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More "Positive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... years and eight months old. As to the profession we have overwhelming evidence that it took place on the 3rd of November, 1536, and her entrance in the convent a year and a day earlier. To begin with, we have the positive statement of her most intimate friends, Julian d'Avila, Father Ribera, S.J., and Father Jerome Gratian. Likewise dona Maria Pinel, nun of the Incarnation, says in her deposition: "She (Teresa of Jesus) ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... instinct is reason. They are the negative and positive of mental volition. The man who retains the animal gift of unreasoning divination, preserving that clear power against the handicaps which mind training and education impose, is necessarily psychic, or, as they say ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... two-thirds its population, with a small army and no navy worthy of the name, can successfully rule fifty million people of alien race and religion, half the world away, and keep them loyal and contented, that nation has, it seems to me, a positive genius ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... of psychic ambivalence and ambitendency, as so nicely developed by Bleuler,[17] here shows itself in marked degree. There is both the positive and the negative tendency toward the performance and execution of these activities and reactions which are necessary for the living of a life of a high or low degree of efficiency, so that the ticquer is obsessed by the problem of "to ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... more than surprised at the effect his piece of information had on Tom Swift. Though the young inventor had all along suspected Andy of having the missing plans, yet there had been no positive evidence on this point. That, coupled with the fact that the red-haired bully had not been seen in the vicinity of Shopton lately, had, in a measure, lulled Tom's suspicions to rest, but now his ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... journey. People have often been suffocated in their beds before they awoke. But it was hardly likely a body would be completely burnt to ashes as this was assumed to be, though nobody seemed to see it at the time. And how positive the surgeon was too, about those bits of bone! Why he should have been so, nobody can tell. I cannot help saying that if it has ever been possible to find pure stupidity incarnate, it was in that jury of Carriford. There existed in the mass the stupidity ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... information on Florentine affairs to the Milanese court; but his pay had been small, notwithstanding his pains to write full letters, and he had lately been apprised that his news was seldom more than a late and imperfect edition of what was known already. Now Ser Ceccone had no positive knowledge that Tito had an underhand connection with the Arrabbiati and the Court of Milan, but he had a suspicion of which he chewed the cud with as strong a sense of flavour as if it ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... body moves around the earth without falling on it, by this law. We say in dynamic philosophy, that bodies move in the direction of least resistance, and that we can positively understand; but what force per se is, we do not know. It is always better for us to explain phenomena by positive known laws and motions, than by any that rest ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... had been committed, whence his Britannic majesty ordered a declaration to be published, in justification of the motives which induced this expedition. In this declaration it was stated, "that the king had received positive information of the determination made by the ruler of France to occupy with a military force the territory of Holland, for the purpose of excluding Great Britain from her accustomed channels of continental communication; of inducing or compelling ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... against Mary, who called aloud for more help, and made her sit down till it came. Her resolution, however, was not to be altered; a stubbornness, wholly foreign to her genuine character, now made her stern and positive; and Mary, who thought her submission indispensable, cried, but did ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... that the best results had been obtained by keeping all power in the hands of the Prophet, Seer and Revelator, and of those whom he might appoint to work with him. Joseph F. Smith, at a meeting of the Presidency, was even more positive. No good, he said, could come of publishing the affairs of the community to the people of it; those affairs were purely the concern of the Prophets; the Lord revealed His will to the Prophets and they were ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... opinion on earth even while it shams to be praying to God? And there is a close connection which the history of every age has illustrated between formal religious profession and the love of money, which is the vice of the Church. Again, the promise of rewarding openly naturally leads on to the positive exhortation to make ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... footing there. It is 'the way of holiness,' not only because holiness is in some sense the goal to which it leads, but still more, because only holy feet can tread it, holy at least in the travellers' aspiration and inward consecration, though still needing to be washed daily. One is positive—it is 'the simple' who shall not err therein. They who distrust themselves and their own skill to find or force a path through life's jungle, and trust themselves to higher guidance, are they whose feet will ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... ought not to contemn the word, yet hath it not that respect given to it which the sacrament hath, at which we are uncovered, so that this veneration given to the sacrament must be somewhat more than profanatio,—I answer, as honour both in the positive and negative sense, has various degrees, and according to the more or less immediate manifestation of divine ordinances to us, so ought the degrees of our veneration to be intended or remitted; which is not so to be understood ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... throat, "you imagine me to have a daughter. You're positive of it. You even visualize her so well, that you remember something about how you were ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... and her light hand for cakes and pastry, her delicious scones and crisp short-cake, must have been remembered with regret by the recusant Joe, and may have had something to do with his anxious claims. Mrs. Baxter forgot her beloved iteration; her monotonous voice roused into positive animation as she verbally weighed ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the small Japanese knife was in its sheath during the afternoon; indeed, the footman said it was there, to the best of his belief, at midnight. Then, again, a small drawer in Sir Alan's writing-table had been wrenched open whilst you were alone in the room. On this point the footman was positive. Near the drawer rested the sword from which its viperish companion had been abstracted. Had not the butler found Sir Alan's body, still palpitating, and testified beyond any manner of doubt that you were apparently sleeping in the library, ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... for some time back, especially since the late Kur-Baiern's illness, understood that Austria, always eager for a clutch at Baiern, had something of that kind in view; but his first positive news of it was a Letter from Duchess Clement (date, JANUARY 3d), which, by the detail of facts, unveiled to his quick eye the true outline, extent and nature of this Enterprise of Austria's; Enterprise which, he could not but agree with Duchess Clement, was one of great concernment ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... whose influence over the mind of the Empress she so much feared; and as the ladies of the household of her Imperial Majesty were themselves eager to be rid of the rivalry of Madame de Lajanski, and endeavored to excite still more the jealousy of her Imperial highness, a positive order was demanded from the Emperor, and Madame de Lajanski was sent back from Munich to Vienna. The Empress obeyed without complaint, but knowing who had instigated the blow, cherished a profound resentment against her Majesty the Queen of Naples. The Empress ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... subject very different opinions from those which prevail in many quarters. We believe in the essential healthfulness of literary culture, and in the invigorating power of sound knowledge. Emphatically do we believe that our common schools have been in the aggregate a positive physical benefit. We are confident, that, just to the degree that the unseen force within a man receives its rightful development, does vigorous life flow in every current that beats from heart to extremities. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... only this negative character, and as though to be let alone were necessarily and in itself a good thing. But others have truly and forcefully shown, first, that to be let alone may sometimes be a doubtful blessing, and, secondly, that liberty has a further and positive aspect not less important than the negative. Sir J. F. Stephen, in his Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, vigorously criticizes Mill's negative theory. Matthew Arnold in Culture and Anarchy (a work which well repays perusal at the present time) pours delightful but destructive ridicule upon "our ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... Island had commissioned hers 'to join in any measures to secure American rights;' in Massachusetts, various towns had pledged themselves to maintain any declaration on which Congress might agree; and Virginia had given positive instructions to her delegates that Congress should make a declaration of independence. These proceedings were accompanied with declarations respecting a reservation to each colony of the right to form its own government, in the adjustment of the power universally ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... thought very positive upon this point, I think I am right, but feel that I may be wrong. Tavernier says that Shah Jahan was obliged to give up his intention of completing a silver ceiling to the great hall in the palace, because Austin de Bordeaux had been killed, and no ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Gordon's absence, Bernard had frequent colloquies with his friend's wife, whose irresponsible prattle amused him, and in whom he tried to discover some faculty, some quality, which might be a positive guarantee of Gordon's future felicity. But often, of course, Gordon was an auditor as well; I say an auditor, because it seemed to Bernard that he had grown to be less of a talker than of yore. Doubtless, when a man finds himself united to a garrulous wife, he naturally learns to hold his tongue; ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... nor Mr. Germaine could make any positive complaint of my conduct. But they were both thoroughly uneasy about me. After anxious consideration, my step-father arrived at a conclusion. He decided that the one chance of restoring me to my better and brighter self was to try the stimulant ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... modest, cautious, simple, sincere. Nothing was for show, for self-love; there was no rhetoric, no declamation, no triumphant "I told you so," but the plain statement of a clear-headed honest man, who knows that he is handling one of the gravest subjects that interest humanity. His positive instructions were full of value, but the spirit in which he taught inspired that loyal love of truth which lies at the bottom of ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the most desirable thoughts those which are definite, clear, deep, logical, profound, strong, precise, impressive, original, significant, explicit, luminous, positive, suggestive, comprehensive, and practical. Resolutely avoid all thoughts which are uncertain, recondite, obscure, immature, unimportant, shallow, weak, visionary, absurd, vague, extravagant, indefinite, ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... I have proof positive that he and Meigs and Hendricks drafted it. And all this fine-haired engineering ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... that the twelfth article of the treaty as it now stands contains a positive obligation, "in consideration of the extension acquired by the boundaries of the United States," to pay to the Mexican Republic $12,000,000 in four equal annual installments of three millions each. This obligation ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... is—generally acknowledged—a certain high-born, well-bred look about the poise of my shapely head which gains for me more than a mere passing notice. My manners are pronounced "charming," and by many—those who like me—charmingly faultless. So, after all, in spite of this lack of a positive style of beauty, I am what might be termed a "social success." But it is a social success which I have slowly gained, with much labor, and its duration is somewhat uncertain. I am just beginning to be sure of myself, although ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... regard to atmospheric electricity. It was formerly uncertain whether the electrostatic potential would increase by rising from the surface of the earth to more elevated region of the atmosphere or not, and also whether the potential in a normal—that is, cloudless—state of the atmosphere was always positive or sometimes negative. Sir William Thomson found by exact methods of measuring that the increase of the potential with elevation is very important, and values about 100 volts per meter. That fact is proved by many other observers, especially lately by Mr. F. Exner, at Vienna, who found an increase ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... While? was answered by Mrs. George Bass (Ills.) who declared it to be "a positive influence for good"; it was called by Mrs. Grace Wilbur Trout (Ills.) "a step toward full suffrage"; by Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton (Ohio) "a help to other States." Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch described "the chances opened by the Illinois law." It was the consensus ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... her hodman to build them. The man perplexed with too much thinking remembered the girl's innocent, ignorant readiness to stamp the world's stuff anew after the forms of her own pitying thought, with a positive thirst of sympathy. The deep poetry and ideality at the root of him under all the weight of intellectual and critical debate leapt towards her. He thought of the rapid talk she had poured out upon him, after their compact of friendship, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... opportunities for shielding themselves. In Owen was found, in place of his father's impressibility, a larger share of his father's pride, and a squareness of idea which, if coupled with a little more blindness, would have amounted to positive prejudice. To him humanity, so far as he had thought of it at all, was rather divided into distinct classes than blended from extreme to extreme. Hence by a sequence of ideas which might be traced if it were worth ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... said Toff, with dignity. "I am happy to be able to meet it with a positive reply. My master is expected ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... As the Indians who arrived yesterday had a number of spare horses, we thought it probable they might be willing to dispose of them, and desired the chief to speak to them for that purpose. They declined giving any positive answer, but requested to see the goods which we proposed to exchange. We then produced some battle-axes which we had made at fort Mandan, and a quantity of knives; with both of which they appeared very much pleased; and we ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... Morgana, for mere negations there is no remedy; but for positive errors, even for gambling, it ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... Temptations, which his Maker knew he would shortly be exposed to, and overcome with; and all his Posterity, had they been tried one by one, would, it seems, have failed as he did, Page 72. If all this does not amount to something equal to a positive Assertion, that God willed the Fall of Adam, and in Consequence of it, the Guilt and Desert of eternal Death, which is said to be thence derived, to all his prosperity, I do not know what is, or can be equal to it; and indeed all this, and much more, may easily be resolved into the Doctrine of ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... then be seen that under the veil of mythology lies a solid reality, that a floating superstition holds in solution a positive truth. ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... these frightful passages, these infamous laws of war, because the bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact, there never was, and there never can be, an argument, even tending to prove the inspiration of any book whatever. In the absence of positive evidence, analogy and experience, argument is simply impossible, and at the very best, can amount only to a useless agitation of the air. The instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs. It is infinitely absurd to suppose that a god would ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... no need now of urging Jacob to undertake the mission; since he had what seemed like positive information of his father's whereabouts, he would have gone in the direction of the besieged fort whether General Herkimer so desired, ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... such islands of actively growing male tissue can frequently be found, he states, in the degenerating ovaries of female birds which have put forth male plumage. Sir John Bland-Sutton, referring to the fact that the external conformation of the body affords no positive certainty as to the nature of the internal sexual glands, adds (British Medical Journal, Oct. 30, 1909): "It is a fair presumption that some examples of sexual frigidity and sex perversion may be explained by the possibility that the individuals concerned may possess sexual glands opposite ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... for assuming that a given human being of any race or sex cannot reach normal, human development if he is granted a reasonable chance. This is, of course, denied. It is denied so volubly and so frequently and with such positive conviction that the majority of unthinking people seem to assume that most human beings are not human and have no right to human treatment or human opportunity. All this goes to prove that human beings are, and must be, woefully ignorant of each other. It always startles ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... occasion in these unhappy people's country are too obvious to mention. Let us make their case our own, and consider what we should think, and how we should feel, were we in their circumstances. Remember our blessed Redeemer's positive command—to do unto others as we would have them do unto us;—and that with what measure we mete, it shall be measured to us again. And we intreat you to examine, whether the purchasing of a negro, either born here or imported, doth not contribute to a further importation, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... was very bad—and it must be borne in mind that, throughout all this experience, his physical condition was one of ebb—and he was in considerable distress by reason of the negligence, the positive ill-treatment even, he received from his wife and step-children. His wife was vain, extravagant, unfeeling, and had a growing taste for private drinking; his step-daughter was mean and over-reaching; and his step-son had conceived a violent ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... it was known that Richard was dead. The universal belief was that he was murdered. There were various rumors in respect to the manner in which the deed was perpetrated. The account most precise and positive states that a man named Exton, who had heard the remark of the king, repaired at once to the castle of Pontefract, accompanied by eight desperate men, all well armed, and gained admission to Richard's room while he was at table. ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... conscientious holder of the Establishment principle might be perhaps equally unable to avail himself of services so restricted. We can at least see how each, in turn, might lodge an alternate protest,—the one against the positive exclusion of religion by the State, the other against its positive introduction. But if, according to Chalmers, the State, aware of the difficulty, tenders its endowment and builds its schools 'simply as an expression of its value for a good secular education,' ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... and provoked at this. We had given Pomona positive orders not to leave the place, under any pretense, while we were gone. If necessary to send for anything, she could go to the fence, back of the barn, and scream across a small field to some of the numerous members of old John's family. ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... knew you 'd never give up. They even handicapped you—started you wrong, to be sure it would take time, to be positive of ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... intention of following them unless the flames were actually roaring up the block between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. She felt quite positive that ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... quick sharpness, divining, I am positive, the strides I was making in my education, and poured himself whisky from his private bottle. This hit me for a moment on my thrifty side. He had taken a ten-cent drink when the rest of us were drinking five-cent drinks! But the ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... predecessors and disciples, but the pictures of Fra Angelico, of Verrocchio, of Filippo Lippi, of Botticelli, the painters of that fifteenth century which, as Pater has told us, "can hardly be studied too much, not merely for its positive results in the things of the intellect and the imagination, its concrete works of art, its special and prominent personalities with their profound aesthetic charm, but for its general spirit and character, for the ethical qualities of which it is a ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... never have done this consciously—of that I am positive. But it was betrayed in every line of her face, and my anxious ear caught it in every word she uttered as to the doings of the Johnson party. Doubtless she did not realize how naturally and closely I would associate ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... echoes, gloomily reverberative, into every dell and labyrinth of the Pirna Country;—intended to strike a deeper damp into them, thinks he. [Retzow, i. 67.] But Imperial Majesty was mindful, too; and straightway sent Browne positive order, "Deliver me these poor Saxons at any price!" And in the course of not quite a week from Lobositz, there arrives a confidential Messenger from Browne: "Courage still, ye caged Saxons; I will try it another way! Only you must hold out till the 11th; on the 11th stand to your tools, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... assured that that negative accord of which he spoke will amply suffice. We must strive to widen it, that it may embrace the majority of the intelligent faithful; that it may even reach the Hierarchy. He will see that positive accord will ripen in it, mysteriously, as the seed of life ripens in the decaying body of the fruit. Yes, yes, the negative accord is sufficient. The feeling that the Church of Christ is suffering is sufficient to unite us in the love of our Mother, and to move us ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... lays stress upon the technical skill which results from the close copying of nature, and by virtue of which Furini must be styled a good painter, whether or not a great one: and though he has never underrated the positive value of technical skill, we do not feel that in this third page of the "parleyings" he gives to the inspiring thought as high a relative place as in his earlier works. The old convictions reappear at pages 182-3 of vol. xvi., when he asserts the ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... impatient jerk I know he has argument ready for some one. I have felt him start as a sudden recollection or a new idea shot through his mind. I have felt grief in his hand. I have felt his soul wrap itself in darkness majestically as in a garment. Another friend has positive, emphatic hands which show great pertinacity of opinion. She is the only person I know who emphasizes her spelled words and accents them as she emphasizes and accents her spoken words when I read ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... fall on a Tuesday. So Gillian averred as she walked up the hill with Jasper and Mysie. It seemed a climax to the diversion she and Jasper had extracted from it in private, both wearing Punch's spectacles for the nonce, and holding such aberrations as proof positive. Mysie, on the other ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and vestigial structures of animals are in themselves proof positive of a natural history of change. The few illustrations can be reinforced by countless examples offered by every group of living animals. If such structures have not evolved naturally by degenerating from more efficient counterparts in ancestors of earlier times, and if they have been specially ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... gives you to drink. He gilds his pill always, and he always gilds it with himself. The general characteristics of his Essays have been indicated, and it is worth while inquiring what they teach, what positive good they have done, and why for three centuries they have charmed, and still continue ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... I to know? Your instructions to me were positive. Don't monkey with curtain till bell rings. When bell rings, if down, pull her up; if up, pull her down. I'm ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... suggestions and advice were consequently very valuable to us but, not having been to the northward of the Great Slave Lake, he had no knowledge of that line of country except what he had gained from the reports of Indians. He was of opinion however that positive information on which our course of proceedings might safely be determined could be procured from the Indians that frequent the north side of the lake when they came to the forts in the spring. He recommended my writing to the partner ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... business—why didn't he put in so many hours a day there, instead of leaving it to managers? Why didn't he interest himself in local affairs?—work at something? Already he had all the appearance of a man who is inclined to slackness—and in that case, mused Collingwood, his money would do him positive harm. But he had no thoughts of that sort about Nesta Mallathorpe: he had seen that she was of ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... could give back to a modern man, tortured by a thousand perplexities of knowledge of which they never dreamed, the reality of Christ which they possessed? And then the answer came—not suddenly, but as a still small voice slowly growing louder, more positive, more intense—Live the Life. Try to do some at least of the things that Jesus did. Seek through experience what can never come through ratiocination. Be a Francis; then it may be thou shalt think like him, ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... Seal,[3] and Stanley Secretary for the Colonies, after much trouble. Last year a positive pledge was given to Stanley that he should not meet Parliament again but as Secretary of State. It was not, however, specified who was to make room for him. The Cabinet settled that it should be Goderich, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... experimenter in the mechanic arts will find himself face to face with the problem as to whether he had better make immediate practical use of the knowledge which he has attained, or wait until some positive finality in his conclusions has been reached, He recognizes clearly the fact that he has already made some definite progress, but sees the possibility (even the probability) of still further improvement. Each particular case must ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... take for the aga to drink the wine, and made my arrangements accordingly. I told my master that it was my intention to leave him, as I had an offer to go into business with a relation at Zante. My master, who could not well do without me, entreated me to stay; but I was positive. He then offered me a share of the business if I would remain, but I was not to be persuaded. Every rap at the door, I thought that the aga and his janissaries were coming for me; and I hastened my departure, which was ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... that no state, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness. But although this relative proportion may be uniform, the influence of the army over the rest of the society will vary according to the degree of its positive strength. The advantages of military science and discipline cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united into one body, and actuated by one soul. With a handful of men, such a union would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host, it would be impracticable; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... and yet how could she be sure? He might have gone out to the road and be sitting beside it. A vivid recollection of tramps sitting beside that very road, as she had been driving past, came over her. She became quite positive that he was out on the road, and a terror of the road was over her. She looked behind her, and the sunny gleam of an open field came through the trees. The field was shaggy with blue asters and golden-rod gone to seed, and white tufts of immortelles. Charlotte stared ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... this remark turns upon the negative character of happiness,—the fact that pleasure is only the negation of pain, and that pain is the positive element in life. Though I have given a detailed proof of this proposition in my chief work,[1] I may supply one more illustration of it here, drawn from a circumstance of daily occurrence. Suppose that, with the exception of some sore or painful spot, we are physically in a sound and healthy ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... habits of our pets and try to give them coops and food as much like nature as possible. My flying squirrels were given soft feed in place of the usual hard-shelled nuts. Consequently their teeth grew so long that they were a positive deformity. We finally liberated them but before they could get to a place of safety one of them was caught and killed by a chicken. The poor little creature was so fat from overfeeding and lack of exercise that he had all but lost the power of using ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... followed, into the little dining room, where the lamp shone and the tea table stood looking very hospitable. David made some proposition of going back to the hotel and Norton; but Matilda was very urgent that he should not, and Miss Redwood very positive on the same subject; and to Matilda's surprise David made no great opposition. He sat down quietly enough. Meanwhile the housekeeper took off Matilda's wrappings and examined her with ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... little. But he did it, and without any great fatigue. It was not until Otter was seen stemming a heavy current that his vast strength could be measured. Here, indeed, his stunted stature was a positive advantage, for it offered the less surface for the water ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... sure of much more than he already knew. Again and again he clinched his hands in the office and on the street. He would not wrong the woman he loved. He would not accept the verdict of other people. He would have positive knowledge of his ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... the old gentleman; 'I was quite positive that Rebecca could manage him when she got him. She would make him walk straight. I knew her; she was a great girl. Every morning I went to see her to inquire how things were coming on, and she told me one day that Mr. Bridges had proposed to her, and that she had accepted him, and that it was ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... not a positive term. It denotes the absence rather than the presence of something. It is the perceived privation of good, the shadow where the light ought to be. "The devil is a vacuum," as a friend of mine once remarked to the no small bewilderment of a group of ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... code of ten primary and forty-eight secondary commandments, worded as prohibitions, but equivalent to positive injunctions, inasmuch as they blame the neglect of various active duties. The ten primary commandments are called Pratimoksha and he who breaks them is Parajika,[861] that is to say, he ipso facto leaves the road leading to Buddhahood and ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... "He, a prisoner; and we, all marching away! But I remember now, we always suspected prisoners had been taken at Targai. And positive proofs of Lord Ingleby's death were difficult to—well, don't you know—to find. I mean—there couldn't be a funeral. We had to conclude it, because we believed him to have been right inside the tunnel. He must have got clear after all, before Airth sent the flash, and getting in with the first rush, ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... with nervous dread. He had passed a sleepless night, riding in person to every Den of the Klan and issuing positive orders that no white ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... remember, that not only does he infer, suspect, and surmise, but he actually asserts (page 154), "there was poison in the house," because three out of five patients admitted into a ward had puerperal fever and died. Have I not as much right to draw a positive inference from "Dr. A.'s" seventy exclusive cases as he from the three cases in the ward of the Dublin Hospital? All practical medicine, and all action in common affairs, is founded on inferences. How does Dr. Meigs know that the patients he bled in puerperal fever would not have all got well ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... process of elimination was as rapid if not as radical as in the case of the men. She was unconsciously ridding herself of all that hampered and made her unfit. From the soft feminine tissue, intricacies of mood and fancy were being obliterated. Rudimentary instincts were developing, positive and barbaric as a child's. In the old days she had been dainty about her food. Now she cooked it in blackened pans and ate with the hunger of the men. Sleep, that once had been an irksome and unwelcome break between the pleasures of well-ordered days, was a craving that she satisfied, unwashed, ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... the force by which Life is made.... How curious it seems! the true evil things are our good things. Our thoughts of duty and goodness and chastity, those are the things that need to be altered and put aside; these are the barriers to true goodness.... I foresee the positive denial of all positive morals, the removal of all restrictions. I feel I do not know what 'license,' as we should term it, may not truly belong to the perfect state of Man. When there is no self surely there is no restriction; as we see there is none in Nature.... May we ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... signals of distress, and our long-boat, was sent off with a good supply of water, and plenty of fish and other refreshments: And, as the long-boat could not be wanted, the cockswain had positive orders from the commodore to return immediately. But next day proving stormy, and the boat not appearing, we much feared she was lost, which would have been an irretrievable misfortune to us all. We were relieved, however, from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... Vindicated, the design of which is to present the doctrine of Divine decrees in such a light as will obviate the usual objections to the Calvinistic view, he says: "Certain things God brings to pass by a positive agency. Others he simply permits to come to pass. And let it be remarked, permission and approbation do not, by any means, mean the same thing." Again: "Does any one ask what is the difference between bringing to pass, and permitting to come to pass? I answer: God brought to pass the ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... shut the port, and made a complete circuit of the camp. I looked into each of the three shuttlers. I found nothing that could offer the least positive clue to the fate of ...
— Attrition • Jim Wannamaker
... larger than the kingdom of Narsymga, since it marches with all Bengal, and is at war with her; and it marches with all the kingdom of Pegu and with the MALLACA Sea. It reaches to the kingdom of Cambaya, and to the kingdom of Dakhan; and they told me with positive certainty that it extends as far as Persia. The population thereof is light coloured, and the men are of good physique. Its king has much treasure and many soldiers and many elephants, for there are numbers of these in this country. (My informants) know this ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... He engaged likewise in theological controversy, and wrote two books against the Arians: "Just Prejudices against the Arian Hypothesis," and "Modern Arians Unmasked." Another of his works is "Natural Theology; or, Moral Duties considered apart from Positive; with some Observations on the Desirableness and Necessity of a Supernatural Revelation." This was the last book that he published. He left behind him "The Accomplished Preacher; or, an Essay upon Divine Eloquence," which was printed after his death ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... there is a lesson in all this for all of us. The lesson is one that we sometimes had to learn the hard way over the past few years. But we did learn it. That lesson is that even potentially destructive forces can be converted into positive forces when we know how to channel them, and when we use common sense and common decency to create a climate ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... associates there were many to adopt with readiness a theory which saved them from the trouble and expense of a scrupulous conscience. With Bruce this infidelity was rather the decay of faith than the growth of positive disbelief. He had dipped with a kind of wilful curiosity into Strauss's Life of Jesus, and other books of a similar description, together with such portions of current literature as were most clever in sneering at Christianity, or most undisguised ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... when this anecdote was told of him. "It was with him and Tom," he said, "as it was with an old laird and a pet servant, whom he had indulged until he was positive beyond all endurance." "This won't do!" cried the old laird, in a passion, "we can't live together any longer—we must part." "An' where the deil does your honor mean to ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... of this is shown in the religious experience known as conversion. To the convert, conversion means the profound acceptance of a mighty spiritual truth. It means positive knowledge taking the place of doubt or indifference. Conflicting ideas are no longer present in his consciousness. Pent-up energies are released. He wants to do things. His soul is fired with overmastering impulses to action. ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... her was of a very different kind from those which had preceded it. Those who had formerly attacked her had questioned only a part of her doctrines. A school was now growing up which rejected the whole. The Albigenses, the Lollards, the Lutherans, the Calvinists, had a positive religious system, and were strongly attached to it. The creed of the new sectaries was altogether negative. They took one of their premises from the Protestants, and one from the Catholics. From the latter they borrowed the principle, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... argued the case with him. This resulted in his being summoned before the next faculty meeting. When asked whether he knew who the perpetrators of the outrage were, he declined to answer, not because he had positive knowledge but because he felt morally certain in regard to them. A few weeks later, after he had gone into the country to teach school for the winter, he received word that he had been suspended. Indignant ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... from Henri. "He's sneaking up behind our fellows, I feel sure. From what I've seen of this Max, this German, I feel positive that he'll think of escape last of all. To do him bare credit, he'll consider his own safety only when he's done his worst to our people. Let's push on! We've got to ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... that the Burgundians were so fond of liberty that they bore the figure of a cat upon their banners. It is well known that the arms of Gruyere are a Grue on a scarlet field, and this circumstance alone has evidently given rise to the anonymous author's conjecture. His opinion not only has no positive proof to support it, but has no color of probability ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... told to set up our aid-post in a deep nulla there, and wait on events. A report came from our air-folk that five thousand Turks were on Juber Island, opposite Huweslet. We moved steadily forward to the attack, steadily but unbelievingly. Unbelief rose to positive derision, for as we topped a slight brow we gave a target no artillery could have resisted, yet nothing happened. 'It's a trap,' said Fowke darkly; 'he's luring us on.' Why should John lie doggo in this fashion? Nevertheless ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... the worst of it," said a positive voice. "There isn't a girl in school who knows what she thinks on any subject as clearly as Betty knows ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... very sapiently, knowing as yet nothing of the uses, or even of the names, of the different stores that I was delivering and receiving. The boatswain was with me, of course: but notwithstanding that I had positive orders not to let the men stray away from the duty they were performing—as this official told me, after we had done almost everything that we had come on shore to perform, that he must borrow two of the men to go up with him to the storekeeper's private house, to look out for some strong fine ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... too the fullness of joy had now blazed out. It was a settled thing, signed and sealed; he had twenty thousand francs a year. In the sound of his laugh, in the fuller voice with which he spoke, in his way of looking at the others, his more positive manners, his greater confidence, the assurance given by money was ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... The Norman invasion, on the other hand, was of the nature of a plantation. I will make the difference between the various forms of invasion apparent presently. There have been, too, flocks of immigrant refugees at various times. We have the most positive evidence that long before the dawn of written history the processes of invasion and colonization had been going on in Britain. In all these invasions, historic and prehistoric, with one important exception, no strange or new racial stock was ...
— Nationality and Race from an Anthropologist's Point of View • Arthur Keith
... of her husband, and had many piquant adventures. Prince Metternich was devoted to her one season, and when Lent put an end to festivity, he visited her privately in the morning, that he might not incur the Emperor's displeasure. Napoleon's animosity had now become marked and positive. On one occasion, when three of his ministers met accidentally at her house, he heard of it, and asked petulantly how long since had the council been held at Madame Recamier's? He was especially jealous of foreign ministers, and treated with so much haughtiness any who frequented her salon, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... civilians from the rear the expected profits of civil trade. Hundreds of sutlers and traders were waiting at Nashville and Chattanooga, greedy to reach Atlanta with their wares and goods, with, which to drive a profitable trade with the inhabitants. I gave positive orders that none of these traders, except three (one for each separate army), should be permitted to come nearer than Chattanooga; and, moreover, I peremptorily required that all the citizens and families resident in Atlanta should go away, giving to each the option to go south or ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... cannot tell any one," said Heidi in so positive a tone, and with a look of such trouble on her face, that the grandmother felt full of pity ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... feel the same degree of brightness to be dark. That the action of the inner light is responsible for the differences becomes clear if, while the negative after-image is still visible, we darken the eye with the hollowed hands. Then at once in the dark field of vision the positive facsimile of the window appears, woven by the activity of the blood which reproduces the ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... English nobles had France for a fighting ground, French cities to plunder, and French captives to hold for heavy ransoms, they were content to let matters go on quietly at home. But that day was over. Through the bad management, if not through the positive treachery, of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, the French conquests had been lost. Henry VI, a weak king, at times insane, sat on the English throne (S295), while Richard, Duke of York, a really able man and a descendant of the Mortimers (see table, p. 161), was, as many believed, ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... the young leddies very keen-like, and asked if it was for certain that the marriage was to be between Miss Mannering and young Hazlewood; and I answered him that it was for positive and absolute certain, as I had an undoubted right to say sae; for my third cousin Jean Clavers (she's a relation o' your ain, Mr. Glossin, ye wad ken Jean lang syne?), she's sib to the houskeeper at Woodbourne, and she's tell'd me mair than ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... no positive information about Tacitus' family, but his education, political career, and marriage into a distinguished house, prove that he belonged to a family of station. The first person of the name we know ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... a positive dissolution of Partnerships between subjects of the contending nations. Every Partnership is dissolved by the extinction of the business for which it was formed.[48] By a declaration of War, the respective subjects ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... trifling payment in advance; but he could not get a doit. Should we be violating secrecy too much if we suggested that George Bertram had had some slight partial success even when he had no such positive claim—some success which had of course been in direct opposition to ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... whistle in the distant fields beyond the golden waves of wheat and the woods that looked blue above the vines. I have thought of the clamours of mankind, of the oven-like cities, of the problems which perplex the age, and my insight has grown clearer. Yes, I am Positive that one of the great curatives of our evils, our maladies, social, moral, and intellectual, would be a return to the soil, a rehabilitation of the work of the fields." In these characteristically ardent words one of the noblest Frenchmen of ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... ship of war, never having seen any thing of the sort before, than I had about any thing; therefore I felt greatly mortified at being too late, and I began to try the experiment of bribing the gatekeeper, who had positive orders not to let any one pass after that hour. My friend Neale, seeing it in vain to remain there, took another course, and said he would get a boat to see the launch, if he could not get into it; but as I had set my heart ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... belief of Christians everywhere in the early years of the second century, can we trace the evidence further back? In answering this question, we are brought face to face with the Gospels. But first it must be noted that the positive evidence for such a subject must, in the nature of the case, be much more limited than the evidence for the Resurrection. The Apostles were primarily witnesses of what they themselves had seen. There are two persons, and two only, from whom we could reasonably expect to hear the truth about ...
— The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord - A paper read (in substance) before the confraternity of the Holy - Trinity at Cambridge • B. W. Randolph
... those who were lodged in sheds. We had inspected the Cairo army and the Cairo navy, and had also seen all that Cairo had to show us of its own. We were thoroughly disgusted with the hotel, and retired on the second night to bed, giving positive orders that we might be called at half-past two, with reference to that terrible start to be made at half-past three. As a matter of course we kept dozing and waking till past one, in our fear lest neglect on the part of the watcher should entail on us ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... all my heart for it to come to pass? Or say I admit it—I should need to unroll my life before you to make you understand. No, there's no such thing as absolute truth. If there were, the finest subtleties of existence would be lost. There is neither positive truth nor positive untruth; life is not so coarse-fibred as that. And only the grossest natures can be satisfied with a blunt yes or no. Truth?—it is one of the many miserable conventions the human brain has tortured itself ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... religion was not to be neglected; on the contrary, every facility would be given for the voluntary endowment of theological professorships; but the attendance at these lectures would not be compulsory, for the fundamental principle of the measure would be the avoidance of all interference, positive or negative, in all matters affecting the conscience. The right honourable baronet went on to state that there was already an academical institution at Belfast for the Presbyterians of the north ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... cowboy novel. Happy Hawkins tells his own story with such a fine capacity for knowing how to do it and with so much humor that the reader's interest is held in surprise, then admiration and at last in positive affection. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... in order that himself might incur no risk. The two who had successfully traded were commended and rewarded; the one who allowed his talent to lie idle was condemned and punished for his unfruitfulness, although no positive dishonesty was laid ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... home, who had lived for years in the atmosphere of appreciation that surrounds success; their movements were observed in the newspapers; their names stood for wide interests, big concerns. They had known the satisfaction of a positive importance, not only in their community but in their country; and they had come to England invested as well with the weight that is attached to a public mission. It may very well be that they looked for some echo of what they were accustomed to, ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... their description of the symptoms is always of the vaguest character, while in general the name given to the disease by the shaman expresses only his opinion as to the occult cause of the trouble. Thus they have definite names for rheumatism, toothache, boils, and a few other ailments of like positive character, but beyond this their description of symptoms generally resolves itself into a statement that the patient has bad dreams, looks black around the eyes, or feels tired, while the disease is assigned such names as "when they dream ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... more still, the little anxiety which he displayed for any other kind of success, had rendered him the object of more than one lady's ambition. But there was in the bent of his life something too positive for him to consent that even the love of a woman should find a place there unconditionally. Among the hearts which seemed ready to bestow themselves upon him, he calculated which was the particular one whose good-will was best supported by money, useful relations, and other social ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... towards establishing an epoch in fiction, and it places it beyond a doubt that we have in Mr. Cable a novelist of positive originality, and of the ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... fancy or invention; he describes reality, takes everything straight from life, and describes it with amazing faithfulness and artistic harmony. He was the first Russian writer to look on Russian life from a positive instead of from a negative ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... in pursuit of them Don Juan de Morales Valenzuela, with two caracoas, to the islands called "Orejas de Liebre," on January 2, 1663; but on the fourth of the same month he received a new and more positive order from the captain-general, dated October 11, that without delay or any excuse he must abandon Zamboanga. At sight of this, Bobadilla warned Morales that the withdrawal must be made, as was done on the seventh—as promptly as possible fulfilling the said imperious mandate, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... Bereavement and separation take nothing from it, but, on the contrary, they illustrate and enforce our obligations. For since we must needs die, and are as water that is spilled upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again, such a death as this amounts to positive happiness by the side of a contrasted experience in the joyless, hopeless death of a child, or friend. But without further preface, I ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... youth should conform to them, but where a trifling deviation from them would not be considered as an act of delinquency publicly reprehensible. The latter to things, where any compliance with them becomes a positive offence. The Quakers, in consequence of the vast power they have over their members by means of their discipline, lay a great stress upon the latter. They consider their prohibitions, when duly watched ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... him, and had been for so many years, that they made on him no impressions of comparison. But his baby was one and one only. Any change in it was not only in itself a new experience, but brought into juxtaposition what is with what was. The changes that began to mark the divergence of sex were positive shocks to him, for they were unexpected. In the very dawn of babyhood dress had no special import; to his masculine eyes sex was lost in youth. But, little by little, came the tiny changes which convention has ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... C.W. Adams was the incumbent of the post; but, following it, came Colonel S.H. Wattles[964] and things went rapidly from bad to worse. The grossest corruption prevailed and, in the midst of plenty, there was positive want. Throughout the winter, cattle-driving was indulged in, army men, government agents, and civilians all participating. It was only the ex-refugee that faced starvation. All other folk grew rich. ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... at matters in a cheerful light. The two young subalterns were in high spirits, and the party were more lively than they had been since the first outbreak of the mutiny. All had felt severely the strain of waiting, and the reality of danger was a positive relief after the continuous suspense. It was much to them to know that the crisis had come at last, that they were still all together and ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... they often flatly contradict one another, medical experts do not stand very high in popular repute; nevertheless, it is a positive fact that a single medical expert is worth half Scotland Yard in the detection and prevention of crime. Thousands of rivals in love, disagreeable husbands, dangerous political agitators, harsh masters and mistresses, rich uncles, and people of that sort, would be popped off with ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... International des Poids et Measures (BIPM) in Sevres, France. The BIPM averages data collected from more than 200 atomic time and frequency standards located at about 50 laboratories worldwide. UTC is the basis for all civil time with the Earth divided into time zones expressed as positive or negative differences from UTC. UTC is also referred to as "Zulu time." See the Standard Time Zones of the World map ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... From the positive, that is, the progressive point of view, there is also a boundary. Such actions under one form of government are political activities, and under the opposite form of government are also political activities. But these are not questions of political principle. ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... by nature a fighting man, one who took a positive joy in battle, and like an old Norseman, seemed to think that thus only could a man decorously die. This amazed me, a peaceful person who loves quiet and a home. Still, I gave way, partly to please him, partly because I hoped that we might discover something of interest, ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... Scoffing will not sustain a man in his solitude, when he has nobody to scoff at; and disbelief is only a bottomless tub, which will not float me across the dark river. If Infidels intend to convert the world, they must give us some positive system of truth which we can believe, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... by its hands, a common test of their powers, I had been told; but to this M. C—— objected, referring everything of this tangible nature to future occasions. In fine, I could get nothing during three or four visits, but pretty positive assertions, expressions of wonder that I should affect to doubt what had been so often and so triumphantly proved to others, accounts physical and moral, like the one of which I had been the subject myself, and which did not admit of either ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the faith of it, whether it relates to the right of property itself, or to the evidence by which that right may be substantiated, though it may appear to us "flatly absurd and unjust," to overrule such a decision is an act of positive injustice, as well as a violation of law, and an usurpation by one branch of the government upon the powers of another. An example will illustrate this position. In the case of Walton v. Shelley (1 Term Rep. 296), in 1786, the King's Bench, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice, decided that a ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... queer," said the teacher to himself. "Now, let me think what I did with them. Yes, I put them in the glass, I am positive of it!" ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... in the present state of our knowledge. That an influence is exerted in some way, is clear from the difference in our feelings in dry and wet weather: it has been supposed, however, that the effects on the nervous system are not produced by an accumulation of positive or of negative electricity, but by the combination of the two producing dynamic electricity. While these points are undergoing discussion, we have an opportunity of bringing before our readers the results of investigations ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... have him detained below. A short history of this man will convince you that he ought to be nowhere but on his farm. He, in the first place, is a professed enemy to subordination, and has an utter aversion to discipline. He is positive, and prefers his own opinion to even the general's, because he was in the service last war. He is not possessed of one qualification that distinguishes a gentleman, nor has he genius or education. His whole study ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... conducted in the modern languages. The ancient tongues are used only in comments on the ancient writers. The great productions of Athenian and Roman genius are indeed still what they were. But though their positive value is unchanged, their relative value, when compared with the whole mass of mental wealth possessed by mankind, has been constantly falling. They were the intellectual all of our ancestors. They are but a part of our treasures. Over what tragedy could ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... out a positive negative. 'I leave Col to his guesses. He'd have been prophesying fire the works before ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... each comes from its own distinctive nature. If you should say, 'By some contrivance this can be removed,' such an opinion argues folly. Every root within the moral world has its own nature predetermined; loving remembrance and forgetfulness, these have their nature fixed and positive; so likewise age, disease, and death, these sorrows, who can escape by strategy? If you say, 'Water can put out fire,' or 'Fire can cause water to boil and pass away,' then this proves only that distinctive natures may be mutually destructive; but nature in harmony produces living ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... adopted, it was determined to report to the King, and at the same time to announce to him as a positive fact that there existed in the neighbourhood a cacique called Dobaiba, whose territory had rich gold deposits, which had till then been respected because he was very powerful. His country extended along the great river which we have elsewhere mentioned. According to common ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... comparative in both clauses with quanto and tanto; the more recent writers, such as Tacitus and Sallust, used the comparative with them in, at least, one clause. We find in the Annals these ablatives of quantus and tantus, as if their real force was not known, used with the positive in both clauses. A European putting into Latin: "the more closely he had at one time applied himself to public business, the more wholly he gave himself up to secret debaucheries and vicious idleness;" would think his ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... like him, of course," gasped Anne, wondering if she were telling the literal truth. Certainly she did not DISlike Billy. But could the indifferent tolerance with which she regarded him, when he happened to be in her range of vision, be considered positive enough for liking? WHAT was ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... avocations which tax at once the brain and the sinews are not quite enough for any child to labor statedly and steadily?" The consent of guardian or parent he thought a fraud against the child that could be averted only by the positive command of the State specifically limiting ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... recollections connected with it that made him regard it with personal affection. Norman, too, could not bear to lose it; he had not entirely conquered his reluctance to pass that spot in the High Street, and the loss of the alley would be a positive deprivation to him. Almost every native of Stoneborough felt strongly the encroachment of the brewer, and the boys, of course, carried the sentiment ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... it quite wonderful how well they played their part in conversation with so small a stock of words. There is much pliability of meaning, however, in an interjection; and in company, where there are always several persons who are anxious to be heard, it is a positive virtue. In Miss Constantia's intonation of her favourite 'impossible!' it seemed to me that there mingled a dash of sadness, a kind of musical and melancholy cadence, which was followed by an unconscious absence of mind, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... more valuable in respect of positive information, and especially in supplying an account of the incident taken from the lips of the Emperor himself. The Prince was without his great predecessor's ability, but was much more amiable and sincere. He was, moreover, a friend of both the parties concerned, and he impartially ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... Parkinson, of the junior class, seeing that the order was a positive one, had the good sense to obey. He "hardened" the funny-bone of either arm against the punching bag to the tune of jeering laughter from the rest of the squad. That was Coach Luce's way of dealing with ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... campfire site, Barby and the boys had excavated Pirate's Field under Tony's direction. They had unearthed positive evidence that pirates had landed there. The most vital evidence was the remains of a logbook, once the log of the bark Maiden Hand, sunk by the woman pirate Anne Bonney off the island of Clipper Cay ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... two directions. He got primarily from the great reformer his transforming insight of the immense importance of personal faith for salvation, and secondly he was impressed—almost overwhelmingly impressed in his early years—with the awful reality and range of the principle of positive evil in the universe, upon which Luther had insisted with intensity of emphasis. His feet, however, were set upon the track which seemed to him to lead to light by the help which he got from the other line of reformers. Schwenckfeld made him feel the impossibility ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... should recognise the grandeur and originality of Berlioz's music before France, it is doubtful whether the German nature could ever fully understand a soul so French in its essence. It is, perhaps, what is exterior in Berlioz, his positive originality, that the Germans appreciate. They prefer the Requiem to Romeo. A Richard Strauss would be attracted by an almost insignificant work like the Ouverture du roi Lear; a Weingartner would single out ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... suspicion of the other while they waited for darkness to fall that they might try to slip through the cordon of watchers. One of the at least, was unknown. If he could make a get-away, and leave no witness behind, there would be no proof positive that he was one of the rustlers. The situation ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... positive luxury at times," Redford answered, "to be able to indulge in absolute candour. We cannot last the session. You pulled us through our last tight corner, but we shall part, I suppose, on the New Tenement Bill, and then we shall ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his purposes, no wonder that he instituted martial law[438] in a seemingly refractory country, no wonder that he took desperate measures to force Pike to activity. Pike's leisurely way of attending to business was in itself an annoyance and his leisurely way of moving over the country was a positive offence. He had been ordered to proceed with dispatch to Fort Gibson. The expiration of a month and a half found him still at Fort McCulloch. He really did not move from thence until, having sent in his resignation, he made preparations for handing ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... society as will afford the old gentleman or lady no excuse for being ashamed of their connexion with him, he launches into expenses he would never otherwise have dreamed of incurring, and contracts debts without regard to his positive means of liquidating them, on the strength of a contingency which, if he could but be taught to believe it, is of all earthly anticipations the most remote and uncertain. A passion for unnecessary expense ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... wholly inadequate for so tremendous a task as reducing to submission a city containing at least half-a-million inhabitants, together with thirty or forty thousand mutineers and a host of Oude's best men, with the advantage of the possession of a score or two of buildings, all of which are positive fortresses." ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... themselves if this Ayrton's word was to be absolutely believed. There was something suspicious about this unexpected meeting. Certainly the man had mentioned facts and dates which corresponded, and the minuteness of his details was most striking. Still exactness of details was no positive proof. Indeed, it has been noticed that a falsehood has sometimes gained ground by being exceedingly particular in minutiae. McNabbs, therefore, prudently refrained from committing himself by expressing ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... the Philippines as "turbita," is a purgative and is a component part of the tincture of jalap, one of the most positive and active of known cathartics. But turpeth root is seldom used alone, for its action is so uncertain that Sir W. O'Shaughnessy pronounced the plant unworthy of a place in the Pharmacopoeia of India. The dose of the ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... As he has to marshal a large force of people he is bound to find among them—of course in the orthodox society manner—a few turbulent spirits, a few who would mutiny, and who must be taught their places in a conciliatory but positive manner. ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... permission of government. The more and more avowed materialistic theories revolted his shrewd and sensible mind; without caring to go to the bottom of his thought and contemplate its consequences, he clung to the notion of Providence as to a waif in the great shipwreck of positive creeds; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... words to explain fully, whereas only a few can be devoted to the purpose here. "The Hina-yana Sutra is intended for beginners; the Maha-yana for those more advanced in the path of the law." The teaching in the former is negative; in the latter, positive. In the Hina-yana the perfect path is to abstain from four things—women, palaces, beautiful objects, and riches. In the Maha-yana perfect virtue is the presence of four things—the spirit of wisdom, the love of virtue, patience and firmness, and the retired life. By the "spirit of wisdom" ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... I want you to do your best to find out who the man is. Make a sure thing of it. Get positive proof, ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... inexplicably escaped their notice, expose. In a letter addressed to Fajardo occurs the following explicit statement: "...cum me utero mater gestaret sic volente patre, Aronam, ubi plaeraque illis erant praedia domusque ... ibi me mater dederat orbi." Letters 388, 630, and 794 contain equally positive assertions.] ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... science, passionately Pyrrhonistic, indifferent to all suffering, all deceit, almost indifferent to reality, listened, with closed eyes, to the silent music of souls, the delicate and grand harmony of numbers and forms. These great mathematicians, these free philosophers,—the most rigorous and positive minds in the world,—had reached the uttermost limit of mystic ecstasy: they created a void about themselves, they hung over the abyss, they were drunk with its dizzy depths: into the boundless night with joy sublime they flashed the ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... the cosmopolitanism of which had been long established; that is to say, a face, a figure, or a mode, to gain a second look from one of its denizens, had then, as it has now, to be grossly outlandish. In this instance the owner of the stall indulged a positive stare. He had seen, he thought, representatives of all known nationalities, but never one like the present visitor—never one so pinkish in complexion, and so very bias-eyed—never one who wrapped and re-wrapped himself in a single ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... heard, evidently—so at least I read the evidence—because he did not wish to bring upon the stage those who had worked at it. If indeed the passage which I have placed in square brackets be accepted as evidence, Fawkes did more than keep silence upon the mine. He must have made a positive assertion—soon afterward found to be untrue—that the cellar was hired several months before it really was. This passage is, however, inserted in a different hand from the rest of the document. My own belief ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... he went to Oxford, Birmingham, Lichfield, and Ashbourne, for which very good reasons might be given in the conjectural yet positive manner of writers, who are proud to account for every event which they relate. He himself, however, says, 'The motives of my journey I hardly know; I omitted it last year, and am not willing to ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... the fire and go sidling and wriggling across the room in the most absurd fashion, purring and simply confused with delight, to rub herself up and down the empty air, and by the way her tail was flattened down and then shot up again, I was positive she was being stroked. She almost lived in the picture gallery, sitting staring at the pictures of an ancestor of mine, who had ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... religious susceptibilities of the people. Begging has come to be such a national institution and is so much a part and parcel of the Indian's life and religion, that any proposal to extinguish the fraternity may cause in some minds positive regret. To such I would say that we do not propose to extinguish but to reform, and with this one hint I must beg them, before making up their minds, to study carefully the proposals detailed in ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... came on slowly, the gunner tracked it with his sights. There was a driver and three passengers. Jason waited until he was positive ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... large collection that shall not contain works of real merit. But the object should be to exclude all worthless and pernicious works, and meet and improve the public taste, by offering it mental food better than that to which it has been accustomed. The other danger is negative, rather than positive; but, as books are comparatively worthless when they are not read, it becomes a matter of great moment to select such as will touch the public mind at a few points, at least. It is indeed possible, and, under the guidance of some persons, it would be natural, ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... silent and troubled, but she smiled a little at Ruth's mixed-up sentences. Ruth thought this was a good sign and rushed on without giving her a chance for a positive refusal. ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... of our poet is offered first by Boccaccio who was acquainted with Dante's daughter Beatrice, a nun who lived near enough to the poet to get information from the Portinari family. Certainly Boccaccio did not hesitate when chosen in 1373 by the Florentines to lecture on Dante, to make the very positive statement that the boy Dante, "received the image of Beatrice Portinari into his heart with such affection that from that day forward as long as he lived it never departed from him." That statement was doubtless made within ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... entries show that Robert was a hosier to his trade. Possibly in suppressing the other particulars of her life, Mrs. Haywood may have consigned to oblivion a year or two of her age, but in her numerous writings I have not found any allusion that could lead to her positive identification with ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... the child as far as the Speech-room, where a policeman accepted a shilling, and gave in return a positive assurance that he would see woman and child to their destination. When the boys ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... already evident, both in positive and negative results, both in the schools and the general public taste, that literature cannot be set aside in the scheme of education; nay, that it is of the first importance. The teacher must be able to inspire the pupil; not only to awaken eagerness to know, but to kindle ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in your own hands. I come not to declare war against the fortunes and persons of individuals. The enemy of the liberty and independence of America alone is the object of the vengeance of the arms of the PATRIA. I promise you in the most positive manner, that your property and persons shall be inviolable, and that you shall be treated as respectable citizens, if you co-operate in the ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... four fools who are past grace. Neither do I think it any part of prudence to perplex the minds of well-disposed people with doubts, which probably would never have otherwise come into their heads. But I am of opinion, and dare be positive in it, that not one in an hundred of those who pretend to be freethinkers, are really so in their hearts. For there is one observation which I never knew to fail, and I desire you will examine it in the course of your life, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... it all! (To Minard) Sir, with regard to the love of young people I have those positive ideas which are considered peculiar to old men. My distrust of such love is all the more permissible because I am not the father blinded by paternal affection. I see Julie exactly as she is; without being absolutely plain, she has none of that beauty that ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... pot, working like day laborers, and happy at that, was really a remarkable spectacle. For my part, I noticed with surprise that scratched and bruised hands—scratched so that the salt water caused positive pain—did not appeal to me. I tore off a corner of my right thumb trying to squeeze a large box through the forward hatch, and the only treatment I gave it was a fragment of rather soiled rag and a little vaseline borrowed from a mate. To quit ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... that the explanation of the propagation of sound through gases, and even of the positive fluid pressure of a gas against the sides of the containing vessel, according to the kinetic theory of gases, is quite independent of the question whether the ultimate collisional force is attractive or repulsive. Of course it must be understood ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... not inform my father that I had written to you. He doesn't like strangers; he doesn't like scientists. I did not dare tell him that I had asked you to come out here. It was entirely my own idea. I felt that I must write you because I am positive that what is happening in this wilderness is ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... twenty separate lays and eliminated those strophes (more than one third of the whole number) that he deemed not genuine. It is now generally admitted, however, that the pioneer of Nibelungen investigation fell here into over-positive refinements of literary criticism. Separate shorter poems there doubtless existed narrating separate episodes of the story, but these are no longer to be arrived at by a process of critical disintegration and pruning of the epic as we have it. An examination of the twenty lieder according to Lachmann's ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... I am inclined to a more comfortable consideration of this great question—for it is one of my weaknesses to be positive on few matters. But to-day I taunted my soul with its unmanliness till it rose in rebellion against me. 'Poor-spirited creature,' I said, 'where is thy valour? When a fool has struck thee I have seen thee pass on without ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... favourite tenets in all respects, and therefore they assumed that his text must have been corrupted or interpolated. So far from its being at all doubtful, as our author seems to suggest, whether Tatian was acquainted with any of St Paul's Epistles, we have positive evidence that he did receive some [273:3]; and moreover one or two coincidences in his extant work point to an acquaintance with the Apostle's writings. His leanings, like those of Marcion and Valentinus, were generally in the opposite direction to Judaism. ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... to the papers and parchments, to which the city clerk had just added several books and rolls. His address, frequently interrupted by references to the documents before him, sounded clear and positive. The amount of the sums owed by the Eysvogel firm, as well as the names of its creditors in Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, and Regensburg, Venice, Milan, Bruges, and other German and foreign cities, formed the most ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and sent the energy into the hand that drew the model, and then again dictated to and sent the energy into the hands whereby the first instrument was clothed in the material form of metal or of wood. The lower negative always gives way to the higher when made positive. Mind ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... mind and body, developed those eccentricities which became the marked feature of his latter days. The animosity of the old man was aroused, and once an enemy was always an enemy with him. He cared nothing for his daughter. Indeed, he cherished a positive hatred of her at times; and never lost an opportunity of humiliating the rector and making him feel that he gained nothing by marrying the daughter against her ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... Castruccio-Castracani, to the Braccio of Mantua, to the Piccinino, the Malatestas of Rimini, and the Sforzas of Milan. In their opinion, however, it is only a chance analogy, a psychological resemblance. Really, however, and)historically it is a positive relationship. He is a descendant of the great Italians, the men of action of the year 1400, the military adventurers, usurpers, and founders of governments lasting their life-time. He inherits in direct affiliation their blood and inward organization, mental and moral.[1142] A bud, collected ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... most important contribution to English philosophy since the publication of Mr. Bradley's "Appearance and Reality." Full of brilliant criticism and of positive theories which are models of ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... and yours—probably," she said with spirit, for she took sides in that moment, and was positive that the blame for the estrangement lay with the father. The level, unagitated voice irritated her; she resented ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... person would immediately exclaim, "Oh, that is only one of Mrs. Rae's Indians!" I said very little about what I saw during the last day or two, for I felt that the constant teasing must have become as wearisome to the others as it had to me. But I am still positive that I saw the black heads of Indians on the top of ever so many hills we passed. When they wish to see and not be seen they crawl up a hill on the side farthest from you, but only far enough up to enable them to look over, and in this position they will remain for hours, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... fame might I have acquired. Every thing which Hume has advanced against Christianity had passed through my mind long before he wrote. Always remember this, that after a system is well settled upon positive evidence, a few partial objections ought not to shake it. The human mind is so limited, that it cannot take in all the parts of a subject, so that there may be objections raised against any thing. There are objections against a plenum, and objections ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... instance, concerning the position of the western tribes during the period of early contact of our colonies and its agreement with their position later when they appear in history, it may be inferred that as a rule it was stationary, though positive evidence is lacking. When changes of tribal habitat actually took place they were rarely in the nature of extensive migration, by which a portion of a linguistic family was severed from the main body, but usually in the form of encroachment by a tribe or tribes upon neighboring territory, ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... though he was less sure that it had the nature of love. As for love, since yesterday the word sickened him. Its association had become, for the present, at any rate, both sacred and appalling. He couldn't have used it, even if he had been more positive concerning the blends that made up his ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... quite positive, it is my opinion, after having examined the specimen carefully, that the body of the cloth belongs to my first group and that the border only is of the second group. My section and drawing give a clear idea ...
— Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States, Derived From Impressions On Pottery • William Henry Holmes
... converted) 144; bring into existence &c. 161. abide, continue, endure, last, remain, stay. Adj. existing &c. v.; existent, under the sun; in existence &c. n.; extant; afloat, afoot, on foot, current, prevalent; undestroyed. real, actual, positive, absolute; true &c. 494; substantial, substantive; self-existing, self-existent; essential. well-founded, well-grounded; unideal[obs3], unimagined; not potential &c. 2; authentic. Adv. actually &c. adj.; in fact, in point of fact, in reality; indeed; de ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... substance. This fact is solemnly inscribed in a notebook and the incident is closed. But the student who has imagination and industry inquires "What then?" and proceeds with investigations on his own initiative that result in a positive boon to humanity. Imagination takes the facts and makes something of them, while the college teacher has disclosed his inability to cope with his own students in fields that only ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... take place at the positive pole, the composition of the peroxides, and the manner of their determination, relatively ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... by Mr. Cotton in the name of them all, they being all present, and not one dissentient." Then the magistrates propounded four more questions, the last of which is as follows: "Whether a judge be bound to pronounce such sentence as a positive law prescribes, in case it be apparently above or beneath the merit of the offence?" To which the elders replied at great length, saying that the penalty must vary with the gravity of the crime, and added examples: "So any sin committed with an ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... Crabtree for this once to excuse them and to give some cakes and tea to their little visitors; but they might as well have spoken to one of the Chinese mandarins, for she only shook her head with a positive look, declaring over and over again that nothing should appear upon the table except what was always brought up for their own supper—two biscuits and ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... a backful of whip scars, you couldn't find a liker likeness anywhere. (pause) But—when I think it over—I'm positive I'm the same man I always was, of course I am. (with growing conviction) I know master, I know our house. I'm sane and sound, I've got my senses. I won't take any notice of what he says, not I. I'll knock at the door (moves toward ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... molehill recently thrown up and scattered the earth right and left with his bill—striking now to one side and now to the other. Hilary admitted that rooks destroyed vast quantities of grubs and creeping things, but was equally positive that they feasted on grain; and indeed it could not be denied that a crop of wheat almost ripe is a very favourite resort of a flock. He had seen rooks carry away ears of wheat detached from the stalk to an open spot ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... over the pages of Valerius will see that these stories of the great men of the past are so detached from their historical surroundings that they could not possibly serve as helps in the practical conduct of life; they might indeed do positive mischief, by leading a shallow reasoner to suppose that what may have been justifiable at one time and under certain circumstances, regicide, for example, or exposure of oneself in battle, is justifiable at all times and in all circumstances. Such an appeal failed also ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... that Rouse and Sheldon, instead of treating the accused as bribers and men unworthy of confidence, had maintained their former relations with them, subsequently voting for Thomas for treasurer of state, and for Southwick as regent of the State University. As positive proof of bribery was limited in each case to the prosecuting witness, we may very well accept the defendants' repeated declarations of their own integrity and uprightness, although the conditions surrounding ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... being asked by everyone, even by General Byington, how it felt to be a grandmother. "Oh! ho, ho!" Mrs. Morris's unutilized dimple kept itself busy to the point of positive fatigue. ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... the well-known publisher, solicited William E. Burton to establish a literary journal in Philadelphia, and Burton, who was sympathetic yet dogmatic, possessed of excellent literary taste, but never more positive than when in error, founded in July, 1837, the Gentleman's Magazine. The fifth and sixth volumes, 1839, were conducted by Burton and by Poe. The seventh volume, 1840, was conducted by George R. Graham. The poetry of Burton's was ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... soon divided them into two distinct groups—those who worried about the smooth working of the great trek, and those who did not. Among the former was Captain Resmith, the second in command, a dark man with a positive, strong voice, somewhat similar to George in appearance. Captain Resmith took George very seriously, and promised to initiate him personally into as many technical mysteries as could be compressed into one afternoon. Then a Major ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... of other gesture. But his head was a splendid dome. A few hairs, whiter than fine-drawn silver, fringed the base; over a broad, full-sphered skull the skin was drawn close, and shone in the light with positive brilliance; the temples were deep hollows, from which the forehead beetled like a wrinkled crag; the eyes were wan and dim; the nose was pinched; and all the lower face was muffed in a beard flowing and venerable as Aaron's. Such was Hillel the Babylonian! The line of prophets, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... commanders of her forces, and to urge them to adopt the best, the speediest, and the most efficient measures to relieve the citadel. The Government and the commanders have always replied with promises of the most positive kind to raise the siege in a very few days. We can no longer believe their word. To give you further intelligence, we send now five men, who will tell you verbally what we cannot describe. If, however, they ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... received this communication almost cheerfully. It seemed more like a relief to her than anything else. Her one dread in this world was her "responsibility "; and the thought that she might have to account for ten talents hereafter, instead of one, had often of late been a positive distress to her. There was also in her mind a secret disgust at the thought of the hungry creatures who would swarm round her if she should ever be in a position to bestow patronage. This had grown upon her as the habits of lonely ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Sir William Phipps sent a haughty summons to the French chief, demanding an unconditional surrender in the name of King William of England, and concluding with this imperious sentence: "Your answer positive in an hour, returned with your own trumpet, with the return of mine, is required upon ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... inasmuch (i. e.) as he excels in his appeal to those passions which the outward form of the drama merely subserves. Still there is surely too much stress laid by the philosopher upon the artificial part; which, after all, leads to negative, more than to positive excellence; and should rather be the natural and (so to say) unintentional result of the poet's feeling and imagination, than be separated from them as the direct object of his care. Perhaps it is hardly fair to judge of Aristotle's sentiments by the fragment of his work which ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... elect the candidate into them. I rather think that elections are only successful where the candidate is elected into a body other than the body of electors; but I have not considered the principles of election fully enough to be able to give any positive statement of opinion upon that matter. I only feel that at present the thing is liable to many errors ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Trades-Unions had used a tenth of the money they have wasted in futile efforts to shorten hours of labor and excite their members to hatred, indolence, and waste, in making public the statistics and the possibilities of co-operation, they would have achieved some positive good. ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... therefore you are an "Infidel" instead of an "Agnostic." To which the agnostic may reply: No; for two reasons: first, because your evidence that Jesus said what you say he said is worth very little; and secondly, because a man may be an agnostic, in the sense of admitting he has no positive knowledge, and yet consider that he has more or less probable ground for accepting any given hypothesis about the spiritual world. Just as a man may frankly declare that he has no means of knowing whether the planets generally are inhabited ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... we drove round through Regent's Park. I suppose that if we use the superlative in speaking of Hyde Park, Regent's Park will be the comparative, and Battersea Park the positive, ranking them in the descending grades of their hierarchy. But this is my conjecture only, and the social geography of London is a subject which only one who has become familiarly acquainted with the place should speak of with any confidence. A stranger coming ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... and hymns, or the simplified and popularized forms of the earlier and mediaeval worship, have had vastly to do with the daily thought and education of the people into whose life they have brought not only increase of lofty devotion but also a positive and stimulative culture. ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Havard, in a positive tone, "for a logical mind that reasons coolly, for one who does not bewilder himself in a network of Fantomas hypotheses, he who killed Brocq is assuredly he who has killed Nichoune! Brocq, I imagine, was killed by someone lying in wait on the top of the Arc de Triomphe. An accomplice, during this ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... shrinking from the instant approach of torment. And those will often pity that weakness most, who in their own persons would yield to it least. Meantime there never was a calumny uttered that drew less support from the recorded circumstances. It rests upon no positive testimony, and it has a weight of contradicting testimony to stem.... What else but her meek, saintly demeanor won, from the enemies that till now had believed her a witch, tears of rapturous admiration? "Ten thousand men," says M. Michelet himself, "ten thousand men wept; and of these ten ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... one among the clear and positive doctrines of the New Testament. Justification, regeneration, adoption, and conversion are terms used to signify the same work of grace, or the same experience in the Christian life. Sanctification has reference to a higher work of grace, or higher life. It is ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... gracious religion, whose chief precepts are the love of God and the love of man—this same Christianity confirms the subordinate position of woman, by allotting to man the headship in plain language and by positive precept. No system of philosophy has ever yet worked out in behalf of woman the practical results for good which Christianity has conferred on her. Christianity has raised woman from slavery and made her the thoughtful companion of man; finds her ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... imagine; it has been changed during the last twenty years within my own recollection. In different parts of the island particular types appear and disappear with a generation. There is a sort of race-fermentation going on, which gives no fixed result of a positive sort for any great length of time. It is true that certain elements continue to dominate in certain communes, but the particular characteristics come and vanish in the most mysterious way. As to color, ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... out of harmony with the virtuous; the children of darkness cannot find peace with the children of light. And not only is there a lack of sympathy in the worldly-minded for the men and women who are led of God, but there is often positive hatred for them—a hatred which spends itself in actual, persistent persecution. To be devout, to refrain from sinful words and sinful deeds, to shun the vain and dangerous amusements of worldlings, to attend much to prayer and recollection, ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... why we have so many conflicting yet positive accounts of great successes in Europe with torpedo shells is because each nation wishes its neighbors to think that it is prepared for all eventualities, and they are obliged to keep on hand large quantities of some explosive, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... the housekeeping of her young ladies before Mrs Arthur came among them, and was resented accordingly. All hints, suggestions, recipes, or even direct instructions from her, were utterly ignored by Nelly, when it could be done without positive disobedience to Miss Graeme or Mrs Elliott. If direct orders made it necessary for her to do violence to her feelings to the extent of availing herself of Mrs Grove's experience, it was done under protest, or with an open incredulousness as to ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... that ensued Gale did not have anything to say; but his mind was forming a conclusion. When he found his old saddle and bridle missing from the peg in the barn his conclusion became a positive conviction, and it made him, for the moment, cold and sick ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... face with her hands. "You who uphold all these social arrangements, how do you feel when you find yourself obliged to urge me to marry, not for the sake of the positive joys of domestic existence, but for the merely negative advantage of avoiding a hapless and forlorn state? You propose it as a pis-aller. Does that argue that all is sound in the state ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Vivacious, inconsistent, positive, decided, she can not fail to give you plenty of exercise. An attentive and caressing woman would weary you; you must be handled in a military fashion, if you are to be amused and retained. As soon ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... said. He kept harking back to this question with a singular persistence. There are a few men and many women for whom a secret is a responsibility to be transferred to the first-comer without hesitation. One half of the world takes pleasure in divulging a secret—for the other half it is positive pain ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... and looked hard at Rod. Evidently he had been already favorably impressed with the frank face of the lad, and was puzzled to know what to believe. He turned to the Secret Service agent and exchanged several low sentences with him. The man seemed positive, and apparently did his best to convince the officer that at least the boys should be held, ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... the bar of the cellar grating at Stanwick, I discovered that the same person who had prowled about the lawn on the night of the murder had scaled the scaffolding outside Miss Cavanaugh's window, you fancied this to be almost positive proof. What you saw at Bohlmier's hotel, and the story told you by Big ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... in a very casual, laughing way—such a positive set of lies that I marveled and began to wonder how much of Tom was acting and ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... had already stated to M. de Corcelles, the Plenipotentiary of France, his objections to an immediate return. He now held the same language to General Oudinot. He could not, he said, so far forget the purely moral nature of his power as to bind himself in a positive way, when there was nothing settled as to matters of detail, and especially when he was called upon to speak in presence of a first-class Power, whose exigencies were no secret. Ought he to condemn himself to ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... is felt in its full force, while no hold is as yet laid on the affections, there is a very strong preference induced in most minds for that to which they are not accustomed over that they know not, and this is strongest in those which are least open to sensations of positive beauty. But however far this operation may be carried, its utmost effect is but the deadening and approximating the sensations of beauty and ugliness. It never mixes nor crosses, nor in any way alters them; it has not the slightest connection with ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... a work as this. One, however, I heard lately as coming from a Forfarshire old lady of this class, which bears upon the point of "resolute" determination referred to in the learned judge's description. She had been very positive in the disclaiming of some assertion which had been attributed to her, and on being asked if she had not written it, or something very like it, she replied, "Na, na; I never write onything of consequence—I may deny what I say, but I canna deny ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... last night," she admitted, inflating with a multitude of feelings. "The most ungrateful people in the world! So far from being thankful for the time and pains and money we spent to protect them, they're viciously angry and are making threats—positive threats—that they ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... engagements are as chaff before the wind—to whom bloodshed, robbery, assassination, and murder, are objects of placid contemplation—whose narrow creed of bigotry supersedes all the obligations, of morality, and all the commands of positive law. With such men what valid compact can be made? The appeal must be to those who think that a deliberate compact is mutually binding on parties of any and every religious creed. To such men I appeal, and ask, ought ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... mouth at once began to have a sullen expression; evidently he was not pleased and felt rebellious; but it was hard for him to resist Father Beret, whom he loved, as did every soul in the post. The priest's voice was sweet and gentle, yet positive to a degree. Rene did ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... excited my imagination were the enormous mass meetings, with processions, coming in from all points of the compass, miles in length, and bearing every patriotic device and political emblem. Here the Whigs had infinitely the advantage. Their campaign was positive and aggressive. On platform- wagons were men working at every trade which expected to be benefited by Whig success; log cabins of all sorts and sizes, hard-cider barrels, coon pens, great canvas balls, which were kept ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... an army surgeon, and quite the cleverest man at his profession that I ever had the privilege to meet. He might have made a large fortune in England, but he got into some trouble and had to leave the country. It was much the same in India. Bentwood had a positive genius for the occult and underground. After a time very few white people cared to associate with him and he became the companion of the dervishes and the mullahs and all that class, whose secrets he learned. I ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... could but have seen and heard her! She could never have been born to it! You look away: I offend you! I have no right to tax your benevolence for others; but, instead of showering favours upon me, so little would suffice for her!—if she were but above positive want, with that old man (she would not be happy without him), safe in such a cottage as you give to your own peasants! I am a man, or shall be one soon; I can wrestle with the world, and force my way somehow; ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his affairs. Perhaps Monsignor Nani would look in; perhaps he might be lucky enough to come across some cardinal or domestic prelate willing to help him. It was in vain that he had tried to extract any positive information from Don Vigilio, for, after a short spell of affability and willingness, Cardinal Pio's secretary had relapsed into distrust and fear, and avoided Pierre as if he were resolved not to meddle in a business which, all considered, was decidedly ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... supposed by certain soldiers," says a well-informed military critic (Colonel A'Court Repington, at page 276 of his "Vestigia"), "that the war against Germany would be decided by the fighting of some seven great battles en rase campagne, where heavies would be a positive encumbrance." ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... at Manila. Our column was to be increased by a party of Ifugaos, whom, with a head man named Comhit, Gallman wished to take through the Bontok into the Kalinga country. The fact that these men returned safely unaccompanied by Gallman or any other American is the best possible proof of the positive results already achieved by our Government ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... Lord Bromley. The tidings of her elopement without any positive proof of a bona fide marriage preceding it, had shocked him into bitter remorse for having left her, an unprotected waif and stray, to the tender mercies of the world, and now she had passed out of his ken, and he could not but ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... the Superintendent's keen face. "Well, well, it's never too late to mend, anyhow." And then aloud, "Exactly my thought, Mr. Narkom. Perhaps Mr. Brent could enlighten us as to his own suspicions, for I'm positive that he has some tucked away somewhere ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... suspect, and surmise, but he actually asserts (page 154), "there was poison in the house," because three out of five patients admitted into a ward had puerperal fever and died. Have I not as much right to draw a positive inference from "Dr. A.'s" seventy exclusive cases as he from the three cases in the ward of the Dublin Hospital? All practical medicine, and all action in common affairs, is founded on inferences. How does Dr. Meigs know that the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... nation would blow all Mr. Congreve's schemes to atoms like so many cobwebs. England will never be argued out of Gibraltar except by the ultima ratio.' These doctrines, he thinks, are the fruits of abandoning a belief in theology. 'We, too, have a positive philosophy, and its fundamental maxim is that it is wise for men and nations to mind their own business, and do their own duty, and leave the results to God.' The argument seems to be rather questionable; and perhaps one which follows is not altogether ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... of self-respect: when the Great Southwestern train had roared around the cliffs of Lebanon with the returning exiles, and the locomotive whistle was sounding for Gordonia, some other of the negative virtues had become definitely positive, and the halo was ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... merely a negative influence we deal with, but a positive, for, to paraphrase a little, "ugly associations corrupt good morals." Youth is beaten upon at many points by things that not only look ugly, but are, and as in compassion we are bound to offer some new agency to fill a lack, so in self-defence ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... of this passive indolence, or rather this unconsciousness of one's own faculties, appear every day; not only in the fine arts, but in cases where the mere taste, according to the original meaning of the word, is alone concerned. For I am positive there are many thousands who, if they were to bring their own palate to a severe examination, would discover that they really find a more delicious flavour in mutton than in venison, in flounder than in turbut, and yet prefer middling or ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... such an air of final farewell that I felt my apprehensions take a positive form. Rushing towards the door through which he had just vanished, I listened and heard, as I thought, his stealthy feet descend the stair. But when I sought to follow, I found myself for the second time overwhelmed by darkness. The ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... stern for the oarsman. A meal of frogs and squirrels was a good preparation, and, when darkness came, all were keenly alive to the opportunity it brought. Though by no means an expert in the use of the gun,—adding the superlative degree of enthusiasm to only the positive degree of skill,—yet it seemed tacitly agreed that I should act as marksman and kill the deer, if such was ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... presence of the class as ignorant and stupid; ridiculed him as awkward and ugly, and at times in the transports of his temper indulged in personal violence. The effect was to aggravate a passive distaste into a positive aversion. Goldsmith was loud in expressing his contempt for mathematics and his dislike of ethics and logic; and the prejudices thus imbibed continued through life. Mathematics he always pronounced a science to which the meanest intellects ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... of such a body for such a purpose was a distinct gain; but vastly more important is the positive ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... carried further the hatred to ceremonies forms, orders, rites, and positive institutions. Even baptism and the Lord's supper, by all other sects believed to be interwoven with the very vitals of Christianity, were disdainfully rejected by them. The very Sabbath they profaned. The holiness of churches they derided; and they would give to these ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... object be? Even as he looked he surely saw it move. Yes, a second and more positive examination convinced him of this fact. Then there was danger of the expected breakfast being carried off while ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... all efforts to remove it only increase the pain it causes; and animals that know it well do not attempt to rub, scratch, or bite it off, therefore the great size and the conspicuous colour of the tick are positive advantages to it. The flea, without the subtlety and highly-specialized organs of the Ornithomyia, or the stick-fast powers and leathery body of the Ixodes, can only escape its vigilant enemies by making itself invisible; hence every variation, i.e. increase in jumping-power ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... There was really no doubt of Henry's sincerity, but his isolation was terrible. There was none true to him at home but Sully. Abroad, the States-General alone were really friendly, so far as positive agreements existed. Above all, the intolerable tergiversations and suspicions of those most interested, the princes in possession, and their bickerings among themselves, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Can we conceive of a relation between place and time of the individual events relative to both reference-bodies, such that every ray of light possesses the velocity of transmission c relative to the embankment and relative to the train ? This question leads to a quite definite positive answer, and to a perfectly definite transformation law for the space-time magnitudes of an event when changing over from one body of reference ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... In addition, the scope for private sector activity has been expanded, primarily through decollectivization of the agricultural sector and introduction of laws giving legal recognition to private business. Despite such positive indicators, the country's economic turnaround remains tenuous. Nearly three-quarters of export earnings are generated by only two commodities, rice and crude oil. Meanwhile, industrial production stagnates, burdened by uncompetitive state-owned enterprises the government is unwilling or unable ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... determined to give his valorous comrade all the distinction he deserved. "Bob," he added, as the restive team proceeded on their way, "you have been something of a martyr—now you are a positive hero." ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... passengers going perpetually on deck and bringing down news, either that we were in the act of crossing the bar, or that we had crossed it, or that all this was wrong and that we were still outside. As often as it was announced, and that with the most positive assertion, that we should land to-night, there was great joy and glee among all the passengers, excepting ourselves and a few others who had visions of a late Custom House examination in a dark and dismal night with pouring rain, and a conviction that ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... lunatics. I knew the Man from the Quarter—had known him from the day of his birth—and knew what he would do and where he would go (over his head sometimes) for a poor devil of a fish half as long as his finger, and I had had positive evidence of what the other web-footed duck thought of ice-cold water. No, I'd take a little sugar in mine, if you please, and put a drop of—but the Sculptor had already foreseen and was then forestalling my needs, so we leaned back in our chairs ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... consider a man a Brahmo if he be conservative in other respects than idolatry; but it can never consider an idolater to be a Brahmo. The conservative Brahmo can do one thing, that is, observe the old ritual, leaving out only the idolatrous portion of it, if he do not choose to follow the positive Brahmo ritual laid down in the 'Anushthna Paddhati.' Liberty should be given by the progressive Brahmo to the conservative Brahmo in judging of the idolatrous character of the portions of the old ritual rejected by him. If a progressive ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... their political nationality beyond cavil, and taken a positive rank among the powers of the civilized world, they still remained subject to reproach, that in the worlds of Art, Science, and Literature, they had no national existence. Admitting, or, at any rate, feeling, the truth of this taunt, they bestirred themselves resolutely to produce a practical ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... not done, arranging and re-arranging what I have got to do and what every one else is going to do, till I can hardly eat or sleep. To be in one position for long at a time, or sit through bad plays, to listen to moderate music or moderate conversation is a positive punishment to me. I am energetic and industrious, but I am a little too quick; I am DRIVEN along by my temperament till I tire myself and ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... brought to a close by the sight of Louvois, who with his son joined the party of the Duchess of Orleans. He did not like to see him so near his angel; but his uneasiness increased to positive pain when he saw her extend her hand, and greet him with ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... had as a girl when she carried her father's dinner in a flagon to the country place where he was at work, but to walk with no end save the good of your health seemed a very droll proceeding to her. In her young days, she was positive, no one had ever gone for a walk, and she never lost the belief that it was an absurdity introduced by a new generation with too much time on their hands. That they enjoyed it she could not believe; ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... out some of the negative wastes of competition," answered the other. "I have hardly mentioned the positive economies of co-operation. Allowing five to a family, there are fifteen million families in this country; and at least ten million of these live separately, the domestic drudge being either the wife or a ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... With positive proof of bribery that left conviction and a term in prison as the alternative to resignation, District Attorney William H. Langdon had complete control of the situation. In consultation with those who had proved their interest ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... eyes devoured the scene. On the chair from which the model had risen she had deposited yet another hat, so large, so audacious and beplumed that it seemed to have a positive personality, a positive swagger of its own, and to be winking roguishly at the audience. Meanwhile Madame's muslin dress of the day before had been exchanged for something more appropriate to the warmth of her poetry—a tawdry flame-coloured satin, in which her "too, ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... States must reach forth to pluck out the Spaniard from the land he ravaged. And when a number of Senators and Representatives in Congress made journeys to Cuba, and returning, described in formal addresses at the Capitol the scenes of starvation and misery, this opinion hardened into positive conviction. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... reflective man in spectacles, 'positive virtues are getting moved off the stage: negative ones are moved on to the place of positives; we thank bare justice as we used only to thank generosity; call a man honest who steals only by law, and consider him a benefactor if he does not ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... beloved one's heart is touched and she is in sympathy with the lover, the answer should be frankly and unequivocally given. If the negative answer is necessary, it should be done in the kindest and most sympathetic language, yet definite, positive and to the point, and the gentleman should at once withdraw his suit and continue ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... about universal notions, to which I fully agree: but then it doth not appear to me that those notions are formed by ABSTRACTION in the manner PREMISED—UNIVERSALITY, so far as I can comprehend, not consisting in the absolute, POSITIVE nature or conception of anything, but in the RELATION it bears to the particulars signified or represented by it; by virtue whereof it is that things, names, or notions, being in their own nature PARTICULAR, are rendered UNIVERSAL. Thus, when I demonstrate any proposition ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... him to whom she gave all the love that she possessed! And he must want something of her which was to be concealed from the wife. She could not be mistaken. She had never been deceived in a presentiment that was so positive. Ever since she reached Augsburg, an inner voice had told her—and old Brigitta's cards confirmed it—that the destiny of her life would be decided here, and he alone held her weal ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... with his communication a positive prepared in the manner described, we are enabled to corroborate all he says as to the richness and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... Religious Assemblies, Political Conferences, suffrage meetings, educational conventions. But our meeting is for a purpose which, while inclusive, in some respects, of these various concerns, is for an object more distinct and positive ...
— Civilization the Primal Need of the Race - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Paper No. 3 • Alexander Crummell
... A question always existed, whether the Empress was really buried here, or at the abbey of Ste Marie des Pres, at Rouen. Hoveden expressly says, that she was interred at Rouen: the chronicle of Bec, on the other hand, is equally positive in the assertion that her body was brought to Bec, and entombed with honor before the altar of the Virgin. The same chronicle adds that, in the year 1273, her remains were discovered before the high altar, sewed up in an ox's hide.—Still farther to substantiate their claim, the monks of ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... put on the light but found I had been in bed JUST TEN MINUTES! I did not sleep anymore that night but spent the time in meditating on my dream which convinced me that there must be within the human body a positive something that would continue to live forever and ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... who was slightly lame, limp around to the buggy after his horse was tied, and take out two cases. She hated him while he did it. She felt intuitively that something terrible was to come to her mother because of those cases. She watched the doctor limp up the steps with positive malevolence. "If he is such a smart doctor, why doesn't ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... so likewise in these intellectual matters there seemeth to be no less contention between the excellency of your Majesty's gifts of Nature and the universality and perfection of your learning. For I am well assured that this which I shall say is no amplification at all, but a positive and measured truth; which is, that there hath not been since Christ's time any king or temporal monarch which hath been so learned in all literature and erudition, divine and human. For let a man seriously and diligently revolve ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... land were noted and some whales were seen, which the sailors say is the first sign of land. On the following day they saw some seals, which, according to the sailors, was the second sign of land. On the 24th, they saw some ducks, which, they say, is proof positive of land being near. On the same day land was sighted at 4 p. m.; the North Farallones of San Francisco were seen to the north and Point Ano Nuevo to the southeast. At 7 p. m., the South Farallones were seen ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... not like eating and drinking and exercise, if he is not something positive in his tastes, it means he has a feeble body and should have some medicine; but children may be pure spirits, if they will, and take their enjoyment in a world of moonshine. Sensation does not count for so much in our first years as afterwards; something of the swaddling numbness of infancy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... authority for that?" Phil turned a large, bizarre ring round on his slender left little finger and the whole room waited, testing this positive-spoken outsider. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... reveals Ravel the peer of Debussy as the fact that he has succeeded so beautifully in manifesting what is peculiar to him. For he is by ten years Debussy's junior, and were he less positive an individuality, less original a temperament, less fully the genius, he could never have realized himself. There would have descended upon him the blight that has fallen upon so many of the younger Parisian composers less determinate than ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... light of Our Lady's brow," said Prince John, "our orders to him were most precise—though it may be you heard them not, as we stood together in the oriel window—Most clear and positive was our charge that Richard's safety should be cared for, and woe to Waldemar's head if ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... aid to the elementary study of bird life nothing has ever been published more satisfactory than this most successful of Nature Books. This book makes the identification of our birds simple and positive, even to the uninitiated, through certain unique features. I. All the birds are grouped according to color, in the belief that a bird's coloring is the first and often the only characteristic noticed. ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... of them had ever heard of that gap in the hills; there was no one to guide them through it except the Indian girl, whose memory had hitherto been so positive and so trustworthy. They ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... Polly had seemed so positive, and so eager to get her father started after the motor boat he had lost, that Wyn could not understand why the Jarleys were ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... consequence of my unexpected relief from a painful suffering, and only lasted until calm reflection returned. In a few minutes it was over, and my apprehension of death became as acute as ever. It is wrong to call it an apprehension, for it was a positive certainty that stared me in the face. I had not given five minutes' thought to my situation, till I felt as certain of death as I was that I still lived. There was no hope of escape from my prison—that I had given up long ago; and since I had nothing to eat, ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... Haiphong, when they got there after a course of most unprofitable peregrinations (during which the ship was nearly lost twice), he got himself, in Mr. Burns' own words, "mixed up" with some woman. Mr. Burns had had no personal knowledge of that affair, but positive evidence of it existed in the shape of a photograph taken in Haiphong. Mr. Burns found it in one of the drawers ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... that such power has always been a disturbing force in the progress of the human race, which modern theories too hastily overlook; and that the science of history (unless the existence of the human will be denied) must belong rather to the moral sciences, than to that 'positive science' which seems to me inclined to reduce all human phaenomena under physical laws, hastily assumed, by the old fallacy of [Greek text], to apply where there is no proof whatsoever that they do or ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... what does he say of it? Why this. "Matthew composed a writing of the Oracles (meaning without doubt the Doctrines of the Gospel,) in the Hebrew Language, and every one interpreted them as he was able." So far as this Testimony goes it is positive evidence, that the only Gospel of Matthew extant in 116, was extant in Hebrew; and there was then no translation, of it, for "every one interpreted as he was able." The present gospel called of Matthew was then ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... the balance, the strength and weight of testimony, this author has provided an answer to every possible accumulation of historical proof by telling us that we are not obliged to explain how the story of the evidence arose. Now I think that we are obliged; not, perhaps, to show by positive accounts how it did, but by a probable hypothesis how it might so happen. The existence of the testimony is a phenomenon; the truth of the fact solves the phenomenon. If we reject this solution, we ought to have some other to rest in; and none, even by our adversaries, can be admired, which is ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... important part in the great results achieved. Unfortunately, no one can answer one way or another, but our very ignorance should emphasize the importance of looking at the question from every side, and not jumping at conclusions before they are warranted by facts. It is true that most of our positive knowledge on this subject would condemn alcohol as being the greatest curse of the ages, but it may be that it has played a beneficent part in the affairs of mankind through devious paths impossible to trace. Unquestionably a drug, the taking of which assists us in momentarily throwing ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... hours of Gordon's absence, Bernard had frequent colloquies with his friend's wife, whose irresponsible prattle amused him, and in whom he tried to discover some faculty, some quality, which might be a positive guarantee of Gordon's future felicity. But often, of course, Gordon was an auditor as well; I say an auditor, because it seemed to Bernard that he had grown to be less of a talker than of yore. Doubtless, when a man finds himself united to a garrulous ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"—and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do—that's just what they say—is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... a matter of concealments but of positive deceptions. The figure of Justin comes back to me. It is a curious thing that in spite of our bitter antagonism and the savage jealousy we were to feel for one another, there has always been, and there remains now in my thought of him, a certain liking, a regret at our opposition, ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... whether he appeared of his own accord, or by a particular summons from the king. The barons by writ, therefore, began gradually to intermix themselves with the barons by tenure; and, as Camden tells us,[**] from an ancient manuscript now lost, that after the battle of Evesham, a positive law was enacted, prohibiting every baron from appearing in parliament, who was not invited thither by a particular summons, the whole baronage of England held thenceforward their seat by writ, and this important privilege of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... were in a frosty atmosphere, with scarcely warmth enough to keep life in the region about his heart. It is a patient, long-suffering, quiet, hopeless, shivering aspect. He is not desperate,—that, though its etymology implies no more, would be too positive an expression,—but merely devoid of hope. As all his past life, probably, offers no spots of brightness to his memory, so he takes his present poverty and discomfort as entirely a matter of course; he thinks it the definition ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... the Tartar frigate ever went before the wind. Be this as it may, the visitors had a coach in waiting at a quiet corner not far off; and the chronometer, on being incidentally referred to, gave such a positive opinion that it had been waiting a long time, that it was impossible to doubt the fact, especially when stated on such unimpeachable authority. If Uncle Sol had been going to be hanged by his own time, he never would have allowed that the chronometer was too fast, by the ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... look Bolger left them, and the surgeon, turning to Belton, said: "That settles him, anyway, for a time. He's a thorough scoundrel, I believe. Mrs. Clinton has a positive horror of the man; yet the brute is continually pestering her with offers of his services. Now I must go ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... day, and also in the highest degree a practical person, who clearly perceived what would most rapidly educate and interest the uncultivated. In his thirty-three dramas, sparkling comedies in prose, more or less in imitation of Molire, he has left his most important positive legacy to literature. Nor in any series of comedies in existence is decency so rarely sacrificed to a desire for popularity or a false sense ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... of anatomy. The art and process of embalming, in such vogue among the Egyptians, naturally fostered the advance of this science. Whilst Alexandria in abstract speculation could not rival Greece, yet it became the home of the pioneers of positive science, who left a great and priceless legacy to modern civilisation. The importance of this event (the foundation of the Museion), says Draper, in his Intellectual Development of Europe, though hitherto little understood, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... when Paul saw the tender way in which the rough farm boy forced the little old lady back into her chair, and caught the positive tone in which he gave her this assurance, he seemed almost ready to believe Jo must be innocent; although when he glanced at the money his heart misgave ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... or rattling noise, as a rule gradually becoming louder and then dying away. There was the usual conflict in the evidence of different observers due to the depth of the sound. In Calcutta, which lies well within the sound-area, some persons asserted that they heard a rumbling noise; others were positive that the only noise was that caused by falling buildings and furniture. Some, again, noticed that the shock was preceded by a loud roar; while others were certain that there was no sound of any kind until ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... have foundered. If she did, we shall never obtain proof positive of the fact," said the captain. "I am far rather inclined to believe that she struck on some unknown reef, and that the rock or island was reached in the boats, or that the ship herself gained it, unless too much damaged to continue her voyage. One thing ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... history, and in the sublime self-sacrifice of Sidney Carton, which Henry Miller, in "The Only Way," has impressed on thousands of tearful playgoers. That David Copperfield is not autobiographical we have the positive assertion of Charles Dickens the younger, yet at the same time every lover of this book feels that the boyhood of David reproduces memories of the novelist's childhood and youth, and that from real people and real scenes are drawn the humble home and ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... instance of a man who had a strange belief. Indeed, it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed, and insisted on my being put under control. I used to fancy that life was a positive and perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live things, no matter how low in the scale of creation, one might indefinitely prolong life. At times I held the belief so strongly that I actually tried to take human ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... succeeded in 1897 in observing the displacement of a dark line due to magnesium, and found that the body emitting it was also moving in an orbit, but while the velocities given by the bright F line are positive after the principal minimum of the star's light, those given by the dark line are negative. Therefore, during the principal minimum it is a star giving the dark line which is eclipsed, and during the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... evening game of cricket, and she never made one at rounders now, much to the others' disgust. No one, to look at the sweet blossom-like face, and soft, calm eyes, could have guessed what torture was being felt beneath the now pretty, welt-fitting dress body. To walk quickly was positive pain; to stoop, almost agony; but she endured it all with a heroism worthy of a truly ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... of maples, to the fine old-fashioned mansion of Mr. Phillips. As they stood on the steps, Mr. Raeburn noticed that Mary had been much agitated by recognizing scenes once familiar to her baby eyes, and he begged her to try to be calm. "Remember," he said, "we have no positive, reliable evidence that you are the lost child of Mr. and Mrs. Phillips. You must not suddenly proclaim yourself. They have probably despaired so long that they will be unable to credit your story, if too abruptly told, and any repulse ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... standard historical works, and to such editions of poets and prose writers as have come into my hands. How much I am endebted to the genius of Michelet; nay, rather, how much I am, however unimportant, the thing made by him, every one will see and judge. With regard to positive information I must express my great obligations to the works of Jacob Burckhardt, of Prof. Villari, and of Mr. J.A. Symonds in everything that concerns the political history and social condition of the Renaissance. Mr. Symonds' name I have placed last, although this is ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... "I'm positive! You're such an extraordinary, woman. I'm pretty sure it all hinges on the treasure I told you about the other day. Whoever gets first hold of that holds all the trumps. I'd like to get it myself. That would be the making of me, politically speaking. If Gungadhura ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... And in the case of downright fraud—finding out what a man had offered for his farm and taking it over his head—the offender was "an ill gettit wratch." The two latter phrases were dark with theology, and even the positive degree of condemnation had ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... 'Proof positive of my two propositions,' said Hazel with a laugh. 'Waiting on me, is bewildering work ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... never be satisfied. Phocion might well think that poverty a virtue, in which, after having so often been general of the Athenians, and admitted to the friendship of potentates and princes, he had now grown old. Demades, meantime, delighted in lavishing his wealth even in positive transgressions of the law. For there having been an order that no foreigner should be hired to dance in any chorus on the penalty of a fine of one thousand drachmas on the exhibitor, he had the vanity to exhibit an entire chorus of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... undoubted acquaintance with the Baron Munchausen of real life and the first appearance of the work in 1785, when Raspe was certainly in England, there seems to be little difficulty in accepting his authorship as a positive fact. There is no difficulty whatever, in crediting Raspe with a sufficient mastery of English idiom to have written the book without assistance, for as early as January 1780 (since which date Raspe had resided uninterruptedly in this country) Walpole wrote to his friend Mason ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... with their clubbed sounds—than their opposite (Silence her sacred self) is multiplied and rendered more intense by numbers, and by sympathy. She too hath her deeps, that call unto deeps. Negation itself hath a positive more and less; and closed eyes would seem to obscure the great ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... possibility—nay, probability—we cannot apodictically deny the existence of organized beings on a planet merely because the conditions on the same are unsuitable for the existence of life as we conceive it. We cannot even, with positive assurance, assert that some of them might not be present here in this our world, in the very midst of us, for their constitution and life manifestation may be such that we are ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... opposite this couple I saw him halt just a perceptible instant, his eye upon the hurrying waiter; then he stepped quickly before the coming couple and made a courteous but positive gesture, clearly an order to halt. The man did not halt, but brushed past the polite guard with a scowling face. He was a big fellow, flashily dressed, and with a countenance at once coarse and dissipated; and as he made a second forward movement I could distinctly ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... hand of the President, pocketed it, and returned by the next stage to college. This prank only moved the Squire to mirth, when he heard of it. He knew that Hugh was a lad of spirit,—that in scholarship he was by no means a dunce; and as long as there was no positive tendency to vice, he thought but lightly of his boyish peccadilloes. But it was impossible for such irregularities to continue, and after a while Mr. Kinloch yielded to his step-son's request and took ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... Robinson to learn what he had to report. Apparently, my suspicions of Frank Woods were groundless. He had had dinner at the club and then waited around for Jim to keep his appointment. He had been seen by Jackson at eight twenty-five; Jackson was positive of that fact. Ten or fifteen minutes at the most in which to go six miles to the bridge and back to the club, put up his car and ask Jackson for a drink. The thing couldn't be done. He had heard of Jim's death with surprise and had heard of Helen's injury with the greatest horror. There seemed ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... my firm opinion is, that if the rascals had found us unprepared, she would have been alongside us before now. She had more people on board her than when she left Malta harbour this morning, though where they came from I can't say; and I'm positive as to the craft, though the young man denied having been there for many a day. I ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... "so named by Faraday from the Greek verb, io, to go. They are little positive and negative charges of electricity of which molecules are composed. You know some believe now that matter is really composed of electrical energy. I think I can explain it best by a simile I use with my classes. It is as though you had a ballroom in which the dancers ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... "Story of Bhazad (!) the Impatient." The name is Persian, Bih (well, good) Zd (born). In the adj. bih we recognize a positive lost in English and German which retain the comparative (bih-tar better) ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... standing upon the surface and listening attentively, we hear, from time to time, a grinding sound. The rocks which lie along the sides are pulverized, and are continually moving against each other and falling; and then, besides, which is a more direct and positive proof still of the motion of the mass, a mark may be set up upon the ice, as has been often done, and marks corresponding to it made upon the solid rocks on each side of the valley, and by this means the fact ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... off the blood which he would want in his struggle with disease, of making him sore and wretched with needless blisters, of turning his stomach with unnecessary nauseous draught and mixtures,—only because he was sick and something must be done. But there were positive as well as negative facts to be learned, and some of us, I fear, came home rich in the negatives of the expectant practice, poor in the resources which many a plain country practitioner had ready in abundance for the relief and the cure ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Woodstock, intending to speak with Benefield on the subject. The goodness of God however so ordered it, that while Basset was travelling to Woodstock, Benefield, by an order of council, was going to London; in consequence of which, he left a positive order with his brother, that no man should be admitted to the princess during his absence, not even with a note from the queen; his brother met the murderer, but the latter's intention was frustrated, as no ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... number of houses. Most of the houses had been looted systematically. According to the stories of those inhabitants who remain, there was a reign of terror for about a week, during which the Germans rendered themselves guilty of every sort of atrocity and barbarity. They are all most positive that there was no firing upon the German troops by the civil population. It seems to be generally believed that the massacre was due to resistance of retiring Belgian troops and the destruction of bridges and tunnels to cover their retreat. Whatever the ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... take no notice of us, but when Hollis threw open the lid of the box his eyes flew to it—and so did ours. The quilted crimson satin of the inside put a violent patch of colour into the sombre atmosphere; it was something positive to look ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... Perhaps there may be some little thing to say in exculpation. If the offender can, after a short space, continue to make his usual personal appearances, he is safe, because the great bulk of his old friends would rather continue to recognise him, than come to a positive rupture—an event always felt as inconvenient. Of course, they will be too well-bred to allude before him to any unpleasant fact in his history. He will never recall it to their minds. By being thus thrown out of all common reference, it will become obscured to a wonderful degree, insomuch ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... the Cloth of Gold rises a knight without fear and without reproach. Purely human and most heroic, as unpretending as spotless, womanly, gentle, yet of positive and aggressive strength, strength to do silently, to endure steadfastly, to die conquered, yet victorious, to live in the front, yet alone,—is it an ideal character? So much the more let it be studied, that our souls may absorb it and produce the reality: for it is ideal after no impossible sort. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... greatest book of the season for children. The authoress has a genius for story-telling. Prudy's letter to Mr. 'Gustus Somebody must be genuine; if an invention, it shows a genius akin to that of the great masters. It is a positive kindness to the little ones to remind their parents that there is such a book ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... France," he added, "have done no harm; their intentions towards us are most friendly. Can we, without reason, deprive them of that liberty and protection which we grant here to all men, and especially to men of prayer? Are we justified in rendering ourselves guilty of present and positive injustice, from the imaginary dread of evils ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... the subject before, and I was a little startled at Bessie's positive manner, for I thought even this matter would not be free from her mother's dictation. The old lady seemed surprised and vexed. "George is a much better name, I think," she said very quietly, keeping down her vexation, "but I ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... law is quite positive, and the Judge is bent on putting it in forcefive pounds penalty. I thought I heard your hounds out on the scent of sothing this morning; I didnt know but they might get you ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... fire; Can chance of seeing first thy title prove? And know'st thou not, no law is made for love? Law is to things which to free choice relate; Love is not in our choice, but in our fate; Laws are but positive; love's power, we see, Is Nature's sanction, and her first decree. 330 Each day we break the bond of human laws For love, and vindicate the common cause. Laws for defence of civil rights are placed, Love ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... this; you are to decide this cause upon evidence; you have no positive evidence of any thing that passed in the house of Lord Cochrane, except that evidence which my learned friend, Mr. Gurney, has given you from Lord Cochrane himself; you have had evidence upon the oath of my Lord Cochrane, that whatever concealed objects ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... antagonists, nor a desire to accumulate money—for his recklessness disproved that—but the liberation of the gambling passion. Wade recognized that when he met it. And Jack Belllounds was not in any sense big. He was selfish and grasping in the numberless little ways common to the game, and positive about his own rights, while doubtful of the claims of others. His cheating was clumsy and crude. He held out cards, hiding them in his palm; he shuffled the deck so he left aces at the bottom, and these he would slip off to himself, and he was so blind that he could not detect ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... a selfish feeling, that the planter of an elm or an oak does not reap such an immediate profit from it himself, as will compensate for the expense and trouble of raising it. This is an extremely narrow principle, which, fortunately, the rich are beginning to be ashamed of. It is a positive duty of a landed proprietor who cuts down a tree which his grandfather planted, to put a young one into the ground, as a legacy to his own grand-children: he will otherwise leave the world worse than he found it. Sir Walter Scott, who ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... useless the information the detective and himself had obtained with so much trouble and risk. But the first question that came into his head was the inquiry as to what his uncle was doing in Bermuda. He was a Confederate of the most positive type, had done everything in his power for his government, as he understood it, and was willing to sacrifice his life and all that he had in the world in ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... necessary to render their position complete. If they fail to obtain them then they are as irritated as if slander were being pronounced against them and as angry as if they were the recipients of positive insult. Consequently the world is more scrupulous in the case of such persons than (one might almost say) in the case of emperors themselves. To the latter it is ascribed as a virtue to pardon any one if an error is committed; but in the self-made persons that course ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... an old bureau. For many years she carried her savings about with her from town to town, sometimes retaining upon her person gold in rouleaux to a large amount. She is even said to have kept in her pocket for seven years a note for L200. At length her wealth became a positive embarrassment to her. She deposited sums in country banks and in the hands of respectable tradesmen, at three per cent., sometimes without receiving any interest whatever, but merely with a view to the safer custody of her resources. It was with ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... for giving our cousin the benefit of his detective work, although both Daphne and I were positive that Vandy had identified the pedestal from Adele's description before Jonah had volunteered the suggestion ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... my life I assisted at the simplest and grandest spectacle—the inauguration of a President. Lincoln's message good, according to circumstances, but not conclusive; it is not positive; it discusses questions, but avoids to assert. May his mind not be altogether of the same kind. Events will want and demand more positiveness and action than the message contains assertions. The immense ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... dignity. She gave herself away without reserve whenever occasion offered. She abused Deleah, she scolded her mother, she wept noisily over her wrongs. She declared that there was positive indecency on Deleah's part in encouraging the love-making of a young man who had once, however long ago it ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... information," she said, presently. "But I am as positive one way as you are another that you have never been in this house before. I may surmise things, but as I hope to be judged fairly I can give you no information. I am only a poor, unhappy girl, who is doing what she deems to be the best for all parties concerned. ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... to have behaved but once in this wise," she observed, "I feel positive that a couple of the tendons of her legs would have long ago been snapped. But, Miss, don't credit all they say. It's because they see that our senior mistress is as sweet-tempered as a 'P'u-sa,' and that you, miss, are a modest young lady, that they, naturally, shirk ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... astray by sixteenth-century writers whose smallest concern was to be critical and accurate. To avoid the tedious and entirely negative task to which it would be necessary to proceed if I took him for my starting-point I shall confine myself to a positive study of ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... self-realization, meet the constraint which the community, whose only object is likewise self-realization and self-preservation, puts upon all within its power. The law is negative and repressive, self-interest is positive and assertive; between the two there is no possible reconciliation—at most a compromise—so that in the last analysis it appears that the assertion of individual will as such is immoral, that is, contrary to the will of the community; and is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... her own vulgar and commonplace mind being capable of comprehending the Duchess's great qualities. It was impossible less to resemble each other. The one adored grandeur even to the romantic and the chimerical, the other was entirely positive and matter-of-fact, and absorbed with her own interest, especially in those relating to her property. Alienated from the Fronde through the jealous hatred she bore towards her stepmother, who in turn liked her almost as little, and probably also did not take pains ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... my Journal again to record another disquieting accident. It is odd, but I have missed one of the pieces of my father's clasp. I am positive it was in my pocket last night. I now have an indistinct recollection of hearing something fall whilst I was dressing this morning, but although I have searched both cabin and state-room thoroughly, I can find nothing. However, even if it has fallen into Colliver's hands, which is unlikely, ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in an hour—oh, heavens! what a revulsion! what an unheaving, from its lowest depths, of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the world within me! That my pains had vanished was now a trifle in my eyes; this negative effect was swallowed up in the immensity of those positive effects which had opened before me, in the abyss of divine ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the Persian king might easily have held with a small number of resolute men, the Cyreian forces passed, with no one to hinder them. The great trench, on which so much labor had been expended, was, therefore, not only useless as a defence to Artaxerxes, but it was a positive encouragement to Cyrus and his men, for it revealed the inefficiency and the cowardice of the Persians. The whole army now moved rapidly forward, confident of an easy victory, many even supposing that Artaxerxes would make no stand at all, but abandon his capital ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... silently emerging, appears on the streets, People's lips salute only doers, lovers, satisfiers, positive knowers, There will shortly be no more priests, I say their work is done, Death is without emergencies here, but life is perpetual emergencies here, Are your body, days, manners, superb? after death you shall ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... club. I invariably attend the matches unless the house happens to be on fire. I have enough of the sporting instinct to be able to take defeat cheerfully—if the defeat falls within certain limits. It must not be so crushing as to be a positive humiliation, nor must it be by so fine a margin as to constitute itself a tantalization. Of the two, I prefer the former to the latter. The former can be dismissed under certain recognized forms. 'The glorious uncertainty of cricket!' you say to yourself. 'It's ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... (population): The annual percent change in the population, resulting from a surplus (or deficit) of births over deaths and the balance of migrants entering and leaving a country. The rate may be positive or negative. ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... neighboring objects on the skin has probably arisen from the resemblance of the burns due to the ramifications of the blood-vessels as conductors, or to peculiar electric movements which can be demonstrated by positive charges on lycopodium powder. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... Cochut was so positive, that at length Balkishen, who calculated that the task of setting fire to the slow match might be the least dangerous, undertook it. Afraid of creeping out by daylight, they were unable to ascertain what was taking place in the fort above them; but they ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... was Mary's prompt and positive response. "I must go to church to-morrow, and cannot, of course, go out, without my ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... clearly present in his use of facts a true sense of historical method. He put an end also to the confusion which resulted from the effort of thinkers to erect standards of right and wrong independent of all positive law. He took the facts as phenomena to be explained rather than as illustrations of some favorite thesis to be maintained in part defiance of them. Conventional Whiggism has no foothold after he has done with its analysis. His utilitarianism was the first efficient substitute ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... in her simple riding-dress, so quaint and original in that very beauty, and, above all, so teeming with a certain vital earnestness of purpose just positive and audacious enough to set off that beauty, that the grave gentleman before her did not content himself with the usual formal inclination of courtesy, but actually advanced, and, taking her cold little hand in his, graciously led her to the ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... deference to their just rights, he should grant them a renewal of Henry's charter, and a confirmation of the laws of St. Edward. The king, alarmed with their zeal and unanimity, as well as with their power, required a delay; promised that, at the festival of Easter, he would give them a positive answer to their petition; and offered them the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Ely, and the Earl of Pembroke, the mareschal, as sureties for his fulfilling this engagement [a]. The barons accepted of the terms, and peaceably ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... build up; but my object is merely to give the reader a general idea of my poor sister's situation. In outward appearance, her countenance denoted that expression which the French so well describe, by their customary term of "fatigue," rather than any other positive indication of disease—Grace's frame was so delicate by nature, that a little falling away was not as perceptible in her, as it would have been in most persons; though her beautiful little hands wanted that fulness which ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... widely that it was deemed wise to send out more runners to observe this moving body closely, and ascertain definitely its character. These soon returned with the positive information that the Canadians were at hand, "for," said they, "there are no bright metals in the moving train to send forth flashes of light. The separate bodies are short, like carts with ponies, and not ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... me! nothing but such a positive coxcomb as I am, would have laid his money upon such odds; as if you did not know your own lodgings better than I, at half a day's warning! And that which vexes me more than the loss of my money, is the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... of the sexes is exempt from the despotism of positive institution. Law pretends even to govern the indisciplinable wanderings of passion, to put fetters on the clearest deductions of reason, and, by appeals to the will, to subdue the involuntary affections of our nature. Love is inevitably consequent upon the perception of loveliness. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... room there would have been a good deal to be said for him; for, though he did not know as much as Felix of the nature and sentiments of Tod's children, he knew enough to make any but an Englishman uneasy. The fact that he went on eating ham, and said to Clara, "Half a cup!" was proof positive of that mysterious quality called phlegm which had long enabled his country to enjoy the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... head. Not that it would have meant much if she had. They had found hundreds of pictures with captions; they had never been able to establish a positive relationship between any pictured object and any printed word. Neither of them said anything more, and after a moment Sachiko replaced the loup and bent her ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... that their animal population was a matter of chance; it has been termed the "flotsam and jetsam theory," and it has been maintained that nature does not work by the "CHAPTER of accidents." But in the case which I have here described, we have the most positive evidence that such has been the mode of peopling the islands. Their productions are of that miscellaneous character which we should expect front such an origin; and to suppose that they have been portions of Australia or of Java will introduce ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... published by the same institution, and entitled The Sovereignty of God Explained and Vindicated, the design of which is to present the doctrine of Divine decrees in such a light as will obviate the usual objections to the Calvinistic view, he says: "Certain things God brings to pass by a positive agency. Others he simply permits to come to pass. And let it be remarked, permission and approbation do not, by any means, mean the same thing." Again: "Does any one ask what is the difference between ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... principle of Being and the multitudinous principle of atoms, entered into the composition of the world; which could distinguish between the true and false analogy, and allow the negative as well as the positive a place in human thought. To such a philosophy Plato, in the Theaetetus, offers many contributions. He has followed philosophy into the region of mythology, and pointed out the similarities of opposing phases of thought. He has also shown that extreme abstractions ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... along. He was in the habit of spending the night here whenever Nita would give him an evening of her company. He was here last night, according to the maid, Lydia Carr. Nita sent her into Hamilton to a picture show. Nita and Sprague quarreled last night, but I am positive he spent the night here anyway. Certainly there was no actual rupture, since Sprague worded his note to her as he did. I have another strong reason for thinking his belongings were here at least until noon today, but that can wait for the moment. Furthermore, I ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... of Peter Grimm," is an expression in dramatic form of my ideas on a subject which I have pondered over since boyhood: "Can the dead come back?" Peter Grimm did come back. At the same time, I inserted a note in my program to say that I advanced no positive opinion; that the treatment of the play allowed the audience to believe that it had actually seen Peter, or that he had not been seen but existed merely in the minds of the characters on the stage. Spiritualists from all over the country flocked to see "The Return of ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... others, would be good enough to come here, or send somebody to supply the wants of our army dying of hunger, and actually after fighting two days, and defeating in the service of Spain an enemy of twice their number, without bread to eat. It is a positive fact that for the last seven days the English army has not received a third of its provisions, that at this moment there are 4000 wounded soldiers dying for want of the care and necessaries which any other ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... soldiers of the United States in and about Manila, male or female, staff or supply, signal or hospital corps, Red Cross or crossed cannon, rifles, or sabres, this indomitable woman was now the most sought after—the most in demand. Her identification of the dead man had been positive and complete. ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... time to discuss this prospect, a deciding step was announced, by Jarvis, He was under positive orders to catch the steamer Wrigley at Fort Resolution on the evening of July 10. It was now mid-day of July 9, and only by leaving at once and travelling all night could he cover the intervening ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... soldier thinks he must have this article of luxury and the other, until he finds that they are positive burdens to himself and horse, and gradually he throws off this weight and that incumbrance, until his entire outfit is reduced to nearly "the little end of nothing, whittled to a point!" Possessed of a coffee-bag and cup and a hard-tack or biscuit, the most ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... thousand dollars into the saddler's pocket: that's a positive good. He may or may not take thereby ten dollars out of your pocket: that's a negative injury. In this case there was no injury, for you had already cost Lacasse—how much had you cost him, Dauphin?" continued the Seigneur, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... land where there is no night for two or three months, is that the better houses never have shutters, and seldom blinds, at the windows; therefore the sun streams in undisturbed; and when a room has four windows, as happened to us at Sordavala, the light of day becomes a positive nuisance, and a few green calico blinds an absolute godsend; indeed, almost as essential as the oil of cloves or lavender or the ammonia bottle for gnat bites, or the mosquito head-nets, if one sleeps with open ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... people might think to be blood, this would satisfy the judges. They answered: "God forbid we should dissemble our faith." We have elsewhere taken notice that the Christians then observed in many places the positive temporary law of the apostles.[2] Thamsapor and the governor, after a short consultation, condemned both to be stoned to death by the Christians. Joseph was executed at Arbela. He was put into the ground ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the great lung-power of Caruso that made him a great singer. It was his remarkable heart-power that brought him through an illness in February, 1921, when every newspaper in the world carried on its front page the positive statement that he could not live another day. That he lived for six months afterward was due chiefly ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... writer of the tenth century, Mo[t.]ahhar ibn [T.][a]hir,[20] author of the Book of the Creation and of History, who gave as a curiosity, in Indian (N[a]gar[i]) symbols, a large number asserted by the people of India to represent the duration of the world. Huart feels positive that in Mo[t.]ahhar's time the present Arabic symbols had not yet come into use, and that the Indian symbols, although known to scholars, were not current. Unless this were the case, neither the author nor his readers would have ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... perfectly positive valve motion without dead points, great regularity and ease of motion, and entire absence of noise or shock of any kind. Both kinds of pumps are made by Mr. Worthington, of various size according to the requirements, the duplex being used for boiler feed ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... although you saw the entry, that would not help you?-It would not, but I could not say anything positive about that. ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... hopeless, and why should the North continue a contest at so much loss of blood and treasure, and at so great a loss to the commerce of the whole world? If a man thought—if a man believed in his heart that the contest was absolutely hopeless—no man in this country had probably any right to form a positive opinion one way or the other—but if he had formed that opinion, he might think, 'Well, the North can never be successful; it would be much better that they should not carry on the war at all; and therefore I am rather glad that the South should have success, ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... matches, summer resort dances, and all those events which gather together the youth of our prosperous classes. Of the medium height, with a strong look about the shoulders, with sufficiently, though not aggressively, positive features and a clear skin, with gray-green eyes, good teeth, and a pleasing expression, he had an excellent natural basis on which to build himself into a particularly engaging and plausible type of fashionable ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... impotent fury to a napping Gott!... Oh, an insufferable affront to a man of his order who held even the dearest woman as the favored pensioner on his bounty ... or she would be consumed with remorse, melt ... it was positive that she must visit him—not leave him to starve ... nor could she keep him bound ... and once more she would be his slave ... could she hold ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... a rule, these are for the lower ranks of needlewomen, but necessity will compel something more definite in form for the two classes we have been considering, as well as for those below them, and the time approaches when this will be plain to the workers themselves, and some positive action take the place of the present ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... above she is necessary while der civilization is incomblete, but der force is from der bottom. It is all time positive and primitive, for it was make when man was make at ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... to the westward. It was our easiest course; for we would ever have the wind from astern; and though we could not so much as hope to arrive at any one spot previously designated, there was still a positive certainty, if we floated long enough, of falling in with islands whereat to refresh ourselves; and whence, if we thought fit, we might afterward embark for more agreeable climes. I then reminded them ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... by devices not provided for in the Constitution, sometimes with unfortunate results. But a recognition of defects in our government should not cause us to lose respect for the Constitution. They are due not to positive blunders on the part of the framers, but to the mere absence of provision for conditions that did not exist when the Constitution was framed and that could not be foreseen by the wisest men of that time. The wise course for all good citizens is to seek to understand ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... personal excellence may be maintained together. And besides other names that our own annals might supply, he whom the providence of God removed from the highest office in this nation when he had but just crossed its threshold was, if we may believe various and positive testimony, an example of moral and religious character worthy of universal imitation. By the consent of all parties, the late President Harrison was a good man; and now that he has gone to the judgment where there is no respect of persons, who does not feel that this is a ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett
... perplexed to know what to do, whether openly to quarrel with Lady Neville and refuse to consummate the marriage, or to banish his suspicions and take her for his wife. His love for her finally triumphed, and he resolved to proceed with the marriage. He had no positive evidence against her, he said to himself, and then, besides, even if there were some secret attachment on her part, to account for these mysterious appearances, she might, after all, when once married to him, make him a faithful and affectionate wife. ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the history of what befel this country after the decline of the Roman empire is so intimately blended with that of Suabia, the Tyrolese, and the lower parts of the Grisons, which are known to have fallen to the share of the rising power of the Franks, that nothing positive can be drawn from authors as to the interior state of this small tract. The victory gained in the year 496 near Cologn, by Clovis I. king of the Franks, over the Alemanni, who had wrested from the Romans all the ...
— Account of the Romansh Language - In a Letter to Sir John Pringle, Bart. P. R. S. • Joseph Planta, Esq. F. R. S.
... Temple, where for some time he read statutes and reports with proficiency proportionate to the force of his mind, which was already such that he endeavoured to comprehend law, not as a series of precedents, or collection of positive precepts, but as a system of rational government and impartial justice. When he was nineteen, he was, by the death of his father, left more to his own direction, and probably from that time suffered law gradually to give way to poetry. At twenty-five he ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... risk his honor by taking her to wife; that thus the way might be left clear for himself; and he resolved, if possible, to effect this in such a manner—namely, by jests, innuendos and sneers—that it should never be directly traced to a positive assertion on his part. And in the mean time he determined to so govern himself in his deportment toward Capitola as to arouse no suspicion, give no offense and, if ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... I have no doubt on the subject," said Mrs. Tracy, in a positive tone. "He is the person most likely to take the money, and this makes less ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... "I am positive that when I at last gain your consent to marry me,"—he paused an instant to note the effect of his words, but there was not the quiver of an eyelash on her part,—"even then, you will have the audacity to tell me that you gave it for any other reason under heaven than consideration ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... which is plurality, nor that which is at once unity and plurality, nor that which is not at once unity and plurality. It is a negative concept in the sense that it is beyond all that is conditional and yet it is a positive concept in the sense that it holds all within it. It cannot be comprehended by any kind of particularization or distinction. It is only by transcending the range of our intellectual categories of the comprehension of the limited range of finite phenomena that we can get a glimpse of ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... Andre was as clear as light itself, and he did not materially contradict himself. Mrs. Checkynshaw was called for the defence; but, to the astonishment and disgust of the legal gentleman and his employers, she testified, in the most positive manner, that the elegant young lady in court was Marguerite Checkynshaw. She had taken care of her as a child, and she could not be mistaken. Mrs. Wittleworth was put upon the stand, with the letter announcing the death of Marguerite in her hand; but, ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... and her tone conveyed the most positive refusal to obey this behest. She sprang to her feet, and with flashing eyes, she cried: "We are not Greeks, neither she nor I, and I can tell you once for all that she is not my kind and welcome visitor, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... I never analyzed my impressions of Helen then, but I am sure I considered her far above any commonplace educational needs, for I knew that she was so wise, so disciplined, so true to all her duties, that she was altogether a woman, and not a little girl at all. It gave me a positive shock to discover that she was ciphering in vulgar fractions and that her spelling was, to say the least, crude. Not but that she was childish enough in many things, and so exquisitely docile with her father that he often scolded her for her over-careful obedience. I could ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... and positive holiness is true; but that the Pharisee's definition is, notwithstanding, false, will be manifest by and by. But I will first treat of righteousness in the general, because the text ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... top of the staircase that led down to the front door, when she saw that some one had preceded her. It was Madigan, who was on his way down to dinner; poor old Madigan, with his slippered, slow, but positive tread, his straight, assertive back expressing indignation, as it always did when his door-bell was rung. Oh, that familiar old back! Something swelled in Split's throat and held her choking, as she grasped the banister and gazed yearningly down upon him. For a moment ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... expectations, having compelled Lord Robert to provide for Polly, who is now safely ensconced in her own country castle somewhere in St. John's Wood, furnished to hand with servants and vassals complete. Thus you will be charmed to observe in me the growth of the prophetic instinct, for you will remember my positive prediction that if a girl were in trouble, and the necessity arose, Mr. Drake would be the first to help her. Of course, he had a great deal to say that was as sweet as syrup on the loyalty of my own friendship also, and he expended much beautiful rhetoric on yourself as well. It seems that you are ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... souls seem absorbed in the pleasures of the table. A divine, true to his cloth, swallows his soup with the highest gout. Not less gratified is the gentleman palating a glass of wine. The man in a black wig is a positive representative of famine; and the portly and oily citizen, with a napkin tucked in his button-hole, has evidently burnt his mouth ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... is certainly a bright girl. I am positive that she recognized at once in Mrs. Barnett a woman who would adorn any gathering of refined people. The homemade dress mattered nothing, nor the garb of the little ones, which showed infinite toil combined with scanty means for accomplishment. It was delightful to observe the positive ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... to throw up this place of yours in the University and get into business. You'll come into contact with realities that way and realities are eternally opposed to—cobwebs. You'll be happier and more contented, I'm positive, once you get adjusted." He gave his listener a keen look. "I've got an opening in mind right now. Say the word and I'll have the place ready for you the day they appoint your successor in the University. Do you care to ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... conversation with so small a stock of words. There is much pliability of meaning, however, in an interjection; and in company, where there are always several persons who are anxious to be heard, it is a positive virtue. In Miss Constantia's intonation of her favourite 'impossible!' it seemed to me that there mingled a dash of sadness, a kind of musical and melancholy cadence, which was followed by an unconscious absence of mind, evidencing ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... the much-sought-after crown-cousin, and that Green Fancy was as free from taint as the village chapel, when out of a clear sky and almost under my very nose two men were mysteriously done away with at the very gates of the place. In fact, so positive was I that O'Dowd was all right, that I had started for Washington to send my report back home and wait for instructions. The killing of those two men changed the aspect completely. You will certainly ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... respect to private interviews either with her most faithful majesty or her august consort, that neither the government nor the people may have a pretext for entertaining any undue impressions of the intentions of England. It is therefore my most positive orders that you do not yourself call at the palace, nor permit any officer to do so without my previous sanction." The British ambassador sought, though in vain, to obtain justice for the officers and soldiers who had been in Don Pedro's service, and whose claims upon the Portuguese ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... preacher uplifts his voice and speedily gathers a congregation, his zeal for whose religious welfare impels the good man to such earnest vociferation and toilsome gesture that his perspiring face is quickly in a stew. His inward flame conspires with the too fervid sun and makes a positive martyr of him, even in the very exercise of his pious labor; insomuch that he purchases every atom of spiritual increment to his hearers by loss of his own corporeal solidity, and, should his discourse last ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... view in order to conform with the exigencies of the day. The aim is to direct special attention to the failure to recognize the Negro as a human asset with untold economic possibilities. He believes that the matter of race values and interdependency of all races must find "a definite and assuredly positive place in the various policies of any nation which is made up of several race groups." In one sense the author believes that "racial conflict, strife and differences inspiring as they do, struggle, jealousy, and ambition, are essential to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... the handicap of the unpleasant "Felix." For to their ears Felix was not a proper sort of name at all; it was all right for a horse or a dog or even for a town, but for a man who was also a relation it was a positive disaster. It would not shorten for one thing, and for another it reminded them of "a king, or some one in a history book," and thus did not predispose them in his favour. It was simply what Tim called a "beastly name." Aunt Emily, however, was responsible for their biggest prejudice ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... before the Chinese received them. In the crucible of the local philosophy they would be assimilated with Chinese ideas until the resulting compound assumed a Chinese appearance. When these inevitable circumstances are recalled the value of any positive evidence of Western influence is of ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... ordered you up to the very front, Monsieur! 'Tis not often the women are brought so close—but it means, Monsieur, that our Generals are positive of driving the ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... himself—demanded a confederated state of equal nations and lands. But the dualist Austria-Hungary became the oppressor of non-German and non-Magyar nationalities. It is the obstacle to peace in Europe and it has degenerated into a mere tool for Germany's expansion to the East, without a positive mission of its own, unable to create a state organisation of equal nations, free and progressive in civilisation. The dynasty, living in its absolutist traditions, maintains itself a phantom of its former world empire, assisted in government by its undemocratic ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... by the tone of his correspondence. Deferential or indulgent, he never adopted a superior manner, was never positive or dogmatic. When his correspondents were wrong, he sought to justify their mistakes; when he combated the explanation of another, he never used a cutting expression, or a spiteful allusion, as Ibn Ezra did, and so ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... like him, Uncle Maje, but I'm positive that Fatty Budlow is not a boy I could ever feel deeply for. I don't believe our acquaintance will even ripen into friendship," and she looked with profound eyes into the ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... that Tchitcherin and all the other members of the government with whom I had talked had said in the most positive and unequivocal manner that the Soviet Government was determined to pay its foreign debts, and I was convinced that there would be ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt
... gay ranks again, and bids him—commandingly—to yell it; and with never a suspicion of what it stands for, the stamping and scraping fiddler shouts the name of a man who "loves a good story with a positive passion." ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... anxious minds; but while I was thus employed, an Irish seaman, distinguished even amongst our crew for his atrocities, came to the door, and would have forced his entrance. I instantly opposed him, urging the captain's most positive commands; but, having obtained a sight of the young females, he swore with a vile oath that he would soon find out whether a boy like me was able to oppose him, and finding that I would not give way, he attacked me fiercely. Fortunately, ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... supernaturalism in the case of all these pieces of organic machinery, is profoundly affected by the question whether they came into existence suddenly, or whether they did so gradually. For, if they all came into existence suddenly, the fact would constitute well-nigh positive proof in favour of supernaturalism, or creation by design; whereas, if they all came into existence gradually, this fact would in itself constitute presumptive evidence in favour of naturalism, or of development by natural causes. And, as shown in ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... the claim which has been made for Chatterton as the father of the romantic school, and as having influenced the actual style of Coleridge and Keats, though supported with great ability, appears to be overcharged. So also the positive praise given to the Rowley poems, as artistic productions full of rich color and romantic melody, may be deprecated without any refusal to recognize these qualities in measure. There are frequent flashes of brilliancy in Chatterton, and one or ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the Reform Club, where they were to be entertained at lunch. And, as every man and woman in the crowd was desperately anxious the moment they saw him to get near enough to Carson to shake him by the hand, the pressure of the swaying mass of humanity was a positive danger. Happily the behaviour of the people was as exemplary as it was tumultuously enthusiastic. The Times Special Correspondent thus summed up his impressions of ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... have no doubt as to the Saint's birth at Dumbarton. Ware believes that a town that once stood almost under the shadow of the crag possessed a stronger claim; Usher and the Aberdeen Breviary are equally positive that Kilpatrick was the town. Cardinal Moran, on the other hand, has convinced himself that St. Patrick first saw the light of day at a place that once stood near the present town of Hamilton, just where the river Avon discharges itself into the Clyde. Some English writers have strongly advocated ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... a fat Dutch woman, told a long story. She declared, on honor, that it was a black dog like a Chinese pug, that has no hair. However, she had only seen its back, but she was positive the creature talked English, for she heard it ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... for sleeplessness, loss of appetite, and nervous depression. There was no cause of death to be found. He would say the deceased had sunk. Deceased was not a temperate man, which doubtless accelerated death. Deceased complained of dumb ague, but witness had never been able to detect any positive disease. He did not know that he had any family. He regarded him as a person of unsound intellect, who believed himself a member and the victim of some secret society. If he were to hazard an opinion, he would say deceased had died ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... promoted foreman, felt that he had trouble a-plenty. When, short-handed as he was, two of his cowboys went a-spreeing and a-leisuring in town, with their faces turned from honest toil and their hands manipulating pairs and flushes and face-cards, rather than good "grass" ropes, he was positive that his cup was dripping trouble all ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... this consciously—of that I am positive. But it was betrayed in every line of her face, and my anxious ear caught it in every word she uttered as to the doings of the Johnson party. Doubtless she did not realize how naturally and closely I would associate ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... of the darts, we pulled towards the other boats leisurely; for now we were entirely safe against pursuit, and were free to go upon the lake in whatsoever direction we pleased. That some positive line of action had been determined upon was evident, for the flotilla already was in motion as we came up in the rear of it—the boat containing the members of the Council leading—and the order was passed back to us that we should follow with the rest. From the direction in which ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... me that the secret of the difficulty lies in the nature of the situation, with which an empirical treatment must necessarily fail to deal. What we have called "the aesthetic experience" is really a positive toning of the general aesthetic attitude. This positive toning corresponds to aesthetic excellence in the object. But wherever the concept of excellence enters, there is always the implication of a standard, value, judgment. But where there is a standard there is always ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... Perch doggedly. "Any girl could catch Freddie. He's a positive fool with one of these girls after him. Now she's got to have his uncle Henry's armchair in her room, if you please. That's ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... considered that to be a phrase of the novelists. But, after all, it was surely not a letter of farewell that she was holding in her hand, was it?... Was it really not a letter of farewell? Might not these kind words be also lies?... Also lies—that was it!... For the first time the positive word forced itself into her thoughts.... Lies!... Then it was certain that, when he brought her home the previous night, he had already made up his mind not to see her again. And the appointment for the present day and his desire to see her ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... is still an increase of 3.5 per cent. in the rural population. If, however, we eliminate the "home" counties and other rural districts round the large centres of population, largely used for residential purposes, and turn to agricultural England, we shall find that it shows a positive decline in rural population. In the period 1891-1901 no fewer than 18 English and Welsh counties show a decrease of rural inhabitants, taking the higher limit of urban population. This has been going on with increasing rapidity during the last forty years. Whereas, in ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... check ahead unless you are positive that you will have the money in bank to meet it ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... Bob's sister, certainly was not in love with Mr. Savage, and he was too indolent to give his side of the case continuous thought. Dimly he realized, and once lugubriously admitted, that he was not quite heartwhole, but he had not reached a positive ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... economic participation by everyone and the unconditional avoidance of an economic war; a war of that nature must be excluded from all future contingencies. Before we conclude peace we must have the positive assurance that our present enemies ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... our politics, who was to read our newspapers at the present juncture, without having previously inspected the plan reported by the convention, would be naturally led to one of two conclusions: either that it contained a positive injunction, that standing armies should be kept up in time of peace; or that it vested in the EXECUTIVE the whole power of levying troops, without subjecting his discretion, in any shape, to ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... triumph openly, but it will be none the less real. And my reputation for accuracy and calm restraint will be consolidated. If, by a rare mischance, I am in error, it will be vastly better for me in the day of my undoing that I have not been too positive now. Besides, nobody has appointed me sole custodian of the great truth concerning the rent of the Joneses' new flat. I was not brought into the world to be a safe-deposit, and more urgent matters summon me to effort.' If one of us had meditated thus, much needless ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... long time Dick Venner could get no positive evidence of any sentiment between Elsie and the schoolmaster. At one time he would be devoured by suspicion, at another he would laugh ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... "than kind feeling. To assert the contrary is to detract from Lincoln's force of character, as well as intellect. Our War President was not lost in his high admiration of brigadiers and major-generals, and had a positive dislike for their methods and the despotism upon which an army is based. He knew that he was dependent upon volunteers for soldiers, and to force upon such men as those the stern discipline of the Regular Army was to render the service unpopular. And it pleased him ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... the players on a base-ball nine, the pitcher is the one to whom attaches the greatest importance. He is the attacking force of the nine, the positive pole of the battery, the central figure, around which the others are grouped. From the formation of the first written code of rules in 1845 down to the present time, this pre-eminence has been maintained, and though the ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... such was the belief of Christians everywhere in the early years of the second century, can we trace the evidence further back? In answering this question, we are brought face to face with the Gospels. But first it must be noted that the positive evidence for such a subject must, in the nature of the case, be much more limited than the evidence for the Resurrection. The Apostles were primarily witnesses of what they themselves had seen. There are two persons, and two only, from whom we could reasonably expect to hear the truth about ...
— The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord - A paper read (in substance) before the confraternity of the Holy - Trinity at Cambridge • B. W. Randolph
... closed and securely fastened. I knocked on them several times, but there was no response, though a dim light was burning in the library. I heard some one moving inside, and for a moment I thought I heard the sound of voices in angry argument or expostulation. But of this I cannot be positive. I remained on the porch at least ten minutes, vainly trying to get into the rooms, then I gave it up and left ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... musical than France, should recognise the grandeur and originality of Berlioz's music before France, it is doubtful whether the German nature could ever fully understand a soul so French in its essence. It is, perhaps, what is exterior in Berlioz, his positive originality, that the Germans appreciate. They prefer the Requiem to Romeo. A Richard Strauss would be attracted by an almost insignificant work like the Ouverture du roi Lear; a Weingartner would ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... attained a very high order of excellence. It was, indeed, impossible to listen to his conversation without seeing that he was born a debater. To him, as to his uncle, the exercise of the mind in discussion was a positive pleasure. With the greatest good nature and good breeding, he was the very opposite to an assenter. The word "disputatious" is generally used as a word of reproach; but we can express our meaning only by saying that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... such necessaries as they required from those who had been long in the habit of monopolising every article brought to the settlement for sale; a habit of which it was found impossible to get the better, without the positive and immediate interference of the ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... Republique d'Haiti et les Etats-Unis de l'Amerique, desirant rendre durables et solides l'amitie et la bonne entente, qui regnent heureusement entre les deux nations liberales, ont resolu de fixer d'une maniere claire, nette et positive les regles qui devront etre, a l'avenir, religieusement suivies entre l'une et l'autre, au moyen d'un traite d'amitie, de commerce et de navigation, ainsi que d'extradition de criminels fugitifs.—Leger, "Recueil ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... her, which, indeed, could only have been by positive violence, so hasty and peremptory were her proceedings, she had drawn from his side the dirk which lodged in the folds of his plaid, and held it up, exclaiming, although the weapon gleamed clear and bright in the sun, "Blood, ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... the most part pursued a policy of benevolent neutrality in the struggle which the slave forces of the State were having with their neighbors to the North. The Baptists and Methodists within the commonwealth officially never made any positive contribution to the forces of either side, and they took no definite stand until the whole southern division of their general national organization withdrew from membership in the national conventions and set ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... rise of temperature follows the use of a vaccine, it indicates a negative phase, and calls for a diminution in the next dose. If, on the other hand, the local as well as the general condition of the patient improves after the injection, it indicates a positive phase, and the original dose may be repeated or even increased. Vaccines are best introduced subcutaneously, a part being selected which is not liable to pressure, as there is sometimes considerable local reaction. Repeated doses may be necessary at intervals ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... and other nervous affections are produced by the presence of the ascaris lumbricoides, but generally they produce less constitutional disturbance than the other varieties. The passage of this species of worms from the bowels, or their ejection from the stomach, is the only positive evidence of their presence. The ascaris vermicularis, thread, pin, or seat-worm, gives rise to most of the symptoms produced by the long worms, but in addition produces intense itching at the anus, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... these points which I have mentioned are some very positive things. One is the very best kind of a vacation that it is possible to have. How frequently we hear in response to the question about enjoying a vacation, 'Oh, yes, I had a good enough time, but I'll never go back there again.' To my mind that indicates either ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... convictions of error and deep regret for the unwise, almost disgraceful step she had taken, involving not only suffering, but humiliating exposure of herself and husband. But it was felt to be too late now to look back. Pride would have laid upon her a positive interdiction, if other considerations had not come in to push the ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... therefore, form a pontoon-bridge to-day, and make a sortie from the TETE-DE-PONT. You, General Frimont, will order up the batteries from Comorn. You, General Nugent, will inform the Archduke Palatine of the generalissimo's orders. Write him also that it is positive that the enemy is moving all his troops to Vienna, and that all his columns are already on the march thither. Tell him that it is all-important for us to detain him, and that I, therefore, have resolved to make a sortie from the TETE-DE-PONT, and request the Archduke ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... "It gives a positive shock to the nerves to be so vehemently addressed," she says, with the air of a Hammond advising ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... a man metaphysically and mathematically number one, a unit, and therefore whole number, governed and protected by his divine Principle, God? You have simply to preserve a scientific, positive sense of unity with your divine Source and daily demonstrate this. Then you will find that one is as important a factor as duodecillions in being and doing right, and thus demonstrating deific Principle. A dewdrop ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... of both the present and the future, a wider realization of human brotherhood than has yet existed, a greater theoretical willingness to judge by the individual than by the class, a breezy indifference to authority and a positive predilection for innovation, a marked alertness of mind, and a manifold variety of interest—above all, an inextinguishable hopefulness and courage. It is easy to lay one's finger in America upon almost every one of the ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... I've no business to bring it in here, Mrs. Cathcart," he said, "and make your drawing-room smell like a pot-house. But, you see, there was a positive stampede for the hearth-rug in the hall. A modest man, such as myself, hadn't a chance. There's a regular rampart, half the county in fact, before that fire. So I thought I'd just slope in here, don't you know? It looked awfully warm and inviting. And ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... repaired to the tower to communicate to Glastonbury the necessity of his immediate departure for London, but he also assured that good old man of his brief visit to that city. The pang of this unexpected departure was softened by the positive promise of returning in a very few days, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... house empty, swept, and garnished; but the expulsion of the falsehood is no protection against its re-entrance in another mask, with seven worse than itself in its company. The right effort of the teacher is to give the positive—to present, as he may, the vision of reality, for the perception of which, and not for the discovery of falsehood, is man created. This will not only cast out the demon, but so people the house that he will ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... people of Utah that nothing shall be left undone by me to assist these people in their wishes and I am positive that they are in earnest and mean ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... siege of Mantua. With a German's fondness for music, he beguiled the tedium of many a long winter evening. With his German education he had imbibed radicalism to its full extent. Thoroughly conversant with the Sacred Scriptures he was a doubter, if not a positive unbeliever, from the Pentateuch to Revelation. In addition to this, his flings at the Chaplain, his messmate, made him unpopular with the religiously inclined of the regiment. He had besides, the stolidity of the German, and their cool calculating ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... is so crowded (as the steerage cabin of the Screw was, every passage out), that mattresses and beds are heaped upon the floor, to the extinction of everything like comfort, cleanliness, and decency, it is liable to operate not only as a pretty strong banner against amiability of temper, but as a positive encourager of selfish and rough humours. Mark felt this, as he sat looking about him; and ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... said, was a foreign institution, an imitation of French legislation; it would simply serve to undermine the belief in Christianity among the people, "and" he said, "I have seen many friends of the illumination during the last year or two come to recognise that a certain degree of positive Christianity is necessary for the common man, if he is not to become dangerous to human society." The desire for introducing this custom was merely an instance of the constant wish to ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... molluscs, besides those we have looked at. The Piddock, or Pholas, is a smallish, rather delicate one, with a soft foot. But this foot is a most wonderful boring tool, fitted with a hard file. Hard rocks and wood are perforated by these little molluscs. Indeed, they are a positive danger, for they pierce the wooden piles of piers, and weaken them. They cannot pierce through iron, however, and so iron plates or nails are used to protect the piles from their onslaughts. You will often see stones and rocks riddled by the Piddock as if they were as soft as ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... pressure due to the speed. Care must be taken to resolve all the resistances at their proper angle of application, and to subtract or add the tangential force, which consists in the surface S, multiplied by the wind pressure, and by the factor in the table, which is, however, 0 for 3 and 32, but positive or negative at other angles. When the aggregate resistances are known, the "thrust h.p.'' required is obtained by multiplying the resistance by the speed, and then allowing for mechanical losses in the motor and propeller, which losses will generally be 50% of indicated h.p. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Phillips continued silently, and with no exact sense of justice, to work up her grievance. Presently she surprised Randolph with a positive frown. She had made a ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... to the seventh point, namely, methods of calculating moments, it might be said that it is not generally considered good practice to reduce the positive moments at the center of a span to the amount allowable in a beam fully fixed at the end, and if provision is made for a negative moment over supports sufficient to develop the stresses involved in complete continuity, there is usually a considerable margin of safety, ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... matter. 'Need the rank,' says Coleridge, 'have been at all particularized, when nothing follows which the knowledge of that rank is to explain or illustrate?' Nothing to explain or illustrate! Why, good heavens! it is only by the most distinct and positive information lodged with the constable as to who and what the vagrant was, that the leading philosopher in the 'Excursion' could possibly have saved himself over and over again from passing the night in the village 'lock-up,' and generally speaking ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... the happy group, and seemed to smile with positive delight at sight of Redbud's happy face, surrounded by its waving mass of curls—and soft blue eyes, which were the ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... And let no one object that it is too general; that more practical, positive direction is what we want.... Yes, truly, his insight is admirable; his truth is precious. Yet the secret of his effect is not even in these; it is in his temper. It is in the hopeful, serene, beautiful temper wherewith these, in Emerson, are ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... its appearance in the schools.—Positive science was invited to enter into schools as into a chaos where it was necessary to separate light from darkness, a place of disaster where ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... level had risen to over 20%. Since 1997 Israel's use of comprehensive closures has decreased and, in 1998, Israel implemented new policies to reduce the impact of closures and other security procedures on the movement of Palestinian goods and labor. These positive changes to the conduct of economic activity, combined with international donor pledges of over $3 billion made to the Palestinian Authority in November, may fuel a moderate economic ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... on the table—and Norman recognized the gesture of the bluffer. "I wish you to break off with that woman!" he cried. "I insist upon it—upon positive assurances from you." ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... stated that we received news by the way of Tunis, Algiers, or Morocco; but there is no contradicting a positive fact. At that period I had been with Bonaparte more than two years, and during that time not a single despatch on any occasion arrived of the contents of which I was ignorant. How then should the news alluded ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... In a recent letter from Secretary White, of the Brockton Young Men's Christian Association, he says: 'Some weeks ago I wrote you relative to our mutual friend (Watt Terry's) business, but now I want to enclose a clipping from the tax list which you will see is positive evidence that the time the taxes were recorded he was carrying well on to $300,000 and I know that his purchase of $120,000 occurred since that time. It is certainly a most wonderful development within ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... suggestion. I am positive that every Reader of your magazine wants you to start a department in which biographies of the authors and their photographs are given. Why not start one?—Julius Schwartz, 407 East ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... "A positive symposium of pulchritude," he declared. "I wish I were fifty or seventy-five years younger, by Jove! If you two boys let any rank outsider take her out of the family, you'll have me to reckon with. Yes, by Jove, you will! And ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... that that [th]eiving nest might be entirely rooted out; for the Secretary[5] in three of his last letters hath made mention of him, and it is known at Court he has not taken it. So Sir, here is a fair occasion for you to show that your garrison serves for some use; and being that the orders are so positive from Court to me not to spare [a]n[y] of them that have not timely come in, as you may by the orders I sent to your Col., I desire you would begin with Glenco, and spair nothing which belongs to him, but do not trouble the Government ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... who is ever earnest about himself and his cause. He was unconcerned, knowing that he should have the privilege of performing his "Ring of the Nibelungen" far from all these distorted forms and figures of the prevailing art. Of this, his noble friend had given positive assurance; and for himself it became an unavoidable necessity, since in 1869 and 1870 Munich had performed, without his consent and contrary to his wishes, "Rheingold" and "Walkuere," by which it had only been ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... conception of the Universe. Laplace has pointed this out, showing how to the fantastic and enervating notion of a universe arranged for man has succeeded the sound and vivifying thought of man discovering, by a positive exercise of his intelligence, the general laws of the world, so as to be able to modify them for his own good, within certain limits. Dawning prophetic on modern times, the thought of the Ensemble holds the seeds of new humanitary growths. This is the vast similitude that binds ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... to blaze with jewels, which not only sparkled in their hair, but fringed their white robes, and were worked round the edges of their slippers; so that a positive light shone around their persons, and fell upon the path like a halo, giving them more the appearance of lovely supernatural beings than the ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... dignity for what they abandon in another, and, for the most part, the situation arises from their own choice. But as to the second, arising from an unfitness not fixed by nature, but superinduced by some positive acts, or arising from honourable motives, such as an occasional personal disability, of all things it ought to be defined by the fixed rule of law—what Lord Coke calls the Golden Metwand of the Law, and not by the crooked ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... Somali described its dimensions as equal in extent to the Gulf of Aden, and further alluded to its being navigated by white men. None of the men present had been there to see it, though it was currently known as a positive fact amongst them. I did not believe the story in the light they expressed it, supposing they confounded an inland sea with the Western or Atlantic Ocean. Colonel Rigby, H.B.M. Consul at Zanzibar, tells me he also heard of this lake when he was travelling ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... drinkers, . . . I often heard him say in a tone of positive loathing, he DESPISED. He had a habit of speaking in a measured syllabic manner, if he wished to express dislike or contempt, which was certainly very effective. He would say: 'If you want to have the Sherry ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... in 1841, when the Powers had to decide on the fate of Syria and Palestine wrested by them from Mehemet Ali. It is true that the Jewish element in the question received very scanty attention and evoked no positive sympathy, but, at any rate, it was mentioned, and this fact indicates that the Powers had begun to realise that the future of Palestine was not exclusively a Christian question. The exchange of views which then took place is, however, interesting for other reasons. The ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf
... our going about, nor did we examine a tenth part of the treasures on the tables: but it strikes me now that the wealth in silver alone there must be simply enormous. The intendant could tell us nothing positive, and everything is so black and encrusted with dust that we could not see with certainty: but it is probable that what appears to be family plate, literally covering these tables, is the Courance heirloom silver. Much of it is very old, as shown by the antique designs ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... says Metternich, "a great legislator and administrator, as he became a great soldier, by following out his instincts. The turn of his mind always led him toward the positive. He disliked vague ideas, and hated equally the dreams of visionaries and the abstractions of idealists. He treated as nonsense everything that was not clearly and practically presented to him. He valued ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... a day of general conversation with Mrs. Bingle and Melissa—say while the latter was tidying up the library—but that was utterly out of the question under the new order of things. He was compelled, by virtue of exaltation, to be very crisp, succinct, positive in his treatment of the most trivial matters; as for conversing amiably with a single servant in his establishment, something told him more plainly than words that it would not be tolerated—not for an instant. He would have given a great deal ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... preached very dangerous sermons, and that the only way to put a stop to such insolence, was to impeach him in Parliament. The King enquired the character of the man; "O, sir," said my lord, "the most violent, hot, positive fellow in England; so extremely wilful, that I believe he would be heartily glad to be a martyr." The King answered, "Is it so? Then I am resolved to disappoint him"; and would never hear more of the matter; by which that hopeful ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... relative quality, like cold and heat, which are but the increase or the diminution in our own sensations. The positive idea must arise from comparison. There is a state of poverty reserved even for the wealthy man, the instant that he comes in hateful contact with the enormous capitalist. But there is a poverty neither vulgar nor terrifying, asking no favours and on no terms receiving any; a ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... this young man considered, these two would be separated. He was pretty sure that Roscorla would come to meet General Weekes: he was positive that Wenna would not come to the house while he himself ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... suppose, become aware at periods of the gradual ossification of their intellects. And it is not always easy to retain a full consciousness of the compensating advantages of seniority in the face of this positive degeneration. One begins to watch carefully for errors where one used to go pounding to a finish with a full-blooded rush. One has a feeling of being overtaken; the young people of the next decade can be heard not far behind, and they seem ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... Shimas said to him, "O dear my son,[FN122] there is no man can tell thee other but tints I have said, except he twist the words handed down to us of the Holy Law and turn the truths thereof from their evident meaning. And such a perversion is their saying that the Word hath inherent and positive power and I take refuge with Allah from such a mis-belief! Nay, the meaning of our saying that Allah (to whom belong Might and Majesty!) created the world with His Word is that He (exalted be His name!) is One in His essence and His attributes and not that His Word hath ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... which is usually played at the Boston Theatre during the holidays is to them positive proof that the stories of Cinderella and Jack of the Beanstalk and Jack the Giant-Killer have historical solidity. They like to be reassured on that point. So one morning last January, when I informed Charley and Talbot, at the breakfast-table, that Prince ...
— The Little Violinist • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... almost a child of the streets. Her father was a musician in the orchestras of small theatres. Her mother ran away from him while she was little, and the landladies of various poor lodging-houses had attended casually to her abandoned childhood. It was never positive starvation and absolute rags, but it was the hopeless grip of poverty all the time. It was her father who taught her to play the violin. It seemed that he used to get drunk sometimes, but without pleasure, and only because he was ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... realisation of the blessings we enjoy. The difference between a naturally contented and a naturally discontented nature is one of the marked differences of innate temperament, but we can do much to cultivate that habit of dwelling on the benefits of our lot which converts acquiescence into a more positive enjoyment. Religion in this field does much, for it inculcates thanksgiving as well as prayer, gratitude for the present and the past as well as hope for the future. Among secular influences, contrast and comparison have ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... probably saw the necessity of making some explanation to his niece, and who, it would seem, fully understood the positive character of his companion, no longer hesitated; but, first casting a suspicious glance out of the still open window he left ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... nature," he said in a whisper that conveyed something between uneasiness and awe, again turning the light sharply in every direction and peering about him. "It came to them—er—from the sea, though; it came from the sea right enough. That, at least, is positive." And in his manner was perhaps just a ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... clothing, and at least a few of the more obvious necessities of life, such as a spare sail, a coil or two of line, a few nails, a hammer, a saw, a trifle of crockery, some cooking utensils, and, above all, our fowling-pieces and some ammunition. Miss Merrivale, however, was positive that they would not; and as the time dragged slowly by without any sign of the reappearance of the boat, I began at last to fear that she ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... her value might be sensibly diminished in their eyes. As became a woman who had to struggle singly with the world, too, her native shrewdness taught her, that the best moment to refute a calumny was to stop it as soon as it began to circulate, and her answer was as warm in manner as it was positive in terms. This was an excellent opening for an animated discussion, and one would have been very likely to occur, had there not fortunately been steps heard without, that induced 'Maso to expect the podesta. Sure enough, the door opened, and Vito ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the country seemed strangely familiar to him. He could not understand it. He had never been in this part of the country before; yet there was a great house with two barns by the side of it, which he was positive he ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... attorney's office before he came to London. Mr. Collier wrote to Lord Campbell to ask his opinion as to the probability of this being true. His answer was as follows: "You require us to believe implicitly a fact, of which, if true, positive and irrefragable evidence in his own handwriting might have been forthcoming to establish it. Not having been actually enrolled as an attorney, neither the records of the local court at Stratford nor of the superior Courts at Westminster would present his name as being concerned ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... the unhappy nature of envy not to be contented with positive misery, but to be continually aggravating its own torments, by comparing them with the felicities of others. The eyes of envy are perpetually fixed on the object which disturbs it, nor can it avert them from it, though to procure itself ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... that you accept the offer," said the superior, in so firm and positive a tone that Florine cast down her eyes, and replied in a low voice: ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... by the Portuguese in 1505, Mauritius was subsequently held by the Dutch, French, and British before independence was attained in 1968. A stable democracy with regular free elections and a positive human rights record, the country has attracted considerable foreign investment and has earned one of Africa's highest per capita incomes. Recent poor weather and declining sugar prices have slowed economic ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... wants and tastes, positive and negative, ought now to be clear enough to enable you to feel the artist's sincerity in trying to satisfy them; but first you have still to convince yourselves of the people's sincerity in employing the artists. This ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... was quite positive that her cousin and her uncle were alike mistaken; but she saw that, until the hard truth forced itself upon Joan, the girl would go her present way. It was not that Joan lacked goodness and sweetness, ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... Egypt upon Israel may be described as negative, that of Babylonia was positive. Abraham was a Babylonian by birth; the Asiatic world through which he wandered was Babylonian in civilisation and government, and the Babylonian exile was the final turning-point in the religious history of Judah. ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... reached us relating to the advertisement for John Jago; but no positive information was received. Not the slightest trace of the lost man turned up; not the shadow of a doubt was cast on the assertion of the prosecution, that his body had been destroyed in the kiln. Silas Meadowcroft held firmly to the horrible ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins
... whatever manner it arises, the sense of Justice is a primary and essential part of our moral constitution, conveying the distinct impression of certain conduct which a man owes to his fellow-men, without regard to any considerations of a personal nature, and apart from all positive enactments or laws, either divine or human. The requirements of Justice embrace certain points in which every man has an absolute right, and in regard to which it is the absolute duty of every other man not to interfere with him. These ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... however, any unusual ache or pain is quite as likely to have been caused by some external evil influence as by natural causes. Tumors, sudden swellings due to inflammatory rheumatism or the bites of insects, are especially open to suspicion. Paralysis is proof positive of conjuration. If there is any doubt, the "conjure doctor" invariably removes it. The credulity of ignorance is his chief stock in trade—there is no question, when he is summoned, but that the patient ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... without any agitation, whether it was true that he himself desired to win the youthful Hebe. And she met his absolute denial with such persistent and repeated expressions of disbelief, assuming at last a tone of reproach, that he grew vexed and broke out into a positive declaration that he regarded lying as unmanly and disgraceful, and could endure any insult rather than ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to Venice, I resumed my usual habits; but with a nature like mine how could I possibly remain satisfied without positive love? My only pleasure was to receive a letter from my dear recluse every Wednesday, who advised me to wait patiently rather than to attempt carrying her off. Laura assured me that she had become more lovely than ever, and I longed to see her. An opportunity of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... solved in its essentials the problem of the mechanism of the solar system. It appears from the words of Archimedes that Aristarchus; had propounded his theory in explicit writings. Unquestionably, then, he held to it as a positive doctrine, not as a mere vague guess. We shall show, in a moment, on what grounds he based his opinion. Had his teaching found vogue, the story of science would be very different from what it is. We should then have no tale to tell of a Copernicus coming ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... an uncommon young man. I was a gentleman by nature, which for aught he knew might be better than a gentleman by birth. The world had its opinions; perhaps they were just, perhaps unjust. He had been used to think with the world, but he had heard so much lately that he was not quite so positive as he had been—[This, Oliver, reminded me of the power of truth; how it saps the strong holds of error and winds into the heart, and how incessantly its advocates ought to propagate it on every occasion.] He was not quite so well pleased as he had been with my father, but ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... the term Method to avoid confusion—in which the mode of procedure from Facts to Principles predominates, and which is hence sometimes called the Empirical, or the Experimental, or the Positive, or the a posteriori Method, is that which now prevails in the world, which is extolled as if it were the only legitimate Method, and the only possible route to Scientific Discovery. That the just claims of the Inductive Method are very great is universally admitted, but let us not stultify ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... unflagging interest and curiosity. She was always longing to see what the boy would say and do next. Poor Audrey! Her own character was mainly such a bundle of negations that you described her best by saying what she was not; but other people's positive qualities acted on her as a powerful stimulant, and it was one for which she perpetually craved. She had found it in Hardy. In him it was the almost physical charm of blind will, and she yielded to it ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... murders not from positive qualities, but from negative ones; he lacks something which non-murderers possess. Evil, of course, is wholly positive—only it is on the wrong side. You may believe me that sin in its proper sense is very rare; it is probable that there ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... types of storage battery—the lead accumulator, made up of lead plates (alternately positive and negative); and the two-metal accumulator, of which the Edison battery is a representative, made up of alternate plates of iron and nickel. In the lead accumulator, the "positive" plate may be recognized ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... and if I have no tender love in my heart to expend on others, it is the fault of that world which taught me how hollow and deceitful it is. God knows I have never intentionally wounded any living thing; and if negatively good, at least my career has no stain of positive evil upon it. I am one of those concerning whom Richter said, 'There are souls for whom life has no summer. These should enjoy the advantages of the inhabitants of Spitzbergen, where, through the winter's day, the stars shine clear as through the winter's night.' I have neither summer nor polar stars, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... gentleman, he naturally feels a delicacy in making any advances towards an acquaintance; and his honour restrains him from the freer forms of introduction. To take advantage of his position of power would be a positive meanness, of which a true gentleman cannot be guilty. Besides, there may be rancour on the part of the conquered—there usually is—but even when no such feeling exists, another barrier stands in the way ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... But from positive science we know that although animals may think, they cannot reflect upon what they think. Descartes goes further and boldly states that they do not think at all. That is a statement which need not ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... a patient voice, "this that you call a lie is already an accomplished fact. I am not laying before you the fruits of idle speculation. I have upon me the most positive proof that such a result as was hoped for has already been reached. Gian Maria has received from his subjects a notification that unless he is in his capital within three days from this, they will invest the Lord of Aquila with the ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... usual to call the rich young man a hypocrite. To outward appearance he was in earnest. Negatively, he had kept the commandments. Now he is required to perform positive duties, and to live by faith. Here the mask falls off, and he concludes that eternal life is ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... may—and it is conjecture unsupported by positive proof—enough has been said, it is hoped, to show that ordinaries were quite capable of making their decrees obeyed, and that excommunication (contrary to the commonly received opinion) was a most effective means of coercion. Many, indeed, were its uses. ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware
... these causes. And thus they seem to contradict each other, when they are both, in part, right. I've noticed that very frequently since I began to read the scientific books on oceanic matters. They draw their conclusions too hastily, and are too positive on ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... heresies were attacked and exposed with completeness amounting to annihilation. Modern errors, into which our "friends" of the different denominations had fallen, were deplored and corrected, and all possible misapplications of the doctrine to practical life guarded against. On the positive side the need, the ground, the means, the method, the agent, the results, of Justification, were fully set forth and illustrated. There were no anecdotes and no poetry. The subject was much too massive and tremendous to ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... will you? Has the fire-engine company started to join in the celebration?" whooped Phil Parker, who was along with the rest, though barred from the football squad because of an injury to his leg, and also positive orders from headquarters at home to avoid all strenuous sports ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... assumption that Shakespeare acted with Lord Strange's company under Alleyn and Henslowe for two years, there is some positive, and much inferential, evidence, the strongest of the latter being that between the end of 1590 and the middle of 1594, at about which latter date the Lord Chamberlain's company parted from Henslowe, Shakespeare produced,—as I shall later demonstrate,—in ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... waves and storms in every corner of the world, and who during all that time have hardly set eyes upon a female form. They come on shore bursting with a full masculine longing for the society of the other sex, with a year's stored-up feeling to let out; and there is a positive intoxication to them in the mere dance—in the mere holding at Nieuwediep Anniken or Bibecke, or at Portsmouth Mary Ann, by the waist; and Mary Ann and Bibecke perfectly understand this, and for the moment feel themselves persons of no small importance. There is ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... to act in accordance with his wishes, had directly opposed them. But it was not likely that he would be able to prove her treachery though he might be sure of it. He had desired that his girl should see as little as possible of Ferdinand Lopez, but had hesitated to give a positive order that she should not meet him. He had indeed himself taken her to a dinner party at which he knew that she would meet him. But Mrs. Roby had betrayed him. Since the dinner party she had arranged a meeting at her own house on behalf of the lover,—as to ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... lay before Sandy. He must eat—the thought now was positive agony—buy some necessary clothing and get into touch with some inspired fellow creature who could give him information about Massachusetts. Over and over Sandy repeated the magic word. For nearly a year it had lain dormant in his consciousness. It was his earthly heaven; the paradise of his longings ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... prosperity, without the pressure of a single grievance, is among those political phenomena which occur not unfrequently in the course of human affairs, and which the statesman can never safely disregard. When real ills are felt, there is something positive and perceptible to which the judgment may be directed, the actual extent of which may be ascertained, and the cause of which may be discerned. But when the mind, inflamed by supposititious dangers, gives a full loose to the imagination, and ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... of these tenants are fishermen?-I think there should be perhaps 15 or 16 of them, but I cannot be positive as to that. I believe Williamson has two boats manned ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... dissipated the illusion of half a lifetime on the one point on which illusions are dearest—a man's exact place in the estimation of his countrymen. Very few—even of those whose fame rests on the most solid foundation of achievement—ever ask to have this ascertained by a positive test without dread or misgiving, or face the test without a strain, which the nerves of old men are often ill fitted to bear. That Mr. Greeley's nerves were unequal to the shock of failure we now know. But it needed no intimate acquaintance ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... cultivated, it must nevertheless be remembered that only a fragment remains here and there out of all the work which must have been produced, and that after the Reformation even those works which did survive were treated with positive as well as negative obloquy, so that where they have been preserved at all it is only by having been whitewashed over or ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... at the time of which I am speaking, an orphan, having lost both her parents, and supported herself by keeping a small school. My attachment was returned, and we had pledged our vows, but my father, who could not reconcile himself to her lack of fortune, forbade our marriage in the most positive terms. He was wrong, for she was a fortune in herself—amiable and accomplished. Oh! I cannot tell you all she was'—and here the old man drew his hand across his eyes. 'By the death of my father, the only obstacle ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... of Alapai is not found in the genealogy published by David Malo. Nevertheless, we have positive information from our old man and other distinguished natives that Alapai was supreme chief of Hawaii immediately ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... old-fashioned mansion of Mr. Phillips. As they stood on the steps, Mr. Raeburn noticed that Mary had been much agitated by recognizing scenes once familiar to her baby eyes, and he begged her to try to be calm. "Remember," he said, "we have no positive, reliable evidence that you are the lost child of Mr. and Mrs. Phillips. You must not suddenly proclaim yourself. They have probably despaired so long that they will be unable to credit your story, if too abruptly told, and any repulse would be very painful to you. Leave it to me to let the ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... Anton had felt himself to be so completely the mainspring of the business in which they were both engaged—was so perfectly aware that he was so regarded by all the commercial men of Prague—that he had hardly regarded the absence of any positive possession in his father's wealth as detrimental to him. He had been willing that it should be his father's while his father lived, knowing that any division would be detrimental to them both. He had never even asked his father for a partnership, taking everything ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... Cecilia asked, "that here you do no great harm? Is not a man like you doing harm when he is not doing positive good?" ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... at one o'clock, and called it by that name), as well as our song at sunset. The proposal was received with a cheerful satisfaction that warmed my heart within me; and I do not say too much when I say that those two periods in the four-and-twenty hours were expected with positive pleasure, and were really enjoyed by all hands. Spectres as we soon were in our bodily wasting, our imaginations did not perish like the gross flesh upon our bones. Music and Adventure, two of the great gifts of Providence to mankind, could charm us ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... poor fellow carried off and hung to let us take the ignominy of the transaction on our own shoulders. If I thought you would be governed by my instructions, they would be to demand him, in the most formal and positive language, of the Austrian commander, in my name as Representative of the United States, and after having him in your possession, to leave the matter to be adjusted between the two governments. In case of a refusal to deliver him, founded on ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... painted in such shades as will debar it from occupying the prominent position to which positive beauty is alone entitled. Give it a similarity to the ground of the paper, but a little darker, and the rounded surface of any fancy moldings, a shade or two darker. Paint the doors the same, except the panels, which may be decorated, in which ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... flying spray, half-frozen, from the surf, driven by the gale until it cuts like a knife, the patrolman's task is no easy one. Indeed, there is perhaps no form of human endeavor about which there is more constant discomfort and positive danger than the life-saving service. It is the duty of the men to defy danger, to risk their lives whenever occasion demands, and the long records of the service show uncounted cases of magnificent heroism, and none of failure in ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... with a glance of surprise, while a quick flush mounted to his brow, at this unexpected and rather extraordinary offer, for he well knew that in a mining district all strangers are regarded with suspicion if not with positive dislike. ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... deliberation among the people, maturely discussed in some hundreds of popular assemblies, and by public writings in all the states. It was a measure which Congress did not adopt, until they had received the positive instructions of their constituents in all the States: It was then unanimously adopted by Congress, subscribed by all its members, transmitted to the assemblies of the several States, and by them respectively accepted, ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... flags along the street and heard men calling upon the people in loud, strident voices to come and buy. At other places the grateful glow of coal fires shone from half-opened doorways, and the faint but positive click of ivory chips told that games of chance ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the green old woods which skirted the little village, she had sat by his side, and with the sunbeams glancing down upon her through the overhanging boughs, she had, told him so, and promised some day to be his wife. Still, she would not hear of a positive engagement—both should be free to change their mind if they wished, she said, and with this ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... events of this extraordinary episode of his career, Desmond rather wondered why he had not followed Mortimer out of the house that afternoon and tracked him down to his hiding place. But, as a matter of fact, the idea did not occur to him at the time. His orders were positive not to leave the house, and he never even thought of breaking them—at any rate, ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... Further, the wider the front, the less becomes the possibility of timely tactical concentration; hence, under such conditions, one would generally have to renounce the temptation to engage in combat with a positive object, and content one's self with keeping the enemy at a distance, for this purpose availing one's self to the utmost of the advantages the ground may confer, and such support as the reinforced Horse Artillery and mobile Infantry (in ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... of buildings being in light at ten o'clock and again in shadow at eleven. It is also affecting its local color, the yellow of the afternoon sunlight illumining and graying the silver-blue of the shadows, thus weakening the force of positive shadows scattered through the composition. Of course, to be really exact, there is only one moment in any one of the hours of the day in which any one aspect of nature remains the same, but since we are all finite we must do the best we can, and four hours, in my experience, is all that a man ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... they've given our times is all that we have the right to demand of them in the way of heroism; no one can say they lack courage. And sometimes it seems to me that in simply outgrowing the different sorts of despotism that had fastened upon them, till their broken bonds fell away without positive effort on their part, they showed a greater sublimity than if they had violently conquered their freedom. Most nations sink lower and lower under tyranny; the Italians grew steadily more and more civilised, more noble, more gentle, more grand. It was a wonderful spectacle—like ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... not to be neglected; on the contrary, every facility would be given for the voluntary endowment of theological professorships; but the attendance at these lectures would not be compulsory, for the fundamental principle of the measure would be the avoidance of all interference, positive or negative, in all matters affecting the conscience. The right honourable baronet went on to state that there was already an academical institution at Belfast for the Presbyterians of the north of Ireland, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... faith in revolutions. All revolutions are doctrinal—such as the French one, or the one that introduced Christianity. For it stands to common sense that you cannot upset all existing things, customs, and compromises, unless you believe in something outside them, something positive and divine. Now, England, during this century, lost all belief in this. It believed in a thing called Evolution. And it said, "All theoretic changes have ended in blood and ennui. If we change, we must change slowly and safely, as the animals ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... was originally merely the necessary law of nature applied to nations, as in the instance of receiving distressed ships with humanity. By various conventional compacts, the Law of Nations became positive; thus flags of truce are respected, and prisoners are not put to death. One independent state is declared incompetent to prescribe to another, so long as that state is innoxious to its neighbours. The Law of Nations consists ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... suffered one of the most severe heart contusions known in the history of the human race. It was a positive vertigo of admiration. This was indeed the creature he had seen on the railway platform: a dazzling blend of girl and woman. The grotesque appellation "flapper" fled from his mind. Her thick, dark ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... satisfy her, or to definitely forbid my doing so. I saw the snare, and all my thoughts were how to avoid it, though I pretended to be merely considering the questions. I could not make the oracle speak to please Esther, and I could still less make it pronounce a positive prohibition, as I feared that she would resent such an answer bitterly and revenge herself on me. Nevertheless, I had to assume an indifferent air, and I got myself out of the difficulty by equivocal ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... if he was an unwelcome guest at General Richman's. He lamented the prejudices which my friends had imbibed against him, but flattered himself that I was more liberal than to be influenced by them without any positive proof of demerit, as it was impossible that his conduct towards me should ever deviate from the strictest rules ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... saw it did; he could hardly keep from smiling: but Campbell has no tact at all. He goes on, on, his own way, bringing out his own thoughts, which are very clever, original certainly, but never considering his company. And he's so positive, so knock-me-down; it is quite unpleasant, I don't know how to sit it sometimes. Oh, it is a cruel thing this—the effect must be wretched. Poor Willis! I declare I don't think we have moved him one ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... Beaver to herself, the indomitable countenance of her midnight visitor clear before her mind's eye. It was astonishing, that strong family resemblance. Aloud she snapped: "Family album, indeed! What I'm after is to get permission for this child to have a pet. I'm positive it would make all the difference in the ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina
... antagonist to Self-esteem was never entertained in the phrenological school, but it is obviously indispensable, for Humility, which gives an humble or servile character, and disqualifies for any high position, is as positive an element as the opposite, and is very common in the dependent and humble classes of society. This organ diminishes our psychic energy in proportion to its distance in front of the ear and qualifies for submission ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... worms and larvA| of destructive insects. It will, it is true, if not watched, pick out, after they are dibbled, both pease and beans from the holes with a precision truly astonishing: a very moderate degree of care is, however, sufficient to prevent this evil, which is greatly overbalanced by the positive good which it effects in the destruction of insects. It is a remarkable fact, and not, perhaps, generally known, that this bird rarely roosts at the rookery, except for a few months during the period ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... so positive about that, Aunty. Let us not be prudish. If he saw me, he made no sign, and therefore he is a gentleman." She looked out of the window and smiled again. "There he ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... inveterate selfishness, and self-absorption and his incapacity for being diverted from whatever thought or idea happened to be uppermost in his narrow mind. He was, for some reason, eager to be done with his reception and had no eyes for any visitors except those from whom he expected immediate and positive advantage to himself. I escaped, but I went out sweating and limp ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Annunciation, an artificial work full of nice thoughts and touches, with the prettiest little blue Virgin imaginable, a heavenly landscape, and a predella in monochrome, in one scene of which Eve rises from the side of the sleeping Adam with extraordinary realism. The announcing Gabriel is deferential but positive; Mary is questioning but not wholly surprised. In any collection of Annunciations this picture would find ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... plenty of money, chooses to make this display of it. There are a great many absurdities to which poor, frail humanity is liable, against which the legislature, in its wisdom, has not thought it worth while to make solemn and positive enactments; it is better for the general moral condition of society, perhaps, that the vulgar rich man's ambition for display should manifest itself in books and pictures, rather than in fast horses. Might not the cultivation of the garden—vegetables, ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... polarisation 90 deg., causing the centre of the ring-system to change from black to white, and the rings themselves to emit their complementary colours. [Footnote: Sir John Herschel suggested to me that this change of the polarisation from positive to negative may indicate a change from polarisation by reflection to polarisation by refraction. This thought repeatedly occurred to me while looking at the effects; but it will require much following up before it emerges ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... reason did suffer in some degree, this result showed itself in the inequality of her temper, in moody fits of abstraction, and the morbid energy of her manner at times under the absence of all adequate external excitement, rather than in any positive and apparent hallucinations of thought. The charm which had mainly carried off the instant danger to her faculties, was doubtless the intense sympathy which she met with. And in these offices of consolation my wife stood foremost. For, and ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... fourth case, k is positive. Let us call it h squared, where h will be of the dimensions of a velocity. This gives a perfectly possible type of transformation formulae, but not one which explains any facts of experience. It has also another disadvantage. With the assumption ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead
... of this book is twofold. It is a negative one: I want to counteract the misunderstandings which overflood the whole field, especially by the careless mixing of mental and moral influence. And a positive one: I want to strengthen the public feeling that the time has come when every physician should systematically study psychology, the normal in the college years and the abnormal in the medical school. This demand of medical education cannot be postponed any longer. The aim of the book is ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... detail of that moving little episode had escaped de Marmont's keen eyes: he had seen Crystal's look of positive abhorrence wherewith she had regarded Clyffurde, he had seen the gathering up of her skirts away—as it were—from the contaminating ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... of accumulator for mental energy. The theory seems a fantastic one to modern thought, though, in view of the many startling phenomena brought to light by psychical research, it is not advisable to be too positive regarding the limitations of the powers of the human mind. However, I think we shall find the element of truth in the otherwise absurd belief in talismans by means of what may be called, not altogether ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... one or the other limit of a range for the benefit of the next-lying weaker one; of the head voice especially, which, if unmixed, sounds uneven and thin in comparison with the middle range, until by means of practised elasticity of the organs and endurance of the throat muscles a positive equalization can take place. ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... sufficient number of cases of excess in opium-eating or of recovery from the habit have yet been recorded, or whether such as have been recorded have been so collated as to warrant a positive statement as to all the phenomena attendant upon its use or its abandonment. A competent medical man, uniting a thorough knowledge of his profession with educated habits of generalizing specific facts under such laws—affecting the nervous, digestive, or secretory ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... More positive and more succinct than Medina was T.E. Retana whose earlier researches [48] into the history of the Philippines Medina acknowledgedly made use of, and who in 1897 published his La Imprenta en Filipinas, ...
— Doctrina Christiana • Anonymous
... this be done, we shall look in vain for any real amelioration of their condition. In the first place, all those old laws, which are repugnant to humanity and justice, must be done away. There must also be new laws, positive, certain, easy of execution, binding upon all, by means of which the Negroes in our islands shall have speedy and substantial redress in real cases of ill-usage, whether by starvation, over-work, or acts of personal violence, or otherwise. There must be new ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... been, and still is, a question in many minds if the natural growth was not forced, and if the higher training was not either overdone or done with cheap and unsound methods. Among white Southerners this feeling is widespread and positive. A prominent Southern journal voiced this ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... always negative. Until now. Now it is slightly positive and nothing we can do seems to change it. That's why I've called you in. I want you to run a new basic survey, ignoring the old one still in operation, to re-examine the check points on our graphs. The trouble ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... intense, but troubled by any slightest allusion to his mode of life. It had come to be understood that he made it a matter of principle to hide his light under a bushel, so he seldom had to take a new step in positive falsehood. Of course he regretted ceaselessly the original deceit, for Mrs. Charman, a wealthy woman, might very well have assisted him to some not undignified mode of earning his living. As it was, he had hit upon the idea of making himself a bookbinder, a craft somewhat to his ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... the answer?" he asked. Then he nodded, while the weight that had lain on him so long began to lift. His voice was suddenly positive. "You found it!" ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... that is the new name of this ungodliness—to deliver men from their lusts by scientific lectures, and keep them moral by overturning religion. That experiment has been tried already. But it is worth while to inquire, Is science really so positive, and religion so uncertain, as these persons allege? Is a knowledge of the physical sciences so all-sufficient for our present happiness, so attainable by all mankind, and so certain and infallible, that we should barter our ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... returned evasive answers. Though he had never questioned the correctness of the lawyer's opinion in regard to his slave marriage, his conscience had never been entirely at ease since his departure from the South, and any positive denial of his married condition would have stuck in his throat. The inference naturally drawn from his reticence in regard to the past, coupled with his expressed intention of settling permanently in Groveland, was that he belonged in the ranks of the unmarried, and was therefore ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... were widening. He had caught sight of something that shed a flood of light on the mystery—the surprise that Mr. Sparling had in store for them. But he was not positive enough to commit himself. ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
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