"Gravity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Every thing that would embarrass Kendall was introduced by the earl. At length, as a final resort, charges were formally preferred against him, and the matter referred to Butler for decision. Capt. Kendall did not fail to appreciate the gravity of his case, when charges were preferred against him in London, and the trial ordered before the man of whom he asked restitution! The case remained in statu quo until July, 1622, when the court made a disposition of the case. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... (chap. 9. page 306.) that those consolidated masses of this earth had been formed into the pyramidal mountains in the same manner. We have there also shown that this principle of formation is no other than the gradual decay of the solid mass by gravity and the atmospheric influences. Consequently, those pyramidal mountains, though composed of such different materials, may, at a certain distance, where smaller characteristic distinctions may not be perceivable, appear to be of the ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... to account for a bit of chalk, for instance, and consider all you must know in order to enable you to do so. To account for its weight you must know something about the motion of the whole planetary system and the law of gravity that controls that system; to account for the weather-stains upon it, you must know something about chemical reaction; to account for its being chalk and not flint, you must know something of the geological ages of the earth, and how it comes to be built up of little sea-shells; ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... jest or earnest. His Splendid Shilling is the earliest and one of the best of our parodies; but Blenheim is as completely a burlesque upon Milton as The Splendid Shilling, though it was written and read with gravity, ... yet such are the fluctuations of taste that contemporary criticism bowed with solemn admiration ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... only one whom she felt that she could not charm by word, or touch, or look. The odd shape of his head, she fancied, figured the outline and proportions of his intelligence, which was, as it were, pyramidal, standing upon a base so broad and firm as to place the centre of its ponderous gravity far beyond her reach to disturb. There was certainly no other being of material reality that could have made Unorna start and turn pale ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... came to take his horse, told him he had been expected for two days. He was led into a study, where the stranger, now a venerable old man, who had been his father's guest, met him with a shade of displeasure as well as gravity on his brow. "Young man," said he, "wherefore so slow on a journey of such importance?" "I thought," replied the guest, blushing and looking downwards, "that there was no harm in travelling slowly and satisfying my curiosity, providing I could reach your residence by this day; for such was my father's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... earnest and rather pathetic face, and his absurdly volatile name, was almost too much for Hilda's gravity. But she checked the laugh which rose to her lips, and asked: "Don't you go to school at all, Bubble? It is a pity that you shouldn't, when you are ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... he said, with sudden fierce gravity, "I'll never speak to you again. I mean it. It's my affair, and I shall ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... with responsive gravity and mystery, immediately waved his hook towards the little parlour, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... ter gib yer good-ebenin', Miss Mandy Munson. Yer kyant 'spec' a gemmen to be degaged in de music an' a gal at de same time," replied Jeff, with oppressive gravity. ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... at a mud-puddle. The babu's weight lurched with it, and Warrington's center of gravity shifted. The babu seemed to shrug himself away from the snakes, but the effect was to shove Warrington the odd half-inch it needed to put him overside. He clung to the loin-cloth and pulled hard to haul himself back again, and the ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... angles, and plunges a hundred and nine feet. I know of no cataract which expresses might in action so eloquently as the Upper Fall of the Yellowstone. Pressed as it is within narrow bounds, it seems to gush with other motive power than merely gravity. Seen from above looking down, seen sideways from below, or looked at straight on from the camp site on the opposite rim, the water appears hurled ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... has been made especially clear by J. S. Mill, who showed that the immediately preceding condition is never taken as cause. When we throw a stone into the water we call the cause of its sinking its gravity, and not the fact that it has been thrown into the water. So again, when a man falls down stairs and breaks his foot, in the story of the fall the law of gravity is not mentioned; it is taken for granted. When the matter is not so clear ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... to recover my self till I had with the utmost Confusion set a new one. Nay, I have often seen her rise up and smile and curtsy to one at the lower End of the Church in the midst of a Gloria Patri; and when I have spoke the Assent to a Prayer with a long Amen uttered with decent Gravity, she has been rolling her Eyes around about in such a Manner, as plainly shewed, however she was moved, it was not towards an Heavenly Object. In fine, she extended her Conquests so far over the Males, and raised such Envy in the Females, that what between Love of those and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... need is, when the generality of professors are decayed; when the custom of fancies and fooleries have taken away all gravity and modesty from among the children of men. Now pray, or thou diest; yea, pray against those decays, those vain customs, those foolish fancies, those light and vain carriages that have overtaken others, else they will assuredly ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... was in every particular a warrior of fine stature and admirable proportions. As he cast aside his mask, composed of such party-coloured leaves, as he had hurriedly collected, his countenance appeared in all the gravity, the dignity, and, it may be added, in the terror of his profession. The outlines of his lineaments were strikingly noble, and nearly approaching to Roman, though the secondary features of his face were slightly marked with the well-known traces of his Asiatic ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... nearly kicked him out on the first words he said: but then the absurdity of the situation struck him, and it amused him. Little by little the gravity of his visitor and his expression of honesty and absolute sincerity began to make an impression: however, he would not fall in with his contentions, and went on firing ironical remarks at him. Christophe pretended ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... and the cups went round the lutes thrilled and shrilled. Now there was a man of the kinsfolk of the Caliph Harun al-Rashid, by name Abd al-Malik bin Salih[FN260] bin Ali bin Abdallah bin al-Abbas,[FN261] who was great of gravity and sedateness, piety and propriety, and Al- Rashid used instantly to require that he should company him in converse and carouse and drink with him and had offered him to such end abounding wealth, but he never would. It fortuned that ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... it is clear that, to the mind of Spenser, both Ariosto and Tasso were authorities of hardly less gravity than Homer and Virgil. Raleigh, in the splendid sonnet with which he responds to this dedication, enhances the fame of Spenser by affecting to believe that the great Italian, Petrarch, will be jealous of him in the grave. To such an extent were the thoughts of the English poets occupied with ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... of power, too, in the gravity with which B. tells a humorous anecdote. He invariably maintains a sober face while every body is in an agony of laughter around him. Just as it begins to subside, the echo of his own wit comes back to him, and, as if he had ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... I'll tell you what my plan is." He stated it bluntly at first; and then went over the ground and explained it fully, as he had done at home. Atherton listened without permitting any sign of surprise to escape him; but he listened with increasing gravity, as if he heard something not expressed in Halleck's slow, somewhat nasal monotone, and at the end he said, "I approve of any plan that will take you away for a while. Yes, I'll speak to your father ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... their labours. These men are looked upon as great state functionaries, and they alone have the right of carrying a cane. The selection of them depends on the superior of the convent. The pedantic and silent gravity of the Indian alcaldes, their cold and mysterious air, their love of appearing in form at church and in the assemblies of the people, force a smile from Europeans. We were not yet accustomed to these shades of the Indian character, which we found the same at the Orinoco, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... the people, have respectively certain rights and powers which, when properly and constitutionally brought into operation, give strength and elasticity to our system of government. Dismissal of a ministry by the Crown under conditions of gravity, or resignation of a ministry defeated in the popular House, bring into play the prerogatives of the Crown. In all cases there must be a ministry to advise the Crown, assume responsibility for its acts, and obtain the support of the people and their representatives in parliament. As a last ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... particular one for which I had not allowed. To see her, without a convulsion of her small pink face, not even feign to glance in the direction of the prodigy I announced, but only, instead of that, turn at ME an expression of hard, still gravity, an expression absolutely new and unprecedented and that appeared to read and accuse and judge me—this was a stroke that somehow converted the little girl herself into the very presence that could make me quail. I quailed even though my certitude that ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... ask Mr. Byrne, the schoolmaster," went on Mr. Heraty with owl-like gravity. "Isn't that Mr. Byrne that I see back there in the ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... second-hand bookshops along Fourth Avenue. To see Wurm in his most characteristic pose, is to see him on a ladder, with one leg outstretched, far off his balance, fumbling for a title with his finger tips. Surely, in these dull alcoves, gravity nods on its job. Then he buys a sour red apple at the corner and pelts home to dinner. This is served him on a tin tray by his stout landlady who comes puffing up the stairs. It is a bit of pleasant comedy that whatever dish ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... the craft; others rendered him an account of what they had done, and what they had earned during the year. When they had executed their work badly, he ordered them to be punished, either corporally or pecuniarily, according to the gravity of their offences. When he had not himself properly governed his people, he was dethroned, and a ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... that they were satisfied, and giving us the country salutation, they bade us good-night, and we moved off; but Tom pulled up, and shouted after the leader of the party, who returned; when, with a face whose gravity could be seen, even in that dim short twilight, to be extreme, Tom took out one of his smallest stalactites, held it up before him, and repeated the word "buono" three times, and then presented it to the Indian, who received it with ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... complications. Don't want to offend the Maderists, or be criticized by jealous foreign nations. It's a delicate situation, Dick. The Washington officials know the gravity of it, you can bet. But the United States in general is in the dark, and the army—well, you ought to hear the inside talk back at San Antonio. We're patrolling the boundary line. We're making a grand bluff. I could tell you of a dozen instances where cavalry should have pursued raiders ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... Indicating the gravity of the situation in Ohio, a telegram from Governor Cox was received by Secretary of War Garrison asking for food and medical supplies and tents ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... saber. Only ten paces divided them. Dolokhov lowered his head to the snow, greedily bit at it, again raised his head, adjusted himself, drew in his legs and sat up, seeking a firm center of gravity. He sucked and swallowed the cold snow, his lips quivered but his eyes, still smiling, glittered with effort and exasperation as he mustered his remaining strength. He raised his ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... before the arrival of the next harvest—it was perhaps necessary to say so; but no man who has studied the agricultural statistics of last harvest, can give the slightest weight to that assertion. His second speech has just been put into our hands. Here certainly he is more explicit. With deep gravity, and a tone of the greatest deliberation, he tells the House of Commons, that before the month of May shall arrive, the pressure will be upon us. We read that announcement, so confidently uttered, with no slight amount ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... charmingly angular and boyish. There was infinitely more of the woman in it; and perhaps because of this she looked more like Laura than at any time of her life before. But even yet her expression was one of gravity, of seriousness. There was always a certain aloofness about Page. She looked out at the world solemnly, and as if separated from its lighter side. Things humorous interested her only as inexplicable vagaries of the ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... have none at all. She almost always has at least one maid, or matron, of honor, as the picture of her father standing holding her bouquet and stooping over to adjust the fall of her dress, would be difficult to witness with gravity. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... reality, two or three years younger than he, Asenath had a gravity of demeanor, a calm self-possession, a deliberate balance of mind, and a repose of the emotional nature, which he had never before observed, except in much older women. She had had, as he could well imagine, no romping girlhood, no season of ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... ordered that she should be at once brought into his private hall of audience.[9] He was, on her entrance, so captivated by the sight of her, that feelings arose in his heart greatly at variance with the outward gravity of his demeanor. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... chuckled, in spite of the gravity of the situation, "an' I'd hate to be in yore re'ch ef you wus to lose any more uv yore ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... black eyes—the dilating kind—was pretty, and seductively subtle. Jeff-Jack liked her much. They met at Rosemont, where he found her spending two or three days, on perfect terms with Barbara, and treated with noticeable gravity, though with full kindness, by Mrs. Garnet, whom ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... the coloured stitches of her work, or she might perhaps more strictly have taken to miniature painting, the quality of which style is so much in evidence in these pleasant pictures of hers. The pictures of Mrs. Cowdery will not stimulate the spectator to reflect with gravity upon the size of the universe, but they dwell entirely upon the intimate charm of it, the charm that rises out of breeding and cultivation, and a feeling for the finer graces of the body and sweet purities of mind. Mrs. Cowdery is essentially ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... that more grain and sugar should be diverted to this pernicious liquid; Mr. DEVLIN and other champions of the trade were almost equally annoyed because the harvest-beer was to be of a lower specific gravity. The storm of "supplementaries" showed no sign of abating, until the SPEAKER, who rarely fails to find the appropriate phrase, remarked upon "This thirst for information," and so dissolved ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... about seven hundred and fifty prisoners, but at present their numbers are slightly under five hundred—about three hundred men, and ninety women. The prisoners are divided into classes, the particular dress of each indicating the nature and gravity of their offences, and though amenable to the same laws as to labor and discipline, they work in separate gangs and mess by themselves. They are under the control of twenty-four keepers, each keeper, who is heavily armed, having fifteen men in ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... A deer-lope over the smoother slopes, a sure instinct for the easiest way into a rocky fortress, an instant and unerring attack, a serpent-glide up the steep; eye, hand and foot all connected dynamically; with no appearance of weight to his body—as though he had Stockton's negative gravity machine ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... during dinner and afterwards, when we sat smoking and sipping black coffee in the veranda, we were unusually quiet, even to gravity, which caused the two white-clad servants that waited on us—the brown-faced subtle-eyed old Hindu butler and an almost blue-black young Guiana Negro—to direct many furtive glances at their master's face. They ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... the gravity of the duties that confront me and mindful of my weakness, I should be appalled if it were my lot to bear unaided the responsibilities which await me. I am, however, saved from discouragement when I remember that I shall have the support ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... drove on to Lizy, where the gendarme, wiping his mouth as he came hurriedly from the inn, told us a harrowing tale, and then to Barcy, where the maire, though busy with a pitch-fork upon a manure heap, received us with municipal gravity. We were now nearing the battlefield of the Marne, and here and there along the roadside the trunks of the poplars, green with mistletoe, were shivered as though by lightning. Yet nothing could have been more peaceful than the pastoral beauty of the countryside. We passed waggons ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... countenances remind you perpetually of some animal, be it bird or beast! Well, this chasseur (as I will call him for want of a better name) was exceedingly like the great Tom-cat that you have seen so often in my chambers, and laughed at almost as often for his uncanny gravity of demeanour. Grey whiskers has my Tom—grey whiskers had the chasseur: grey hair overshadows the upper lip of my Tom—grey mustachios hid that of the chasseur. The pupils of Tom's eyes dilate and contract as I had thought cats' pupils only ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... convex surface, furrowed lengthways by a depression, in the bottom of which the Nile is gathered and enclosed when the inundation is over. In the summer, as soon as the river had risen higher than the top of its banks, the water rushed by the force of gravity towards the lower lands, hollowing in its course long channels, some of which never completely dried up, even when the Nile reached its lowest level.[*] Cultivation was easy in the neighbourhood of these ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... I know; and please God you never will." And he looked at her with such a tender gravity that her ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... comes the lord; the great lion;" the latter phrase being "tau e tona", which, in his imperfect way of pronunciation, became "Sau e tona", and so like "the great sow" that I could not receive the honor with becoming gravity, and had to entreat him, much to the annoyance of my ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... (secondary with both of them) giving to the complex filling a larger extent than to the parallels. With them one of two principles, I think, applies: The judgments are either instances of abstraction from the filling, as with H, or one of simpler gravity or vertical balance, as distinguished from the horizontal equivalence which I conceive to be at the basis of the other divisions. With F it is likely to be the latter, since the divisions of the figures under discussion do not approach very closely those of the ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... the trussing or taking up of a great Bell far into the Stock by a notch, makes the Bell go easier, and lie lighter at hand (that is) when it is set, for the farther the brim of the Bell is from the centre of gravity, the heavier it is: Now the centre of gravity is a supposed line drawn through the Stock from one Gudgeon to the other; but note, if you truss a Bell up, that the Crown-staple be much above the Gudgeons, you must fasten a false ...
— Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing - Wherein is laid down plain and easie Rules for Ringing all - sorts of Plain Changes • Richard Duckworth and Fabian Stedman
... her clear, mezzo voice, and then with a resumption of gravity gathered her reins into a firmer grip, and, as her horse lifted his head in response to the summons, said: "Anyway, I thank you for volunteering to rescue me, Mr. Townsend, and wish you lots of good luck, but please ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... and the gravity neutralizer worked as Professor Henderson hoped they would, as soon as the ship was completed, all that would be necessary to start on the voyage would be to fill the aluminum bag and set the air compressor ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... upon the wide skepticism of the Greeks as to the infernal world, at the close of his essay on the maxim, "Live concealed." The portentous growth of irreverent unbelief, the immense change of feeling from awe to ribaldry, is made obvious by a glance from the known gravity of Hesiod's "Descent of Theseus and Pirithous into Hades," to Lucian's "Kataplous," which represents the cobbler Mycillus leaping from the banks of the Styx, swimming after Charon's boat, climbing into it upon the shoulders ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... pour out the wine as well as the Sacian could do it, and he asked his grandfather to allow him to try. Astyages consented. Cyrus then took the goblet of wine, and went out. In a moment he came in again, stepping grandly, as he entered, in mimicry of the Sacian, and with a countenance of assumed gravity and self-importance, which imitated so well the air and manner of the cup-bearer as greatly to amuse the whole company assembled. Cyrus advanced thus toward the king and presented him with the cup, imitating, with the grace and dexterity ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... balance of probability comes to have as much moral weight as the most loudly vaunted certainty. And meantime, apart from and beneath the strife of tongues, there is the still small voice which whispers to a man and bids him, in no superstitious sense but with the gravity and humility which befits a Christian, to 'work out his own ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... in the face of the old man as he endeavoured to suppress, before Amine and her husband, the joy which he felt at Philip's departure. Gradually he subdued his features into gravity, and said— ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... and stamping, and, though I was en peignoir, I stole softly down to see what was going on; when I opened the door of the general sitting-room a most unusual sight presented itself,—eight bearded men, none of them very young, were dancing a set of quadrilles with the utmost gravity and decorum to the tunes played by a large musical-box, which was going at the most prodigious pace, consequently the dancers were flying through the figures in silence and breathless haste. They could ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... shovelled in at the top end, and the water, flowing down the "race," would carry it over the boxes, till it was washed out at the lower end, leaving behind a deposit of gold, which, owing to its specific gravity, would lodge in ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... seen in a previous chapter, the Elucidation prefaces its account of the Grail Quest by a solemn statement of the gravity of the subject to be treated, and a warning of the penalties which would follow on a careless revelation of the secret. These warnings are put into the mouth of a certain Master Blihis, concerning whom we hear no more. A little further on in the poem we meet with a knight, Blihos-Bliheris, ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... heard such gravity in a young woman's voice. Her words overpowered me almost by the weight of prescient meaning she gave them. They reached me as from some solemn sanctuary, a fount ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... Alvira and Aloysia were tossed on a sea of trial which cast a baneful shadow over their future destinies. Tears had cast the halo of their own peculiar beauty over their delicate features; mourning and sombre costume wrapt around them the gravity of sorrow and the adulation of a universal sympathy, pretended or real, supplied the attentions that flattered and pleased when they led the giddy world of fashion. The silence of grief hung around the magnificent saloons, ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... at this point Professor Teller suddenly ceased to be amused; his look of half-quizzical detachment becoming changed to one of gravity, almost of distress; his Majesty's "pace" had apparently become too much ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... St. Mary's was abandoned. The government removed to the banks of the Severn, to Providence—soon, when Anne should be Queen, to be renamed Annapolis. In vain the inhabitants of St. Mary's remonstrated. The center of political gravity in Maryland had shifted. ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... the mind of Ibershoff, who quotes Sterling and Henderson's views that the rate of secretion depends upon and varies with the difference in the blood pressure and the tension of the eyeball, and that the specific gravity of the secretion increases directly with the blood pressure and inversely with the ocular tension. Should the blood pressure be very high, paracentesis, for example, would apparently not be the proper ...
— Glaucoma - A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago - Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 • Various
... the torrents from the flanks of the hill are of course deposited at the base of it. But they are deposited in various ways, of which it is most difficult to analyze the laws; for they are thrown down under the influence partly of flowing water, partly of their own gravity, partly of projectile force caused by their fall from the higher summits of the hill; while the debris itself, after it has fallen, undergoes farther modification by surface streamlets. But in a general ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... friend, to leave untouched and uncopied only his outspokenness, as the special burden of friendship, "heavy, huge, strong."[412] But since flatterers, to avoid the blame they incur by their buffoonery, and drinking, and gibes, and jokes, sometimes work their ends by frowns and gravity, and intermix censure and reproof, let us not pass this over either without examination. And I think, as in Menander's Play the sham Hercules comes on the stage not with a club stout and strong, but with a light and hollow cane, so the outspokenness of the flatterer is to those ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... it was very long, and the ambassadors' box was crowded and hot. In the midst of it all the French ambassador, the Marquis de Noailles, one of the most suave courteous, and placid of men, quietly said to me, with inimitable gravity, "What a bore this must be to those who understand German! (Comme ca doit etre ennuyeux a ceux qui correprennent l'Allemand!)" This sudden revelation of a lower depth of boredom—from one who could not understand a word of the play—was worthy of ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... my days. Too many of them have been wasted, too great a portion of my span has been sacrificed to vanities. One must not forget one is in a fair way to become a grandfather; it is plainly an urgent duty to reconcile oneself to that estate and cultivate its proper gravity and decorum. Yet a little while and one must bid adieu to that Youth which one has so heedlessly squandered, a last adieu to Youth with its days of high adventure, its carefree heart, its susceptibility to the infinite ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... annals of the court journal as one of the handsomest ladies in England. His little lordship was presented to me in all the dignity of long, embroidered clothes, being then, I believe, not quite a fortnight old, and I can assure you that he demeaned himself with a gravity becoming ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... to the Cornuberts. It passed regularly from father to son, and my uncle—his neighbours said—could not but be the possessor of a nice little fortune. Held in esteem by all, a Municipal Councillor, impressed by the importance and gravity of his office, short, fat, highly choleric and headstrong, but at bottom not in the least degree an unkind sort of man—such was my uncle Cornubert, my only living male relative, who, as soon as I left school, had elevated me to the dignity ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... And 'tis true they say: for by the naughtiness of men it is so come to pass, as [4415] Caussinus observes, ut castis auribus vox amoris suspecta sit, et invisa, the very name of love is odious to chaster ears; and therefore some again, out of an affected gravity, will dislike all for the name's sake before they read a word; dissembling with him in [4416]Petronius, and seem to be angry that their ears are violated with such obscene speeches, that so they may be admired for grave philosophers and staid carriage. They cannot abide to hear ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... with this country. Thus it will be seen that as regards her commercial existence, Cuba is already within the economic orbit of our Union, though she seems to be so far away politically. The world's centre of commercial gravity is changing very fast by reason of the great and rapid development of the United States, and all lands surrounding the union must conform to the prevailing lines ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... intelligence and gratification flickered upon both their faces, but quickly faded away into a sober and blank gravity. Mr. Scott waited for me to speak again, and bowed silently, as if to intimate he ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... altar, or, better still, before an open window, from which the curtains have been drawn aside, allowing us to look directly into the heaven of heavens. A cloud of cherub faces fills the air, from the midst of which, and advancing towards us, is the Virgin with her child. The downward force of gravity is perfectly counterbalanced by the vital energy of her progress forward. There is here no uncomfortable sense, on the part of the spectator, that natural law is disregarded. While the seated Madonna in glory seems often in danger of falling to earth, this ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... time spent in this outlandish amusement, without any previous notice whatever, plump down they sat, and, in a minute, were smoking their pipes with as much gravity and composure as if they had just come in from a gentle promenade with their wives and children along the banks of a smooth and tranquil river. It was a sight, once seen, never to be forgotten. At first, George and his ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... I must be. Me thinks this fits me very well; Now must I learn to bear a walking staff, And exercise some gravity withall. ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... easily be prov'd of what necessity there is for its encouragement in this Populous City: If there were no Politick Reasons, yet the Good to Religion that may be done by it, is a convincing Argument at once for its Lawfulness and Use. I know the Gravity of some can't dispense with so much time to be spent in Diversion, tho' I can't think this a reasonable Objection where so much Profit may attend our Delight. If it be lawful to recreate our selves at all, it can never be amiss to frequent such a Diversion, that only takes up ...
— A Letter to A.H. Esq.; Concerning the Stage (1698) and The - Occasional Paper No. IX (1698) • Anonymous
... 1874, he was elected a member of Congress, from the fourth congressional district of Massachusetts. He was chosen by his Democratic colleagues of the House a member of the Electoral Commission, to determine the controverted result of the presidential election. When the gravity of the situation, and the dangers of the country at that time, are taken into account, it is obvious that no higher compliment could have been paid than that involved in this selection; a compliment which was fully justified by the courage and ability which Judge ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... minuteness of detail, and defiance of perspective—depicting, not merely the slaughter of the betrayed Bertholdsdorfers, but the concealment of the two who were fortunate enough to escape, and who are helplessly apparent behind some loose timber—would be ludicrous, were it not for the sacred gravity ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... with attentive gravity to the plans of the different speakers; on the next day he arose and said: "My friends and brothers; you are members of many tribes, and have come from a great distance. We have come to promote the common interest, and our mutual safety. How shall it be accomplished? ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... a heavy-footed animal. It is plain that he is a Norman. All his work has great specific gravity. He disgusts me. One of Flaubert's master strokes was the conception of the character of Homais, the apothecary, in Madame Bovary. I cannot see, however, that Homais is any more stupid than Flaubert himself, and he may ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... victory as he had won over the Jampot, a victory that was a further stage in the fight for independence begun on his birthday, might have very awful qualities. There would begin now one of the Jampot's sulks—moods well known to the Cole family, and lasting from a day to a week, according to the gravity of the offence. Yes, they had already begun. There she sat in her chair by the fire, sewing, sewing, her fat, roly-poly face carved into a parody of deep displeasure. Life would be very unpleasant now. No tops of eggs, no marmalade on toast, no skins ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... was rendered sterner by the dark moustache; definite thought, purpose, and action, had moulded his whole countenance and person into hopeful manhood, instead of visionary boyhood. The other face, naturally the most full of fire and resolution, looked strangely different in its serious unsmiling gravity, the deeply worn stamp of patient endurance and utter isolation. There was much of rest and calm, and even of content—but withal a quenched look, as if the lustre of youth and hope had been extinguished, and the soul ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... been—beating with the light bamboo, beating with the heavy bamboo, transportation for a certain period, banishment to a certain distance, and death, the last being subdivided into strangling and decapitation, according to the gravity ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... technology, and the genuine quest for innovation has the potential for revolutionary change. We envisage Rapid Dominance as the possible military expression, vanguard, and extension of this potential for revolutionary change. The strategic centers of gravity on which Rapid Dominance concentrates, modified by the uniquely American ability to integrate all this, are these junctures of strategy, technology, and innovation which are focused on the goal of affecting and ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... will, the deck gets hotter and hotter, and unless it were kept constantly wet, it would be unbearable to the feet. But I am glad, Mr. Kazallon," he added; "that you have made the discovery. It is better that you should know it." I listened in silence. I was now fully aroused to the gravity of the situation and thoroughly comprehended how we were in the very face of a calamity which it seemed that ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... himself winding the linen floss or the silks with which she is embroidering, or in cutting fantastic figures out of any scrap of paper that may be at hand. Then he is like a child. At other times he speaks of the world and of men, of foreign countries and of remote ages, with so much gravity and judgment that he seems like an old man who has retired from the world laden ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... speceis I have never seen but Capt. Clark who saw it on the coast towards the Killamucks informed me that it resembled a large pumpkin, it is solid and it's specific gravity reather greater than the water, tho it is sometimes thrown out by the waves. it is of a yellowis brown colour. the rhind smooth and consistence harder than that of a pumpkin tho easily cut with a knife. there are some dark brown fibers reather harder than any other ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... ladyship, her manner changing suddenly, as she pronounced the word but—before she could explain the but, Russell came into the room, and told Vivian that Miss Sidney desired to see him. Vivian heard the words with joy; but his joy was checked by the great gravity and embarrassment of his friend's countenance, and by a sigh of ill omen from his mother. Eager to relieve his suspense, he hastened to Selina, who, as Russell told him, was in Lady Mary's dressing-room—the room in which he had first declared his passion ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... room and sat down on the rush bottomed chair by the table, his temper coiled, and ready to fly out like a spring. He was seated like this, curling his toes and nursing his resolve, when the Agile One, with an absolute gravity that disarmed all anger, entered with the dressing gown. He stood holding it up, and Jones, rising, put it on. Then the A. O. filled the bath, trying the temperature with a thermometer, and so absorbed in his business that ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... We that are, &c.] This speech is set down as it was delivered by the Knight, in his own words: But since it is below the gravity of heroical poetry to admit of humour, but all men are obliged to speak wisely alike, and too much of so extravagant a folly would become tedious and impertinent, the rest of his harangues have only his sense expressed in other words, unless ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... said Donald, a little bitterly, for he was beginning to think that his sister exhibited rather too much lightness of heart, in view of the gravity of her own situation, to say nothing of the dangers and hardships he was ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... Antarctica katabatic (gravity-driven) winds blow coastward from the high interior; frequent blizzards form near the foot of the plateau; cyclonic storms form over the ocean and move clockwise along the coast; volcanism on Deception Island and isolated areas ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... matter with a gravity born of his long fast. Certainly it appeared worth a battle. If they could but make one Kill, what a feast it would be! Never had he seen Grass Feeders of this bulk. Why should he and his Sons, who were strong fighters, full of the Wolf cunning, dread these ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... me to tell him about the flags, he wished to tell me about the flags. "I am very strict about all this," he said, his gravity and nauticality increasing with every word. "At the fore truck ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... Gravity fell upon him, too. In this young girl's eyes there was no evasion. For a long while he had felt vaguely that matters were not perfectly balanced between them. At moments, even, he had felt an indefinable uneasiness in her presence. The situation troubled him, too; and though ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... She watched Delquos raise TT's limp body above the level of the bushes with a gravity hoist belonging to Dr. Droon, and maneuver her back to the car, the others following. Delquos climbed into the car first, opened the big trunk compartment in the rear. TT was slid inside ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... Moreover Vernon looked interested, and it was important that both were typical Canadians. The young Canadian is not subtle; as a rule, his talk is direct, and at awkward moments he is generally marked by a frank gravity. Vernon was grave now and Lister thought he pondered. He had not known Vernon long, but he felt one could ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... do it, Carnaby?" Lavendar asked with kindness and gravity both in his voice. "You have committed a very mischievous action, you know, one that would have borne a harsher name had the transfers been signed and had the ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... straps, Fig. 3, are nailed an a little forward of the center of gravity so that when the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics |
