"Definite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... feels that this is not warfare as the Council understands warfare, and the people share the feelings of the Council. It is felt that it would be worthier and more commendable if Lord Wellington were to measure himself in battle with the French, making a definite attempt to stem the tide of invasion on ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... have heard that for ten long years, and I have been both patient and silent: but the time has come when I can bear no more. Anything positive, definite, susceptible of proof, no matter how distressing, would be more tolerable than this suspense, this maddening conjecture. I will see my mother; I must know the truth, be it what ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... than compensated for by the advantages of having a heart-to-heart talk with him on other subjects. Germany had already begun her peaceful penetration, and the real motive of the Emperor's visit was, after swords and orders had been exchanged, to make the definite request that bodies of colonising Germans should be allowed to settle on the Sultan's dominions in Asia Minor, and a hint no doubt was conveyed that there would be plenty of room for them now that there were so many Armenian farms unfortunately without a master. But, like Uriah ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... of nouns, the singular with the postpositive definite article and the indefinite plural are given in parenthesis. When a dash takes the place of a plural ending it indicates that the indefinite plural is the same as the indefinite singular. The vertical lines within a word indicate to what part the ...
— Fritiofs Saga • Esaias Tegner
... on his poetry by exhibiting the ideal at which he aimed. "A poem, in my opinion," he says, "is opposed to a work of science by having for its immediate object pleasure, not truth; to romance, by having for its object an indefinite instead of a definite pleasure, being a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting perceptible images with definite, poetry with in definite sensations, to which end music is an essential, since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... at suitable places in the heart are four gate-like contrivances, called valves. The purpose of these is to give the blood a definite direction in its movements. They consist of tough, inelastic sheets of connective tissue, and are so placed that pressure on one side causes them to come together and shut up the passageway, while pressure on the opposite ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... always clear as to what they mean when they speak of the recitation. Many different meanings are associated with the term. Some of these are suggestive but quite vague; and others, although more definite, are but partial truths that hinder as much as they help. It is not surprising that a confused usage of the term ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... I'd like to believe your theory was correct. But isn't it a little premature to be so definite ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... did not again climb up where his body would stand out against the sky which was filling so brightly with the new morning. He moved along the ridge steadily and swiftly like a man with a definite objective who did not care to be spied on. In twenty minutes, after many a hazardous passage along a steep bare surface, he came to a spot where the knife edge of the ridge was broken down and blunted into a fairly level space a hundred yards ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... Her smile was definite and confident. She was beautiful—and Monsieur Lanyard was aware of that. Had she not, that afternoon, in the auction room, without his knowledge detected admiration in his eyes, a look warm with something more than ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... of an argument must always be a complete statement. The reason for this requirement lies in the fact that an argument can occur only when men have conflicting opinions about a certain thought, and try to prove the truth or falsity of this definite idea. Since a term—a word, phrase, or other combination of words not a complete sentence—suggests many ideas, but never stands for one particular idea, it is absurd as a subject to be argued. A debatable ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... it is just and beautiful I think. Think how the shadow of the windmill-sail just touches the ground on a bright windy day! the shadow of a bird flying is not faster! Then the 'Three Knights' has beautiful things, with more definite and distinct images than he is apt to show—for his character is a vague grand massiveness,—like Stonehenge—or at least, if 'towers and battlements he sees' they are 'bosomed high' in dusky clouds ... it is a 'passion-created ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... and honoured member of the illustrious family of medival European Heraldry, may be defined as a symbolical and pictorial language, in which figures, devices, and colours are employed instead of letters. Each heraldic composition has its own definite and complete significance, conveyed through its direct connection with some particular individual, family, dignity, or office. Every such heraldic composition, also, is a true legal possession, held and maintained by an express right and title: and it is hereditary, like other ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... Kitchener had very definite ideas touching great social changes that must come in America following this long and exhausting war, assuming that we finally came out ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... except that in some vague way smoking gives them pleasure. The only thing that they do agree upon is that they miss it greatly, and crave it keenly whenever they stop it. The only thing that stands out clearly about smoking is that while it does no good, and does not even give one definite and uniform kind of pleasure, it does form a powerful and over-mastering habit, which is exceedingly difficult to break, and develops a craving which can be satisfied only by continuing, ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... a definite promise, however insolently expressed. It was plain that he meant what he said. It was plain that he desired to win her confidence. And in a measure she was reassured. His actions testified to a patience of which she had not deemed ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Violet. Biflora usually; but its brilliant yellow is a much more definite characteristic; and needs insisting on, because there is a 'Viola lutea' which is not yellow at all; named so by the garden florists. My Viola aurea is the Rock-violet of the Alps; one of the bravest, brightest, and dearest ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... "Not very definite, is it? I'm afraid you shed more light a minute or so ago, when you said how different from Mildred you thought I ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... went on, looking helplessly about him. Then his voice took a firmer, more definite note, ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... own mind he had a very definite theory about the murder. Douglas was a reticent man, and there were some chapters in his life of which he never spoke. He had emigrated to America when he was a very young man. He had prospered well, and Barker had first met him in California, ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get out depends upon what you put in; and as the grandest mill in the world will not extract wheat-flour from peascods, so pages of formulae will not get a definite ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... me only in this,—he came into our society for a very definite purpose, the nature of which I was most desirous of learning. I know now that he is not of our faith, although he pretends to be. He is not of French extraction, yet he would lead one to assume that he was. He is a British officer and actively engaged in the service of ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... before many a quiet, sheltered spot, adorned with arbors and green alleys, and protected by trees and hawthorn hedges, and again surrender my soul, while walking, to tender and vague reveries, in which all definite thoughts swim overpowered, yet happy, in a sea of voluptuous emotions inspired by clouds lost in the blue sea of heaven and valleys visioned away into the purple sky. What opium is to one, what hasheesh may be to another, what kheyf or mere repose concentrated into actuality is to the ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... could serve him admirably in his ambitious enterprises for the embellishment of the Eternal City. We do not know for certain whether Julius, when he summoned Michelangelo from Florence, had formed the design of engaging him upon a definite piece of work. The first weeks of his residence in Rome are said to have been spent in inactivity, until at last Julius proposed to erect a huge monument of ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... and self-dependent grace. Its existence and growth arise from those things which are believed, and therefore it is necessary to study and understand, as far as we can, the doctrines of the Christian faith before we can possess or manifest belief. It is important that we should have a definite knowledge of these doctrines; that we should study them in relation to the Scriptures upon which they profess to be founded, and that we should be in a position to defend them against assailants. Thus ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... sometimes the very last sentence suddenly illuminates the whole story. His style is quick, nervous, often slangy; he is wonderfully dextrous in hitting just the right word or phrase. His descriptions are notable for telling much in a few words. He has almost established a definite type of short story writing, and in many of the stories now written one may clearly see ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... itself long ago into a vague, nebulous, drifting nature, though it has endured through many periods of youth, maturity, and age, has yet had its own transformations. Its gay, wonderful childhood gave way, as cycle after cycle coiled itself into slumber, to more definite purposes, and now it is old and burdened with experiences. It is not an age that quenches its fire, but it will not renew again the activities which gave it wisdom. And so it comes that men pause with a feeling which they translate ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... be said of Harrison is that he was an honest man. He was a small farmer in Ohio with no definite political principles, but had gained some military eclat in the War of 1812. The presidential campaign of 1840 is well described by Carl Schurz as "a popular frolic," with its "monster mass-meetings," ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... a definite portion of the public lands (the sixteenth sections) in the States for the purposes of education and occasional grants for similar purposes be cited as contradicting these conclusions, the answer ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... however, has been mainly physiological, and we cannot undertake to follow it here. The psychologist may not be indifferent, of course, to any comprehensive theory of nervous action. He works, indeed, under a general presumption which takes for granted a constant and definite relation between psychical and cerebral processes. But pending the settlement of the physiological question he may still continue with the study of facts to which general expression may be given under some theory of psychical inhibition not inconsistent with the findings ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... refer me to any grammar, or other work, containing a clear and definite rule for the distinctive use of these auxiliaries? and does not a clever contributor to "N. & Q." make a mistake on this point at Vol. vi., p. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... she would rather do nothing than incur the suspicion of having acted from an undue regard for dynastic interests, and that she has the greatest horror of any step likely to bring about a civil war." Those high-souled expressions ought to have given definite pause to Regnier's importunity; but that busybody was indefatigable. A second letter to Madame Le Breton for the Empress simply elicited from the gentlemen of her suite the information that Her Majesty, ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... never can be measured until the purpose of the war be liberty to man; for a lasting enthusiasm ever is based on a grand idea, and unity of action demands a definite end. At this time our greatest need is not men or money, valiant generals or brilliant victories, but a consistent policy, based on the principle that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." The nation waits for ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... think he knows I'm here," Dearest said. "Nothing definite, of course; he just feels there's something here that he ...
— Dearest • Henry Beam Piper
... the sacred text are not due to any general recensions or revisions by ecclesiastical authority, but arose gradually from the causes above considered (No. 3). These variations exhibit such gradations of text that it is impossible to draw definite lines of classification, without admitting so many exceptions as almost to destroy the application of such ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... wand had touched the world or him. Everything was transfigured, and no wonderland was more full of interest than that in which he existed. His life was a waking dream, in which nothing was distinct or definite, but all things abounded in hope and happy suggestion. He compared it afterward to a tropical island of the Pacific, a blissful fragment of life by itself, utterly distinct from the hard, struggling years that preceded, and the painful awakening ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... the term "renaissance" had a very definite meaning to scholars as representing an exact period toward the close of the fourteenth century when the world suddenly reawoke to the beauty of the arts of Greece and Rome, to the charm of their gayer life, the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... whilst giving them a more positive and more complete shape than belonged to their first and original appearance. And thus came down to us the grand design, which, so far as Henry IV. was concerned, was never a definite project. His true external policy was much more real and practical. He had seen and experienced the evils of religious hatred and persecution. He had been a great sufferer from the supremacy of the house of Austria in Europe, and he had for a long while opposed it. When he became the most puissant ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... men better, not alone physically, but morally. His work has been uplifting along all lines of university activities. In character and example he is as great and untiring as in his teaching and precept. The final and definite knowledge of his determination to leave Michigan is a severe blow to the students all of whom know and appreciate his work. Next to President Angell, no man of the University of Michigan, in the last ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... as a rock, Wingfield," Furniss said, as they rode off together. "He wilted a little when you were telling your story, but the moment he saw you had no definite proofs he was, as I expected he would be, ready to defy you. ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... something else, something more definite. He felt that Dolly—yes, Dolly took too much pleasure, altogether too much pleasure in that clipping business. Of course, the clipping had to be. He knew that. A respectable man can't have feathers on his shoulders. ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... was specific and definite. North northeast we went by the compass, slashing our way through the heavy vines and shrubbery inch by inch. We dipped over a hillock and came out of the jungle into the sand before the end of the spit was ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... desirous of having a little innocent recreation with Mr. Winkle, or whether it occurred to him that he could perform the journey as much to his own satisfaction without a rider as with one, are points upon which, of course, we can arrive at no definite and distinct conclusion. By whatever motives the animal was actuated, certain it is that Mr. Winkle had no sooner touched the reins, than he slipped them over his head, and darted ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Indian lands which awaited his discovery were destined, in his intention, to be expended in a new crusade, and the heathen inhabitants of the countries themselves were to be converted to Christianity. The recognition of the spherical figure of the earth led man to perceive that it offered him a definite and limited object, and navigation had been benefited by the new-found instrumentality of the magnet, enabling it to be something better than mere coasting; thus technical appliances make their appearance when a need ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... I had feared man instinctively from the first, but familiarity with him had for a while overcome that fear. Now it returned, and with the fear was mingled another feeling—a feeling of definite hatred. Originally, though afraid of him, I had borne man no ill-will whatever, and would have been entirely content to go on living beside him in peace and friendliness, just as we lived with the deer and the beaver. Man himself made that impossible; and now I no longer wished ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... night that his father had come to him. It was not that he had not been aware of his father before, but he had been aware of him only as he had been aware of light and heat and food. Now it had become a definite wonder as to whether this new friend had been sent to take the place of the old one. Certainly the new friend had very little to do with all that old life of which the fountain was the door. He belonged, most definitely, to the new one, and everything about him—the ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... there for useful and happy family life if the newly wedded youth have both been educated in selfishness, habituated to frivolous pleasures, and guided by ideals of success in terms of garish display? Yet what definite program for any other training does society provide? Do the schools and colleges, Sunday schools and churches teach youth a better way? How else shall they be trained to take the home and family in terms that will make for happiness and usefulness? It is high ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... that since her return to England she had had one settled, definite object before her eyes with regard to this renewal of her love. There had been times in which she had thought that she would go on with the life which she had prepared for herself, and that she would make herself contented, if ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... educate oneself lies in desultory, disconnected, aimless studying which does not give anything like the benefit to be derived from the pursuit of a definite program for self-improvement. A person who wishes to educate himself at home should get some competent, well-trained person to lay out a plan for him, which can only be effectively done when the adviser knows the vocation, the tastes, and the needs of the would-be student. Anyone who ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... to myself to have waked up one morning in possession of them—of Ralph Touchett and his parents, of Madame Merle, of Gilbert Osmond and his daughter and his sister, of Lord Warburton, Caspar Goodwood and Miss Stackpole, the definite array of contributions to Isabel Archer's history. I recognised them, I knew them, they were the numbered pieces of my puzzle, the concrete terms of my "plot." It was as if they had simply, by an impulse of their own, floated into my ken, and all in response to ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... the separation, in several cases, especially in the American Zamiae, of the grains into two distinct, and sometimes nearly marginal, masses, representing, as it may be supposed, the lobes of an anthera; and also from their approximation in definite numbers, generally in fours, analogous to the quaternary union of the grains of pollen, not unfrequent in the antherae of several other families of plants. The great size of the supposed grains of pollen, with the thickening ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... always," answered Dunn. "I've been trying to get proof to act on. I haven't succeeded. Not yet. Nothing definite. If I can't, I shall ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... Robbins started for California they had no very definite plans as to the future. But they found among their fellow-passengers a man who was just returning from the East, where he had been to visit his family. He was a practical and successful miner, and was by no means reluctant ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... plain. The men who caught the turtles brought a fairly strong and definite opinion to bear upon them, that passed into action, and later on into money. They thought the turtles would come that way, and verified their opinion; on this, will and action were generated, with the result that the men turned the turtles on their backs and carried them off. ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... Words" are more closely associated with Mendelssohn than any other of his works. The composer considered that music is more definite than words, and these lovely songs had as exact an intention as those which were written to accompany poetry. It was in a letter of Fanny Mendelssohn's, dated December 8, 1828, that their title first ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... political dinner. Lilian had carefully prepared for the occasion. In Quarrier's opinion, she would far outshine her previous appearances; she was to wear certain jewels which he had purchased on a recent visit to town—at an outlay of which he preferred to say nothing definite. "They are the kind of thing," he remarked, with a significant smile, "that can be passed on ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... count of mine, and couldn't tell you without a calculation what I am exactly. It doesn't matter, you see. Thirty-one or fifty-one is much the same for a woman who has made up her mind to live alone and work steadily for a definite object. But you are still a young girl, ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... difference between the romantic and realistic methods in the reviews; he played with a poetic drama to be called The King of the Beggars, and it was not until the close of the third year that he settled down to definite work. Then all his energies were concentrated on a new play—The Gipsy. A young woman of Bohemian origin is suddenly taken with the nostalgia of the tent, and leaves her husband and her home to wander with those of her race. He ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... see of these people the more surprised I am that they should have done so much as they have this year without any definite promise of payment on our part, and with so little acquaintance with us. The course we have been obliged to pursue[43] would not have got an acre planted by Irish laborers. I do not think it the best course, but under the existing confusion it was only one. If we were authorized ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... Courcy's wild charge, the terrible conflict, the flight of the royalists, and then—! I had a strange half-consciousness of having been raised from the ground and carried some distance, but of what had really happened I had no definite knowledge. ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... present me to-morrow to Mme. de Sononches, and do something definite for me; you will keep your word, in short; or I will clear off Sechard's debts myself, sell my practice, and go into partnership with him. I will not be duped. You have spoken out, and I am doing the same. I have given proof, give me proof of your ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... on an open ridge and now spent much of her time there, but this seemed more from a disinclination to travel and a dislike of bedding in snow than from a definite purpose of excavating a den. This puzzled Breed. Shady leaned more to the casual dog way of trusting that a suitable spot would present itself on the day when her pups should arrive; yet there was enough of the coyote in her to cause her to scratch out a shallow nest ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... very definite views upon African superstitions, quoted the second commandment to her, and ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... who must therefore avoid giving offence to them, and must propitiate them if they should by ill-change have been offended. The more important, assuming individualised and anthromorphic forms and definite functions, receive proper names, are in some cases represented by rude images, and become the recipients of prayer and sacrifice" (JOURN. OF ANTHROP. ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... Government more freely, more swiftly, and more imperiously, than it does in Republican America. It comes as a stern mandate, which must be obeyed on the instant. The Queen of England has less power than the President of the United States. He can form a definite policy, select his own Ministry to carry it out, and to some extent have his own way for four years, whether the people like it or not. The Queen cannot do this for a day. Her Ministry cannot stand an hour, with a policy disapproved by the Commons. Not ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... Presently a definite thought took shape in her mind. To-morrow she would tell Aunt Francesca, and see if it could not be arranged for her to go away somewhere, anywhere, alone. Or, if not to-morrow, at least the day after, as soon as she had seen him again. She wanted one last look to take ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... more definite and perceptible, we look first at the new Indian religious organisations. Within the British period, four organised religious movements attract our notice. They are: I. The new Indian Christian Church; II. The Br[a]hma Sam[a]j and the kindred Pr[a]rthan[a] Sam[a]jes; III. The [A]rya Sam[a]j; ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... least of the income or interest? If a definite amount should be allowed me each year, during my minority, could I do as I ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... demanded. "You have made a definite charge against a wireless operator on the ship. He ought to be placed in the position to be able to refute it if ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... these lands on the Santa Cruz and San Pedro are covered by Mexican titles—and many of these again by squatter claims. It is absolutely necessary that Congress should by some wise and speedy legislation settle, upon some definite basis, the land titles of Arizona. Until this is done, disorder and anarchy will reign supreme over the country. The present condition of California is in a great degree to be attributed to the want of any title to the most valuable real property in the State, and the millions which ...
— Memoir of the Proposed Territory of Arizona • Sylvester Mowry
... were represented at this conference—Goshen, Earlham, Central Mennonite, Ashland, Wilmington, Juniata, and Penn colleges and Friends' University. No definite plan of work had been mapped out, but a simple organization was effected, and arrangements were made for a second conference at Earlham College (Society of Friends). Professor Elbert Russell of Earlham College was elected president, and upon him devolved most of the work of arranging ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... the past definite, expresses that he may have been favorable to her in the past, in a period of time that has come to an end, implying "even though he be so no more." See ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... railed off a strip of ground in front of Bridget Clery's house. But that strip of garden had inspired no spirit of emulation. Eliza was perhaps more patient than he, and he began to wonder if she had any definite aim in view, and if the spectacle of the convent, with its show of nuns walking under the trees, would eventually awaken some desire of refinement in the people, if the money their farms now yielded would produce some sort of improvement in their cottages, the removal of those dreadfully heavy ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... the manufacturing districts, whither pursuit had been directed, they were now in the centre of another county —in the neighbourhood of one of the most considerable towns of England; and here Philip began to think their wanderings ought to cease, and it was time to settle on some definite course of life. He had carefully hoarded about his person, and most thriftily managed, the little fortune bequeathed by his mother. But Philip looked on this capital as a deposit sacred to Sidney; it was not to be spent, but kept and augmented—the nucleus for future wealth. Within the last ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... for Norway, Leif returned from his visit to Herjulf's Cape, and made public his intention to take Biorn's barren beginning and carry it out to a definite finish. He brought with him three of the men of Biorn's old crew, and also the same stanch little trading-vessel in which Herjulfsson had made his journey. The ship-sheds upon the shore became at once the scene of endless overhauling and repairing. ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... At the north-east, in Belgica, some bands of other Teutons, who had begun to be called Germans (men of war), had passed over the left bank of the Rhine, and were settling or wandering there without definite purpose. In eastern and central Gaul, in the valleys of the Jura and Auvergne, on the banks of the Saone, the Allier, and the Doubs, the two great Gallic confederations, that of the AEduans and that of the Arvernians, were disputing ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... in order to reduce the size of the reservoirs, which are carried on the locomotive, the air inside them must be very highly compressed; and that in going from the reservoir into the cylinder it passes through a reducing valve or expander, which keeps the pressure of admission at a definite figure, so that the locomotive can continue working so long as the supply of air contained in the reservoir has not come down to this limiting pressure. The air does not pass the expander until after it has gone through the boiler ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... commit himself to definite statements on any subject not theological. If you asked him how long the morning's tramp would be, it was "no verra long, juist a bit ayant the hull yonner." And if, at the end of the seventh mile, you complained that it was much too far, he would never do more ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... and two-shilling pieces. Finding only two or three, he changed his mind and put back the gold-piece just in time to avoid the eye of the page, who came to take the offering back to Miss Tucker. Appleton twisted his mustache nervously, and walked slowly toward the anteroom with no definite idea in mind, save perhaps that she might issue from her retreat and recognize him as she passed. (As a matter of fact she had never once noticed him on the steamer, but the poor wretch was unconscious of that misfortune!) The page came out, putting something ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... crest of the break directly in front of him. A man was there, lying at full length upon the ground, covering him with a revolver. For a few seconds McTeague looked at the man stupidly, bewildered, confused, as yet without definite thought. Then he noticed that the man was singularly like Marcus Schouler. It WAS Marcus Schouler. How in the world did Marcus Schouler come to be in that desert? What did he mean by pointing a pistol at him that way? He'd best look out or the pistol would go off. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... heaven of a new found self-esteem! His first impulse had been to cry out against the diabolical falsehood, to deny the allegation, to fight the case to the bitter end. But on second thought he concluded to maintain a dignified silence, especially as he came to realise that he now possessed a definite entity not only in Blakeville, but in the world at large. He was a recognised human being! People who had never heard of him before were now saying, "What a jolly scamp he is! What a scalawag!" Oh, it was good to come into his own, even though he reached it by a crooked and heretofore undesirable ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... And looking round, he felt, he saw, he was no longer alone. The moonbeams fell upon a figure that was observing him from the crag of ruin that was near, and, as the light clustered and gathered round the form, it became every moment more definite and distinct. ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... Tends to imply someone who is ignorant mainly owing to inexperience. When this is applied to someone who *has* experience, there is a definite ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... of the task, there is a definite advantage in so large a view. By fixing our attention too exclusively upon the artificial boundary lines of the States, we have failed to perceive much that is significant in the westward development of the United States. For instance, our colonial system did not begin with the Spanish War; the ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... definite knowledge, mademoiselle," I replied, "but can not we, ourselves, investigate the mystery quite as well as the detective Ganimard, the personal enemy ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... Nothing definite had or could have been said, but it was not likely that the parents would see exactly eye to eye with their daughters, who wrote reams and whispered volumes of the delightful mystery which surrounded the girl who next term would be head of ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... to a more definite delineation of the reasons that operated to raise up the conspiracy. There was a partial feud that had long existed in the mutual jealousies between the slaveholders and non-slaveholding population. Nothing very remarkable, however, had transpired to indicate ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... greater honor of Our Lord, their Master and Patron," runs a certain passage in their Rule, "the Sisters of Charity shall have in everything they do a definite intention to please Him, and shall try to conform their life to His, especially in His poverty, His humility, His gentleness, His simplicity and austerity." Therein was to lie their strength and the secret of their courage; before them stood ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... husband. LUD. (aside). Yes, I expect you'll often have a few words with your new-born husband! (Aloud.) Well, what is it? JULIA. Why, I've been thinking that as you and I have to play our parts for life, it is most essential that we should come to a definite understanding as to how they shall be rendered. Now, I've been considering how I can make the most of the Grand Duchess. LUD. Have you? Well, if you'll take my advice, you'll make a very fine part of it. JULIA. Why, that's quite my idea. LUD. I shouldn't make it one of ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... with her Vogelstein seemed to see how it was she had made herself. They walked about, afterwards on the splendid terrace that surrounds the Capitol, the great marble floor on which it stands, and made vague remarks—Pandora's were the most definite—about the yellow sheen of the Potomac, the hazy hills of Virginia, the far-gleaming pediment of Arlington, the raw confused- looking country. Washington was beneath them, bristling and geometrical; the long lines of its avenues seemed to stretch into national ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... of questions, answers, explanations flowed on without the critical sentence making its appearance. He had led them well—so far. How in the world, though, was he to keep it up, and provide definite result ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... quiet, and in a pure and fresh atmosphere. I don't clearly understand what M. VESQUIER's business is, but as he seems to take for granted that I know all about it, I trust to getting DAUBINET alone and obtaining definite information from him. Are they VESQUIER's caves we are going to see? "No," DAUBINET tells me presently, quite surprised, at my ignorance; "we are going to see les caves de Popperie—Popp & Co., only Co.'s out of it, and it's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... Bess and Cora. Bess was intent upon something—nothing definite—about the Flyaway, while Cora was working assiduously trying to adjust a ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... to confide to her all that moved her soul. And so her mother's tomb had become her favorite place of rest. Here, if anywhere, she now hoped once more to find comfort, some happy suggestion, and perhaps some definite assistance. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a man could never have risked going ashore unless some definite plan of action had already formulated itself in his mind. And why should the fellow not possess friends at Yellow Banks? He knew the river intimately and all the river towns; possibly he had even landed here before. He was a man feared, hated, ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... revolutionary movement first prominently appears in the political field. For twenty years after the close of the civil war the surviving animosities between North and South mainly determined party lines, and this fact, together with the lack of agreement on a definite policy, had hitherto prevented the forces of industrial discontent from making any striking political demonstration. But toward the close of the eighties the diminished bitterness of feeling between North and South left the people free to align themselves on the new issue, which had ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... the first two months at Frankfort he held the position of First Secretary, but his chief did not attempt to introduce him to the more important negotiations and when, at the end of July, he received his definite appointment as envoy, he knew as little of the work as when ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... crossed the table of rock toward the waiting figure; gently he extended his hands, palms upward, in a gesture of peaceful promise. Whoever, whatever this was—this Moon-being who had signaled and in doing so had happened upon the letters that had a definite meaning of Earth—Chet knew he must not frighten him. One outstretched hand touched the metal that cased an arm; moved upward to the headpiece, as close-fitting as his own; tilted it that the light of Earth might shine within and show ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... to seek out the enemy's fleet had led to nothing but the exhaustion of our own. But when Pitt began his raids on the French coast, Anson, who had little faith in their value for military purposes, thought he saw in them definite naval possibilities. Accordingly when, in 1758, he was placed in command of the Channel Fleet to cover the expedition against St. Malo, he raised the blockade of Brest, and took up a position near the Isle of Batz between ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... ringleader, who urged his recruits to appear at the rendezvous, but refused for his part, to join with them, 'because his wife was not well.'[51] The Shropshire insurrection was, indeed, of so visionary a nature, that zealous Commissary Reynolds could not manipulate it into any definite shape. Though sent to Shrewsbury that he might develop the existence of 'a general plot of the malignants' in the West of England, he entirely failed. And so annoyed was he at his failure, that he suggests to Thurloe, that it would 'not to be unfit to make' the malignants 'speak forcibly, ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... partial sterility of some individuals of these two forms arise when they intercross; and as this would probably be due to some special conditions of life, we may fairly suppose it to arise in some definite portion of the area occupied by ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... proximity to its burrows; merriami is even suspected of pillaging the stores of spectabilis. The range of merriami, however, is much more extensive than that of spectabilis (Fig. 1), which argues against a definite ecological dependence or relationship. Separation of the four forms mentioned may be easily accomplished by ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor
... mother. The fragility which had struck Meynell's unaccustomed eye when he first arrived in the valley forced itself now at times, though only at times, on her reluctant sense. There were nights when, without any definite reason, she could not sleep for anxiety. And then again the shadow entirely passed away. Catharine laughed at her; and when the moment came for Mary to follow Meynell to the Dunchester meeting, it was impossible even for her anxious love to persuade itself that there was good reason ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... granted that women at one period ruled. Such a view is far from the truth. All I claim, then, is this: the system by which the descent of the name and the inheritance of property passes through the female side of the family placed women in a favourable position, with definite rights in the family and clan, rights which, in some cases, resulted in their having great and even extraordinary power. This, I think, may be granted. If descent through the father stands, as it is held to do, for the predominance of man over woman—the husband over the wife, then ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... now, such certainty, such courage. It seems as if Fate were giving me one more chance. I have often run very close to making a definite decision—to dare everything rather than await this fool's disaster. But then comes that everlasting feminine humility, sneaking up with its simper: 'Is not this presumptuous, selfish, mistaken, wrong? ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... which Nature has availed herself, in order to bring about the development of all the capacities of man, is the antagonism of those capacities to social organization, so far as the latter does in the long run necessitate their definite correlation. By antagonism, I here mean the unsocial sociability of mankind—that is, the combination in them of an impulse to enter into society, with a thorough spirit of opposition which constantly threatens to break up this society. The ground of this lies ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... him, stilly intent and watchful, it was as though a voice, the voice which had spoken from the shadowy doorway, had incarnated itself and become visible, putting on a form to match its own quality, at once definite and delicate. The newcomer moved down the room with a subdued rustling of skirts, resolving at last into a neat and appealing feminine presence that smiled confidently and yet conciliatorily and offered ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... I gladly agreed to stop a few days with Bracewell until we could obtain some definite information as to ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... father. 'There was no help for that; his contempt of Court was too heinous. Now the proper thing to do is to let him have a little dose of prison—the authority of the Court must be vindicated, naturally; and then we must have a definite scheme for the establishment of the young man in business before we beg the Court to reconsider the matter. I mean, you must name a sum; and it must be ready. And then there must be an understanding that Miss Beresford—I mean ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... nothing of this. She was innocent of deception; she was innocent even of any definite purpose to allure. The thought in her mind, if there were any thought, which is doubtful, was that she must be composed, she must be ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... crossed his lips, and addressing the two men, who were mortified at having brought him no more definite news, he cried: "My lads, I know all I want to know. Go to bed and sleep sound; my word, you deserve to!" He himself, setting the example, slept like a man whose brain has solved a problem of the utmost importance which has ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... British policy toward America. But the "War of 1812," as it is termed in the United States, "Mr. Madison's War," as it was derisively named by Tory contemporaries in Great Britain, arose from serious policies in which the respective governments were in definite opposition. Briefly, this was a clash between belligerent and neutral interests. Britain, fighting at first for the preservation of Europe against the spread of French revolutionary influence, later against the Napoleonic plan of Empire, held the seas in her grasp and exercised ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... and swept his cheek with a kiss. "What a darling you are, little big man! Yet you never make very definite remarks about my clothes." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... considerable armature, which usually extends dorsally and to the left, rarely to the right. In some cases the structure of this armature is indistinct; again it can be clearly seen to consist of definite rods (Staebchen). The anus is probably always terminal. Contractile vacuoles are variable in different species. In some cases there is but one, which is placed at the posterior end or centrally on the ventral ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins
... the acquaintance he had made—and had himself introduced Delancey at the house where Acme resided. Whether her charms really tempted the friend to endeavour to supplant George, or whether he considered the latter's attentions to the young Greek to be without definite object, and undertaken in a spirit of indifference, the narrator could not explain; but it was not long before Delancey considered himself as a principal in the transaction. Acme, whose knowledge of the world was slight, and whose previous seclusion from society, had rendered ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... was great in America; to those whose hopes had been dashed by the disaster of Long Island, the surrender of New York and Washington's enforced retreat it brought not only a revival of hope but a definite confidence in ultimate success. But that effect was even greater in Europe. Its immediate fruit was Lord North's famous "olive branch" of 1778; the decision of the British Government to accept defeat ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... sea without; on their right stretched the inner bay or roadstead, the distant riding-lights of the ships now dim and glimmering; behind them a faint spark here and there in the lower sky showed where the island rose; before there was nothing definite, and could be nothing, till they reached a precarious wood bridge, a mile further on, Henry the Eighth's Castle being a ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... specimen interiors, personal and other, out of the myriads of my time, the middle range of the Nineteenth century in the New World; a strange, unloosen'd, wondrous time. But the book is probably without any definite purpose that can be ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... indeed, even to some Indians, he has no other name and no definite presence. He rarely utters the cry by day—his voice then is a harsh croak—and you never see him as he utters it out of the solemn upper darkness; so that there is often a mystery about this voice of the night, which one never thinks of associating with the quiet, patient, long-legged fisherman ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... styles of dressing the hair of girls, by which you can form a pretty accurate estimate of any girl's age up to her marriage, when the coiffure undergoes a definite change. The boys all look top-heavy and their heads of an abnormal size, partly from a hideous practice of shaving the head altogether for the first three years. After this the hair is allowed to grow in three tufts, one over each ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... Courage is no definite or stedfast principle. Let that man who shall purpose to assign motives to the actions of another, blush at his folly and forbear. Not more presumptuous would it be to attempt the classification of all nature, and the scanning of supreme intelligence. I gazed for a minute at the window, ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... the names of places, and the tangible monuments, speak strongly of a Scandinavian infusion into the population. Sometimes, between the early Celtic people still speaking their own language, and the descendants of the Norwegians, a surprisingly definite line can be drawn. The island of Harris is possessed for the most part by a set of Celts, 'small, dark-haired, and in general very ugly;' but at the northern point, called 'the Ness,' we meet with people of an entirely different appearance. 'Both the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... process swells more than that by the old, and a little less quantity—about an eighth less—is therefore required in mixing and kneading. As definite rules as possible are given for the whole operation; but experience alone can insure perfect bread, changes of temperature affecting it at once, and baking ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... who are accustomed to think that the recommendation of love to one's enemies is something hyperbolical, and signifies not that which expressed, but something else. This answer is the indication of a very clear and definite ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy |
