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Absolute   Listen
noun
Absolute  n.  (Geom.) In a plane, the two imaginary circular points at infinity; in space of three dimensions, the imaginary circle at infinity.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Absolute" Quotes from Famous Books



... marriage for which she had been reserved. The Fitz-Jameses, in virtue of their illegitimate descent from James II., considered themselves and were considered as a sort of Princes of the Blood; and as such they doubtless impressed Louise with a great notion of the glory of the Stuarts, and the absolute legitimacy of their claims. On his marriage Charles Edward assumed the title, and attempted to assume the position, of King of England; so his bride must have considered herself as the wife not merely of the Count of Albany, but of Charles III., King ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... which could lead bibliographers to form an absolute decision with regard to the "unknown" printer who used the singular letter R which is said to have originated with Finiguerra in 1452? That Mentelin was the individual seems scarcely credible; and there ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various

... encouragement of Squire Merritt. Doctor Prescott had been the awe and the terror of all his childhood. Nobody knew how in his childish illnesses—luckily not many—he had dreaded and resented the advent of this great man, who represented to him absolute monarchy, if not despotism. He never demurred at his noxious doses, but swallowed them at a gulp, with no sweet after-morsel as an inducement, yet, strangely enough, never from actual submissiveness, but rather from that fierce scorn and pride of utter helplessness which can ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... seized with giddiness. Might not everything in the world be illusion? and myself—? Listen to a voice which reaches us, across the ages, from the countries crowned by the Himalayas. "Nothing exists.... By the study of first principles, one acquires this knowledge, absolute, incontestable, comprehensible to the intelligence alone: I neither am, nor does anything which is mine, nor do I myself, exist."[156] What is there beneath these strange lines? The feeling of giddiness, which seeks to steady ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... blight seemed to hang over France during Louis XV.'s reign, as overshadowed the Russia of the ill-starred Nicholas II. Nothing could possibly go right with either of them, and it may be that the prime causes were the same: the assumption of absolute power by an irresolute monarch, lacking the intellectual equipment which alone would enable him to justify his claims to supreme power—though I hasten to disclaim any comparison between ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... to fall prostrate before him when he appeared and pretend to go to sleep,—to be of as little account as possible. And the people were pliant and willing under their restraints. They allowed that the king was absolute master. Yet they were contented usually and not ill looking; lithe and graceful, too, and gay, fond of sports and swimming, lovers of music, dancing, flowers, and color, friendly in disposition, and good-natured. Except in shedding a few of their beliefs ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... this cartoon conceived the devil primarily as a kind of ogre. It is a matter of great interest that this Dutch man of genius, like that other genius whose pencil war has turned into a sword, Will Dyson, lends in the presence of Prussia (which has been for many moderns their first glimpse of absolute or positive evil) to depriving the devil of all that moonshine of dignity which sentimental sceptics have given him. Evil does not mean dignity, any more than it means any other good thing. The stronger caricaturists ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... anything more unsatisfactory than a perfect house, perfect grounds, perfect gardens, art and nature brought into the most absolute harmony of taste and culture? What more can a man do with it? What satisfaction has a man in it if he really gets to the end of his power to improve it? There have been such nearly ideal places, and how strong nature, always working against man and in the interest of untamed wildness, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... himself be so absorbed in eating that he could attend to nothing else; these men prided themselves on showing their good sense and their intelligence while they took their food, just as a perfect rider sits his horse with absolute composure, and can look and listen and talk to some purpose while he puts him through his paces. To be excited or flustered by meat and drink was in their eyes something altogether swinish and bestial. [18] ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... should have been able to make these twenty years past. Besides, neither our enemies, nor allies, are upon the same foot with us in this particular. France and Holland, our nearest neighbours, and the farthest engaged, will much sooner recover themselves after a war. The first, by the absolute power of the prince who being master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects, will quickly find expedients to pay his debts: and so will the other, by their prudent administration, the greatness of their trade, their wonderful parsimony, the willingness of their people ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... Germany, her provincial Estates, was studiously annihilated. The Wurtemberg Estates, with a spirit worthy of their ancient fame, alone made an energetic protest, by which they merely succeeded in saving their honor, the king, Frederick, dissolving them by force and closing their chamber.[15] An absolute, despotic form of government, similar to that existing in France under Napoleon, was established in all the confederated states. The murder of the unfortunate bookseller, Palm of Nuremberg, who was, on the 25th of August, 1806, shot by Napoleon's order, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... the peace, happiness, or safety of society." It does not appear that Mr. Madison offered any objection to the article in the committee; but when the report was made to the convention he moved an amendment. He pointed out the distinction between the recognition of an absolute right and the toleration of its exercise; for toleration implies the power of jurisdiction. He proposed, therefore, instead of providing that "all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion," to declare that "all men are equally entitled to ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... you (to use that cant phrase of the newspapers which I, as a highly scholarly agnostic, am a little ashamed of using) why cannot you simply take what is good in Christianity, what you can define as valuable, what you can comprehend, and leave all the rest, all the absolute dogmas that are in their nature incomprehensible?" This is the real question; this is the last question; and it is a pleasure to ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton

... The condition is absolute; and all doubts upon the dancing question are at an end for you. But for those who like to inquire into possibilities, let us search a little further. "Praise him in the dance."—Has it ever been done? Never,—in such dances as you ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner

... doctrine or theory that man has not any real or absolute knowledge of anything, ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins

... thinking of a dip. A rather fine collection of bronzes has been made from excavations in the neighbourhood, which, indeed, must always promise to reward research. A figure of Mercury, two and a half feet high, and so exactly similar to that of John of Bologna, that his one seemed an absolute plagiarism, particularly attracted our attention on that account. The great Italian artist, however, had been dead one hundred and fifty years before this bronze was dug up. Next in importance to the bronzes, we esteem the collection ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... pleasure. Children run to meet him, and contend for the honour of touching his hand, or laying hold of the skirt of his coat, as he passes by, so cheerful and benevolent does he always look. In his own house he seems to reign absolute, and yet he never uses any weapon more powerful than a kind word. Everybody who knows him is aware, that, in point of intelligence, ay, and in physical prowess, too—for we know few men who can boast ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... was transferred to the Pope; therefore the Pope must necessarily be [a God on earth, the supreme Majesty,] lord of the whole world, of all the kingdoms of the world, of all things private and public, and must have absolute power in temporal and spiritual things, and both swords, the spiritual and temporal Besides this definition, not of the Church of Christ but of the papal kingdom, has as its authors not only the canonists, but ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... larger quantities must be taken. The difficulty of manipulating very small or very large precipitates, &c., must be borne in mind. So, too, must the fact that the greater the weight of the final product of an assay, the less, as a rule, is the percentage error. The distinction between absolute and percentage error, often overlooked, is important. If 0.5 gram of silver be cupelled with 20 grams of lead, there may be obtained a button of 0.495 gram; the absolute loss is 0.005 gram, and this equals ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer

... country! And what of the other reformers? They also are very busy. They have already abolished those cheering beverages from grapes and grain, or rather they have made alcohol one of the surreptitious privileges of the rich. They are seeking to enforce the Sabbath as a day of absolute rest, not for the glory of God but in order that tired wage-slaves may have their strength renewed for another week of toil in the factories and the mills. Again, they would uproot from the homely earth that pleasant weed whose leaves have made slaves of millions since ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland

... &c (be 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^, unimagined; not potential &c 2; authentic. Adv. actually &c adj.; in fact, in point of fact, in reality; indeed; de facto, ipso ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... about to leave him, and would he succeed in keeping his son? He had returned to be avenged, and he had not even succeeded in meeting his rival. That being so impressionable had experienced, in the face of so many repeated blows, a disappointment so absolute that he gladly looked forward to the prospect of exposing himself to death on the following day, while at the same time a bitter flood of rancor possessed him at the thought of all the persons concerned in his adventure. He would have liked to crush Madame Steno and Maitland, Lydia and Florent—Dorsenne, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... conscious, were killed forcibly in broad daylight within a few paces of a number of men occupied in pitching tents, without their noticing anything of the matter; and this may certainly be characterised as an instance of murder as a fine art to show the absolute callousness of the Thugs towards their victims and the complete absence of any feelings of compassion, the story of the following murder by the same gang may be recorded. [685] The Thugs were travelling from ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... preparation for the ceremonious call he had dreaded to make. On all sides he encountered the friendliest interest and civility from the townspeople. The news of his arrival had spread over the place with incredible swiftness. Scores of absolute strangers turned to him and tendered to him the welcome to be found in a broad ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... emergencies, as in the self-distrust and timidity of her nature; in the helpless inferiority of position to which her husband's want of affection, and her daughter's want of respect, condemned her in her own house; and in the influence of repulsion—at times, even of absolute terror—which my presence had the power of communicating to her. Suspecting what I am assured she suspected—incapable as she was of rendering her suspicions certainties—knowing beforehand, as she must have known, that no words she could speak would gain the smallest ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... fallen asleep. He was beginning to feel that he had accepted for himself a tremendous task, and that she, not much more than a child, had of course scarcely foreseen its possibilities. Her faith in him was a pleasurable thing. It was absolute. He realized it more as the hours dragged on and he sat alone by the fire. So great was it that she was going back fearlessly to those whom she hated and feared. She was returning not only fearlessly but with a certain defiant satisfaction. ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... morrow must bring us parting—forever, it might be), Taking our ices al fresco. Some strolling minstrels were singing Airs from the Trovatore. I noted with painful observance, With the unwilling minuteness at such times absolute torture, All that brilliant scene, for which I cared nothing, before me: Dark-eyed Venetian leoni regarding the forestieri With those compassionate looks of gentle and curious wonder Home-keeping Italy's nations bend on the voyaging races,— Taciturn, ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... Sunday morning, I secured one overnight, and conducted him home, to be ready for an early outset. But where was I to quarter him for the night? I could not put him in the stable; our old black groom George was as absolute in that domain as Barbara was within doors, and would have thought his stable, his horses, and himself disgraced, by the introduction of a jackass. I recollected the smoke-house; an out-building appended to all Virginian establishments for the smoking of hams, and other kinds of meat. So ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... advice! How I understand it, my God! You may as well hear the rest, though. . . . As soon as she had become my mistress, Kisotchka's view of the position was very different from mine. First of all she felt for me a deep and passionate love. What was for me an ordinary amatory episode was for her an absolute revolution in her life. I remember, it seemed to me that she had gone out of her mind. Happy for the first time in her life, looking five years younger, with an inspired enthusiastic face, not knowing what to do with herself for happiness, ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... announces the yet unrecognized excellence of "this one new poet," whom he is not afraid to put side by side with "that good old poet," Chaucer, the "loadstar of our language." The other point is the absolute reliance which he places on the powers of the English language, handled by one who has discerned its genius, and is not afraid to use its wealth. "In my opinion, it is one praise of many, that are due to this poet, that he hath laboured to restore, as to their rightful heritage, ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... united by giving them the same odor, but in the same way any number of colonies may be made to live in perfect peace. If hundreds of hives are all connected by gauze wire ventilators, so that the air passes freely from one to another, the bees will all live in absolute harmony, and if any bee attempts to enter the wrong hive, he will not be molested. The same result can often be attained by feeding colonies from a common vessel. I have seen literally hundreds ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... which he shares with Ramman, and which, as noted, appears to have been originally devoted to the service of the latter. One other factor that must be taken into account to explain the disappearance of Anu is the gradual enforcement of Ashur's claim to the absolute headship of the Assyrian pantheon. Either Anu or Ashur had to be assigned to this place, and when circumstances decided the issue in favor of Ashur, there was no place worthy of Anu as a specific deity. Ashur usurps in a measure the role of Anu. So far as ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... the large number of names attached to it. I was surprised, and it has created quite a sensation here, that there are so many as 772 in Toronto, who still have the moral courage to designate themselves "Constitutional Reformers." It will teach the other party that they are not so strong, and so absolute in the voice of the country, as they ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... to Mrs. Langdon, "my wife did not tell me, never spoke of it. What I said to you was purely a guess of my own. I had no interest in the matter—and haven't. I have absolute confidence in my wife. I feel ashamed that you have provoked me into saying so." ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... poet says. Until her sixteenth year Pepita lived with her mother in very straitened circumstances—bordering, indeed, upon absolute want. ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera

... a forest of magnificent trees, whose sombre shade, on first passing from the intolerable glare of the sun, seemed absolute darkness. The branches were alive with innumerable tropical birds and insects, and were laced together by a thick tracery of withes, along which a guana would occasionally dart, coming nearest of all the reptiles I had seen to the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... Correggio to Fragonard, from the greatest to the least of those who have deserved the name of master, Art has been pursuing the Chimaera, attempting to reconcile two opposites—the most slavish fidelity to nature and the most absolute independence of her, an independence so absolute that the work of art may claim to be a creation. This is the persistent problem offered by the unstable character of the point of view at which it is approached; the whole mystery of art. The subject, as presented in nature, cannot ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various

... doing there surely. In the stillness of the August morning, without song of bird, the sun, shining brilliantly high above the mist, seemed to be the only living thing, to possess the whole and reign above absolute peace. It is a curious sight to see the early harvest morn—all hushed under the burning sun, a morn that you know is full of life and meaning, yet quiet as if man's foot had never trodden the land. Only the sun is there, rolling ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... a tone of absolute certainty in these remarkable words which lifted a mountain from more than one heart, and instantly transferred all interest to the brave young lad who had sprung into the water to save a little girl that was ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... fat defenseless body was an absolute contrast to the Sikh's tall manly figure. His eye was furtive, glancing ever sidewise; but the Sikh looked straight and spoke abruptly though with a note of kindness ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy

... He felt that his duty was exactly that which some Christian theologians of to-day conscientiously feel to be theirs—to receive intact a certain "deposit" or "system" and, adding nothing to it, simply to teach, illuminate, defend, enforce and strongly maintain it as "the truth." He gloried in absolute freedom from all novelty, anticipating in this respect a certain illustrious American who made it a matter for boasting, that his school had never originated a new idea.[1] Whether or not the Master ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... imagined a witch was sucking his blood. Emboldened, however, by his fear, he, with another gentleman, repaired to Bordeaux, and persuaded the Parliament to obtain from the King the commissioning of two of its members, Espagnet and Lancre, to try the wizards in the Basque country. This commission, absolute and without appeal, worked with unheard-of vigour; in four months, from May to August, 1609, condemned sixty or eighty witches, and examined five hundred more, who, though equally marked with the sign of the Devil, figured in the proceedings as ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... tawny light brown like a lioness, about the same size and somewhat of the type of the smooth-coated collie, broad of chest and with a full brush of tail. Untamed as she seemed, she was perfectly under Kennedy's control and rendered him absolute and unreasoning obedience. ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve

... we call the order of nature, that is the clean and proper ordering of the universe, so the maxims of knaves and fools, who make the mass of mankind, participate in some sort in that general and universal Truth-which is absolute, everlasting and divine. Which makes me sore afraid, by the by, it may very like not exist ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... "The almost absolute perfection with which the draft had been forged had nearly defied the detection of even the microscope. In the body of the original $12 draft had been the words, 'Twelve ........ Dollars.' The forger, by the ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... it; if thou afford prosperity, I will humbly enjoy and improve it. I will no longer live to myself; I am not my own. I agree to the transfer of all my powers, talents, and possessions to thy service. My whole being shall henceforth be at thy disposal; it shall become thy absolute and inalienable property: this is a "living sacrifice" which I admit to be "reasonable," which I rejoice to believe is "holy and acceptable." In time past I have "sown to the flesh;" let this suffice—another principle influences ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... never those of another species. Such is the law of nature and hence the axiom that "like produces like." But while experience teaches the constancy of hereditary transmission, it teaches just as plainly that the constancy is not absolute and perfect, and this introduces us to another law, viz: that of variation, which will be considered by and by; our present concern is to ascertain what we can of ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale

... opinion of himself as a king, had a very low opinion of Parliament as a power that audaciously wanted to control him. When he called his first Parliament after he had been king a year, he accordingly thought he would take pretty high ground with them, and told them that he commanded them 'as an absolute king.' The Parliament thought those strong words, and saw the necessity of upholding their authority. His Sowship had three children: Prince Henry, Prince Charles, and the Princess Elizabeth. It would have been well for one of these, and we shall too soon see which, if he had learnt a ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... "Yes, and with absolute privacy and freedom. Take this chair; I will sit beside you." It was the voice of the father confessor now, encouraging the unburdening of ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... years much diminished; owing, in a great measure, to the increased good feeling of naval officers, as also to the Admiralty discountenancing such strong measures, unless in most urgent cases. A captain of a man-of-war has, notwithstanding, and very properly so, an almost absolute power, and corporal punishment rests with him alone; but the humane officer, like Captain Hunter, punishes one man to save many others, and shares with the delinquent the pain which, for the sake of example, ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... you to think over the relation of expression to character in two great masters of the absolute art of language, Virgil and Pope. You are perhaps surprised at the last named; and indeed you have in English much higher grasp and melody of language from more passionate minds, but you have nothing else, in its range, so perfect. I name, therefore, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... hills of Virginia from the Capitol at Washington, could hardly have anticipated a higher destiny than that which had befallen him. Over the hearts and wills of thirty thousand magnificent soldiers, the very flower of Southern manhood, his empire was absolute; and such dominion is neither the heritage of princes nor within the reach of wealth. The most trusted lieutenant of his great commander, the strong right arm with which he had executed his most brilliant enterprises, he shared with him the esteem and admiration not only of the army but of ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... great desire to find it. After having read, examined, and noted all that constituted the science at that time, I fancied I could discern a few theoretical principles true in their generality, doubtful in their application, ambitiously aspiring to be classed among absolute truths, often hollow or false in their formula. I had no objection to make, but my instinctive desire of demonstration was not thoroughly satisfied. I threw down the books and awaited the light. Political economy at ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine

... the Princess Ziska a strange silence reigned. In whatever way the business of her household was carried on, it was evidently with the most absolute noiselessness, for not a sound disturbed the utter stillness environing her. She herself, clad in white garments that clung about her closely, displaying the perfect outlines of her form, stood waiting for her guest in a room that was ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... and received all the ill treatment she could possibly expect from an enemy so very powerful; the Duchess of Valentinois amply revenged herself both of that lady, and all those who had disobliged her; she seemed to reign more absolute in the King's heart than she did even when he was Dauphin. During the twelve years' reign of this Prince she has been absolute in everything; she disposes of all governments and offices of trust and power; she has ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette

... produced next year in evidence against her at the conference of York may have been, as her partisans affirm, so craftily garbled and falsified by interpolation, suppression, perversion, or absolute forgery as to be all but historically worthless. Its acceptance or its rejection does not in any degree whatever affect, for better or for worse, the rational estimate of her character. The problem presented by the simple ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... worthy of preservation in the Library of Harvard College by my esteemed friend Mr. Sibley), it seemed becoming that I should not only testify to the genuineness of the following production, but call attention to it, the more as Mr. Biglow had so long been silent as to be in danger of absolute oblivion. I insinuate no claim to any share in the authorship (vix ea nostra voco) of the works already published by Mr. Biglow, but merely take to myself the credit of having fulfilled toward them the office of taster (experto crede), who, having first tried, could afterward bear witness ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... a serious matter for men when a civilization decayed. But it may at some future day prove far more serious still. Our hold on the planet is not absolute. Our ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.

... boat was near enough, they grabbed the baggage and trotted off with it, regardless of the remonstrances of the owners. At the custom house, the luggage was found; each native sitting stoically on whatever he had chanced to capture, with an air of absolute proprietorship. After it was passed by the custom authorities, it was carried to the hotel by the howling mob, where, with many kicks and cuffs administered by the landlord, it was reclaimed. Paul gave an exhibition at this place on which the awe stricken Moors gazed in wonder. ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... creatures and make them obey him. And there was no doubt at all that if he could enlist the services of the Phanfasms, their tremendous power, united to the strength of the Growleywogs and the cunning of the Whimsies would doom the Land of Oz to absolute destruction. ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... flying fingers halted their eternal dartings. "Quickly, down to the space in front of the door to the Death Bath." A rush of hurried feet. These men and women were accustomed to instant, unquestioning obedience. "Absolute silence. Keep clear of the floor on peril of ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... afterward that these Belgians have no means of securing the information they need, as the Germans have almost absolute possession of their country and are, as might be expected, not furnishing any information as to the amount of destruction, or the quantity of materials which can be used again, or in any other way. It is stated that the Germans have practically looted the whole ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.

... that the whole body of officers and people are determin'd not to be govern'd by those rules at present. This objection was started, not from a disrespect to those rules, but we imagin'd, if Captain C——p was restor'd to the absolute command he had before the loss of the Wager, that he would proceed again on the same principles, never on any exigency consult his officers, but act arbitrarily, according to his humour and confidence of superior knowledge; while he acts with reason, we will support his command with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... part of creation had ever a fascinating influence upon the Bard of Avon, and all the outward manifestations of nature were infallible hints to him of the inward sources of the Divine, and an absolute belief in the immortality of the soul! His own mind was the best evidence ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... spirit of this interdict is not a rooted antipathy to the grant of mere powerless empty titles, but to titles of nobility; to the institution of privileged orders of men. But what order of men under the most absolute of monarchies, or the most aristocratic of republics, was ever invested with such an odious and unjust privilege as that of the separate and exclusive representation of less than half a million owners of slaves, in the Hall of this House, in the Chair of the Senate, and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the highest accepted authority and criterion of authenticity in the English speaking world; for, at the same time it will also provide a positive and perfect safeguard and assurance of the solid basis and absolute authenticity of my methods and teachings besides indicating definitely the source and direction whence they are derived and establishing their classical trend ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... that is poor, thin and without quality. I find the Singer Fingeruebungen are excellent for muscular development in scale work, for imparting the great strength which is necessary for the fingers to have; and the Kreutzer etudes are indispensable. To secure an absolute legato tone, a true singing tone on the violin, one should play scales with a perfectly well sustained and steady bow, in whole notes, slowly and mezzo-forte, taking care that each note is clear and ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens

... very serious and confidential affair, Cataldi," he said. "I want to know the absolute ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux

... that the doctor was clearly upon the trail of discovery. In his mind at that moment, I believe, he had already solved the nature of this perplexing psychical problem. His face was like a mask, and he employed the absolute minimum of gesture and words. All his energies were directed inwards, and by those incalculable methods and processes he had mastered with such infinite patience and study, I felt sure he was already ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... theater that night, she simply did not turn up. To appease the audience it was announced that she was suffering from sudden indisposition; but, as a fact, the management did not know what had become of her, and the maid at her rooms confessed absolute ignorance concerning her mistress's whereabouts. I have no doubt the maid would have lied to protect Madame, but on this occasion I think she ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... the conversation into other channels, because although he had the gravest reasons for believing Rabig to be a traitor, he did not want to do the fellow an injustice or voice his suspicions until he was able to confirm them by absolute proof. ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall

... them of their rhymes, disjoint them in their numbers, transpose their expressions, make what arrangement and disposition you please of his words, yet shall there eternally be poetry, and something which will be found incapable of being resolved into absolute prose; an incontestible characteristic of a truly ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... deemed the gentleman degraded, not herself. Far from being mortified by any preference shown to other ladies, her countenance betrayed only a sarcastic sort of pity for the bad taste of the men, or an absolute indifference and look of haughty absence. I saw that she beheld with disdain the paltry competitions of the young ladies her companions: as her companions, indeed, she hardly seemed to consider ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... those plays. I don't say we've absolute proof that the man's entirely hopeless. We must be sure ...
— Plays of Near & Far • Lord Dunsany

... to them on many infallible grounds. But seeing them so sunk in despair, he would speak in a tone of loud assurance, and boldly assert a fact which they seemed to have overlooked. They were lords of the sea, absolute masters, that was to say, of half the world! Let them keep a firm grasp on this empire, and they would soon recover those pretty ornaments of empire—their gardens and their vineyards— which they held ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... therefore, hired elephants by ones and twos and threes, and fell to work. The very best of all the elephants belonged to the very worst of all the drivers or mahouts; and the superior beast's name was Moti Guj. He was the absolute property of his mahout, which would never have been the case under native rule, for Moti Guj was a creature to be desired by kings; and his name, being translated, meant the Pearl Elephant. Because the British Government was in the land, Deesa, the mahout, enjoyed his property undisturbed. He ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... rising on his crutches and preparing to leave the room, "I had absolute confidence in you; I trusted you implicitly. Your own conduct has shaken that confidence, and it may be some time before it is wholly restored. We will continue business as before; but remember, you ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... sleep; or wakening, find that something had happened to the matches. There remained a good store of these in the box enfolded carefully in a bit of cloth and a strip of deerskin, and bestowed in a high niche of the cavern; but there was sometimes moisture in the night winds, and there could be no absolute assurance that the matches would ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... Chamberlain before the war was over had to make at least one speech which brought on himself the fiercest denunciations of the German Press, when he replied in vigorous language to the charge of cruelty brought against the British military authorities in Africa. The absolute mastery of the sea possessed by Great Britain probably alone prevented the Emperor forcing his Ministers into some imprudent act; and it was clearly seen that Count von Buelow, who had succeeded Baron Marschall as Foreign Secretary in June, 1897, and afterwards succeeded Prince Hohenlohe as Chancellor ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... stated every day that the pretenders were taken; the Chambers sat—such as remained—and talked immensely about honor, dignity, and the glorious revolution of July; and the King, as his power was now pretty nigh absolute over them, thought this a good opportunity to bring in a bill for doubling ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Critique of the Pure Reason, of the Judgment, and the rest of his works, belongs originally to Richard Baxter, a century before Kant;—and this not as a hint, but as a fully evolved and systematically applied principle. Nay, more than this:—Baxter grounded it on an absolute idea presupposed in all intelligential acts: whereas Kant takes it only as a fact in which he seems to anticipate or suspect some yet deeper truth latent, and hereafter to ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... her thus, as he made his way to the house from the barn, where he had been detained later than the others. When he saw her forlorn little figure huddled by the well-curb in an attitude of absolute dejection, he could not go on without saying some word ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer

... is proposed as a subject for consultation, it necessarily implies some mode of decision. Common consent, arising from absolute necessity, has placed this in a majority of opinions; because, without it, there can be no decision, and consequently no order. It is, perhaps, the only case in which mankind, however various in their ideas upon other matters, can consistently be ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... a message to Barbara, reminding her that she had promised to come with him to the first night and warning her that in all probability he would not be able to go. The doctor, he explained, insisted on absolute quiet and absence of excitement. It would have been more honest to add that the doctor had forbidden him to see any visitors; but Eric hoped that Barbara would hurry round as soon as she heard that he was ill and before he could ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna

... that the wild animals at least were not outcast in their captivity—having living people and living beasts around them, and the pleasure of hearing living sounds—while one of the worst things about my prison was the absolute dead silence that hung over it like a dismal cloud. And perhaps it was because my thoughts happened at that moment to be set to take notice of such matters that I fancied I heard a very faint sound of scratching and an instant later ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier

... articles on blackleg, and it seems strange to me that no mention is made of an operation that is an absolute preventive, namely, ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... after all, made absolute. There is still a chance for us in the Chapter of Accidents—and perhaps even for poor ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... affectionate good-bys in English or courteous Yiddish, Bill commented profanely to Morton on the fact that the solid stone floor of the great shed seemed to have enough sea-motion to "make a guy sick." It was nearly his last utterance as Bill Wrenn. He became Mr. Wrenn, absolute Mr. Wrenn, on the street, as he saw a real English bobby, a real English carter, and the sign, ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... one: as well to the beginner as to the expert. The only difference between the two is the range at which this certainty exists. The tyro's limit of absolute certainty for the heart shot may be—and probably is—a hundred yards; for the high shoulder it may be as near as thirty. This takes into consideration his inexperience in the presence of game as well as his inaccuracy with the rifle, and it keeps in mind ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... that the pair sat or stood or walked in absolute silence. Indeed, little Miss Blythe could never be silent for a long period nor permit it in others, but I mean that with the lines and the machinery of a North Atlantic liner, their craft of propinquity made about as much progress as a scow. ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... of the witnesses, Sanders showed increased aggressiveness. "To be sure, Senator, you were careful not to personally promise me anything for my support at the election, as you say," the leader sneered; "but you had Jim Stevens to make promises for you, which was smooth, absolute ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise

... assumed colleague in the empire, partner in the tribunitian authority, and presented to the several armies; not from the secret machinations of his mother, as heretofore, but at her open suit For over Augustus, now very aged, she had obtained such absolute sway, that he banished into the isle of Planasia his only surviving grandson, Agrippa Posthumus; a person destitute indeed of liberal accomplishments, and a man of clownish brutality with great bodily strength, but convicted of no heinous offense. The emperor, strange to say, set Germanicus, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... as a matter of fact, a very grave mistake to come here at all," Holly told him with a courteous kind of severity. "I fear you greatly underestimate the absolute necessity for extreme caution. The mere fact that we have thus far elicited nothing more than a vague curiosity on the part of the government, does not excuse any imprudence now. Rather, it intensifies the need ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... also proved with our pupils the absolute truth and value of the BEHNKE SYSTEM OF VOICE TRAINING, by means of which we have obtained results most gratifying to ourselves, and surprising to the ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke

... thinking the great poet was no more.[3] "As decade followed decade," writes Mr. H. O. Taylor, "and century followed century, there was no falling off in the study of the Aeneid. Virgil's fame towered, his authority became absolute. But how? In what respect? As a supreme master of grammatical correctness and rhetorical excellence and of all learning. With increasing emptiness of soul, the grammarians—the Virgils'—of the succeeding centuries put the great poet to ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... physical observations originally made out had to be considerably modified. It had been intended to set up recording magnetic instruments at the base, and to take a continuous series of records throughout the whole period of residence there, absolute measurements of the earth's horizontal magnetic force, of the dip and declination being taken at frequent intervals for purposes of calibration. With the ice continually drifting, and the possibility of the floe cracking at any time, ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... all that was grim in irony. The proof, in Stangeist's own writing, sworn to before witnesses in the presence of a notary, the text of the document, of course, unknown to both witnesses and notary, evidence, absolute and final, that would be admitted in any court, for Stangeist was a lawyer, and would see to that, was in Stangeist's own safe, for Stangeist's own protection—Stangeist, who was himself the head and brains of this murder gang—Stangeist, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... jurisdiction Canada's legislature has absolute power. If her treaties or acts should conflict with Imperial interests, they would be disallowed by the Imperial Privy Council as unconstitutional, or ultra vires. Likewise of the provinces, if any of their acts conflicted with federal ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... need the services of lawyers whose legal methods are not attenuated by scruples. Lawyers of this class occupy the same relation to the local political "Bosses" as the European lawyer used to occupy in the court of the absolute monarch. He phrases the legislation which the ruler decides to be of private or public benefit; and he acts frequently as his employer's ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... Elizabeth, their new ally, thought that they could not honor the great general she had sent them too highly. They received him with most magnificent military parades, and passed a vote in their assembly investing him with absolute authority as head of the government, thus putting him, in fact, in the very position which Elizabeth had herself declined receiving. Leicester was extremely pleased and elated with these honors. He was king all but in ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... respond to in the Orient. How much more simple and less complicated the life is here. I was almost stopped at the Hungarian and Servian frontier because I had no passport. By the merest chance I had a very old one in my bag which was absolutely invalid but which, added to my absolute refusal to leave the train, got me by the three frontiers in the end. I called a Turk and a Servian who were in the same compartment to my rescue and for an hour or more carried on a heated discussion ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff

... present, (1853,) I presume the reader to be aware that Cambridge has, within the last few years, unsettled and even revolutionized our estimates of Swedenborg as a philosopher. That man, indeed, whom Emerson ranks as one amongst his inner consistory of intellectual potentates cannot be the absolute trifler that Kant, (who knew him only by the most trivial of his pretensions,) eighty years ago, supposed him. Assuredly, Mr. Clowes was no trifler, but lived habitually a life of power, though in a world of religious mysticism and of apocalyptic visions. To him, being such a man by nature ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... we would do if we had time; and if we like him it is only because he expresses the things we already know. His is a hard task, requiring intense concentration—a concentration that can only be continued for a short time without the absolute burning out ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... for a five-year term by a Federal Convention including all members of the Federal Assembly and an equal number of delegates elected by the state parliaments; election last held 23 May 1999 (next to be held 23 May 2004); chancellor elected by an absolute majority of the Federal Assembly for a four-year term; election last held 27 September 1998 (next to be held in ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... destruction. "Here," said I to my wife, as we stood side by side on one such ledge, "would be the place for a husband, who wanted to get rid of his wife, to accomplish his purpose. Done in ten seconds! With absolute certainty! One push would suffice! No cry of any more avail than the screams of those gulls! And no possibility of the deed being witnessed by any ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... you into the secret of my power, which is very simple after all, and which, once known, will enable you to do everything that I can do. First of all, however, I propose to throw you into a cataleptic sleep, in order that, while you are in that condition, I may imbue you with an absolute faith in yourself, without which everything that I can teach you would be practically useless, at least until you had acquired faith in yourself by the somewhat slow and laborious process which I had to pursue. I had to acquire faith in myself and my powers by repeated experiments extending ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... acute pains suddenly subside, the feet are placed firmly and squarely to the ground, and the animal walks with ease. Perhaps but the night before the patient is seen racked with excruciating pain; the morning sees the astounding change of apparent absolute recovery. Too well, however, the eye of the experienced veterinary surgeon sees that such is not the case. Even before proceeding to take a record of the other symptoms, he knows that it is but the commencement of the end. Methodically, however, ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... Fouquet know "that the Chancellor of England could receive wages only from his own master. "Such an excess of scrupulosity could only appear, to one trained in the school to which La Bastide was accustomed, as merely assumed. He still pressed the absolute secrecy of the gift, until Clarendon broke off the interview ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... day succeeds to the art of past centuries not immediately nor by an insensible gradation. It is preceded by an interval of absolute deadness in matters artistic. Sixty years ago art in almost every branch was a sealed book to the majority of even well-educated persons, and contentedly contemplated by them as such. All love for it, with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... There's a reservoir below into which they drop when the electric circuit is broken. After every action they are sold by auction for old metal, and the result divided as prize money among the crew. But think of it, man! I tell you it is an absolute impossibility for a shot to strike any ship which is provided with my apparatus. And then look at the cheapness. You don't want armour. You want nothing. Any ship that floats becomes invulnerable with ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... Miller of large size, and a second time with the spinning bait. Two fish showed during the day, a shockingly black beggar of not less than 30 lb. which jumped out of the water, and another kelt which plunged out of range. It was an absolute blank, and a fall of snow before I caught my train was ominous. There had been a flood of 15 ft. (a favourite figure apparently on that Tay gauge) and it takes any river a long time to settle down, and the fish to resume their ordinary habits, after such riotous excess. ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... marked a new departure; sleep proving a less absolute break in continuity of sensation, a less absolute barrier between day ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... their intensity of thought, want of exercise, injurious position of body, respiration of unwholesome air, and a variety of other causes, have not only their animal spirits exhausted, but their liquids corrupted from the loss of a necessary circulation. With these evils India tea operates as an absolute poison. Indeed, it frequently renders those incurable, who might, by other means, have ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith

... detested it. I discovered also that in most persons there is a predominance of some particular organ over the surrounding ones, in which case a corresponding external protuberance may be looked for, which indicates the gastronomic character of the individual. This rule, however, is not absolute, as the prominence of one faculty may be modified by the influence of another; thus the faculty of ham may be modified by that of roast veal, or the desire to indulge in a sentiment for an omelette ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various

... merits have been deemed worthy of canonization by the Roman Church. Louis the Ninth had witnessed with alarm the rapid strides of the Papacy toward universal dominion. His pride was offended by the pretension of the Pontiff to absolute superiority; his sovereign rights were assailed when taxes were levied in France at the pleasure of a foreign priest and prince. He foresaw that this abuse was likely to take deep root unless promptly met by a formal declaration placing the rights of the French monarch and nation in ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... be a thorough-going anti-slavery man was the stubborn test of qualifications for a delegate. And that there might be no mistake on this point, it was deemed advisable to have an able committee present to the body as a platform a report that should make the absolute prohibition of slavery its chief plank. But before I make further reference to the report it will not be amiss to refer briefly to the subject of slavery in its relations to ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller

... moment, in the immortal light, the same point of time that is indicated below on earth, some starless night, by the humblest village clock. We must imitate the clock. In full consciousness, through absolute submission, man should make himself the humble instrument of truth, and go through supreme servitude to supreme power. When he does not do this, he is only an imperfect timepiece. But when, bound by his word, chained to the truth that he serves, he has ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various

... legislative deeds of cession from the States themselves, wherein they were located. The self-constituted governments of these State now assumed either that the right of eminent domain reverted to them, or that it had always belonged to them; and that they were perfectly justified in taking absolute possession, "holding themselves responsible in money damages to be settled by negotiation." The Federal Government and the sentiment of the North regarded this hypothesis ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various

... the new-sown barley; and, above all things, let him give a wide berth to the new-laid meadows of artificial grasses. They are never large, and may always be shunned. To them the poaching of numerous horses is absolute destruction. The surface of such enclosures should be as smooth as a billiard-table, so that no water may lie in holes; and, moreover, any young plant cut by a horse's foot is trodden out of existence. Farmers do see even this done, and live through ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope

... you know so much, because you've been to London University—but we've been to a High School; so we're not absolute idiots. PARMENAS! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 24, 1892 • Various

... slave-trader, the slave-owner, and the slave-driver, are virtually the agents of the consumer, for by holding out the temptation, he is the original cause, the first mover in the horrid process; that we are imperiously called upon to refuse those articles of luxury, which are obtained at an absolute and lavish waste of the blood of our fellow men; that a merchant, who loads his vessel with the proceeds of slavery, does nearly as much in helping forward the slave trade, as he who loads his vessel in Africa with slaves—they are both twisting the same rope at different ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... expresses a clear and useful idea; but as for its existence, it is not permitted to believe a priori that there is a distinct agent called electricity which is the efficient cause of the phenomena. We ought never, says the old rule of philosophy, to admit entities without an absolute necessity. The march of science has always consisted in gradually eliminating these provisory conceptions and in reducing the number of causes. This fact is visible without going back to the ages of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various

... When you reach camp you can make a regular mattress by filling it with whatever material is most easily found. Dry leaves? grass, hay, even moss or wet filler can be used if nothing dry can be found, but in this case the rubber blanket will be an absolute necessity. Of course it is much better to ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... arguments of the man might be, he remitted his cause to the decision of the very judge whom he feared. And there was another very bad thing much spoken of; namely, that when it was urged that any debtor was in such absolute want as to be unable to pay anything, he used to pronounce sentence ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... greater than a part, and the greater necessarily implies the less. The outline is, in this view of the matter, the same thing as the filling-up, and 'the limbs and flourishes of a discourse' the substance. Again, the same persons make an absolute distinction, without knowing why, between high and low subjects. Say that you would as soon have Murillo's Two Beggar Boys at the Dulwich Gallery as almost any picture in the world, that is, that it would be one you would choose out of ten (had you the choice), and they reiterate upon you that ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... long period of absolute and profound silence which succeeded I had much time to reflect. I judged myself to be in an unused chamber, which, if square, would be about thirty feet across—calculating by the distance from the diagonal ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... very ring of truth, and above all the absolute lack of self-consciousness in the girl's answer sustained ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Pythagoras seems to have been extremely nice in eating; among his absolute injunctions to his disciples, he commands ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... a dreadful place as we had always fancied. Most of the people we have seen to-day seem rather to like it; there is good boating, excellent sea fishing, moderate shooting, and many rides and excursions. A vehicle of some sort is an absolute necessity, however, if you want to see anything of your friends, for the three divisions of the settlement are at least four miles apart, and the heat is far too great for driving or riding in the middle of the day, ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... fatal absurdity in the position of the Restored Rump Government. It came together in the name of "the good old cause," or a pure and absolute Republic; and yet it stood there itself in glaring contradiction to what is usually regarded, and to what itself put forth, as the very root-principle of a pure Republic—to wit, the Sovereignty of the People. Richard's House of Commons had been as freely elected as any House of ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... whole twenty-four the hour when, seated at an artistically-laid table, with delicately-cooked viands, good wines, and pleasant company, all the cares and worries of the day give place to a delightful sense of absolute enjoyment? Dinner with the English people is generally a very dreary affair, and there is a heaviness about the whole thing which communicates itself to the guests, who eat and drink with a solemn persistence, as though they were occupied in fulfilling some sacred rite. But there are men—alas! ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume

... seem, nothing has proved a better or surer foundation of Empire, or has more helped even its material development, than the determination not to take advantage of the absolute power of the Mother Country over the Dependencies and subject States, but, on the contrary, to develop these as a sacred trust. We rightly asked for, and we took, far more help from the Daughter Nations during the war ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... sometimes consoles himself with a snug bachelor dinner. Stock-jobbing is, as you say, only another sort of gambling, and this is his vice: at the same time you will consider that it is his business, to which he was brought up. Then, for absolute relaxation, he has his 'fast crab.' Put him behind his 2' 45" stepper and he is happy for an hour or two, and forgets his miseries—that ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... to make things worse," said Zoie decidedly. Then seeing Jimmy's hurt look, she continued apologetically: "Aggie MEANS all right, but she has an absolute mania for mixing up in other people's troubles. And you know how ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo

... endeavor to tell you, sir,' I said. 'If my friend is not an absolute stranger to you, I should wish to request your attention to a very delicate subject, connected with a lady deceased, and with her son who ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... watching, her hand to her throat. And then Gertrude opened the door, admitting Mr. Jamieson and a stocky, middle-aged man. Halsey was not with them. When the door had closed and Louise realized that Halsey had not come, her expression changed. From tense watchfulness to relief, and now again to absolute despair, her face was ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... how much she cares! On the very day of our final rupture she starts a flirtation with another man—an absolute stranger." ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... Ellen and Lee considered themselves recovered from the shock of the experience they would be married. They had already spent two months of absolute rest in England after their escape from Africa, but they found it had not been enough. Their story had been told in the press of the world and they had been constantly besieged by the curious, which of course had not helped them ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks

... Uruguay, and far the most extensive, though not the most populous, of Brazilian provinces; and this in despite of the Government of Brazil, which does not, and cannot, possess the means for repressing its intercourse with Monte Video, even though its possession and authority were as absolute and acknowledged in Rio Grande as they are decidedly the reverse. The next, and the more difficult, achievement of Conservative diplomacy resulted in the ratification of a supplementary commercial convention with Russia. We say difficult, because the iron-bound exclusiveness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... princes, I suppose" [The minor princes of Germany, whose territories were annexed to larger states, and who thus exchanged a direct for a mediate share in the imperial government.—or the Himalayan or Peruvian, is almost 100 per cent; in absolute amount twice as much as the difference between that of the largest simian and the smallest human capacity, so that in seeking an ordinal difference between man and the apes, "it would certainly be well to let go the head, though I am afraid it does not mend matters ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... of the land. Slavery first, slavery middle, and slavery last. Accursed slavery! firstborn of the evil one—the lust of dominion over others for one's own selfish purposes, in its naked, most shameless, and undisguised form. Dominion of man over man in other modes, such as absolute monarchy, aristocracy, feudalism, ecclesiastical rule—all these justify their exactions under the plea of the welfare of the subject, or the salvation of souls. Slavery has nothing of the kind behind which to hide its monstrosity; nor does it care to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... that these will not readily call forth a poet. The art of poetry requires of the person who is to exercise it a certain good-natured kind of narrowness enamored of what is Real, behind which lies concealed what is Absolute. Demands made by criticism destroy the innocent, productive state, and give us as genuine poetry—in place of poetry—something that is in fact no poetry at all, as unfortunately we have seen in our own day; and the same is the case with the kindred arts—nay, with Art in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... naively that man can look upon the world and can know it, and can by thinking about it succeed in giving a reasonable account of it. That there may be a difference between the world as it really is and the world as it appears to man, and that it may be impossible for man to attain to a knowledge of the absolute truth of things, does not seem to have ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... kitchen, Mrs. Kebby hobbled from one to the other, gossiping about the various affairs of her various employers; and when absolute knowledge failed she took to inventing details which did no small credit to her imagination. Also, she could tell fortunes by reading tea-leaves and shuffling cards, and was not above aiding the maid servants ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... circumstances of the face of the country, it has been found necessary in many places to cut down to the depth of sixty or seventy feet below the surface; and, in others, to raise mounds of earth upon lakes and swamps and marshy grounds, of such a length and magnitude that nothing short of the absolute command over multitudes could have accomplished an undertaking, whose immensity is only exceeded by the great wall. These gigantic embankments are sometimes carried through lakes of several miles in diameter, between which the water is forced up ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... (As delicately as possible). This is a fanciful, intricate piece, but very delicate in effect. It is technically difficult to play, requiring an absolute control of finger work. It was rather a favourite with the composer. 4. A Haunted House (Mysteriously). This is one of the most imaginative and realistic of MacDowell's smaller pianoforte pieces. It opens ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte

... on the 21st was once more driven on shore. It was now seen that any attempt to carry her to a place of safety, even should she be got off, would be hopeless and productive of extreme risk to the remaining ship, and that an absolute necessity existed for abandoning her. Her crew, with such stores as were required, were transferred to the Hecla, and every effort was made to carry the surviving ship ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... only creditors were my landlady and my laundress, two poor widows who never willingly distressed me, but who occasionally asked for 'that little amount' so piteously that my heart bled to lack it to give them. And as victuals and clean shirts were absolute necessaries of life, every week my debts increased. I could have faced a prosperous male creditor, and might, perhaps, have been provoked to bully such an one, had he been inclined to be cruel; but I could not face ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... night: the only thing was to try and forget it all. It has been an absolute hell of a journey—there is no other word for it. First, you must understand that this big battle from Ostend to Lille is perhaps the most desperate of all, though that is said of each in turn—Mons, the Aisne, and this; ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous

... apart sate on a Hill retired, In Thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate, First Fate, Freewill, Foreknowledge absolute, And found no End in wandring Mazes ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... was seven years of age the life of Helen Keller, the Boston girl who was deaf and dumb and blind, was an absolute blank; nothing could go into that mind because the ears and eyes were closed to the outer world. Then by that great process which has been discovered, by which the blind see, and the deaf hear, and the mute speak, that girl's soul became ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond

... Genevieve looked regretfully into the troubled face of her companion, and answered him with absolute candor. "Dear friend, need I repeat? I am very fond of you, and I esteem you very highly. Yet if he succeeds, I must say 'no' ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... Jesus was received in the upper world, exalted, glorified, made to sit down at the Father's right hand, put far above all rule and authority, with a name greater in the sweep of its power than any other, and with all things put in absolute subjection under His feet. This is the simple, direct meaning of the ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon

... granite, as the races of men differ from one another? There is just as much room for natural selection to work in one case as in the other. We find where two kinds of rock touch, one overlying the other, and absolute difference in texture and color, and no union between them. How account for their juxtaposition? Rock begat rock, undoubtedly, and the aerial forces played the chief part, but the origin of each kind is hidden in the abyss of geologic time, as is ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... find that there is an intimate connection between absolute purity of one's thought and life and his good health, good thinking, and good work, a very close connection between the moral faculties and the physical health; that nothing so exhausts vitality and vitiates ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... Jones; pity he drinks!' but no social reprobation attaches to Jones. He may be known to be carried to bed every night, for all it affects his reputation as a respectable and respected citizen. But with the advance of civilization better times are coming in these matters. It is no more so absolute a necessity to take a nobbler as it was ten years ago. Drunkenness, if not reprobated, is no longer considered a 'gentlemanly vice.' A man who drinks is pitied. This is the first step. Before long blame will tread in the steps ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... careful gleanings of its history form indeed [158] a sorry relic as contrasted with Vasari's intimations of the beginnings of the Renaissance. Fired by certain fragments of its earlier days, of a beauty, in truth, absolute, and vainly longing for more, the student of Greek sculpture indulges the thought of an ideal of youthful energy therein, yet withal of youthful self-restraint; and again, as with survivals of old religion, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... directly opposed to the traffic in human flesh, such as—"love your enemies," "seek peace with all men," "be kindly affectioned one to another," "whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them." An absolute infidel, he thought, could not fail to perceive that a most blessed change would come over the face of Africa if such principles prevailed among its inhabitants, even ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... have a great desire and ambition to work in a store in the city. Unless it were a positive, absolute necessity, I would never allow her to do it, unless I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she possessed great strength of character. I hesitated in writing this but I felt I must or God would, indeed, hold me responsible, for parents have no ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... time only twenty-six, and in the zenith of her beauty. Every one supposed that the man to whom she owed her ruin would marry her as soon as it was possible. Unfortunately, he died before the decree nisi was made absolute. Mrs. Chepstow's future had been committed to the Fates, and they had turned down ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... placing horizontal lines of ornament on a skirt effectively. In general, rows of tucks or ornament should diminish in width from the bottom towards the top. The plain spaces should be greater than those ornamented. When ornament gives absolute evenness of space division in skirt or waist the effect is apt to ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... if I will give you the tangible proof of your mother's marriage. I have told you that I can do so; that I know the whole story of the elopement and the desertion. I can produce absolute proof that Mona Forester ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... govern the biological evolution of man are known, but those which govern his moral nature cannot be known; the moral nature appertains to the Absolute, and hence is not subject to the ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... the rubber. The instrument is raised or lowered to suit convenience, while the patient gently presses portions of the trunk successively upon the rubbing-pad. The degree of the effect is thus always under the absolute control of the one receiving the action. This operation, like the preceding, produces great heat, reddens the skin, relieves pain, and greatly stimulates the functions, not only of the skin, but of the organs contained in the cavities of the chest ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... firmly in the absolute justice of woman's claim to the 'Parliamentary' franchise, I shall at all times support that claim."—Mr. Logan, the new M.P. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various

... thoughts were these: "This wonderful man can do or undertake nothing without producing his own self from his inner fullness he can never be merely reproductive; no other action than the purely productive is possible to him; all in him tends to absolute, pure production, and yet he has never yet concentrated his whole power of will on the production of a great work. Is he, with all his individuality, too little of an egoist? Is he too full of love, and does he resemble Jesus on the Cross, ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... revision or amendment. The London Company, thrice chartered to take over to itself the land and resources of Virginia and populate its zone of rule, was endowed with sweeping rights and privileges which made it an absolute monopoly. The impecunious noblemen or gentlemen who transported themselves to Virginia to recoup their dissipated fortunes or seek adventure, encountered no trouble in getting large grants of land especially when after 1614 tobacco became a fashionable article in England ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... If, then, you require a renunciation of his conscience, as a preliminary to his admission to the rights of society, you annex, morally speaking, an impossible condition to it. In this case, in the language of reason and jurisprudence, the condition would be void, and the gift absolute; as the practice runs, it is to establish the condition, and to withhold the benefit. The suffering is, then, not voluntary. And I never heard any other argument, drawn from the nature of laws and the good of human society, urged in favor of those ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke



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