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More "Comprehend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is but one deep and all-pervading cause of the miseries of man: it is, that he does not comprehend the ways of God, or, in other words, the laws of his own being. If humanity does not work well, and with the same harmony that the planetary system exhibits, it is because he is determined to impress upon it other movements ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... lightness of manner, and inclined to the view that a person who made a joke took rather a liberty with him, his tendency to be jocular, even about himself and the estate of Temple Barholm, was irritating and somewhat disrespectful. Mr. Palford did not easily comprehend jokes of any sort; especially was he annoyed by cryptic phraseology and mammoth exaggeration. For instance, be could not in the least compass Mr. Temple Barholm's meaning when he casually remarked that something or ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... mainly come those single lines and passages which are among the memorable words recorded in universal literature. Such, to specify only a few, are the Song of the Earth-Spirit; the lines commenting on man's vain endeavour to comprehend the past, and on the dreariness of all theory,[242] contrasted with the freshness and colour of life; Faust's confession of his religious faith, and Margaret's songs. To have added in this measure to the intellectual inheritance of the race assures the testator ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... point under a fortunate direction. Ecclesiastes says in his first chapter, "The number of fools is infinite;" and when he calls it infinite, does he not seem to comprehend all men, unless it be some few whom yet 'tis a question whether any man ever saw? But more ingeniously does Jeremiah in his tenth chapter confess it, saying, "Every man is made a fool through his own wisdom;" attributing wisdom to God alone and leaving folly ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... besides, cousin Pao-y to lend her a hand in her task. Not that cousin Pao knows how to give any hints about painting; that in itself would be more of a drawback; but in order that, in the event of there being anything that she doesn't comprehend, or of anything perplexing her as to how best to insert it, cousin Pao may take the picture outside and make the necessary inquiries of those gentlemen, who excel in painting. Matters will ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... into the past with the incalculable velocity of thought, and he began to comprehend his day's adventures, to conceive them as a whole, and to recognise the sad imbroglio in which his own character and fortunes had become involved. He looked round him as if for help, but he was alone in the garden, with his scattered diamonds and his redoubtable interlocutor; and when he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to comprehend a word, Sally listened while Mary told her of the relationship between them; but the mists which for years had shrouded her reason were too dense to be suddenly cleared away; and when Mary wept, winding her arms around her neck and calling her ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... said that "the true spirit of good manners is so nearly allied to that of good morals that they seem almost inseparable." John G. Holland says somewhere: "Young men would be thoroughly astonished if they could comprehend at a glance how greatly their personal happiness, popularity, prosperity, and usefulness depend on their manners." Emerson remarked that,—"Manners should bespeak the man, independent of fine clothes. The general does not need a ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... are each and all, of course, accustomed to the guidance of man's hand, but—here in Europe, at all events—they live their lives apart and are not so domesticated; they cannot, therefore, form so intimate an acquaintance with man, by means of eye and ear, as can enable them to comprehend both language and gestures. For practical purposes horses would seem to come next to dogs in the matter of intelligence—more particularly Arab horses. An Arab talks to his horse as he would to a friend, and the sparkle in the eye ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... strange thing happened. Fell asleep just now, amid deadly dulness, depth of which no one outside House can comprehend. Woke up, hearing familiar voice. 'Twas the voice of Prince ARTHUR, I heard him complain; something about Ground-rents in London. Not, quite his subject; voice, too, didn't seem to come from Treasury Bench. But no mistaking it; same tone; same inflection. Now I come to think ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... I can't comprehend it!" Mr. Murray cried, looking quite fierce. "I must make them better acquainted. Ah! I've hit on the very thing. I'm going to take the Gregory boys for a trip in my yacht along the south coast; the Rivers lads shall come too. You must all come: there's nothing ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... cultivation, and real kindness towards herself. Fleda would readily have given her credit for them all; and yet, the nautilus may as soon compare notes with the navigator, the canary might as well study Maelzel's Metronome, as a child of nature and a woman of the world comprehend and suit each other. The nature of the one must change or the two must remain the world wide apart. Fleda felt it, she did not know why. Mrs. Carleton was very kind, and perfectly polite; but Fleda had ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... remain very long, to the great relief of Melchisedec, who, as he probably did not comprehend their conversation, felt their movements and whispers ominous. The young secretary seemed interested in everything. He wrote down things about the floor, the fireplace, the broken footstool, the old table, the walls—which last he touched with his hand again and again, seeming much pleased when he ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... found himself unable to comprehend fully the other terrific results of his intervention. Before the echoes of his shot died, there came to him the rumble of what seemed to be tons of falling rock. In the bright air a slight mist was precipitated. To all of which was added the effect upon the ape-men ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... had heard of this incident from Mrs. Penhallow, and at last from Leila, was alone in a position to comprehend the motives which combined to bring about an act of rashness. The rector had some sympathy with the boy and liked him for choosing a time when no one was present to witness his trial of himself. He too had the good sense like the Squire to ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... loss," said Philemon, "to comprehend exactly what you mean?"—"I will cease speaking metaphorically," replied Lysander; "but Sycorax was a man of ability in his way. He taught literary men, in some measure, the value of careful research and faithful quotation; ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... quite assomm, Sir," returned the Captain, "to disturb you, but I must really hint you don't comprehend me: the ladies are extremely inconvenienced by these sort of sights, and we make it a principle they should never be ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... falling to pieces. The Dowager Lady Anstruthers had never either attracted desired, or been able to afford company. Her son's wife suffered from the resulting boredom and unpopularity without being able to comprehend the significance of ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to Ease was properly conducted, so that it might always appear to have Respect for its Motive; And only to act in Obedience to that, as the ruling Principle, it would then comprehend the just Plan of good Breeding; But as this was formerly encumber'd with Ceremonies and Embarrassments, so the modern good Breeding perhaps deviates too far into Negligence and Disregard; —A Fault more unpardonable than the former; As an Inconvenience, ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... all the expense of lodgings, coach, dress; servants, etc., which, according to the several places where you may be, shall be respectively necessary to enable you to keep the best company. Under the head of rational pleasures, I comprehend, first, proper charities, to real and compassionate objects of it; secondly, proper presents to those to whom you are obliged, or whom you desire to oblige; thirdly, a conformity of expense to that of the company which you keep; as in public spectacles; ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... taught Hernani in school, his fist he brought Like a trip-hammer down on his bulbous knee, And he roared: "Her Nanny? By gum, we'll see If the public's time she dares devote To the educatin' of any dam goat!" "You do not entirely comprehend— Hernani's a play," said his learned friend, "By Victor Hugo—immoral and bad. What's worse, it's French!" "Well, well, my lad," Said Smith, "if he cuts a swath so wide I'll have him took re'glar up and tried!" ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... they really believe that the prosperity of the country depends upon them. They really believe that if the leadership of economic development in this country dropped from their hands, the rest of us are too muddle-headed to undertake the task. They not only comprehend the power of the United States within their grasp, but they comprehend it within their imagination. They are honest men, they have just as much right to express their views as I have to express mine or you to express yours, but it is just about time that we examined ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... your telegram. I comprehend that you are forced to mobilize, but I should like to have from you the same guaranty which I have given you, viz., that these measures do not mean war, and that we shall continue to negotiate for the welfare of our ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... loose writer would. He needs all the three; specially those three, and no more than those—"creep," and "intrude," and "climb"; no other words would or could serve the turn, and no more could be added. For they exhaustively comprehend the three classes, correspondent to the three characters, of men who dishonestly seek ecclesiastical power. First, those who "creep" into the fold: who do not care for office, nor name, but for secret influence, and do all things ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... even if it seems ferocious, and so it gives less pain than one would think. At any rate, the little animals had the best of it very soon; for they entirely outstripped Annie in learning to walk, and they could soon scramble away beyond her reach, while she sat in a sort of dumb despair, unable to comprehend why anything so much smaller than herself should be so much nimbler. Meanwhile, the kittens would sit up and look at her with the most provoking indifference, just out of arm's length, until some of us would take pity on the young lady, and toss her furry playthings back ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Then he drew the charge, blew down the barrel to see that it was clear and reloaded the musket. Doctor Tom took some smoked salmon from his pouch, made a cup of coffee and silently ate his supper, and Boston began to comprehend that there was a reason for his refusal to eat while the stranger was in camp. But it was useless to try to make Doctor Tom talk until he had smoked, and Boston ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... which, in the language of another eminent writer, 'is the one thing most essential to the right development of individuals, and to the real grandeur of nations,' it was necessary that its foundations should be made so broad, in any correct philosophical analysis of its nature, as to comprehend the whole field of human activity. Accordingly, Mr. Mill includes within its proper domain the three great departments: consciousness, or the internal operations of our own minds; will, or the external manifestation of our thoughts and feelings in acts and habits; and lastly, association, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... strong, and therefore the hopeless aspirations for personal freedom have become extinct. But nations that are cut off from the sea, or that have accepted the dogma that to travel upon it is unholy, can never comprehend liberty. From the general tenor of the Vedas, it would appear that the condition of women was not so much restrained as it became in later times, and that monogamy was the ordinary state. From the great extent of these works, their various dates and authorship, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... as if in a shell, all the other spheres, in which was included the created universe, and, although of vast dimensions, its conception did not overwhelm the mind in the same manner that the effort to comprehend ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... we do understand, Ella?" rejoined Algernon. "When I say understand, I mean the word to be used in its minutest and broadest sense. You say there are many things we may not understand concerning ourselves—what ones, I pray you, do we fully comprehend? We are here upon the earth—so much we know. We shall die and pass away—so much we know also. But how came we here, and why? How do we exist? How do we think, reason, speak, feel, move, see, hear, smell, taste? All ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... she said, quite proudly, beginning at last to comprehend. "You are not afraid of ...
— Mere Girauds Little Daughter • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... cannot comprehend! the prince to gaze on me with such emotion! wildly exclaim, "the sight of her is hateful!" and, with the baron, leave the banquet, to be told the whole of my sad history—'Tis well! I shall not suffer by the truth; for, as I guess, mine, is a story ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... determine, heaving steadily toward him, not fifty paces away, some huge, murmuring, moving mass. And then there rang out on the silence of the night, clear, stern, and commanding, a voice the like of which their ears had never heard, in words that even they could not fail to comprehend: ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... gain an insight into the habits, ways of thinking, laws, and language of the natives. To this he ascribed most of his success as a missionary and explorer, for Livingstone's way was ever the gentle method of those who comprehend—not the harsh cruelty of those who feel superior to the ones among whom they work. In a day whose superficiality is only equalled by the ease with which we gloze over the faults of the unprepared, this bit of information of Livingstone's preparation ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... influence that aids the venous circulation is attributed to the propulsive power of the heart. It is not easy to comprehend how this power of the heart can be extended through the capillary vessels to the blood in the veins. Again, an important agency has been found, by some physiologists, in the inspiratory movements, which are supposed to draw the blood of the veins into the ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... level, a real psycholepsy. It is very likely that studies of this kind will produce some day the key of the epilepsy problem, for vertigos and certain epileptic fits are certainly phenomena of relaxation, the meaning of which we do not comprehend because we do not study sufficiently the state of psychological tension before ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... 'I really think they comprehend thus much, that God, who made all things, made man, Adam and Eve, very good and holy; that Adam and Eve sinned, that they did not listen to the word of God, but to the Bad Spirit; that God found them out, though they were afraid ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mrs. Schwellenberg, she said, "You might know I had something to say to you, by my calling you before the queen." She then proceeded to a long prelude, which I could but ill comprehend, save that it conveyed much of obligation on my part, and favour on hers; and then ended with, "I might tell you now, the queen is going to Oxford, and you might go with her; it is a secret—you might not tell it nobody. But ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... had been said to make Mr Gordon fully comprehend the case. The men were dissatisfied. They had come in a roundabout way to the conclusion that some pecuniary concession, not mentioned in their bond, should come from the side of capital to that of labour. Whether wages, interest of capital, share of profits, reserve ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... assurance that the dreaded power would be first entrusted to his hands to form precedents persuaded many to try the change. John Adams, recently returned from representing his Government in Great Britain, and finding himself chosen to the second place, was said to be unable to comprehend how Washington's military experience had fitted him for this civic duty. Yet it was simply the first of many instances in which the gratitude of the people, backed by innate hero-worship, has singled out a war hero for the highest civic ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... He repeated the words as if he sought to comprehend them. He seemed like a man with defective sight who has come suddenly against a wall that he had thought far off. Higbee now ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... engineer, and to the successful turning movement of Hancock, based thereon; and, second, to the certainty that if properly reinforced by the rest of Smith's division, and by other divisions, if necessary, as it surely would be as soon as the national commander had come to comprehend the real condition of affairs, the Confederate forces would be taken in flank and ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... hall and the adjacent corridors until an official, who took him to be lost, asked him if there was any particular part of the building he wanted. For a moment Spargo stared at the man as if he did not comprehend his question. Then his mental powers ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... such conditions we might contract our volume of money to a million dollars or expand it to five billions, and harm nobody; but it seems to me that any fool on earth—even the editor of the Advertiser could comprehend the following unequivocal facts: (1) that a majority of the American people owe money; (2) that an enhancement of the purchasing power of the dollar must work grievous injury to the debtor; (3) that ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... resorted to for the procuring of justice, men might then see the necessity of establishing equality of rights for all. But the power of women lies in spiritual, not in brute force; therefore men have failed to comprehend them, or to see the necessity of granting rights that are not contested at the point of the bayonet. Add to this the ambitious but weak love of power—of having some one to rule—inherent in the natures of most men, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... think not with the most; Whatever 'twould have been, before My Cousin's time, 'tis now so sore A treason to the abiding throne Of that sweet love which I have known, I cannot live so, and I bend My mind perforce to comprehend That He who gives command to love Does not require a thing above The strength He gives. The highest degree Of the hardest grace, humility; The step t'ward heaven the latest trod, And that which makes us most like God, ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... way, Pyrophilus to be mention'd, by which a Liquor may alter the Colour of another Body, and this seems the most Important of all, because though it be nam'd but as One, yet it may indeed comprehend Many, and that is, by Associating the Saline Corpuscles, or any other Sort of the more Rigid ones of the Liquor, with the Particles of the Body that it is employ'd to Work upon. For these Adventitious Corpuscles Associating themselves with the Protuberant Particles of the Surface of a Colour'd ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... together, failing to support the weight, suddenly broke asunder and the timbers together with all those who had taken their stand on them fell to the ground with a mighty crash. When this was heard by other Romans also, who were fighting from the adjoining towers, being utterly unable to comprehend what had happened, but supposing that the wall at this point had been destroyed, they beat a hasty retreat. Now many young men of the populace who in former times had been accustomed to engage in factional strife with each other in the hippodromes descended into the city from the ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... every sort she fell in with, and made inquiries at every island and place where anything like a truthful answer could possibly be procured. They had an interpreter, a Chinese, who spoke English, though rather of a funny sort, and as it required a good deal of cleverness to comprehend it, it may be supposed what he professed to wish to communicate was not always very clear. The man who might most have assisted them, Hoddidoddi, had been missing ever since Rogers' and Adair's battle on the island, ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... the red-tape routine. It only behooved us to use circumspection enough to avoid making mistakes in our papers, and fortune was ours. I knew everything was all right, but George, being a thorough business man himself, could not comprehend that it could be quite right, and he insisted upon one supreme test. Any single bill of exchange is seldom drawn for more than L1,000, rarely for L2,000, and one of L6,000 is almost unheard of. If a party in Bombay wanted exchange on London for L100,000, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... truth about widow-burning; but it is not the whole truth. To comprehend all the horrors of the situation we must realize clearly that it was the fiendish selfishness of the men, extending even beyond death, which thus subjected their wives to a cruel death, and that the widows, on their part, did not follow them because of the promptings of affection, but either ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... is a free man. Now tell me, Louise, if I have not divined all. Is not this the king's cruel work? Ah, you do not answer, you are silent. I understand—the king has made you swear not to betray him. Now look at me, Louise; make me a sign with your hand, tell me with your eyes, and I will comprehend you—I will take you in my arms and carry you to the altar. My God! Louise do you not see that I am waiting for this sign?—that ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... rose before his eyes, yet, when it passed, his vision was clearer than it had ever been. The men sitting around him represented the flower of the business world, each one of whom stood before his fellow-men as a tangible expression of honor and integrity. Yet not one was able to comprehend Gorham's viewpoint, not one could be anything but incredulous that he stood sincere in the position he had taken. This was what hurt him most. The applause which his associates had awarded him had been as that won by a clever actor rather than, as he ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... the hermit; "and more than that, there be some who, though dead, yet speak to their fellows, and will continue to do so as long as the records are preserved and the power to comprehend them ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... the peculiar advantage of position; that their assailants would be compelled to advance from only one direction. The three within were barely struggling to their feet, dazed, bewildered, failing as yet to comprehend fully those distant yells, when he sprang into their midst, uttering his swift orders, and unceremoniously jerking the men into ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... like one before an august assembly; and so it was to him, with his views of the future of the great empire of the Northwest. A part of the pupils could not comprehend all that he said any more than they had understood the allusion to the pilot of the Argo; but his manner was so gracious, so earnest, so inspired, that they all felt the spirit of it, and some had come to regard themselves as the students ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... company as commissary to the soldiers stationed at Fort St. George. His duties were those of a clerk. He was now twenty-five years old, but had had no experience in military affairs. Like Dupleix, however, he seemed to comprehend the political situation of the country, and when the emergency came that called forth his powers, he was found to possess both military genius and profound statesmanship. He represented to the officers of the post that if Trichinopoly, now besieged by Chunda Sahib and his French allies, should ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... things. The process cannot be explained in clear-cut fashion—any more than mediums can tell the source of their thoughts and impressions. A little intuition is needed in order to grasp the problem and comprehend its difficulties. ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... shall, therefore, make no apology for using as guide the main divisions of the great philosophers of that nation, who alone, in modern times, have made for Education a place among the sciences. Truth is of no country, but belongs to whoever can comprehend it. ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... was about love, and all the rest ABOUT RHETORIC. They stick not (that is, the ancients) at these variations, and have a marvellous grace in letting themselves to be carried away at the pleasure of the winds; or at least to seem as if they were. The titles of my chapters do not always comprehend the whole matter, they often denote it by some mark only, as those other titles Andria Eunuchus, or these, Sylla, Cicero, Torquatus. I love a poetic march, by leaps and skips, 'tis an art, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... and the bread of life which He had to offer, He added: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven," and again declared "the living Father hath sent me." Not a few of the disciples failed to comprehend His teachings; and their complaints drew from Him these words: "Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... faith, who had fallen under the anathema of the Patriarch. Shutting up their shops had sent them to the seminary, where their minds would be disciplined, and where, studying the history of the Church, and comparing the past and present with God's Word, they would be prepared to comprehend the Oriental Apostasy. Of the other five, three were from anathematized families, and two were without relatives. A lad, who had been expelled from his father's house because he was a Protestant, was about to enter the seminary, through ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... girls of the poets are so ideal that no living daughter of Eve can compete with them. And now tell me, what will you gain,—you, a young girl, brought up to be the virtuous mother of a family,—if you learn to comprehend the terrible agitations of a poet's life in this dreadful capital, which may be defined by one sentence,—the hell in ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... House of Lords is an inheritable privilege, it will be readily believed that there is a considerable number of peers with no natural or acquired fitness for legislative duties,—men whose dullness in debate, and whose utter incapacity to comprehend any question of public interest or importance, cannot be adequately described. They speak occasionally, from a certain ill-defined sense of what may be due to their position, yet are obviously aware that what they say is entitled to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... and it began to thicken so fast that swimming was very difficult indeed. If you don't understand this, you need only ask the attendants at your nearest swimming-baths to fill the baths with treacle instead of water, and you will very soon comprehend how it was that Billy reached the shore of his kingdom ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... would in any case be more useful than a polemic attempt at rebutting these criticisms in detail. Mr. Bradley in particular can be taken care of by Mr. Schiller. He repeatedly confesses himself unable to comprehend Schiller's views, he evidently has not sought to do so sympathetically, and I deeply regret to say that his laborious article throws, for my mind, absolutely no useful light upon the subject. It seems to me on the whole an IGNORATIO ELENCHI, ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... his eyes leaving the young man fixed themselves on his companion. "I begin to understand," he murmured, his voice low, but not the less menacing for that, or for the cat-like purr in it. "I begin to comprehend. This is one of your tricks, Messer Grio. One of the clever tricks you play in your cups! Some day you'll do that in them will—No!" repressing the bully as he attempted to rise. "Have done now and let us understand. The 'Bible and Hand,' eh? ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... thought, but darena tell, I've studied them wi' a' my skill, I've lo'ed them better than mysel', I've tried again to like them ill. Wha sairest strives, will sairest rue, To comprehend what nae man can; When he has done what man can do, He'll end at last where he began. That they ha'e gentle forms an' meet, A man wi' half a look may see; An' gracefu' airs, an' faces sweet, An' waving curls aboon the bree! ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... wondered with great wonder at his verse, and could not comprehend the cause. But when the youth snatched up the bit of linen and placed it under thigh, he asked him, "What is that piece of linen?" "O my Lord," answered the merchant, "thou hast no concern with this piece." Quoth the King's son, "Show it me;" and quoth the merchant, "O my lord, I refused to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... some measure, abated. His head again fell upon his breast; he appeared as I had seen him at first. I observed that he now took the course in which had gone the greater number of the audience—but, upon the whole, I was at a loss to comprehend the waywardness ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... passion of weeping. She threw her arm round him as if to shield him from evil as she said, "Oh, Jamie, nothing can reach you now—nothing." He looked at her with the look that was always so touching, as if he were vainly trying to remember or comprehend: that occasional look of effort was the only remnant left of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... without knowing why, followed the example. He did not even comprehend where his companion was going, for he had said nothing to him ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... that his attention always strained and always directed toward the externals of the cult, does not leave his mind a moment in which to reflect upon the profound meaning of some of these prayers, and you will comprehend the extraordinary scene that the banks of the Ganges at Benares present every morning; this anxious and demented multitude, these gestures, eager and yet methodical, this rapid movement of the lips, the fixed gaze of these men and women who, standing in the water, seem ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... all-pervading, ever-flowing spirit; the different inertiae conflict, and end by combining in an organic being, since neither can be annihilated or transmuted. Perhaps we can tell you, by-and-by, how this antagonism commences; at present, you would scarcely be able to comprehend it clearly." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... strange that girls should fail to see all the dangers of such conduct—that they should not comprehend that thus they become sources of temptation to their lovers, and may even imperil their ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... of the cock, recurring regularly at fixed hours, has some signification, but we cannot comprehend it. If on a fine afternoon in autumn the cock crows, and repeats his strain between two and four o'clock, the countrymen in some places will say there will be a fog on the morrow, and they are generally not mistaken. Hens do not mistake his ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... Osteopath means a perfect plan and specification to build in form a house, an engine, a man, a world, or anything for an object or purpose. To comprehend this engine of life or man which is so constructed with all conveniences for which it was made, it is necessary to constantly keep the plan and specification before the mind, and in the mind, to such a degree that there is no lack of knowledge ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... room, and then down into the streete. I did give the boys 4s. among them, and mighty merry. So home to bed, with my heart at great rest and quiett, saving that the consideration of the victory is too great for me presently to comprehend. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... about it," her husband said anxiously, as she sat staring before her, trying to comprehend the tragedy. "I have arranged to take you on to-morrow. The Colonel writes that your brother Ezra is seedy,—touch of malaria, he thinks. The Colonel is looking forward a ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... about the extent of the regal power in England, that the daily care and responsibility of the affairs of government, in its ordinary administration, rested directly upon the king. It is not possible that any one mind can even comprehend, far less direct, such an enormous complication of interests and of action as is involved in the carrying on, from day to day, the government of an empire. Offices, authorities, and departments of administration spring ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... held them to be [Greek: katalepta], and Numenius in Euseb. Praep. Ev. XIV. 8, p. 739, who treats him throughout his notice as a renegade. (2) is evident from the Academica and from Sextus as quoted above. The foundation for knowledge which he substituted is more difficult to comprehend. Sextus indeed tells us that he held things to be in their own nature [Greek: katalepta (hoson de epi te physei ton pragmaton auton katal.)]. But Arcesilas and Carneades would not have attempted to disprove this; they never tried to show that things in themselves ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... did not study it to understand. I knew little more about grammar when I left off going to school than I do about Greek or Hebrew. It is one thing to commit a lesson, and another to comprehend it. I am determined to understand ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... expenses of living. In his inmost consciousness he knew very well that Innocent was not of the ordinary feminine mould—she had visions of the high and unattainable, and her ideals of life were of that pure and transcendental quality which belongs to finer elements unseen. The carnal mind can never comprehend spirituality,—nevertheless, Jocelyn was a man cultured and clever enough to feel that though he himself could not enter, and did not even care to enter the uplifted spheres of thought, this strange child with a gift of the gods ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... virtue and of manliness; happy was she to find them realized in Marion. And he, when sitting in the shadows of the old marble pile, gazing up at the brilliant sky, had pictured a being beautiful and good, whose soul could comprehend the yearnings of his own, and this he found in May. Thus their two souls grew together, until their thoughts, their hopes, ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... not write as I do—I could not recall these thoughts and that time—if I had not another thought to bring to bear upon them; a thought which at that time I was not able to comprehend. It came to me later with its healing, and I have seen and felt it more clearly as I grew older. I see it very clearly now. I had not been mistaken in my childish notions of the loftiness and generosity of my father's character. He was what I had ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... her was still hidden behind the earnest brow and the deep-set eyes. In them, indeed, did she read exultation, an ardour at least equal to her own, but an ardour for an object which she—the proud, exquisite pagan, the daughter of Augustus—wholly failed to comprehend. She had shown him the way to the imperium, to the diadem of Augustus, the sceptre of the Caesars, yet in his eyes, which were unfathomable and blue as the ocean that girt his own ancestral home of far away, there ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... conclusion of a syllogism, not from each term, but from a comparison of the premises—and this requires an intellectual operation entirely distinct from a mere apprehension of the terms. It is one thing to comprehend the premises; it is quite another to deduce a conclusion from them. It may necessarily follow, but it requires a separate act of the mind to reach it. Premises will not of ...
— The Philosophy of Evolution - and The Metaphysical Basis of Science • Stephen H. Carpenter
... during the arithmetic lesson that Alice's heart went out in pity for the youthful instructor. The majority of the pupils were bright; but an unruly fraction, one child, refused to comprehend. ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... discourse, the keen-sighted minister had fathomed his determination to raise some obstacle in every instance; and he began to entertain a suspicion that this was not done without a powerful motive, which he immediately became anxious to comprehend. Thus, therefore, when Henry pressed him to declare his sentiments upon the subject, he answered cautiously: "I cannot, in truth, hazard an opinion, Sire; nor can I even understand the bent of your own wishes. Thus much only do I comprehend—that you consent to take another wife, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... at least followed by an heightening of the distemper, until, by a variety of experiments, that important country has been brought into her present situation—a situation which I will not miscall, which I dare not name, which I scarcely know how to comprehend in the terms ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... like roses, but his pretty mouth was hard set and his black eyes blazed. The boys danced and made threatening feints at him. They called out confused taunts and demands whose purport Anderson at first did not comprehend, but the boy never swerved. When one of his tormentors came nearer, out swung the little white fist at him, ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... remorse, telling me that he could not bring himself to publish it, although obedience to the orders of his party might endanger one who was very dear to him. Alas! madame, a man of letters must needs comprehend all passions, since it is his pride to express them; I understood that where a mistress and a friend are involved, the friend is inevitably sacrificed. I smoothed your brother's way; I corrected his murderous article myself, and gave it ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... man, I treated him too harshly! But it was all a misunderstanding! (To SELWYN.) You quite comprehend, don't you? The gentleman said he was already engaged to my girl; that's why I consented. ...
— Three Hats - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Alfred Debrun
... doubt it will be difficult for those who think about things loosely, and have not been accustomed to know them by their primary causes, to comprehend the demonstration of Prop. vii.: for such persons make no distinction between the modifications of substances and the substances themselves, and are ignorant of the manner in which things are produced; hence they may attribute to substances the ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... stand foremost among the natural attractions of the world. Astonishment and wonder become so firmly impressed upon the mind in the presence of these objects, that belief stands appalled, and incredulity is dumb. You can see Niagara, comprehend its beauties, and carry from it a memory ever ready to summon before you all its grandeur. You can stand in the valley of the Yosemite, and look up its mile of vertical granite, and distinctly recall its minutest feature; but amid the canon and falls, ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... frequent Examples in Ancient Authors of a Sort of Conversation which seems to clash with Reason; for 'tis not Natural for a Man to entertain himself, for we only speak that we may communicate our Thoughts to others; besides, 'tis hard to comprehend how an Author that relates Word for Word, the like Conversation cou'd be instructed to repeat them with so much Exactness; these Sort of Conversations are much more Impertinent when they run upon strange Subjects, which are not indispensibly allied to the Story handled: If the Conversations ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... the world, with the blessings of liberty all around us, we do not realize the priceless boon they are to us; but when we stand in the presence of the perils that are undertaken in order to gain them when deprived of their benefits, we begin to comprehend the real value of these sacred ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... of all. There is nothing peculiar to the Trinity that is near so perplexing as eternity.' And then he finely adds: 'I know no remedy for these things but a humble mind. If we demur to a doctrine because we cannot fully and adequately comprehend it, is not this too familiar from a creature towards his Creator, and articling more strictly with Almighty God ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... bandages before I permitted. However, it has done no harm! But it was lucky that I mistrusted your patience and put the time for the experiment a week later than I thought necessary . . . What is it?' He turned from one to the other questioningly; there was a look on Harold's face that he did not quite comprehend. ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... effect that, 'the last campaign, when they had a fort, how had the enemy fired then?—stabbed them, speared them, &c. &c.; and without a fort, assaulting!—how could it be expected they should succeed? how unreasonable they should go at all!' But even his stolid head seemed to comprehend the sarcasm when I asked him how many men had been killed during all this severe fighting. However, it was clear that it was no battle. We were all very savage, and I intimated how useless my being with them was, if they intended ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... above the level of the fields, and along each road there is a deep ditch or two, while there is sure to be one along each hedge. Water is invariably found at a depth of about two feet. One can therefore quite comprehend how in such a country trenches dug in the form of ditches would be full of water ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... disease and its proper cure. If there are any actual villains responsible for this suppressive tragedy some of them are to be found in the inner core of the AMA, officials who may perhaps fully and consciously comprehend ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... builders looking back at the teeming slime upon the ocean floor. All the history of mankind, all the history of life, has been and will be the story of something struggling out of the indiscriminated abyss, struggling to exist and prevail over and comprehend individual lives—an effort of insidious attraction, an idea of invincible appeal. That something greater than ourselves, which does not so much exist as seek existence, palpitating between being and not-being, how marvellous ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... her unsophisticated country cousin failed to comprehend her, although Beth's intuition was not greatly ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... that Patricia Dale should thus die. And yet I had had an earnest of the devil's ferocity. East of the mountains I could not have imagined a hand ever being raised against her. And I had seen her buffeted and struck down this day. Therefore, I did comprehend the inconceivable. ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... it. Under such circumstances she would put forth the silliest statements, such as: "No one can be in two places at once—unless it is a little bird," by which she one day roused, and not without success, a discussion on the ubiquity of the apostles, which she was unable to comprehend. Such efforts at conversation won her the appellation of "that good Mademoiselle Cormon," which, from the lips of the beaux esprits of society, means that she was as ignorant as a carp, and rather a poor fool; but many persons of her own ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... Jim. There were several recent happenings which she did not fully comprehend. At the inquisitive age and a girl, she wanted to know ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... permit me to seat myself in your august company," continued the stranger, "I will gladly relate my history, so that you will be better able to comprehend my unusual — may I ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... at in Hardy was, his failure to comprehend that the work he was engaged in was dishonest. I led cautiously up to this one day, and ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... money, walk so far away in the Bush?" was his first inquiry. The Captain, fatigued and rather out of humour, made no reply. "You are thin," continued the philosopher, "your shanks are long, your belly is small,—you had plenty to eat at home, why did you not stop there?" "Imbat, you comprehend nothing,—you know nothing," was the traveller's brief reply. "I know nothing!" answered the wise man of the woods, "I know how to keep myself fat; the young women look at me and say, Imbat is very handsome, he is fat;—they will look at you and say, He not good,—long ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... holding the optimistic view that on the whole the forward tendency is at present prevailing. It is not because we live in the nineteenth century that we consider our moral perceptions truer than those of the ancient Hebrews, but because we at once comprehend and transcend their ideas (in some respects), as the greater does the less. In many points surely the relation is inverted and we feel ourselves transcended (or may at least suspect it), by those who lived or live in ruder conditions than our own. David has perhaps taught us more than we ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... lost in these reflections, Beau-Minon, who seemed to comprehend what was passing in her heart, mewed plaintively, pulled her robe and tried to draw her from ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... had not the means of calculating its effects upon Europe. He had but a meagre knowledge himself of continental politics: he was assisted by a very inefficient diplomacy. His mind was lost in a convulsion of which he neither could comprehend the causes nor calculate the consequences; and forced to act, he acted not only violently, but in exact opposition to the very system he was called into political existence to combat; he appealed to the fears, the prejudices, and the passions of a privileged class, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... advocates of the view under consideration denied. The power to "regulate" is the power which belongs to Congress as to the one as well as to the other; and if this comprehends the power to prohibit in the one case, it must equally, by acknowledged principles of statutory construction, comprehend it in the other case as well. Nor in fact, the argument continued, does it make any difference, by approved principles of statutory construction, what purposes the framers of the Constitution may have immediately in ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... it we saw a procession through the streets of London of 30,000 women who had come out to ask for the right to serve the State. I do not envy the man who, having eyes to see, a heart to feel, and a mind to comprehend, was able to look on that sight unmoved. Every class of woman was represented there, the gently-born, the educated, and the tenderly-nurtured, as well as the humbly-born, the uneducated, and the heavily-burdened, the woman with the delicate, spiritual face, as well ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... said Mrs. Gillespie. "I cannot comprehend where she gets the manner she has. I never saw a more perfectly polite child, and there she has been for months, with nobody to speak to her but two gentlemen and the servants. It is natural to her, I suppose; she can have nobody ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... matter of that, in great part the ownership—of a number of English families. It is true the land had lain derelict for seventy years, bereft of capital since the Reformation, and swamped. It is true that the occupiers (and owners) were very poor. It is true, therefore, that they could not properly comprehend a policy that was designed for the general advantage of the country. They only understood that the hunting and fishing by which they lived were to stop; that their land was to be very considerably improved and taken from them. In their ignorance of ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... generalized and wandered enough. The Academy is a place of superabounding activities. Let us try to comprehend some of them. ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... did not in the least comprehend the workings of Owen's mind; and Herbert, who knew more of them than any one else, did not understand them altogether. Owen had no idea of granting any favour to his relatives, who, as he thought, had never granted any to him. What Owen wanted,—or what he told himself that ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... safely gauged by their sympathies. Sympathy and imagination are twin sisters. Your heart must go out to all men, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the learned, the unlearned, the good, the bad, the wise and the foolish—it is necessary to be one with them all, else you can never comprehend them. Sympathy!—it is the touchstone to every secret, the key to all knowledge, the open sesame of all hearts. Put yourself in the other man's place and then you will know why he thinks certain things and does certain deeds. Put yourself in his place and your blame will ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... all, but it was the usual tirade. It is strange I have met no one yet who seems to comprehend an honest difference of opinion, and stranger yet that the ordinary rules of good breeding are now so entirely ignored. As the spring comes on one has the craving for fresh, green food that a monotonous diet produces. There was a bed of radishes and onions ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... girls, reflect. The estimate may be deemed an exaggerated one. Then we will disarm criticism by taking it at half its word. If, accordingly, we say thirty thousand for the whole—for all classes—it is still a vague figure.... Few persons ever saw thirty thousand people gathered together. But we all comprehend distances. If this army of poor girls were to form in a procession together, it would be more ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... country is the country of Namur!—The confluent streams—the impending rocks—the spreading forests of its environs, comprehend the finest features of landscape; nor could Ottavio Gonzaga feel surprised that his prince should find as much more pleasure in those breesy plains than in the narrow streets of Brussels, as he found ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... to say, "the darkness apprehended it not." The old common version says "comprehended"; the revisions, both English and American, say "apprehended." Both are rather large words, larger in English than John would use. John loved to use simple talk. Yet there's help even in these English words. Comprehend is a mental word. It means to take hold of with your mind; to understand. Apprehend is a physical word. It means to take hold ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... drawing him partly aside, inquired "On which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, "Whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... old lady, in alarm, "don't take oaths, the rashness—the folly of which you cannot comprehend. For goodness' sake don't entertain such wicked thoughts. Lablache is a ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... With these moneys great good has been done for the poor Indians—now redeeming captives from those who carry them away to sell them among the Moros and other infidels, where they lose the faith; again, aiding them in their sickness, and famines, and the like. Indeed, I am unable to comprehend the consciences of men who would attempt to take this money from the poor Indians, and put an end to so good works. May God grant ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... heads, remarkable among the Digger tribe, with matted hair, and were almost entirely naked: looking very poor and miserable, as if their lives had been spent in the rushes where they were, beyond which they seemed to have very little knowledge of any thing. From the words we could comprehend, their language was that of ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... character of a country before our eyes, and enables us to understand its influence upon the social and political condition of its inhabitants. And this knowledge, as I said before, is very important to enable us to follow clearly the external revolutions of different nations, which we want to comprehend before we penetrate to what ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... otherwise than painful. He felt almost glad that his mother was not alive. To him, the loss was scarcely a real one. His father had left him, when an infant. Although his mother had so often spoken of him, he had scarcely been a reality to Gregory; for when he became old enough to comprehend the matter, it seemed to him certain that his father must have been killed. He could, then, hardly understand how his mother could ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... widow to earn a living for herself, and bring up her children fatherless. She must assume that the Lord had some good purpose in leaving her thus bereft and must drill herself into waiting on a Will so impossible to comprehend. ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... such enormous plans is not very surprising; but we can scarcely comprehend how it was possible for him to accomplish so much of what he undertook in the short time of five months preceding his death. Following the unfortunate system of Sulla, Caesar founded throughout Italy a number of colonies of veterans. The old Sullanian colonists were treated with great ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... the young man, so rudely assailed, did not comprehend his own danger. His mind, bent upon one hideous explanation of the crime, did not see another obvious one which had already occurred to the mind of the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... When you took off that night eight weeks ago, that night I kissed you good-by, your ship ... oh don't you comprehend?... Your ship, it—" ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... Coronado, Clara was half Teutonic, and could comprehend the tone of her father's race. Notwithstanding Thurstane's shyness and silences, she discovered his moral weight and gathered his unspoken meanings. There was more in this girl than appeared on the surface. Without any power of reasoning concerning character, and without even ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... a way out of a difficulty, for we feel it masking the really significant, which is the form underneath. A mere painter, one who is satisfied to reproduce what everybody sees, and to paint for the fun of painting, will scarcely comprehend this feeling. His only significant is the obvious—in a figure, the face and the clothing, as in most of the portraits manufactured nowadays. The artist, even when compelled to paint draped figures, will force the drapery ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... think they comprehend the situation by this time?" asked Milton, who seemed to be impatient to see ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... more difficult problem in the world than that of the relation of the state of consciousness, termed volition, to the mechanical work which frequently follows upon it. But no one can even comprehend the nature of the problem, who has not carefully studied the long series of modes of motion which, without a break, connect the energy which does that work with the general store of energy. The ultimate form of the problem is ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... treatise to bear away, in kindly token of remembering us, than the works of Fulke Greville, Lord Brook—of which no Frenchman, nor woman of France, Italy, or England, was ever by nature constituted to comprehend a tittle! Was there not ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... fellows; they really believe that the prosperity of the country depends upon them. They really believe that if the leadership of economic development in this country dropped from their hands, the rest of us are too muddle-headed to undertake the task. They not only comprehend the power of the United States within their grasp, but they comprehend it within their imagination. They are honest men, they have just as much right to express their views as I have to express mine or you to express yours, but it is just about time that we examined ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... but one deep and all-pervading cause of the miseries of man: it is, that he does not comprehend the ways of God, or, in other words, the laws of his own being. If humanity does not work well, and with the same harmony that the planetary system exhibits, it is because he is determined to impress upon it other movements ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... among the people of Judah; Jethro being a priest of Midian. How all this proves that 'Moses was a great impostor,' as the poet says, and that Jehovah was not 'the original God of Israel,' but (1) Moses's family or tribal god, or (2) 'the god of the Kenites,' I profess my inability to comprehend. ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... his * Nor may folk declare him of reason right! Wine and song are ever the will of me * But my morning wine lacks a comrade-wight O who brightenest the Five[FN199] do thou rise and fetch * By night for my use olden wine and bright: O thou reading this writ, prithee comprehend: * Cross the stream I swear thee by God's All-might! This is House of Honour may none gainsay :* Cup-comrade shall be who shall self invite; For within these gates only women wone, * So of men-folk here thou ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... will not allow the ladies to be entertained in a less sumptuous manner than before. You will tell the cook what I say; and now that you have heard me, take care that you obey; if not, recollect that I have my own men here, and if I but point with my finger, overboard you go. Do you perfectly comprehend me?' ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... animal, with a brain equal to our own—one perhaps in some ways superior to our own. They have nothing in common with humanity, however; they have few of our traits and fewer of our mental processes. Even we who have fought them so long can scarcely comprehend the chambers of horror that are their minds. Even were I able to paint a sufficiently vivid picture with words, you of Earth could not begin to understand their utter ruthlessness and inhumanity, even among themselves. You would believe that I was lying, ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... incredible the moment they have ceased. They possibly understood this song no better than the strokes of wit, and encored it merely for the music's sake. The effect was, nevertheless, unfortunate, and calculated to give those French ladies but a bad opinion of our morals. How could they comprehend that the taste was, like themselves, imported, and that its indulgence here did not characterize us? It was only in appearance that, while we did not enjoy the wit we delighted in the coarseness. And how coarse this travesty of the old fable mainly is! That priest Calchas, ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... itself with regard to the elements now in a state of fermentation in Turkey. Instead of alienating from itself the feelings of the Christian population, the Ottoman Government ought more than ever to labour to conciliate them to itself. Let it comprehend, in fine, the necessity of allowing to become obsolete antiquated enactments of the Mahomedan law, which cannot be upheld but in disregard of the unanimous representations of all the Powers. Such should be the purport of the language which, Sir, ...
— Correspondence Relating to Executions in Turkey for Apostacy from Islamism • Various
... me, Mrs. Poulter, it is my duty to relieve you of that inquiry. Mrs. Poulter cannot be explicit. Do you surmise that Helen is compelled to conceal?—you will comprehend me, I am sure. I need not add ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... finite.[55] Even His universe partakes so much of His prerogative of infinity that it is utterly beyond the compass of our finite minds. Indeed, if either the Bible or the book of nature contained nothing beyond what we could easily comprehend, would it not diminish our reverence and awe for the One behind them, Whom we now regard as infinite in power ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... have had occasion a few times to change the swarm to another tenement, an hour or two after being hived, and found places on the top nearly covered with wax. How it was managed to see a bee quit the "group," is more than I can comprehend; and then the tongue to be the only instrument used to mould the scale of wax, is another difficulty; to witness the whole process minutely in this stage of comb-making has never been my good fortune, and I am sometimes inclined to doubt the success of others. I have had ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... men in the cave had strained both eyes and ears to comprehend the speakers. The distance was too great for them to catch all the words, but this much was clear from the first, that one of the men wished to stay on the spot for some purpose, and the other to go on; but presently, as the speakers warmed, a ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... and stepped over to the automobile for an examination of the license. "Ah, my father's ancient enemy!" he exclaimed, "Andre Loustalot has been calling on your father, and has just learned that I am living. I think I comprehend his reason for borrowing my horse and dusting out ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... poor hound, and succeeded in making it comprehend that he wanted "to go home." With that canine sagacity which approaches very near to reason, the dog at once sought for the path by which they had entered the morass, found it, and ran forward eagerly. Etienne ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... not seem at once to comprehend, but when his sons had persuaded him to sit, he made a peremptory motion with his stick towards the old councillor who had spoken before. This individual glanced at the chief for permission, and having received it, told me this story ...
— The Priest's Tale - Pere Etienne - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • Robert Keable
... seemed to echo for a few seconds in the ensuing silence, and one could read upon the faces of the Count and Countess de Dreux a bewildered effort to comprehend his meaning and, at the same time, the fear and anguish of such a comprehension. The count spoke ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... dark. They assaulted this Academician and that; laughed at Mr. Haydon, or sneered at Mr. Eastlake, or the contrary; deified Mr. Turner on one side of the table, and on the other scorned him as a madman—nor could Newcome comprehend a word of their jargon. Some sense there must be in their conversation: Clive joined eagerly in it and took one side or another. But what was all this rapture about a snuffy brown picture called Titian, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thirty years; while even at an earlier date there had been certain skirmishing attacks upon the stage. With the first Puritan began the quarrel with the players. As Isaac Disraeli has observed, "we must go back to the reign of Elizabeth to comprehend an event which occurred in that of Charles I." A sanctimonious sect urged extravagant reforms—at first, perhaps, in all simplicity—founding their opinions upon cramped and literal interpretations of divine precepts, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... more we study the nature of time, the more we shall comprehend that duration means invention, the creation of forms, the continual elaboration of the absolutely new. The systems marked off by science endure only because they are bound up inseparably with the rest of the universe. It is true that in the ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... hate what they call Christian Science. It seems to me a lot of nonsense that nobody can comprehend. I suppose it's an honest delusion on the part of some people and a mixture of mistake and imposture ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... this voyage was principally directed, comprehend, in the western part, the early discoveries of the Dutch, under the name of New Holland; and in the east, the coasts explored by British navigators, ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... not afraid?" she said, quite proudly, beginning at last to comprehend. "You are not ...
— Mere Girauds Little Daughter • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... so admirably adapted to this new vocation, it was, on the other hand, a source of great annoyance. Only a small class was sufficiently enlightened to comprehend my true aim in inculcating moral lessons under a partly humorous guise. All the rest, unfortunately, took me to be either one thing or the other. While some invited me to family prayer-meetings, as the most cheering and welcome relief after the fatigue ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... strong coffee, and all will be well again," said Clayton, putting a cup of the smoking beverage to my lips, which I swallowed eagerly, instinctively. The effect was instantaneous, and I was able to speak and stand, as well as hear and comprehend, while my bonnet was being tied on, and my throat muffled in a veil, by the dexterous fingers of ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... of it to the crowd was that the little peddler did not understand about the race, and thought that instead of winning he was hopelessly beaten. It took the judges some minutes to make him comprehend that he had won the race. His small, greedy, gray eyes shone when he was ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... outside world, looked upon her as their protector and friend. The idea of their beautiful girl Ruler's being overpowered by an enemy and dragged from her splendid palace a captive was too astonishing for them to comprehend, at first. Yet what other explanation of the mystery ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... organ-grinder from the threshold of the cottage to the tree beyond it, Glory made Luigi sit down again and answer every question she put to him; and though he did not always comprehend her words, he did her gestures, so that, soon, she had learned all he knew of the Lane since she had left it until the previous day when ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... numbered. When she was in London last November, she saw the most skilful physicians, and they all agreed that her disease was incurable and fatal. Why did she conceal it from you? Ah, Martin, you must know a woman's heart, a mother's heart, before you can comprehend that. Your father knew, but no one else. What a martyrdom of silent agony she has passed through! She has a clear calculation, based upon the opinion of the medical men, as to how long she might have lived had her mind been kept calm and happy. How far that has not ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... with my Lord in prayer as soon as I could have the privilege! Then I opened his Word for comfort, and my answer was, "Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men." 1 Cor. 7:23. What did this mean? I was too young a child of the King to comprehend, and therefore could only wait and pray. So troubled at heart was I at my husband's pride and growing coldness that I at last visited the pastor of the church where my name was enrolled. He tried to persuade me to refrain from any but ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... left, and assaulting columns pressing our front, we ceased firing to surrender. Our captors came up with flashing eyes and the loveliest smiles on their countenances and shook hands with us in the most enthusiastic manner. I could comprehend how good they felt when we ceased firing on them and they saw that they had gained a great victory. But as I passed through that fort, in and around where the dead of both sides lay thick, and saw ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... causes. But still, it would be some little advantage to the people's understanding to see what prodigious effects could be produced without any preternatural interference. Though not comprehending the science employed, they could comprehend that what they saw was purely a matter of science, and that the cause and the effect were natural and definite; unlike the present race of Egyptians, who not long since regarded the very mechanics of an European as an operation of ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... been more filled with wonder, surprise, and pleasure. All was novelty and excitement, but at the same time, to a great degree, above my comprehension. I had neither language nor ideas to meet it, and yet I did, to a certain degree, comprehend. I saw not clearly, but sometimes as through a mist, at others through a dark fog, and I could discern little. Every day, however, my increased knowledge of language and terms gave me an increased knowledge of ideas. I gained ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... heart was near breaking. When you asked me to tell you what made me sad, I had not the courage to do it. Then I told you a lie. I did the very thing which I have so much condemned in others. This trouble has taught me to comprehend and to pity the frailty of men. I look forward with fear and dread for my own sake.. I shall be safe in my father's house. I must go back, but, before I go, forgive me. Tell me that you do not ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... some bells, and other instruments of worship form exceptions to this. During our excursion at Kioto we passed an inclosure where the walls were built of blocks of stone so colossal, that it was difficult to comprehend how it had been possible to lift and move them with the means that were at the disposal of the Japanese in former times. In the neighbourhood of that place there was a grave, probably the only one of its kind. It is described in the following way in an account of the curiosities of Kioto ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... you are in any danger. It is possible that I have been too anxious. Do you speak the French language easily? Do you comprehend ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... conscious of His own genius, and of the value of His teachings to mankind, He made not the least effort to perpetuate these teachings. He wrote no book, provided no biographer, did none of those things which the humblest man of genius does to ensure that distant generations shall comprehend and appreciate his character and message. He was content to speak His deepest truths to casual listeners. He spent all His wealth of intellect upon inferior persons, fishermen and the like, who did not comprehend one tithe of what He said. He was the friend of all who ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... would have destroyed the schooner and all hands. The people who manned the battery could not possibly have failed to hear the firing that had been going on at the head of the lagoon; but they seemed to have failed to comprehend its full significance, and, therefore, to have been unable to make up their minds to slue the gun round and point it in the opposite direction. This state of indecision on their part not only enabled us to approach them with impunity but also ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... not suddenly recall what had lately passed, or comprehend the nature of my situation. At length, however, ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... was Sylvie's rather sharp retort, answering the latter part of the sentence merely. Child as she was, she experienced a strong desire to do battle, not only for Jack, but for some puzzling cause she could not quite comprehend. With the blood of a French duke in her veins, of soldiers and martyrs as well, she was a sturdy little democrat. It seemed cowardly ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... first peasant. Gabriel Andersen saw his strange, imploring, hopeless look. His lips moved, but no sound was heard, and his eyes wandered. There was a bright gleam in them as in the eyes of a madman. His mind, it was evident, was no longer able to comprehend what was happening. ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... you will comprehend that I have had neither the leisure nor the inclination to go from home much during the past year. I spent a week with Mrs. Gaskell in the spring, and a fortnight with some other friends more recently, and that includes the whole of my visiting since ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... too dark for him to comprehend now—from that first understanding moment in St. Isidore's receiving room to this. Here was his revolt, in one cold burden of dead love. She had left him in some delusion that it would be better thus, that by ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... easy to comprehend that a deaf-mute child, although he has learned but few words through instruction in articulation, weaves these continually into his pantomimic conversation in place of his former elaborate gestures. I observed that individual children, born totally deaf, preferred, even in conversation with ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... brute creation detect influences deadly to their existence. Man's reason has a sense less subtle, because it has a resisting power more supreme. But enough; do you comprehend my theory?" ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... so lost,— Is, whether you're—not grateful—but more pleased. Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed! This hour has been an hour! Another smile? If you would sit thus by me every night I should work better, do you comprehend? I mean that I should earn more, give you more. See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star; Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall, The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. {210} Come from the window, ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... protection than any other property. That they do not secure all this, is the objection I have to the amendments to the Constitution proposed by the Peace Conference. They are ambiguous, loose, and deceptive. I do not know that the people can comprehend them. There will be no certainty under them; and they would, if adopted, result in endless trouble and litigation. I trust no amendments will ever be made to the Constitution, unless they are made upon principles of right, justice, and equality, ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... hesitation. This crowned representative of the union of the throne and the altar did not comprehend royalty without coronation. Not to receive the holy unction would have been for him a case of conscience, a sort of sacrilege. In opening the session of the Chambers in the Hall of the Guards at the Louvre, December 22d, 1824, he announced, amid general approval, ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... of reason are its own necessary processes and expressions. Its dialectic instability is instability that is peculiar to all reality. Both thought and reality manifest one nature and one process. Hence reason with its "dynamic" categories can comprehend the "fluent" reality, because it is flesh of its flesh and bone of its bone. Hegel's bold and oft quoted words "What is rational is real; and what is real is rational," pithily express his whole doctrine. The nature of rationality and the nature of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... full minute to comprehend. When he did, he breathed deep, shut his lips upon words that would have frightened her, and went down the ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... Orion had gone down the river and established his little job-printing-office in Keokuk. On account of charging next to nothing for the work done in his job-office, he had almost nothing to do there. He was never able to comprehend that work done on a profitless basis deteriorates and is presently not worth anything, and that customers are then obliged to go where they can get better work, even if they must pay better prices for it. He had plenty of time, and ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... not comprehend her hesitation and tone. Said he,—"Pierre is wonderfully changed since he and I wore the green sash of the seminary. He is taller than I, wiser and better,—he was always that,—but in heart the same generous, noble Pierre ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Engeholm (for four years in charge of the Primates House in the New York Zoological Park) has not been able to discover that his apes use any language, correctly speaking, he is confident that the chimpanzees Susie, Dick, and Baldy comprehend the definite meaning of many words, and that their minds react promptly when these words are addressed to them in the form of commands. This capacity is more highly developed in Susie than in any other of the ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... to delegate, or—to resign the inheritance of the great warrior and lawgiver. The meek, bald, fat, stammering, simple Charles, or Louis, who successively sat upon his throne—princes, whose only historic individuality consists in these insipid appellations—had not the sense to comprehend, far less to develop, the plans of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... declining, died, leaving me in heart wretched and desolate, and, owing to his habitual seclusion, with few acquaintances, and almost no friends. The provisions of his will were curious, and when I was sufficiently come to myself to listen to, or comprehend them, surprised me not a little: all his vast property was left to me, and to the heirs of my body, for ever; and, in default of such heirs, it was to go after my death to my uncle, Sir Arthur, without any entail. At the same time, ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... attention, and sauntered among the green hillocks under which lay at rest so many of the once loving swains and forgotten beauties of Plumstead. To his ears Eleanor's last words sounded like a knell never to be reversed. He could not comprehend that she might be angry with him, indignant with him, remorseless with him, and yet love him. He could not make up his mind whether or no Mr. Slope was in truth a favoured rival. If not, why should she not have ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... him. Tom made him an anxious sign, and, fevered as he was and but half awake, Richard, whether he understood it or not, anyhow kept silence, while Tom Fool approached the bed, and began to talk rapidly in a low voice, trembling with apprehension. It was some time, however, before Richard began to comprehend even a fragment here and there of what he was saying. When at length he had gathered this much, that his visitor was running no small risk in coming to him, and was in mortal dread of discovery, he needed but the disclosure of ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... Fleming took David's hand, and then in a low voice gave him directions for the night's watch, though David, in the sudden hope and relief that had come to him, could scarcely comprehend them. Then the physician went, and the minister and David sat by the bedside alone. Robert lay in the very similitude and presence of death, unconscious both of his sufferings and his friends. Congestion of the brain had set in, and life was only revealed by ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... seemed to be at home in some familiar element. Delicate hands held mine—a face far lovelier than the loveliest face of woman ever dreamed by poet or painter, smiled radiantly at me, and I smiled back again. A voice whispered in strange musical murmurs, such as I well seemed to know and comprehend: ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... matter, wonderful in the pleasure which the sight of it gives, even to millionaires; but perhaps no five-pound note was ever so miraculous as Denry's. Ten per cent. per week, compound interest, mounts up; it ascends, and it lifts. Denry never talked precisely. But the town soon began to comprehend that he was a rising man, a man to watch. The town admitted that, so far, he had lived up to his reputation as a dancer with countesses. The town felt that there was ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... anxiously to look forward to his return to Boston. "Surely," said I to him one evening as we were engaged in conversation, "Littleton must still contain one attraction for you yet." He appeared not to comprehend my meaning, but I well knew his ignorance was only feigned. But when he saw that I was not to be put off in that way, he said with a tone of assumed indifference, "O! if it is Belinda Merril you are talking about, I ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... electric powers of the combining particles. But it will require a much more exact and extensive knowledge of the nature of electricity, and the manner in which it is associated with the atoms of matter, before we can understand accurately the action of this power in thus causing their union, or comprehend the nature of the great difference which it presents in the two modes of action just distinguished. We may imagine, but such imaginations must for the time be classed with the great mass of doubtful knowledge (876.) which ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... und walk mit him hand in hand, which was most horrible. Herr Gott! I haf seen dot beast throw himself back in his chair und laugh when Bertran haf made fun of me. He was NOT a beast; he was a man, und he talked to Bertran, und Bertran comprehend, for I have seen dem. Und he was always politeful to me except when I talk too long to Bertran und say nodings at all to him. Den he would pull me away—dis great, dark devil, mit his enormous paws— shust as if I was a child. He was not a beast; he was a man. ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... Realizing that if in the little time yet his he made her comprehend, he might lose more than he could hope to gain, he let her free while he took a card and pen from his pocket. He wrote clearly and exactly his address, giving his uncle's ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... possibilities for public recreation and for the corporate expression of stirring emotions. After all, what is the function of art but to preserve in permanent and beautiful form those emotions and solaces which cheer life and make it kindlier, more heroic and easier to comprehend; which lift the mind of the worker from the harshness and loneliness of his task, and, by connecting him with what has gone before, free him from a sense ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... the Landlord's face grew red As his escutcheon on the wall; He could not comprehend at all The drift of what the Poet said; For those who had been longest dead Were always greatest in his eyes; And he was speechless with surprise To see Sir William's plumed head Brought to a level with the rest, And made ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... arm-chair, which gave such a shudder of premonition to Goethe, and which Maginn, reflecting the popular voice, declared to be a mortal likeness—"painted to the very death"—was more like the original than his pictures by Lawrence and Hoppner. One can comprehend, too, that the person whom nature had so ungenerously endowed, might be perfectly capable of retorting to rudeness, or the still-smarting recollection of rudeness, with those weapons of mordant wit and acrid epigram which are not unfrequently the protective ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... and faculty is one which I can hardly think of words to describe fitly. The few of his old friends who are left will understand what I mean. But I can hardly make those who did not know him, or live in his time, comprehend it. That was his rare and unequalled gift of gathering and uttering the sentiment of the people. When new and doubtful matters of pith and moment were to be dealt with, and after a long apparent hesitation, and backing ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... bruised and sore. The fearful events of the day before would continue to thrust themselves upon his mind. To put them out required painful effort; to recall and comprehend them was even worse. Reflecting upon them now, with unstrung nerves, made them seem a hundred-fold more terrible than when they were the spontaneous offspring of hot blood. With the reflection came the thoguhts that this was but a prelude—an ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... Guise, and, to make him believe it, would take frequent opportunities of embracing him, crying out at the same time, "would to God you were my brother!" This he often put in practice before me, which M. de Guise seemed not to comprehend; but I, who knew his malicious designs, lost all patience, yet did not dare to ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... natural tendency to meddle with other people's business, there could not possibly be a more congenial sphere than the Liverpool Consulate. For myself, I had never been in the habit of feeling that I could sufficiently comprehend any particular conjunction of circumstances with human character, to justify me in thrusting in my awkward agency among the intricate and unintelligible machinery of Providence. I have always hated to give advice, especially when ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... is attained. When we graft upon the idea of a mechanism that character of continuous self-development which transforms it into an "organism," the synthesis of the changing phenomena is still more difficult to comprehend. These difficulties can only be overcome by a recognition that the scientific imagination must play a larger part here than it does in those sciences whose subject-matter is more amenable to direct ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... stopping from disturbing his auburn locks any further with his fingers and now all eagerness again, as if only just then beginning to comprehend what the other was ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... answer this question by a thousand instances, than by one definition, which can comprehend them all. What is Love? It is anything you please. It is a prism, through which the eye beholds the same object in various colours; it is a heaven of bliss, or a hell of torture; a thirst of the heart—an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 11, 1841 • Various
... They see us affecting contempt for the very fooleries we seek to imitate; they see these, your chosen, playing the coarse ruffian to the end. To the foreign mind Americans are America—to its chosen they look for the embodiment of its institutions It cannot comprehend that the mongrel-mixture you have sent abroad constitute the very essence of that ill opinion gained of us by misrepresentation. This, General, is strictly private—only intended for your own good. It were folly to look for ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... Greeley family, and a writer for The Tribune; a position was therefore offered her by Mr. Greeley upon his wife's judgment. It required but a short time, however, for the great editor to feel her power, although he failed to fully comprehend her greatness. It has been declared not the least of Horace Greeley's services to the nation, that he was willing to entrust the literary criticisms of The Tribune to one whose standard of culture was so far above that of his ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... melancholy, singing an air with little variation, but with an insistent burden of desire. The voice and the guitar mingled and fluctuated, drifting up from the pavement exotic and moving. Lavinia could comprehend ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of the nation. It concerns them horribly. Nobody can think so ill of them as to suppose they don't care. It's monstrous that men should sit upon that committee alone. Women have had to think about these things. We believe this evil can be met—if men will let us try. It may be that only women comprehend it, since men through the ages have been helpless before it. Why, then, once again, this Commission of men? The mockery of it! Setting men to make their report upon this matter to men! I am not a public speaker, but I am a wife and a mother. Do you wonder that hearing about that Commission ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... converted into crapes and damasks, and other rich stuffs of China, but found, to his astonishment, by the legerdemain of traffic, his cargo had all disappeared, and, in place of it, remained a bill of charges amounting to three thousand dollars. It was some time before he could be made to comprehend certain of the most important items of the bill, such as pilotage, anchorage, and custom-house fees; but when he discovered that maritime states in other countries derived large revenues in this manner, to the great cost of the merchant, "Well," cried he, "then I will have harbor fees ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... are you talking about? what do I comprehend of this new system under which France is living? We old companions-in-arms of his late Majesty can ill understand the language spoken by the new court, and that in its turn does not comprehend ours. But what do I say? We speak no language in this sad country, for all the world is silent ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... ... the child's attitude. And it would enable you immediately to comprehend mine towards an education consisting merely of practical knowledge. The life of Faith is still the happy one. What is more crushingly finite than knowledge? Moral discipline is a nation's only safety. How much of your science ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... apparence made by some magic, As jugglers playen at these feastes great." Of sundry doubts they jangle thus and treat. As lewed* people deeme commonly *ignorant Of thinges that be made more subtilly Than they can in their lewdness comprehend; They *deeme gladly to the badder end.* *are ready to think And some of them wonder'd on the mirrour, the worst* That borne was up into the master* tow'r, *chief How men might in it suche thinges see. ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Calvin, who says: "He speaks after the manner of the prophets, who under the term 'law' used to comprehend ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... hard for such a child as she is to take this journey. She has had no experience,—she does not comprehend the easy customs and the hard travelling of the frontier. I ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... of friends. She was not, even before then, satisfied with their life, though she moved in step with them, while she treasured all her secret dreams in her soul.... But the discrepancy soon becomes apparent.... They cease to comprehend her, and are ready to look askance at everything she does.... At first this is nothing to her, but afterwards, afterwards ... when she is left alone, when what she was striving towards, for which she had sacrificed everything—when heaven is not gained while ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Burke by his late lieutenant, comprise almost everything that a commander should not be guilty of. His acts of commission and omission comprehend everything that a bad general could possibly commit or omit, and Mr. Landells winds up his bad qualities by asserting that he "cultivates the spy system," and treats his men like a parcel of "convicts." Not only is he "ungentlemanly" ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... itself felt in its own sphere. Gravitation is simple. The law according to which an acorn makes an oak—and not a pine-tree is complex. But the laws of Nature are all alike, and if we understand the simple ones, we can at least partly comprehend the more complex. They are nothing but fixed habits ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... fail to comprehend but she ignored it, giving back to the smouldering eyes of disapproval level look for look. Then she said quietly: "Brother Sanders, kin I hev speech with him—or must ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... remember," said Carton, dictating, "the words that passed between us long ago, you will comprehend this when you see it. I am thankful that the time has come when I can prove them." Carton's hand was withdrawn from his breast, and slowly and softly moved down the writer's face. For a few seconds Darnay struggled faintly, Carton's ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... the spy, then he is one. I am not mistaken; for since the glitter of his glass first arrested me I have watched covertly, and several trials as successful as the present have confirmed the suspicion which Babie's innocent complaints of his long absences aroused. Now do you comprehend why I remained in these rooms with the curtains seldom drawn? Why I swung the hammock here and let you sing and read to me while I played with your hair or leaned upon your shoulder? Why I have been all devotion and made this balcony a little stage for the performance ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... desirable that the reader comprehend the full importance of the doctrine, as related to this subject, that the dead are unconscious and that they have no power to communicate with the living. This being established, it sweeps away at one stroke the ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... hard words he turned away, and I heard him going heavily down the stairs. His wife stayed a little longer, saying something in a kind voice, which I did not comprehend, and ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... her. She is not despised and rejected as a woman, but as a poor physician's daughter; and this, to an understanding so clear, so strong, so just as Helena's, is not felt as an unpardonable insult. The mere pride of rank and birth is a prejudice of which she cannot comprehend the force, because her mind towers so immeasurably above it; and, compared to the infinite love which swells within her own bosom, it sinks into nothing. She cannot conceive that he, to whom she has devoted her heart and truth, her soul, her life, her service, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... Power of Thinking," an article which he acknowledges to be a little difficult, he observes, that the great point is to make the child comprehend what is meant by attention; "for as soon as he understands that, all the rest," he assures us, "will be easy." Is it then of less consequence, that the child should learn the habit of attention, than that he should learn ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... Peleg that the old hunter was convinced that what he said was true, and there had been many experiences along the border to justify him in his conclusion. What Sam Oliver had been unable to comprehend was that, much as the methods of the Indians in their warfare were to be condemned, they still were fighting for the protection of the lands which they believed to ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... friendship with a man who was educated and, in a measure, of the world into which he himself had been born. Baird's world had been that of New England, his own, the world of the South; but they could comprehend each other's parallels and precedents, and argue from somewhat similar planes. In the Delisleville days Tom had formed no intimacies, and had been a sort of Colossus set apart; in the mountains of North Carolina he had consorted with the primitive and uneducated in good-humoured, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... convinced, provided an ironical framework for his arguments merely that he might render them more effective than they had been when plainly stated in the pamphlet of 1865. He fully expected his readers to comprehend his irony, and he anticipated that some at any rate of them would keenly resent it. Writing to Miss Savage in March, 1873 (shortly before the publication of the book), he said: "I should hope that attacks on The Fair Haven will give me an opportunity of excusing myself, ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... this is that which the apostle usually prayeth for in his epistles for the saints, namely, "That they might know what is the hope of God's calling, and the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints; and that they might be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and know the love of Christ, which passeth ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... man wad ye be? And wha wad ye hae to maister ye but me, Cuddie, lad?" answered Jenny. "I'll gar ye comprehend in the making of a hay-band. Naebody kens that this young gentleman is living but oursells; and frae that he keeps himsell up sae close, I am judging that he's purposing, if he fand Miss Edith either married, or just gaun to be ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
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