"Fraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... across the open, loses direction, blunders hopelessly into an obstruction on the flank, retires in confusion, and makes a blind despairing dash for a shell-crater. Missing this by a fraction it loses all interest in life, wanders pitifully off at an unnatural angle, runs into the hostile force of the Adjutant, and comes finally ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... habitual association destroys our admiration of persons whom we esteemed highly at a distance. Thirdly, that a circle of clever fellows, who meet together to dine and have a good time, have signed a constitutional compact to glorify themselves and to put down him and the fraction of the human race not belonging to their number. Fourthly, that it is an outrage that he is not asked ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... to accommodate it she must select for her metropolis the shores of the most accessible, capacious, and sheltered water on that side of the island. The result is London,—a city backed by an almost imperceptible fraction of the vast interior which pays tribute to New York,—having a harbor of far less capacity than New York, and without any of its far-reaching ramifications,—provided with a totally inadequate drainage-system, operating by a river which New-Yorkers would shudder to accept for the purposes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... glanced at me for the fraction of a second. But I remembered that Gus Sinclair was coming too, and I ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... space Desmond stood irresolute for the merest fraction of a second. It was not longer; for, directly after Bellward had crashed backwards, Desmond heard a light step reverberate within the planks of the summerhouse. His most obvious course was to scramble back over the wall again into safety, in all ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... Parliament of some of its functions, select as an area of self-government a region where one part is divided against another by passions, and, if you will, by prejudices, more violent, and more deeply-rooted than those which afflict any other fraction of the United Kingdom, choose that other fraction where, ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... is its combination of secrecy and frankness. The atmosphere about the Stock Exchange fairly palpitates with suspicion and subterfuge. No man knows what another man is about, and every man bends his energy to find out. "Inside information" is the philosopher's stone that turns every fraction into golden units. The leading firms take the greatest pains to conceal their dealings. Orders are given in cipher. Certificates are registered in the names of clerks. Large blocks of stock are bought, and sold, and "crossed," for the mere purpose of misleading. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... this, but, being very much terrified, he proceeded to retreat out of Greece with all speed. The prudence of Themistocles and Aristides in this was afterwards more fully understood at the battle of Plataea, where Mardonius, with a very small fraction of the forces of Xerxes, put the Greeks in danger ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the necessity to intervene arises, not only have we better firearms against us, but relatively a larger number of troops. Each tactical advantage secured will thus exercise far less effect than formerly upon our opponent, since the fraction of the enemy's force ridden down represents a smaller proportion of ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... deriving revenue from use of its area code for "900" lines and in 2000, from the lease of its ".tv" Internet domain name. Royalties from these new technology sources could increase substantially over the next decade. With merchandise exports only a fraction of merchandise imports, continued reliance must be placed on fishing and telecommunications license fees, remittances from overseas workers, official transfers, and investment ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... relate to the first two causes of failure in a representative government. The third is when the people want either the will or the capacity to fulfill the part which belongs to them in a representative constitution. When nobody, or only some small fraction, feels the degree of interest in the general affairs of the state necessary to the formation of a public opinion, the electors will seldom make any use of the right of suffrage but to serve their private interest, or the interest of their locality, or of some one with whom they are connected as ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... was only a fraction of a second behind. They dashed across the road and dove for cover in the rocks ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... with wires, disks and helmets—all the transition mechanism worn now by us and all of Tako's forces—we drew ourselves a very small fraction of the way toward the Earth-world state. Enough and no more than to bring it to most tenuous, most wraithlike visibility, so that we could see the shadows of it and know our location in relation to it, which ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... And as the sea does not give up everything, nor all at once, some wreckage sinking, or perishing, or floating upon the water a long time before finding a well- concealed hiding-place upon some unfrequented shore, so the past yields but a fraction of its records, and that fraction slowly and grudgingly. So far this book has been a gathering of the flotsam of a past age: odd relics and scattered records, a sign here and a hint there; often unrelated, sometimes contradictory. ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... which I have been trying on the power of seeds to withstand sea water. I do not know whether it has struck you, but it has me, that it would be advisable for botanists to give in WHOLE NUMBERS, as well as in the lowest fraction, the proportional numbers of the families, thus I make out from your Manual that of the INDIGENOUS plants the proportion of the Umbelliferae are 36/1798 1/49; for, without one knows the WHOLE numbers, one cannot judge how really close the numbers ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... mere fraction of the difficulty of passing such a knowledge from one self to another self, let us take such a case as that of a man born blind. He sits beneath a tree, on the grass. You put a blade of grass in his fingers, and also a ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... one whit abated. That is especially true in the case of those who were chosen to make the great journey southward, even though it was obvious that certain members could only accompany their leader for a mere fraction of the great ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... while written words remain fixed, become idols even to the writer, found wooden dogmatisms, and preserve flies of obvious error in the amber[3] of the truth. Last and chief, while literature, gagged with linsey-woolsey, can only deal with a fraction of the life of man, talk goes fancy free[4] and may call a spade a spade.[5] It cannot, even if it would, become merely aesthetic or merely classical like literature. A jest intervenes, the solemn humbug is dissolved in laughter, and speech ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... W. Keyse, beaming. "Come on up to the 'ouse. I could do wiv a bit o' peck, an' I lay so could you. Lumme!" His triumphant face fell by the fraction of an inch. "What'll she do when she lands in 'ome, wivout a woman to git a cup o' tea for 'er? Or curl 'er 'air, or undo 'er ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... putrefaction, the capital would be swept by pestilence annually, being underlaid by a soil reeking with pollution. As it is, typhoid fever prevails, and the average duration of life in the city is recorded at a fraction over twenty-six years! Lung and malarial diseases hold a very prominent place among the given causes of mortality. Owing to the proximity of the mountains, the rains sometimes assume the character of floods. A resident friend of the author's ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... morning, may seem strange. More strange still, that not one of that party should have thought of going back to seek her. But the female infant occupies an insignificant place among those uncivilized people: the birth of one of them is greeted with but a small fraction of the honours with which a male ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas
... mass at an encounter, by which what was virtually a violent explosive was introduced between the two colliding stones. Professor Darwin was careful to point out that it must necessarily be obscure as to how a small mass of solid matter could take up a very large amount of energy in a small fraction ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... I will not take a fraction less than a hundred; and if I cannot get them I will report the ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... against them; who, in the meantime, had recourse to various subterfuges and pleas for new trials, and Demosthenes, though he was thus, as Thucydides says, taught his business in dangers, and by his own exertions was successful in his suit, was yet unable for all this to recover so much as a small fraction of his patrimony. He only attained some degree of confidence in speaking, and some competent experience in it. And having got a taste of the honor and power which are acquired by pleadings, he now ventured to come ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... authority is overthrown by the unquestionable discoveries of modern science. Long before a human being had appeared upon earth, millions of individuals—nay, more, thousands of species and even genera—had died; those which remain with us are an insignificant fraction of the vast ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... fraction, or you'd manage it,' retorted Kitty. 'It's doubtful if she would dance ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... beginning. If, which I am sure is a better plan, children be taught at the commencement very much by complete words, as if they were learning Chinese, and be gradually accustomed to {82} resolve the known words into letters, a fraction, perhaps a considerable one, of the advantage of the phonetic system is destroyed. It must be remembered that a phonetic system can only be an approximation. The differences of pronunciation existing among educated persons are so great, that, on the phonetic ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... cavalry were skilled in the brilliant tactics of the Moors, and the leaders were men experienced in all the arts of war. These were the soldiers who in the New World overthrew empires with a handful of adventurers, and within a fraction of a century conquered a continent for Spain. In Europe they were kept actively employed. Charles VIII. of France, moved by ambition and thirst for glory, led an army of invasion into Italy. He was followed in this career of foreign conquest by his successor, Louis XII. The ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... about 400 muscles in the human body, all necessary for its various movements. They vary greatly in shape and size, according to their position and use. Some are from one to two feet long, others only a fraction of an inch. Some are long and spindle-shaped, others thin and broad, while still others form rings. Thus some of the muscles of the arm and thigh are long and tapering, while the abdominal muscles are thin and broad because they help form walls for cavities. Again, the muscular ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... Parliament, to lead it into due allegiance to the Commonwealth. The officers of the army and the members of the Parliament formed the two rival powers in the kingdom. Cromwell, it may be said, could not have united them, could only make his choice between them. It would have been only a fraction of the army that he could have carried over with him. The division between the council of officers and the Parliament was too wide, the alienation too confirmed and inveterate, to have been healed by one man, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... ponderously, point by point. For not one fraction of a second could he countenance the thought of surrendering Binhart. Yet he wanted both his prisoner and his prisoner's haul; he wanted his final ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... apart from the Frau Graefin's admirable management, ran with military precision, and no one dared to be the fraction of a minute late for meals or social engagements. They attended the theater, the opera, court functions, dinners, balls, on stated nights, and unless the Kaiser took a whim and altered a date, there was no ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... ability to talk in connection with others. The baffling element has been this—that the investigator has assumed that the stammerer talked well in concert, whereas a very careful scientist would have discovered the stammerer to be a fraction of a second or a part of ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... possible in a normal year to reduce by blockade or non-intercourse the food supply of a large nation to the point of starvation, or even of great distress, although the nation has been in the habit of importing a considerable fraction of its food supply. An intelligent population will make many economies in its food, abstain from superfluities, raise more food from its soil, use grains for food instead of drinks, and buy food from neutral countries so long as its hard money ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... I know that what we see and hear is only the smallest fraction of what is. I know she lives quite out of this. She talks to you; but it's all make-believe. It's all a 'parlour game.' She's not really with you; only pitting her outside wits against yours and enjoying the fooling. She's living ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... where the capillary portion is about 4 or 5 cm. long and only forms a small fraction of the entire length of the pipette (Fig. 13, c), will ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... Uncle Silas would say. I've never thought much about such things—in the way he says we ought to think about them. They seem to me to be true, like the—well, like the stars and the universe. You don't think about the universe all the time; but you know it is there, and that you are a little, tiny fraction of ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... is hardly evidence to show that the cause for which she is fighting has touched the imaginations or the feelings of more than a small fraction of the population. It is the war of a bureaucracy, and Russia may easily fail to develop either great leading, though her officers are instructed, or intelligent following of the leaders by the rank and file. But ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... infinitely sad settled down over his face. It even looked as though he did not intend to recognize her, or perhaps wasn't sure whether she would recognize him. There was a moment's breathless suspense and the car slid just the fraction past the gate in the hedge, without a sign of stopping, only a lifting of a correct looking straw hat that somehow seemed a bit out of place in Sabbath Valley. But Lynn left no doubt in his mind whether ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... pronounce the f or v; saying "pinca" for finca and "pale" for vale. Those of his class worked from five to five shoveling coffee or carrying it, with two hours off for breakfast and almuerzo, were paid one Guatemalan dollar a day, that is, a fraction over five cents in our money, and furnished two arrobas (fifty pounds) of corn and frijoles and a half-pound of salt a month. Yet there are no more trustworthy employees than these underpaid fellows. As pay-day approaches, one of these same ragged Indians is given a grain sack and a check for ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... not wish to give us anything—neither a fraction of an ounce of power nor of possessions; what's left for us ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... telegrams despatched, I wandered through some of the neighbouring streets in search of a restaurant, whereat to replenish our luncheon-basket. Out of mere curiosity I asked the price of the different edibles displayed on the counter. A cold roast fowl, weighing, possibly, a fraction over a pound, was three shillings (sixty cents), delicious fresh rolls, sixpence (ten cents) a dozen, buttermilk on draught, threepence (five cents) a glass; English ale, half a dollar (fifty cents) a pint ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... asserted to be a good-for-nothing scamp. She looked at the matter chiefly in a pecuniary point of view, and, on making a rapid calculation, came to the conclusion that any deficiency caused by the loss of the small fraction of his earnings that came into her possession would be more than made up by her being relieved of the maintenance of Nelly, for whom she did not consider it her duty ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... in his chair and stretched luxuriously. He loosened his safety belt and got up. He stepped carefully past the column between the right- and left-hand pilot seats. That column contained a fraction of the innumerable dials and controls the pilots of a modern multi-engine plane have to watch and handle. The co-pilot went to the coffeepot and flipped a switch. Joe fidgeted again on his improvised seat. Again he wished that he could be riding ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... terrible an extent. If it's a choice between your good name and hers—hers must go. She'd agree with me herself. She wouldn't hesitate for one single fraction of an instant—if she knew. She'd be grateful to you, as I am; but she couldn't profit ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... not actually present to the mind—and the present is an infinitesimal fraction of knowledge—is reproduced by the memory, and this is effected by the molecular movements of the human brain, and by what may be called the ethereal modifications which took place when the sensations, perceptions, and acts first occurred. ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... States." Now let us suppose that some of the South Carolina members are admitted on the President's plan, and that others are rejected. What is the result? Is not South Carolina in the Union? Can a fraction of the State be in, and another fraction out, by the terms of the United States Constitution? Are not the "loyal men" in for their term of office simply, and the State in permanently? The proposition to let in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... streams, which facilitate the concentration in them of a country's internal trade; but by their very accessibility they become a source of weakness in war, if not properly defended. The Dutch in 1667 found little difficulty in ascending the Thames and burning a large fraction of the English navy within sight of London; whereas a few years later the combined fleets of England and France, when attempting a landing in Holland, were foiled by the difficulties of the coast as much as by the valor of the Dutch fleet. In 1778 the harbor ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... the left foot would have to be done quickly, because obviously there is very little time to lose; but it must be done smoothly and evenly, without a jerk, which would upset the whole swing, and if it is begun the smallest fraction of a second too soon the ball will be taken by the toe of the club, and the consequences will not be satisfactory. I have returned to make this the last word about the cut because it is the essence of the stroke, and it calls ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... unvisited by whites during a term of years which seems incredible in our energetic days. One may 'sense' the interval to his mind, after a fashion, by dividing it up in this way: After De Soto glimpsed the river, a fraction short of a quarter of a century elapsed, and then Shakespeare was born; lived a trifle more than half a century, then died; and when he had been in his grave considerably more than half a century, the SECOND white man saw the Mississippi. In our day we don't allow ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to blame for it!" Mr. Price interrupted. "That is your idea of her character? Now mine is different. I should say that she is a being so nicely balanced, so human, that either senses or intellect might be tipped up by the fraction of an ounce. Which is right, surely; since the senses are, instrumental in sustaining nature, while the intellect helps it to perfection. And as to her beautiful womanly endurance"—he shrugged his shoulders, and turned the palms of his hands upward—"I ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... danger of Germany's geographical position between France and England on her west flank and Russia on her east: all three leagued for her destruction; and how unreasonable it was to ask Germany to lose the fraction of a second (much less Sir Maurice de Runsen's naive "a few days' delay") in dashing at her Western foe when she could obtain no pledge as to Western intentions. "We are now in a state of necessity; and Necessity knows no law," said the Imperial ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... lasts from year to year, from century to century; the blinded sire slaves himself out, and leaves a blinded son; and men, made in the image of God, continue as two-legged beasts of labour: and in the largest empire of the world it is a debate whether a small fraction of the revenue of one day shall, after thirteen centuries, be laid out on it, or not laid out on it. Have we governors? Have we teachers? Have we had a Church these thirteen hundred years? What is ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... eyes for a fraction of a second. In that time he reconstructed from memory a detailed, three-dimensional, full-color image of Dr. O'Connor's office in his mind. It was perfect in detail; he checked it over mentally and then, by a special effort of will, he gave himself the ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... and hit him in the face! How constantly his best efforts went for naught, how invariably he was misunderstood! How great was the glee with which everybody persecuted him and knocked him about the ring! And yet, notwithstanding all his troubles, did he win from us a sympathetic sigh or even the fraction of a tear, except tears of laughter? All his ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... rendered visible by the motes or dust particles dancing in it; but of course really it is not the motes which make the sunbeam visible, but the sunbeam the motes. A dust particle is illuminated like any other solid screen, and is able to send a sufficient fraction of light to our eyes to render itself visible. If there are no such particles in the beam—nothing but clear, invisible air—then of course nothing is seen, and the beam plunges on its way quite invisible to us unless we place our eyes in its course. In other words, to be visible, light must enter ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... general were all traceable to a common law. It seemed to me that the arrangement in a succession first of females and then of males did not account for everything. There must be something more. And I was right: that arrangement in series is only a tiny fraction of the reality, which is remarkable in a very different way. This is what I am ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... in time, but with no fraction of a minute to spare. We could hear the pad-pad-pad of the light-footed runners close upon us, following now by the noise we made; and on our left the air was trembling to the thunder of the mounted men coming at a ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... within the seed-box, but before she does so she has to deposit on the stigma the ball of pollen. From this the pollen-tubes grow down and the pollen-nucleus of a tube fertilises the egg-cell in an ovule, so that the possible seeds become real seeds, for it is only a fraction of them that the Yucca Moth has destroyed by using them as cradles for her eggs. Now it is plain that the Yucca Moth has no individual experience of Yucca flowers, yet she secures the continuance of her race by a concatenation of actions which form ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... moment too she met my eyes, and for the fraction of a moment she hesitated and coloured. "Oh all sorts ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... finished his paper. The Secret Service man was getting worried; would he fail? And there were the papers, so close to him. Then the train stopped at the next to the last station. At the same minute Dr. Albert completed his reading, and for the fraction of a moment raised his arm to fold the sheets. With lightning quickness the agent slid the dispatch case away from the doctor's side and stood up. Two or three people jostled him, and he staggered against the doctor. Then he lunged ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... wondered. He was not thinking of the crystallization reaction; he knew the timing of that to the fraction of a second. His dark thoughts ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... In the very fraction of a second the first sergeant and a dozen men have leaped from the deck, and straight into the heart of the crowd they go. "Back with ye! Out o' this!" are the stern, determined orders, emphasized by vigorous prods with ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... she could estimate to a fraction the prosperity of Protestantism in the parish by the bows these ladies exchanged with Mrs. Barton when their carriages crossed on ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... was under the ice-coated head in an instant. He looked up at Mollie Gillespie, who had been only a fraction of ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... how the filial leg was lost; And then how much the gold one cost; With its weight to a Trojan fraction: And how it took off, and how it put on; And call'd on Devil, Duke, and Don, Mahomet, Moses, and Prester John, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... ammunition—wheat is a war weapon. To produce it and distribute it where it is needed and in sufficient quantities is the most serious food problem of the Allied world. The continent of Europe, with her devastated fields, can raise but a small fraction of the wheat she needs, and ships are so few that she cannot import it from ...
— Food Guide for War Service at Home • Katharine Blunt, Frances L. Swain, and Florence Powdermaker
... and earning by his losses and persistence the name of el tonto—"the fool." But—almost as if his patron saint had resolved to teach his detractors a lesson—the reward came. The richest bonanza that the "mother lode" ever yielded he struck. From the results of this great treasure—a mere fraction of it—he caused the fine Valenciana church to be raised, whose handsome facade still draws the traveller's attention and marks the romantic episode of mining lore which gave it birth. The building of the temple was begun in 1765; its cost was a ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... point of size) descendants of the monsters of mythology and geology, for nothing could be a more terrible or ferocious antagonist than many of our well-known insects, if sufficiently enlarged. No animal now alive has more than a small fraction of the strength, in proportion to its size, of the minutest spider or flea. It may be that through lack of food, difficulties imposed by changing climate, and the necessity of burrowing in winter, or through some other conditions changed from what they were accustomed to, their size has ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... was the Lusitania all the time; that he could always tell her by her funnels. Innes, who was seated in the stern and filling his position to the limit, acknowledged that for an instant—oh, the merest fraction of a second!—he had thought the steamer was the Ne'er-do-well, Berlin to Kansas City, but that he had seen his mistake almost instantly! By which time, the Priscilla, New York to Fall River, had passed out of sight, and Marvin, merely tipping ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the corner of the passage behind him as the vault doors began to slide together. He was aware mainly of swift, smooth, oiling motion like that of a big snake; then, for a fraction of a second, a strip of brighter light from the outside passage showed a long, heavy wedge of a head, a green ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz
... Communion, which is the most conservative body outside the Catholic Church, there is the ritualistic, or high church, and the low church. Nay, if you question closely the individual members composing any one fraction of these denominations, you will not rarely find them giving a contradictory view of ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... come out and faced danger and endured terror, solely and exclusively for Irene's sake. The image of her sister rose clearly before her mind in all its bright charm, undimmed by any jealous grudge which, indeed, ever since her passion had held her in its toils had never for the smallest fraction of a minute ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... be another thing. I must slave at the desk to keep all round. See, Mr. Carver, see!—ever since the day you advised me to be as particular as yourself in keeping accounts to a farthing, I do, to a fraction, even like state ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... the lines of magazines to the last fraction of an inch he found a further excuse for lingering by moving back into their accustomed places the chairs which ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... where she found time to study was a mystery, for she seemed always in demand for some kind of "fun," and her home evenings were crowded with callers. She had all the "beaux" that heart could desire, for nine-tenths of the Freshmen and a big fraction of all the other classes were rivals for her smiles. She was naively delighted over this, and gleefully recounted each new conquest to Anne and Priscilla, with comments that might have made the unlucky lover's ears ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fingers and shivered to pieces on the floor, and in that same fraction of time Sir Maurice had turned and leapt towards me; but as he came I struck him twice, with left and right, and he staggered backwards to the wall. He stood for a moment, with his head stooped upon his hands. When he looked up his face was dead white, and with a smear ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... led to recognition of the value of seats in it. Influential state politicians sought election in order to control the patronage. Competent judges in the early nineties declared, for example, that the senators from New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland were all of this type. Another considerable fraction was composed of powerful business men, directors in large corporations, who found it to their advantage to be in this most influential law-making body and who were known as oil or silver or lumber senators. So was laid the foundation of ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... each planet had, will be approximately indicated by the proportion now existing in it between the aggregating power, and the power that has opposed aggregation. On making the requisite calculations, a remarkable harmony with this inference comes out. The following table shows what fraction the centrifugal force is of the centripetal force in every case; and the relation which that fraction bears to the number ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... of a few miles brought us in sight of the village, which was situated in a beautiful grove on the bank of the stream up which we had been marching. It consisted of upwards of three hundred lodges, a small fraction over half belonging to the Cheyennes, the remainder to the Sioux. Like all Indian encampments, the ground chosen was a most romantic spot, and at the same time fulfilled in every respect the requirements of a good camping-ground; wood, water, ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... imagery. An attentive audience was enough for him, and, once his fancy was in full swing, there was no limit to his outrageous exaggerations. A light of credulity in a hearer's eye filled him with prodigious mirth, and it is doubtful if his listeners ever derived a fraction of the amusement from his fabrications that he himself enjoyed. Paloma's spirit of contradiction was the only fly in his ointment; now that his daughter was old enough to "keep books" on him, much of the story-teller's joy was ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... to read the last line of this card at a distance of ten feet. This conclusion is not a guess, but is based upon the examination of thousands of eyes. In making the test, the number of feet the eye ought to see is written as the denominator of the fraction; the distance the eye can see clearly is the numerator. If the child's card reads, "Right eye 10/10, left eye 10/20," it means that the right eye sees without conscious strain the distance it is intended to see, while the left eye must be within ten feet to see ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... breath came in gasps; for a moment he was stunned. The first thing he thought of was his mother; but his call sounded hollow and unnatural and there was no response. He had been out-generaled, vanquished and insulted by a skunk, a creature but a fraction his size, and the realization of it hurt. His good opinion of himself fell, and he needed sympathy and encouragement as he had never needed them before. But they were not forthcoming. He was alone in the world and must fight his way or perish. In sheer distress he sat upright like ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... "arch-plotter" will weigh the letter he reads to the smallest fraction of a fraction ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... France were divided into three orders, differing in legal rights. These were the Clergy, the Nobility, and the Commons, or Third Estate. The first two, which are commonly spoken of as the privileged orders, contained but a small fraction of the population numerically, but their wealth and position ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... should have gripped and shaken me until my teeth rattled; and after alternations of raging fever and arctic cold, I ought to have gone to my long home with the fearful shapes of delirium yelling in my ears. But there are places other than Judee where they do not know everything. At the fraction of the fee of a fashionable doctor, and of the cost of following his fashionable and pleasing advice—a change to one of the Southern States—in three months one of the compelling causes for the desertion of ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... town, quite fresh. He was never what could be called a good man,* though it was said that he could lift ten hundred weight. He puffed forward with a great cudgel, determined to commit slaughter out of the face, and the first man he met was the weeshy fraction of a tailor, as nimble as a hare. He immediately attacked him, and would probably have taken his measure for life had not the tailor's activity protected him. Farrell was in a rage, and Neal, taking advantage of his blind fury, slipped round him, ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... last fraction of a sixpence," says Mr. Polonius, bowing, and looking at the jewel. "It's a wonderful piece of goods, certainly," said he; "though the diamond's a neat little bit, certainly. Do, my Lady, look at it. The thing is of Irish manufacture, bears the stamp of '95, and will ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that time living under a system of high protective tariffs upon imported articles of manufacture as well as of food. But in 1823-25 Mr. Huskisson succeeded in having most of the tariffs upon raw materials reduced to a fraction of the former figures, with the result that production was enormously stimulated and valuable foreign markets were opened to English commodities. His only modification of the Corn Law (in 1822) was to reduce by ten shillings ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... the whole quintessence of our lives,—our loves, our hopes, our failures, in one concentrated drop of happiness or misery. We look behind us and see that our whole past has led up to that infinitesimal fraction of time which is the consummation of the past in the present, the end of the old and the beginning of the new. We look forward from the vantage ground of the present, and the world of a ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... his tense race after wealth had been in a sense his strange manner of grieving for his wife. But his absolute concentration along one line resulted in a lack of wisdom concerning all other lines. Though he could figure to the fraction of a dollar how to beat the game, play big-fish-swallow-little-fish and get away with it, he had no more judgment as to his daughter's absurd self than Monster, who had gone on the honeymoon wrapped in a new silken blanket. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too, as ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... of a child, actual or potential, of a given stock,—errors excepted always, because children of the same stock are not bred just alike, because the traits of some less known ancestor are liable to break out at any time, and because each human being has, after all, a small fraction of individuality about him which gives him a flavor, so that he is distinguishable from others by his friends or in a court of justice, and which occasionally makes a genius or a saint or a criminal of him. It is well that young persons cannot read ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... religious newspapers charging each other with acts which should exclude the perpetrators from the fraternity of honest men; for, through the medium of religious newspapers, one church, or one fraction of a church, or one ecclesiastical body, or one member of it, accuses another of an act, or a course of action, which, in sober truth, amounts to nothing more or less than obvious, persistent deception, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... barest fraction of an instant he hesitated, and then his quick American wits came to his aid. Feigning intoxication he answered the challenge in dubious Austrian that he hoped ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... when he had struck Hamilton. He alone knew that when he hit that time it was with the lust to kill—even as Hamilton had shot to kill. The feeling lasted only the fraction of a second—merely while his fist was plunging toward Hamilton's chin. But, however brief, it had sprung from within him—a blood-red, frenzied desire to beat down the other man. At the moment he was not so much conscious of trying to protect ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... with the sun's motion through space, we shall see that this distance only represents a fraction of the sun's orbit, as it can be philosophically proved, that if the sun moves at all, it, too, obeys Kepler's Laws; and therefore, according to his First Law, it also describes and possesses an orbit of its own. So that by the time the earth has made its ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... foam. At length, as the schooner settled down into one of these swirling hollows, she actually did strike, but the blow was a light one, only just sufficient to swear by and not enough to check her headlong rush for the smallest fraction of a second; and shortly afterwards I became aware that the breakers were perceptibly less weighty, so much so that in about another minute they ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... attempted to peer, but whether it was but a fraction of an inch deep or passed completely through the door I could not tell—at least no light showed beyond it. I put my ear to it next and listened, but again ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was trying to sleep. She had eaten almost nothing for several days, and she knew that her strength was ebbing. That very evening she had fallen short in a flying leap at a rabbit, and had seen him dive head-first into his burrow, safe by the merest fraction of an inch. She had fairly screeched with rage and disappointment, and as the hours went by and she found no other game, she grew so blue and discouraged that she really couldn't contain herself any longer. Perhaps it did her good to have a cry. ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... the millions of educated, property-owning, wage-earning, voting women that now fill our public life, the old arguments would still be obsolete. The issues of life are no longer primarily military, and but a fraction of men voters is capable of meeting modern requirements as policemen and soldiers; in time of crisis, all men would be called into the reserves; but in such periods women have always fought in the breach, from Carthage ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... for an appreciable fraction of a minute ere she answered, and when she did, it was in the ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on the indicated flank carefully arranges the details for a prompt and vigorous execution of the rush and puts it into effect as soon as practicable. If necessary, he designates the leader for the indicated fraction. When about to rush, he causes the men of the fraction to cease firing and to hold themselves flat, but in readiness to spring forward instantly. The leader of the rush (at the signal of the platoon leader, if the latter be not the leader ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... Warne slowly, "would outshine her in beauty and in sweetness of disposition, perhaps, though I doubt if Jeannette has ever had a fraction of the tests of character and endurance my ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... tens of thousands—who knows it not?—lead sedentary and unwholesome lives, stooping, asphyxiated, employing as small a fraction of their bodies as of their minds. And all this in dwellings, workshops, what not?—the influences, the very atmosphere of which tend not to health, but to unhealth, and to drunkenness as a solace under the feeling of unhealth and depression. And that such a life must tell upon their offspring, ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... said, shrinking to one side like a man in sudden pain, "the gentleman can't see how to reach that large door. A little more light, half an inch-not a fraction more!" ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... accelerating liquids, quickstuff, &c., are used, and the discovery of which has alone ensured the application of the Daguerreotype successfully to portrait taking—for when first introduced among us it took from five to ten minutes to produce a tolerable good view, while now but the fraction of a minute is required ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... the pivoting fraction of an instant, and now the beautiful eyes were alight and warm ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... business correspondence, as well as his private letters, are sent here by the General Post Office. Getting his letters in this way at night, he is able to read them like lightning. Some of them he merely holds upside down for a fraction ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... 'tatur line—but all that time I never see a youngish chap come into a place of this kind, who wasn't going out again directly, and who hadn't been arrested on bills which he'd given a friend and for which he'd received nothing whatsomever—not a fraction.' ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... creeping into the room, and heard West groaning somewhere beside him. They both had badly damaged skulls with great bruises behind the ear. It is instructive to note that their wounds corresponded almost to a fraction of an inch. They had been stunned by someone who thoroughly understood his business, and with some heavy, blunt weapon. A few minutes later came the man to relieve the constable; and the constable was found to have been treated ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... more amenable; finding him, however, still obstinate, he offered him some dinner—a promise which we will hope he fulfilled, for here Dalaber's own narrative abruptly forsakes us,[518] leaving uncompleted, at this point, the most vivid picture which remains to us of a fraction of English life in the reign of Henry VIII. If the curtain fell finally on the little group of students, this narrative alone would furnish us with rare insight into the circumstances under which the Protestants fought their way. The story, however, can be carried something further, and ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... its absorptive power would be 1. A body which absorbs all radiations of all wavelengths would be called a "perfectly black body.'' No such body actually exists, but such substances as lamp-black and platinum-black approximately fulfil the condition. The fraction of the incident radiation which is not absorbed by a body gives a measure of its reflecting power, with which we are not here concerned. Most bodies exhibit a selective action on light, that is to say, they readily absorb light of particular ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... fact in any offensive manner; nor in becoming a swell had he become altogether a bad fellow. It was not to be expected that a man who was petted at Sebright's should carry himself in the Allington drawing-room as would Johnny Eames, who had never been petted by any one but his mother. And this fraction of a hero of ours had other advantages to back him, over and beyond those which fashion had given him. He was a tall, well-looking man, with pleasant eyes and an expressive mouth,—a man whom you would probably observe in whatever room you might meet him. And he knew how to talk, and had in ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... heard. It was a sound to wring the heart, for what it meant was that not even Catherine Elsmere's extraordinary powers of self-suppression could avail to check the outward expression of an inward torture. Each time it came and went, it seemed to Elsmere that a fraction of his youth went ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... us than the circumstance that this peat contains but little or no ammonia or nitric acid, and the other contains such or such a fraction of one per cent. of these bodies, is the grand fact that all peats may yield a good share of their nitrogen to the support of crops, when properly treated ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... happened very much. That is to say, my informant tells me that the young lady received no less than sixteen distinct proposals of marriage that day, nearly all of which were renewed on subsequent occasions. It can only have been for the barest fraction of a minute that any gentleman could find himself alone with her. But, whenever any one did get the chance, he must have jumped at ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... Matthew's eyes scanned the faces. Where was the enemy? And now, at the opposite end of the table, he noticed, for the first time, a figure almost concealed behind the stout form of Mr. Small. It was Klein. The two men's eyes met. It was only for a fraction of a moment, but it was long enough. In the concentrated gaze of the Alsatian there was neither hatred nor vindictiveness, but only determination. The two wills were in conflict, and this time Sir Matthew knew he had met his master. In that instant ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... standing still, till a frightful shock, expected and sudden, started them off again with a big thump. After every dislocating jerk of the ship, Wamibo, stretched full length, his face on the pillow, groaned slightly with the pain of his tormented universe. Now and then, for the fraction of an intolerable second, the ship, in the fiercer burst of a terrible uproar, remained on her side, vibrating and still, with a stillness more appalling than the wildest motion. Then upon all those prone bodies a stir would pass, a shiver of suspense. A man would protrude his anxious ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... some joke or some compliment to Clementina about the cap which grew momently heavier under the sovereigns and half sovereigns, half crowns and half dollars, shillings, quarters, greenbacks and every fraction of English and American silver; and the actor who had given the imitations, made bold, as he said, to ask his lordship if the audience might not hope, before they dispersed, for something more from Miss Claxon. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... marked away a large part of her life, and yet was wearisome to so much of it as remained. Sometimes she debated whether she could not anticipate the end by speaking out at once, of her own free-will; but no, short as her time was, she could not afford to lose the smallest fraction ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... in the room, and he could not see her face, and yet she kept her eyes shut as if asleep, for every fraction of a minute in which she could still escape seeing him in his fury seemed a reprieve; and yet her heart beat so violently that it seemed to her that he must hear it, when he approached the bed with a soft step that was peculiar to him. She heard him walk up and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the nervous animals charged at the barrier or whirled away from it in sudden, wild dashes. The starter's voice grew husky and his temper hot, but at last the horses were all headed in the right direction, if only for the fraction of a second. Jockey Murphy, scenting a start, had Fieldmouse in motion even as the elastic webbing shot into the air; she was in her racing stride as the starter's voice ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... first land sighted—"an island off the west coast of New Spain" and lying in about thirty-three degrees—at seventeen hundred and forty leagues sixteen hundred and fifty leagues, and sixteen hundred and fifty leagues respectively; the highest point reached had been a fraction over thirty-nine degrees. (Tomo ii, no. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... acquittal had been released after the lapse of two days. These were all the modifications he had to make in his previous statements. And as to the long list of his grave accusations, not one of them rested upon hearsay. He pointed out how small and insignificant a fraction of error had found its way into his papers. He fearlessly reasserted that agonizing corporal punishment was inflicted by the officials in Neapolitan prisons, and that without judicial authority. As to Settembrine, ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... always make four? Is that which is contained in some degree less than that which contains it? What is the meaning of nearly true, a fraction of God, the part of an ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... me the peculiar virtues of his stove, which is almost entirely an invention of his own, and shows me how he can regulate the heat of the room to the fraction of a degree centigrade, which he prefers to Fahrenheit—just as he prefers metres and centimetres to inches and feet—and ten ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... thought, and what could be made of them—not the conscious, intellectual, writing, discussing, semi-civilised people (semi-civilised—what an absurd word! What is complete civilisation, that we should bisect it and say we have half, or any other exact fraction? Partly civilised, Gideon amended it to), but the great unconscious masses, hardly civilised at all, who shape things, for good or evil, in the ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... still eight hundred and ten cash in hand; and I knew that the hong-boat fare to Kia-hing Fu was one hundred and twenty cash, and thence to Shanghai three hundred and sixty, leaving me just three hundred and thirty cash—or twelve pence and a fraction—for three or four days provisions. I went at once to the boat office, but to my dismay found that from the dry state of the river goods had not come down, so that no boat would leave to-day and perhaps none to-morrow. I inquired ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... simple menage, you see, Mr. Spinrobin. I ought to warn you, too, by-the-by," he added, "that she is almost stone deaf, and has only got the use of one arm, as perhaps you noticed. Her left arm is"—he hesitated for a fraction of a second—"withered." ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... disappear, if you like. It may be called Frankreich, if you like. We may be driven back to the very Pyrenees. It will not abate one fraction our ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... exposed within the past thirty or forty years. Among these the project of Land Bounties to soldiers has been conspicuous. Of the millions of acres disposed of by the Government through assignable land-warrants in the pretended interest of the soldiers of the Mexican War a very small fraction was appropriated to their use. The great body of the land fell into the hands of monopolists, who thus hindered the settlement and productive wealth of the country, while the sum received by the soldier for his warrant was in very many cases a mere mockery ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... minutes past six o'clock, the barometer showed an elevation of 26,400 feet, or five miles to a fraction. The prospect seemed unbounded. Indeed, it is very easily calculated by means of spherical geometry, what a great extent of the earth's area I beheld. The convex surface of any segment of a sphere is, to the entire surface of the sphere ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... will be one Inclined Plane at Frankfort about 2200 feet long, descending one foot in fourteen. All the residue of the road can be graded to 30 feet or less in a mile which is a fraction over one-fifteenth of an inch ...
— A Pioneer Railway of the West • Maude Ward Lafferty
... from the Gods of Justice a shot rang out, and Vandersee still stood. Those who had watched closely only saw Leyden's weapon fly from his hand simultaneously with a sharp jet of fire somewhere in the boat alongside; the report came a fraction of time later, and then, curling lazily up from Houten's great, ham-like hand, was a tiny wreath of smoke. The huge trader moved not an inch; his face altered not a bit; immovable as a statue, unruffled as the Sphinx, he still stared up at the wreck. Vandersee stood still, ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... the whistle already half-way to his lips, paused and glanced at his watch. There was a fraction of a moment left. He stepped to a carriage and ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... each individual. The doctrine of heredity may seem to take out of our hands the conduct of our own lives, but it is the idea, not the fact, which is really terrible to us. For what we have received from our ancestors is only a fraction of what we are, or may become. The knowledge that drunkenness or insanity has been prevalent in a family may be the best safeguard against their recurrence in a future generation. The parent will be most awake to the vices or diseases in his child of which he is ...
— The Republic • Plato
... queer sag in it, up and down in a long curve from one rise to the other. After a time Thorpe became fascinated in watching before him this easy, untiring lope, hour after hour, without the variation of a second's fraction in speed nor an inch in length. It was as though the Indian were made of steel springs. He never appeared to hurry; but neither did ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... review by quite a body of officers, including Hancock, Howard and Barlow. Gen. Howard made appropriate remarks to the remnants of the 5th N. H., 81st Pa., 64th and 61st N. Y., which he commanded in the battle of Fair Oaks that day, the year before. But a small fraction of the men he commanded that day at 7 a. m. were present to hear his words. He said we were in this great strife to win, and we would fight it to a finish, and we applauded his sentiments by lusty cheers. After this we returned to our quarters. Barlow appeared and gave us a chance ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... finance. Whatever the force of his egoism, he must more or less harmonise his individuality with those of his wife and children. Having laid down the law, or accepted it, he sets forth to his daily duties, just a fraction of a minute late. He arrives at his office, resumes life with his colleagues sympathetic and antipathetic, and then leaves the office for an expedition extending over several hours. In the course of his expedition he encounters ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... Exaggerated force is most impressive.... So the ancient gods, heroes, and wonders are worshipped still. The simple countryfolk clap their hands, bow their heads, mumble their prayers, and offer the fraction of a cent to the first European-built house they see."—Philosophy in Japan, Past and Present, by ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis |
