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Acton   Listen
noun
Acton  n.  (Spelled also hacqueton)  A stuffed jacket worn under the mail, or (later) a jacket plated with mail. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Acton" Quotes from Famous Books



... third earl, famous for the luxury in which he lived at Knole in Kent and Dorset House in London. Among this nobleman's retinue was a first footman rejoicing (I hope) in the superlatively suitable name of Acton Curvette: a name to write a comedy around. Richard Sackville, the fifth earl, was a more domestic peer, of whom we have some intimate and amusing glimpses in the memorandum books and diaries which he kept at ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... named Acton commended me to an English banker at Leghorn, but this letter did not empower me to draw ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... pray," said I, "where and how do you marry?"—"Why," said the first man, "we marry like other folks—they were married at Shoreditch Church—I was married to my old woman here at Hammersmith Church—and my brother-in-law here was married at Acton Church."—"Then," said I, "you call yourselves Christians?"—At this question they all laughed; and the first man said, that, "If it depends on our going to church, we can't say much about it; but, as we do nobody any harm, and work for our living, some in one way, and some in another, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... celebrated of all the diphallic terata was Jean Baptista dos Santos, who when but six months old was spoken of by Acton. His father and mother were healthy and had two well-formed children. He was easily born after an uneventful pregnancy. He was good-looking, well proportioned, and had two distinct penises, each as large as that of a child of six months. Urination proceeded simultaneously from both penises; he ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... this very short pedigree two important factors of genius declare themselves—two potent and shaping inheritances. From their father, Currer, Ellis, and Acton derived a strong will. From their mother, the disease that slew Emily and Anne in the prime of their youth and made Charlotte always delicate and ailing. In both cases the boy, Patrick Branwell, was very slightly affected; but he too died young, from excesses that suggest ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... wife of Prof. T. N. Chase, of Atlanta University, Atlanta, Georgia, died in the home of her daughter, Mrs. Dr. Kirkland, Bellows Falls, Vermont, Friday, March 23d. Funeral services were held in the church in which she worshiped in her childhood in Acton, Mass. The president of the University, together with the pastors of this church conducted the service. Some graduates of Atlanta University sang some of the pathetic old negro hymns. Mrs. Chase came of heroic New England stock. She was graduated ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 2, April, 1900 • Various

... returning from the Christmas holidays, exactly twelve had mustered round the big table in the dining-room; no new faces had appeared, and Fred Acton, a big, strong youngster of fourteen and a half, was undisputed cock of ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery

... clever enough to retard the process of enlightenment by methods at which even Smollett himself might have stood amazed. The traveller touches an interesting source of biography when he refers to the Englishman called Acton, formerly an East India Company captain, now commander of the Emperor's Tuscan Navy, consisting of "a few frigates." This worthy was the old commodore whom Gibbon visited in retirement at Leghorn. The commodore ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... Roger Acton woke at five. It was a raw March morning, still dark, and bitterly cold, while at gusty intervals the rain beat in against the crazy cottage-window. Nevertheless, from his poor pallet he must up and rouse himself, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... mother's death in 1649 Lady Barnard inherited under the poet's will the land near Stratford, New Place, the house at Blackfriars, and (on the death of the poet's sister, Joan Hart, in 1646) the houses in Henley Street, while her father, Dr. Hall, left her in 1635 a house at Acton with a meadow. She sold the Blackfriars house, and apparently the Stratford land, before 1667. By her will, dated January 1669-70, and proved in the following March, she left small bequests to the daughters of ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... very melancholy letters from the King and Queen of Naples, on account of General Acton's ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson

... in this part lately. Old Acton, who is one of our county magnates, had his house broken into last Monday. No great damage done, but the fellows ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... Charlotte and Annie, wrote a novel apiece, and never showed them to their father or to any one. They called 'emselves Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, and their novels were the greatest ever written—they wrote them 'emselves with no man to help. Their father was awful mad about it, but when the money began to come in he felt better. Emily died when she was twenty-seven. She was the brightest of them all; then Annie died, and only ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... Minver said, with unbroken tranquillity, "as any such edifice has been erected, you are the architect, Rulledge. I shouldn't think you would like to go round insinuating that sort of thing. Here is Acton," and he now acknowledged my presence with a backward twist of his head, "on the alert for material already. You ought to be more ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors

... Cardross presented Hamil to his handsome married daughter, Mrs. Acton Carrick, a jolly, freckled, young matron who showed her teeth when she smiled and shook hands like her father; and then he was made known to the youngest daughter, Cecile Cardross, small, plump, and sun-tanned, with ruddy hair ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... in Standard English Classics, Pocket Classics, Cassell's National Library, Eclectic English Classics, Everyman's Library, etc.; thus, Lady of the Lake, edited by Edwin Ginn, and Ivanhoe, edited by W. D. Lewis, both in Standard English Classics; Marmion, edited by G. B. Acton, and The Talisman, edited by F. Treudly, in ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... should know it better?' asked the sturdy farmer, wiping his lips, as we resumed our journey. 'Why, it seems but yesterday that I played hide-and-seek wi' my brothers in the old Boteler Castle, that stood where the new house o' Badminton, or Acton Turville, as some calls it, now stands. The Duke hath built it but a few years, and, indeed, his Dukedom itself is scarce older. There are some who think that he would have done better to stick by the old name ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... now; no more than if he had been bound fast by many strong cords, which no effort could break or untie. His confidential clerk had left him two hours ago, and the undisturbed stillness of night had surrounded him ever since he had listened to his retreating footsteps. "Poor Acton!" he had said half aloud, ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... Sicilian Majesties have been careful, as much as they were able, to exclude from their councils both German Illuminati and Italian philosophers. Their principal Minister, Chevalier Acton, has proved himself worthy of the confidence with which his Sovereigns have honoured him, and of the hatred with which he has been honoured by all revolutionists—the natural and irreconcilable ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... dejected nature. She hated her work, but would pursue it. It was written as a warning,'—so said Charlotte when, in the pathetic Preface of 1850, she was endeavouring to explain to the public how a creature so gentle and so good as Acton Bell should have written such a book as 'Wildfell Hall.' And in the second edition of 'Wildfell Hall,' which appeared in 1848, Anne Bronte herself justified her novel in a Preface which is reprinted ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... Private Knowledge for Boys, I have quoted a striking passage from Acton on the Reproductive Organs, in which he contrasts the continent and the incontinent boy. But in the case of men like Dr. Acton—specialists in the diseases of the male reproductive organs—it must be remembered that it is mostly the abnormal and extreme cases which come under their notice: a fact ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly

... Donald D. Mann is a man of deeds rather than words. James J. Hill has declared Mr. Mann to be the greatest railway builder in the world. Mr. Mann was born in Ontario not far from the sleepy town of Acton and just six miles east of Rockwood, the birthplace of James J. Hill. These two boys learned to swim in the same swimming-hole. One wonders from what roadside spring they quaffed the draught which sent them railroad-building. Mr. Mann ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... magical power of recalling the home of one's childhood, and the almost separate world that rests upon affection." Of his two sisters, one was well read and agreeably talkative, noted by Thackeray as the cleverest woman he had ever met; the other, Mrs. Acton, was a delightful old esprit fort, as I knew her in the sixties, "pagan, I regret to say," but not a little resembling her brother in the point and manner of her wit. The family moved in his infancy to an old-fashioned handsome ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell

... with sudden interest; but the cowboy fancied that there was a touch of bitterness under the droll tone of his reply. "Do you know, Mr. Acton, I have never been really hungry in my life. It might be interesting to try it ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... happy hunting-ground of Forsytes. Under the grey heavens, whose drizzle just kept off, the dark concourse gathered to see the show. The 'good old' Queen, full of years and virtue, had emerged from her seclusion for the last time to make a London holiday. From Houndsditch, Acton, Ealing, Hampstead, Islington, and Bethnal Green; from Hackney, Hornsey, Leytonstone, Battersea, and Fulham; and from those green pastures where Forsytes flourish—Mayfair and Kensington, St. James' and Belgravia, Bayswater and Chelsea and the Regent's Park, the people swarmed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Psychical Investigation); Philip Richardson (editor of The Dancing Times); and Constance Rourke (author of Troupers of the Gold Coast); and further information has been forthcoming from Mrs. Charles Baker (Ruislip), and John Wade (Acton). ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... circumstances. We cannot enumerate the holders of a few volumes or so up and down the country. The names of which we think are Devonshire, Bute, Bath, Dysart, Bridgewater (Earl of Ellesmere), Britwell, Huth, Aldenham (H. H. Gibbs), and Acton (or Carnegie). The Duke of Fife is believed to possess some curious books inherited from Skene of Skene. The Duke of Northumberland owns a few, and a few are in the possession of Lord Robartes at Llanhydrock, near Bodmin, Lord Aldenham, and Mr. Wynn of ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... others woful. Mr. Wicks is now in the act of packing them, for we have changed our minds about sending them to London by water, as your wagoner told Louis last time I was at Greatworth, that if they were left at the Old Hat, near Acton, he would take them up and convey them to Greatworth; so my cart carries them thither, and they will set out towards ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... be mentioned one to the King of Sweden and Norway, proposed in a very warm and eloquent speech by the Premier, CAIROLI; to Nordenskioeld, by Prince Teano; to Palander, by the Minister of Marine, Admiral ACTON; to the other members of the Expedition, to its munificent patrons, Oscar Dickson and Alexander Sibiriakoff, to Bove, the Italian officer, who took part in it, &c.—Monday the 23rd. Audience of the King. In the evening a grand reception ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... not know whether it is not presumptuous, in the face of Miss Acton, Mrs. Rundle, and so many other authorities, not forgetting the great Alexis Soyer, to give "our method of curing" the last-mentioned dainties; but we think we may as well follow up the history of our pigs, from the sty to the kitchen. I always found that the recipes usually ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton

... several years he had no settled dwelling-place. "The women," he gently remarks in his 'Life,' "have most of that sort of trouble, but my wife easily bore it all." In the sixth year of his marriage Baxter was brought before the magistrates at Brentford, for holding a conventicle at Acton, and was sentenced by them to be imprisoned in Clerkenwell Gaol. There he was joined by his wife, who affectionately nursed him during his confinement. "She was never so cheerful a companion to me," he says, "as in prison, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... regiment took part in the movement which was initiated with the evident purpose of turning the Boer right by the Acton Holmes road. Leaving the artillery and the Lancashire Brigade on the ridge, the remainder of the army descended into the plain, and moved up the left bank of the Tugela. The column marched along the base of the main ridge, and was carefully ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring

... Hanwell and Acton, and then suddenly the huge bulk of Wormwood Scrubbs Prison loomed up in the growing dusk away to the right of the line. It was there that I had served my "separates"—those first ghastly six months of solitary confinement which ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges

... them with due recognition of the fact that not only great individuals, but people as a whole, unnamed and undistinguished masses of people, now sleeping in unknown graves, have also been concerned in the story. Our fathers that begat us have come to their own at last. As Acton put it, 'The great historian now takes his meals ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... five when Cleek, answering an urgent message from headquarters, strolled into the bar parlor of "The Fiddle and Horseshoe," which, as you may possibly know, stands near to the Green in a somewhat picturesque by-path between Shepherd's Bush and Acton, and found Narkom in the very act of hanging up his hat and withdrawing his ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... wistfully. The streets were not very full. London seemed unusually quiet that evening. But when he reached the Marble Arch he saw people streaming hither and thither, hurrying towards Oxford Street, pouring into the Edgware Road, climbing upon omnibuses which were bound for Notting Hill, Ealing and Acton, drifting towards the wide and gloomy spaces of the Park. He crossed the great roadway and went into the Park, too. Attracted by a small gathering of dark figures he joined them, and standing among nondescript loungers he listened for a few minutes to a narrow-chested man ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... the ready reply. "The man's name is Acton. He is a law stationer who does odd jobs for the different firms here. He is quite broken down and shabby now, but I should say that at one time he was a gentleman. You will see his business card hanging in a shop window ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White

... by the Docks, you may hear the Incomparable Joe Jackson sing the Standard of England, with a hornpipe, any night; or any day may see at the waxwork, for a penny and no waiting, him as killed the policeman at Acton and suffered for it. Down by the Docks, you may buy polonies, saveloys, and sausage preparations various, if you are not particular what they are made of besides seasoning. Down by the Docks, the children ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... at Spezia, and my dear friend Teresa Doria generally spent the evening with us, when she and I chatted and played Bezique together. Her sons also came frequently, and some of the officers of the Italian navy. One who became our very good friend is Captain William Acton, now Admiral, and for two years Minister of Marine; he is very handsome, and, what is better, a most agreeable, accomplished gentleman, who has interested himself in many branches of natural history, besides being ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... east. On the 13th Sir George White had made a reconnaissance in force, but had not come in touch with the enemy. On the 15th six of the Natal Police were surrounded and captured at one of the drifts of the Buffalo River. On the 18th our cavalry patrols came into touch with the Boer scouts at Acton Homes and Besters Station, these being the voortrekkers of the Orange Free State force. On the 18th also a detachment was reported from Hadders Spruit, seven miles north of Glencoe Camp. The cloud was drifting up, and it could not be ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... uncomprehending protest; his fat busy hands were not agile enough to defend him. He felt unsuccessful and foolish, and very near the ground. He wished quite disproportionately to be at home with his admiring wife in Acton. ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson

... I have gone on the supposition, that the whole weight of this war would rest on us. But, 1. Naples will join us. The character of their naval minister (Acton), his known sentiments with respect to the peace Spain is officiously trying to make for them, and his dispositions against the Algerines, give the best grounds to believe it. 2. Every principle of reason assures,us, that ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... a month, which was longer than ever he kept away yet, I took a new method with him, for I was resolved now it should be in my power to continue or not, as I thought fit. At the end of a month, therefore, I removed, and took lodgings at Kensington Gravel Pits, at that part next to the road to Acton, and left nobody in my lodgings but Amy and a footman, with proper instructions how to behave when his lordship, being come to himself, should think fit to come again, ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... a fool I am! Where's the Bradshaw? (crosses to table, turns over leaves of Bradshaw, hurriedly) Ambleside! A! Where's A! Acton, Aldersgate, Ambleside, here we are! Good gracious! She's nearly here! (crosses to Flo) Flo, it will never do to greet her with a story of a secret marriage—she'd be simply horrified! It's very hard to part—it's been a short and unsatisfactory ...
— Oh! Susannah! - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Mark Ambient

... guarantees might have rallied to his side all those who, in the Cabinet, the Chamber, and the country, were undoubtedly opposed to incurring terrible risks in order to obtain pledges against future contingencies. Among the late Lord Acton's Historical Essays there is a remarkable paper on 'The Causes of the Franco-Prussian War,' in which the considerations that may justify Gramont's demand for guarantees are fairly stated. It is there argued that the Prussian king, who had first 'sanctioned' Prince Leopold's candidature, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... BRANCHES. Designed to interest and benefit housekeepers everywhere by its plain and simple instructions in regard to the judicious preparation of food, and altogether a work of superior merit. By Miss ELIZA ACTON. Carefully revised by Mrs. SARAH J. HALE. With many Illustrations and a copious Index. Cloth. ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... ACTO, OR ACTON. A kind of defensive tunic, made of quilted leather, or other strong material, formerly worn under the outer dress, and even under ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... pipes. The ordinary sort made use of a walnut shell and a strawe. I have heard my grandfather Lyte say that one pipe was handed from man to man round the table. Sir Walter Raleigh standing in a stand at Sir Ro. Poyntz parke at Acton tooke a pipe of tobacco, which made the ladies quitte it till ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... very ancient house; for out of it came the Earls of Pembroke of the first line, and the Earls of Pembroke of the second line; the Lord Herberts of Cherbury, the Herberts of Coldbrook, Ramsay, Cardiff, and York; the Morgans of Acton; the Earl of Hunsdon; the houses of Ircowm and Lanarth, and all the Powells. Out of this house also, by the female line, came the Duke of Beaufort." "And pray, sir, who lives there now?" "I do, sir." "Then pardon me, and accept a piece of advice; come out of it yourself, ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various

... Purser and Clinton, names of pirates; Scarlet and Bobbington, names of highwaymen. He had the touch of names, I think. No man I ever knew had such a sense, such a tact, for English nomenclature: Rainsforth, Lacy, Audley, Forrest, Acton, Spencer, Frankford - so ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... runners report that General Lyttelton's division crossed the Tugela at Potgieter's Drift yesterday, and Sir Charles Warren's at Trichard's Drift to-day. We also hear of Lord Dundonald being near Acton Homes with a force of Irregular Horse, some of whom wear sakkabulu feathers in their hats and carry "assegais." Possibly these are Lancers, but we cannot identify them. These stories may be true, for we hear heavy firing in the south-west at frequent ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse

... staid an hour or two before dinner could be got for us, I in the meantime having much pleasure with her, but all honest. And by and by dinner come up, and then to my sport again, but still honest; and then took coach and up and down in the country toward Acton, and then toward Chelsy, and so to Westminster, and there set her down where I took her up, with mighty pleasure in her company, and so I by coach home, and thence to Bow, with all the haste I could, to my Lady Pooly's, where my wife was with Mr. Batelier and his ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... layman and a Doctor at Laws. During his mastership there were no Brothers, and only a few Sisters or Bedeswomen. The Hospital then became a rich sinecure. Among the Masters were Sir Julius Caesar, Master of the Rolls; Sir Robert Acton; Dr. Coxe; three Montague brothers, Walter, Henry, and George; Lord Brownker; the Earl of Feversham; Sir Henry Newton, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty; the Hon. George Berkeley; and Sir James Butler. The Brothers had been re-established—their ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... King Richard, whom many of them believed to be still living in Scotland. Wales and its Marches were their head-quarters. Thomas Earl of Arundel—son of a persecutor—was sent to the Principality at the head of an army, to "subdue the rebels;" Sir Roger Acton and Sir John Beverley, two of the foremost Lollards of the new generation, were put to death; and strict watch was set in every quarter for Lord Cobham, once more escaped as ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... kept in silence an experimental record. Very few artists succeed in the delineation of life without living models; but no good one servilely will betray the forms they rather get hints from than actually copy. Thus though I sketched Roger Acton from one Robert Tunnel, an Albury labourer, and took the cottage near Postford Pond as his home,—adding thereto Mr. Campion's park and house at Danney, near Hurst (I was then living at Brighton) as the model for Sir John Vincent's estate,—as ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... sad autumn of 1845 a new interest came into the lives of the sisters through the publication, at their own expense, of "Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell," as explained in the biographical notice of her sisters, which Charlotte prefaced to the edition of "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey," that was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... printed with an entirely cylindrical press, were sheets G and X of Clarkson's 'Life of Penn.' The papers of the Protestant Union were also printed with it in February and March, 1813. Mr. Koenig, in his account of the invention, says that "sheet M of Acton's 'Hortus Kewensis,' vol. v., will show the progress of improvement in the use of the invention. Altogether, there are about 160,000 sheets now in the hands of the public, printed with this machine, which, with the aid of two hands, takes off ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... thought it proper to mention to him that I had seen Mr. Acton's letter, which stated that his Majesty's ships were to be received in the ports of this island; and I should do him great injustice, did I not observe to you, sir, his earnest endeavours that we should be supplied with everything we require ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross

... resumed his reading of the labour bill, but was aroused from his contemplation of its provisions by the entrance of Mr. Amos Acton. Mr. Acton was secretary of a manufacturer's association. He was tall and spare. His hair was sandy in hue, and ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin

... he was no scholar, but his name was Amos Todd, he lived at Acton, and he understood he was obliged to paint ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various

... and on foundations too feeble, to meet the demands of the time. Its founders lacked that legislative capacity with which the Normans were so liberally endowed. Though we cannot subscribe in full to Mr. Acton Warburton's enthusiastic estimate of the Norman race, we believe him to be substantially correct in what he says of their legislative genius. He dwells with unction on the strong tendency to institutions ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... Lord Acton—in his essay upon this subject—has not been content to rest the imputation of simony upon such grounds as satisfied M. Yriarte. He has realized that the only testimony of any real value in such a case would ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... involved, but it happened that at this moment Mr. Gladstone was Prime Minister, and Mr. Gladstone entertained strong views upon the Infallibility of the Pope. His opinions upon the subject were in part the outcome of his friendship with Lord Acton, a historian to whom learning and judgment had not been granted in equal proportions, and who, after years of incredible and indeed well-nigh mythical research, had come to the conclusion that the Pope could err. In this Mr. Gladstone entirely concurred, ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... him an invitation for Carrie and myself to a ball given by the East Acton Rifle Brigade, which he thought would be a swell affair, as the member for East Acton (Sir William Grime) had promised his patronage. We accepted of his kindness, and he stayed to supper, an occasion I thought suitable for trying a bottle of the sparkling Algera that Mr. James (of Sutton) had ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith

... Lord Acton wrote in a letter to Mrs. Drew, "One touch of ill nature makes the whole world kin," and I must make an effort not to disappoint my thoughtful critics. I have been accused of failing to appreciate the society of brilliant ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith

... de Bury. From Paris to the Riviera. James Bryce. George von Bunsen. Sir Charles Murray. Lord Acton; discussions with the latter; his wide range of knowledge; his information regarding Father Paul, the Congregation of the Index, etc. Sir Henry Keating and the discussion at the Cercle Nautique of Cannes. Lord Acton's view of Napoleon. Florence; ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... in a weekly paper that "plans are well in hand for putting up other Government Department buildings at Acton, which looks to have a future of its own, that of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various

... sight to see these ruddy youths and blooming maidens of a winter's day come trooping in to get the evening mail with their skates in their hands. There was also a daily delegation of farmers' boys from Acton, staunch, worthy fellows, and generally better behaved than ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... histories, the best in the world, which are as absorbing as the best of all the novels, and of as permanent value. The same thing is true of Darwin and Huxley and Carlyle and Emerson, and parts of Kant, and of volumes like Sutherland's "Growth of the Moral Instinct," or Acton's Essays and Lounsbury's studies—here again I am not trying to class books together, or measure one by another, or enumerate one in a thousand of those worth reading, but just to indicate that any man or woman ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... out of Lexington a tablet marks an old well; the inscription reads, "At this well, April 19, 1775, James Hayward, of Acton, met a British soldier, who, raising his gun, said, 'You are a dead man.' 'And so are you,' replied Hayward. Both fired. The soldier was instantly killed and Hayward ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... with the youngest (Anne, afterward Acton Bell), and asked what a child like her most wanted; she answered, 'Age and experience.' I asked the next (Emily, afterward Ellis Bell) what I had best do with her brother Branwell, who was sometimes a naughty boy; she ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various

... arrived in Ladysmith on the 11th October. On the 12th telegraphic communication by Harrismith entirely ceased, and the mail train from that town failed to arrive. Early on the 12th a telegram from a post of observation of Natal Carbineers at Acton Homes gave information that a strong column of Boers, with four miles of train, was on the march through Tintwa Pass, the head of it being already across the border; furthermore, that there seemed to be an advance guard concealed in Van Reenen's Pass. Sir G. White prepared to strike ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... limousine. Hop into it, will you, and meet me at the Fiddle and Horseshoe, between Shepherd's Bush and Acton? It's only half-past three and the limousine can cover the distance in less than no time. Can't go with you. Got to round up my men here, first. Join you shortly, however. McTavish has a sixty-horse-power Mercedes, and ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... rooms, empty save for books and the most necessary tables and chairs, where he lived and worked at Versailles; amid a library "read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested," like that of Lord Acton, his English junior. And then, in a winter walk along the Champs-Elysees, a year or two later, discussing the prospects of Catholicism in France: "They haven't a man—a speaker—a book! It is a real drawback to us Liberals that they are so weak, so negligible. ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... been said, Borough English was in vogue all around London—at Lambeth, Vauxhall, Croydon, Streatham, Leigham Court, Shene or Richmond, Isleworth, Sion, Ealing, Acton, and Earl's Court. In some of these places—Fulham, Wimbledon, Battersea, Wandsworth, Barnes and Richmond—the "yonger holding" descended not only to males but to females; and at Lambeth (and at Kirton-in-Lindsey, in Lincolnshire) ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... happened at Concord on that 19th of April in the year 1775. You have been told the story, how the men of Acton met and resisted the king's troops at the old North Bridge, how brave Captain Davis and minute-man Hosmer fell, how the sound of their falling struck down to the very heart of mother earth, and caused her to send forth her brave sons ...
— Twilight Stories • Various

... It was urged in defence that the girl suffered from hallucinations, one being that she was a daily newspaper proprietor. But the recent Zeppelin raids have not been without their advantages. In a spirit of emulation an ambitious hen at Acton has laid an egg weighing ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... interrupted both the conflict between Edward and the archbishop, and the course of domestic legislation. Yet even in the midst of his campaigns Edward issued the statute of Acton Burnell of 1283, which provided a better way of recovering merchants' debts, and the statute of Rhuddlan of 1284 for the regulation of the king's exchequer. The king's full activity as a lawgiver was renewed after the settlement of his conquest by the statute of Wales ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... at 2 p.m., orders were received for the Regiment to prepare at once to go out as part of a flying column towards Acton Holmes to check the advance of the Free State Boers, who were reported to be crossing the Biggarsberg by Vanreenen's Pass; and at 2 a.m. a force consisting of four regiments of cavalry, four batteries R.A., and three regiments of infantry (Liverpools, ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson

... in England under a grave suspicion. Lingard, who wrote, after all, one of the best histories of the English nation, certainly more readable than Freeman and less prejudiced than Froude, is neither studied nor mentioned in our schools. Even poor Acton, whose smug Whig bias is apparent to the stupidest, who nourished himself on Lutheran learning, "mostly," as he says, pathetically "in octavo volumes," is thought of darkly by the uninstructed as an emissary of the Jesuits. But who can either ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... of something more than thirty, she had gentle eyes, a twitching forehead, and lips ever ready for a sympathetic smile. Her attire, a little shabby, a little disorderly, well became the occupant of furnished lodgings, at twelve and sixpence a week, in the unpretentious suburb of Acton. She was the daughter of a Hammersmith draper, at whose death, a few years ago, she had become possessed of a small house and an income of forty pounds a year; her two elder sisters were comfortably married ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... discussion. Sophia and Amanda Gill had been living in the old Ackley house a fortnight, and they had three boarders: an elderly widow with a comfortable income, a young congregationalist clergyman, and the middle-aged single woman who had charge of the village library. Now the school-teacher from Acton, Miss Louisa Stark, was expected for the ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

... Prescott and Revere! Bring all the men of Lincoln here; Let Chelmsford, Littleton, Carlisle, Let Acton, Bedford, hither file— Oh, hither file, and plainly see Out of ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)

... not think it would be quite wise, if I may venture to express an opinion," said Miss Acton, who was a timid soul, and always inclined to shy at ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... London, in 1912, a servant-girl of 23 was charged in the Acton Police Court with being "disorderly and masquerading," having assumed man's clothes and living with another girl, taller and more handsome than herself, as husband and wife. She had had slight brain trouble as a child, and was very intelligent, with a too active brain; in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... teach them are, in the first years of every man, and for long ages in the history of mankind, far more pressing than any question of toleration. Even vigorous persecution or keen exclusiveness of feeling have—pace Lord Acton—saved for mankind, at certain crises of its difficult development, convictions of priceless worth—as in the Deuteronomic Reform and the Johannine Writings. In proportion as men become more manysidedly awake, they acquire at least the ...
— Progress and History • Various

... defining the limits of that city, and of saying who belong to it and who do not. An arbitrary line may be drawn, but that arbitrary line, though perhaps false when drawn as including too much, soon becomes more false as including too little. Ealing, Acton, Fulham, Putney, Norwood, Sydenham, Blackheath, Woolwich, Greenwich, Stratford, Highgate, and Hampstead are, in truth, component parts of London, and very shortly Brighton will be ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... Paraguay river. And Lady Lesbia had developed a genius for punting; and leaning against her pole, with her hair flying loose and sleeves rolled up above the elbow, she was a subject for canvas or marble, Millais or Adams Acton. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... a favorite dream of some of the most recent teachers is that the life of the species runs the same course as that of one of its members. Lord Acton, of Oxford, in a late lecture states that: "The development of society is like that of individual;"[8-1] and Prof. Fellows, of the University of Chicago, advances the same opinion in the words, "Humanity as a ...
— An Ethnologist's View of History • Daniel G. Brinton

... for some time in London, where he had now some attractions which to a less ambitious mind might have operated in favour of prudence. In the preceding year, July, 1714, he had married, at Acton in Middlesex, the Lady Frances Pierrepoint, the second daughter of Evelyn, first Duke of Kingston, and the sister of Lady Mary Wortley. The Countess of Mar was, at the time of her marriage, thirty-three years of age, being born in 1681. She does not ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... Acton, Rev. Henry.—Religious opinions and examples of Milton, Locke, and Newton. A lecture, with notes. London, ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... until Sunday, the 17th of August, 1862. On that day, four young Indians, belonging to Little Six's band, went to the house of Mr. Jones, at Acton, Meeker county, Minnesota. As they evinced an unfriendly disposition, Mr. Jones locked his house, and with his wife, went to the house of Mr. Howard Baker, a near neighbor, where he was followed by the Indians. They proposed to go out and shoot at a mark, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... female friends of mine—Mrs. Acton Tindal, a young beauty as well as a woman of genius, and a Miss Julia Day, whom I have never seen, but whose verses show extraordinary purity of thought, feeling, and expression—have been putting ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... Joyce Lucy wife of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecot in ye county of Warwick, Knight, Daughter and heir of Thomas Acton of Sutton in ye county of Worcester Esquire who departed out of this wretched world to her heavenly kingdom ye 10 day of February in ye yeare of our Lord God 1595 and of her age 60 and three. All the time of ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... life had, however, opened bravely for the three girls during those years. In 1846 a volume of verse appeared from the shop of Aylott & Jones of Paternoster Row; "Poems, by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell," was on the title-page. These names disguised the identity of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte. The venture cost the sisters about L50 in all, but only two copies were sold. There were nineteen poems by Charlotte, twenty-one by Emily, and the same ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... Mr. Romayne had been speaking to me of a book which you had been so good as to send to him. He had been especially interested by the memoir therein contained of the illustrious Englishman, Cardinal Acton. The degrees by which his Eminence rose to the rank of a Prince of the Church seemed, as I thought, to have aroused in my friend a new sense of vocation. He asked me if I myself aspired to belong to the holy priesthood. ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... were immediately dispatched, 15 that, returning, confirmed the presence of the regular army at Lexington, and that they were on their way to Concord. Upon this a number of our minutemen belonging to this town and Acton and Lincoln, with several others that were in readiness, marched out to ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... down on the grass one summer afternoon, when old Amos Baker of Lincoln, who was in the Lincoln Company on the 19th of April, told me the whole story. He was very indignant at the claim that the Acton men marched first to attack the British because the others hesitated. He said, "It was because they had bagnets [bayonets]. The rest of us hadn't ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... a book I never travel without. It's invaluable in town, and you may study it to great advantage in the country. With Mogg in my hand, I can almost fancy myself in both places at once. Omnibus guide,' added he, turning over the leaves, and reading, 'Acton five, from the end of Oxford Street and the Edger Road—see Ealing; Edmonton seven, from Shoreditch Church—"Green Man and Still" Oxford Street—Shepherd's Bush and Starch Green, Bank, and Whitechapel—Tooting—Totteridge—Wandsworth; in short, every ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... speaking of it hereafter. On our way back, we looked in at "Old John's" again, to see if he had returned home. He had been in, and he had gone out again, so we came away, and saw nothing of him. Farther down towards the town, we passed through Acton Square, which is a cleaner place than some of the abominable nooks of Scholes, though I can well believe that there is many a miserable dwelling in it, from what I saw of the interiors and about ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh

... behind its mistress; for even dumb animals can distinguish when men are driven on by the furious energy of irresistible passion, and dread to cross or encounter them in their career. The fugitive rushed into the garden at the same reckless pace. His head was bare, his hair dishevelled, his rich acton and all his other vestments looked as if they had been lately drenched in water. His leathern buskins were cut and torn, and his feet marked the sod with blood. His countenance was wild, haggard, and highly excited, or, as the Scottish ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... Hempstead of Creeting, Ratcliffe of Shelley, Randall of Lavenham, Bedford of Rattlesden, Wright of Hitcham, Ruceulver of Powstead, Greenliefe of Barton, Bush of Barton, Cricke of Hitcham, Richmond of Bramford, Hammer of Needham, Boreham of Sudbury, Scarfe of Rattlesden, King of Acton, Bysack of Waldingfield, Binkes of Haverhill. In addition to these Stearne speaks of Elizabeth Hubbard of Stowmarket. Two others from Stowmarket were tried, "Goody Mils" and "Goody Low." Hollingsworth, History of Stowmarket ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... helmet hack'd and hew'd, His acton pierced and tore, His axe and his dagger with blood imbrued,— But it ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various

... to the reader, signed M.D. Commendatory verses signed: E. Sc. Gent., Thomas Hassell, William Alexander. The 'Epistles' are divided into groups to which are prefixed dedicatory epistles to Lucy Countess of Bedford, Lady Anne Harington, Sir Walter Acton, Edward Earl of Bedford, Iames Huish, Elizabeth Tanfelde, Sir Thomas Munson, Sir Henry Goodere, Henry Lucas, and Lady Frauncis Goodere, each signed. 'Idea' begins on O 7^V. The first sonnet should belong to the 'Epistles', of which it contains a list, the second ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg

... pleasure, though not perhaps at a cheaper rate, for the service of King James. During his residence abroad, his concerns at home were managed by his mother Hester, an active and notable woman. Her second husband was a widower of the name of Acton: they united the children of their first nuptials. After his marriage with the daughter of Richard Acton, goldsmith in Leadenhall-street, he gave his own sister to Sir Whitmore Acton, of Aldenham; and I am thus connected, by a triple alliance, with that ancient and loyal family of Shropshire baronets. ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... directly within my cognisance, he is not only not too true, but so entirely void of resemblance to the truth, that one asks what was really the original of his picture.'[297] A little earlier he had written to Sir John Acton: 'I was not the important person in the negotiation before the war that Mr. Kinglake seems to suppose; and with him every supposition becomes an axiom and a dogma.' All the papers from various sources to which I have had access ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... languages of Europe are descended, possessed stress accent also in a marked degree. To the existence of this accent must be attributed a large part of the phenomena known as Ablaut or Gradation (see INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES). In modern languages we can see the same principle at work making Acton out of the O. Eng. (Anglo-Saxon) ac-tun (oak-town), and in more recent times producing the contrast between New Town and Newton. In French, stress is less marked than it is in English, but here also there is evidence to show that in the development from Latin to French ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... breakfasted with Lord Granville to meet Lord Lyons, there being also there Lord Ripon, Lord Acton (a man of great learning and much charm), Lord Carlingford (Chichester Fortescue that had been), Grant Duff, Sir Thomas Wade (the great Chinese scholar, and afterwards Professor of Chinese at Cambridge), Lefevre, Meredith Townsend of the Spectator, old Charles Howard, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... would do so. I am going to ask one thing more; should old hens of any above poultry (not duck) die or become so old as to be USELESS, I wish you would send her to me per rail, addressed to C. Darwin, care of Mr. Acton, Post-office, Bromley, Kent." Will you keep this address? as shortest way for parcels. But I do not care so much for this, as I could buy the old birds dead at Baily to make skeletons. I should have written at once even if I had not heard ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... not by any means least, a very good likeness of our old friend J.C. HORSLEY, R.A., and while we think of it, we'll treat him as a cabman and "take his number," which it's 1941, done by JOHN ADAMS-ACTON, and so, with this piece of sculpture, we conclude our pick of the Pictures with this display of fireworks; that is, with one good bust up! Plaudite ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various

... large letters upon enamel plates represented in the underworld the parks, squares, and circuses of the upper. "Marble Arch—Shepherd's Bush"—to the majority the Arch and the Bush are eternally white letters upon a blue ground. Only at one point—it may be Acton, Holloway, Kensal Rise, Caledonian Road—does the name mean shops where you buy things, and houses, in one of which, down to the right, where the pollard trees grow out of the paving stones, there is a square curtained window, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... all the works published under the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell were, in reality, the production of one person. This mistake I endeavoured to rectify by a few words of disclaimer prefixed to the third edition of 'Jane Eyre.' These, too, it appears, failed to gain general credence, and now, on the occasion of a reprint of 'Wuthering Heights' ...
— Charlotte Bronte's Notes on the pseudonyms used • Charlotte Bronte

... a few words to say to you before you go," said Mr. Acton, pausing with his hand on the bell, Monday afternoon, when the hour came for ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... slipt the fellow, I inquired at every turnpike, whether a servant in such a livery had not passed through in his return from London, on a full gallop; for woe had been to the dog, had I met him on a sluggish trot! And lest I should miss him at one end of Kensingtohn, as he might take either the Acton or Hammersmith road; or at the other, as he might come through the Park, or not; how many score times did I ride backwards and forwards from the Palace to the Gore, making myself the subject of ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... mentioned; when several posts were immediately dispatched that, returning, confirmed the account of the regulars' arrival at Lexington and that they were on their way to Concord. Upon this, a number of our minute-men belonging to this town, and Acton, and Lincoln, with several others that were in readiness, marched out to meet them; while the alarm company was preparing to receive them in the town. Captain Minot, who commanded them, thought it proper to take possession of the hill above the meeting-house, ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... stern, strong pile readily betrays that it is part of good, solid stock, owned in the right quarter. Close by it is a little arched stone bridge, auxiliary to a great road leading to some vague region of the world called Acton upon guide-posts and on maps. Just beyond these bridges the river bends and forgets the railroad, but it is grateful to the graceful arch of the little stone bridge for making its curve more picturesque, and, as it muses towards the Old Manse, listlessly brushing the lilies, it wonders if Ellery ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... Mr. Acton was a clever and highly respected merchant who owed much of his success in life to the system and exactness with which he carried on his business. Then, too, he was so reliable, so honest, and sold his goods so cheaply, that everyone preferred ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne

... greatest interest in the struggle as to the instance in which this authority is to be lodged. This interest attaches to the age-long struggle between Pope and Council. It attaches to the dramatic struggle of Doellinger, Dupanloup, Lord Acton and the rest, in 1870. Once the Church has spoken there is, for the advocate of authoritative religion, no ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... and rationalistic thinkers in bringing about the events of 1789 has been variously estimated by historians. The truth probably lies in the succinct statement of Acton that "the confluence of French theory with American example caused the Revolution to break out" when it did. The theorists aimed at reform, not at political revolution; and it was the stimulus of the Declaration of Rights of 1774 and the subsequent victory of the Colonies ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... the little Grimmer, In golden acton dight; And there rode Seyer the active, Who yields to ...
— The Expedition to Birting's Land - and other ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise



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