"Comprehend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at in Hardy was, his failure to comprehend that the work he was engaged in was dishonest. I led cautiously up to this one day, and ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... money, walk so far away in the Bush?" was his first inquiry. The Captain, fatigued and rather out of humour, made no reply. "You are thin," continued the philosopher, "your shanks are long, your belly is small,—you had plenty to eat at home, why did you not stop there?" "Imbat, you comprehend nothing,—you know nothing," was the traveller's brief reply. "I know nothing!" answered the wise man of the woods, "I know how to keep myself fat; the young women look at me and say, Imbat is very handsome, he is fat;—they will look at you and say, He not good,—long ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... holding the optimistic view that on the whole the forward tendency is at present prevailing. It is not because we live in the nineteenth century that we consider our moral perceptions truer than those of the ancient Hebrews, but because we at once comprehend and transcend their ideas (in some respects), as the greater does the less. In many points surely the relation is inverted and we feel ourselves transcended (or may at least suspect it), by those who lived or live in ruder conditions than our own. David has perhaps taught us more than we ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... lost in these reflections, Beau-Minon, who seemed to comprehend what was passing in her heart, mewed plaintively, pulled her robe and tried to draw her from ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... had not the means of calculating its effects upon Europe. He had but a meagre knowledge himself of continental politics: he was assisted by a very inefficient diplomacy. His mind was lost in a convulsion of which he neither could comprehend the causes nor calculate the consequences; and forced to act, he acted not only violently, but in exact opposition to the very system he was called into political existence to combat; he appealed to the fears, the prejudices, and the passions of a privileged class, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... advocates of the view under consideration denied. The power to "regulate" is the power which belongs to Congress as to the one as well as to the other; and if this comprehends the power to prohibit in the one case, it must equally, by acknowledged principles of statutory construction, comprehend it in the other case as well. Nor in fact, the argument continued, does it make any difference, by approved principles of statutory construction, what purposes the framers of the Constitution may have immediately in ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... it we saw a procession through the streets of London of 30,000 women who had come out to ask for the right to serve the State. I do not envy the man who, having eyes to see, a heart to feel, and a mind to comprehend, was able to look on that sight unmoved. Every class of woman was represented there, the gently-born, the educated, and the tenderly-nurtured, as well as the humbly-born, the uneducated, and the heavily-burdened, the woman with the delicate, spiritual face, as well ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... said Mrs. Gillespie. "I cannot comprehend where she gets the manner she has. I never saw a more perfectly polite child, and there she has been for months, with nobody to speak to her but two gentlemen and the servants. It is natural to her, I suppose; she can have nobody ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... matter of that, in great part the ownership—of a number of English families. It is true the land had lain derelict for seventy years, bereft of capital since the Reformation, and swamped. It is true that the occupiers (and owners) were very poor. It is true, therefore, that they could not properly comprehend a policy that was designed for the general advantage of the country. They only understood that the hunting and fishing by which they lived were to stop; that their land was to be very considerably improved and taken from them. In their ignorance of ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... generalized and wandered enough. The Academy is a place of superabounding activities. Let us try to comprehend some of them. ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... did not in the least comprehend the workings of Owen's mind; and Herbert, who knew more of them than any one else, did not understand them altogether. Owen had no idea of granting any favour to his relatives, who, as he thought, had never granted any to him. What Owen wanted,—or what he told himself that ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... safely gauged by their sympathies. Sympathy and imagination are twin sisters. Your heart must go out to all men, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the learned, the unlearned, the good, the bad, the wise and the foolish—it is necessary to be one with them all, else you can never comprehend them. Sympathy!—it is the touchstone to every secret, the key to all knowledge, the open sesame of all hearts. Put yourself in the other man's place and then you will know why he thinks certain things and does certain deeds. Put yourself in his place and your blame will ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... all, but it was the usual tirade. It is strange I have met no one yet who seems to comprehend an honest difference of opinion, and stranger yet that the ordinary rules of good breeding are now so entirely ignored. As the spring comes on one has the craving for fresh, green food that a monotonous diet produces. There was a bed of radishes and onions ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... girls, reflect. The estimate may be deemed an exaggerated one. Then we will disarm criticism by taking it at half its word. If, accordingly, we say thirty thousand for the whole—for all classes—it is still a vague figure.... Few persons ever saw thirty thousand people gathered together. But we all comprehend distances. If this army of poor girls were to form in a procession together, it would be more ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... country is the country of Namur!—The confluent streams—the impending rocks—the spreading forests of its environs, comprehend the finest features of landscape; nor could Ottavio Gonzaga feel surprised that his prince should find as much more pleasure in those breesy plains than in the narrow streets of Brussels, as he found ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... to say, "the darkness apprehended it not." The old common version says "comprehended"; the revisions, both English and American, say "apprehended." Both are rather large words, larger in English than John would use. John loved to use simple talk. Yet there's help even in these English words. Comprehend is a mental word. It means to take hold of with your mind; to understand. Apprehend is a physical word. It means to take hold ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... drawing him partly aside, inquired "On which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, "Whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... old lady, in alarm, "don't take oaths, the rashness—the folly of which you cannot comprehend. For goodness' sake don't entertain such wicked thoughts. Lablache is a ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... With these moneys great good has been done for the poor Indians—now redeeming captives from those who carry them away to sell them among the Moros and other infidels, where they lose the faith; again, aiding them in their sickness, and famines, and the like. Indeed, I am unable to comprehend the consciences of men who would attempt to take this money from the poor Indians, and put an end to so good works. May God grant ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... heads, remarkable among the Digger tribe, with matted hair, and were almost entirely naked: looking very poor and miserable, as if their lives had been spent in the rushes where they were, beyond which they seemed to have very little knowledge of any thing. From the words we could comprehend, their language was that of ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... character of a country before our eyes, and enables us to understand its influence upon the social and political condition of its inhabitants. And this knowledge, as I said before, is very important to enable us to follow clearly the external revolutions of different nations, which we want to comprehend before we penetrate to what ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... otherwise than painful. He felt almost glad that his mother was not alive. To him, the loss was scarcely a real one. His father had left him, when an infant. Although his mother had so often spoken of him, he had scarcely been a reality to Gregory; for when he became old enough to comprehend the matter, it seemed to him certain that his father must have been killed. He could, then, hardly understand how his mother could ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... widow to earn a living for herself, and bring up her children fatherless. She must assume that the Lord had some good purpose in leaving her thus bereft and must drill herself into waiting on a Will so impossible to comprehend. ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... such enormous plans is not very surprising; but we can scarcely comprehend how it was possible for him to accomplish so much of what he undertook in the short time of five months preceding his death. Following the unfortunate system of Sulla, Caesar founded throughout Italy a number of colonies of veterans. The old Sullanian colonists were treated with great ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... the young man, so rudely assailed, did not comprehend his own danger. His mind, bent upon one hideous explanation of the crime, did not see another obvious one which had already occurred to the mind of the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... When you took off that night eight weeks ago, that night I kissed you good-by, your ship ... oh don't you comprehend?... Your ship, it—" ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... Coronado, Clara was half Teutonic, and could comprehend the tone of her father's race. Notwithstanding Thurstane's shyness and silences, she discovered his moral weight and gathered his unspoken meanings. There was more in this girl than appeared on the surface. Without any power of reasoning concerning character, and without even ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... a way out of a difficulty, for we feel it masking the really significant, which is the form underneath. A mere painter, one who is satisfied to reproduce what everybody sees, and to paint for the fun of painting, will scarcely comprehend this feeling. His only significant is the obvious—in a figure, the face and the clothing, as in most of the portraits manufactured nowadays. The artist, even when compelled to paint draped figures, will force the drapery ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... think they comprehend the situation by this time?" asked Milton, who seemed to be impatient to see ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... more difficult problem in the world than that of the relation of the state of consciousness, termed volition, to the mechanical work which frequently follows upon it. But no one can even comprehend the nature of the problem, who has not carefully studied the long series of modes of motion which, without a break, connect the energy which does that work with the general store of energy. The ultimate form of the problem is ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... treatise to bear away, in kindly token of remembering us, than the works of Fulke Greville, Lord Brook—of which no Frenchman, nor woman of France, Italy, or England, was ever by nature constituted to comprehend a tittle! Was there not ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... fellows; they really believe that the prosperity of the country depends upon them. They really believe that if the leadership of economic development in this country dropped from their hands, the rest of us are too muddle-headed to undertake the task. They not only comprehend the power of the United States within their grasp, but they comprehend it within their imagination. They are honest men, they have just as much right to express their views as I have to express mine or you to express yours, but it is just about time that we examined ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... but one deep and all-pervading cause of the miseries of man: it is, that he does not comprehend the ways of God, or, in other words, the laws of his own being. If humanity does not work well, and with the same harmony that the planetary system exhibits, it is because he is determined to impress upon it other movements ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... among the people of Judah; Jethro being a priest of Midian. How all this proves that 'Moses was a great impostor,' as the poet says, and that Jehovah was not 'the original God of Israel,' but (1) Moses's family or tribal god, or (2) 'the god of the Kenites,' I profess my inability to comprehend. ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... his * Nor may folk declare him of reason right! Wine and song are ever the will of me * But my morning wine lacks a comrade-wight O who brightenest the Five[FN199] do thou rise and fetch * By night for my use olden wine and bright: O thou reading this writ, prithee comprehend: * Cross the stream I swear thee by God's All-might! This is House of Honour may none gainsay :* Cup-comrade shall be who shall self invite; For within these gates only women wone, * So of men-folk here thou ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... will not allow the ladies to be entertained in a less sumptuous manner than before. You will tell the cook what I say; and now that you have heard me, take care that you obey; if not, recollect that I have my own men here, and if I but point with my finger, overboard you go. Do you perfectly comprehend me?' ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... animal, with a brain equal to our own—one perhaps in some ways superior to our own. They have nothing in common with humanity, however; they have few of our traits and fewer of our mental processes. Even we who have fought them so long can scarcely comprehend the chambers of horror that are their minds. Even were I able to paint a sufficiently vivid picture with words, you of Earth could not begin to understand their utter ruthlessness and inhumanity, even among themselves. You would believe that I was lying, ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... incredible the moment they have ceased. They possibly understood this song no better than the strokes of wit, and encored it merely for the music's sake. The effect was, nevertheless, unfortunate, and calculated to give those French ladies but a bad opinion of our morals. How could they comprehend that the taste was, like themselves, imported, and that its indulgence here did not characterize us? It was only in appearance that, while we did not enjoy the wit we delighted in the coarseness. And how coarse this travesty of the old fable mainly is! That priest Calchas, ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... itself with regard to the elements now in a state of fermentation in Turkey. Instead of alienating from itself the feelings of the Christian population, the Ottoman Government ought more than ever to labour to conciliate them to itself. Let it comprehend, in fine, the necessity of allowing to become obsolete antiquated enactments of the Mahomedan law, which cannot be upheld but in disregard of the unanimous representations of all the Powers. Such should be the purport of the language which, Sir, ...
— Correspondence Relating to Executions in Turkey for Apostacy from Islamism • Various
... me, Mrs. Poulter, it is my duty to relieve you of that inquiry. Mrs. Poulter cannot be explicit. Do you surmise that Helen is compelled to conceal?—you will comprehend me, I am sure. I need not add ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... finite.[55] Even His universe partakes so much of His prerogative of infinity that it is utterly beyond the compass of our finite minds. Indeed, if either the Bible or the book of nature contained nothing beyond what we could easily comprehend, would it not diminish our reverence and awe for the One behind them, Whom we now regard as infinite in power ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... have had occasion a few times to change the swarm to another tenement, an hour or two after being hived, and found places on the top nearly covered with wax. How it was managed to see a bee quit the "group," is more than I can comprehend; and then the tongue to be the only instrument used to mould the scale of wax, is another difficulty; to witness the whole process minutely in this stage of comb-making has never been my good fortune, and I am sometimes inclined to doubt the success of others. I have had ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... men in the cave had strained both eyes and ears to comprehend the speakers. The distance was too great for them to catch all the words, but this much was clear from the first, that one of the men wished to stay on the spot for some purpose, and the other to go on; but presently, as the speakers warmed, a ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... and stepped over to the automobile for an examination of the license. "Ah, my father's ancient enemy!" he exclaimed, "Andre Loustalot has been calling on your father, and has just learned that I am living. I think I comprehend his reason for borrowing my horse and dusting out ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... poor hound, and succeeded in making it comprehend that he wanted "to go home." With that canine sagacity which approaches very near to reason, the dog at once sought for the path by which they had entered the morass, found it, and ran forward eagerly. Etienne ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... not seem at once to comprehend, but when his sons had persuaded him to sit, he made a peremptory motion with his stick towards the old councillor who had spoken before. This individual glanced at the chief for permission, and having received it, told me this story ...
— The Priest's Tale - Pere Etienne - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • Robert Keable
... seemed to echo for a few seconds in the ensuing silence, and one could read upon the faces of the Count and Countess de Dreux a bewildered effort to comprehend his meaning and, at the same time, the fear and anguish of such a comprehension. The count spoke ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... dark. They assaulted this Academician and that; laughed at Mr. Haydon, or sneered at Mr. Eastlake, or the contrary; deified Mr. Turner on one side of the table, and on the other scorned him as a madman—nor could Newcome comprehend a word of their jargon. Some sense there must be in their conversation: Clive joined eagerly in it and took one side or another. But what was all this rapture about a snuffy brown picture called Titian, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thirty years; while even at an earlier date there had been certain skirmishing attacks upon the stage. With the first Puritan began the quarrel with the players. As Isaac Disraeli has observed, "we must go back to the reign of Elizabeth to comprehend an event which occurred in that of Charles I." A sanctimonious sect urged extravagant reforms—at first, perhaps, in all simplicity—founding their opinions upon cramped and literal interpretations of divine precepts, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... more we study the nature of time, the more we shall comprehend that duration means invention, the creation of forms, the continual elaboration of the absolutely new. The systems marked off by science endure only because they are bound up inseparably with the rest of the universe. It is true that in the ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... hate what they call Christian Science. It seems to me a lot of nonsense that nobody can comprehend. I suppose it's an honest delusion on the part of some people and a mixture of mistake and imposture ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... this voyage was principally directed, comprehend, in the western part, the early discoveries of the Dutch, under the name of New Holland; and in the east, the coasts explored by British navigators, ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... not afraid?" she said, quite proudly, beginning at last to comprehend. "You are not ...
— Mere Girauds Little Daughter • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... so admirably adapted to this new vocation, it was, on the other hand, a source of great annoyance. Only a small class was sufficiently enlightened to comprehend my true aim in inculcating moral lessons under a partly humorous guise. All the rest, unfortunately, took me to be either one thing or the other. While some invited me to family prayer-meetings, as the most cheering and welcome relief after the fatigue ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... strong coffee, and all will be well again," said Clayton, putting a cup of the smoking beverage to my lips, which I swallowed eagerly, instinctively. The effect was instantaneous, and I was able to speak and stand, as well as hear and comprehend, while my bonnet was being tied on, and my throat muffled in a veil, by the dexterous fingers of ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... of it to the crowd was that the little peddler did not understand about the race, and thought that instead of winning he was hopelessly beaten. It took the judges some minutes to make him comprehend that he had won the race. His small, greedy, gray eyes shone when he was ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... outside world, looked upon her as their protector and friend. The idea of their beautiful girl Ruler's being overpowered by an enemy and dragged from her splendid palace a captive was too astonishing for them to comprehend, at first. Yet what other explanation of the mystery ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... organ-grinder from the threshold of the cottage to the tree beyond it, Glory made Luigi sit down again and answer every question she put to him; and though he did not always comprehend her words, he did her gestures, so that, soon, she had learned all he knew of the Lane since she had left it until the previous day when ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... numbered. When she was in London last November, she saw the most skilful physicians, and they all agreed that her disease was incurable and fatal. Why did she conceal it from you? Ah, Martin, you must know a woman's heart, a mother's heart, before you can comprehend that. Your father knew, but no one else. What a martyrdom of silent agony she has passed through! She has a clear calculation, based upon the opinion of the medical men, as to how long she might have lived had her mind been kept calm and happy. How far that has not ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... with my Lord in prayer as soon as I could have the privilege! Then I opened his Word for comfort, and my answer was, "Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men." 1 Cor. 7:23. What did this mean? I was too young a child of the King to comprehend, and therefore could only wait and pray. So troubled at heart was I at my husband's pride and growing coldness that I at last visited the pastor of the church where my name was enrolled. He tried to persuade me to refrain from any but ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... left, and assaulting columns pressing our front, we ceased firing to surrender. Our captors came up with flashing eyes and the loveliest smiles on their countenances and shook hands with us in the most enthusiastic manner. I could comprehend how good they felt when we ceased firing on them and they saw that they had gained a great victory. But as I passed through that fort, in and around where the dead of both sides lay thick, and saw ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... causes. But still, it would be some little advantage to the people's understanding to see what prodigious effects could be produced without any preternatural interference. Though not comprehending the science employed, they could comprehend that what they saw was purely a matter of science, and that the cause and the effect were natural and definite; unlike the present race of Egyptians, who not long since regarded the very mechanics of an European as an operation of ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... been more filled with wonder, surprise, and pleasure. All was novelty and excitement, but at the same time, to a great degree, above my comprehension. I had neither language nor ideas to meet it, and yet I did, to a certain degree, comprehend. I saw not clearly, but sometimes as through a mist, at others through a dark fog, and I could discern little. Every day, however, my increased knowledge of language and terms gave me an increased knowledge of ideas. I gained ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... heart was near breaking. When you asked me to tell you what made me sad, I had not the courage to do it. Then I told you a lie. I did the very thing which I have so much condemned in others. This trouble has taught me to comprehend and to pity the frailty of men. I look forward with fear and dread for my own sake.. I shall be safe in my father's house. I must go back, but, before I go, forgive me. Tell me that you do not ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... some bells, and other instruments of worship form exceptions to this. During our excursion at Kioto we passed an inclosure where the walls were built of blocks of stone so colossal, that it was difficult to comprehend how it had been possible to lift and move them with the means that were at the disposal of the Japanese in former times. In the neighbourhood of that place there was a grave, probably the only one of its kind. It is described in the following way in an account of the curiosities of Kioto ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... you are in any danger. It is possible that I have been too anxious. Do you speak the French language easily? Do you comprehend ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... conscious of His own genius, and of the value of His teachings to mankind, He made not the least effort to perpetuate these teachings. He wrote no book, provided no biographer, did none of those things which the humblest man of genius does to ensure that distant generations shall comprehend and appreciate his character and message. He was content to speak His deepest truths to casual listeners. He spent all His wealth of intellect upon inferior persons, fishermen and the like, who did not comprehend one tithe of what He said. He was the friend of all who ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... would have destroyed the schooner and all hands. The people who manned the battery could not possibly have failed to hear the firing that had been going on at the head of the lagoon; but they seemed to have failed to comprehend its full significance, and, therefore, to have been unable to make up their minds to slue the gun round and point it in the opposite direction. This state of indecision on their part not only enabled us to approach them with impunity but also ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... not suddenly recall what had lately passed, or comprehend the nature of my situation. At length, however, ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... was Sylvie's rather sharp retort, answering the latter part of the sentence merely. Child as she was, she experienced a strong desire to do battle, not only for Jack, but for some puzzling cause she could not quite comprehend. With the blood of a French duke in her veins, of soldiers and martyrs as well, she was a sturdy little democrat. It seemed cowardly ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... first peasant. Gabriel Andersen saw his strange, imploring, hopeless look. His lips moved, but no sound was heard, and his eyes wandered. There was a bright gleam in them as in the eyes of a madman. His mind, it was evident, was no longer able to comprehend what was happening. ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... you will comprehend that I have had neither the leisure nor the inclination to go from home much during the past year. I spent a week with Mrs. Gaskell in the spring, and a fortnight with some other friends more recently, and that includes the whole of my visiting since ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... too dark for him to comprehend now—from that first understanding moment in St. Isidore's receiving room to this. Here was his revolt, in one cold burden of dead love. She had left him in some delusion that it would be better thus, that by ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... easy to comprehend that a deaf-mute child, although he has learned but few words through instruction in articulation, weaves these continually into his pantomimic conversation in place of his former elaborate gestures. I observed that individual children, born totally deaf, preferred, even in conversation with ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... brute creation detect influences deadly to their existence. Man's reason has a sense less subtle, because it has a resisting power more supreme. But enough; do you comprehend my theory?" ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... so lost,— Is, whether you're—not grateful—but more pleased. Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed! This hour has been an hour! Another smile? If you would sit thus by me every night I should work better, do you comprehend? I mean that I should earn more, give you more. See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star; Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall, The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. {210} Come from the window, ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... protection than any other property. That they do not secure all this, is the objection I have to the amendments to the Constitution proposed by the Peace Conference. They are ambiguous, loose, and deceptive. I do not know that the people can comprehend them. There will be no certainty under them; and they would, if adopted, result in endless trouble and litigation. I trust no amendments will ever be made to the Constitution, unless they are made upon principles of right, justice, and equality, ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... hesitation. This crowned representative of the union of the throne and the altar did not comprehend royalty without coronation. Not to receive the holy unction would have been for him a case of conscience, a sort of sacrilege. In opening the session of the Chambers in the Hall of the Guards at the Louvre, December 22d, 1824, he announced, amid general approval, ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... of reason are its own necessary processes and expressions. Its dialectic instability is instability that is peculiar to all reality. Both thought and reality manifest one nature and one process. Hence reason with its "dynamic" categories can comprehend the "fluent" reality, because it is flesh of its flesh and bone of its bone. Hegel's bold and oft quoted words "What is rational is real; and what is real is rational," pithily express his whole doctrine. The nature of rationality and the nature of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... full minute to comprehend. When he did, he breathed deep, shut his lips upon words that would have frightened her, and went down the ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... Orion had gone down the river and established his little job-printing-office in Keokuk. On account of charging next to nothing for the work done in his job-office, he had almost nothing to do there. He was never able to comprehend that work done on a profitless basis deteriorates and is presently not worth anything, and that customers are then obliged to go where they can get better work, even if they must pay better prices for it. He had plenty of time, and ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... not comprehend her hesitation and tone. Said he,—"Pierre is wonderfully changed since he and I wore the green sash of the seminary. He is taller than I, wiser and better,—he was always that,—but in heart the same generous, noble Pierre ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Engeholm (for four years in charge of the Primates House in the New York Zoological Park) has not been able to discover that his apes use any language, correctly speaking, he is confident that the chimpanzees Susie, Dick, and Baldy comprehend the definite meaning of many words, and that their minds react promptly when these words are addressed to them in the form of commands. This capacity is more highly developed in Susie than in any other of the ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... to delegate, or—to resign the inheritance of the great warrior and lawgiver. The meek, bald, fat, stammering, simple Charles, or Louis, who successively sat upon his throne—princes, whose only historic individuality consists in these insipid appellations—had not the sense to comprehend, far less to develop, the plans of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... declining, died, leaving me in heart wretched and desolate, and, owing to his habitual seclusion, with few acquaintances, and almost no friends. The provisions of his will were curious, and when I was sufficiently come to myself to listen to, or comprehend them, surprised me not a little: all his vast property was left to me, and to the heirs of my body, for ever; and, in default of such heirs, it was to go after my death to my uncle, Sir Arthur, without any entail. At the same time, ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... attention, and sauntered among the green hillocks under which lay at rest so many of the once loving swains and forgotten beauties of Plumstead. To his ears Eleanor's last words sounded like a knell never to be reversed. He could not comprehend that she might be angry with him, indignant with him, remorseless with him, and yet love him. He could not make up his mind whether or no Mr. Slope was in truth a favoured rival. If not, why should she not have ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... him. Tom made him an anxious sign, and, fevered as he was and but half awake, Richard, whether he understood it or not, anyhow kept silence, while Tom Fool approached the bed, and began to talk rapidly in a low voice, trembling with apprehension. It was some time, however, before Richard began to comprehend even a fragment here and there of what he was saying. When at length he had gathered this much, that his visitor was running no small risk in coming to him, and was in mortal dread of discovery, he needed but the disclosure of ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... Fleming took David's hand, and then in a low voice gave him directions for the night's watch, though David, in the sudden hope and relief that had come to him, could scarcely comprehend them. Then the physician went, and the minister and David sat by the bedside alone. Robert lay in the very similitude and presence of death, unconscious both of his sufferings and his friends. Congestion of the brain had set in, and life was only revealed by ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... seemed to be at home in some familiar element. Delicate hands held mine—a face far lovelier than the loveliest face of woman ever dreamed by poet or painter, smiled radiantly at me, and I smiled back again. A voice whispered in strange musical murmurs, such as I well seemed to know and comprehend: ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... matter, wonderful in the pleasure which the sight of it gives, even to millionaires; but perhaps no five-pound note was ever so miraculous as Denry's. Ten per cent. per week, compound interest, mounts up; it ascends, and it lifts. Denry never talked precisely. But the town soon began to comprehend that he was a rising man, a man to watch. The town admitted that, so far, he had lived up to his reputation as a dancer with countesses. The town felt that there was ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... anxiously to look forward to his return to Boston. "Surely," said I to him one evening as we were engaged in conversation, "Littleton must still contain one attraction for you yet." He appeared not to comprehend my meaning, but I well knew his ignorance was only feigned. But when he saw that I was not to be put off in that way, he said with a tone of assumed indifference, "O! if it is Belinda Merril you are talking about, I ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... electric powers of the combining particles. But it will require a much more exact and extensive knowledge of the nature of electricity, and the manner in which it is associated with the atoms of matter, before we can understand accurately the action of this power in thus causing their union, or comprehend the nature of the great difference which it presents in the two modes of action just distinguished. We may imagine, but such imaginations must for the time be classed with the great mass of doubtful knowledge (876.) which ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... und walk mit him hand in hand, which was most horrible. Herr Gott! I haf seen dot beast throw himself back in his chair und laugh when Bertran haf made fun of me. He was NOT a beast; he was a man, und he talked to Bertran, und Bertran comprehend, for I have seen dem. Und he was always politeful to me except when I talk too long to Bertran und say nodings at all to him. Den he would pull me away—dis great, dark devil, mit his enormous paws— shust as if I was a child. He was not a beast; he was a man. ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... Realizing that if in the little time yet his he made her comprehend, he might lose more than he could hope to gain, he let her free while he took a card and pen from his pocket. He wrote clearly and exactly his address, giving his uncle's ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... possibilities for public recreation and for the corporate expression of stirring emotions. After all, what is the function of art but to preserve in permanent and beautiful form those emotions and solaces which cheer life and make it kindlier, more heroic and easier to comprehend; which lift the mind of the worker from the harshness and loneliness of his task, and, by connecting him with what has gone before, free him from a sense ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... the Landlord's face grew red As his escutcheon on the wall; He could not comprehend at all The drift of what the Poet said; For those who had been longest dead Were always greatest in his eyes; And he was speechless with surprise To see Sir William's plumed head Brought to a level with the rest, And made ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... arm-chair, which gave such a shudder of premonition to Goethe, and which Maginn, reflecting the popular voice, declared to be a mortal likeness—"painted to the very death"—was more like the original than his pictures by Lawrence and Hoppner. One can comprehend, too, that the person whom nature had so ungenerously endowed, might be perfectly capable of retorting to rudeness, or the still-smarting recollection of rudeness, with those weapons of mordant wit and acrid epigram which are not unfrequently the protective ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... and faculty is one which I can hardly think of words to describe fitly. The few of his old friends who are left will understand what I mean. But I can hardly make those who did not know him, or live in his time, comprehend it. That was his rare and unequalled gift of gathering and uttering the sentiment of the people. When new and doubtful matters of pith and moment were to be dealt with, and after a long apparent hesitation, and backing ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... bruised and sore. The fearful events of the day before would continue to thrust themselves upon his mind. To put them out required painful effort; to recall and comprehend them was even worse. Reflecting upon them now, with unstrung nerves, made them seem a hundred-fold more terrible than when they were the spontaneous offspring of hot blood. With the reflection came the thoguhts that this was but a prelude—an ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... Guise, and, to make him believe it, would take frequent opportunities of embracing him, crying out at the same time, "would to God you were my brother!" This he often put in practice before me, which M. de Guise seemed not to comprehend; but I, who knew his malicious designs, lost all patience, yet did not dare to ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... natural tendency to meddle with other people's business, there could not possibly be a more congenial sphere than the Liverpool Consulate. For myself, I had never been in the habit of feeling that I could sufficiently comprehend any particular conjunction of circumstances with human character, to justify me in thrusting in my awkward agency among the intricate and unintelligible machinery of Providence. I have always hated to give advice, especially when ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... is attained. When we graft upon the idea of a mechanism that character of continuous self-development which transforms it into an "organism," the synthesis of the changing phenomena is still more difficult to comprehend. These difficulties can only be overcome by a recognition that the scientific imagination must play a larger part here than it does in those sciences whose subject-matter is more amenable to direct ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... stopping from disturbing his auburn locks any further with his fingers and now all eagerness again, as if only just then beginning to comprehend what the other was ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... answer this question by a thousand instances, than by one definition, which can comprehend them all. What is Love? It is anything you please. It is a prism, through which the eye beholds the same object in various colours; it is a heaven of bliss, or a hell of torture; a thirst of the heart—an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 11, 1841 • Various
... They see us affecting contempt for the very fooleries we seek to imitate; they see these, your chosen, playing the coarse ruffian to the end. To the foreign mind Americans are America—to its chosen they look for the embodiment of its institutions It cannot comprehend that the mongrel-mixture you have sent abroad constitute the very essence of that ill opinion gained of us by misrepresentation. This, General, is strictly private—only intended for your own good. It were folly to look for ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... Greeley family, and a writer for The Tribune; a position was therefore offered her by Mr. Greeley upon his wife's judgment. It required but a short time, however, for the great editor to feel her power, although he failed to fully comprehend her greatness. It has been declared not the least of Horace Greeley's services to the nation, that he was willing to entrust the literary criticisms of The Tribune to one whose standard of culture was so far above that of his ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... melancholy, singing an air with little variation, but with an insistent burden of desire. The voice and the guitar mingled and fluctuated, drifting up from the pavement exotic and moving. Lavinia could comprehend ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of the nation. It concerns them horribly. Nobody can think so ill of them as to suppose they don't care. It's monstrous that men should sit upon that committee alone. Women have had to think about these things. We believe this evil can be met—if men will let us try. It may be that only women comprehend it, since men through the ages have been helpless before it. Why, then, once again, this Commission of men? The mockery of it! Setting men to make their report upon this matter to men! I am not a public speaker, but I am a wife and a mother. Do you wonder that hearing about that Commission ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... converted into crapes and damasks, and other rich stuffs of China, but found, to his astonishment, by the legerdemain of traffic, his cargo had all disappeared, and, in place of it, remained a bill of charges amounting to three thousand dollars. It was some time before he could be made to comprehend certain of the most important items of the bill, such as pilotage, anchorage, and custom-house fees; but when he discovered that maritime states in other countries derived large revenues in this manner, to the great cost of the merchant, "Well," cried he, "then I will have harbor fees ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... are you talking about? what do I comprehend of this new system under which France is living? We old companions-in-arms of his late Majesty can ill understand the language spoken by the new court, and that in its turn does not comprehend ours. But what do I say? We speak no language in this sad country, for all the world is silent ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... ... the child's attitude. And it would enable you immediately to comprehend mine towards an education consisting merely of practical knowledge. The life of Faith is still the happy one. What is more crushingly finite than knowledge? Moral discipline is a nation's only safety. How much of your science ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... apparence made by some magic, As jugglers playen at these feastes great." Of sundry doubts they jangle thus and treat. As lewed* people deeme commonly *ignorant Of thinges that be made more subtilly Than they can in their lewdness comprehend; They *deeme gladly to the badder end.* *are ready to think And some of them wonder'd on the mirrour, the worst* That borne was up into the master* tow'r, *chief How men might in it suche thinges see. ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Calvin, who says: "He speaks after the manner of the prophets, who under the term 'law' used to comprehend ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... hard for such a child as she is to take this journey. She has had no experience,—she does not comprehend the easy customs and the hard travelling of the frontier. I ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... of friends. She was not, even before then, satisfied with their life, though she moved in step with them, while she treasured all her secret dreams in her soul.... But the discrepancy soon becomes apparent.... They cease to comprehend her, and are ready to look askance at everything she does.... At first this is nothing to her, but afterwards, afterwards ... when she is left alone, when what she was striving towards, for which she had sacrificed everything—when heaven is not gained while ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Burke by his late lieutenant, comprise almost everything that a commander should not be guilty of. His acts of commission and omission comprehend everything that a bad general could possibly commit or omit, and Mr. Landells winds up his bad qualities by asserting that he "cultivates the spy system," and treats his men like a parcel of "convicts." Not only is he "ungentlemanly" ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... itself felt in its own sphere. Gravitation is simple. The law according to which an acorn makes an oak—and not a pine-tree is complex. But the laws of Nature are all alike, and if we understand the simple ones, we can at least partly comprehend the more complex. They are nothing but fixed habits ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... fail to comprehend but she ignored it, giving back to the smouldering eyes of disapproval level look for look. Then she said quietly: "Brother Sanders, kin I hev speech with him—or must ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... remember," said Carton, dictating, "the words that passed between us long ago, you will comprehend this when you see it. I am thankful that the time has come when I can prove them." Carton's hand was withdrawn from his breast, and slowly and softly moved down the writer's face. For a few seconds Darnay struggled faintly, Carton's ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... the spy, then he is one. I am not mistaken; for since the glitter of his glass first arrested me I have watched covertly, and several trials as successful as the present have confirmed the suspicion which Babie's innocent complaints of his long absences aroused. Now do you comprehend why I remained in these rooms with the curtains seldom drawn? Why I swung the hammock here and let you sing and read to me while I played with your hair or leaned upon your shoulder? Why I have been all devotion and made this balcony a little stage for the performance ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... desirable that the reader comprehend the full importance of the doctrine, as related to this subject, that the dead are unconscious and that they have no power to communicate with the living. This being established, it sweeps away at one stroke the ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... hard words he turned away, and I heard him going heavily down the stairs. His wife stayed a little longer, saying something in a kind voice, which I did not comprehend, and ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... her. She is not despised and rejected as a woman, but as a poor physician's daughter; and this, to an understanding so clear, so strong, so just as Helena's, is not felt as an unpardonable insult. The mere pride of rank and birth is a prejudice of which she cannot comprehend the force, because her mind towers so immeasurably above it; and, compared to the infinite love which swells within her own bosom, it sinks into nothing. She cannot conceive that he, to whom she has devoted her heart and truth, her soul, her life, her service, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... Power of Thinking," an article which he acknowledges to be a little difficult, he observes, that the great point is to make the child comprehend what is meant by attention; "for as soon as he understands that, all the rest," he assures us, "will be easy." Is it then of less consequence, that the child should learn the habit of attention, than that he should learn ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... Peleg that the old hunter was convinced that what he said was true, and there had been many experiences along the border to justify him in his conclusion. What Sam Oliver had been unable to comprehend was that, much as the methods of the Indians in their warfare were to be condemned, they still were fighting for the protection of the lands which they believed to ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... friendship with a man who was educated and, in a measure, of the world into which he himself had been born. Baird's world had been that of New England, his own, the world of the South; but they could comprehend each other's parallels and precedents, and argue from somewhat similar planes. In the Delisleville days Tom had formed no intimacies, and had been a sort of Colossus set apart; in the mountains of North Carolina he had consorted with the primitive and uneducated in good-humoured, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... convinced, provided an ironical framework for his arguments merely that he might render them more effective than they had been when plainly stated in the pamphlet of 1865. He fully expected his readers to comprehend his irony, and he anticipated that some at any rate of them would keenly resent it. Writing to Miss Savage in March, 1873 (shortly before the publication of the book), he said: "I should hope that attacks on The Fair Haven will give me an opportunity of excusing myself, ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... this is that which the apostle usually prayeth for in his epistles for the saints, namely, "That they might know what is the hope of God's calling, and the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints; and that they might be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and know the love of Christ, which passeth ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... man wad ye be? And wha wad ye hae to maister ye but me, Cuddie, lad?" answered Jenny. "I'll gar ye comprehend in the making of a hay-band. Naebody kens that this young gentleman is living but oursells; and frae that he keeps himsell up sae close, I am judging that he's purposing, if he fand Miss Edith either married, or just gaun to be ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott |
