"Absorb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... occupations. What is new, altogether new, must first find a function, and that is difficult. If, now, a child remembers something, he will first try to fit it to some function of memory already present and this will then absorb the new fact, well or ill, as the case may be. The frequent oversight of this fact is the reason for many a false interpretation of what the child said; he is believed to have perceived falsely and to have made false restatements, when he ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... luckily for itself, has the majority of its population economically independent as workers on the land, and which, in the development of agriculture now made necessary as a result of changes in naval warfare, will be able to absorb without much trouble its returning workers. Ireland will be much quieter, less revolutionary and less expensive to govern. I ask what reason is there to suppose that taxation in a self-governing Ireland would ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... that moment, so close as to make me jump in spite of years of learning to absorb shocks stoically—right at my elbow it seemed to (the girl jumped too, I may say)—a voice said, ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... It is curious," I went on, "how we let this idiotic love-passion absorb us to the very last. It is wholly unimportant who marries who, or whether anybody marries at all. And yet we no sooner have the making of a love-affair within reach than we revert to the folly of our ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... not so wholly absorb his thoughts, but that he promulgated the laws of translation in a preface to the English Epistles of Ovid; one of which he translated himself, and another in conjunction with the earl ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... clothing should be worn by those who have care of the sick, in preference to dark-colored apparel; particularly if the disease is of a contagious character. Experiments have shown, that black and other dark colors will absorb more readily the subtile effluvia that emanate from sick persons, than white ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... larger the plate, the better it is able to absorb the energy of impact without injury ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... a strange purity and a strange pugnacity. But the Irish peasant also has qualities which are common to all peasants, and his nation has qualities that are common to all healthy nations. I mean chiefly the things that most of us absorb in childhood; especially the sense of the supernatural and the sense of the natural; the love of the sky with its infinity of vision, and the love of the soil with its strict hedges and solid shapes of ownership. But here comes the paradox of Shaw; the greatest of all his paradoxes ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... said: "You know, I'm simply dead. I don't think I can absorb anything more profitably. Let's go and sit down on one ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... more resplendence, elsewhere less. In heav'n, That largeliest of his light partakes, was I, Witness of things, which to relate again Surpasseth power of him who comes from thence; For that, so near approaching its desire Our intellect is to such depth absorb'd, That memory cannot follow. Nathless all, That in my thoughts I of that sacred realm Could store, shall now be matter of my song. Benign Apollo! this last labour aid, And make me such a vessel of thy worth, As thy ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... Having arranged their plan of action, they all prepared for a big corrobboree. They sent word to all the surrounding tribes, asking them to attend, especially they begged the Bralgahs to come, as they were celebrated for their wonderful dancing, which was so wonderful as to be most likely to absorb the attention of ...
— Australian Legendary Tales - Folklore of the Noongahburrahs as told to the Piccaninnies • K. Langloh Parker
... us, we put it aside immediately. Possibly we recollect, next time that our eyes light upon a volume so discarded, that it was once displeasing, and we never take it up again. So, it may be urged, our mind exercises the power of selection for us: we can only absorb at any given time the class of literary food for which our mind ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... late I sat reclin'd, And waking dreams absorb'd my mind, A damsel came, of various dyes, Like painted Iris from the skies; A purfled saffron was her vest, And sweet gum-cistus form'd her crest; In many a playful ring, her hair Flew light and flossy in the air; The mantle, blue and gold, she wore, A rose of ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... Next, suff'ring grievous torments, I beheld Tantalus; in a pool he stood, his chin Wash'd by the wave; thirst-parch'd he seem'd, but found Nought to assuage his thirst; for when he bow'd His hoary head, ardent to quaff, the flood Vanish'd absorb'd, and, at his feet, adust The soil appear'd, dried, instant, by the Gods. 720 Tall trees, fruit-laden, with inflected heads Stoop'd to him, pomegranates, apples bright, The luscious fig, and unctuous olive smooth; Which when with sudden grasp he would have seized, Winds hurl'd ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... to George Corvick of the caution I had received he made me feel that any doubt of his delicacy would be almost an insult. He had instantly told Gwendolen, but Gwendolen's ardent response was in itself a pledge of discretion. The question would now absorb them and would offer them a pastime too precious to be shared with the crowd. They appeared to have caught instinctively at Vereker's high idea of enjoyment. Their intellectual pride, however, was not such as to make them indifferent to any further light I might ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... mountain region, the purest American strain left to us, hold the interest and appeal of a changing, vanishing type. The tide of enlightenment and commercial prosperity must presently sweep in and absorb them. And so I might hope that a faithful picture of the life and manners I have sought to represent in Judith of the Cumberlands would be the better ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... steps toward seeking speculative clients, as the trade speculators who had come in were sufficient in number to absorb all that class of business I cared for in ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... For first, it seems to be most unlikely; and next, and more important to an inductive philosopher, there is no proof of it. I see no savages becoming really civilised men—that is—not merely men who will ape the outside of our so-called civilisation, even absorb a few of our ideas; not merely that; but truly civilised men who will think for themselves, invent for themselves, act for themselves; and when the sacred lamp of light and truth has been passed ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... conspicuous by some society leader, it would at once step from its humbler position as semi-precious, and rise to the nobler classification of a truly precious stone, by reason of the demand created for it, which would, in all probability, absorb the available stock to rarity; and this despite the more entrancing beauty of ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... have adopted new methods of government, the markets of the world will be upset by the product of these four hundred million. China is to-day in transformation—fluctuant, far-reaching, limited only by the capacity of a singularly excitable people to absorb new ideas. ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... 9 muriatic acid solution and then washed free of all acid and scrubbed with wire brushes. After preparing the fresh surface it is well wetted; in fact water soaked, so that, while not oozing moisture it will absorb no more water. The mixed mortar is then applied with a trowel in a workmanlike manner. In mixing, no more than 8 gallons of water per barrel of mortar should be used. The coatings used are 3/8 to 5/8 in. for walls and to in. for ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... old method and the new that is to follow. For there will probably be no more plays like Pelleas et Melisande, or even like Aglavaine et Selysette. Real men and women, real problems and disturbance of life—it is these that absorb him now. His next play will doubtless deal with a psychology more actual, in an atmosphere less romantic; and the old familiar scene of wood, and garden, and palace corridor will be exchanged for ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... nature feeds on opposition, and the failure of his first attempt merely prepared Prescott for a second. The affair, too, began to absorb his mind to such an extent that his friends noticed his lack of interest in the society and amusements of Richmond. He had been well received there, his own connections, his new friends, and above all his pleasing personality, exercising a powerful influence; and, coming from the rough ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... and breath each absorb certain things, and are, therefore, designated by the same term 'absorber.' Seya/m/ sa/m/vargad/ri/sh/t/ir vayau pra/n/e /k/a da/s/a/s/agata/m/ jagad dar/s/ayati yatha jivatmani ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... such deposits and form tubercles to such proportions as to become living zoophytes capable of covering all of the mucous membrane of the lungs, air passages and cells, and establish a perpetual dwelling of zoophytes and absorb to themselves for their own maintenance and existence, blood and nourishment of the whole body unto death? This being the result of one chemical action of the body and all by and from nature, is it not reasonable to suppose ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... say anything by way of reply, two of them remarked sneeringly: "With all this doltish bluntness of his will he after all absorb himself in abstraction?" While Hsiang-yuen also clapped her hands and laughed, "Cousin ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... spirit. When that comes to pass it will be high time for the day of judgment to dawn. Emmanuel Geibel, in his poem Mythus, has symbolized this natural aversion to the extreme measures of a civilization which would absorb every form of wild nature. He creates a legend about the demon of steam, who is chained and forced to do menial service. The latter will break his bonds again and with his primitive titanic strength, which has been slumbering in the heart of the world, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... runaways from the army came rushing in at the Porte de Namur, and these fugitives increased the public panic to the utmost. Sauve qui peut! now became the universal feeling; all ties of friendship or kindred were forgotten, and an earnest desire to quit Brussels seemed to absorb every faculty. To effect this object, the greatest sacrifices were made. Every beast of burthen, and every species of vehicle were put into requisition to convey persons and property to Antwerp. Even the dogs and fish-carts did not escape—enormous sums were given for the humblest modes of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... vegetables and arid earth seize with avidity, and imbibe the moisture ere it becomes unpleasant to our feelings, there had fallen a drizzling rain throughout the night; the saturated soil returned to the atmosphere the humidity it could no longer absorb; and there it hung, in chilling thickness, between rain and fog. The birds did not sing, and the flowers did not open, for the cold drop was on their cheek, and no sunbeam was there to expand them. ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... Hawthorne consul at Liverpool. This consulship then netted the holder between $5000 and $7000 a year. After nearly four years' service in this position, he resigned and traveled in Europe with his family. They lived in Rome sufficiently long for him to absorb the local color for his romance of The Marble Faun. He remained abroad for seven years. The record of his travels and impressions may be found in his English Note-Books and in his French and Italian Note-Books. Our Old Home, a volume based on his English ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... to ride; I used to saddle it myself and set off alone for long rides, break into a rapid gallop and fancy myself a knight at a tournament. How gaily the wind whistled in my ears! or turning my face towards the sky, I would absorb its shining radiance and blue into my soul, that ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... in a croquette basket before placing it in the hot fat. This prevents the food from moving about, which sometimes causes the crust to loosen from the food, allowing it to absorb the fat. ...
— Fifty-Two Sunday Dinners - A Book of Recipes • Elizabeth O. Hiller
... would be able to carry on the war without the issue of more paper money, that the currency then outstanding and that which by law he was authorized to issue would be sufficient to carry it on. Such a currency would lead to the conversion of the notes into bonds, and by this process the people would absorb the national loan and enable him to carry on the government without any sacrifice ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... occupied territory increases so does the amount of wealth in the country advance, as well as the demand for labour; and the natural increase of population falling far short of this, and not supplying a sufficient number of persons to absorb the wealth which the country is capable of producing, a demand for emigration arises, and a stimulus to it is given by the ease with which wealth and comfort are acquired ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... will be reporting the fluctuating pressure of economic demand and transferring workers from this region of excess to that of scarcity; and whenever the excess is universal, the World State—failing an adequate development of private enterprise—will either reduce the working day and so absorb the excess, or set on foot some permanent special works of its own, paying the minimum wage and allowing them to progress just as slowly or just as rapidly as the ebb and flow of labour dictated. But with sane marriage and birth laws there is no reason to suppose such calls upon the resources ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... blindness. A feeling of tranquil joy always comes over me during such great convulsions of Nature. I very often had myself bound near the binnacle, and let the tremendous waves break over me, in order to absorb, as it were, as much of the spectacle before me as possible; on no occasion did I ever feel alarmed, but always confident ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... occupying the most convenient seat in it has to beat a mild retreat and take his hat with him when they appear. The more fashionable, and solemnly-balanced Catholics attend the services at eleven and half-past six. They are made of respectable metal which will stand a good deal of calm hammering, and absorb a considerable quantity of virtuous moisture. At this, as at all other Catholic chapels, the usual aqueous and genuflecting movements are made; and they are all done very devotedly. More water, we think, is spilled at the entrance, than is necessary; ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... if your "squashy spot" is made so by spring rains, all is well; if not, it must be drained in some easy way, like running a length of clay pipe beneath, so that the overplus of water will flow off when the Iris growth cannot absorb it. ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... of the Saints" seem to have increased to such an extent that they threatened to absorb all others. In West Ireland especially, little hermitages sprung up in companies of dozens and hundreds, all over the rock-strewn wastes, and along the sad shores of the Atlantic, dotting themselves like sea gulls upon barren points of rock, or upon sandy ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... is clear, in this passage an allusion to the custom of savages of all nations and periods, of eating portions of the bodies of valiant foes whom they have vanquished in war in order to absorb their virtues and strength; the same habit has also obtained in some places in respect of animals. In the case of the gods the deceased is made to covet their one peculiar attribute, that is to say, everlasting life; and when he has absorbed their souls and spirits he is declared to have obtained ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... then looked up at Stanton. "You've been through five years of hell, Mr. Stanton. In addition, you've been pretty much isolated here. Dr. Farnsworth, here, has tried to keep you informed, but, as I understand it, it has only been during the last few months that you've actually been able to absorb and retain information reliably. At least, that's the report I get. How do you ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... debilitating effects of heat and humidity, aided by tropical diseases, soon reduce intruding peoples to the dead level of economic inefficiency characteristic of the native races. These, as the fittest, survive and tend to absorb the new-comers, pointing to hybridization as the simplest solution of the problem of ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... thoroughly painted inside and outside, without being so smooth as to annoy the bees; for they travel over the frames to which the combs are attached; and thus whether the inside surface is glass or wood, it is not liable to crack, or warp, or absorb moisture, after the hive is occupied by the bees. If the hives are painted inside, it should be done sometime before they are used. If the interior of the wooden hive is brushed with a very hot mixture of the rosin and bees-wax, the hives may be ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... may combat the image, the memory of the frail and ephemeral reality that continually besets me. Fervently do I implore Heaven to awaken within me the power of the imagination, that it may create a likeness, a symbol of this conception, that shall be all-embracing, and absorb and efface the image of Pepita. This highest conception, on which I desire to center my love, is vague, shadowy, indescribable, like the blackness of darkness; while Pepita's image presents itself to me in clearly defined outlines, bright, palpable, ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... des Sciences morales et politiques, and in addition he became Officier de la Legion d'Honneur, and Officier de l'Instruction publique. He found disciples of many varied types, and in France movements such as Neo-Catholicism or Modernism on the one hand and Syndicalism on the other, endeavoured to absorb and to appropriate for their own immediate use and propaganda some of the central ideas of his teaching. That important continental organ of socialist and syndicalist theory, Le Mouvement socialiste, suggested that the realism of Karl Marx and Prudhon is hostile to all forms of intellectualism, ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... of raisins, stoned; beat butter and sugar to a cream, then add eggs beaten, coffee, flour sifted, and cream tartar, well mixed with it. Spices and raisins, then soda dissolved in sufficient warm water to absorb it. Thoroughly mix, and ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... the young man hazarded timidly, "it seems to me that art, however exigent it be, cannot for all that entirely absorb a woman. What would she do with her affections, of that need to love, to devote herself, which in her, much more than in us, is the spring ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... a day to walk about a picture-gallery with you. Come, let us sit down, and we'll talk about lighter things, about lovers. You won't mind telling me; you know you can trust me. One of these days you will meet a man who will absorb you utterly, and all these passing passions will wax to one passion that will know ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... ready to return to another lecture with more understanding. No wonder these tired boys under the heavy, hot steel helmets, which absorb the heat of the scorching sun, are listening with all their ears, yet one or two fall asleep for very weariness and may again be caught napping by the enemy's poison gas up the line. The instructor is in dead earnest, for the life of every ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... in Russia, Ivan, a full comprehension of that great game means power. Understand, the utterance of such a sentiment would mean Siberia. But this young Alexander is simply a puppy. He's to be influenced by a footman—by a serf! See that you reach him, then. Study him: learn him: absorb him. Then find your own methods and stick to them; stopping at absolutely nothing they may carry you to. It's the stopping, sooner or later, that is the universal mistake: the mistake I've never made—else I should have been in the gutter yet. You begin, Ivan, where I end. ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Southern mountains wait the coming of opportunity and uplift. Still large numbers of Mexicans in the Southwest, ignorant and superstitious, are a retarding element in their communities. Still vast immigrant settlements remain untouched by regenerating influences and absorb, as well as contribute, much ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... which have taken the place of trees unquestionably perform many of the same functions. They radiate heat, they absorb gases, and exhale uncombined gases and watery vapor, and consequently act upon the chemical constitution and hygrometrical condition of the air, their roots penetrate the earth to greater depths than is commonly supposed, and form an inextricable ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... in the 12th century, the Principality of Muscovy, was able to emerge from over 200 years of Mongol domination (13th-15th centuries) and to gradually conquer and absorb surrounding principalities. In the early 17th century, a new Romanov Dynasty continued this policy of expansion across Siberia to the Pacific. Under PETER I (ruled 1682-1725), hegemony was extended to the Baltic Sea and the country was renamed the Russian Empire. ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... see the look of astonishment, not to say disdain, with which she regarded my position; more particularly as little Charles, elevated, as I have said, upon my shoulders, with his legs on each side of my neck, did lift up the professional hat, which did entirely absorb his countenance, with great courtesy, and made a most grave and ceremonious obeisance unto the lofty lady. She pursued her path, returning the salutation with a kind of smile, and at the same easy ambling pace as was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... counter-poisons which he thinks indispensable, and he lacks the organic, ordering mind which mechanical employment has destroyed. Even if some did get back, it would be in vain, for though agriculture is hungering for thousands of hands it cannot absorb millions. The worker has no means of comparison; hence his bottomless contempt for intellectual work, the results of which he recognizes, but which, in regard to the labour it costs, he puts on a level with the idling of the folk whom ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... than with strangers, and as a rule the cure is more certain; but when men receive disabling wounds, or have sickness likely to become permanent, the sooner they go far to the rear the better for all. The tent or the shelter of a tree is a better hospital than a house, whose walls absorb fetid and poisonous emanations, and then give them back to the atmosphere. To men accustomed to the open air, who live on the plainest food, wounds seem to give less pain, and are attended with less danger to life than ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... seem to be favored in certain lands; Cricket in England, hand ball in Ireland, and baseball in the United States. But, then, as we adopt and absorb peoples of all nationalities so we take all the good things they have to offer in the way of games and, modifying them to suit our own tastes, we make ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... avoid having to do much watering—for unless you water thoroughly at such a time it is better not to water at all. However, if it finally becomes necessary to apply water, the dust mulch has kept the ground in condition to absorb all the water that ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... already overdone. It is not to be inferred from this that the new law will cause factories to run day and night, or keep the merchant's door always on the swing. There will be an increase of business surely; but this world is not like a goose whose liver we are after. Her capacity to absorb what we make or produce is limited, and when we reach that limit, let us be content, and chain down Greed for the moment, that we may look out and see how beautiful is this world whereon we live, when freed from the crack of ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... little points. They look as if my expressions are a pose.) Yet there are moods in which I am entirely normal and no one fancies what I am passing through. I have even become superstitious lately. Are there perhaps beings which can absorb our energy? Perhaps another being has drunk up ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... AHRIMAN and his subordinate ministers of Evil were at last, by means of a Redeemer and Mediator, to be reconciled with Deity, and all Evil to end. But unfortunately, the philosopher forgets all the laws of equilibrium, and seeks to absorb the Light in a splendor without shadow, and movement in an absolute repose that would be the cessation of life. So long as there shall be a visible light, there will be a shadow proportional to this ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the natural world we absorb heat, breathe air, draw on Environment all but automatically for meat and drink, for the nourishment of the senses, for mental stimulus, for all that, penetrating us from without, can prolong, enrich, and elevate life. But in the spiritual world we have all this to learn. ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... receptacle, and in a cool, dry, well-ventilated place. It should not be allowed to remain in close proximity to any substances of strong odor, as it very readily absorbs odors and gaseous impurities. A damp atmosphere will cause it to absorb moisture, and as a result the gluten will lose some of its tenacity and become sticky, and bread made from the flour will be coarser and inferior in quality. Flour which has absorbed dampness from any cause should be ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... of some schools are paved with bricks, which I have found to answer very well, as they absorb the rain so quickly, that ten minutes after a shower, the place is dry enough for the children to play in; which, perhaps, would not be the case with any other kind of paving. They are commonly placed flat on the ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... canvas, will sometimes allow us to realise completely and uninterruptedly. And it is no poetical metaphor or metaphysical figment, but mere psychological fact, to say that if the interlacing circles and pentacles of a Byzantine floor-pattern absorb us in satisfied contemplation, this is because the modes of being which we are obliged to invest them with are such as we vainly seek, or experience only to lose, in our scattered or ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... Nevertheless, though in their operation upon them the moral feelings are thus elevatory of the mental faculties, yet in their conjunction with them they seem to occupy, in their own fulness, such room as to absorb and overshadow all else, so that the simultaneous exercise of both is in a sort impossible; for which cause we occasionally find the moral part in full development and action, without corresponding expanding of the intellect (though never without healthy condition ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... her likeness to a half-opened blossom, is as near purity and sweetness as a human creature can be, yet what does the world do with its opening buds?—it thrusts them in the forcing-house amidst the ordure, and then, if they perish prematurely, never blames itself. The streets absorb the girls of the poor; society absorbs the daughters of the rich; and not seldom one form of prostitution, like the other, keeps its captives "bound in the dungeon of ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... to Edinburgh, the university was not in one of its palmiest periods. The medical professors failed to attract him to their profession, and two years of Edinburgh satisfied him that medicine should not absorb him. With natural history the case was different. Its attractiveness for Darwin increased. He found congenial companionship in the Edinburgh Plinian Society, and Mr. W. F. Ainsworth relates (in The ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... man constitute a cycle. The books on him and his times make a library, the perusal and study of which might absorb a large section of an active life. The name of such productions is legion. Most of them will fortunately perish. The controversial aspect of the life of the Emperor must at last subside. Nine out of ten of the books about him will go down to the nether oblivion. Then the judicial aspect ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... made Jeanne start a little. She was suddenly conscious that she was comparing the two men, and that one seemed to take hold of her, hurry her along, as it were, and absorb her attention, until she could only bring her thoughts back to the other with an effort. Barrington stood out clear and distinct, definite in word and action, knowing what he intended to do and doing it without thinking of failure; Lucien was a shadow ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... very striking in respect to the quantity of water they contain: in the latter, rain is immediately absorbed by the cracked porous soil, which requires an immense quantity of moisture before it allows any drainage; whereas the sandstone forms steeper slopes, and does not absorb the rain so quickly, so that the water runs down the slopes, and collects in holes at the foot of the hills parallel to the creeks. Scrubs are frequent round the low rises of sandstone; and, where the country is level, and the soil loamy, the hollows are often filled with water by the thunder-storms. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... from the world's strife and jealousy. It scarcely contemplated that the harassed millions of Europe would flock to its fold, and it did not foresee that, in less than a hundred years, its own citizens would sweep across the three thousand miles of forest and plain and mountain to the Western Ocean, absorb French and Spanish Louisiana, Spanish Texas, Mexico, and California, fill this land with broad farmsteads and populous cities, cover it with a network ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... touch only the rich and others have to do with the poor alone; some interest only the capitalist and others interest only those who toil with their hands; some absorb the thought of only the white race while others have to do with the black and yellow races; some have to do only with the educated while others reach none but the ignorant; but here is a problem that ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... what might have been found even at the time of my visit; for I made no pretense of doing any real botanical work, having neither the time nor the equipment. The birds kept me busy, for the most part, when the country itself did not absorb my attention. ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... in a large and liberal way, like Daniel Webster, "a great advocate employed in politics." Evarts was also an economist of morals, but with him the question was rather how much morality one could afford. "The world can absorb only doses of truth," he said; "too much would kill it." One sought education in order to adjust ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... a pressure of 1000 psi or more. Known as the "air blast" type of injection it produced good turbulence, with the fuel and air thoroughly mixed before being ignited. Such mixing increases engine efficiency, but it involves the provision of bulky and costly air-compressing apparatus which can absorb more than 5 percent of the engine's power. Naturally the compressor also adds considerably to the ...
— The First Airplane Diesel Engine: Packard Model DR-980 of 1928 • Robert B. Meyer
... to-day as they did within the recollection of our forefathers. (32) And once more everything that is taking place to-day tends to prove that, whatever the number of slaves employed, you will never have more than the works can easily absorb. The miners find no limit of depth in sinking shafts or laterally in piercing galleries. To open cuttings in new directions to-day is just as possible as it was in former times. In fact no one can take on himself ...
— On Revenues • Xenophon
... Although this statement of expenditures would indicate a material reduction in amount compared with the preceding year, it is believed that the changes in the pension laws at the last session of Congress will absorb that amount the current year. At the close of the last fiscal year there were on the pension rolls 99,804 invalid military pensioners and 112,088 widows, orphans, and dependent relatives of deceased soldiers, making a total of that class of 211,892; 18,266 survivors of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... hall, Celia in the next room at the piano, and Edna herself with the Children's Page of the paper spread out before her where she lay at full length on the big rug before the fire. Somehow the page of stories and puzzles did not absorb her as much as usual. She wondered what Reliance was doing, if her grandmother felt lonely without her little granddaughter, and if the white kitten missed her. She saw the long street bordered by maples, ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... equally transfer its motion to fork A, and when both are vibrating together, each is the recipient of part of the other's motion, while at the same time giving off motion in the form of sound waves itself. So that the power of a fork to radiate sound waves equals its power to absorb sound waves. If now we apply this simile to the atomic and molecular world, we shall be able to form a mental picture as to what takes place ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... London. His habits were such as are formed by life in a great city; his conversation betrays a man who has lived, as it were, in a crowd, and the busy haunts of men were the appropriate scene for the display of his great qualities. London, even then, was a great city, and the study of it might well absorb a lifetime. Falstaff knew it well, from the Court, with which he always preserved a connection, to the numerous taverns where he met his friends and eluded his creditors. The Boar's Head in Eastcheap ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... and the stately flood of petition poured on, as through open gates to the boundless sea that awaited it, where the very heart of God was to absorb it into Itself. ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... our fugitives walked steadily in the direction of their guiding-star, until the dawn of day began to absorb its light. Then they selected a couple of prominent bushes on the horizon, and, by keeping these always in their relative positions, were enabled to shape their course in what they believed to be the right direction. By repeating the process continuously they were enabled to ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... seed of the plant which flourished so luxuriantly under better conditions in later times. The feudal system fostered the growth of the sentiment into the institution, as a palliative to anarchy and as an ornament to life, while the Church, always eager to absorb enthusiasm and power into her own ranks, adopted the institution as the Holy Order, and adding religious devotion to the inspiration of love, directed the energies of chivalry into the work of civilization, and made the knight the champion of the weak, in ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... compensate for the conditions which were met in increasing severity. Yet they were eating rather more than their full ration a considerable part of the time. It has to be considered that the temperatures met by them averaged far below -10 deg.: that they did not absorb all their food: that increased heat was wanted not only for energy to do extra work caused by bad surfaces and contrary winds, but also to heat their bodies, and to thaw out ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... liberty to call the attention of the readers to the great amount of information condensed within the space of each lesson. Students have told us that they have found it necessary to read and study each lesson carefully, in order to absorb the varied information contained within its pages. They have also stated that they have found it advisable to re-read the lessons several times, allowing an interval between the readings, and that at each reading they would discover information that had escaped them during the course of the ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... had normal families, the Roumanians have increased by assimilation (a woman marrying into a Serbian family will often cause them all to speak her easier language). The Serbs, however, will in their part of the Banat absorb the others if they show political understanding and a liberal spirit. "We will give the Germans," said Pribi[vc]evi['c] to one of them at Ver[vs]ac—"we will give them everything up ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... those billions of tiny animals," he went on, "those infusoria that live by the millions in one droplet of water, 800,000 of which are needed to weigh one milligram, their role is no less important. They absorb the marine salts, they assimilate the solid elements in the water, and since they create coral and madrepores, they're the true builders of limestone continents! And so, after they've finished depriving our water drop of its mineral nutrients, ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... Aubrey began to absorb the conversation. "Lessons, Aubrey," she said. "So, Margaret, you ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... its two great principles, polygamy and chieftainship, yet flourish and are strong. Time will undo his work, and find for these also a place among forgotten things. And it is the undoubted duty of us English, who absorb people and territories in the high name of civilisation, to be true to our principles and our aim, and aid the great destroyer by any and every safe and justifiable means. But between the legitimate means ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... a long time,' she said, 'without coming here. Is your profession really so engaging and interesting as to absorb your whole attention? I ask because I always want to be informed, when I am ignorant. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... You have hands to square and hew Vast marble-blocks, hard on your day of doom, Ever building mansions new, Nor thinking of the mansion of the tomb. Now you press on ocean's bound, Where waves on Baiae beat, as earth were scant; Now absorb your neighbour's ground, And tear his landmarks up, your own to plant. Hedges set round clients' farms Your avarice tramples; see, the outcasts fly, Wife and husband, in their arms Their fathers' gods, their squalid family. ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... hats accentuated the manner, the height and the sturdiness of the men whose physique was unsurpassed at the British front, and practically all were smooth-shaven. For generations they had had adequate nutrition and they had the capacity to absorb it, which generations from the slums may lack even ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... In such moments it is, that we best perceive the profound difference between matter and form. These are not two acts of ours, face to face with one another; but we assault and carry off the one that is outside us, while that within us tends to absorb and make its own that without. Matter, attacked and conquered by form, gives place to concrete form. It is the matter, the content, that differentiates one of our intuitions from another: form is constant: it is spiritual activity, ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... prevail, and finally absorb every thing else. The soul is an inconceivably minute particle of the most refined matter, endowed with indestructible life, at the dissolution of one body passing, according to its merits, into a higher or lower ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Gluck and Wagner, but from every true musical dramatist that ever lived! And when the Frenchmen (and their feeble echoers in England and America) began to cry out that the world make obeisance to Moussorgsky on that score, there was no wonder that those whose eagerness to enjoy led them to absorb too much information should ask how this marvellous psychical assonance between word and tone was to be conveyed to their unfortunate sense and feeling after the original Russian word had been transmogrified into French or English. In New York the opera, which we know to be saturated in some ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... she had to give Craven the impression that she was beyond the age of love, that the sensations of love were dead in her beyond hope of resurrection. She had to play at detachment when her one desire was to absorb and to be absorbed, had to sustain an appearance of physical coldness while she was burning with physical fever. She had to create a false atmosphere about her, and to do it so cleverly that it seemed absolutely genuine, the emanation of her ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... sanctuary. Friendship might be allowed there, and flirtation disguised as love; but the overweening and devouring influence of love itself should never be admitted to destroy the calm of daily intercourse and absorb into a single channel attentions due to all. Politics were to be tolerated, so long as they remained a game; so soon as they grew serious and envisaged the public good, they became insufferable. As for literature and art, though they might be excellent as subjects for recreation ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... fashion upon the rug before the grate and, holding the golden figure in her lap, gazed down into the sparkling stones which served for eyes. The light played upon the dull, raw gold, throwing flickering shadows over its face. The thing seemed to absorb the light growing ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... oblivion and of having initiated the movement which to-day rules the natural sciences. Studies in embryology and anatomy are rising without number beneath this impulse; and perhaps it may be said that these new sciences, so fruitful in results, absorb a little too much attention and leave in the shade subjects longer known, but which, however, gain new interest by the way they ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... occupied the greater part of their energies, though it did not absorb all their resources, and often left them times of respite, of which they availed themselves to extend their domain to the north and east. We cannot yet tell which of the Assyrian sovereigns added the nearest provinces of the Upper Tigris to his realm; but when the names ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... rather than its spiritual aspects. Now the idealism of youth is present in nations just as in individuals, though probably a nation is less conscious of it than an individual. It is with the nation one of the effects of the instinct of self-preservation, and for a youthful nation to absorb the vices of an old decadent one would be self-destruction. Thus the youthful Rome rejected most of the Etruscan poison, and thus nature purified herself, and Etruria was buried in the pit ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... window at the prospect below; at the trees bordering the winding embankment; at the ancient monolith which for unnumbered ages had looked across desert sands to the Nile, and now looked down upon another river of many mysteries. The view seemed to absorb his attention. He spoke ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... necessary is a simple background of drapery, of such a tone of color as to harmonize with, and yet to give full prominence to, the group of actors. The material of the latter as also the covering of the floor, should be of woolen or velvet, so as to absorb rather than reflect light. A lustrous background, as of satin or glazed calico, will completely destroy the effect of an otherwise ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... nor is it contained in the state of their cases. Proofs, it is true, make the judges presume that our cause is the better, but passion makes them wish it to be such, and as they wish it, they are not far from believing it to be so. For as soon as they begin to absorb from us our passions of anger, favor, hatred, or pity, they make the affair their own. As lovers can not be competent judges of beauty, because love blinds them, so here a judge attentive to the tumultuous ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... nation will endeavour to put a wet blanket over the nascent fires of Spanish ambition in the miserable new States of the Northern Continent, and to absorb them in the stars of Columbia, there can be no doubt. California, the most distant of the old American settlements of Spain, has felt already the bald eagle's claw; Texas is annexed; and unless European interests prevent it, which they must ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... watches over her by day and by night, that facilitates her maternal duties and gets ready the cells wherein the eggs shall be laid; she has loving attendants who pet and caress her, feed her and clean her, and even absorb her excrement. Should the least accident befall her the news will spread quickly from group to group, and the whole population will rush to and fro in loud lamentation. Seize her, imprison her, take her away from the hive at a time when the bees shall have no hope of filling her place, ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the blood in the fetus is farther illustrated by the analogy of the chick in the egg; which appears to have its blood oxygenated at the extremities of the vessels surrounding the yolk; which are spread on the air-bag at the broad end of the egg, and may absorb oxygene through that moist membrane from the air confined behind it; and which is shewn by experiments in the exhausted receiver to be changeable though ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... a little beer left in the bottom of the second bottle. Fritz poured it out, with a gloomy resolution to absorb it ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... demand alone, shutting out importations, the population of Oregon will have more than doubled, and the amount expended in this state for walnuts will approach if it does not exceed the million-dollar mark. In addition to this the eastern markets will be clamoring for Oregon walnuts, as they now absorb Hood River apples, Willamette valley cherries and Rogue River valley pears. With eastern buyers always ready to pay an extra price for extra grade products, superior grades of Oregon walnuts will undoubtedly be contracted for, leaving only ...
— Walnut Growing in Oregon • Various
... arrangements for their accommodation at Kleinwalde, Anna's new possession. Susie proposed to stay a day in Berlin, which would give Anna time to talk everything over with the lawyer, and would enable Letty to visit the museums. She had a hopeful idea that Letty would absorb German at every pore once she was in the country itself, and that being brought face to face with the statues of Goethe and Schiller on their native soil would kindle the sparks of interest in German literature that she supposed every well-taught child possessed, into the roaring flame ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... will have a similar effect. Sulphur burnt for the same purpose, has the power of overcoming the effects of noxious vapours. Shallow vessels filled with lime water are of great use in absorbing carbonic acid gas, especially in workshops where charcoal is burnt. Newly prepared charcoal will absorb various kinds of noxious effluvia, and might be used with considerable advantage for the purification of privies, if small pieces of it are strewed upon the floor. Never venture into a sick room if you are in a violent perspiration ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... which an inn exists. The feature of these inns which I remember, I think, with the least relish was the condition of the floors. It is literally true that they are never washed. A daily sprinkling is the only cleansing process they undergo: its effect is to soften the wood until it begins to absorb a large proportion of the rubbish which is often but never thoroughly swept up, and grows black and evil-odored. This result is most manifest, of course, and most offensive in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... hands.' Money, knowledge, the good opinion of our fellows, success in a political career—these, and the like, are our gods. There is a worse idolatry than that which bows down before stocks and stones. The aims that absorb us; our highest ideal of excellence; that which possessed, we think would secure our blessedness; that lacking which everything else is insipid and vain—these are our gods: and the solemn prohibition may well be thundered ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... confederacy and to league together all the older Arian monarchies against this one aspiring Catholic state, which threatened to absorb them all, was now the main purpose of Theodoric. He seems, however, to have remained meanwhile on terms of courtesy and apparent harmony with his ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... old French customs of producing artistic conversations and deaths and other things, and eventually they wrote one of those "Ha" and "Zounds" plays for the Dramatic Club. In fact, there's no limit to what you can absorb from idle and vicious companions. In one term alone I myself picked up banjo playing, pole vaulting, a little Spanish, a bad case of mumps, and two flunks, simply by associating with the Eta Bita Pie gang ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... Big House there was no suspicion of what was going forward in the forest beyond; indeed the occupants had certain problems of their own to absorb them. A strange unrest seemed in possession of the place. Decherd had disappeared for a time. Mrs. Ellison, in her own room, rang and called in vain for Delphine. The master himself, moody and aloof, ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... frame the new pattern plate. The vibrator frame itself is secured to the machine structure by the four larger bolts, the holes for which are shown in the inner corners. These bolts are, as shown in Fig. 7, surrounded by thick bushings. These bushings are elastic to such a degree as to absorb the sharp vibrations of vibrator frame and patterns, while so firm and well fitted as to hold patterns accurately to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... Rhone, o'er swelling tides, To grace old ocean's court, in triumph rides, Tho' rich his source, he drains a thousand springs, Nor scorns the tribute each small rivulet brings. So thou shalt, hence, absorb each feeble ray, Each dawn of meaning, in thy brighter day; Shalt like, or, where thou canst not like, excuse, Since no mean interest shall profane the muse, No malice, wrapt in truth's disguise, offend, Nor flattery taint the freedom of the friend. ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... to embrace. abrazo embrace. abreviar to abridge. abrigo shelter. Abril m. April. abrir to open. abrumar to overwhelm. absolutista absolutist, ultra-conservative. absoluto absolute. absorber to absorb. abuelo-a grandparent, ancestor. abultar to increase, enlarge. abundancia abundance. aburrir to weary, bore; vr. be bored, abuso ill use, abuse. aca here, hither. acabar to finish, end; —— de, to have just... ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... and forcing upon it a leading part in Eastern affairs, might cause that house to pay less regard to German matters, leaving them to be managed by the House of Hohenzollern. Russia, under the system that Nicholas pursued, could not have seen Austria absorb Italy without resisting the process at any cost; but Alexander IV., [Footnote: I call the present czar Alexander the Fourth, as there have been three other Alexanders sovereigns of Russia; but he is generally styled Alexander the Second.] a wiser man than his father was, never ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... nights, what uninteresting, uneventful days! The rage for card-playing, the gluttony, the drunkenness, the continual talk always about the same thing. Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one's time, the better part of one's strength, and in the end there is left a life grovelling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it—just as though one were in a madhouse ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... be cast. Very easily. In it, we can insert structures that will absorb the strain from many surfaces within, rather than ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond |
