"Desideratum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... instead of being oppressed with fear, they are buoyed up with delusive confidence and courage; for if they did indeed believe that the Church—the Church of Ireland especially—was in danger, and that its preservation was the one paramount desideratum, they would gladly avert, as far as they might, that danger by a compromise involving a very small (if any) sacrifice of principle, and which would secure to the Irish clergy, as far as human prudence, legislative sanction, and the authority of law can secure it, a permanent ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... by Ghering. 1478. Quarto. This impression is perhaps rather rare than valuable; although I am free to admit it is yet a desideratum in the Spencerian collection. It commences with an address by the famous Beroaldus to I. Francus, his pupil, on the reverse of the first leaf—in which the tutor expresses his admiration of Virgil in the following manner: "te amantissime mi Johannes hortor, te moneo, et si pateris oro, ut VIRGILIUM ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the manufacturing arts, in which a perfectly controllable compressing power of vast potency might be serviceable, I many years ago prepared a design of an apparatus of a very simple and easily executed kind, which would supply such a desideratum. It was possessed of a range of compressing or squeezing power, which far surpassed anything of the kind that had been invented. As above said, it was perfectly controllable; so as either to yield the most gentle pressure, or to possess the power of compressing to upwards ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... off, when, at the foot of the hill, she met her uncle. He was coming after her to ask Mr. Plumfield about the desideratum of a Yankee. Fleda put her pie in safety behind a rock, and turned back with him, and aunt Miriam told them the way to Seth's ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... their way to the Alameda, a sort of half-park, half-garden, devoted to the public use, and tastefully laid out in walks, terraces, and parterres with flowers, and fountains; grand old evergreen trees overshadowing all. For in that summery clime shade, not sun, is the desideratum. Here the jovenes dorados spent part of the afternoons sauntering along the arcaded walks, or seated around the great fountain watching the play of its crystal waters. But with an eye to something besides—the ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... requiring you to do so." The brothers replied, this is certainly true; but the proposed undertaking is not a commercial enterprise, although no doubt it would produce great commercial and colonizing results; but it is a grand national work,—a desideratum that has been wished for, looked for, and cared for, ever since the new world was discovered—that has repeatedly called forth great expenditure of money, great suffering, and loss of life in searching for it, to the north. ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth
... figure, he seemed like a giant among pigmies. Marat might be termed the representative of the kennel. He was a low demagogue, flaunting in rags, dirty, and venomous: he was always calling out for more blood, as if the grand desideratum was the annihilation of mankind. Among the extreme men, Robespierre, by his eloquence, his artifice, and his bold counsels, contrived to maintain his position. This was no easy matter, for it was necessary to remain firm and unfaltering in every emergency. He, like the others ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... Procrustes, from the collector's point of view, is entirely logical, and might be considered as the acme of bookmaking. To the true collector, a book is a work of art, of which the contents are no more important than the words of an opera. Fine binding is a desideratum, and, for its cost, that of the Procrustes could not be improved upon. The paper is above criticism. The true collector loves wide margins, and the Procrustes, being all margin, merely touches the vanishing point ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... by a method of working the hair into the solid ivory; and brushes of this description are now the best in the market. Their chief excellence consists in their preserving their original white colour to the last, which is a great desideratum. Billiard-balls constitute another considerable item of ivory consumption. They cost from 6s. to 12s. each; and the nicety of our ornamental turning produces balls not only of the most perfect spherical form, ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... that expedition in a tapissier, the ability to weave quickly, was as great a desideratum as fine work. Various other expedients were resorted to beside the Sixteenth Century equivalent of "Step lively." Large tapestries were not set on a single loom, but were woven in sections, cunningly united when finished. In this manner ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... acquire a wider knowledge of diseases and their cure—and acquire it much more quickly—under some hard-working practitioner among the East-End poor of London; and that, as he very truly pointed out, was the great desideratum in such a case as Dick's, far outweighing the extra hard work and the sordid surroundings to which Mrs Maitland had at first so strenuously objected. Moreover, Dick agreed with the solicitor; and in the end the maternal ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... great desideratum was to quit the Hut unseen. Joel and his followers were still at work, in distant fields; but they all carefully avoided that side of the Knoll which would have brought them within reach of the musket, and this left all behind the cliff unobserved, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... stranger to find any street he sought without inquiry. If the named streets were given names, with the first letter of each in alphabetical succession, as Alpha Street, Bishop Street, Canary Street, right through, beginning from one end, the great desideratum detailed above would be accomplished. In other words, whereas now you can find any one of the numbered streets without inquiry, you could then do just the same with ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... inevitably seemed to clash with each other. Hence, to describe these two spheres with clearness and precision, and to determine the precise point at which they come into contact without intersecting each other, is still a desideratum in the science of theology. We shall endeavour to define the human power and the divine sovereignty, and to exhibit the harmony subsisting between them, in such a manner as to supply, in some small degree at least, this great desideratum which ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... way, do you understand the manufacture of forty shilling free-holders in an economical way, because if you do, it would be a desideratum. Parliament, it is said, will be dissolved in June, and I want, as well as I can remember, nearly two hundred votes. My brother lost the last election by something about that number, and I know he feels very anxious to get into parliament for many reasons. He is now on ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... representation of the electors, has appealed with greater force to English-speaking peoples; it has its advocates in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, as well as in England, and as a common electoral method for the British Empire is a desideratum in itself, the balance of advantage, at least for English-speaking peoples, would appear to be with ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... sharp spears of bone to impale you. The best defense of an unarmed man is to seize the left antler with the left hand, and with the right hand pull the deer's right front foot from under him. Merely holding to the horns makes great sport for the deer. He loves that unequal combat. The great desideratum is to put his fore legs out of commission, and get him down ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... burning thirst that oppresses him almost to death. Should the friendly tree prove a date-palm, he will find food also—a dainty repast of ripe, golden fruit, wholesome and nourishing—ready prepared to his hand. But, after all, to a traveler over those sterile regions water is the grand desideratum, and this he is sure to find in the vicinity of the wild palm. The Bedouins, who consider it beneath their dignity to sow or reap, gather the date where they can find it growing wild; but the Arabs of the plains ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... and highly organized beings, the essential thing in fertilization is the union of these cells specially endowed by different bodies, the unlikeness of derivation in these united reproductive centers being the desideratum for ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... for a science of happiness; and, thirdly, to an induction of the facts of human experience; the three distinct appeals correcting one another. If psychology can contribute nothing to the point, it confesses to a desideratum for ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... peculiarities." An examination of it, however, shows that it abounds in inaccuracies, and exhibits most of the errors that can be made in an author catalogue. A catalogue of the City Library compiled in accordance with modern bibliographical practice is still a desideratum. ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen
... easy, which he has been able to do from the sensible step he adopted of quitting active business before it wore him out. At the age of seventy-five he is still hale, hearty and vigorous, looking younger than his actual years, and possessing that great desideratum, a sound mind in ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... desideratum is, to secure comfort on the passage, by the most efficient and economical means, thereby, as far as possible insuring the arrival of the company at their destination in good ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... juices to operate, away they lug you to be plumped over head and ears into a pool of ice cold water. I rose, confoundedly against my inclinations I will confess, and, we proceeded to a small rocky waterfall, where a man might wash himself certainly, but as to swimming, which is to me the grand desideratum, it was impossible, so I prowled away down the stream, to look out for a pool, and at last I was successful. On returning, as I only took a dip to swear by, the situation of my venerable Spanish ally ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... large sand dune, bare on top and but scantily covered on the sides with grass and weeds. Were it not for this dune, the site of the ruin would command one of the best areas of cultivable land in the canyon, but apparently an extensive outlook was not a desideratum. The slight elevation of the site above the level of the bottom lands is shown ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... we meet this material in a form that attracts little attention, though it serves a purpose of perhaps unequalled utility. Mechanics are aware, that, from the time of James Watt to the year 1850, the grand desideratum of the engine builder was a perfect joint,—a joint that would not admit the escape of steam. A steam-engine is all over joints and valves, from most of which some steam sooner or later would escape, since an engine in motion produces a continual jar that finally impaired ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... a most fortunate one it was to the wanderers, the trapper often declaring, that if he ever reached home again, he would conduct the whole family to the spot, as it would not only make a desirable farm, but afford rare facilities for hunting and trapping, which desideratum was of the utmost importance to ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... old Italian larvae and most of the sisterhood, display extraordinary affection for the blood of new-born unbaptized infants; and it is a great desideratum to kill them before the preventive rite has been irrevocably administered; for the bodies of unbaptized children were almost indispensable in the witches' preparations. Soon as buried their corpses are dug out of ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... genial literary taste with the local knowledge of character, customs, and dialect, indispensable to the collation of such reliques; and thus, although their national interest was universally recognised, they were silently permitted to fall into comparative oblivion. To supply this manifest desideratum, Mr. Dixon compiled his volume for the Percy Society; and its pages, embracing only a selection from the rich stores he had gathered, abundantly exemplified that gentleman's remarkable qualifications for the labour he had undertaken. ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... coast, where Balfouria and Alyxia have each an accession of species. Of Strychnos, which is also frequent, and probably produces its flowers during the rainy season (as has been remarked of this genus in other countries) specimens in that stage of its fructification are still a desideratum; all that is known respecting the plant being the form and size of its fruit, which in ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... his time to the study of the sciences, particularly pneumatics and electricity, both then in their infancy. The discoveries of Galileo, Pascal, and Torricelli incited him to solve the problem of the creation of a vacuum—a desideratum since before the days of Aristotle. His first experiments were with a wooden pump and a barrel of water, but he soon found that with such porous material as wood a vacuum could not be created or maintained. He therefore made use of a globe of copper, with pump and stop-cock; and with ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... stood waiting for music that could scarcely be lighter or more devoid of moral quality than her own immature heart. Life, at that time, had for her but one great desideratum—fun; and with her especial favorites about her, with a careful selection of "nice brothers," canvassed with many pros and cons over neglected French exercises, she had the promise of plenty of it for a long evening, and her dark eyes glowed and cheeks flamed at the prospect. Impatiently ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... and physiology. The endeavour to determine with a like degree of precision the physiological conditions of the pleasurable effects of colours and their combinations by E. W. Brucke, Ewald Hering and more recent investigators, has so far failed to realize the desideratum laid down by Herbart, that there should be a theory of colour-relations equal in completeness and exactness to that of tone-relations. The experimental inquiry into simple aesthetically pleasing forms was begun by G. T. Fechner in seeking to test the soundness ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... form of coitus, not nearly the effort should be made to arouse the sexual passions of either of the parties, as has already been described as fitting for complete coitus. The orgasm is not the desideratum in this case, but it is just a delightful expression of mutual love. It is a sort of prolonged and all-embracing kiss, in which the sex organs are included as well as the lips. They kiss each other, as the lips kiss each ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... my happiness upon hearing this—upon at length getting into my possession precisely the sort of work which you so long since had looked upon as a desideratum in the history of mankind, and which I had utterly despaired of ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... will not perhaps detract from the profits of this institution, it will render the toleration of the existing currency, if not of undiminished, still of indispensable necessity.* The introduction, therefore, of a safe and sufficient medium of circulation may be still pronounced a desideratum, and one of the first importance to the general prosperity of the colonists. The government in their present distressed situation, is perhaps the only power competent to the accomplishment of this beneficial object, and it is to be hoped that they will ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... but some, secreting their cigars in the hollow of their hands, took whiffs by stealth, and blushed to find it flame; while others, who were such grandees and big pots that their own convenience was the first and foremost desideratum, continued to smoke with lordliness ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... to the demagogue, out of his own mouth, that everything cannot be reduced to "bread and shoes all round," as the grand desideratum. Give these to men, it will not suffice. The eloquent orator instinctively seeks besides to impart "hallowed emotions and mystic enthusiasm to those who toil and sweat—he teaches them to hope, to dream of God, to take courage and lift themselves above the sickening miseries of human conditions ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... the group. A larger individual might sip the nectar, it is true, but its longer tongue would reach the base of the tube without effecting the slightest contact with the pollen, which is, of course, the desideratum." How the moth, in sipping the nectar, thrusts his head against the sticky buttons to which the pollen messes are attached, and, in trying to release himself, loosens them; how he flies off with these little clubs sticking to his eyes; how they automatically adjust themselves to the attitude ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... the bird delightedly. "You are certainly more alert than most! But, as I was saying, I am usually to be found Thinking. The first condition of Thinking is solitude. And that, I fear, is a desideratum most difficult ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... quite a desideratum," he reflected. "I want him first to give me a certificate that my uncle is dead, so that I may get the leather business; and then that he's alive—but here we are again at the incompatible interests!" And he returned ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for each quarter of a knot that the vessel may fail of reaching the guaranteed speed there is to be deducted from the contract price the sum of $25,000. There seems to be no doubt among the naval experts that she will meet the conditions as to speed, and this is a great desideratum, since her chief function is to be to sweep the seas of an enemy's commerce. To do her work she must be able to overhaul, in an ocean race, the swiftest transatlantic passenger ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... mind that as the game is the desideratum, the surest, not the most glorious or enjoyable, route of reaching it should be chosen. When No-trump is declared with a hand containing a defenceless suit, there is a grave chance that the adversaries may save game by making five tricks in ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... quality of the theme should have first consideration and dictate the form of arrangement. A unity between the idea and its form of expression constitutes the desideratum of ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... labor of deciphering illegible handwriting will welcome the appearance of any 'standard text-book enabling all to become tolerable writers.' What a desideratum! Let the disappointment over manuscripts frequently rejected, simply because illegible, and the despair of printers, tell. The book before us seems well adapted to attain the end it proposes. The writer says: 'This work ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... within the reach of all." Furniture, carpets, curtains, pictures and books were being manufactured by machinery, and to glue things together and give them a look of gentility and get them into a house before they fell apart, was the seeming desideratum of all manufacturers. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... The great desideratum of the philological method is a proof that the 'Disease of Language,' ex hypothesi the most fertile source of myths, is a vera causa. Do simple poetical phrases, descriptive of heavenly phenomena, ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... in the great national museums of London and Paris, have produced a general familiarity with the subject, still, as a connected view of it in its several stages and branches is up to the present time a desideratum in our literature, it may not be superfluous here to attempt a brief account of the different classes into which their productions in this kind of art fall, and the different eras and styles under ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... good. To these must be added, in a disease which chiefly affects the poor, another item, forming an important drawback on the utility of the ordinary vapour-bath,—the application of it is attended with no inconsiderable expense. A machine which should obviate these objections, was a desideratum; and we think such a one has been invented by Mr. Burnet, of Golden Square. It is so simple as to be easily described without a diagram, and so well adapted to the end, and so easy and cheap in application, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various
... that the best plantations, the best tracts of land in some provinces, those that from their easy access are more profitable than others, are in the hands of the religious corporations, whose desideratum is ignorance and a condition of semi-starvation for the native, so that they may continue to govern him and make themselves necessary to his wretched existence, is one of the reasons why many towns do not ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... give us another act, and another volume, to let us know how the hero and heroine conducted themselves when married. Their main object seems to be merely to instruct young ladies how to get husbands, but not how to keep them: now this last, I speak it with all due diffidence, appears to me to be a desideratum in modern married life. It is appalling to those who have not yet adventured into the holy state, to see how soon the flame of romantic love burns out, or rather is quenched in matrimony; and how deplorably the passionate, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... of Lockyer's—so far as findable in all books that I have read—is, in books, about as close as we can get to our desideratum—that coal has fallen from the sky. Dr. Farrington, except with a brief mention, ignores the whole subject of the fall of carbonaceous matter from the sky. Proctor, in all of his books that I have read—is, in books, about as close as we can get to ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... resemble the magic transformation of Tasso's heroine into a tree, in which she could only groan and bleed. Hence power is necessarily an object of our desire and of our admiration. But of all power, that of the mind is, on every account, the grand desideratum of human ambition. We shall be as Gods in knowledge, was and must have been the first temptation: and the coexistence of great intellectual lordship with guilt has never been adequately represented without exciting the strongest ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... alone with Marianna, without his faithful satellites. Both Antonio and Salvator greatly racked their brains how they should prevent Splendiano and Pitichinaccio from going along with Signor Pasquale. Every scheme that occurred to them for the accomplishment of this desideratum had to be given up owing to want of time, for the principal plan in Nicolo's theatre had to be carried out on the ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... begin to think I have mistaken my way both to my own happiness and the affections of others. My strongest passion has always been the desire to be loved—as the French call it, 'le besoin d'etre aime.' It is the great wish, want, desire, necessity, desideratum of my life, the source through which I expect happiness to flow to me, the ultimate aim and object which has led me on in all the little I have done, and the much that I have tried ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... disappointments, all the crude and mystical fancies, which mixed themselves up with his career of philosophy... Many years later we find Newton in correspondence with Locke, with reference to a mysterious red earth by which Boyle, who was then recently dead, had asserted that he could effect the grand desideratum of multiplying gold. By this time, however, Newton's faith had become somewhat shaken by the unsatisfactory communications which he had himself received from Boyle on the subject of the golden recipe, though he did not abandon the idea of giving the experiment a further trial ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the Arab period, as described by their own writers, was therefore still a desideratum in European literature, which the publication before us may be considered as the first step towards supplying. The work of Al-Makkari, which has been taken as a text-book, is not so much an original ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... the human character is selfishness, and to remove or lessen this is the great desideratum of moral culture. How happy were mankind, if, instead of each one living for himself, they lived really for one another! The perfection of moral excellence cannot be better described than as the attainment of that state in which we should "love our neighbour as ourselves." The prevalence of ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... the reefs, the shallows, the breakers, the monsoons, the coasts and currents which have wrecked their ships, for their shipwrecks brought them shame. There was no pilot, no compass for those pilgrims of marriage. This work is intended to supply the desideratum. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... embodied yourself in your own work, which every writer of fiction ought to do; but they can seldom attain to such a desideratum. Now, tell me, how do you ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... Susanne was as renowned for her fast sailing, and repeated escapes from the cruisers, as Captain McElvina and his crew were for their courage and success. The capture of the vessel had long been a desideratum of the English Government; and Captain M—-, although gratified at her falling into his hands, was not very well pleased to find that a lad, whom he had intended to bring forward in the service should, as he supposed, have voluntarily joined a party, who ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... entry to all comments and suggestions, to be there sifted and garnered up, the pages of "NOTES AND QUERIES" may soon become a depository from which ample materials may be obtained for a new edition of Chaucer, now become an acknowledged desideratum. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various
... The Publisher believes that its present guise will bring it within the reach of all and sundry, who, while delighting in the marriage of wit with wisdom, cannot complete the trilogy with the third desideratum of wealth. ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... well be supposed that, in this climate, the principal desideratum which art is called upon to furnish for the promotion of health, is warmth, as well in the external air as in the inhabited apartments. Exposure to a cold atmosphere, when the body is well clothed, produces no bad effect whatever beyond a frostbitten ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... item that is retrieved, but also to put markup tags in a text to help retrieve the thing sought either with linguistic tagging or interpretation. HOCKEY also argued that little advancement had occurred in the software tools currently available for retrieving and searching text. She pressed the desideratum of going beyond Boolean searches and performing more sophisticated searching, which the insertion of more markup in the text would facilitate. Thinking about electronic texts as opposed to images means considering material that will never appear in print form, or ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly
... The first desideratum in taking exercise is to have every organ of the body free, therefore a gymnastic dress is a necessity. Then we should have the exercise conducted by some one who understands the peculiarities of each ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... about to spend his last winter in Acadia. Mindful of former experiences, he determined to fight scurvy by encouraging exercise among the colonists and procuring for them an improved diet. A third desideratum was cheerfulness. All these purposes he served through founding the Ordre de Bon Temps, which proved to be in every sense the life of the settlement. Champlain himself briefly describes the procedure followed, but a far more graphic account is given by Lescarbot, whose ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... because something is the matter, every one has begun conscience-dissecting—thinking—and a rumour has got abroad that we live to get thoughts of God. And because thoughts of God are novel and comforting, they have been raised up as the great desideratum. And the state of society responsible for the production of these thoughts is considered blessed. The work of intensifying the characteristics of that society is thought blessed, and because in ease we think not, we prefer to live ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... (J.R.) The Literature of Political Economy, London, 1845.—This is a very valuable work up to the date of publication, but a good bibliography of the subject is still a desideratum. The late Professor Stanley Jevons proposed to draw up a Handy Book of the Literature for the Index Society, but, to the great loss of bibliography, was prevented by other work from undertaking it. He ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... the elements of Style in singing, the most potent and effective—the one, indeed, that is essential for the success of the lyric artist—is the ability to vary the vocal timbre; that is, to sing with Colour. This desideratum of varied tone-colour is sought even by instrumentalists. Nay, the instrument itself is sometimes constructed with this object in view. Witness the invention of the "soft" pedal, which is intended not solely to reduce the intensity ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... measure. The same mode is adopted in India and the south of Spain. There are at least two good reasons for delivering milk in hot climates after this fashion. First, there can be no adulteration of the article; and second, it is sure to be fresh and sweet. This last is a special desideratum in a climate where ice is an expensive luxury, and the difficulty of keeping milk from becoming acid is very great. The effect upon the cow is by no means salutary, causing the animal to produce much less in quantity than when milked clean at regularly fixed hours, as with ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... that in most countries are to be found, either in a moral or a physical sense, advantages and disadvantages in which others are deficient. Le POUR et le CONTRE, as a well-known traveller observes, se trouvent en chaque nation. The grand desideratum is to acquire by travel a knowledge of this POUR et/i> CONTRE, which, by emancipating us from our prejudices, teaches us mutual toleration —for, of every species of tyranny, that which is exercised on things indifferent in themselves, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... and portable—which should stand to cannabis in the same relation which morphia bears to opium. I believe that, in collaboration with my friend Dr. Frank A. Schlitz (a young German chemist of remarkable ability and with a brilliant professional career before him), I have at last attained this desideratum. I have no room or right here to dwell upon this interesting discovery further than to say that we have obtained a substance we suppose to bear the analogy desired and to deserve the title of Cannabin. If further examination shall establish our result, we have in the form of ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... of our researches were directed. But after repeated assays with fire and chemical preparations on all the different sorts of stone to be picked up, it is still a desideratum. Nor did my experiments with a magnet induce me to think that any of the stones I tried contained iron. I have, however, heard other people report very differently ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... A.M. the islanders, receiving intelligence of our arrival, came down the hill of which this island is formed, in great numbers, and held a market; but as we were unprovided with what they wanted, little business could be done. The chief desideratum was flesh of fish or beast, next salt, then tobacco—in fact, anything but what I had brought as market money, cloth and glass beads. This day passed in rest and idleness, recruiting from our ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... have sometimes reproduced and sometimes disregarded, as the exigencies of the new medium happened to require). At other times he did not hesitate to employ modern colloquialisms (most of which have been "toned down"). He did not regard local color or historical atmosphere as a supreme desideratum. He wanted to express certain ideas, and he wanted to bring home the essential humanity of historical figures which, through the operations of legendary history, had assumed a strange, unhuman aspect. The methods he employed for these purposes have since been made familiar to the ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... Cyclopaedia of Naval Science and Nomenclature, is still a desideratum. That of Falconer is imperfect and out of date. We have heard that the design of such a work has been entertained, and materials for its execution collected, by Captain W. H. Smyth, whom, we earnestly recommend to prosecute ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... for the expedition had been defined by the Swedish navigator, and he announced the reasons which led him to believe that the north-east passage was practicable in summer, and the means by which he hoped to realize this geographical desideratum. The intelligent liberality of two Scandinavian gentlemen, and the assistance of the Swedish government, enabled him to organize his expedition upon a plan which he believed ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... few of them admit of the passage of two camels abreast. Several covered bazaars are built for merchandize. There are no native manufactures of consequence. Timbuctoo is properly a commercial depôt or emporium. The principal medium of exchange is salt, which is very inconvenient. The grand desideratum of merchants is the acquisition and accumulation of gold, but this is obtained only by a long and wearying residence in Timbuctoo, and is very uncertain in supply. The gold is brought from a considerable distance south-west. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... best with the topic, lay it by for a space. Time is a great revealer of hidden defects, and you must not regard your labors as ended until your achievement is the maturest possible for you. If the quantity of what you accomplish is meager, suffer no distress on that account. The desideratum now ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... already accepted so many modifications of old methods by "new thought," she accepts the idea of instilling mental and moral desiderata into the receptive pupil, via the charming tale. But, confronted with the concrete problem of what desideratum by which tale, and how, the average teacher sometimes finds her cheerfulness displaced by a sense of inadequacy ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... province of all men to become wealthy and, after all, wealth is not the only desideratum; the happiest of mortals are found in the middle walks of life and not in the extremes. The struggle should be to escape the life which saps our strength, keeps our nerves on edge and drives us away ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... craving, will, aspiration, hankering, appetency, cupidity, impulse; request, petition, quest, entreaty; velleity; pruriency. Antonyms: apathy, antipathy, aversion, inappetency. Associated Words: desiderative, desideratum, orectic, optative. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... without pigment, on which some painting or other form of decoration is afterwards to be applied. It is best to form this ground with the desired pigment incorporated with shellac varnish, except in the case of a white japan ground which requires special treatment, or when great brilliancy is a desideratum and other methods must be adopted. The shellac varnish for the japan ground is best prepared as follows: shellac 1-1/4 lb., methylated spirits 1 gallon. Dissolve in a well-corked vessel in a warm place ...
— Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition - For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and - Galvanizing • William N. Brown
... orders can be explained only by marked ignorance of the country. To secure a position which would uncover Banks's Ford was certainly a great desideratum; but the possession of Chancellorsville was far from accomplishing this end, ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... gold from its matrix is a much more complicated process, and the problem how most effectively to obtain that great desideratum—a complete separating and saving operation—is one which taxes the skill and evokes the ingenuity of scientific men all over the world. The difficulty is that as scarcely any two gangues, or matrixes, are exactly alike, the treatment which is found most ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... transcribed with Cyrillic letters to come into use among the eastern Servians, we are entitled to conclude that the version now circulated, is not such as it ought to be; and a correct one, for that part of the nation, is still a desideratum. It would seem therefore that Vuk Stephanovitch cannot have accepted the offer in question. See Kopitar's Letter to the Editor of the Bibl. Repos. ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... our enemies." Like the usual heroine of eighteenth century fiction, she married a title, and as Lady Jones was the Lady Bountiful of the district. From these tales it is clear that piety as the chief end of the story-book child has been succeeded by learning as the desideratum; yet morality is still pushed into evidence, and the American mother undoubtedly translated the ethical sign-boards along the progress of the ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... the night before had resolved in his mind to supply the grand desideratum, of keeping up something like an incessant firing upon the enemy during the heat of the attack,—had no further idea in his fancy at that time, than a contrivance of smoking tobacco against the town, out of one of ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... instant, the last lever moving at the same moment with the first. This simultaneous movement of a succession of parallel levers, acting the one upon the other, with a force successively increasing and in geometrical proportion, is the grand desideratum, the ne plus ultra, in the science of mechanics, which the inventor professes to have achieved. To place this multiplied ad infinitum power in its plainest light, we may observe that a given power—say that of one horse—will impart ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... sincere, and therefore could not fail to reproach his heart, which had swelled with pride, envy, and hatred, through the whole course of his existence. But religious feeling, on which you lay so great stress, was not the desideratum in Johnson’s virtue.” The reader must decide for himself which of these two contradictory accounts he will believe. It may be remarked that she was in “the almost daily habit of contemplating his dying,” which she describes ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... with the rings consists of a number of twisting exercises with the arms. Not only are these valuable in producing freedom about the shoulder-joint, which, as has been explained, is a great desideratum, but twisting motions of the limbs contribute more to a rounded, symmetrical development than any other exercises. If the flexors and extensors are exercised in simple, direct lines, the muscular outlines will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... long series of experiments on the preparation of ethers, it appeared a desideratum to find a ready method of ascertaining how much spirit of any density would be equal to one chemical equivalent of absolute alcohol. By a modification of a rule employed by the Excise, this question may be easily solved. The Excise rule ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... can be determined without much difficulty, the determination of the chemical composition of coal entails considerable labor and skill; hence a method giving the calorific power of any fuel in an exact and reliable manner by a simple experiment is a great desideratum. This will become more obvious when one takes into consideration the many qualities and variable characters of the coals yielded by the South Wales and North of England coal fields. Bituminous coals—giving some 65 per cent, of coke—are preferred for some ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... infinitely greater consequence, could be seen. Never, perhaps, was any theater built that afforded a better opportunity for a display of dress. Believe me" (he is indulging in the literary fiction of a letter to a journalistic friend in Paris), "that were the Funambules built as ably for this grand desideratum, despite the locality and the grade of performance at this theater, my conviction is that it would be the principal and most fashionable one in Paris." Maretzek is, of course, here aiming chiefly to cast discredit upon one of the vanities and affectations of society—the love of display; ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... tranquilly informed his listeners, that, finding himself, by hazard, brought in contact with another species, and that the means of pushing important discoveries were unexpectedly placed in his power; conscious it had long been a desideratum with the savans to obtain a nearer view and more correct notions of human society; believing he had a discretion in the matter of his wards, and knowing that the inhabitants of Leaplow, a republic which all disliked, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... which is one of the most palatable and fattening ingredients of cattle-food. By storing, too, the bulbs lose a portion of their excessive amount of water, and become less bulky, which is unquestionably a desideratum. These facts suggest the necessity for cultivating the earlier varieties of the turnip, for it may be fairly doubted if a late-grown crop, left for consumption in the field, ever, even under the most favorable circumstances, attains its perfect development. At the same time it must ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... house in Belgravia. No! he was content to stay where he was—Albert was snug; but if Mr. Brown thought of removing to Mayfair or Tyburnia, why then, a house next such a capital individual might be a desideratum:—he said it—an Army Captain that should not say it, but did not care,—stock-brokers and merchants were men of bottom; though probably his friend Major Cant would say that bottom meant the baser stuff they were composed of—the joke was better than the simile, and ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... "squeak" over them if you happen to strike the channel. The difficulty is, however, that the sandy bottom shifts. To-day it is, and to-morrow it is not. I was eating one of those large, hearty breakfasts which the combination of a dead flat calm and a sunshiny brisk air make such a desideratum. I was, moreover, perched on the top of the wheel house, and reflecting on the poor taste of the author of the Book of Revelation when he said that in heaven "there shall be no more sea." At this moment I came to with a lurch. "She's stuck!" yelled, or as he himself would put it, "bawled," the ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... and all similar theories that I am acquainted with, or rather, let me say, the desideratum, is the neglect of a previous definition of the term "body." What do you mean by it? The immediate grounds of a man's size, visibility, tangibility, &c?—But these are in a continual flux even as a column of smoke. The material ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... conversation with Mr. Gladstone in 1887, he referred to the enormous power and responsibilities of the United States, and suggested that a desideratum was a new unity between our two countries. We had that of race and language, but we needed a moral unity of English-speaking people ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... strove for it," he said in a clear, penetrating voice, calculated to attract the attention, if not the interest, of those even outside the charmed though widening circle. "I strove for just that, feeling that here, above all, it was the one desideratum. At times I feared—" he turned to the impassive Mongolian a puckered forehead—"that I might be sacrificing somewhat of the virile. But no! I said—surely I can sacrifice all things, ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... of learning in Turkey, the London Literary Gazette mentions, that when the department of the Ministry of Public Instruction was created four or five years ago in Constantinople, it became apparent that there existed a desideratum of Moslem civilization necessary to be supplied as soon as possible—a Turkish Vocabulary and a Turkish Grammar, compiled according to the development of modern philology. The Grammar has now been published, compiled by Fuad Effendi, mustesher of the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... are tolerably numerous, a thoroughly unexceptionable white is still a desideratum—one combining the perfect opacity or body of white lead with the perfect permanency of zinc white. The nearest approach to it that has yet been made, is Chinese white, which possesses in a great measure the property of the former, ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... a working full-grown horse does not vary from day to day, as the weight of its egesta is equal to that of its food. The desideratum in the case of the working animal is that its food should be as thoroughly decomposed as possible, and the force pent up in it liberated within the animal's body: as an ox, on the contrary, increases in weight from day to day, it is desirable ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron |
