"Comprehension" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... again and again before he seemed to have the least comprehension of what they meant: then, in a stupor of dull despondency, he read on to the end, and learnt that all his hopes were over, that his life was a blank, and that the thing he had dreaded so much as to cheat himself into the belief that it could never happen had come to pass. And yet he was still ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... attitude. Such an attitude would little suit the purposes of the poet. What then must he do? He must throw the interest on the murderer. Our sympathy must be with him; (of course I mean a sympathy of comprehension, a sympathy by which we enter into his feelings, and are made to understand them,—not a sympathy[1] of pity or approbation.) In the murdered person all strife of thought, all flux and reflux of passion and of purpose, are crushed ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... so far removed from the lives of normal, decent people as to be simply unbelievable by them. The "white slave" trade of today is one of these incredible things. The calmest, simplest statements of its facts are almost beyond the comprehension or belief of men and women who are mercifully spared from contact with the dark and hideous secrets of "the under world" ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... have felt, the first effect of this shock upon his son produced only a dullness of comprehension — a sort of hazy inability to grasp the missile or realize the blow. Yet he realized that to his father it was likely to be fatal. The chances were great that the whole family would turn round and go home within a few weeks. The horizon widened out in endless waves of confusion. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... Mr. Royal's house with a new comprehension of the woman he had married in jest. Somehow, he had always considered that Katie and he were really the only sufferers. Young, petted, rich, and handsome, it had not come forcibly home to him before, however much his courtesy might have assumed it, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... intelligence superior to that of man." In reading such expressions we are strongly reminded of the poem on the "rationalistic chicken," which would not admit that it ever came out of an egg. When the wisdom shown in the universe is so immensely beyond the comprehension of man, how can he assume his own to ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... perceives that nature—the world—must be an embodiment of reason. An interest in the contemplation and comprehension of the present world became universal. Thus experimental science became the science of the world; for experimental science involves, on the one hand, the observation of phenomena; on the other hand, also the discovery of the law, the ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... to every projector and adventurer, to every alchemist and empiric. They despair of turning to account anything that is common. Diet is nothing in their system of remedy. The worst of it is, that this their despair of curing common distempers by regular methods arises not only from defect of comprehension, but, I fear, from some malignity of disposition. Your legislators seem to have taken their opinions of all professions, ranks, and offices from the declamations and buffooneries of satirists,—who would themselves be astonished, if they were held to the letter of their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and receiving no check, very soon knew no bounds or limit to his licence, as is often the way in such cases. His rage so blinded him that he had not even been able to detect that this "idiot," whom he was abusing to such an extent, was very far from being slow of comprehension, and had a way of taking in an impression, and afterwards giving it out again, which was very un-idiotic indeed. But something ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... English people in these days, the crude forms of the infant language have practically become. Shakespeare has not suffered by similar changes; Spencer has not suffered; it would be surprising if Chaucer should suffer, when the loss of popular comprehension and favour in his case are necessarily all the greater for his remoteness from our day. In a much smaller degree — since previous labours in the same direction had left far less to do — the same work has been performed for the spelling of Spenser; and the whole endeavour in this department of ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Sammlungen kleiner Schriften, not only all hang together, but supplement each other to a remarkable extent. Unless a course of study such as this is undertaken many critics may think various statements and inferences in this volume to be far fetched or find them too obscure for comprehension. ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... some peculiar impulse of genius; that he must watch the happy minute in which his natural fire is excited, in which his mind is elevated with nobler sentiments, enlightened with clearer views, and invigorated with stronger comprehension; that he must carefully select his thoughts and polish his expressions; and animate his efforts with the hope of raising a monument of learning, which neither time nor envy shall ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... him, looked up into the boy's face, and when that ragged boy who loved the woods and had a gun at home looked down into the hound's eyes, would hardly be putting it strong enough. It was more than love—it was perfect understanding, perfect comprehension. "I'm your dog," said the hound's upraised, melancholy eyes. "I'll jump rabbits and bring them around for you to shoot. I'll make the frosty hills echo with music for you. I'll follow you everywhere you go. I'm your dog if you want me—yours to the ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... merely with a view to consolidating the powers of the new rulers of the country. But the Egyptian Government has the fullest confidence in your judgment, your knowledge of the country, and your comprehension of the general line of policy to be pursued. You are therefore given full discretionary power to retain the troops for such reasonable period as you may think necessary, in order that the abandonment of the country may be accomplished with the least possible risk to life ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... in the Lakes," written nearly thirty years before the "Lyrical Ballads," names like Grasmere, Winander, Skiddaw, Helvellyn, Derwentwater, Borrowdale, and Lodore. What distinguishes the entries in this journal from contemporary writing of the descriptive kind is a certain intimacy of comprehension, a depth of tone which makes them seem like nineteenth-century work. To Gray the landscape was no longer a picture. It had sentiment, character, meaning, almost personality. Different weathers ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... of this handbook cannot be doubted. Its pages are packed full of these fascinating renderings. The accounts of each composer are succinct and yet sufficient. The author has done a genuine service to the world of music lovers. The comprehension of orchestral work of the highest character is aided efficiently by this volume. The mechanical execution of the volume is in harmony with its subject. No worthier volume can be found to put into the hands of an amateur or a friend ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... a great manufacturing population. He seems to have had a hard fight, inasmuch as, by the time he was thirty years of age, his total disposable funds amounted to twenty pounds. Nevertheless, middle life found him giving proof of his comprehension of the practical problems he had been roughly called upon to solve, by a career of ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... such a moment is confession of guilt. So it followed quite naturally that a comprehension of what had happened sent a considerable portion of the first-comers ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... thinker. The reader will find himself lured on, by the freshness of the author's method of handling, into the very heart of these profound and difficult questions. He will be charmed to find them treated with calm penetration and outspoken frankness. No late writer has displayed a better comprehension of all phases of and parties to the controversy. There is a singular absence of controversial tone, a marvellous lucidity of statement, and a visible honesty of intention, as refreshing as they are rare,—while a spirit of warm and tender devotion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... appetite failed, she scarcely took any exercise, she became nervous and excitable to a degree, her work was neglected, and, worse still, she was becoming familiarized with ideas, suggestions, and thoughts that should never come within the comprehension of pure-minded girls. As to her work, she was fast losing all interest in, indeed all capacity for, that, and it was whispered among her superiors that but for her utterly friendless condition it would be expedient to supply her place in the ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... error is apt to remain uncorrected. There is not, as in the case of external perception, an easy way of verification, by calling in another sense; a misapprehension, once formed, is apt to remain, and I need hardly say that errors in these matters of mutual comprehension have their palpable practical consequences. All social cohesion and co-operation rest on this comprehension, and are limited by its degree of perfection. Nay, more, all common knowledge itself, in so far as it depends on a mutual communication of impressions, ideas, and beliefs, ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... pursued McLean, "was a person of prejudice as well as fortune—hence it has taken a little time for her to adjust herself." He paused and looked understandingly at the Turk, who nodded amiably as one whose comprehension met ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... my assertion, that women cannot, by force, be confined to domestic concerns; for they will however ignorant, intermeddle with more weighty affairs, neglecting private duties only to disturb, by cunning tricks, the orderly plans of reason which rise above their comprehension. ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... system can best repair what is deficient, and best elucidate what is obscure in the scanty authorities bequeathed to us, all the light of a profound and disciplined intellect, applying the acutest comprehension to the richest erudition, and arriving at its conclusions according to the true spirit of inductive reasoning, which proportions the completeness of the final discovery to the caution of the intermediate process. My obligations to that learning and to those gifts which you have exhibited to the world ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to throw off the papal yoke were great, but unsuccessful. Why these efforts came to nought would form a difficult but instructive subject of inquiry. They failed, perhaps, partly from being made so near the centre of the Roman power,—partly from the want of union and comprehension in the plans of the Italian reformers,—partly by reason of the dependence of the petty princes of the country upon the Pope,—and partly because the great sovereigns of Europe, although not unwilling that the Papacy should be weakened in their own country, by no means wished its extinction ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... existed, but what it was, considered with the impracticability of unobserved entrance and exit, was beyond his comprehension. ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... lonely drudgery, of my present life: for I WAS lonely. Never, from month to month, from year to year, except during my brief intervals of rest at home, did I see one creature to whom I could open my heart, or freely speak my thoughts with any hope of sympathy, or even comprehension: never one, unless it were poor Nancy Brown, with whom I could enjoy a single moment of real social intercourse, or whose conversation was calculated to render me better, wiser, or happier than before; or who, as far as I could see, ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... Milton's regard for the gentle Quaker, the book tells its own tale. I will only add one comment upon an often-quoted incident that it contains. When Milton gave his young friend—then twenty-six years old—the manuscript of "Paradise Lost" to read, his desire could only have been to learn what comprehension of his purpose there would be in a young man sincerely religious, as intelligent as most, and with a taste for verse, though not much of a poet. The observation Ellwood made, of which he is proud because ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... walked first of the little company, and had a look of intelligence and power, addressed himself to the porter at the gate in excellent French—almost too excellent for comprehension. For though French was at that date the Court tongue in England, as now in Belgium, it was Norman French, scarcely intelligible to a Parisian, and still less so to a Provencal. The porter understood ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... smiled at the want of comprehension which prevented him from seeing the thing according to the view which his Reverence took ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... — N. composition, constitution, crasis[obs3]; combination &c. 48; inclusion, admission, comprehension, reception; embodiment; formation. V. be composed of, be made of, be formed of, be made up of; consist of, be resolved into. include &c. (in a class) 76; contain, hold, comprehend, take in, admit, embrace, embody; involve, implicate; drag into. compose, constitute, form, make; make ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... that I may find sympathy and comprehension among some, at least, of my audience, as I proceed to examine the ancient realist schools of Alexandria, on account of their knowledge of the modern realist schools of Germany. For I cannot but see, that a ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... to be the first objects of interest at! Glenfern; for, to the inexpressible delight and amazement of the sisters, Mrs. Douglas, after due warning, became the mother of a son. How this event had been brought about without the intervention of Lady Maclaughlan was past the powers of Miss Grizzy's comprehension. To the last moment they had been sceptical, for Lady Maclaughlan had shook her head and humphed whenever the subject was mentioned. For several months they had therefore vibrated between their own sanguine hopes and their oracle's disheartening doubts; and even when the truth ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... children from bodily slavery, without striving for piety and Christian virtues. Nevertheless when it was seemly to do so, we have, to the best of our ability, taken much trouble in private and public catechizing. This has borne but little fruit among the elder people who have no faculty of comprehension; but there is some hope for the youth who have improved reasonably well. Not to administer baptism among them for the reasons given, is also the custom among our colleagues. But the most important thing is, that the Father of Grace and God of Peace has blessed our two congregations ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... nest of a cottage on the edge of the town, and had the sympathy of all, though not perhaps the full liking of any. For Rhoda, the sister, was a being of an unique order, who, while arousing the interest of a few, baffled the comprehension of the many. She was a problem; a creature out of keeping with her belongings and the circumstances in which she was placed. An airy, lissom, subtle specimen of woman, whose very beauty was of an unknown order, causing as much inquiry as admiration. A perfect blonde like her brother, she ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... not treat with the monarchy, weakened as it must obviously be in any circumstance of restoration, without a reservation of something for indemnity and security,—and that, too, in words of the largest comprehension. You treat with the Regicides without any reservation at all. On their part, they assure you formally and publicly, that they will give you nothing in the name of indemnity or security, or for ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the entree, if he was a gentleman. The druggist, the hardware man, the furniture dealer, the grocer, the retailer would constitute a class by themselves, though of course there are other subtle divisions completely beyond my comprehension. ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... problem of combined cylinders in all its aspects, and in a manner simple enough for the comprehension of the average student of ophthalmology. The author is to be congratulated upon the success that has crowned his labors, for nowhere is there to be found so simple and yet so complete an explanation as is contained ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... "There are some things so far removed from the lives of normal, decent people as to be simply unbelievable by them. The 'white slave' trade of to-day is one of these incredible things. The calmest, simplest statements of its facts are almost beyond the comprehension of belief of men and women who are mercifully spared from contact with the dark and hideous secrets of the 'under-world' ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... gravely, longing to cry out her comprehension and sympathy, but restrained by the sense that the moment was a critical one, where impulse must not be trusted too far. It was quite possible that a reaction of pride might cause Amherst to repent even so guarded an avowal; and if ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... nothing, but her cheeks burned with two red spots. She chatted eagerly, too eagerly, trying to throw into the expedition the air of a holiday excursion. Bob responded to her rather feverish gaiety, but Ware looked at her with an eye in which comprehension was slowly dawning. He had nothing to add to the rapid-fire conversation. Finally Amy inquired with mock ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... does not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the woman works because she has told the man to work and he hasn't obeyed. I do not affirm that this is the whole truth, but I do affirm that we have too little comprehension of the souls of savages to know how far it is untrue. It is the same with the relations of our hasty and surface science, with the problem of sexual dignity and modesty. Professors find all over the world fragmentary ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... the senor governor says," said the messenger; "and as regards a complete comprehension of the case, there is nothing left ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... present another land problem. The demonstration of the answer that I shall give will, I think, be found both interesting and easy of comprehension. ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... sense the peasant has no intelligent comprehension. For him the ceremonial part of religion suffices and he has the most unbounded childlike confidence in the saving efficacy of the ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... nice for my comprehension," replied Morton. "God gives every spark of life—that of the peasant as well as of the prince; and those who destroy his work recklessly or causelessly, must answer in either case. What right, for example, have ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... of stories founded upon good literature, which are within the comprehension of little children, I have written the following stories, hoping that they may suggest to primary teachers the great wealth of material within our reach. Many teachers, who firmly believe that reading should be something more than mere ...
— Nature Myths and Stories for Little Children • Flora J. Cooke
... some importance. As an eldest son and forward for his years, and of a reflective and thoughtful turn, he had often been consulted by his parents, and particularly by his mother, in matters rather beyond his comprehension, and had shared in discussions which many youths of his age would have shunned and despised. Now, therefore, he looked eagerly at his mother ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... same way we may compare this Transfiguration with Raphael's last picture, these sibyls with those of S. Maria della Pace, these sages with the School of Athens, these warriors with the Battle of Maxentius. What is characteristic of the full-grown Raphael is his universal comprehension, his royal faculty for representing past and present, near and distant, things the most diverse, by forms ideal and yet distinctive. Each phase of the world's history and of human activity receives from him appropriate and elevated expression. What is characteristic of the frescoes in the Sala del ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... blue water the moment he approached the finesse of deportment. He was exactly of that school of elegants who fancy drinking a glass of wine with another, and introducing, are touches of breeding; it being altogether beyond his comprehension that both have especial uses, and are only to be resorted to on especial occasions. Still, the worthy master, who had begun life on the forecastle, without any previous knowledge of usages, and who had imbibed the notion that "manners make the man," taken in ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... hatred is beautiful, when it is hatred of the ugliness of the soul. But most of them could have been written about Haman, or Heliogabalus, or King John, or Queen Elizabeth, as much as about poor Louis Napoleon; they bear no trace of any comprehension of his quite interesting aims, and his quite comprehensible contempt for the fat-souled senatorial politicians. And if a real revolutionist like Hugo did not do justice to the revolutionary element in Caesarism, it need hardly be said that a rather Primrose League Tory ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... arranged on trays— Unripe, unluscious fruit—he draws attention. My mind, till now so dark, Receives a sudden spark That glows and flames to perfect comprehension; And I, whom no Rosetta Stone assists, Become the peer of Egyptologists, From whom exotic tongues no secrets keep; For this is what the alien blighter says: "Nice orang'; three for one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... a little girl and her comrade father, written in a delightful vein of sympathetic comprehension of the child's point ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... sensations which attend eating and drinking; we might have had the sense of hearing without the delight we derive from sweet sounds; and that of smelling without the capability of enjoying the fragrance of the rose: but He whose wisdom and beneficence are above all comprehension, has ordained in another and a better manner, and annexed the most lively sensations of pleasure to every operation he has made necessary to our support, thereby making the enjoyment of pleasure one of the conditions of our existence. This is an unanswerable refutation of one ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... require? As for the Presbyterians and others who were in possession of livings, the failure of the Savoy Conference must have made it plain to them that the Church of England had not allowed the king to keep his word, that compromise and comprehension had failed, and that if they were to remain where they were, it could only be on terms of completely severing themselves from all other Protestant bodies in the world, and becoming thorough Episcopalians. No Presbyterian of any eminence was prepared to make the statutory ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... wagon, and went into the dripping, steamy woods. If anyone had asked him that morning concerning his idea of Heaven, he never would have dreamed of describing a place of gold-paved streets, crystal pillars, jewelled gates, and thrones of ivory. These things were beyond the man's comprehension and he would not have admired or felt at home in such magnificence if it had been materialized for him. He would have told you that a floor of last year's brown leaves, studded with myriad flower faces, big, bark-encased pillars of a thousand years, jewels ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... to adore so ardently in the "shiftless housewife," as Mrs. Wright calls his lady-love, must pass the comprehension of the phoebe, that constructs such an exquisite home, or of a bustling, energetic Jenny wren, that "looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness." She is a flabby, spineless bundle of flesh and pretty feathers, gentle ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... as the ever finer organized brain created, so that in the course of thousands of years, a creature was gradually developed which overstepped the last stage of the sense-developed understanding and comprehension, and was in a position, through the putting into activity of the upper and front brain, to distinguish evil from good and to think independently. Of these creatures, likewise, only those survive that had in themselves the capacity for further development, while the rest perished. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... the Praying Weaver of Balweary, and the chisel of Old Mortality has clinked on that lonely gravestone. Public and domestic history have thus marked with a bloody finger this hollow among the hills; and since the Cameronian gave his life there, two hundred years ago, in a glorious folly, and without comprehension or regret, the silence of the moss has been broken once again by the report of firearms and ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... happiness than any other things whatever, the teaching how to maintain them is a teaching that yields in moment to no other whatever. And therefore we assert that such a course of physiology as is needful for the comprehension of its general truths, and their bearings on daily conduct, is an all-essential part of a ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... typical attitude of the Republicans and the moderate anti-slavery men,—seemed to Garrison and Phillips and their school a sinful compliance with evil. The extreme Abolitionists, as much as the extremists of the South, were opposed to the Union. They had no comprehension of the interests and principles involved in the preservation of the national life. One of the pleasant traits told of Garrison's private life is this: He was fond of music, especially religious music, but had ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... the "solidus,'' but in more complex cases the solidus is often curved. At temperatures between the solidus and the liquidus a mixture is partly solid and partly liquid. This general case has been discussed at length because a careful study of it will much facilitate the comprehension or the similar but more complicated cases that occur in the examination of alloys. A great many mixtures of metals have been examined in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... who during the entire war were in open or secret alliance with the rebels, coming here now and joining hands with the apostate at the other end of the avenue, who is the leader, the recognized leader of a counter-revolution—a negative rebellion, as I said awhile ago—passes comprehension." ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... of the children of free Negroes. It was severely denounced, as contrary to justice and in "violation of the law of nature." "How any one born of a free Christian mother" could, notwithstanding, be a slave, and be obliged to remain such, passed their comprehension.[222] It was impossible for them to explain it." And, although "they were treated just like Christians," the moral sense of the people could not excuse such ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... perhaps unjustly judged sometimes. To the ignorant both right and wrong are only instincts; when one remembers their piteous and innocent confusion of ideas, the twilight of dim comprehension in which they dwell, one feels that oftentimes the laws of cultured men are too hard on them, and that, in a better sense than that of injustice and reproach, there ought indeed to be two laws for rich ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... Demosthenes and the English Hyperides. There was Burke—ignorant indeed, or negligent, of the art of adapting his reasonings and his style to the capacity and taste of his hearers, but in amplitude of comprehension and richness of imagination superior to every orator, ancient or modern. There, with eyes reverentially fixt on Burke, appeared the finest gentleman of the age, his form developed by every manly exercise, his face beaming with intelligence ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... at the wheel," she said shortly. "Though of what interest a deflated tire can be to anybody passes my comprehension." ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... one," when we differ strongly, and yet keep the unity of the spirit. I am doubtful whether, even in heaven, there will not be such innocent diversity of views about things successively beyond our knowledge or comprehension, as to stimulate inquiry and discussion; but that we shall ever be capable, as we are here, of alienation, in consequence of these varying opinions, ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... seen from her seat, where once had sat a gentleman whose pleasures had not interfered with the practice of his religion. She might have had a better seat in a church where a Northern missionary would have preached a sermon better suited to her comprehension and her moral needs, but she preferred the other. She was not white, alas! she was shut out from this seeming paradise; but she liked to see the distant glow of the celestial city, and to recall the days when she ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... more positive limits than there are a beginning and an end to eternity! Can these wonders be, I thought—and how pitiful in those who affect to reduce all things to the level of their own powers of comprehension, and their own experience in practice! Let them exercise their sublime and boasted reason, I said to myself, in endeavoring to comprehend infinity in any thing, and we will note the result! If it be in space, we shall find them setting bounds to ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... she had prepared for them was upon aspiration. It was an essay, in fact, and she had delivered it successfully before many women's clubs. She is not to be blamed that the language was as absolutely above the comprehension of her hearers as though it had been Greek. She was a busy woman, with other aims and activities than those of working among the masses; Miss Lydia had heard her present talk, fancied it, and thought it would be the very thing for ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... peace!" interrupted Cromwell; "I did not want to hear your reasons on the legality, and justice, and mercy of the Buccaneer; I only gave you to understand (and I know ye to be quick of comprehension) that I wished for information touching this retreat—this maze—this labyrinth—this embowelling of nature, formed in the cliffs—ay, and that in more than one place, along the Kentish coast—that so I might erase one red cross at ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... little marionettes without bodies at all, and which would slip to the ground of themselves were they not kept together midway, about where a waist should be, by the wide silken sashes—a very different comprehension of the art of dressing to ours, which endeavors as much as possible to bring into relief the curves, real ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... was as a man with mighty tidings, and no language: intensely communicative, but inarticulate. Good round oaths had formerly compassed and expounded his noble emotions. They were now quite beyond the comprehension of blasphemy, even when emphasized, and by this the poor lord divinely felt the case was different. There is something impressive in a great human hulk writhing under the unutterable torments of a mastery he cannot contend ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... paternity, morphology, adaptive characters, rudimentary and aborted organs, etc., will cease to be metaphorical and will have a plain signification. When we no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as something wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of nature as one which has had a long history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, in the same way as any great mechanical invention ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... suspicious way, as he always did when this importunate thought recurred to him. In such ordinary everyday matters as the management of his estate, and his other duties as a county gentleman, and also in solid comprehension of the political situation of the period, he was by no means wanting; but his mind simply circled round and round this business of Evadne's like a helpless swimmer in a whirlpool, able to keep afloat, but with nothing to take hold ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... sweetness of the romance, and its adaptation to the highest subjects, commends it as worthy of all estimation for its peculiar national character. [16] The modern Spanish writers have adopted a similar tone of criticism, insisting on its study, as essential to a correct appreciation and comprehension of the genius of the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... by those European governments which have a right comprehension of human dignity, and who know that whatever is unjust bears with it a germ of destruction; but this impulse, it is melancholy to add, will be powerless if the union of the planters, if the colonial assemblies or legislatures, fail to adopt the same views and to act by a well-concerted ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... character of his voluminous publications has not been such as to assure modern critics of his accuracy, and the wonderful minuteness, as well as comprehension, attributed by him to the Ojibwa hieroglyphs has been generally regarded of late with suspicion. It was considered in the Bureau of Ethnology an important duty to ascertain how much of truth existed in these remarkable accounts, and for that purpose its pictographic specialists, ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... super-structure of a genuinely human civilisation, is not a task which either men or women can afford to fling contemptuously to the opposite sex. It concerns them both equally and can only be carried out by both equally, working side by side in the most intimate spirit of mutual comprehension, confiding trust, and the goodwill to conquer the demon of jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... will he receive me?" With what anxiety of heart I saw the clouds collecting on that stormy brow. I lived in a perpetual "qui-vive." I fell under the dominion of that man; and the sufferings I endured taught me to understand those of Madame de Mortsauf. We began by exchanging looks of comprehension; tried by the same fire, how many discoveries I made during those first forty days!—of actual bitterness, of tacit joys, of hopes alternately submerged and buoyant. One evening I found her pensively watching a sunset which reddened ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... civilization than in re-discovering a few of the great laws and miracles buried in the dust of the past. He believed that the nearer we get to the beginning of things, and not the farther we drift, the clearer comprehension can we have of earth and sky and God, and the meaning of it all. He did not consider it an argument for progress that Christ and His disciples knew nothing of the telephone, of giant engines run by steam, of electricity, or of instruments by which man could ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... understood Christianity. A purer comprehension of its tremendous contents is always necessary. Think what it would signify to a local community if all sincere Christian people in it should interpret their obligation in the social terms which we have been using; if they should seek not only their own salvation, but the reign ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... from these dreams, and always he was vastly puzzled by the abrupt change from night death scenes to the daylight calm of the open range. For dreams too were beyond his comprehension. They were actual scenes and scents and sounds to him,—then vanished. It was only natural that his greatest waking terror should stalk through his dreams, two mysteries combined to haunt him. Also it was ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... merely anticipated the vote. Not knowing their position himself, except as indicated by the trade-wind clouds, Denman could only surmise that a west northwest course would hit the American coast somewhere between Boston and Charleston. But what they wanted there was beyond his comprehension. ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... this and said to him, 'Harkye, gaffer! Thou hast no knowledge of this ass's case. Concern thyself with silver and gold and what pertaineth thereto of change and exchange; for indeed the virtue of this ass passeth thy comprehension. To every craft its craftsman and to every means of livelihood ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... girl succeeded in giving to these words a great number of different modulations, expressing endearment, coaxing, admiration, ironical praise, pity and affection. Delsarte, with his far-reaching comprehension, conceived of more than 600 ways of differentiating these examples; but he stopped midway in the execution of them, and certainly no one else will ever pursue this outline ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... I understand Liza. Liza now is one of those naive natures that, like children, don't know what's good and what's bad. Anyway, she didn't comprehend it when she was very young. And now she's aware that the lack of comprehension suits her. Now, perhaps, she doesn't know on purpose," said Betsy, with a subtle smile. "But, anyway, it suits her. The very same thing, don't you see, may be looked at tragically, and turned into a misery, or it may be looked at simply and even humorously. Possibly ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... it; she can't understand it. She's an excellent girl; but that little cup of black coffee, with a drop of cognac, served at this hour,—they exceed her comprehension. So I have to break the ice every day, and it takes the coffee the time you see to arrive. And when it arrives, monsieur! If I don't offer you any of it you must not take it ill. It will be because I know you have drunk it ...
— Four Meetings • Henry James
... tolerate stupidity and lack of comprehension when they are simple and wholly natural, but what of an utter obtuseness of understanding which dresses itself up and becomes rhetorical? ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... in visiting the tomb, saw nothing but cast-off clothes, yet Mary sees and talks with angels and with Jesus. As usual, the woman is always most ready to believe miracles and fables, however extravagant and though beyond all human comprehension. Several women purposed to be at the tomb at sunrise to embalm ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... of life. He was standing on the threshold. The night was black before him; he had no beacon fire to lead him. He dimly perceived that beauty was the goal to which he was striving. But he had only a vague comprehension of its meaning. He had no philosophy. Doubtless in the end the Roman Church, the mother of wanderers, would take him to her breast. But that was a long way off yet, and he wished to bring himself to the final surrender, strong and clean-hearted, not a vessel broken on ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... with the claim of an American citizen before him, for the protection, which, as he truly says, this ballot alone can give, could see its lawfulness and justice in the one case, and not in the other, passes our comprehension. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... likewise of what they represent, motives and things in general. Men often assign to actions motives far different from those known to God; and, in like manner, the motives of men, visibly impelled by the Spirit of God, are often far beyond the comprehension of "philosophers." We are far from presuming to dive into the divine thoughts with the certainty of bringing to the surface what lies hidden in their mysterious depths; but every Christian should endeavor humbly to penetrate ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... cabalistic words and phrases, things which had long given me great trouble to get any comprehension of, the Doctor gave me great help. He says some of these phrases and words are coined by the person himself, others are archaisms handed down from ancestors and believed to possess an efficacy, though their actual meaning is forgotten. He says ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... would follow a series of victories,—and that therein lay their only salvation from a death at once excruciating and infamous. They must, he said, live upon victory after victory,—an expression that showed he had a clear comprehension of the nature of his situation. In the battle that followed, Varinius was beaten, unhorsed, and compelled to fly for his life. All his personal goods fell into the hands of Spartacus. His lictors, with the fasces, shared the same fate. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... have such a mind as yours at hand! After the hints you gave just now, which did but confirm my own observations, the last time I was in company with him, I need not affect to have no comprehension of what is going on. I see that more than a mere dutiful morning visit to your aunt was in question; and woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Love' than Bunyan. See vol. ii. p. 1. It was the result of this soul-harrowing experience. He there shows its heights exceeding the highest heavens, depths below the deepest hell, lengths and breadths beyond comprehension. That treatise ought to be read and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... periodicals of the day, from the mistaken idea that superlative excellence was not expected in every number of every daily or weekly journal in the land. He did not know that, if every such journal was not edited so as to suit the comprehension of all classes of cursory critics, it should be unqualifiedly condemned. Supposing that a painter should not condemn a paper for publishing a musical article beyond his comprehension, and that an architect ought not to get in a rage because he finds ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... full comprehension of the above dream, it is necessary to be profoundly versed at once in the esoteric signification of the Scriptures and in the mysteries of Freemasonry. It was the dreamer's great regret that she neither knew, nor could know, the latter, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... something in such a shape that it couldn't go for old debts. I never undertook to shoulder any of them; what little I've done was done for you. I wrote out the paper myself; I never go to lawyers. I suppose it would stand clear enough for honest comprehension,—and Roderick and John are both honest,—if I left it as it is; but perhaps I'd as well take it some day to Squire Hadden, and swear to it, and then hand it over to you. I'll ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... as a matter of fact, far from stupid. I have met people in the land of Cho-sen, whose cleverness would have been conspicuous in any country, Western or otherwise. When they set their mind to learn something they never cease till their object is attained, and I can vouch for their quick comprehension, even of matters of which they have never before heard. Languages seem to come easy to them, and their pronunciation of foreign tongues is infinitely better than that of their neighbours, the Chinese and the Japanese. The only stumbling block is the letter "f," which they pronounce ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... got the better of the more philosophic orator, such an occurrence was rare, and a triumph was gained over him only by the greatest exertions of the greatest orators. His labored speeches, as will be testified to by all who have perused them, are rich in profound thought, a clear discernment and comprehension of events, causes, and results, and occasionally in passages of stately and brilliant eloquence. Graceful rhetoric and shrewd logic appear to be ever at his command, as he has occasion, in the course ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... she was, Elfgiva gazed at him, and with a dawning comprehension came back her interrupted fury. "The coiled snake," she repeated slowly; and after that, in a rush of words, "Then it was you who enticed her away and mistreated her? But what does it concern you that I sent a snake? Where ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... tell me that the horse is not a noble, intelligent animal with a vast comprehension of human talk and sympathy for human woe. For the Great Goer pulled up so suddenly that I nearly went on without him in the line of the least resistance. Then he stood still and went to nibbling grass as placidly as though he had not been doing racing time for three miles, and I should have gone ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... grew up they were sent to school, and both, though of different temperament, were distinguished for their superior ability. Jessie was quick at anything requiring an amount of ready talent and acute comprehension, such as Arithmetic, Geometry, and Modern Languages, but Charlie excelled in Classics and what are generally considered the heavier sciences, and was particularly talented as regards music. He would sit for hours playing the exquisite Lieder Ohne worte of ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged, let it disdain alike to turn aside to the name of Theobald and of Pope. Let him read on, through brightness and obscurity, through integrity and corruption; let him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and his interest in the fable. And when the pleasures of novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness and read ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... arrival she had spent some time on the terrace, listening eagerly to the conversation, though the visitors, mostly under the influence of wine, were discussing abstract subjects far beyond her comprehension. In the next room her younger sister lay on a wooden chest, sound asleep, with her mouth wide open; but the boy, Lebedeff's son, had taken up his position close beside Colia and Hippolyte, his face lit up with interest in the conversation of his father and the rest, to which ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... it before Phene speaks, for Lutwyche, telling Gottlieb, has told us; but Jules must glean it from her puzzled, broken utterance, filled with allusions that mean nothing until semi-comprehension comes through the sighs of tortured soul and heart from her who still is, as it were, in a trance. And this dream-like state causes her, now and then, to say the wrong words—the words he spoke—instead of those which had "cost such pains ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... man hardly knew how the conviction had come to the child that his father had killed his mother. A vague comprehension perhaps of the doctor's urgings and his father's denials—a head-shaking mutter from the nurse—the memory of all his mother's tears. He was hardly more than a baby, but he had always feared and disliked ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... party, and which brought into suspicion, if not into actual contempt, the name, nay, even the principles of the Republicans. And thus the patriots have the dead weight to support, and are wholly unsupported. The narrow-minded and shallow Republican press, has no comprehension of the difficulty of the position in which the patriots are placed; and that press, being in various ways connected with the administration, rarely, if ever, supports the patriots, and even mostly neutralises their best and noblest ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... popular prejudice, however strong, swerves him from his righteous path; no opportunity for glitter or oratorical display ever misleads him; no special pleading bewilders his readers; no 'might is right' corrupts them. His genius is pure, dramatic, and wide; his comprehension of character acute and clear; his characterization of it, chiselled and chaste; his ready comprehension of magnanimous deeds evinces his own magnanimity; his correct understanding of various creeds and motives of action proves his own wide Christianity; chivalry was known ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... presence with this hope. But the high and courageous nature of the policeman, the simplicity, the energy and deep true feeling inherent in him formed a character entirely above the level of his honor's comprehension. His craft and subtle policy were completely thrown away here. Following the noble young man, with hatred in his eye, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... my aim was the thoroughly practical one of bringing my readers to a comprehension of the times in which they live, and thereby permanently to affect their conduct throughout the course of their life and in whatever direction their ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... these were offered in vain. Since these notable exploits they have never stepped out of their works or beyond their lines. How a conduct of this kind is to effect the conquest of America, the wisdom of a North, a Germaine, or a Sandwich can best decide. It is too deep and refined for the comprehension of common understandings and the general ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... a mere fragment of the great circle to which Balzac introduces us. The history of their performances is intimately connected with the history of the time; nay, it is sometimes essential to a full comprehension of recent events. Bishop Proudie, we fear, would scarcely venture to take an active part in the Roman Catholic emancipation; he would be dissolved into thin air by contact with more substantial forms; but if you would appreciate the intrigues which were going on at Paris during the campaign of ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... increase of wisdom and intuition in Shakespeare;—when I know this, and know too, that by a conceivable and possible, though hardly to be expected, arrangement of the British theatres, not all, indeed, but a large, a very large, proportion of this indefinite all—(round which no comprehension has yet drawn the line of circumscription, so as to say to itself, "I have seen the whole")—might be sent into the heads and hearts—into the very souls of the mass of mankind, to whom, except by this ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... the Public Library, Taunton, Mass., says: "What I am doing is to indicate in the margin of my catalogues the works which are adapted to the taste and comprehension of young people, so that not only their own attention may be diverted from the fiction department, but that their parents and teachers may easily furnish them with proper lists. We aim at excluding from the library books of a sensational character, as well as those positively objectionable on ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... their pechan Wi' sauce, ragouts, an' sic like trashtrie, That's little short o' downright wastrie. Our whipper-in, wee, blasted wonner, Poor, worthless elf, it eats a dinner, Better than ony tenant-man His Honour has in a' the lan': An' what poor cot-folk pit their painch in, I own it's past my comprehension. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... came about that Giusippe spent less and less of his time in his own department in the glass works and more and more in Mr. Curtis's private office. Before long, boy though he was, he had quite a complete comprehension of the older man's affairs and proved himself most useful to the head of the firm who was fighting his way back to health. It was so easy ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... which the great powers will go in order to secure enthusiasm for their military establishments is almost beyond comprehension. Each nation has its great military rendezvous, its grand naval parades, its magnificent display of gorgeous military uniforms, its wave of colors, blare of trumpets, and bursts of martial music. The United States ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... did not know. As long as the sheet rose and fell he was alive at all events, still with her. But she was too exhausted for any sustained effort of will; and her glance wandered back to, and followed with agonised comprehension, the formless, motionless elevation and depression of that same sheet towards the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... delighted in my life; on the contrary, they're very fierce, are they not, Rosebud? especially the big ones that sometimes try to worry you. How they can ever want to worry such a pitty-itty, dear, naughty growly-wowly, snarley-warley as you, is quite beyond my comprehension; but then, you see, we live in a world of puzzles, you and I, Rosebud, and so it's of no use being puzzled, because that does no good, and only worries one. Don't it, deary sweety petty? Well, you can't answer of course, though I ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... dress. Some people have taste as a natural gift: they know how to dress from a consultation with their inner selves. Others, alas! are entirely without it. The people who make hats and coats and dresses for us are generally without any comprehension of the history of dress. To them the hat of the Roundhead and that of the Cavalier have the same meaning. To all people of taste and reading, however, they are very different, and all artists know ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... lifted in swift comprehension; a look of cunning came into his eyes—was followed by a gleam of hope, not unmixed with derision. He thrust his hands into his coat pockets and held out bills and silver to Rathburn who stuffed the plunder ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... of them towards the end. Earnestly, patiently, lovingly, yet perseveringly, had Mrs Bright tried to drill the contents of that book into Billy's unwilling brain, but with little success, for, albeit a willing and obliging child, there was a limit to his powers of comprehension, and a tendency in his young mind to hold in contempt what he ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... corruption," (Ibid. p. 363,) and "heals our diseases, assuaging the law of the flesh raging in our members." (ibid. p. 365.) In the tenth look he is most diffusive and clear on this sacrament, extolling its miraculous institution, the most exalted of all God's mysteries, above our comprehension, and the wonderful manner by which we are united and made one with him; not by affection, but by natural participation; which he calls "a mixture, an incorporation, a blending together; for as wax melted and mingled with another piece of melted wax, makes ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... in the Presence. There was good cause, as I will show, why no man could endure that terrible hour. So for them the hour's guard was cut to one-half. What did it matter to the Sahibs? They could draw on ten thousand Granadeers. Forsyth Sahib, who had comprehension, put this choice also before the four, and they said, "No, ours is the Honour of the Armies of Hind. Whatever the Sahibs do, we ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... call benevolence, has been the subject of commentaries by many teachers; but as these commentaries have been difficult of comprehension, they are too hard to enter the ears of women and children. It is of this benevolence that, using examples and illustrations, I ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... who all distinguish things above reason from those contrary to it, and whilst they deny that revelation teaches any doctrine of the latter class, admit and believe a number of its doctrines, such as the Trinity, Incarnation, &c., to be above the comprehension of human reason. With them, moreover, we maintain, that in doctrines which lie within the grasp of human reason, it is proper and a duty to expect and to inculcate a harmony between the teachings of revelation and the dictates of reason, ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... comprehension and insight the author shows a terrific contrast between the woman whose love was of the flesh and one whose ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... at once, was different in every way. Cherry was full of softness, of ready response to any appeal, of sympathy and comprehension. She had been misunderstood, unhappy, neglected; she had developed through suffering a certain timidity that was almost a shrinking, a certain shy clinging to what ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... devoted, perfectly sincere; and you have the main lines of the political character of Davis when he became President. It may be that as he went forward in his great undertaking, as antagonisms developed, as Rhett and others turned against him, Davis hardened. He lost whatever comprehension he once had of the Rhett type. Seeking to weld into one irresistible unit all the military power of the South, he became at last in the eyes of his opponents a monster, while to him, more and more positively, the others ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... Stella was so utterly amazed that she made no resistance. He astounded her at every turn, this man. And yet in some strange and vital fashion her moods responded to his. He was not beyond comprehension or even sympathy. But as she found his dark face close to hers and felt his eyes scorch her like a flame, expediency rather than dismay urged her to action. There was something so sublimely natural about him at that moment that ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... full comprehension, however, of the manifesto of 1899, it must be regarded as one of the phases in the development of Finland's relations to Russia. It will then become evident that as a legacy of the past it is the outcome of the natural course of events which sooner or later ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... things, did not come within the circle of her practical life, they were judged from a liberal standpoint, but so soon as they touched any personal consideration, they were judged by a moral code that in no way corresponded to her intellectual comprehension of the matter she so unhesitatingly condemned. But by this it must by no means be understood that Mrs Norton wore her conscience easily—that it was a garment that could be shortened or lengthened to suit all weathers. Our diagnosis of Mrs Norton's character ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... of Troy had run its course and exhausted itself; the age of imitation, formalism, erudition had come, while that of creation had passed away. Still it has preserved for us the idea of the cycle, which is necessary for the adequate comprehension of Homer, and which the Greeks themselves ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... ceased to take any part in the hideous drama. She sat on the ground, a crouching thing with glittering eyes. It was past comprehension that the sun could shine and the world go on with her man dead before her. Judith had become the force that planned and did to save the family pride. While her hands were busy with preparations for the dead, she rehearsed what she ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... presented; it does not seem possible in the present age, with all our methods for alleviating suffering, that millions of people can actually die of hunger in a land of railroads and steamships and other facilities for the transportation of food. It seems beyond comprehension, yet the official returns justify the acceptance of the ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... complicated and each part demands such perfection of skill that an apprentice can scarcely secure sufficient experience in even the essentials of the trade to render him expert in these various processes. In short, the traditional apprenticeship system is unable to give either the general comprehension of the industry or the ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... generally considered, his praise will be that of correctness and industry, rather than of compass of comprehension, or activity of fancy. He never made any effort of invention: his greater pieces are only tissues of common thoughts; and his smaller, which consist of light images, or single conceits, are not always his own. I have traced him among the French epigrammatists, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... is unreal and unimaginable. Some of them, with their overstrained vehemence of expression, their fervid and far-fetched tropes, their involved and sometimes obscure diction, are little more than intellectual puzzles: they so occupy the mind in the mere effort of comprehension that little room is left for any emotion whatever. They leave one ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas |
