"Critical point" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the plenitude of their benevolence, are good enough to sympathize with any tale of woe, however absurdly exaggerated; but men, I think, are most moved by the simple and quiet sorrows. We smile at the critical point of a spasmodic tragedy, complacently as the Lucretian philosopher looking down from the cliff on the wild sea; we yawn over the wailings of Werter and Raphael, but we ponder gravely over the last chapters of the Heir of Redclyffe, and feel ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... important. The diametrical opposition between two schools, one of which regarded the church as a simple abuse, and its doctrines as effete superstitions, while the other looked to the church and its creed as giving the sole hope for suppressing the evil principle, was a critical point in later movements, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... The remark, made a priori in the above extract, "that if, under increasing pressure, a gas retains all the heat evolved, its resisting force is absolutely unlimited", harmonizes with the inductively-reached result that if the temperature is not lowered to its "critical point" a gas does not liquify, however great the force applied. At the same time Prof. Andrews' experiments imply that, supposing the temperature to be lowered to the point at which liquefaction becomes possible, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... ecclesiastical descent; for no contemporary records enable us to prove a connexion between the inspired founders of our religion, and those who were subsequently entrusted with the government of the Church. At the critical point where, had it been deemed necessary, we might have had the light of inspiration, we are left to wander in total darkness. We are thus shut up to the conclusion that the claims of those who profess to be heralds of the gospel are to ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... much mended from the strictly critical point of view, when we come, ten years later, to the article on the "Lays." Here Christopher, as I hold with all respect to persons of distinction, is absolutely right. He does not say one word too much of the fire and life of those wonderful verses, of that fight of all ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... and since the object of the social is recreation, the company should retire about midnight. Oftentimes people stay and stay at such a gathering, until the hostess, the entertaining committee, and the people themselves are worn out. And yet, who is at fault? This is a critical point in the modern popular social. How shall the company disband in due season? In his "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," Oliver Wendell Holmes gives a suggestion on this point for the private visitor, who does not know how to go. Says Holmes: "Do n't you know how hard it is for some ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... balance, disorders of the intellect and of the will, fixed ideas and ideas that are false. These ideas are ours; therefore we hold on to them, or, rather, they have taken hold of us. To get rid of them, to impose the necessary recoil on our mind, to transport us to a distance and place us at a critical point of view, where we can study ourselves, our ideas and our institutions as scientific objects, requires a great effort on our part, many precautions, and long reflection.—Hence, the delays of this study; the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... and he heard a babble of voices. But he heard something more, for away on his left was the sound which Thomas Yownie was soon to hear—the trampling of horses. It was the police at last, and his task was to guide them at once to the critical point of action.... Three minutes later a figure like a scarecrow was admonishing a bewildered sergeant, while his hands plucked feverishly at ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... Pultowa, his mighty schemes would have been buried with him; and (to use the words of Voltaire) "the most extensive empire in the world would have relapsed into the chaos from which it had been so lately taken." It is this fact that makes the repulse of Charles XII. the critical point in the fortunes of Russia. The danger which she incurred a century afterwards from her invasion by Napoleon was in reality far less than her peril when Charles attacked her; though the French Emperor, as ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... baseball mask and a catcher's glove. They should n't have lost that game last Saturday, he thought, and they would n't have, either, if it had n't been for Fred. He wished Fred would n't fumble so. He could hold a hundred difficult balls in succession, but when a critical point came, he 'd let go of even a dewdrop. He 'd have to send him out in the field and bring in Jones to first base. Only Jones was so excitable. He could hold any kind of a ball, no matter how critical the play was, but ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... Force arrange for separate sleeping quarters for blacks and whites. The so-called "barracks problem" was the principal point of discussion within the Air staff, Edwards admitted, and "perhaps the most critical point of the entire policy." He predicted that the trend toward more privacy in barracks, especially the separate cubicles provided in construction plans for new barracks, would help solve whatever ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... until at times it seemed as if he might succeed in at least splitting the delegation. The friends of the New Jersey man, therefore, realizing the effect upon the democracy of the country of an adverse verdict in his home state, concentrated all possible forces at this critical point. In the meantime, and before the actual determination of the issue in New Jersey, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania swung into the Wilson column, and the Ohio primaries resulted in a split delegation between Wilson and Harmon, in Harmon's home state. All eyes were, ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... which word should be said. Elaborate as the toils were which he had laid out for Ransford to the police, he could sweep them up and tear them away with a sentence of added knowledge—if Mary Bewery made it worth his while. But first—before coming to the critical point—there was yet certain information which he desired to get, and he felt sure of getting it if he could find Glassdale. For Glassdale, according to all accounts, had known Braden intimately of late years, and was most likely in ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... rocks, and tried to comfort her as best I could. After a while, when we returned to the glade, Miss Sampson had considerable color in her cheeks, and Steele was leaning against the rock, grave and sad. I saw that he had recovered and he had reached the critical point. "Hello, Russ," he said. "Sprung a surprise on me, didn't you? Miss Sampson says I've been a little flighty while she bandaged me up. I hope I wasn't bad. I certainly feel better now. I seem ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... the Father in Me." The real causes of His Death were the definite sins of lawless, of wicked men. God's part was a purely negative one. He held His hand, and allowed sin to work out to its fatal issue. The Resurrection, indeed, is the sublime act of God's interference, at the most critical point in all human history, at the one point supremely worthy of such Divine interposition, in order to finally and completely vindicate the cause of moral goodness. But up till then, sin was allowed to have its own way, to display ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... did this storm of war continue, and still the Beloochees, undismayed, pressed onwards with furious force, their numbers to all appearance increasing instead of being diminished by those who had been struck down. Now came the critical point in every battle. Except the cavalry, there was no reserve to bring forward. In vain the brave Jacob had previously endeavoured to turn the village of Kottree with the Scinde Horse, and to gain the flank of the ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... increase in strength results until the free water is evaporated and the cell walls begin to dry[49]. This critical point has been called the fibre-saturation point. (See Fig. 24.) Conversely, after the cell walls are saturated with water, any increase in the amount of water absorbed merely fills the cavities and intercellular spaces, and has no effect on the mechanical ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... faces, and jot down mentally her opinion of each at first sight. One glance at Miss Deborah's rounded contour and twinkling eyes was quite enough; but Miss Latimer's peaceful countenance fascinated the young girl, and seemed to hold her spell-bound. Yet, from a critical point of view, Aunt Judith's was not a pretty face. It was defective in colouring and outline, and there were lines on the quiet brow and round the patient lips; but the look in the eyes—Nellie never forgot that look all her life—it seemed ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... At this critical point the Provisional Government again decided to make a change in the command of the Russian armies fighting in Galicia. Early in June, 1917, General Gouter had been placed in supreme command in this section. Lieutenant General L. G, Kornilov, then commander of the Eighth Russian Army, with ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... first-fruits of the war. A long account is now introduced of the siege and capture of Syene by the Ethiopians, and the victory of Hydaspes over Oroondates, which occupies the whole of the ninth book; and though in itself not ill told, is misplaced, as interrupting the narrative at the most critical point of the story. Peace is at last concluded between the belligerents; and Hydaspes, returning in triumph to his capital of Meroe, holds a grand national festival of thanksgiving, at which the victims are to be sacrificed. The secret of her birth had, however, been revealed to Chariclea ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... grasshopper in hopes of getting under the soaring ball in time to set himself for the catch. As if by a preconcerted signal everybody in the grandstand and the bleachers stood up, the better to see what happened, because it was a most critical point of the game. ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... was thinking to-day that perhaps a man who never wrote letters never could appreciate St. Paul. He was a great letter-writer. Copy him. Read him. Read him fairly quickly. Get into him. Find out his motive power, his real meaning. Read the Greek, not from a critical point of view only, but read the Greek. Do not trouble too much about the dictionary and accurate translations, but keep reading and perhaps saying aloud the Greek. St. Paul knew so much of God. Read him, and as you read, a greater than St. Paul will come into you, interpret {83} him, explain ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... years in a steel cell before he was taken to the Park. He devoted a week or so to trying to get out and testing every bar and joint of his prison, and when he realized that his strength was over-matched, he broke down and sobbed. That was the critical point, and had he not been treated tactfully by Louis Ohnimus, doubtless the big Grizzly would have died of nervous collapse. A live fowl was put before him after he had refused food and disdained to notice efforts to attract his attention, and the ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... the sun is low down in the heavens, night has the advantage, and the days are short; AFTERWARDS, when the Sun has travelled more to the left, the days triumph over the nights. It will be seen then that this point P where the Sun's path crosses the Equator is a very critical point. It is the astronomical location of the triumph of the Sungod and of the arrival ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator. And how many loves have perished because, from pride, or spite, or diffidence, or that unmanly shame which withholds a man from daring to betray emotion, a lover, at the critical point of the relation, has but hung his head and held his tongue? And, again, a lie may be told by a truth, or a truth conveyed through a lie. Truth to facts is not always truth to sentiment; and part of the truth, as often happens in answer to a question, may be the foulest calumny. A fact may ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... probably withdraw from the convention if it adopted the single gold platform as dictated by Senator Lodge of Massachusetts acting for a group of Republican leaders headed by Platt of New York, and Aldrich of Rhode Island. At the most critical point of our controversy I received a message from Church headquarters warning me that "we" had made powerful friends among the leading men of the nation and that we ought not to jeopardize their friendship by an inconsiderate insurgency. Accordingly, in bolting the convention, ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... and temperature by Vk, Pk and Tk, then it may be shown, either by considering the characteristic equation as a perfect cube in v or by using the relations that dp/dv 0, d^2p/dv^2 0 at the critical point, that Vk 3b, Pk a/27b^2, T^k 8a/27b. Eliminating a and b between these relations, we derive PkVk/Tk (3/8)R, a relation which should hold between the critical constants of any substance. Experiment, however, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... queer. I was so intent on getting my dress pinned up, and in rushing out in time to play, that I couldn't take time to analyze my feelings and discover the cause of the queerness. Madeline blew in at a critical point to borrow a pin, and that threw ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the mental processes of two children hysterical with excitement, his magnetic taming of those fluttering little hearts, his inspired avoidance of a fatal false step at a critical point in the moral life of two human beings in the making—all this seemed as nothing to him—an incident of the day's routine already forgotten. He conceived that his real usefulness to society lay in the reform ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... was announced, and then came the critical point—seating them at table. One table is supposed to be high, the other low, in point of honour, and at each table the seats are all in order (one, two, three, four, etc.), and it is a mortal offence to give a low seat to one who should be placed high. ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... voice rather low, "which ever of us is right, I think we must be getting near rather a critical point. Don't you think you had better send off ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... to our reckoning, we ought to reach the depot in 83deg. S. This was the last of our depots that was not marked at right angles to the route, and therefore the last critical point. The day was not altogether suited for finding the needle in the haystack. It was calm with a thick fog, so thick that we could only see a few yards in front of us. We did not see a single beacon on the whole march. At 4 p.m. we had completed ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... barbarisms thus introduced, the Jews highly valued it, calling it the Hebrew verity. All that remains of it to us is contained in the fragments of Origen's Hexapla. See below, No. 12. Had we the whole work, its extremely literal character would give it great value in a critical point of view, as it would shed much light on the state of the Hebrew ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... them in the yard, Vivian swinging with her doll and Jean digging a hole in a pile of sand. When the important announcement was made, the black-haired Vivian clapped her hands for joy, but the other little girl kept right on digging, just as if she had not heard. When she had passed the critical point in the process of excavating she paused ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... Uncle Richard, "this is the critical point of the experiment. You see, I take this fourth bottle, and pour the same quantity of this clear liquid into my measure. There—done; and as long as I keep them separate no action takes place, but the moment I pour this clear liquid into that clear liquid, you will see that a change ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... toil my way up the rugged side of the Grimsel, consumed two more hours, and glad was I to come in view of the little chill-looking sheet of water on its summit, which is called the Lake of the Dead. The path was filled with snow, at a most critical point, where, indeed, a misplaced footstep might betray the incautious to their destruction. A large party on the other side appeared fully aware of the difficulty, for it had halted, and was in earnest discussion with the guide, touching the practicability of passing. ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... they were silent. At last he said: "I know I haven't much to recommend me. I'm a little beggar—nothing to look at; I'm pretty poor; I've had no influence to push me on; and just at the critical point in my career—when I was expecting promotion—I get this set-back, and lose your good opinion, which is more to me, though I say it bluntly like a sailor, than the praise of all the Lords of the Admiralty, if it could be got. You see, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... aware of the danger to which the bill was exposed, were on the alert. On the 15th of July Sir J. Wrottesly proposed a call of the house of commons, to promote its success as that of the reform bill had been ensured, namely, by putting the members under arms, as it were, at the critical point of its progress. Ministers deprecated the motion as tending to embarrass the administration, and defeat the very end for which it was proposed. At the same time they declared that their official existence would depend ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... skilful adjustment of jets was made to appear as if all aflame. While the others were intent on Christine's words, and she in the interest of her theme had quite forgotten him, Dennis made all his arrangements, and at the critical point narrated in the preceding chapter he turned on the gas with the most startling effect. It seemed a living, vivid refutation of Christine's words, and even she turned pale. After a moment, for the emblem to make its full impression, Dennis stepped out before them all, his face lighted up by ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... of being handicapped by his absence at the most critical point in his love affair, took advantage of it to exhibit one of his most brilliant accomplishments. He sent Eleanor a handsome tooled-leather portfolio to hold his letters, which he wrote on loose-leaf sheets and mailed unfolded. They were letters ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... performed it, if you will. Our future! It is like the dinners we have eaten; of course we cannot remember the good without becoming exasperated over the bad: but"—shrugging her shoulders—"since we cannot beat the cooks, we must submit to fate," forcing a queen that she needed at the critical point of ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... event of to-morrow. Thus, if Mr. EDGAR C. MIDDLETON'S book fails to secure general appreciation, he must place the blame elsewhere than with his subject, and it is a fact that by some repetitions and contradictions, as well as by a tendency to let one down at what should be the critical point of his yarns, he has done something to alienate a public—such as myself—entirely predisposed in his favour. It remains to say, all the same, that this little volume is in the main a sincere and obviously ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... impartially have shared with the various States of the Germanic world. Political structures in general are capable of but a moderate degree of development. If the development proceeds beyond this critical point the result, sooner or later, is a historical cataclysm, whereby the old State is supplanted by a new form of social organization resting on a new foundation. As elements in this new foundation there may be comprised new religious or new ethical notions, but, in a general ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... in hand and cutlass between teeth, fought their way to the pirates' deck only to be repulsed again and yet again, and that our planks were soon slippery with our own ungrudged and inexhaustible blood. At this critical point in the conflict, the bo'sun, grasping me by the arm, drew my attention to a magnificent British man-of-war, just hove to in the offing, while the signalman, his glass at his eye, reported that she was inquiring whether we wanted any assistance or ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... maddened with successive defeats, were determined to annihilate the grand army of the Potomac with a last superhuman effort. They probably would have succeeded had a less able soldier been placed in command at that critical point. But, as will be seen from the above extract, the General never for a moment lost hope of being able to successfully repulse the enemy, for no man knew the material he had to do ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... case supervisor speaks of "the strong temptation to close our records as soon as relief becomes unnecessary. The man's return to the family is often the critical point at which there is need of skilful and sympathetic friendship. These cases cry out for continued treatment. We need to think more humanely about all the unsettling elements in our urban civilization and to see that all the nice individual adjustments that as case workers we can make ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... critical point the Count intervened, and changed the duel into a duet {1727.}. He would have no makers of sects on his estate. With all their faults, he believed that the settlers were at bottom broad-minded people. Only clear away the rubbish and the gold would ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... his eyes flashing eloquent flames, his action infuriated with the stings of it, all conspiring to raise my delight, by assuring me of his. Lifted then to the utmost pitch of joy that human life can bear, undestroyed by excess, I touched that sweetly critical point, whence scarce prevented by the injection from my partner, I dissolved, and breaking out into a deep drawn sigh, sent my whole sensitive soul down to that passage where escape was denied it, by its being so deliciously plugged and choked up. ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... divino, and the Scots pretending that the kirk was also jure divino, he could not tell how two nations that clashed in so essential an article could unite; he therefore thought it proper to consult the convocation about this critical point. A motion was made, that the first article of the treaty, which implies a peremptory agreement to an incorporating union, should be postponed; and that the house should proceed to the consideration of the terms of the intended union, contained in the other articles. This proposal ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... paralleled in general the political and cultural revival, but, as in any mining region, the exhaustion of easily workable surface deposits marked a critical point, when the necessity of deeper mining led to the construction of supported tunnels and the introduction of machinery for removing ores and water from deep mines. On the basis of revisions of capital structure and mining law which he regards ...
— Mine Pumping in Agricola's Time and Later • Robert P. Multhauf
... is simply 'line and space,' i.e., on the musical staff. 'Solfyth too haute' is 'Solfa's too high.' The 'my' which was 'too sharp' is the Mi, the seventh note of the scale, mentioned above as the critical point in Solfa. In verse 3, 'lewde lewte' means merely 'vulgar lute'; and 'Rotybulle Joyse' is the title of an old song. The 'payre of clavicordys' is the clavichord, which in 1536 was a keyed instrument ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... small ball with a stick, abstractly considered. Nor is the dropping of a bit of paper into a box with a slit in it an action in itself calculated to stir profound emotion. But if the hitting of the ball in the right way marks the critical point in winning an eagerly contested game of golf, the interest in it may be absorbing. And if the bit of paper is an offer of marriage committed to the post, the hand may tremble and the heart leap in ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... which the doctor gave minute directions for the few hours to come, and the resolute way in which Miss Sampson declared that "whoever else had a mind to watch, she should sit up till morning this time," that the critical point was reached; that these dark, silent moments that would flit by so fast, were to spell, as they passed by, the sentence of life ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... perch first on one banner, and then on the other, held aloof, as if disdaining to favor either. The odds, indeed, had been rather with the confederates than against them, for Stuart managed to out-number his adversary at every critical point, though Gregg forced the fighting, putting Stuart on his defense, and checkmating his plan to fight an offensive battle. But the wily confederate had kept his two choicest brigades in reserve for the supreme moment, intending then to throw them into ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... work with an energy, an earnestness of purpose, to which the past bears no parallel, too late will they repent the folly of their own supineness, their own blindness. As in the affairs of men, so in those of nations, there is a critical point when those who hope for success must seize the winged moment as it flies and work steadily on with singleness of aim and unchangeable, unfaltering devotion of purpose. That moment, once past, will never ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... here a moment to consider what was Raleigh's condition and fame at this critical point in his life. He was over fifty years of age, but in health and spirits much older than his time of life suggested; his energy had shown signs of abatement, and for five years he had done nothing that had drawn public attention ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... have then walked, played, or worked "enough," so we desist. That amount of fatigue is an efficacious obstruction on this side of which our usual life is cast. But if an unusual necessity forces us to press onward a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain critical point, when gradually or suddenly it passes away, and we are fresher than before. We have evidently tapped a level of new energy, masked until then by the fatigue-obstacle usually obeyed. There may be layer after layer of this experience. A third and a fourth ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... At this critical point, when the understanding of defeat was forming itself swiftly in Baree's mind, chance saved him. His fangs closed on one of the owlet's tender feet. Papayuchisew gave a sudden squeak. The ear was free ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... Miss Bezac's custom to let applicants open and shut for themselves, her hands being often at a critical point of work; so in this case, with a refractory flower half adjusted—while Faith was in the intricacies of a knot of ribband, she merely cried, "Come in!" And the young lady came—so far as across the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... good ground for hope of an early agreement. European politics were at a critical point, and England naturally wished to husband her resources for a sudden emergency. The mediation of Russia Mr. Gallatin considered a salve to the pride of England. This reasoning seemed sound enough, but it had not taken account of one important element: the jealousy of England of any outside interference ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... dead horse were not deceived by this excitement into rising to their knees. They realised that this was the critical point in the fight, and they shot hard and fast, concentrating all the energy of their souls into the steady glare of their eyes over the sights of the smoking rifles. In a moment the foremost warrior was trying to leap his pony ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... remote country parish, and for himself was satisfied with it. But she—how then could she be his wife? Her heart was torn in the strife. Some women whose vision was less keen would have married him, hoping that in some way they might still carry out their own ambition. But she was at a critical point in her career and she knew it. She had just begun to be known personally to influential people, and her name was beginning to be known to the public. She dared not risk leaving her post. She wrote her lover a charming letter,—for ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... study. In all the tragedies, though more clearly in some than in others, one side is distinctly felt to be on the whole advancing up to a certain point in the conflict, and then to be on the whole declining before the reaction of the other. There is therefore felt to be a critical point in the action, which proves also to be a turning point. It is critical sometimes in the sense that, until it is reached, the conflict is not, so to speak, clenched; one of the two sets of forces might subside, or a reconciliation might somehow be effected; while, as soon as it is ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... At this critical point, Mr. McDonald sought the assistance of Mr. August Belmont. It was left to Mr. Belmont to make the final analysis, and avert the failure which impended. There was no time for indecision or delay. Whatever was to be done must be done immediately. The necessary ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... to myself. "Now what shall I do?" For as the pair came to a halt they went on with their conversation, which had evidently reached a critical point. I recognized the man's voice, and as it was that of Eagle March, I knew as well as if I had already seen her that the girl must be Diana. I knew also that she would never forgive me if I popped out at this moment, like ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... blunder. I ought to have counted Aunt Elizabeth. I ought to have fathomed her. It never occurred to me that she was deep enough to drop a plummet in. I, the burden-bearer, the caretaker, the worrier; I, who am opprobriously called "the manager" in this family—I have failed them at this critical point in their household history. I did not foresee, I did not forecast, I did not worry, I did not manage. It did not occur to me to manage after we had got Peggy safely graduated and engaged, and now this dreadful ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... atmospheres at a temperature of 0 deg. C., it is converted into the liquid state, the pressure needed increasing with the rise of temperature, and decreasing with the lowering of the temperature, until at—82 deg. C. it becomes liquid under ordinary atmospheric pressure. The critical point of the gas is 37 C., at which temperature a pressure of 68 atmospheres is required for liquefaction. The properties of liquid and solid acetylene have been investigated by D. Mcintosh (Jour Chem. Soc., Abs., 1907, i. 458). A great ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... little money in his possession, and believed he could not spend it better. He made up his mind therefore to accompany Annie and her mother, which resolve overcame the last of the old woman's lingering reluctance. He did not like leaving Alister at such a critical point in his history; but he said to himself that a man might be helped too much; arid it might come that he and Mercy were in as much need of a refuge as ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald |
