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Past   /pæst/   Listen
Past

adjective
1.
Earlier than the present time; no longer current.  "His youth is past" , "This past Thursday" , "The past year"
2.
Of a person who has held and relinquished a position or office.  Synonyms: preceding, retiring.



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"Past" Quotes from Famous Books



... battle nor to be seen but blood flowing and necks bending beneath the blows; nor did the swords cease to play on men's necks nor the strife to rage more and more, till the most part of the night was past and the two hosts were weary of battle. So they called a truce and each army returned to its tents, whilst all the infidels repaired to King Afridoun and kissed the earth before him, and the priests and monks ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous

... slowly, he followed the sky-line, pausing especially when his eyes rested landward on the brown Contra Costa hills, and seaward, past Alcatraz, on the Golden Glate. The wistfulness in his eyes was overwhelming and went ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... Past Kew and Hammersmith, on the cool smooth water; across Putney reach; through Battersea bridge; and the City grew around them, and the shadows of great mill-factories slept ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... fighting under vastly more advantageous conditions than were the invaders. Only on the assumption that the Turks were hopelessly demoralized and disorganized, and that as fighting men they would belie all their past history, was it possible to visualize success for the British operations ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... and in making them we have run out of time. I'm afraid that is the only fact that is relevant now. The bombs fall at twelve, and even then they may drop too late. A ship is already on its way from Nyjord with my replacement. I exceeded my authority by running a day past the maximum the technicians gave me. I realize now I was gambling the life of my own world in the vain hope I could save Dis. They can't be saved. They're dead. I won't hear any ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison

... of the United States, have, in the past few months, carefully weighed these promises against one another—weighing not only the promises themselves, but the integrity and the ability of the men ...
— Hail to the Chief • Gordon Randall Garrett

... "Times past," said he, as they neared Maitre Ile, "mon onc' 'Lias he knows these Ecrehoses better as all the peoples of the world—respe d'la compagnie. Mon onc' 'Lias he was a fine man. Once when there is a fight between de Henglish and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... ancient halls of Jervieswoode are desolate and gray, And its ancient oaks and lime trees are sinking in decay; These are of things that perish, and their place soon knows them not, But a glory from the past illumes this consecrated spot. To him who braves the martyr's death is deathless honour given, For the faith that breeds heroic deeds is dear to earth and heaven; And through all succeeding ages, amongst ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... the Okanogan Highlands with the valleys of the Pend Oreille and Colville, while the Bitter Root mountains are approached on the east. The roads westward and southward lead past well cultivated gardens, green meadows and groves, until finally is spread before one a sea of grain—continuous wheat fields—the Big Bend to the west and ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles

... men who, for the past week, had been sunk in utter boredom, naturally reacted to the other extreme of hilarity. Loud laughter filled the cabin. The potentialities for trouble were not, however, lessened. On the contrary, a look or a word was enough at any moment to bring ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... of their lands within the limits of this state. After this period they resided principally on the reserve made by them at and around Wapakanotta, on the Auglaize river. Here the greater part of them remained, until within a few years past, when, yielding to the pressing appeals of the government, they sold their reserved lands to the United States, and removed west of ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... is politically for the benefit of each; that they are one flesh is the unalterable fact which perfects the prosperity of both. The reality of their union, which that marble attests, is as fixed as the immoveable past; and I felt it enough that each people ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... At half past four the Sirdar, with his staff, entered the town; accompanied by Maxwell's Egyptian brigade. Only a few shots were fired. The Dervish courage was broken. It was to the followers of the Prophet, and not to the infidels, that the plains of Kerreri had proved fatal. It was their ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty

... of his mother's image from the altar upon which he had set it, there was the absolute destruction of his own past childhood as it had always appeared to him. In the fearful illumination of her true nature, in the broad glare of evil, the little good there might have been had faded to nothing. It was not possible that she who had married her husband's murderer ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... grimy as usual, so that every one could see that he had just left his anvil. He looked so unfriendly, that those who met him did not care to accost him. It was about the time in the forenoon when the Waltheim children were let out of school. He walked past the schoolhouse, which stood in an open square in the middle of the village, as if some errand took him further, but he stopped in a side street or behind a neighboring house and waited, with his bare arms folded ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... so quickly that it made the mind and eye hasten to follow, all the tricks that Whetstone ever had tried in his past triumphs over men; and through all of them, sharp, shrewd, unexpected, startling as some of them were, that little brown hat rode untroubled on top. Old Whetstone was as wet at the end of ten minutes as if he had swum a ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... eyes were gladdened by the sight of twinkling watch-fires on the slopes of some hills just ahead, and as the first signs of dawn began to become manifest, we sank wearily down to enjoy a few minutes' repose. But it was broad daylight when we woke, and alas! for all the hopes of the past eight days, the hills ahead were only occupied by our cavalry. Theirs had been the watch-fires of the dark hours of the night. The game was up, and we were told the first great De Wet hunt was over. Some one had ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring

... was really a deeper mystery than Gabriel Hamburg. He was known to be a recent arrival on English soil, yet he spoke English fluently. He studied at Jews' College by day and was preparing for the examinations at the London University. None of the other students knew where he lived nor a bit of his past history. There was a vague idea afloat that he was an only child whose parents had been hounded to penury and death by Russian persecution, but who launched it nobody knew. His eyes were sad and earnest, a curl of raven hair fell forwards on his high brow; his clothing ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... uttered these words his head sunk upon his breast, and he seemed to have no power nor wish to question Jorian more. I doubt even if he knew where he was. He was lost in the past. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key." ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... past caring about risks. She had reached a stage of hunger when no risks can overshadow the risk of starvation, and she had the guinea-fowl by the throat, and was sucking its blood before the other had time to realize what she was at. Then, with fine discrimination, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... be of no avail. Your uncle is past the help of any physician. Go, and I will stay here till ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... that his way is not the best way, even though it isn't really wrong ethically, he will probably concede the point, provided,—and don't overlook this,—you "go about it in the right way, and in the right spirit." It isn't likely you will be given a patient hearing, if in the past you have been in the habit of nagging and browbeating him. Don't look upon tactful ways of gaining your point as evidence of weakness. It is distinctly an evidence of strength of character, and, each time you win a point in a friendly debate with your husband, you will have gained much. He ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... the past been so lacking in means of communication as Africa, and it was only in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... it, as he ought to have been. Some poets think that if they get drunk and stay drunk they will resemble Edgar A. Poe and George D. Prentice. There are lawyers who play poker year after year and get regularly skinned because they have heard that some of the able lawyers of the past century used to come home at night with poker-chips in ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... ride—desperately, as his condition told—to claim his own. Through the leagues of desert he had come, through the unfriendly night, with what dim hope in his breast no man might know. Now, sparing the horse that had borne him to his triumph, he marched past her, his head up, like one who had conquered, even though he limped in ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... thunder rolls. Of one already I descried the face, Shoulders, and breast, and of the belly huge Great part, and both arms down along his ribs. All-teeming nature, when her plastic hand Left framing of these monsters, did display Past doubt her wisdom, taking from mad War Such slaves to do his bidding; and if she Repent her not of th' elephant and whale, Who ponders well confesses her therein Wiser and more discreet; for when brute force And evil will are back'd with subtlety, Resistance none avails. His visage seem'd ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... up, and then stood quite still for a moment without speaking. A great fear had fallen upon him. Out of the shadows of the past, he seemed to see again that deathbed scene, and the tragedy which had brought down the curtain upon two lives. Almost he could fancy himself again upon his yacht, with the salt sea spray beating against his face, and the ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... IN times past there lived a king and queen, who said to each other every day of their lives, "Would that we had a child!" and yet they had none. But it happened once that when the queen was bathing, there came a frog out of the water, and he squatted on the ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

... the canal, which was shaded on each side by trees, the Major advanced to reconnoitre, and on his return, the order was given, "Guns to the front!" The Horse Artillery galloped past us, and we then heard that the enemy were in sight on the ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... articles, and first establishes what is to be considered as still having authority in that tempestuous past; what part of it is to remain and to be confirmed and what is to be utterly swept away. Thus the emperor confirms all dispositions made by Amalasuntha, Athalaric, and Theodahad, as well as all his own acts—and these would include ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... longed-for couriers! But they were no Austrian couriers; the tri-colored sash was wrapped around their waists, they did not greet the people with German words and with fraternal German salutations. They galloped past them and shouted "VICTOIRE! ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... under the Immediate management of the swarthy-skinned red-men, whose faces declare them to be a remnant of the once great Ute tribe—now utilized to a better occupation than in the dark and bloody days of the past. ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler

... gods. If acts of this nature are to be called human sacrifices, then such sacrifices belonged to the essence of the Latin faith; but we are bound to add that, far back as our view reaches into the past, this immolation, so far as life was concerned, was limited to the guilty who had been convicted before a civil tribunal, or to the innocent who voluntarily chose to die. Human sacrifices of a different description run counter to the fundamental idea of a sacrificial ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... letter had a serious aim, for in 1784 family expenses were much augmented and adequate lighting by means of candles was very costly in those days. However, conditions have changed enormously in the past hundred and thirty-five years. A great proportion of the population lives in the darker cities. The wheels of progress must be kept going continuously in order to curb the cost of living, which is constantly mounting ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... recorded history. The Normans, offspring of an ancestry of conquerors,—the Bretons, that stubborn, hardy, unchanging race, who, among Druid monuments changeless as themselves, still cling with Celtic obstinacy to the thoughts and habits of the past,—the Basques, that primeval people, older than history,—all frequented from a very early date the cod-banks of Newfoundland. There is some reason to believe that this fishery existed before the voyage of Cabot, in ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... returned, as if by enchantment, to greet this new bloom of my life; it seemed to me as if I had been created a second time, since I was aided by intelligence and understood its mysteries while tasting of its delights. My past, in the presence of this regeneration, was nothing more than a shadow at the bottom of an abyss. I turned toward the future with the faith of a Mussulman who kneels with his face ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... the different seas and suns changed us. The law that is over us decreed that we must become strangers one to the other; and for this we must reverence each other the more, and for this the memory of our past friendship becomes more sacred. Perhaps there is a vast invisible curve and orbit and our different goals and ways are parcel of it, infinitesimal segments. Let us uplift ourselves to this thought! But our life is too short and our sight too feeble for us to be friends except in the ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... respite was brief. On New Year's Eve, 1917, the 2/4th Oxfords quitted the wretched Suzanne huts and marched through Harbonnieres to Caix. No 'march past' was necessary or would have been possible, for so slippery was the road that the men had to trail along its untrodden sides as best they could. Old 61st Divisional sign-boards left standing nearly a year ago greeted the return to an area which was familiar to many. ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose

... Half-past ten! The programme has been carried out, and the reception is over. A last general tap! tap! tap! the little pipes are stowed away in their chased sheaths, tied up in the sashes, and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Lind," said the other; "but I have no more ambitions now. The time for that is past. Let them make what they can out of old Calabressa—a stick to beat a dog with; as long as I have my liberty and ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... Many of the superstitious practices in use to this day among the country people for discovering their future fortune seem to be remains of Druidism. Futurity is the great concern of mankind. Whilst the wise and learned look back upon experience and history, and reason from things past about events to come, it is natural for the rude and ignorant, who have the same desires without the same reasonable means of satisfaction, to inquire into the secrets of futurity, and to govern their conduct ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... now the limits of Phoenician colonisation towards the West. While their trade was carried, especially from Gades, into Luisitania and Gallaecia on the one hand, and into North-western Africa on the other, reaching onward past these districts to Gaul and Britain, to the Senegal and Gambia, possibly to the Baltic and the Fortunate Islands, the range of their settlements was more circumscribed. As, towards the north-east, though their trade embraced the regions of Colchis and Thrace, ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... move us, it springs rather from thought than from feeling. In spring the country is almost bare and leafless, the trees give no shade, the grass has hardly begun to grow, yet the heart is touched by the sight. In this new birth of nature, we feel the revival of our own life; the memories of past pleasures surround us; tears of delight, those companions of pleasure ever ready to accompany a pleasing sentiment, tremble on our eyelids. Animated, lively, and delightful though the vintage may be, we behold ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... required a great deal of courage to take up my pen and record a few recollections of South Africa. I felt that, were they ever to be written at all, it must be before the rapidly passing years diminish the interest in that land, which in the past has been the object of such engrossing attention; and that at the present time, when the impending Federation of South Africa has at length crowned the hopes of those patriots who have laboured patiently and hopefully to bring about this great result, it might be appropriate ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... past the midway line of the book, all at once, abruptly, in the thick of terrible happenings being told, an unexpected voice comes. Clearly it is the Lord Jesus Himself speaking. It is as though He were standing by all the time throughout all these pages, watching with a sleepless ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon

... not wonder at the subjects of my letters; they are the only ones which have been presented to my mind for some time past; and the waters must always be what are the fountains from which they flow. According to this, indeed, I should have intermixed, from beginning to end, warm expressions of friendship to you. But according to the ideas of our country, we do ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement. The sensation may be caused by the panoramic glide of the stars past earthly objects, which is perceptible in a few minutes of stillness, or by the better outlook upon space that a hill affords, or by the wind, or by the solitude; but whatever be its origin, the impression of riding along is vivid and abiding. The poetry of motion is a phrase much in use, ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... before him a great splendid house, with soldiers standing before the gates. This he knew must be the King's palace, and he determined to hop up to the front gate and wait there until the King came out. But as he was hopping past one of the back windows ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... the Athertons when Bessie entered the house, so she went alone to the evening service. As the service was at half-past six, an informal meal was served at a quarter past eight, to allow the servants to attend church. Bessie was rather surprised at this mark of thoughtfulness, but she found out afterward that Richard had induced his stepmother, with some difficulty, to give up the ceremonious late ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... captain was near to leaving him in that moment, but he pulled himself together with a great effort, and sat aft, sculling with the short oar in a mechanical and altogether absent way. The long talk with me about his past had exhausted him, I thought; and he did not seem disposed to speak again. It was then near mid-day, and the sun, being right above us, poured down an intolerable heat, so that the paint of the dinghy was hot to the hand, and we ourselves were consumed with an ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... promised her anything then. So, though I knew that to hold the presidency would tie me to a position that brought in no living income, and though for several years past I had already drawn alarmingly upon my small financial reserve, I promised her that I would hold the office as long as the majority of the women in the association wished me to do so. "But," I added, "if ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... in the Valley of Sorek. The word "gur" may either mean that the city was "near" Jerusalem, or that it had been an ally of Jerusalem. It is clear that if the forces of the lowlands were marching to assist Jerusalem by the highway, past Kirjath Jearim, the revolt of that town would delay the forces from Gezer, which would naturally take ...
— Egyptian Literature

... work: sometimes falling upon their guards; at other times creeping in past their sentries, scattering through the camp and, at a given signal, firing their tents with the brands from their fires; slaying those who first rush out, and then making ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty

... marriage to his master's son, the king replied that he was much honoured, and would gladly give his consent; but that no one could even see the princess till her fifteenth birthday, as the spell laid upon her in her cradle by a spiteful fairy, would not cease to work till that was past. The ambassador was greatly surprised and disappointed, but he knew too much about fairies to venture to disobey them, therefore he had to content himself with presenting the prince's portrait to the queen, ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... lot of spaniels afraid of the lash! But not one of them ever tried to convert me. Not one of them ever tried, by kindly argument, to convince me that I was wrong. Not one of them ever invited me to church—or prayed for me, so far as I could learn. Perhaps they thought I was past redemption. ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... indeed no worse than their lords, to take their fictions for currencies, and to swallow down paper pills by thirty-four millions sterling at a dose. Then they proudly lay in their claim to a future credit, on failure of all their past engagements, and at a time when (if in such a matter anything can be clear) it is clear that the surplus estates will never answer even the first of their mortgages,—I mean that of the four hundred millions (or sixteen millions sterling) of assignats. In all this procedure ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... he to me? My way leads me directly past him. Whether he sleeps or wakes, I will go straight on." So thought Manon's daughter. But she passed not by, but stood looking directly in the face of the flower-giver, in order to be certain who it was. Besides, he slept as if it were the first time in a month. And who was ...
— The Broken Cup - 1891 • Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke

... days before the defection of Scione all the ambitious schemes of Brasidas had been checkmated by the action of his own countrymen at home. For some time past negotiations had been in progress between Athens and Sparta; and since the battle of Delium, and the rapid successes of their great enemy in Thrace, the Athenians had been more disposed to come to terms. ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... wild sea-dreams of all kinds. In my impatience it seemed to me as if the time would never come for me to keep my appointment with Captain Marmaduke; but then, as ever, the hands of the clock went round their appointed circle, and at half-past eleven I was at my destination. The Noble Rose stood in the market square. It was a fine place enough, or seemed so to my eyes then, with its pillared portal and its great bow-windows at each side, ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... congregations of 250,000 people, and to our two hundred native clergy, as fruits of grace and proofs of blessing from above. But one of the greatest fruits of all missionary labour in India in the past and in the present is to be found in the mighty change already produced in the knowledge and convictions of the people at large. Everywhere the Hindoos are learning that an idol is nothing, and that bathing in the Ganges cannot cleanse away sin. ...
— Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society • Various

... contains an enumeration of the deeds of piety by which his reign had been signalised.[3] Extended on his couch in front of the great dagoba which he had erected, he thus addressed one of his military companions who had embraced the priesthood: "In times past, supported by my ten warriors, I engaged in battles; now, single-handed, I commence my last conflict, with death; and it is not permitted to me to overcome my antagonist." "Ruler of men," replied ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... the little nuisance, as she now approached the door of our cabin; and he brushed past me and started not aft but toward the bows. "An' there you are!" he shouted over his shoulder in cryptic speech, whether to me or to his Auntie Helen ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... belongs, I believe, to the fifteenth century; and indeed the whole legend of Dr. Faustus has the colour of that grotesque but somewhat gloomy time. It is very unfortunate that we so often know a thing that is past only by its tail end. We remember yesterday only by its sunsets. There are many instances. One is Napoleon. We always think of him as a fat old despot, ruling Europe with a ruthless military machine. But that, as Lord Rosebery would say, ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... these, the mind grows at once alert and calm. It dwells peacefully on the past and the future. The individual feels impelled by a kind of langour just to walk over the fallen leaves, to look in the gardens for unnoticed, forgotten apples, and to listen to the cries of the ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak

... Going on southward past what is now Parowan, they came to the headwaters of a branch of the Virgen, in Cedar Valley, and this they followed down to the main stream which they left flowing south-westerly. The place where ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... of the room with much fraternal bluster. Then he went forth, and at once had himself driven to Paul Montague's lodgings. Had Hetta not been foolish enough to remind him of his duty, he would not now have undertaken the task. He too, no doubt, remembered as he went that duels were things of the past, and that even fists and sticks are considered to be out of fashion. 'Montague,' he said, assuming all the dignity of demeanour that his late sorrows had left to him, 'I believe I am right in saying that you are engaged to marry that ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... setting out in a tumultuous crowd to the ends of the world. Sometimes they became motionless near the sledge, as though they did not wish to betray their secret to a human being. Then the tramp of countless feet, the march past of whole columns of the right wing, could be heard distinctly; they approached, and passed at a distance. The left wing followed; the snow creaked under their footsteps, they were already in a line with the sledge. The middle column, emboldened, ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... a new phase of the old difficulty arose. Nathan and Susan Hornby were driving past the Hunter house one Sunday afternoon. Elizabeth saw them and with a glad little shout ran to the road ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... also was lightened by those words of blessing and good omen. Mounting their horses, they took a street that led them past the great Roches des Doms, on the crest of which stood the mighty palace of the Popes, as yet unfinished, but still one of the vastest buildings they had ever seen. Here on the battlements and in front of ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... of my recollection," dowager lady Chia resumed smiling, "whenever in past years I've had any birthday celebrations for any one of us, no matter who it was, we have ever individually sent our respective presents; but this method is common and is also apt, I think, to look very much as if there were some ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... so," continued her ladyship, swallowing down with a gulp a certain sense of anger. "But that is done now, and is past cure. That Mr. Robarts will become a credit to his profession, I do not doubt, for his heart is in the right place and his sentiments are good; but I fear that at present he ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... which men are conscious, so will their religion also change. The gradual elevation and refinement of human needs, in the growth of civilisation, is the motive force of the development of religion. The deities themselves, their past history and their present character, the sacrifices offered to them, and the benefits aimed at in intercourse with them, all must grow up as man himself grows, from rudeness to refinement and from caprice to order. At its lowest, religion is perhaps an individual affair ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... [292] Keane, Man, Past and Present, discusses the important evidence obtained by Dr. Dubois from Java, and Dr. Noetling from Upper Burma, pp. 5-8. It is only fair to that brilliant scholar, Dr. Latham, to point out ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... it didn't," said Mrs. Bates. "But they's no use hauling ourselves over the coals to go into that. It's past. You went out to face life bravely enough and it throwed you a boomerang that cut a circle and brought you back where you started from. Our arrangements for the future are all made. Now it's up to us to live so that we get the most out of life for us ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... received a number as midshipmen upon his quarter-deck, among them several from the sons of neighbors and friends, and therefore, like the crew, Norfolk lads. It is told that to one, whose father he knew to be a strong Whig, of the party which in the past few years had sympathized with the general current of the French Revolution, he gave the following pithy counsels for his guidance in professional life: "First, you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... dangerously beneath London Bridge, hastening to Hampton Court. At noon Thomas Culpepper passed over London Bridge, because a great crowd pressed across it from the south going to see a burning at Smithfield; at noon, too, or five minutes later, the young Poins galloped furiously past the end of the bridge and did not cross over, but sped through Southwark towards Hampton Court. And at noon or thereabouts the King, dressed in green as a husbandman, sat on a log to await a gun-fire, in the forest that was ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... Board of Operatives were posted all through the mill. Did anyone read them? If so, or if not so, should the Board of Management minutes also be posted? It was voted to postpone posting such minutes, though they were open to any operative, as in the past. ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... its stately church, whose tower bore testimony to the devotion of ages long past, lay amidst pasture and corn-fields of small extent, but bounded and divided with hedge-row timber of great age and size. There were few marks of modern improvement. The environs of the place intimated neither the solitude of decay, nor the bustle of novelty; the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... From half-past four to half-past six he took a long walk; such exercise was a necessity with him, and the dwellers round about Polterham had become familiar with the sight of his robust figure striding at a great pace about roads and fields. Generally he made for some wayside inn, where he could refresh ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing

... ring on it, and looked at it with a sad sort of complacency. By this one movement, which I have seen repeatedly of late, I know that his thoughts have gone before to another condition, and that he is, as it were, looking back on the infirmities of the body as accidents of the past. For, when he was well, one might see him often looking at the handsome hand with the flaming jewel on one of its fingers. The single well-shaped limb was the source of that pleasure which in some form or other Nature almost always grants to her least richly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... royal residence; and there died his son, Don Carlos, whose tragic career has inspired so much dramatic literature, from Schiller's fierce handling of Philip II. to the widely different treatment of the subject by Don Gaspar Nunez de l'Arce in his drama played for the first time the past year. In the same palace, continues Miranda, died Elizabeth of Valois. There Philip IV. had farces played by ordinary comedians while the tragedy of his own downfall was enacting without. A fire reduced to ashes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... illustrate the influences of nature upon the mind, returning to the strain of thought with which his previous Essay has made us familiar. He next considers the influence of the past, and especially of books as the best type of that influence. "Books are the best of things well used; abused among the worst." It is hard to distil what is already a quintessence without loss of what is just as good as the product of our ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... a man—for a certain length of time—can love without measure. He can then be unlocked like a cabinet full of secret drawers and pigeonholes, of which we hold the keys. He discloses himself, his present and his past. A woman, even in the closest bonds of love, never reveals more of herself than ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis

... my tale is with the present rather than with the past, I will not stop to describe how, when it was called Mileta, Saint Paul landed on the island,—how the Vandals and Goths took possession of it, and were driven out by Belisarius,—how in 1530, the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, driven away from Rhodes, here settled,—how ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... was sitting reading in the shade at the edge of one of the Castle Luton lawns. For some time past he had been watching Betty Leven and Lady Kent, as they talked under a cedar-tree some little distance from him. Lady Kent conversed with her whole bellicose person—her cap, her chin, her nose, her spreading and impressive shoulders. And from her gestures young ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... teach her its laws, instruct her how to shine, how to make the most of herself, how to do honour to his choice! He had but the vaguest idea of the folly that possessed her. He thought of her relation to the poor but as a passing—indeed a past phase of a hitherto objectless life. Anything beyond a little easy benevolence would be impossible to the wife of lord Gartley! That she should contemplate the pursuit of her former objects with even greater freedom and ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... conform to the pecuniary requirement. The underlying norms of taste are of very ancient growth, probably far antedating the advent of the pecuniary institutions that are here under discussion. Consequently, by force of the past selective adaptation of men's habits of thought, it happens that the requirements of beauty, simply, are for the most part best satisfied by inexpensive contrivances and structures which in a straightforward manner suggest both the office which they are to perform ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... large attendance from western Massachusetts. In 1913 it met in Boston May 27, 28. The executive secretary, Mrs. Marion Booth Kelley, reported that 111 indoor meetings and 45 outdoor meetings had been held in the past six months. It was voted to have a suffrage parade in Boston the following spring. There was much doubt of the propriety of this but when a rising vote of the women present was taken to see how many would march almost the whole ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... "Within the past three days a most daring raid has been made into one of the richest portions of the enemy's country, and the success was equal to the boldness ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... opinion of our mountaineers, that these Indians must have fallen in an encounter with a party of Crows; but I subsequently learned that they had all died of the cholera, and that this young girl, being considered past recovery, had been arranged by her friends in the habiliments of the dead, inclosed in the lodge alive, and abandoned to her fate, so fearfully alarmed were the Indians by this to them ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow

... these Thoughts. Perhaps at some future date we may have the blessed privilege of so doing; but this afternoon I have been asked to say a Few Words on another subject. The failing health of your dear minister has for some time past engaged the ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... the hills and the streams of the world went past us, And the long train roared and rolled Southward, and dusk was falling, She nodded ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... Bertie," said Lady Susan, austerely, "what is it you want? I know from past experience it is not I alone you come to see. I warn you though your hopes are vain. I have, happily, now a more edifying way of spending my poor income than in aiding you ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... clear, and when the clouds are past One golden day redeems a weary year; Patient I listen, sure that sweet at last Will sound his voice ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... greyhound slipped from the leash with the prey in full view.—"Up," he cried, "Pearson, thou art swifter than I—Up thou next, corporal." With more agility than could have been expected from his person or years, which were past the meridian of life, and exclaiming, "Before, those with the torches!" he followed the party, like an eager huntsman in the rear of his hounds, to encourage at once and direct them, as they penetrated into the labyrinth described by Dr. Rochecliffe ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... come?" he cried, bitterly, and then prayed that it might not, as he recalled the sufferings of the past day; and now he was content to sit, thankful that the day did not break, for there was rest and less pain in ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... did not—they were far too good-natured to take pleasure in such comments, and instead, spent the hours in laughing, playing and reading in the pleasant arbor. Thus the morning drew on, and the lovely autumn day sailed past with all its life and splendor toward the west. Fanny was gazing toward the house, as they thus sat in the arbor, and Redbud was smiling, when a gentleman, clothed in a forest costume, and carrying a rifle, made his appearance at the door of ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... the power fully developed to heal the sick. It is not faith-cure, but it is an acknowledgment of certain Christian and scientific laws, and to work a cure the practitioner must understand these laws aright. The patient may gain a better understanding than the Church has had in the past. All churches have prayed for the cure of disease, but they have not done so in an intelligent manner, ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy

... recurs in "Tam Lin," "Thomas Rymer,"[3] etc. Like all folk-songs, these ballads are anonymous and may be regarded not as the composition of any one poet, but as the property, and in a sense the work, of the people as a whole. Coming out of an uncertain past, based on some dark legend of heart-break or blood-shed, they bear no author's name, but are ferae naturae and have the flavor of wild game. They were common stock, like the national speech; everyone could contribute ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... part of the home where boys and girls are growing into manhood and womanhood as any other part of the furnishings. Parents have no more right to starve a child's mind than they have his body. If a child is to take his place among the men and women of his time he needs to know the past out of which the present grew, and he needs to know what is going on in the world in which he lives. He needs tools for his brain as much as for his hands. All these things are found, and ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... Figure 364. Figure 363 represents a very fine specimen found on the end of a beech log, on the Huntington Hills, near Chillicothe. It made a meal for three families. I have found several basketfuls of this species on this same log, within the past few years. I have also found on the same log large specimens ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard

... him, in spite of his reserve, the secrets which might be connected with his early life, would prove perfectly fruitless. If I must judge him at all, I must judge him by the experience of the present, and not by the history of the past. I had heard good, and good only, of him from the shrewd master who knew him best, and had tried him longest. He had shown the greatest delicacy towards my feelings, and the strongest desire to do me service—it would be a mean return for those acts of courtesy, to ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... strengthened and refined his passion, while they rendered it hopeless. There is a beautiful passage in Campbell which appears exactly written to express his state of mind at this time, and the retrospective glance which he must have often cast on his past life. ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes

... of charming for the ''Ryri' is now lost, or in any event has not been practised in this parish, for several years past. The possession of this remarkable healing power by the charmer was said to have been derived from the circumstance of either the charmer himself, or one of his ancestors within the ninth degree, having ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... dollars. And then there were half a dozen Costa Rican soldiers, men with coloured caps and old muskets, ready to support the dignity and authority of the commandant. There were the guides taking payment from Abel Ring for their past work, and the postmen preparing their boats for the further journey. And then there was a certain German there, with a German servant, to whom the boats belonged. He also was very busy preparing for the river voyage. He was not going ...
— Returning Home • Anthony Trollope

... active personality. It was not a sluggish room, nor was it untidy as so many Russian rooms are. Around the table everybody sat. It seemed that at all hours of the day and night some kind of meal was in progress there; and it was almost certain that from half-past two in the afternoon until half-past two on the following morning the samovar would be found there, presiding with sleepy dignity over the whole family and caring nothing for anybody. I can smell now that especial smell of tea and radishes and salted fish, and can hear the wheeze of ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... the Blackwood fellows, I never published any thing against them; nor, indeed, have seen their magazine (except in Galignani's extracts) for these three years past. I once wrote, a good while ago, some remarks [85] on their review of Don Juan, but saying very little about themselves, and these were not published. If you think that I ought to follow your example[86](and I like to be in your company when I can) in contradicting ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... pledges of a fruitful tree, Why do ye fall so fast? Your date is not so past, But you may stay yet here a-while, To blush and gently ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... In the past it has seemed impossible for fiction and the drama, i.e. serious drama of high literary quality, to flourish, side by side. It seems as though the best creative minds in any age could find strength for any one of these two great outlets for the activity of the creative imagination. ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... the kitchen. It was neat and tidy, as the woman had left it. He looked up at the clock—twenty minutes past five Then he sat down on a chair to put on his boots. She waited, watching his every movement. She wanted it to be over, it was a great nervous ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... harm in occasional walks and conversations with even a bad man; and who knows, he sometimes used to say, but I may do him good? At any rate, as he was the only person with whom he could hold free conversation on "things that were past," he determined occasionally to associate ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... making the very Stars their Nautical Timepiece;—and written and collected a Bibliotheque du Roi; among whose Books is the Hebrew Book! A wondrous race of creatures: these have been realised, and what of Skill is in these: call not the Past Time, with all its confused ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... likeness of Aeneas a thin and pithless shade of hollow mist, decks it with Dardanian weapons, and gives it the mimicry of shield and divine helmet plume, gives unsubstantial [640-673]words and senseless utterance, and the mould and motion of his tread: like shapes rumoured to flit when death is past, or dreams that delude the slumbering senses. But in front of the battle-ranks the phantom dances rejoicingly, and with arms and mocking accents provokes the foe. Turnus hastens up and sends his spear whistling from far on it; it gives back and turns its footsteps. ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... rite over, everybody drew a long breath and struggled to forget past miseries. Therefore when Hal and Louise Harling, who were to augment the procession, arrived, every cloud was put to flight and the delegation set forth in the highest ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... ordered me to harness the horse; and I concluded that he and the squire were going to ride. I was just ugly enough then to disobey; in fact, to cast off all allegiance to my tyrants. I felt as though I could not lift my finger to do anything more for them till some atonement for the past had been made. I gave Darky some hay, and then left my sanctuary, without knowing ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic

... excited. He always became excited when his still weakened brain was stirred by memories of the catastrophes of the past. ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... great movement of ours, for there is something Hellenic in your air and world, something that has a quicker breath of the joy and power of Elizabeth's England about it than our ancient civilisation can give us. For you, at least, are young; 'no hungry generations tread you down,' and the past does not weary you with the intolerable burden of its memories nor mock you with the ruins of a beauty, the secret of whose creation you have lost. That very absence of tradition, which Mr. Ruskin thought would rob ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... his wife, "pack up your papers, the time for working and composing is past. Conrad has brought the most dreadful tidings from the city. We are all lost!— Vienna is lost! Oh, dear, dear! it is awful, and I tell you I am almost ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... people who called him by name, astonished to see him free and on horseback, when they expected to see him bound and in a tumbrel on his way to be executed. Catching sight of his guardian angel pushing through the crowd, not to see him executed, but to meet him, he urged his horse past the executioner, who had just learned of the disappearance of one of his patients, knocking over two or three bumpkins with the breast of his Bayard. He bounded toward her, swung her over the pommel ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... little by little as time goes on, until at length it vanishes altogether. Moreover a wrong seems greater when it is first felt; and our estimate thereof is gradually lessened the further the sense of present wrong recedes into the past. The same applies to love, so long as the cause of love is in the memory alone; wherefore the Philosopher says (Ethic. viii, 5) that "if a friend's absence lasts long, it seems to make men forget their friendship." But in the presence of a friend, the cause ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... is that shown in the second picture on the same page. It is a catamaran—a style of boat that has only been known in New York waters during the past four years, and which is still so rare as to excite much curiosity. A catamaran consists of two long, narrow, canoe-like hulls, connected by strong wooden cross pieces, which are fastened at the ends with ball-and-socket joints, so that each hull moves ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... to Marcia Lowe, "and respecting her age and gray hairs, I reckon the old miss is in love. It comes late to some folks," he sighed pathetically, "and it comes right hard when it strikes past the time limit, but nothing but love takes it out of folks like what this old miss ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... not think what else to say or even what to think. The word "marriage" reminded her that she had what the ineffable Bunker Bean would have called "a little old last year's husband" lying around in the garret of her past. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... had a pang of disgust and jealousy. Evelyn was actually chatting with him and seemed amused. Lord Montague was evidently laying himself out to please and exerting all the powers of his subtle humor and exploiting his newly acquired slang. That Philip could hear as they moved past him. "The brute!" Philip said to himself, with the injustice which always clouds the estimate of a lover of a rival whose accomplishments differ ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... would be taken, alive or dead. That was clear. The Government could not now retreat. The expedition must be carried to a successful issue. Whatever hope there was for Donald if brought to trial now, there would be none if he shed more blood. But Donald was past reasoning with. These considerations, urged again and again, fell upon dull ears. "I am determined," he said, "to fight it out." He said this with firmly compressed lips. It was ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous



Words linked to "Past" :   past progressive tense, agone, future, ancient, preterite, period of time, preterit, time period, previous, former, life, ult, good old days, quondam, recent, early, noncurrent, foregone, yore, history, yesterday, sometime, historic, old times, water under the bridge, ultimo, present, time immemorial, onetime, langsyne, other, ago, auld langsyne, preceding, chivalric, yesteryear, prehistoric, one-time, last, time, timing, departed, erstwhile, late, old, olden, medieval, knightly, outgoing, period, historical, tense, prehistorical, then, past master, gone, bygone, time out of mind



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