"Devoid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is almost needless for us to say that these women are entirely devoid of personal attractions. They are generally thin maiden ladies, or women who perhaps have been disappointed in their endeavors to appropriate the breeches and the rights of their unlucky lords; the first class having found it utterly impossible to induce any young or old man ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... review in question are first, its unfaithfulness to its own announced and excellent plan, by subjecting to criticism works neither indecent nor immoral, yet of such trifling importance even in point of size and, according to the critic's own verdict, so devoid of all merit, as must excite in the most candid mind the suspicion, either that dislike or vindictive feelings were at work; or that there was a cold prudential pre-determination to increase the sale of the review by flattering the malignant ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... a fair, pernicious creature, endowed too richly with the art of pleasing, and quite devoid of principle. Few bad men knew right so well, and went so wrong. Ina buried her face for hours on his bed, and kissed his cold features and hand. She had told him before he died she would recall all her ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... admired the long lashes of her eyelids, the blackness of her eyebrows, and the dazzling whiteness of a skin devoid of even the faintest tinge of color. Tiny blue veins alone broke the uniformity of its pure white tones. When the marquis turned to his friend as if to share with him his amazement at the sight of this singular creature, he found him stretched on the ground as if dead. D'Albon fired ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... defect in this respect has been either that the light has been too abrupt, and consequently the high lights are very white and the shadows heavy, giving the pictures an under-exposed appearance, or the face is devoid of shadow, one side being as light as the other; hence it lacks the roundness necessary to constitute a good picture. In most instances the former defect has arisen from the reflecting screen not being properly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... gods exists no more. The word sunyam or sunyata, that is void, is often used as the equivalent of paramartham. Void must be understood as meaning not an abyss of nothingness but that which is found to be devoid of all the attributes which we try to ascribe to it. The world of ordinary experience is not void, for a great number of statements can be made about it, but absolute truth is void, because nothing whatever can be predicated of it. Yet even this colourless ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... though devoid of moral principle, was a man of highly respectable abilities, of pleasing manners, and was an entertaining companion. Lord Bute, who was in power, was the warm friend of Dr. Franklin. He therefore caused his son William to be appointed ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... themselves, is generally simple, and devoid of extravagance or ostentation: they have the best of every thing it is true, but then they have all the advantages of unbounded competition. and unlimited credit: they pay when they think proper, but no tradesman ever dares venture to ask them for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... participants in the joint undertaking can be assured, and harmony and successful working be rendered possible? Then, our best-informed Irish critics assured us that voluntary association for humdrum business purposes, devoid of some religious or political incentive, was alien to the Celtic temperament and that we should wear ourselves out crying in the wilderness. We were told that Irishmen can conspire but cannot combine. Economists assured us that even if we succeeded ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... the Fenachrone vessel bored on, with its frightful and ever-increasing velocity, through the ever-thinning stars, but it was not until the last star had been passed, until everything before them was entirely devoid of light, and until the Galaxy behind them began to take on a well-defined lenticular aspect, that Ravindau would consent to leave the controls and to ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... a wedding was toward. Except a few rude jests; except that there is an attempt to walk arm-in-arm (it is only an attempt, for they forget to allow for each other's motions); except the Sunday dresses, utterly devoid of taste, what is there to distinguish this day from the rest? There is the drunken carousal, it is true, all the afternoon and evening. There are no fete days in the foreign sense in the English labourer's life. There are the fairs and feasts, and a fair ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... stone show a knowledge of Sanskrit, of Indian poetry and theology, which is surprising if we consider how far from India they were composed, but they are almost without exception artificial, frigid and devoid of vigour or inspiration. ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... altogether! I knew already you were very selfish and heartless and headstrong, but I didn't know you were quite so unmanageable and so unkind as this. I appeal to your better nature—for you HAVE a better nature—I'm sure you have a better nature: you're MY son, and you can't be utterly devoid of good impulses. I appeal confidently to your better nature to throw off this unhappy, designing, wicked girl before it is too late! She has made you forget your duty to your mother, but not, I hope, irrevocably. Oh, my poor, dear, wandering boy, won't you listen to the voice of reason? won't ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... from man, so differ these souls' years. The most material life is not devoid of them; the story of the most spiritual is told in them. And it may chance that some, looking back, see the past cut out ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... publish in capital letters measures of police, the whole strength of which consists in their secrecy. It reminded me of M. de Sartines, who had formerly proposed to give spies a livery. It is not that the director of all these absurdities is, as some say, devoid of understanding: but he has such a strong desire to please the French government, that he even seeks to do himself honor by his meannesses, as publickly as possible. This proclaimed inspection was executed with as much ingenuity as it was conceived: a corporal, or a clerk, or perhaps ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... laughed heartily. The detective, greatly vexed, bit his lips; to him the joke was quite devoid of humor. The arrival of a prison guard gave Ganimard an opportunity to recover himself. The man brought Arsene Lupin's luncheon, furnished by a neighboring restaurant. After depositing the tray upon the table, the guard retired. Lupin broke his bread, ate ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... them in thinking and taste; but it was in a condition resembling that of a human frame in which, (through an injury in the spinal marrow,) some of the most important functions of vitality have terminated at some precise limit downward, leaving the inferior extremities devoid of sensation and the ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... statute law, the use of which powers and the adoption of which methods would be denounced as the worst of crimes, even made the basis of an impeachment, should the mass of the populace be dissatisfied with his proceedings. It is easy to find fault, easy in positions devoid of public responsibility to think we see how errors might have been avoided, how powers might have been more successfully employed and greater results achieved. But the American Executive is surrounded with difficulties too little appreciated by the public, while an almost merciless criticism, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... governorship, was a man of harsher temperament. But although his anxiety for the loyalty of the French province was much increased by the intrigues of revolutionary agents, he soon perceived their plans to be fatuous and their enterprise devoid of importance. While the forward spirits in Quebec were leavening the mass of the habitants with specious reports of a French fleet ready to co-operate with them, a force composed for the most part of ill-disposed Americans was to percolate ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... the attitude of her mind towards this young officer. He kindled her enthusiasm and evoked admiration without stint. He represented to her the highest type of manhood in that period of doubt, danger, and strong excitement. Brave to the last degree, his courage was devoid of recklessness. The simple, untutored description of his action given by the refugees had only made it all the more clear that his mind was as keen and bright as his sword, while in chivalric impulses ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... his subject is alive to him, he mixes it up with the queerest personalities and sudden zigzags, with all manner of digressions and side-flings. And last of all, he has that new style of which we spoke—a style by no means devoid of affectation and even trick, threatening, to experienced eyes, the disease of mannerism, but attractive in its very provocations, almost wholly original, and calculated, at least while it retains its freshness, to drive what is said ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... did not like her. Had he been a younger man, she would have captivated him; as it was, she would have repelled him entirely, but that she offered him a good subject. He said to himself that she was a bad lot, but what sort of a bad lot was not so clear as to make her devoid of interest to him; he must discover how she played her life-game; she had a history, and he would fain know it. As I have said, however, so far it had come to nothing, for, upon the surface, Sepia showed herself merely like any other worldly girl who knows "on which side ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... listening and thinking what it was his duty to do, but listening in vain, for no such sound again broke the silence of the night, while after standing by him a few minutes, Serge walked away into the darkness and then returned to his seat in the chariot, where he too, utterly devoid of all inclination to sleep, sat and thought about their position there and asked himself whether it was yet too late to reverse their plans, and seeking the first opportunity to hurry his young ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... equality of its three angles to two right angles, from the essence of a (rectilineal) triangle; so that it is not less impossible to conceive a God, that is, a being supremely perfect, to whom existence is wanting, or who is devoid of a certain perfection, than to conceive a mountain without ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... lay about my feet, Where trees were green and flowers sweet. The climate was devoid ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... circumstance that, contrary to what usually obtains in old countries, the males in this region considerably outnumber the females; yet, while that disproportion exists throughout the provinces, polyandry is confined to the Tibetans. Their wretched lands, verging on the line of perpetual snow, devoid of fuel, and in many places unable to ripen grain, keep them poor; and they assign as a justification for the practice the necessity of repressing population and retaining property undivided. One mistress of the house and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... evacuate three of the number to the nearest dressing station—the remainder flatly refusing to go. The layer, in particular, deserved great credit for his grit, for, in spite of having been buried, and having scarcely a hair left on his head and devoid of eyebrows, not to mention the shock to his nervous system, he was again serving his gun 24 hours later, on the arrival of the new piece. Some idea of the force of the explosion can be gathered from the fact that the barrel was found, in two pieces, some 150 yards ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... was a typical Tenderloin grafter. A woman absolutely devoid of moral conscience, she styled herself an actress, yet was one only by courtesy. By dint of pulling all kinds of wires she contrived from time to time to get a part to play, but her stage activities were really only a blind to conceal ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... base of stone, freshly cemented, on which the church rested—"see, I save his soul, and he preserves my buildings for me. It's a fair deal, isn't it? How does it come about, that he is converted? Ah, you see, although I am a man without science, without knowledge, devoid of pretensions and learning, the good God sometimes makes use of such humble instruments to work His will. It came about in the usual way. The Duke came here carrying his religion lightly, as one ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... watched it all with a sense of growing aching depression. It was so utterly trivial to his eyes, so devoid of interest, and yet it was so real, so serious, so implacable in its continuity. The brain grew tired with the thought of its unceasing reproduction. It had all gone on, as it was going on now, by the side of the great ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... the top of the Ladder Ecclesiastical, which he hath a fair probability to reach; without the merit of one single virtue, moderately stocked with the least valuable parts of erudition, utterly devoid of all taste, judgment, or genius; and, in his grandeur, naturally choosing to haul up others after him, whose accomplishments most resemble his own, except his beloved sons, nephews, or other kindred, be in competition; ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... right enough," whispered Dave, who a moment later was crouching low and looking through a large keyhole devoid of a key. "There he goes into the room where the two ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... black hair dangling loosely about his shoulders, the broad frightful countenance, which, however, was devoid of paint, the glittering, basilisk-like eyes, the sinewy half-bent finger, with the right fingers closed like a vise around the handle of the knife at his waist, while gently drawing it forth, the catlike advance,—all these made him so terrible an enemy that the bravest man might well ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... we do, we cannot desire a softer bed than the air, where we may repose ourselves firmly and safely as in our chambers"! Of the latter he finds somewhat more difficulty in disposing,—"and here it is considerable, that, since our bodies will then be devoid of gravity and other impediments of motion, we shall not at all spend ourselves in any labour, and so, consequently, not much need the reparation of diet, but may perhaps live altogether without it, as those creatures have done, who, by reason of their sleeping for many days ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... greatness are too often confounded together. "A man may be great without being good, or good without being great." The story of "Jonathan Wild" is really a bitter, satirical attack on what Fielding called "the greatness which is totally devoid of goodness." He avowed it his intention "to expose the character of this bombast greatness," and no one can deny the success of his achievement. Surely no story was ever written under more desperate circumstances. The evils of poverty, which at this period were at their height, were aggravated ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... from attaining to such permanent developments in the domain of culture as form the mark of the true civilized races and the guaranties of progress. Yet we should not venture to call any of them cultureless, so long as none of them is devoid of the primitive means by which the ascent to higher stages can be made—language, religion, fire, weapons, implements; while the very possession of these means, and many others, such as domestic animals and cultivated plants, testifies to ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... long-wished-for time was really come, packing up actually commencing, and that her waking would find her under a different roof from that which she had never left. She did not know till now that she had any attachments to the place she had hitherto believed utterly devoid of all interest; but she found she could not bid it farewell without sorrow. There was the old boatman with his rough kindly courtesy, and his droll ways of speaking; there was the rocky beach where she and her brother had often played on the verge of ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Fogey, "Plato was a great thinker. In truth, the only incorrigible rogue is he who is devoid of ideals, who has allowed his ethical nature to disintegrate. Such a one ceases to be a person. He has lost the integrating factor—the moral—which binds human personality together. He is a mere aggregation of random impulses. ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... determined, and had firmness and courage to bear up against the heaviest afflictions, she had no coldness or insensibility in her temperament, but was endowed with the tenderest and warmest affections. She was not by nature imaginative, but her understanding was excellent and utterly devoid of lumber and affectation. She had the sound practical sense of a vigorous and healthy mind, without a particle of vanity or conceit; she never attempted to plunge out of her depth, or to soar beyond the level of her comprehension and ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... melancholy, while living in the midst of idle pleasures and luxurious indulgence, have found a remedy in marriage, and felt themselves cured the moment they became fathers.' A sentence this full of sound instruction. It is not, then, because life is devoid of pleasure, that men are the prey of melancholy. That demon pierced, it is true, like a gnawing worm, through all the luxuries of the Roman world; there was no resource against it, either in beautiful slaves, or Ionian dances, or magnificent repasts, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... Eternal Love—alone of all beings devoid of self-love! Glory be to Thee for Thy humiliation, for Thy ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... devoid of any such religious principle or belief as would bind their consciences to speak the truth, are incompetent as witnesses. Hence, the testimony of an atheist must be rejected; because, as it has been well said, such a person cannot be subject to that sanction which is deemed an indispensable ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... Sunday of suspense had come. The Sundays of good young ladies little resembled those of a century later, though they were not devoid of a calm peacefulness, worthy of the "sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright." The inhabited rooms of the old house looked bright and festal; there were fresh flowers in the pots, honey as well as butter on the breakfast table. The Major and Palmer ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... natural ferocity of his countenance, which betook of the Upsaroka character. The mouth extended nearly from ear to ear, the lips were thin, and seemed, like some other portions of his frame, to be devoid of natural pliancy, so that the ruling expression never varied under the influence of any emotion whatever. This ruling expression may be conceived when it is considered that the teeth were exceedingly ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... shows us that English travellers may find ample interest of other kind. The artist, the ecclesiologist, the art-loving have here a storehouse of unrevealed treasure. A little-read but weighty writer, Mme. de Stael, has truly averred that the most beautiful lands in the world, if devoid of famous memories and if bearing no impress of great events, cannot be compared in interest to historic regions. Hardly a spot of the annexed provinces but is stamped with indelible and, alas! blood-stained, records. From the tenth ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... yours, for, as I have said, you have never known what life really means—never experienced its hardships, never beheld the bright face of danger, nor tasted the joys of the great free life in the open, the simple daily life devoid of the cares of civilized men, without which the life of a man can never be complete, be he what ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... memory has been made manifest to me by the study of perversions. Processes which in childhood were entirely devoid of any sexual tinge, but which later became associated with sex-feelings, very readily acquire false sexual associations also when they are revived in memory. Consider, for instance, the case of a homosexual man. He remembers that, as a small boy, he was ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... sufficient allowance for her difficulties, and insisted over and over again on the mischief which would arise to her from the habit of surrendering her judgment to these princesses. She told her that, though far from being devoid of virtues and real merit, "they had never succeeded in making themselves loved or esteemed by either their father or the public;[3]" and she added other admonitions which, as they were avowedly suggested by reports that had reached her, may be taken as indicating some errors into which her daughter's ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... sport, as they seem to be devoid of that friendly intelligence so noticeable in our own breeds, while their powers of scent are much inferior. I have heard that in the island of Hainan a certain breed exists which is very good for hunting leopards and wild boar, but this ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... all that can be desired, beyond which there is nothing. Hence that which is opposite also followeth, that the same men are wicked and destitute of all forces. For why do they follow vices, forsaking virtues? By ignorance of that which is good? But what is more devoid of strength than blind ignorance? Or do they know what they should embrace, but passion driveth them headlong the contrary way? So also intemperance makes them frail, since they cannot strive against vice. Or do they wittingly and willingly forsake goodness, and decline ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... and dignity of life; play-acting might become a substantive art, not a mere spoiling of the work of poetry. Methinks that if this happened, or happened often, my friend and I, who also hates the play.... But it seems probable, on careful consideration, that my friend and I are conspicuously devoid of the dramatic faculty; which being the case we had better not discuss plays and play-going ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... ch. cccxxxvi. of the Ming History as having sent an embassy to China in 1427. These embassies were subsequently often repeated. The country, which lay 22 days' voyage west of Kuli (supposed Calicut, but perhaps Kayal), was devoid of grass or trees. (Bretschneider, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... another word, sir! Am I to believe that I have a son who is entirely devoid of principle? Are you so lacking in ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... fallen in love with the son of my old enemy, that you want to marry him—you ask me to help you, to—to forego my just revenge, to use my hold over him as a lever, to induce him, force him—Good God! have you no sense of right or wrong, are you utterly devoid of—of modesty, ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... with the ebony cane she always used. Stiffly she sank upon her knees. The habit was as strong as putting her shoes outside the door at night to be cleaned,-those shoes that never knew the stain of roadway dust-and equally devoid of spiritual significance. Yet, for a moment, as the embittered mind gabbled through the string of words that long habit had crystallised into an empty formula, Mother noticed that the lines of grey grew slightly clearer; the coil and tangle ceased; they even made an effort to ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... again rises above the level of the sea as new land. Nothing can be more erroneous than the idea of a firm and unchangeable outline of our continents, such as is impressed upon us in early youth by defective lessons on geography, which are devoid of a geological basis."[3] ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... he might rehearse a passage, which wasn't—as he gladly believed—altogether devoid of merit. He did rehearse it. And we broke into applause the more tempestuous because suspicion of a chill queerly lay upon us. A chill insidious as it was vague, disturbing as it was—wasn't it? we silently, quite violently, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... youngest sister was established solely, I think, by one big braid down her back. Neither was it because she was the plainest, for the beauty of the Piper girls was a recognized general distinction, and the youngest Miss Piper was not entirely devoid of the family charms. Nor was it from any lack of intelligence, nor from any defective social quality; for her precocity was astounding, and her good-humored frankness alarming. Neither do I think it could be said that a slight deafness, which ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... and part with the electric charge readily. Without such a coating the charge and discharge would be very slow, and would operate by degrees only, as one part of a non-conducting surface might be densely charged and another part be quite devoid of sensible charge. ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... mind it would appear that each little church, however simple and devoid of ornament, requires its own special colours and design, besides the individual motive of the giver; and people forget that the whole effect in any such compositions must be comprehensive, and that one careless mistake ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... Defoe, gradually, we may reasonably believe, allowed himself to fall. The substance of the apology has been crystallized into an aphorism by the author of Becky Sharp, but it has been, no doubt, the consoling philosophy of dishonest persons not altogether devoid of conscience in ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... which consists of an endless monologue, full of prophecy, and overladen with obscure mythology, these productions of a subtle dilettantism must have been extremely inanimate and untheatrical, and every way devoid of interest. The creative powers of the Greeks were, in this department, so completely exhausted, that they were forced to content themselves with the repetition of the works ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... who would work if there was no longer to be any connection between labor and the satisfying of our wants? Political economy has not treated of gifts. It has hence been concluded that it disowns them, and that it is therefore a science devoid of heart. This is a ridiculous accusation. That science which treats of the laws resulting from the reciprocity of services, had no business to inquire into the consequences of generosity with respect to him who receives, nor into its effects, perhaps still more precious, ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... Plain, where they lived at free quarters, to the utter ruin of the Indians, one of them eating more in a day than would suffice an Indian for a month. They besides lived in a most disorderly manner, devoid of discipline, and gave infinite offence to the natives by their licentiousness. The council to which the admiral had confided the government in his absence, reproved Margarite for allowing his troops to live in this disorderly manner, and endeavoured to prevail ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... design. But neither gives one the feeling of outdoors that our modern landscape painters so successfully impart. Historically they are very interesting, and even though they carry the name of such a master of portraits as Gainsborough undoubtedly was, they are devoid of all the refreshing qualities that modern art has given ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... picture-books that filled my mind as a child with dreams of a delightful world. But now that I was wise enough to make the best of my unboyish emotionalism, I began to take pleasure in certain phases of school-life. Though I was devoid of any recognisable religious sense I liked the wide words in the Psalms that we read at night in the school chapel. This was not due to any precocious recognition of their poetry, but to the fact that their intense imagery conjured up all sorts of precious visions in my mind, ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... to the good sense of the British people and ensure the success of their cause. And in return—to quote from Mr. Winston Churchill's life of his father—the two great parties treated Mr. Butt and the Irish members with 'that form of respect which, being devoid of the element of fear, is closely akin to contempt.' Then arose Parnell. He held that the Irishmen must make themselves the terror of the nation. They must embarrass and confuse the English leaders, and throw the ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... nothing but a "dirty tawnie," a "salvage heathen," and "devil's imp." Many of them were well educated,—men of varied and profound erudition, and familiar with the best specimens of Greek and Roman literature; yet they seem to have been utterly devoid of that poetic feeling or fancy whose subtle alchemy detects the beautiful in the familiar. Their very hymns and spiritual songs seem to have been expressly calculated, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Likkhavis, hearing the report, with fear and apprehension assembled in a body; devoid of their usual ornaments, they hastened to the place where Buddha was. Having saluted him according to custom, they stood on one side, wishing to ask him a question, but not being able to find words. Buddha, knowing well their heart, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... usual three rooms below and a long garret above and as it stood on a plain, bare to the winds, my father took the precaution of lining it with brick to hold it down. It was as good as most of the dwellings round about us but it stood naked on the sod, devoid of grace as a dry goods box. Its walls were rough plaster, its floor of white pine, its furniture poor, scanty and worn. There was a little picture on the face of the clock, a chromo on the wall, and a printed portrait of General Grant—nothing more. It was home by reason ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... chases, the runner to take unexpected turns and dodges, making capture difficult. The shortest distance between two points for a chase often makes a dull game, devoid of sport. ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... thief; whether he shirks the duty of work under the pretext of poverty or riches." Cf. also Tolstoy, in What to Do? For example (from chap. XXVI), "How can a man who considers himself to be, we will not say a Christian, or an educated and humane man, but simply a man not entirely devoid of reason and of conscience, how can he, I say, live in such a way that, not taking part in the struggle of all mankind for life, he only swallows up the labor of others, struggling for existence, and by his own claims increases the labor of those who struggle, and the number of ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... His yellowish grey hair, well flattened and shining, grew far back on his forehead. And this, combined with small blue eyes, clear as a child's, a slight inward squint to them, produced an effect of permanent and innocent surprise not devoid of pathos. In character he was guileless and humble-minded. The spectacle of cruelty or injustice would, however, rouse him to the belligerent attitude of the proverbial brebis enrage. He believed ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... his meeting with her (as I see from some papers written by my aunt and kindly supplied me from the Oratory, Birmingham), was of no more avail than before. She mentions having met him shortly after his return, and it is evident that it was a meeting not devoid of awkwardness on her part and ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... father, ascended the bed of my wretched mother, and begat children, my brothers, whom I destroyed, having received down the curse from Laius, and given it to my sons. For I was not by nature so utterly devoid of understanding, as to have devised such things against my eyes, and against the life of my children, without the interference of some of the Gods. Well!—what then shall I ill-fated do? who will accompany me the guide of my dark steps? She that lies here ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... glance at her father, and was glad that he was looking straight before him, for she did not feel able to meet his gaze just them. On the other hand, though she knew St. Vincent was eying her narrowly, she took no notice of him, and all he could see was a white face devoid of expression. ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... these words on his death-bed, and nothing quivered even then in his stony heart,—in that heart devoid of a fleck or ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... their wish only that he consented to its being printed. It is, however, submitted to the reader, in the hope that the unbiassed impressions of colonial life, as they fell freshly on a young mind, may not be wholly devoid of interest. Its value to his friends at home is not diminished by the fact that the MS., having been sent out to New Zealand for revision, was, on its return, lost in the Colombo, and was fished up from the Indian Ocean so nearly washed ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... Reuben Lloyd, Of breath deprived, of sense devoid. The Templars' Captain-General, he So formidable seemed to be, That had he not been on his back Death ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... Monet from the point of view of a Raphael, he will see nothing but a meaningless jargon of wild paint-strokes. And if anybody looks at a Raphael from the point of view of a Claude Monet, he will, no doubt, only see hard, tinny figures in a setting devoid of any of the lovely atmosphere that always envelops form seen in nature. So wide apart are some of the points of view in painting. In the treatment of form these differences in point of view make for enormous variety in the work. So that no apology ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... thoroughly incompetent to judge our character as a community, and that they have no true estimate of its spirit and its resources. The view they have taken of the strife in which we have been and are engaged is not only devoid of any high moral sympathy, but utterly shallow, and flagrantly falsified by the whole course of events, political, financial, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... on the north side of the room differ slightly from those on the south side. They are rather larger, the ends are of a different shape and devoid of ornament (fig. 57), and there is a wider interval between the bar and the top of the desk. It seems to me probable that the more highly ornamented desks are those which were put in when the room was first fitted ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... gave a little laugh that was totally devoid of mirth. "Yes, I'm going to be—human! I fought that battle all day yesterday! I find that Ocky means more to me than—than honor, to put it ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... moment Ray's face seemed devoid of all expression. It was flat and lifeless as dark clay. Then Beatrice felt the insult of ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... out that Ernest did not like games, but she saw also that he could hardly be expected to like them. He was perfectly well shaped but unusually devoid of physical strength. He got a fair share of this in after life, but it came much later with him than with other boys, and at the time of which I am writing he was a mere little skeleton. He wanted something to develop his arms and chest ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... and misery ever since I knew you. I saw you first, so impetuous, yet self-contained! Incapable of insincerity, devoid of affection and courageously naturally beautiful. Then, to my amazement, I saw that, unlike most women, you understood your instincts; that you dared to define them, and were impious enough to follow them. You debased ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... finish his days in a madhouse. His delight was to kick my shins with all his might, under the desk, not at all as an act of hostility, but as a gratifying and harmless pastime. Finding this, so far as I was concerned, equally devoid of pleasure and profit, I managed to get a seat by another boy, the son of a very distinguished divine. He was bright enough, and more select in his choice of recreations, at least during school hours, than my late homicidal neighbor. But the principal called ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... great deal better, after a full summary of life, were we to be created utterly devoid of feeling, equally impervious to joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. We should be manifestly benefited, for the greater part of our life is now full of sorrow, anxiety, fear, pain, ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis
... him huddled there in the pillows, restless, comfortless, neglected, wrung her heart. Hitherto her love for Martin had been singularly devoid of intimacy. They had kissed each other, they had eaten dinner and tea and supper together, they had explored the Three Marshes in each other's company, but she had scarcely ever been to his house, never seen him asleep, and in normal ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... together to Venice, and then in less than a year had quarreled and separated. Both made good copy of the "poetic interval," as George Sand called it. Chopin was not a stickler for conventionalities, but George Sand's history, for him, proved her to be coarse and devoid of all the finer feeling that we prize ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... above all the adherence of the great body of the people to the religion of their fathers in spite of the serious attempts that were made to seduce them, prove conclusively enough that the alleged demoralisation of the Irish Church is devoid ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... nor as a bad man, neither as an acute thinker nor as a deliberate voluptuary. He is simply sensuous. On his own ground he is even very fresh and healthy: his delineation of youthful maternity, for example, is as true as it is beautiful; and his sympathy with the gleefulness of children is devoid of affectation. We have then only to ask ourselves whether the defect in him of all thought and feeling which is not at once capable of graceful fleshly incarnation, be sufficient to lower him in the scale of artists. This question must of course be answered according to our ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... Service is devoid of partisanship; its importance should appeal to every American citizen and should receive the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... and bone, of the mammoth, reindeer, and horse, are so masterly that these men stand forth as the spiritual ancestors of Landseer and Rosa Bonheur. And what is also remarkable is that the race which succeeded, that which discovered the use of metal, was devoid of the artistic sense, and their attempts at delineation are like the scribbling of ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... address which lady Catherine would perhaps have admired, Archibald entered into conversation with the young baronet, if conversation that might be called, which consisted of a species of fashionable dialect, devoid of sense, and destitute of any pretence to wit. To Forester this dialect was absolutely unintelligible: after he had listened to it with sober contempt for a few minutes, he pulled Henry away, saying, "Come, don't let us waste our time here; let us go to the brewery that ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... in the landscape, and withdrew herself into the left-hand corner. The conversation between the king and La Valliere began, as all lovers' conversations generally do, namely, by eloquent looks and by a few words utterly devoid of common sense. The king explained how warm he had felt in his carriage, so much so indeed that he could almost regard the horse he then rode as a blessing thrown in his way. "And," he added, "my benefactor is an exceedingly intelligent man, for he seemed ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... familiarly known as "Father Cats." His gifts were, however, of a very different order from those of Vondel. His long poems dealt chiefly with the events of domestic, every-day existence; and the language, simple, unpretentious and at times commonplace, was nevertheless not devoid of a certain restful charm. There are no high flights of imagination or of passion, but there are many passages as rich in quaint fancy as in wise maxims. With Constantine Huyghens (1596-1687) the writing of verse was but one of the many ways in which one of the most cultured, versatile, and ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... any minute examination of these dramas. Suffice it to say, that they are devoid of interest at the present day; and from what we have been able to read of them, we question whether the success that is said to have attended their private representation was other than mere compliment. Unfortunately for their dramatic unity, the author is impatient of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... done?" demanded Ogilvy, playing nervously with a gold pencil on the polished table. He was one of those Americans who in a commercial atmosphere become prematurely white, and today his boyish, smooth-shaven face was almost as devoid of colour as his hair. Even Leonard Dickinson showed anxiety, which was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... horrible as to have no share in either its joys or sorrows. For the last ten years, I have not lived, but only dreamed of living. It may be true that there have been some unsubstantial pleasures here in the shade, which I might have missed in the sunshine, but you cannot conceive how utterly devoid of satisfaction all my retrospects are. I have laid up no treasure of pleasant remembrances against old age; but there is some comfort in thinking that future years can hardly fail to be more varied and therefore more tolerable ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... one widely-credited myth about the moon which must be regarded as devoid of foundation. The idea that our satellite and the weather bear some relation has no doubt been entertained by high authority, and appears to be an article in the belief of many an excellent mariner. Careful comparison between the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... culture are entirely ignorant of him and his work in the world—men, these, who deem themselves in touch with world-affairs and with the ones who make and move the world. It is inexplicable, this, except that never was there a man more devoid of the faculty of self-exploitation, self-advertising, than Russell Conwell. Nor, in the mere reading of them, do his words appeal with anything like the force of the same words uttered by himself, ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... of roses for the preparation of otto is limited chiefly by climatic conditions. The odoriferous constitutent of the otto is a liquid containing oxygen, the solid hydrocarbon or stearoptene, with which it is combined, being absolutely devoid of perfume. The proportion which this inodorous solid constituents bears to the liquid perfume increases with the unsuitability of the climate, varying from about 18 per cent. in Bulgarian oil, to 35 and even 68 per cent. in rose oils distilled in France and England. ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... with the least detriment to themselves, but also make known the names and quality of wares of various dealers. The man who might have subscribed ten dollars, is content to pay one hundred for an object contributed from the time and labor of some individual devoid of other commodities. If the wares in question become more widely known, and benefit hence accrue to the giver, the consequence is surely a legitimate one, and even a fortunate condition of the facts, as increasing the size of the fund received. They who give simply with the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... not wonder that mankind, whose minds we look upon as akin to those of the gods, can sometimes discern what is likely to be beneficial or hurtful to them, when even animals devoid of reason sometimes secure their own safety by profound silence, of which the ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... NOTE I. Old theories of nitrification 196 II. Nitrification takes place in solutions devoid of organic matter 196 III. Oxidising power of micro-organisms in soils 197 IV. Effect of urine on nitrification in soils 197 V. Solution used by Professor Frankland in cultivating nitrificative micro-organisms 198 VI. Experiments by Boussingault on rate ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... a hundred thousand men, among whom are certainly to be found some right-minded persons who are convinced of the justice of their cause. These unknown and suddenly elevated chiefs, whom the revolution has singled out, are they all unworthy of our esteem, and devoid of capacity? They possess, perhaps, a new and vital force that it would be right and perhaps necessary to utilise somehow. The ideas which they represent ought to be studied, and if they prove useful, put into practice. ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... jury,'' he said, "at the matter brought out by these debates. Consult yourselves in the calm and stillness of your souls. If it is not proved to you that Helene Jegado is responsible for her actions you will acquit her. If you think that, without being devoid of free will and moral sense, she is not, according to the evidence, as well gifted as the average in humanity, you will give her ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... been compelled to abandon the Black Bear, and had retreated to Bath with his family. 'Bath,' we are informed, 'was at that time London devoid of its mixed society and vulgarity. It contained its selection of all that was noble, affluent, or distinguished in the metropolis; and amongst this circle our artist was now caressed.' It became a kind of fashion to sit to him for oval crayon likenesses at a guinea and a half apiece. ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... choosing as the source of our heat-waves a plate of copper, against the back of which a steady sheet of flame is permitted to play. On emerging from the copper, the waves, in the first instance, pass through a space devoid of air, and then enter a hollow glass cylinder, three feet long and three inches wide. The two ends of this cylinder are stopped by two plates of rock-salt, a solid substance which offers a scarcely sensible obstacle to the passage ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... inland county, is naturally devoid of many charms to be found in those counties which have a sea-coast. But it has beauties of its own, being particularly varied and undulating. Its scenery is pleasantly diversified by many woods, which however are mostly of but small extent, by swelling cornfields, and by several ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... is that so many mothers take no care of their children, but send them out, half-clad, into the cold. Perhaps this lad's mother also was a feckless old woman, and devoid of character? Or perhaps she had no one to work for her, but was forced to sit with her legs crossed—a veritable invalid? Or perhaps she was just an old rogue who was in the habit of sending out pinched and hungry boys ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... potentates was, of course, as full of affected kindness and compliment as it was totally devoid of sincerity. But the temper of the Duke rendered it much more difficult for him to preserve the necessary appearances, in voice, speech, and demeanour; while in the King, every species of simulation and dissimulation seemed so much a part ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... is one of the most arduous that an army has ever been called upon to perform, being at a distance of something like 1200 miles from the real base of operations, on the sea, in a climate the conditions of which are trying, and amidst deserts devoid of all resources—even of those few which existed in 1884 when the British forces under Lord Wolseley advanced to Metammeh, and which have since been utterly destroyed by the complete devastation of the villages on the banks of the Nile and the murder or despoliation of their inhabitants."—Field-Marshal ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... reason, God would be unjust to punish them for being blind and insensible, or for having too little penetration and understanding to perceive the force of those natural proofs on which the existence of the Deity has been founded. A God full of equity cannot punish men for having been blind or devoid of reason. The Freethinkers, as foolish as they are supposed, are beings less insensible than those who make professions of believing in a God full of qualities that destroy one another; they are less dangerous ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... position of this Byzantine Empire was a curious one: European in origin, mainly West-Asian in location. Its situation permitted it to last on so long into the West-Asian manvantara; its origin doomed that long survival to be, for the most part, devoid of the best characteristics of life. Yet during most of the European pralaya it was far and away the richest and most civilized power in Christendom; and, except during the reigns of extraordinary kings in the west, like Charlemagne, the strongest ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... political matters. In spite of the foundation of Cardinal College in which he was now engaged, and of the suppression of some lesser monasteries for its endowment, the men of the New Learning looked on him as really devoid of any interest in the revival of letters or in their hopes of a general enlightenment. He took hardly more heed of the new Lutheranism. His mind had no religious turn, and the quarrel of faiths was with him simply one factor in the political game which he ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... the art-world at the International Exhibition of 1862, where it was universally admired for its extreme brilliancy and beauty, a brilliancy equalled by few of the colours with which it was associated, and a beauty devoid of coarseness. We remember well the power it possessed of attracting the eye from a distance; and how, on near approach, it threw nearly all other pigments into the shade. It has in truth a lustrous luminosity not often to be met with, added to a total absence of rankness or harshness. ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... the leaders also left the town they had so bravely defended. On the following day, indeed, Berruyer, having learned the position of Leigonyer, returned to Chemille and, two days later, was in communication with Leigonyer's force. The latter had occupied Chollet, which had been left devoid of defenders since the day ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... or imagination in a way always beautiful, often lofty or even sublime. Failing this, there may be verse, rime, and meter, but not poetry. There is much in literature that is beautiful and sublime in thought and artistic in construction, which is yet not poetry, because quite devoid of the element of song, whereby poetry differs from the most lofty, beautiful, or ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... man does not appreciate how almost devoid of incentives to broadmindedness, to many-sidedness, to liberal growth, the home ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... again what has already been done so well. But we are of opinion that even after this laborious and well-planned compilation something still remains to be said. In the first place, Professor Bernheim deals largely with metaphysical problems which we consider devoid of interest; while, conversely, he entirely ignores certain considerations which appear to us to be, both theoretically and practically, of the greatest importance. In the second place, the teaching of the Lehrbuch is sound enough, but lacks vigour and originality. Lastly, the Lehrbuch is ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... satisfying every need, had suppressed desire, that king of creation, which fills an enormous place in the moral forces. Extreme heat, extreme sorrow, complete happiness, are all despotic principles that reign over spaces devoid of production; they insist on being solitary; they stifle all that is not themselves. Vandenesse was not a woman, and none but women know the art of varying happiness; hence their coquetry, refusals, ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... ascribed. His life was one series of profligacy. Yet, such was the perverted judgment of the day, that this unworthy descendant of the Plantagenets was as popular as any peer of his time. When sober, he was accessible, conversable, and devoid of pride. When intoxicated, he used half to confess that he was still a Catholic at heart. His conversion to the reformed faith was held not to be very sincere; and his perpetual blue coat of a peculiar shade—a dress he never varied—was said to be a penance imposed on ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... to hoe corn, to bring roots and herbs from the woods for beers, go to the Strand for a gallon of molasses or liquor as the case might require, and 'browse around,' as she expresses it. It was a life that suited her well for the time-being as devoid of hardship or terror as it was of improvement; a need which had not yet become a want. Instead of improving at this place, morally, she retrograded, as their example taught her to curse; and it was here that she ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... be happy to look into it and to give you such advice as I can," said Holmes, rising and putting on his overcoat. "The case is not entirely devoid of interest. Had anyone visited you in your room after the papers came ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... almost with indifference. Jane had an absolute passion for children. She had married a quarter for faith, a quarter for love, and a whole half for hope. This divinely inexplicable child-passion is as unintelligible to those devoid of it, as its absence is marvellous to those possessed by it. Its presence is its justification, its being its sole explanation, itself its highest reason. Surely on those who cherish it, the shadow of the love-creative God must rest more than on some other women! Unpleasing ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... perch. There being few trees and fences in this region, he has doubtless gained expertness through practice in the art of securing a foot-hold on the tops of the weed-stems. Some of the weeds on which he stood with perfect ease and grace were extremely lithe and flexible and almost devoid of branches. ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... flirtation. Young girls are not posted and they do not know men. They do not realize the pressure that will be brought to bear upon them. Many young girls grow to womanhood without any idea of the relations of the sexes. To them, love is devoid of ideas of sex, practically the same as their love for a brother or sister. It is not until they are thrown alone in the company of some older man that they suddenly awaken to a realization of what it ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... have kept himself continually in evidence. But to go away for eighteen months, unknown and unheard of, till one's sense of security had had time to re-establish itself, and then to turn up again like this without one minute's warning—oh, it was infamous, scandalous. The fellow must be devoid of all consideration for others. Sir Gilbert wiped his clammy brow with those ample hands. What on earth was he to do for his wife, ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... families lived wholly on venison for nine months of the year. In Virginia were vast numbers of red and fallow deer, the latter like those of England, except in the smaller number of branches of the antlers. They were so devoid of fear as to remain undisturbed by the approach of men; a writer of that day says: "Hard by the Fort two hundred in one herd have been usually observed." They were destroyed ruthlessly by a system of fire-hunting, in which tracts of forests were burned over, by starting ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... thoughts? And can you imagine that power developing until that detection is possible at interstellar ranges, with members of that race being able to pick up faint impressions from received thoughts—distorted impressions? And can you imagine that same race, ignorant of the humanic equations, devoid of a stable ethic, superstitious, distrustful and fearful of advanced entities? They would be undetectable by normal telepathic means, you know. And suppose they were disposed to destroy what they ...
— Indirection • Everett B. Cole
... longer on this singular instance of slavery, existing devoid of its attendant horrors, because the fidelity and affection resulting from a bond of union so early formed between master and servant, contributed so very much to the safety of individuals, as well as the general comfort of society, as will hereafter appear.—"Memoirs ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... substratum, viz., matter, lies at the basis of bodies. Matter is the foundation of each ([Greek: to bathos hekastou he hule]); it is the obscure, the indefinite, that which is without qualities, the [Greek: me on]. As devoid of form and idea it is the evil, as capable of form ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... revelation to my eye and my ear, as much as to my heart and mind. Indeed, I seemed never before to have seen a woman. Whom had I seen? Veronica? We had been too poor, and my mother too proud, to keep up a social intercourse with our neighbours; the village girls had been devoid of even the most rustic kind of charm; the people were too poor to be handsome. I had never been tempted to look at a woman's face; and the manner of my going from home is known. In Jamaica, sharing with an exaggerated loyalty the unpopularity ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... at length to two hundred and fifty a year. Himself a small and slow person, he had every reason to be satisfied with this progress, and hoped for no further advance. He was of eminently sober mind, profoundly conscientious, and quite devoid of social ambition,—points of character which explained the long intimacy between him and Stephen Lord. Yet one habit he possessed which foreshadowed the intellectual composition of his son,—he loved to write letters to the newspapers. At very long intervals ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... believe. I met him in the Champs Elysees. He was on horseback. Well, at one minute he was galloping as hard as he could tear, and then pulled up to a walk. I said to myself at that moment, 'There is a man devoid of judgment!'" ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... fighters from whom the politic Ibrahim had desired to deliver his master when he had urged the appointment of Kheyr-ed-Din: brave as a lion, keen as the edge of his own good scimitar, fanatical, as became a Hodja who had visited the Holy Places, Sinan was a type of the Turkish sea-officer: devoid of strategical instinct and tactical training, his one idea was a headlong attack, then victory or the houris of Paradise. It will be seen that Barbarossa had not only Doria and the Christian fleet and army against which to contend ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... woman entered, at the sight of whom Arnold forgot all his feelings of mingled annoyance and amusement. She was of little over the medium height, exceedingly slim—a slimness which was accentuated by the fashion of the gown she wore. Her face was absolutely devoid of color, but her features were almost cameo-like in their sensitive perfection. Her eyes were large and soft and brown, her hair a Titian red, worn low and without ornament. Her dress was of pale blue satin, which somehow had the effect of being made in a single ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... surprise they found that he showed not the slightest disposition to exploit himself; that, having millions at his command, he could expect to gain nothing financially by his course; and that he was absolutely devoid of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... the shelter of the skiff was utterly devoid of comfort; it was narrow and damp, tiny cold drops of rain dribbled through the damaged bottom; gusts of wind penetrated it. We sat in silence and shivered with cold. I remembered that I wanted to go to sleep. Natasha leaned her back against the hull ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... translated from St. David's, was a man of great munificence, and of the best intentions, of whom it may be said he spent "not wisely but too well." He was entirely devoid of any aesthetic feeling or of architectural fitness, and in the most religious spirit committed acts of wholesale sacrilege. He employed, it is said, in the work of restoration in the palace, the stones of the chapter-house, at that time much injured, but ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher
... cylindrical, parasitic worms, with no near allies in the animal kingdom. Its members are quite devoid of any mouth or alimentary canal, but have a well-developed body cavity into which the eggs are dehisced and which communicates ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... kept down and humbled, shut out from his arms and his kisses, her heart heavy with grief because she longed to love and had nothing to love. She was beginning to suffer from the cold void that is formed about a woman by an unattractive, unfascinating girlhood, by a girlhood devoid of beauty and sympathetic charm. She could see that she aroused a sort of compassion with her long nose, her yellow complexion, her angular figure, her thin body. She felt that she was ugly, and that her ugliness was made repulsive by her miserable costumes, ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... o'clock had come, and she had not. Would 'The Girl on the Magpie Horse' be all he would see of her to-day—that unsatisfying work, so cold, and devoid of witchery? Better have tried to paint her—with a red flower in her hair, a pout on her lips, and her eyes fey, or languorous. Goya could have ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
