"Comprehensible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there was a casus belli. There always is among savage as well as civilised nations, and it is a curious coincidence that the reasons given for the necessity for war are about as comprehensible among the civilised as the savage. Of course among civilised nations these reasons for war are said to be always good. Christians, you know, could not kill each other without good reasons; but is it not strange that among educated people, the reasons ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... were evolved two orders of beings, namely, demons and gods. The demons had hideous forms, even as Berosus said, which were part animal, part bird, part reptile and part human. The gods had wholly human forms, and they represented the three layers of the comprehensible world, that is to say, heaven or the sky, the atmosphere, and the underworld. The atmosphere and the underworld together formed the earth as opposed to the sky or heaven. The texts say that the first ...
— The Babylonian Legends of the Creation • British Museum
... equals, not in a desire to stand well with himself. In consequence he had not the builder's fundamental instinct. He made no effort to supply himself with anything that did not satisfy this amiable desire. The contradictions of his conduct, therefore, become comprehensible. We begin to see why he wore silks and satins and why he neglected what to us are necessities. We see why he could display such admirable carriage in rough-riding and lassoing grizzlies, and yet seemed to possess such feeble military efficiency. We comprehend his generous ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... Tiger and Jack he himself seemed odd, both anatomically and in other ways. His fine gray fur and his four-fingered hands set him apart from them—he would never be mistaken for an Earthman, even in the densest fog. But these were comprehensible differences. His close attachment to Fuzzy was something else, and still seemed beyond ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... distress to a great many people because of its supposed invasion of recognised morality. It deals, as every one knows, with a Duke Ferdinand and an elopement which he planned with the bride of one of the Riccardi. The lovers begin by deferring their flight for various more or less comprehensible reasons of convenience; but the habit of shrinking from the final step grows steadily upon them, and they never take it, but die, as it were, waiting for each other. The objection that the act thus avoided was a criminal one is very simply ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... the Hawkeses were but homely folk; she knew that any Monroe should shrink from this hot and noisy kitchen. But Sally's heart welcomed the eager bustle, the tasks so imperative that her timid little entity was entirely forgotten, the talk that was friendly and affectionate and comprehensible. ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... Of course, I hate to swallow an early and rapid dinner. One did such things in the war, gladly dislocating an elderly digestion in the service of one's country. In peace time one demands a compensating leisure. But this would be comprehensible only to a well-trained married woman. My misery would have been outside Auriol's ken. I meekly said nothing. The world of young women knows nothing ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... bureaux, where business was prepared, and where the smaller matters were practically settled. By the royal councils and their subordinate public offices, France was governed to an extent and with a minuteness hardly comprehensible to any one not accustomed to ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... processes which marked the transition of the United States from a peace to a war basis are comprehensible unless we remember that the President was constantly working to overcome the forces of decentralization, and also that the military programme was always on an emergency basis, shifting almost from week to week in ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... look like that." For though I felt a little nervous, I saw no cause for the boy's abject dread, having yet to learn that anything not comprehensible to the savage mind is set down at once as being the work of ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... now lost their whole character of vagueness, and begun to lead us in a perfectly definite direction, let us examine the statements of Hester Dyett. Now, it is immediately comprehensible to me that the evidence of this woman at the public examinations was looked at askance. There can be no doubt that she is a poor specimen of humanity, an undesirable servant, a peering, hysterical caricature of a woman. Her statements, if formally recorded, were not believed; ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... language this means, that all the multifarious and complicated activities of man are comprehensible under three categories. Either they are immediately directed towards the maintenance and development of the body, or they effect transitory changes in the relative positions of parts of the body, or they tend towards the continuance of the species. Even those manifestations ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Captain Pedolsky opened the pouch on his belt and took out the false palate and tongue-clicker without which no Terran could do more than mouth a crude and barely comprehensible pidgin-Ulleran. Stuffing the gadget into his mouth, he turned and ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... one side. But this is a very gross delusion. Although truth is difficult to state, it is both easy and agreeable to receive, and the mind runs out to meet it ere the phrase be done. The universe, in relation to what any man can say of it, is plain, patent, and staringly comprehensible. In itself, it is a great and travailing ocean, unsounded, unvoyageable, an eternal mystery to man; or, let us say, it is a monstrous and impassable mountain, one side of which, and a few near slopes and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... answered the man. It would have been very strange if he had not understood, for though Grant addressed him in English the word grod bawled so frequently into his ear was sufficiently comprehensible. ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... the world the Son of God, descending from His heavenly seat, and not quitting the glory of His Father, begotten in a new order by a new nativity. In a new order: because He who was invisible in His own nature, was made visible in ours; He who was incomprehensible [could not be contained], became comprehensible in ours; remaining before all times, He began to be in time; the Lord of all, He took upon Him the form of a servant, having obscured His immeasurable majesty. He who was God, incapable of suffering, did not disdain to be man, capable ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... transport them. Moreover, with so many hostiles on every side, was he justified in stripping the post of its defenders? It was no pleasant situation. It was more than perplexing. Presently he turned and, using such signs as he thought might be comprehensible, asked the impassive runner if he knew where the first fight took place, and the Hualpai, as would almost any Indian partially gathering the drift of a question, began a rambling reply, pointing as he spoke, with shifting finger, all over the range ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... emerging champion and lover is comprehensible to us of a later day—that, and the joy she feels in watching him impatiently submit to be armed. Even so might one of us watch and listen to and keep for ever in memory the stamp of the foot, the sound of the "ringing ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... friendly eyed, north-country woman flashed across Esther's mental vision, obscuring the less comprehensible figure of her sister-in-law. She thought ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... women narrowed their eyes, and looked questioningly at one another. Isabelle, who was far too securely throned to be jealous of any one, sometimes told her that she would make a fortune on the stage, but old Mrs. Carter, who for reasons perfectly comprehensible in an old lady who had once been handsome herself, detested Harriet, and said to her daughter-in- law that in her opinion there was something queer ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... parts drunk, and for some reason, not very comprehensible, he had chosen to resent the presence of this clean-limbed, clean-featured English lad. Possibly he recognized in him a type which for its very cleanness he abhorred. Possibly his sodden brain was stirred by an envy which ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... Dr. Latrobe, "is perfectly comprehensible to me. The only way to get along with him is to let him know his place, ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... would to banish the contestants, Dr. Surtaine's Paean of Policy and McGuire Ellis's impassioned declaration of faith did battle for the upper hand in his formulating professional standards. The Doctor's theory was the clean-cut, comprehensible, and plausible one. But something within Hal responded to the hot idealism of the fighting journalist. He wanted Ellis for a fellow workman. And his last waking notion was that he wanted and needed Ellis mainly because Ellis had told him to ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... reverses that of the philosophers. We are chiefly concerned, not with some vague saying of Anaxagoras, but with what he really knew regarding the phenomena of nature; with what he observed, and with the comprehensible deductions that he derived from his observations. In attempting to answer these inquiries, we are obliged, in part, to take our evidence at second-hand; but, fortunately, some fragments of writings of Anaxagoras have come down to us. We ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... men otherwise distinguished in literature wrote letters—sometimes in curious contrast with other productions of theirs. The most remarkable instance of this, but an instance easily comprehensible, is that of Samuel Pepys. Only a part of Pepys' immense correspondence has ever been printed, but there is no reason to expect from the remainder—whether actually extant, mislaid or lost—anything better than the examples which are now accessible, and which are for the most part the very ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... advanced accordingly towards the black, who now awaited my approach with folded arms, like one prepared for either destiny. As I came nearer, he reached forth his hand with a great gesture, such as I had seen from the pulpit, and spoke to me in something of a pulpit voice, but not a word was comprehensible. I tried him first in English, then in Gaelic, both in vain; so that it was clear we must rely upon the tongue of looks and gestures. Thereupon I signed to him to follow me, which he did readily and with a grave obeisance like a fallen king; all the while there had come ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no affectation of fancy. Shelley saw the immortal shapes of "Desires and Adorations" lamenting over the bier of the mortal Keats, because for him an idea or a passion was incomparably more real and more comprehensible than the things of flesh and earth, of whose existence the senses persuade us. To such a mind philosophy was not a distant world to be entered with diffident and halting feet, ever ready to retreat at the first alarm of commonsense. It was his daily habitation. He lived ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... of the parables was comprehensible through study, prayer and search was intimated in the Teacher's admonishment: "Who hath ears to hear, let him hear."[650] To the more studious inquirers, the Master added: "Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... Dragon," over which I have burnt the midnight oil (you must colour the thing by lamplight because that is how it will be seen), still lacks most conspicuously, alas! two wings of the Sultan's Palace, and also some comprehensible and workable way ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... rocks of offence when they are detached from the spiritual order and set apart in an order of their own. The age in which we live affords a concrete illustration of the vital processes in society and means of contact with that society, but it is comprehensible and educative in the exact degree in which we understand its relation to other times. The impression which the day makes upon us needs to be tested by the impression which we receive from the year; the judgment of a decade ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... present to the best among the German people; many quotations to this effect (for example, Geibel's lines) are to-day in everybody's mouth. Deeper thoughts are aroused by a less-known remark of Richard Wagner's: "A great mission, scarcely comprehensible to other nations, is unquestionably reserved for the whole German character (Anlage)"; this character he defines as "the spirit of pure humanity," and the mission of the Germans as "the ennoblement of the world...." Not to believe in ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... his intermediate agents, one half of the annual amount of lumber felled for market, the sale of which was arranged with the neighboring forge owners by mutual agreement; the other half was disposed of by notarial act. This latter arrangement was clear and comprehensible; the price of sale and the amounts falling due were both clearly indicated in the deed. But it was quite different with the bargains made by the owner himself, which were often credited by notes payable at sight, mostly worded in confused terms, unintelligible ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... understand me when I said she would be compromised! He won't be able to leave his bed under four weeks; and she said she hadn't much money. If she had once known him, if he were some former neighbour, it would be comprehensible. But an individual she never laid eyes on day before yesterday! And the minute he gets up, he'll head for the public bar. There's something queer about that young man; but we'll never be able to find out what it is. I don't believe his ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... the reader by attempting to describe in detail my plan of operations, for it involved a mathematical problem of some complexity, only interesting to and comprehensible by a mathematician. Suffice it to say that what I had undertaken to do was to make three separate sets of observations from as many chosen points, consisting of carefully observed compass bearings, and angles taken with ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... as given by her maid, although hideously unlike the beautiful object they were meant to call up to her father's mind, were sufficiently expressive and comprehensible. ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... people who collect and hold in themselves some knowledge of contemporary events as the air collects and holds moisture; it may be that we all do, but only one here and there becomes aware of the fact. As the impalpable moisture in the air changes to palpable rain so does this vague cognisance become a comprehensible revelation by being resolved into a shower of words on occasion by some process psychically analogous to the condensation of moisture in the air. It is a natural phenomenon known to babes like Beth, but ill-observed, and not at all explained, because man ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... day shut up in his chamber, then forth to wander solitary beneath the holm-oaks that bordered the Ema road at the hour when the first stars are a-tremble in the pale evening sky. If by chance he encountered riders of his own age, he never laughed, and said little—and that little was not always comprehensible. His strange bearing and ambiguous words were a grief and a grievance to his comrades—and above all to Messer Betto Brunelleschi, for he dearly loved Messer Guido, and had no fonder wish than to make him one of the Brotherhood which embraced the richest ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... important in their influence in shaping physical geography, and giving accuracy to the mode of representing natural phenomena. Before Humboldt we had no graphic representation of complex natural phenomena which made them easily comprehensible, even to minds of moderate cultivation. He has done that in a way which has circulated information more extensively, and brought it to the apprehension more clearly than it could have been ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... and his sense of access to God had given a new courage to his mind; in these moods of enlightenment he could see the world as a comprehensible ball, he could see history as an understandable drama. He had always been on the verge of realizing before, he realized now, the two entirely different and antagonistic strands that interweave in the twisted rope of contemporary religion; ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... profound admiration for him which he could neither realize nor reciprocate. It is too much to expect that the mighty genius of Beethoven, which broke through all rules in vindication of the principles underlying them, would be comprehensible to a mind like Cherubini's, in which, while the creative faculties were finely developed, the critical faculty was atrophied and its place supplied by a mere disciplinary code inadequate even as a basis for the analysis of his own works. On the other hand, it would be impossible to exaggerate the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... night before had left 'em with an uncomfortable feeling that their spy was taking quite unreasonable risks. It is of course most unusual for a spy to make use of rocket signals. Do I make myself comprehensible?" ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... offered to him in the school of life. In ultimate importance it outranks the arithmetic, the grammar, the geography, the manuals of science; for without the aid of the imagination none of these books is really comprehensible. ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... bring the question of repeal before the house. He asked, what was meant by the watch-word of repeal of the union between Great Britain and Ireland. If those who used it meant a complete separation, or a species of Hibernian republic, their conduct was both comprehensible and consistent; but if, as they asserted, they only meant two separate independent legislatures, under the same monarch, the motion was inconsistent with the first principles of the science of government. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... proceeds on the assumption that all religions are products of thought, commenced and continued in accordance with the laws of the human mind, and, therefore, comprehensible to the extent to which these laws are known. No one disputes this, except in reference to his own religion. This, he is apt to assert, had something "supernatural" about its origin. If this word be correctly used, it may stand without cavil. The "natural" is that of which we know ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... ever-widening kingdom established without the aid of the sword and freed from all racial barriers—the eternal, universal, spiritual kingdom of God on earth. It is evident that in contrast to the other types of messianic prophecy this form was comprehensible, practicable, and alone capable ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... which befits the artist asked to listen to a rival. Mr. Thornburgh sat pensive, one foot drooped over the other. He was very fond of the Leyburn girls, but music seemed to him, good man, one of the least comprehensible of human pleasures. As for Rose, she had at last arranged herself and her accompanist Agnes, after routing out from her music a couple of Fantasie-Stuecke, which she had wickedly chosen as presenting the most severely classical contrast to the 'rubbish' ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Macpherson rather objected to being made the subject of an article—first of all, for the very comprehensible reason that such publicity would draw down upon her a host of visitors; and when I suggested that visitors probably meant funds, she added a second, and not quite so comprehensible an objection—that these funds themselves might alloy the element of Faith in which the work ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... into a room where there are red arm-chairs. Here, there is a dark patch on the carpet, concerning which fingers are still shaken at Grisha. Beyond that room is still another, to which one is not admitted, and where one sees glimpses of papa—an extremely enigmatical person! Nurse and mamma are comprehensible: they dress Grisha, feed him, and put him to bed, but what papa exists for is unknown. There is another enigmatical person, auntie, who presented Grisha with a drum. She appears and disappears. Where does she disappear to? Grisha has more than once looked ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the tone in which they were uttered, would have been comprehensible to a much meaner intelligence than Sonny's. As if he had been whipped, he curled down his abbreviated tail, and ran and ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... in subordinate regard, Language; the prominent criterion, by which a human being is proudly elevated above the rest of the animated creation. Speech, and its representation by characters, are exclusively comprehensible by man; and these have been the sources of his vast attainments and rapid progression. The ear receives the various intonations that convey intelligence, and the characters or symbols of these significant sounds are detected by ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... Mme. de Bargeton's past life, a dreary chronicle which must be given if Lucien's position with regard to the lady is to be comprehensible. Lucien's introduction came about oddly enough. In the previous winter a newcomer had brought some interest into Mme. de Bargeton's monotonous life. The place of controller of excise fell vacant, and M. de Barante appointed a man whose adventurous life was a sufficient passport to the ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... Europe and Australasia, they are taught on a background of the geography of yards, alleys, squares, streets and playgrounds with which they are familiar. Geography thus concretely presented, becomes comprehensible to even the ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... being free from the body, she knew no physical pain, and she shrank from returning before she need, knowing well the anguish of suffering that awaited her. The desolation and loneliness made her unhappy in a vague and not very comprehensible fashion, but she did not suffer actively. That would come later when return became imperative. Till then she flitted to and fro, intangible as gossamer, elusive as the snow. She wondered what Apollo would say if he could see her thus. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... this realm of myths and missions, and general dread and discomfort," said Mr. Rollin, "on to comprehensible soil again, where ordinary sinners are sure of some sort of a footing,—and bad as a fellow is he knows there are plenty more like him,—then I shan't appear to you in such a deucedly poor light as I do now, a doubtful sort of pearl in a setting of ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... evidently comprehensible, for the man at once threw the birds at McLeod's feet, and, taking the flask, emptied its ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... abstract. He was conceived, some Chinese writers say, because the philosophical explanations of the Cosmos were too recondite for the ordinary mind to grasp. That he did fulfil the purpose of furnishing the ordinary mind with a fairly easily comprehensible picture of the creation may be admitted; but, as will presently be seen, it is over-stating the case to say that he was conceived with the set purpose of furnishing the ordinary mind with a concrete solution or illustration of this great problem. There is no evidence that P'an ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... generous, if his methods were perniciously mistaken. In his theory of Free Love alone, borrowed like the rest from the Revolution, his aim was as mischievous as his method. At the same time he was at least logical. His theory was repulsive, but comprehensible. Whereas from our present via media—facilitation of divorce—can only result the era when the young lady in reduced circumstances will no longer turn governess but will be open to engagement as wife ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... was as clear and even as the arrangement of the matter was lucid; the voice was not loud, but so distinct that it carried to the furthest benches. No syllable was slurred, no point hurried over. All this made for the lucid and comprehensible; well-chosen language and fine utterance shaped a perfect vehicle of thought. But it was the lucidity of the thought itself, thus expressed, that gave his lectures their quality. A clever and accomplished lady once, in intimate conversation, ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... parapet, I wondered if he recognised the passing step—if he recognised my step—and associated them with a penny? Of what use that he should know the different steps? if he knew them there would be anticipation and disappointments. But a dog would make life comprehensible; and I imagined a companionship, a mingling of muteness and blindness, and the joy that would brighten the darkness when the dog leaped eagerly upon the blind man's knees. I imagined the joy of warm feet and limb, and the sudden poke of the muzzle. A dog would be a link to bind the ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... received your letter. The two K.'s—Kompel and Kahnt—shall be made most welcome. Pohl had already told me of Kahnt's coming; it will be a pleasure to me not to verlangweilen [To make the time hang heavily] his visit here (if that word is not quite German, still I consider it is comprehensible!). Julius Schuberth had also the intention of rescuing something [Namely, Liszt's composition] from Kuehn. [Music publisher] Your idea of giving Bronsart the conductorship of the Euterpe Concerts is a most excellent one. I suppose the letter which I wrote about this to ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... indefinite except its character as indefinite. That all the phenomena of the world, the fixed order of events, the infinite variety of world-forms and names, all these are originated by this avidya, ajnana or maya is indeed hardly comprehensible. If it is indefinite nescience, how can all these well-defined forms of world-existence come out of it? It is said to exist only relatively, and to have only a temporary existence beside the permanent infinite reality. To take such a principle and to ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... in lively remembrance before his fancy, which liked to go back into that first and only period of his freedom, though, perhaps, also of his beggarhood. In Freudenberger's school he had learned a natural, easy, and comprehensible arrangement of little groups, and a neat, dainty manner, in which wise it was no difficult task for him to represent such scenes with truth and grace. Thus we find these pictures of his, which, for the most part, are painted on small sheets, his sports, banterings, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... she preferred to construct her own plots and put her own words in the mouths of the singers. Though a constant attendant on the opera, she never knew what "Il Trovatore" was about, which, perhaps, is not so surprising after all. Doubtless the play which she had fashioned in her own mind was more comprehensible than Verdi's medley of burnt children and asthmatic dance rhythms. Madame de Stael went so far as to condemn the German composers because they "follow too closely the sense of the words," whereas the Italians, "who are truly the musicians of nature, ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... superficial criticism than that which declares French poetry in general to be either nought—which is still a not uncommon notion—or at least not great enough to be worth the study which alone could make it comprehensible. There are many good people who dare to say this, yet live, audacious, and unconscious of their folly. We have, however, to consider Victor Hugo on a ground which no one ventures to dispute. The great romances—for which ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... however, with the work of the allied institution of which I now come to speak. The Institute of Hygiene deals with topics not very remote from those studied in the Virchow Institute, part of its work, indeed, falling clearly within the scope of pathology; but it differs in being clearly comprehensible to the general public and of immediate and tangible interest from the most strictly utilitarian stand-point, hygiene being, in effect, the tangible link between the more abstract medical sciences and ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... smile of extraordinary significance, and told me that I must have very little idea of what her relations with Beatrice were; but I must do her the justice to add that she went on to make herself a little more comprehensible by saying that it was quite reason enough for her sister not to be alarmed that Mark would be sure to be. He was always nervous about the child, and as they were predestined by nature to take opposite views, the only thing for Beatrice was to cultivate a false optimism. If Mark were ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... wished to examine the actresses at first hand, so he had mingled in the groups of admirers and gallants, had penetrated into the greenroom, where was whispered and talked a French required by the situation, a market French, a language that is readily comprehensible for the vender when the buyer seems disposed ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... had a dowdy wife and a dowdy mind, and spent much of his time in town taking advantage of the army's lately exalted social position. Last of all was the general, who traversed the roads of the camp preceded by his flag—a figure so austere, so removed, so magnificent, as to be scarcely comprehensible. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... mine, than what are the absolutely necessary angles of the octahedron, which is its common form. At all events, that mathematical part of crystallography is quite beyond girls' strength; but these questions of the various tempers and manners of crystals are not only comprehensible by you, but full of the most curious teaching for you. For in the fulfilment, to the best of their power, of their adopted form under given circumstances, there are conditions entirely resembling those of human virtue; and indeed expressible under no term ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... nothing but the mediaeval and Teutonic form of tenets common to all the nations upon earth. The changeling superstition and the classic stories of children and adults beloved by gods of high and low degree are consistent with this belief, and inseparable from it. The motive is so far comprehensible: what is wanted is to know whether any special relations, such as are pointed at by the Greek epithet Drakos, were held to exist between the mysterious world and newly-born babes which would render the latter ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... ring in her voice, or the sheer seriousness of the position, he did not feel resentment as when he lost her to Fiorsen. Love! A passion such as had overtaken her mother and himself! And this young man? A decent fellow, a good rider—comprehensible! Ah, if the course had only been clear! He put his hand on her ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... became comprehensible to Thor that his father might raise the rent and still not be an instrument of oppression. It was consoling to him to perceive this. It helped to allay certain uncomfortable suspicions that had risen in his mind since coming home, and which were ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... to the government of this country, something not quite comprehensible, in this League. For the first time in the southern hemisphere, a Reform League is to be inaugurated. There is something ominous in this; the word 'League,' in a time of such feverish excitement as the present, is big with immense purport (indeed!) ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... "Lectures to Working Men" which, as Mr. Leonard Huxley is good enough to inform us, was not delivered until December 15th, and therefore could not have been seen by Mr. Darwin on December 10th. The change of date makes comprehensible the reference to Falconer's paper "On the American Fossil Elephant of the Regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico (E. Columbi, Falc.)," which appeared in the January number of the "Natural History Review." It is true that he had seen advanced sheets ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... show that he was struggling to see in the origin of species a process just as scientifically comprehensible as the birth of individuals. They show, I think, that he recognised the two things not merely ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... was of a kind that Lettice rejoiced in exceedingly, and that Alan loved without quite knowing why. The Tannhauser Overture, the Walkueren-Ritt, two of Schubert's loveliest songs, and the less exciting but more easily comprehensible productions of an earlier classical composer, were the chief items of the first part of the concert. Then came an interval, after which the rest of the afternoon would be devoted to the Choral Symphony. But during this interval Alan hastened to make ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... dervish, with the haggard face and wild, restless eyes of one addicted to bhang, now volunteers to take me under his protection and lead me out of the caravanserai to—where? He vouchsafes no explanation where; none, at least, that is at all comprehensible to me. Where do these interesting specimens of Beerjand's weird population want to entice me to? why do they want to entice me anywhere? I conclude to go with ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... undoubtedly much in primitive Christianity to appeal to this man, and Jesus' hard sayings to the rich and about the rich would have been entirely comprehensible to him. Yet the religion that is preached in our churches and practiced by our congregations, with its element of display and self-aggrandizement, its active proselytism, and its open contempt of all religions but its own, ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... Pegasi and Hippogriffs, and of flying chariots, from that of Phaeton downwards to Astolfo's,[3] were evidently intended by their authors as mythical; not so, however, with Bishop Wilkins;—he boldly avers, for several reasons which he keeps to himself, and for others not very comprehensible to us, which he details "seriously and on good grounds," "that it is possible to make a flying chariot, in which a man may sit, and give such a motion unto it, as shall convey him through the air; and this perhaps might be made large enough to carry divers men at the same ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... to get the accent as all that," returned the Baron. "I don't think it is necessary for a man to make a monkey of himself just for the pleasure of mastering a language. Reasoning similarly, a man to master the art of braying in a fashion comprehensible to the jackass of average intellect should make a jackass of himself, cultivate his ears, and learn to kick, so as properly to punctuate his sentences after the manner of most ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... something important. Accordingly, when he said the formula, she was as careful to remember it accurately as she was to remember the place of the bottle on the shelf. Now she wrote it down just as he spoke it, and, though perhaps not exactly as he would have written it, still comprehensible. She pinned the piece of paper in the cuff of her dress; it would not be found there if, by ill luck, she was caught and searched later on. Next she went to the kitchen cupboard; there were several wide-necked stoppered bottles there, doubtless without the ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... daughter, and she was ignorant of the pleasant everyday amenities of a father's love. As there is undoubtedly such a thing as love at first sight, so must there be sympathy at first sight. For Jocelyn it was comprehensible—nay, it was most natural. This was Jack's father. In his manner, in everything about him, there were suggestions of Jack. This seemed to be a creature hewn, as it were, from the same material, moulded ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... was coming to establish. A kingdom of souls, if not intolerable to his Sadducean faith, seemed to him but an abstraction drawn from the depths of a devotion too fond and dreamy. A kingdom of Judea, on the other hand, was more than comprehensible: such had been, and, if only for that reason, might be again. And it suited his pride to think of a new kingdom broader of domain, richer in power, and of a more unapproachable splendor than the old one; of a new ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... extreme limit of all moral inquiry, and it is of great importance to determine it even on this account, in order that reason may not on the one band, to the prejudice of morals, seek about in the world of sense for the supreme motive and an interest comprehensible but empirical; and on the other hand, that it may not impotently flap its wings without being able to move in the (for it) empty space of transcendent concepts which we call the intelligible world, and so lose itself amidst chimeras. For the rest, the idea of a pure world of understanding ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant
... Europe moated off into this manageable and comprehensible space, you are next to fix the limits which divide the four Gothic countries, Britain, Gaul, Germany, and Dacia, from the four Classic countries, Spain, Italy, ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... the one impulse needed to crystallize these disconnected facts into one comprehensible whole. The connecting link was everywhere common descent, difference was due to the continual variation and divergence of their ancestors. The classification, which all were seeking, was really the ancestral tree of the animal kingdom. Forms more generalized should be placed ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... training, and some by fate, but I have never met an Englishman yet who hated Islam and its people as I have met Englishmen who hated some other faiths. Musalmani awadani, as the saying goes—where there are Mohammedans, there is a comprehensible civilisation. ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... its inhabitants going about their daily business and not suspecting that they were made a show of. And these books are as English as a beefsteak. Have they ever been tried in America? It needs an English residence to make them thoroughly comprehensible; but still I should think that the human nature in them ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... occur to 'Zekiel to be surprised that all the dogs were chatting together in very comprehensible Dorsetshire English. To see them actually living, and moving about, was such an extraordinary thing that it swallowed up every other feeling, ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... knowledge came a new and less comprehensible emotion. At first Miss Loder had accepted the fact of her employer's marriage as one accepts any fixed tradition; and the subject rarely entered her ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... intensely religious. She had months earlier chosen the Brompton Oratory for her devotions, partly because of the name of Philip, which had been murmured in accents of affection by her dying mother, and partly because it lay on a direct, comprehensible bus-route from Piccadilly. You got into the motor-bus opposite the end of the Burlington Arcade, and in about six minutes it dropped you in front of the Oratory; and you could not possibly lose yourself in the topographical intricacies ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... only of average and COMMON experiences, must have been the most potent of all the forces which have hitherto operated upon mankind. The more similar, the more ordinary people, have always had and are still having the advantage; the more select, more refined, more unique, and difficultly comprehensible, are liable to stand alone; they succumb to accidents in their isolation, and seldom propagate themselves. One must appeal to immense opposing forces, in order to thwart this natural, all-too-natural PROGRESSUS IN SIMILE, the evolution of man to ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... of a great man. Moreover, she was not in the least what one expects an old person to be. Old persons ought to take up the position of audience. They ought, above all things, to give a rest to the minds of young people, who, goodness knows, have enough to worry them, by being easily comprehensible. With mother one knew exactly where one was; one knew everything that had happened to her and how she had felt about it, and there was no question of anything fresh ever happening to her. But from the deep, slow breaths this woman drew, from the warmth that seemed to radiate from her, from ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... though terror-stricken by the French, was still actuated by hatred to the English, and a jealousy of their power in the Mediterranean; and in this so strange and senseless a manner, that we must join the extremes of imbecility and treachery in the same cabinet, in order to find it comprehensible. Though the very existence of Naples and Sicily, as a nation, depended wholly and exclusively on British support; though the royal family owed their personal safety to the British fleet; though not only their ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... for Colon. And at Colon he found himself once more among his own kind. Scattered up and down the Isthmus he found an occasional Northerner to whom he was not unknown, engineers and construction men who could talk of things that were comprehensible to him, gamblers and adventurers who took him poignantly back to the life he had left so far behind him. Along that crowded and shifting half-way house for the tropic-loving American he found more than one passing friend to whom ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... for the rapid acceptance of his new theology hard to understand. The movement was essentially popular and national. It appealed to the pious-minded who desired a simplification of Christian dogma and a comprehensible method of salvation. It also appealed to the worldly minded who longed to seize ecclesiastical lands and revenues. Above all, it appealed to the patriots who were tired of foreign despotism and of abuses which they traced ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... the murder of Leopold Winkler, then he will take the next train back and give himself up to the authorities. That he makes no such move as long as he thinks there is no suspicion on any one else, no possibility that any one else could suffer the consequences of his deed—is quite comprehensible—it is only natural ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... comprehensible. And so far you're excusable. But how came it you didn't see to their being ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... or anybody else's does not matter),—in the Huguenot and his mistress, or the ivy behind them,—in the face of Ophelia, or in the flowers floating over it as it sank;—much more, so far as he saw what instantly comprehensible nobleness of passion might be in the binding of a handkerchief,—in the utterance of two words, "Trust me" or the like: he prevailed, and rightly prevailed, over all prejudice and opposition; to that extent he will in what he has done, or may yet ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Valedolmo is stupid for a man; but why don't you try mountain-climbing? Everybody finds that diverting. There's a guide here who speaks English—really comprehensible English. He's engaged for to-morrow, but after that I dare say he'll be free. Gustavo can tell you ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... comprehensible. There was no secret resolution of the members who applied for the three millions. It was Bonaparte who offered the money, which, however, he did not send; it was he who despatched Augereau; and he who wished for the triumph of the Directorial majority. His memory served ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... of suffering, perhaps, in a blind rudimentary way, on which Julia's sensibilities naturally declined to linger. She so fully understood her own reasons for leaving him that she disliked to think they were not as comprehensible to her husband. She was haunted, in her analytic moments, by the look of perplexity, too inarticulate for words, with which he had acquiesced to ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton |
