually emancipated; but no decisive radical measures were attempted, and the serfs did not receive even the right of making formal complaints. Serfage had, in fact, come to be regarded as a vital part of the State organisation, and the only sure basis for autocracy. It was therefore ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... several trunks in an indiscriminate haste, while the fair invalid herself sat at the center table poring over an opened Baedeker and the outspread maps brought on by her "business agent." Hawke's murmured astonishment was at once cut short by the decisive notes of Berthe Louison's ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... stupidly finished, without the decisive explanation, in which I should find strength to escape from a hateful yoke, and to repudiate the woman who had allured me with false caresses, and who no longer ought to bear ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... all the books could meet this requirement; but the Church's real reason was its own discriminating spiritual experience which approved some books and refused others. Canon Sanday sums up the selective process by saying: "In the fixing of the Canon, as in the fixing of doctrine, the decisive influence proceeded from the bishops and theologians of the period 325-450. But behind them was the practice of the greater churches; and behind that again was not only the lead of a few distinguished individuals, but the instinctive judgment of the main body of the faithful. It was really this ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... of sight himself, that he might not be recognized before the decisive moment came. His heart bounded with excitement. He saw Bessie standing on the deck with Dock's wife, and a few moments more would restore her to him, and he should have the proud satisfaction of sailing up New York Bay, ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... Now, sister, we are going to trust to your sagacity in this matter. But you must promise me, as your brother, who is bound to look after your welfare, that you will take no decisive steps without first informing us, and that as soon as the work becomes too heavy for your hands, you will call upon me to help you. My sister will surely do nothing that her brother ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... America, would have been irresistible. The forces of the enemy were reported at twenty-three to thirty thousand. I suppose their whole force to have been twenty-five thousand. All things were arranged on the night of the 7th, for the 8th was fixed upon as the day decisive of the fate of ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... though technically it had so to stand, but actual acquittal. Nor was the struggle with evil at the end forgotten, nor the surrender alike of love and of hatred, as well as of his own life, which had been the final conquest, the decisive ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and visible change in the feelings and opinions of the public. "Who would be a servant of the public? or who would toil for popular applause?" A few words spoken in a decisive tone by a new voice operated as a charm, and the playhouse was in an instant metamorphosed in the eyes of the spectators. All gratitude for the past was forgotten, and the expectation of something better justified to the capricious multitude their disdain ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... the leaf structure illustrated in Plate VI., which has given to one group of the Drosidae the descriptive name of Ensatae, (see above, Chapter IX., Sec. 11,) but this conformation would not be wisely permitted to interfere in the least with the arrangement founded on the much more decisive floral aspects of the Iris and Lily. So, in the fifth volume of 'Modern Painters,' the sword-like, or rather rapier-like, leaves of the pine are opposed, for the sake of more vivid realization, to the shield-like leaves of the greater number of inland ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... to him, to Admiral Foley, and what letter can that be, if it is not this, which is proved to have been delivered to Admiral Foley? This letter was calculated to impress the Admiral with the belief, that the allies had obtained a decisive victory, that Bonaparte was killed, that the allies were in Paris, and that peace was likely to take place immediately. After the calamity of the long war we have had, ending as indeed it has ended, in the fulness of glory; we all ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... to faith try the mettle of men's moral and spiritual conviction, and they often refuse altogether to hold what they can no longer establish by the arguments which have hitherto been to them the decisive, perhaps ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... an oracle, and Yuryaku appointed three of his powerful nobles to go in his stead. The Shiragi men fought with desperate tenacity. One wing of their army was broken, but the other held its ground, and two of the Japanese generals fell in essaying to dislodge it. Neither side could claim a decisive victory, but both were too much exhausted to renew the combat. This was not the limit of Japan's misfortunes. A feud broke out among the leaders of the expedition, and one of them, Oiwa, shot his comrade as they were en route for the Court of the Kudara monarch, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... ties and steel began to move and the construction gangs followed close on the heels of the graders. And when the last spike in the track to the scene of the decisive battle was driven, the track-men with their sledges stepped aside to clear the way for the panting engines that drew the first train loaded with piling and timbers for ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... hanging in the north-western heaven was sufficient to show that a sprig of ivy had grown from the wall across the door to a length of more than a foot, delicately tying the panel to the stone jamb. It was a decisive proof that the door had not been opened at least since Troy came back ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... at which Parliament made decisive advance before the close of the mediaeval period was in respect to powers of ordinary legislation. Originally, Parliament was not conceived of as, in the strict sense, a law-making body at all. The magnates who composed the General ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... cannot go now, and can do nothing until I get a reply from her," thought Nekhludoff. A week ago he had written her a decisive letter, in which he acknowledged his guilt, and his readiness to atone for it; but at the same time he pronounced their relations to be at an end, for her own good, as he expressed it. To this letter he had as yet received no answer. This might prove a good ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... was customary to take the field with a small body of troops, to fight in small engagements, and to make long, regular sieges: modern tactics consist in fighting decisive battles, and, as soon as a line of march is open before the army, in rushing upon the capital city, in order to terminate the war at a single blow. Napoleon, it is said, was the inventor of this new system; but the invention of such a system did not depend on any individual man, whoever ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... Colloredo, and Piccolomini, compelled to keep their ground. The Swedish infantry, with prompt determination, profited by the enemy's confusion. To fill up the gaps which death had made in the front line, they formed both lines into one, and with it made the final and decisive charge. A third time they crossed the trenches, and a third time they ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... to act on the offensive, and, still hoping that by a spirit of conciliation he might win back the affections of his people, he was extremely reluctant to take any measures by which he should be arrayed in hostility against them. Maria, on the contrary, knew that decisive action alone could be of any avail. One night, about ten o'clock, the king and queen were sitting in their private apartment of the Tuileries, endeavoring to beguile the melancholy hours by a game of cards. The sister of the king, Madame Elizabeth, with ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... escape from the toils and cares of empire. But hardly had the works been recommenced on this diminished basis when the abdication of the emperor and his exile to Elba came to put a stop to them anew, and this time a decisive one; for, though a few workmen were employed in levelling the grounds and building the walls during the Hundred Days, there was neither spirit nor conviction in the work: the illusions of other days had fled, and were not to be revived. It was impossible for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... the advice of his subordinate generals who, hearing the terrible cannonading at Waterloo, besought him to go to the aid of the army there. Napoleon believing that he was either holding back Blucher's forces or was hotly pursuing them, did not recall him to the main army, and the decisive battle was lost. Grouchy was summoned before a council of war, but the court declared itself incompetent to decide his case, and ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... the hearts of the foes fruitlessly nourish'd by hope. For on a sudden Ares burst in, with fury decisive, ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... of an Army. There was no want of generosity in his nature: The Wretched never failed to find in him a compassionate Auditor: His abilities were quick and shining, and his judgment, vast, solid, and decisive. With such qualifications He would have been an ornament to his Country: That He possessed them, He had given proofs in his earliest infancy, and his Parents had beheld his dawning virtues with the fondest delight and admiration. Unfortunately, while yet a Child He was deprived of those Parents. ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... for a second, that she was hesitating and that I was about to receive the solemn confession of a childish fault. But she at once replied, in a decisive ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... represented him in miniature. However, his diction generally just, his acting, some grace, and, above all, the fatigue and ennui which TALMA impressed on many of the spectators, procured this rival a decisive success. As is customary in such cases, the newspapers were divided in opinion. The majority declared for LAFOND, and none of the opposite side spoke unfavourably of him. It was not so with TALMA. Some judged him harshly, calling him a detestable actor, while others bestowed ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... but she most certainly does. Her responsibility is great: she will either sway a circle or a household. Her influence will as surely affect her associates as did the influence of those celebrated French women whose salons were the places where battles were fought and decisive moments gained. Society is in great need of women: it always will be. Now this period of young womanhood is precisely the time for cultivating those principles which will later be most helpful ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... observation is the habit of clear and decisive gazing. Not by a first casual glance, but by a steady deliberate aim of the eye are the rare and characteristic things discovered. You must look intently and hold your eye firmly to the spot, to see more than do the rank and file of mankind. The sharp-shooter picks out his man and ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... earth's orbit place. Had it only resembled the other two in these remarkable characteristics, the coincidence would have been remarkable. But of course the real evidence by which the association between the comets was shown was of a more decisive kind. It was not in general character only, but in details, that the path of the comet of 1880 resembled those on which the other two comets had traveled. Its path had almost exactly the same slant to the earth's orbit plane as theirs, crossed that plane ascendingly and descendingly at almost ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... Hays, who was in Jackson county in July and August, 1862, recruiting a regiment for the Confederate army, decided that it was the time to strike a decisive blow for the dislodging of Buell. In reconnoitering the vicinity he took with him Dick Yager, Boone Muir and myself, all of whom had seen ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... the right of women to vote at school meetings, delegated by the last session of the legislature, greatly added. The new condition of affairs had been fully canvassed and the women had determined on making the best of their first opportunity and winning a decisive victory if possible. The night of the meeting proved inauspicious, but notwithstanding the severe storm of snow and sleet that was falling the newly constituted citizens were out in force. At the hour of opening the meeting the City Hall was packed to suffocation, 500 ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... in 1679. The next year he took the decisive step. He entered upon the fulfillment of that great plan, which had been in his mind since his student days at Oxford, and with which he was occupied all the rest of his life. He began to undertake the planting of a ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... and different scene in August, 1821—a scene worthy of a poet or painter—the Great Treaty, in which the Indian chiefs gave up most of their empire east of the Mississippi. There came to this decisive convocation the plumes of the Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottawattamies. General Cass was there, and the old Indian agents. The chiefs brought with them their great warriors, their wives and children. There the prairie Indians made their last ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... be owned, however, that the proof on which the President Bouhier builds his opinion, would be decisive, if there were no error in the text of a[15] letter written by Grotius to his brother, April 14, 1640, in which he says, "I have completed my fifty-eighth year:" but the other passages of Grotius just cited demonstrate that the editors ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... A decisive conversation was this day to be held with the duchess and her husband, Prince Ulrich of Brunswick, and therefore, an unheard-of case, had even Count Ostermann resolved to leave his dusty room for some hours and repair to the palace of the ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... Chile was under Inca rule while Araucanian Indians inhabited central and southern Chile; the latter were not completely subjugated until the early 1880s. Although Chile declared its independence in 1810, decisive victory over the Spanish was not achieved until 1818. In the War of the Pacific (1879-84), Chile defeated Peru and Bolivia and won its present northern lands. A three-year-old Marxist government of Salvador ALLENDE was overthrown ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... just when the preparations for a decisive engagement were being made on both sides, the Swiss Diet, learning that the sons of Helvetia were on the paint of cutting one another's throats, sent orders to all the Swiss serving in either army to break their engagements and return to the fatherland. But during the two months ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Becomes King Seizure of a part of Liege Seizure of Silesia Maria Theresa Visit of Voltaire Friendship between Voltaire and Frederic Coalition against Frederic Seven Years' War Carlyle's History of Frederic Empress Elizabeth of Russia Decisive battles of Rossbach, Luthen, and Zorndorf Heroism and fortitude of Frederic Results of the Seven Years' War Partition of Poland Development of the resources of Prussia Public improvements General services of Frederic to his country His character His ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... in tattered uniforms, with grimy hands and faces, and boots knee-deep in stains of mud, stood about or sat in the empty carts, talking, gesticulating, giving sundry, confused and contradictory accounts of the great battle—describing Napoleon's decisive victory—Wellington's rout—the prolonged absence of Bluecher and the Prussians, cause of ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... was Peace, foreign Wars in abundance, great Civil Wars, not a few Contentions for Power amongst all Degrees of Men, vast Conquests, great Extent or Empire, till at last, in the famous Plains of Pharsalia, was fought a decisive Battel for the Empire, between two ambitious Men, namely, Caesar and Pompey; the latter fled, and was treacherously slain on the Egyptian Shore, whilst the former remain'd Master of the Field, and almost of ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... down to the late supper her eyes were shining with happiness, and Maggie thought the decisive hour had come; but in answer to a question about the drive, Amy said, "I couldn't have believed that so much enjoyment was to be had in one afternoon. Webb is a brother worth having, and I'm sorry I'm going to ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... a vague sense of duality has existed all over the world, and in certain cases, as it seems, there were vague attempts at organization, it is only in Zoroastrianism that the decisive step has been taken. We have to recognize in this system a distinct movement towards a unitary conception of the world; but the sense of difference in human experiences was so great in the mind ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... decisive results for nine years. Then an event occurred which seemed likely to be fatal to the cause of the Greeks, and that was a quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon. It is at this point that the great poem of Homer, the Iliad, begins. The Greeks, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... better service than I otherwise could. If I take no rest, all I say or do must suffer. You count on the execution for tomorrow; I do not know if you are right; but if so, to-morrow will be your great and decisive day, and we shall both need all the strength we have. We have already been working for thirteen or fourteen hours for the good of your salvation; I am not a strong man, and I think you should realise, madame, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... (q.v.), and the consequent execution of Major Andre. Minor battles and skirmishes occurred until in August 1781 Washington conceived the project of a combined American-French attack on Cornwallis at Yorktown, Va., the success of which was decisive of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... were very desirous of coming here, but they stood doubting and deliberating about it, neither were they quite certain whether there was such a place as Elysium or not; perhaps they were afraid of Rhadamanthus's judgment {124b} on them, as decisive judgments are what they would never allow. Many of them, it is reported, followed those who were coming to the island, but being too lazy to proceed, turned back when ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... prudence are excellent qualities in every great emergency, they become the allies of tyranny whenever they restrain prompt, bold and decisive action against it. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... on both sides, and every man spoke his mind—for once, without fear or favor. At last Geoffrey Mason made the decisive speech: ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... and their appearance indicates that thus far the labors of the husbandman have not been in vain. The peacefulness of the fields and flocks presents a striking contrast to the warlike preparations which are now being made for what must be the most decisive and bloody contest of the war. The rebellion seems to have risked its very existence in the coming conflict, which cannot be many days hence. Determination and desperation seem foremost in the movement. On our side a solemn decision seems to be actuating ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... by the Abbe Pernot weighed heavily upon her mind. She foresaw that Claudet would shortly be at La Thuiliere in order to hear the result of the cure's visit; but she did not feel sufficiently mistress of herself to have a decisive interview with him at such short notice, and resolved to gain at least one day by absenting herself from the farm. It seemed to her necessary that she should have that length of time to arrange her ideas, and evolve some way of separating Claudet and herself without his suspecting the real ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... never have given Mark Wilson a second thought had he not taken her to drive on that afternoon in early May. The drive, too, would have quickly fled from her somewhat fickle memory had it not been for the kiss. The kiss was, indeed, a decisive factor in the situation, and had shed a rosy, if somewhat fictitious light of romance over the past three weeks. Perhaps even the kiss, had it never been repeated, might have lapsed into its true perspective, in due course of time, had it not been for the sudden appearance ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... not now the slightest uncertainty about the re-election of Mr. Lincoln. The only question is, by what popular and what electoral majority. God grant that both may be so decisive as to turn every hope of ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... "'Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,' and before that, 'Jungle Tales.' I could tell a good few myself; animals and birds does be very friendly and confidential with me; but it's not books I brought you here to talk about, but ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... poets a pill; but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit.' Burbage adds: 'He is a shrewd fellow indeed.' This perplexing passage has been held to mean that Shakespeare took a decisive part against Jonson in the controversy with Dekker and Dekker's actor friends. But such a conclusion is nowhere corroborated, and seems to be confuted by the eulogies of Virgil in the 'Poetaster' and by the general handling of the theme in 'Hamlet.' The words quoted from 'The ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... as dryly as I can. Perhaps that will be considered an acceptable course of proceeding. I have already said, sir, that I have had my suspicions of Miss Spenlow, in reference to David Copperfield, for some time. I have frequently endeavoured to find decisive corroboration of those suspicions, but without effect. I have therefore forborne to mention them to Miss Spenlow's father'; looking severely at him—'knowing how little disposition there usually ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... against Canute, and the respite under Edward the Confessor had been frittered away. Angles and Saxons invited foreign conquest by a civil war; and when Harold beat back Tostig and his Norwegian ally, the sullen north left him alone to do the same by William. William's was the third and decisive Danish conquest of a house divided against itself; for his Normans were Northmen with a French polish, and they conquered a country in which the soundest elements were already Danish. The stoutest resistance, not only in the military but in the constitutional and social sense, ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... shamefaced: "Well, if you like, I will say hardly ever," he said. "There was one that might, perhaps, have taken pity upon me—but fortunately an old lover of hers, who was much more enterprising, turned up before anything decisive had been said." ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... appeared there in some inexplicable fashion. But to find them out may well require a double shift of men working day and night for a month before the case is called, and what may appear to be the most trivial fact thus discovered may in the end prove the decisive argument for ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... lately has been the discussion of controverted points of history and science, and wonderful is the forensic and argumentative ability which these debates have developed. They are getting to be positively interesting. The only drawback to them is, that in the absence of any decisive authority they never come to any satisfactory conclusion. We have now been discussing for sixteen days the uses of a whale's blow-holes; and I firmly believe that if our voyage were prolonged, like the Flying Dutchman's, to all eternity, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... grossly gulled twice or thrice over, and as often enslaved, in one century, and under the same pretence of reformation. At last the two battles of Philippi gave the decisive stroke against liberty, and not long after the commonwealth was turned into a monarchy by the conduct and good fortune of Augustus. It is true that the despotic power could not have fallen into better hands than those of the first and second Caesar. Your lordship well ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... if, after all, you tell me that you are not going. But my occupations, my pleasures are not everything; I must think of you also. A day may come when, seeing me irrevocably sundered from you, you will be entitled to reproach me with not having warned you at the decisive hour in which I felt that I was going to pass judgment on you, one of those stern judgments which love cannot long resist. You see, your Nuit de Cleopatre (what a title!) has no bearing on the ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... in the utmost disturbance; the occurrences of the evening with respect to young Delvile she looked upon as decisive: if his absence had chagrined her, his presence had still more shocked her, since, while she was left to conjecture, though she had fears she had hopes, and though all she saw was gloomy, all she expected ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... "Certainly most decisive. But, come, let us go quickly," he replied, rising. "I fear that my retorts and crucibles, if they listen to you much longer, will fall into a syncope as prolonged as that of M. Larinski. Was ever such a debate heard of in a ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... latter was defending the right of man to commit suicide; which Turl denied; not on the false and untenable ground of superstition, but from the only true argument, the immoral tendency of the act. He was delicate though decisive in his opposition; and only requested Mr. Wilmot to consider, whether to effect the good of the whole be not the true purpose of virtue? Ought not the good of the whole therefore to be its only rule and guide? If so, can the man, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... who had received intelligence of the decisive victory and the death of her husband, and who expected, instead of such conduct, to see the victor besieging her capital, felt some alleviation of her sorrow in the prospect of saving her people from destruction, by consenting to an union between Eusuff ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... last complied, and was conducted to the scene like a victim to the altar, or rather like a reluctant bear, when he is led to the stake amidst the shouts and cries of butchers and their dogs. After all, this victory was not quite so decisive as the conquerors imagined; for the patient being set, and the performer prepared with a pair of pincers, a small difficulty occurred: she could not for some time discern one black hair on the whole superficies ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... called out Judge Reeves sharply and distinctly; and it was evident that now he would be as decisive as ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... being no chiefs hefore the whites came. The chiefs have little power. The chief's band is almost always a kin totem which helps to sustain him. The chiefs have no votes in council; there the majority rules and the voice of the chief is not decisive till then. ...
— Siouan Sociology • James Owen Dorsey
... and there was a general stir in the box. Suddenly Newland Archer felt himself impelled to decisive action. The desire to be the first man to enter Mrs. Mingott's box, to proclaim to the waiting world his engagement to May Welland, and to see her through whatever difficulties her cousin's anomalous situation ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... called, that is, the sacred standard of the Christian cross with the Greek monogram of Christ,[B] which he had also put upon the shields of the soldiers. To this cross-standard, which now took the place of the Roman eagles, he attributed the decisive victory over ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... for the several generations of each line which I had opportunity to examine are unexpectedly decisive so far as the question ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... Through all Achaia bade her thunders roar: He, when imperial Xerxes from afar Advanced with Persia's sumless hosts to war, Till Macedonia shrunk beneath his spear, And Greece all shudder'd as the chief drew near; He, at Thermopylae's decisive plain, Their force opposed with Sparta's glorious train; Tall Oeta saw the tyrant's conquer'd bands 220 In gasping millions bleed on hostile lands: Thus vanquish'd, haughty Asia heard thy name, And Thebes and Athens sicken'd at thy fame: Thy state, supported by Lycurgus' laws, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... face was a mass of blood, and he stood at the very spot where the herd had passed into the forest, as though he was determined to guard the entrance. I was now about twenty-five yards from him, when, gathering himself together for a decisive charge, he ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... in jail, things had not quieted down in the Mormon counties. The decisive action of the state authorities had given the local Missourians to understand that the law of the land was on their side, and when the militia withdrew they took advantage of their opportunity. Mormon property was not respected, and what was left to those people in the way of horses, ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... him that Fate was idly tossing the dice to and fro, before allowing herself to make the final, decisive cast. From the farther side of the hill, he heard a sudden terrified snort from one of the Boer ponies, then the thud of feet, as they charged up the approaches of the long slope. From behind him, there arose a groan, as one of the ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... that the gold of the seal ring upon it looked pale, even the way in which he wagged, now and then, his foot in its shapely tan shoe,—were all as delightful as his limpid smile up at her mother, as his voice, deep, decisive, ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... that the sovereigns were about to commence that campaign which ended in the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. Aware that many months must pass before they would give their minds to the subject if he allowed the present moment to slip by, he pressed for a decisive reply to his proposals with an earnestness that would admit of ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... as Sir ROGER was acquainted with it, finding that his Servant's Indiscretion proceeded wholly from Affection and Good-will, he only told him that he had made him too high a Compliment; and when the Fellow seemed to think that could hardly be, added with a more decisive Look, That it was too great an Honour for any Man under a Duke; but told him at the same time, that it might be altered with a very few Touches, and that he himself would be at the Charge of it. Accordingly they got a Painter ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... make-up of the United States as a nation. The primary assumption of the author is that the people of this country did not compose a nation until after the close of the Civil War in 1865. Of scarcely less importance is the fact that the decisive motive behind the different groups in Congress at every great crisis of the period under discussion was sectional advantage or even sectional aggrandizement. If Webster ceased to be a particularist after 1824 and became a nationalist ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... Report, and the fraternities were accordingly given notice to "clean house." The result was the establishment of the Inter-Fraternity Conference and the adoption of a constitution just in time to avoid decisive action by the University authorities, but not without great opposition from the Palladium group. The most striking provisions of this constitution are: the abolition of premature pledging through a provision that all pledging must be done in Ann Arbor ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... in a position to engage the Franks in a decisive conflict. At the battle of Tiberias, Guy, the Latin king, was defeated and taken prisoner. The Knights-Templars and Hospitalers, of whose doings at Jerusalem Benjamin gives us particulars, either shared the fate of the king or were slain ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... waver," said Riego, in an accent of despair, as his troop faltered beneath the charge of the French: and so saying, he spurred his steed on to the foremost line. The contest was longer, but not less decisive, than the one just concluded. The Spaniards, thrown into confusion by the first shock, never recovered themselves. Falkland, who, in his anxiety to rally and inspirit the soldiers, had advanced with two other officers ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... but nothing decisive was done. The ever silent gaze of Benito pierced the eyes of Torres like a sword blade thrust to his very heart. Visibly the scoundrel began to quail. He recoiled little by little, pressed back by his implacable foe, who ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... stratagem. 5. The submarine cable unites the continent of America and the Old World. 6. The Gauls joined the army of Hannibal. 7. Columbus crossed the Atlantic with ninety men, and landed at San Salvador. 8. Vulcan made arms for Achilles. 9. Cromwell gained at Naseby a most decisive victory over the Royalists. 10. Columbus was a native of Genoa. 11. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. 12. The morning hour has gold in its mouth. 13. The mill of the gods grinds late, but grinds to powder. 14. A young farmer recently ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... begot in Naomi the thought that Boaz harbored the intention of marrying Ruth. She sought to coax the secret, if such there was, from Ruth. (56) When she found that nothing could be elicited from her daughter-in-law, she made Ruth her partner in a plan to force Boaz into a decisive step. Ruth adhered to Naomi's directions in every particular, except that she did not wash and anoint herself and put on fine raiment, until after she had reached her destination. She feared to attract the attention of the lustful, if she walked along the road decked ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... not ceased to answer that the matter of to-morrow, like the matter of to-day, can generate none but material effects, and that a difficulty is not solved by putting off its solution to some indefinite date in our scientific evolution: and it certainly seems that the counter-stroke is decisive, if we admit the principle of heterogeneity ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... and testifies to the birth of Nabulione on January seventh, 1768, and to his baptism on January eighth; the latter is the copy, not the original, of a government contract which declares the birth, on January seventh, of Joseph Nabulion. Neither is decisive, but the addition of Joseph, with the use of the two French forms for the name in the second, with the clear intent of emphasizing his quality as a Frenchman, destroys much of its value, and leaves the weight of authority with the former. The reasonableness of the suspicion ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... the old castle, and gazing on Glastonbury's tower, and wondering when she should see him, and talking to her Ferdinand about every member of his family, that Captain Armine, unable to withstand the irresistible current, postponed from day to day his decisive visit to Bath, and, confident in the future, would not permit his soul to be the least daunted by any possible conjuncture of ill fortune. A week, a whole happy week glided away, and spent almost entirely at Armine. Their presence there was scarcely noticed by the single ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... parliament and the king's printer, and became acquainted with his son-in-law, Mr. Spotswood. This respected gentleman, largely connected, and concerned in the agencies of Scotland, took a benevolent and decisive part in consulting, and adopting measures to restore the fund, at Edinburgh, in the care of the Society, to its primitive channel. Communications were opened—the bills were paid; and the way prepared for future negotiations, till the Society were ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... throb in her ears as she counted the sharp decisive "ayes" and "nos," although Burleigh, whom she had seen during the recess, had told her there was no doubt of the issue. As the clerk entered the M's, she came to herself with a shock, and simultaneously was possessed by a desire to get out of the gallery before Senator North's time came to say "aye." ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... as it may appear to a man of understanding, prepossesses on the first appearance, which is frequently decisive; and indeed we may form some opinion of a man's sense and character from his dress. Any exceeding of the fashion, or any affectation in dress whatever, argues a weakness of understanding, and nine times out of ten it will ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... the great battle between Timoujin and the sovereign then occupying the Mongol throne was fought a short distance from Urga. The victory was decisive for the former, who thus became Genghis Khan and commenced that career of conquest which ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... fifty boys were ranging the country in a compact mass, there was wonderfully little damage done to property. Wyatt's genius did not stop short at organising the march. In addition, he arranged a system of officers which effectually controlled the animal spirits of the rank and file. The prompt and decisive way in which rioters were dealt with during the earlier stages of the business proved a wholesome lesson to others who would have wished to have gone and done likewise. A spirit of martial law reigned over the Great Picnic. And towards ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... must be done on the instant, and happily Verus had the gift of thinking and acting promptly. In a few decisive words he begged his companion, Lucius Albinus, to hurry back to his old soldiers and bring them to the rescue; then he desired his slaves to force a way for him with their powerful arms up to the door of the house. This feat was accomplished in no time, but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... been an excuse invented by Madame Leon to enable her to absent herself whenever occasion required. "I regret," continued the letter, "that you did not find me at home, for I have instructions of the greatest importance to give you. We are approaching the decisive moment. I have formed a plan which will completely, and forever, efface all remembrance of that cursed P. F., in case any one condescended to think of him after the disgrace we fastened upon him the ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... putting three of his steamers on the lake, so that no provisions could get into the city except through the Grand Canal. On the land side fighting was going on perpetually, and by the help of a body of good Chinese troops Gordon gained a decisive victory in the open field. We can scarcely, however, realise all the difficulties he had to contend with in his army itself. General Ching not only hated him, and always tried to upset his plans, but was quite reckless, and if left to himself invariably ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... Decisive as the victory was, it was the general opinion in the fleet that more ought to have been done; that the five disabled ships should have been taken, and a hot chase instituted after the flying enemy. Indeed, the only explanation of this inactivity was that the admiral, who was now an old man, was ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... of this battle, which appeared a decisive one, Lothair made zealous efforts to continue the struggle; he scoured the countries wherein he hoped to find partisans; to the Saxons he promised the unrestricted reestablishment of their pagan worship, and several of the Saxon tribes responded ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... in classifying the facts, therefore, progressively change as the growth of culture proceeds; for the end for which the facts of life are apprehended changes, and the point of view consequently changes also. So that what are recognised as the salient and decisive features of a class of activities or of a social class at one stage of culture will not retain the same relative importance for the purposes of classification at ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... the distant lines, and Jack took it as a good omen that Sherman grew jocose and appeared to be making merry with Tyler, whose face looked troubled, now that the decisive moment seemed at hand. But the day passed, and there was no advance. It was not until late in the evening that the cause became known. The army had been waiting for supplies, ammunition, and what not, that should have been on the field the day ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... does not watch the conducting-stick has no conductor. Often, after a pedal-point for instance, the conductor is obliged to refrain from marking the decisive gesture which is to determine the coming in of the orchestra until he sees the eyes of all the performers fixed upon him. It is the duty of the conductor, during rehearsal, to accustom them to look towards him simultaneously at the ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... vanished buffalo, the resurrection of their famous dead, a savage millennium the thought of which was more than enough to array the warriors for battle. "It's coming; it's bound to come!" said the captain, in his decisive way, "and if old Bull isn't choked off speedily we'll have work for a dozen regiments ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... number that would have any appreciable effect upon the outcome of the war, would take months. When completed we would have added only to the numerical superiority of the Allies on the Western Front. The quality of a novel and decisive contribution to the war ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... former assemblies, however similar in bad meaning and in malice. This secret information, whether it pointed to words uttered, to acts done, or to intentions signified, must have been sudden, and must have been decisive; an impression which we draw from the hurried summoning of cabinet councils in England on or about the 4th of October, from the departures for Ireland, apparently consequent upon these councils—of the Lord Lieutenant, of the Chancellor, and other great officers, all instant and all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... guard of ten, and the formal notice that the truce was thus promptly ended, had caught the Law and Order party unprepared. With five hours' notice—or indeed by next day, even were no notice given—the jail would have been impregnably defended. The sudden move of the committee won; as prompt, decisive ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... memories from his soul, as a lion shakes the dews from his mane. His intellect, that seemed to have burned dim and through smoke in scenes unfamiliar to its exercise, rose at once equal to the occasion. His words reassured the most despondent. His orders were prompt and decisive. While, to and fro, went forth his bodes and his riders, he himself leaped on his horse, and rode fast ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... an utter want of preparation in the decisive acts of Massinger's characters, as in Camiola and Aurelia in the Maid of Honour. Why? Because the 'dramatis personae' were all planned each by itself. Whereas in Shakspeare, the play is 'syngenesia;' each character has, indeed, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... stampedes all winter, and would go year in, year out, until they died. The prizes were not for such as they. As for himself—ah, it was a great day for him! He was going at last to claim that gold-mine he had come so far to find. This was the decisive moment of his life. At the thought he straightened up, and passed Maudie. She gave him a single sidelong look, unfriendly, even fierce. That was because he could run like sixty, and keep it up. "When I'm a millionaire I shall always remember that I'm rich because I won the race." A ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... conviction that Briere's text was the genuine text of the original, and this was held to settle the question. Yet Goethe's voucher for its correspondence with the copy handed to him by Schiller was not really decisive evidence. He admits that he executed the translation very rapidly, and had no time to compare it closely with the French. An identification nearly twenty years afterwards of verbal resemblances and minute references, in a work that had been only a short time in his hands, cannot be counted testimony ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... run through the whole, we return to the point whence we set out. All natural groups of animals are, therefore, in the language of Mr. Macleay, CIRCULAR; and the possibility of throwing any supposed group into a circular arrangement is held as a decisive test of its being a real or natural one. It is of course to be understood that each circle is composed of a set of inferior circles: for example, a set of TRIBE circles composes an ORDER; a set of ORDER circles, ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers |
