"Instructive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the man who presented the blunderbuss, and upon his behaving saucily when I taxed him with it, I took him out of the vessel." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1479—Capt. Brett, 17 April 1743. The captain's use of gender is philologically instructive. Not till later times, it seems, did ships lose the character of a "strong man armed" and take on, uniformly, the attributes of ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... live in an epoch of emotional expansion have the right to get what amusement we can out of this note of high-flown sentimentalism. At the same time its instructive aspect should not be lost sight of. When a youth of twenty-three, battling with the vulgar prose of life, falls into such a tone in writing to a middle-aged lady who has befriended him; when he lets his imagination brood upon the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... and at that time much larger than they are now; and of the trees, which were many, at that time many more than now. And every part of the park had its own attraction. The Hercules pavilion was mysterious; Hercules with the lion, instructive and powerful. A pity that it had become such a disgrace ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... monstrosities, and are only so far interesting as showing how plastic the organisation becomes under high cultivation. From this point of view such works as Professor Moquin-Tandon's 'Teratologie' are highly instructive. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... as it had been, had satisfied him that stupid Mr. Null's course of action could be trusted to let the instructive progress of the malady proceed. Mr. Null would treat the symptoms in perfect good faith—without a suspicion of the nervous hysteria which, in such a constitution as Carmina's, threatened to establish itself, in course of time, as the hidden ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... conversation Cromwell and Ireton enter, and the Queen, in terror, hides behind a tomb, till, horrified at the discussion as to whether or not the King shall be put to death, she comes out, and, as Balzac remarks, "makes them a famous discourse." Act II. sounds a little dull, though no doubt it is highly instructive, as a great part of it is taken up with a monologue by the King detailing the events of his past reign. Later on Charles, instead of keeping Cromwell's son who has fallen into his hands, as a hostage ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... so being ludicrous. It does not appear to possess sufficient sense to find its way out in the easiest manner, for Mr Keeper has to assist it with a long iron pole with a hook at the end, by means of which he pushes the bird along to the foot of the platform. The feeding of the birds is a very instructive performance. Unless some such occasion were afforded us of seeing these essentially aquatic birds in the water, one could not have the slightest idea of the power and grace of ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Thus copiously instructive is the English language; and thus needless is all recourse to foreign writers. Let us not, therefore, make our neighbours proud by soliciting help which we do not want, nor discourage our own industry by difficulties ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... but the origin and development of arts and industries is in itself a vast and profoundly interesting theme of study, and when North American archaeology is pursued with this end in view, the results will be instructive. ...
— On Limitations To The Use Of Some Anthropologic Data - (1881 N 01 / 1879-1880 (pages 73-86)) • J. W. Powell
... them, though attached firmly as my mother to the existing institutions, are yet, like her, possessed of the common sentiments of humanity, and would venture much or all to divert the merest shadow of harm from my head. Among these, I still pass some of my pleasantest and most instructive hours—for with them the various questions involved in the whole subject of religion, are discussed with the most perfect freedom and mutual confidence. Varus, the prefect, whom I met among others, greeted me with unchanged courtesy. ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... domestic architecture of Colonial times, Philadelphia is so rich in its fine old public buildings that a readable and instructive book could be made about them alone. Intended for religious, political and commercial purposes, erected from one to two centuries ago and ranging from the frugal simplicity of the Mennonite Meeting House in Germantown ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... almost threescore years? to this may be added, that he has so contrived to blend the utile dulci, by embellishing his precepts with all the delicacy of polite expression, as to render them at the same time not less entertaining than instructive. ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... scarcely one of them whose face did not show marks of sensuality, or whose language was not marred by obscenity, profanity, or vulgar slang. The subjects of conversation were varied enough, though politics was the most prominent. In regard to politics I heard nothing in the least instructive; but only abuse of individuals and dogmatism on public measures. They were all exceedingly confident in assertion; but I listened in vain for exposition, or even for demonstrative facts. He who asseverated in the most positive manner, and swore the hardest, carried the day ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... who love life in the open air and a good steed, will want to peruse these books. Captain Carson knows his subject thoroughly, and his stories are as pleasing as they are healthful and instructive. ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... the boisterous aspirations of the young, gifted artist. His great material success during the first years furnishes a proof of this supposition. Then more and more came the alienation, and it is most instructive to compare the different results at which the artist and the intelligent population arrived: the artist, guided by the strength of his immense personality and talent, remained himself, but his fellow-citizens gradually changed their taste and predilections ...
— Rembrandt's Amsterdam • Frits Lugt
... may be pardoned the bull—that I found her so. For Jack, all his life, had been surrounded by interesting women: they had fostered his art, it had been reared in the hot-house of their adulation. And it was therefore instructive to note what effect the "deadening atmosphere of mediocrity" (I quote Miss Croft) was having ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... in bold Roman, the copious notes by the editor in elegant Italics follow each book. Very instructive notes, fine margins, splendid printing. Altogether preferable to Torinus. Our copy is bound in the original vellum. Inscribed in old hand by Johannes Baptista Bassus on ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... interesting and instructive article with a rather more difficult illusion. For the tricks I have already explained it was sufficient that the amateur prestidigitator (I shall only say this once more) should know how it was done; for my last trick he will also require a certain aptitude for legerdemain in order ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... long as possible on this instructive planet and have not yet forgotten many of the valuable hints of inventions that can be reproduced in my own world. Surely we are far enough away from Ploid to escape any charge of infringement, should we proceed to ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... was instructive to these sturdy, active white boys to come in contact with young Indians in their sports and hunting, and to observe the points in which each excelled and to study ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... source of information about the Mysteries in his time. He himself speaks of these writings as a "miscellany of Gnostic notes, according to the true philosophy,"[103] and also describes them as memoranda of the teachings he had himself received from Pantaenus. The passage is instructive: "The Lord ... allowed us to communicate of those divine Mysteries, and of that holy light, to those who are able to receive them. He did not certainly disclose to the many what did not belong to the many; but to the few to whom He knew that they belonged, who were capable ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... who had been her "chums" had wandered like shades through the groves of her affection: rough, teasing Bertha; pretty, lazy Inez; perky Tilly, slangily frank Maria and Kate, Mary and her moral influence, clever, instructive Cupid: to none of them had she been drawn by any deeper sense of affinity. And though she had come to believe, in the course of the last, more peaceful year, that she had grown used to being what you would call an unpopular girl—one, that is, with whom no one ever shared a confidence—yet ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... go to Paris to perfect her music studies. Certain wealthy members of Dr. Bellow's church provided her with the financial means, which she accepted as a loan, to be paid in due season. In chapter four of the memoirs we are regaled with an instructive record of Emma's voyage across the Atlantic, her admiration of the magnitude of the ocean, her consciousness of man's utter helplessness should storms arise and drive the ship upon hidden rocks, etc., etc. In the next chapter she laments the exceeding depravity of Paris, and expresses wonderment ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... silence ensued. Huckaback was deep in the ghastly but instructive details of a trial for murder; and Titmouse, after having glanced listlessly over the entertaining first sheet of advertisements, was on the point of laying down his half of the paper, when he suddenly started in his chair, turned ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... the committee are under obligations to the representatives of the women of the United States for their attendance this morning, and for the able and instructive addresses which have been made, and that the committee assure them that they will give to the subject of woman suffrage the careful and impartial consideration which its grave ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... is a most instructive pattern of unwearied industry and affection: for from morning to night, while there is a family to be supported, she spends the whole day in skimming close to the ground, and exerting the most sudden turns and quick evolutions. Avenues, and long walks ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... inhabitants there, (which the Bishop, satisfactorily to himself, settles,) to have commerce with them!" From the first of these, Swift has derived many hints in his voyage to Laputa, and improved them into those humorous and instructive allusions, which have caused the reputation of the author of the "Travels of Gulliver" to be extended to every portion of the civilized globe. Since the appearance of this celebrated satire, no one sufficiently comprehensive to lash the follies of the age—the quicquid agunt homines—has ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... your embleme trite and conspicuous, your invention of Character and Alphabeticall key tedious and not delightfull, your motto or rebus too open and demonstrative: but the science and curiosity of your Colours in Ribbands is not only instructive but an ornament and the nearest Comentator of Love; for as Love is entertain'd first by the eye, or, to speake more plaine, as the object affected is tooke in first by these opticks which receive ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... bubbling spring of Punaluu, whose flow he stops, and the blowhole called Kapuhiokalaekini, which he chokes with cross-sticks of kauila wood. The double character of this magician, whom one native paints as a benevolent god, another, not 10 miles distant, as a boaster and mischief-maker, is an instructive example of the effect of local coloring upon the interpretation of folklore. Daggett describes this hero. He seems to be identical ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... from Bloch nothing more instructive than "Sir, I am absolutely incapable of telling you whether it has rained. I live so resolutely apart from physical contingencies that my senses no longer trouble to inform me ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... their fulness the powers that were in him. He who was to be conqueror of Maine and conqueror of England was first to be conqueror of his own duchy. The revolt of a large part of the country, contrasted with the firm loyalty of another part, throws a most instructive light on the internal state of the duchy. There was, as there still is, a line of severance between the districts which formed the first grant to Rolf and those which were afterwards added. In these last a lingering remnant of old Teutonic ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... people were alike, nearly all of the English race, though from all parts of the Union. The latest French bonnets were at the head of the chief pews, and business men at the foot. The music was without character, but there was an instructive sermon, and the church ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... that he has not a right idea of the simplicity of life and equipment that evidently characterized the jailer's house and the prison. The details which he blames as inexact and inconsistent are sometimes most instructive about the circumstances of this provincial ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... more inspiring and impressive than these great facts which our church festivals commemorate? If the solemn warnings of the Advent season, the glad tidings of the Christmas season, the touching and searching lessons of the Lenten season, the holy, inspiring joyousness of the Easter season, or the instructive admonitions of the Pentecostal season, will not attract and move and edify the hearts ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... her purpose, and leaves her work imperfect in this particular, the historian would indulge himself in the license of poetry and romance, and even do a violence to truth, to oblige his reader with a page which must be the most delightful in all his history, and which could never fail of producing an instructive moral. ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... connected the old man thus suddenly converted to religion with these three heads of families or their wives. This cross-breeding of families in the remote provinces might be made the subject of many instructive reflections. ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... in Mexico. The oblong bubbles observed in the obsidians of every continent are incontestible proofs of their ancient state of igneous fluidity; and Dr. Thompson possesses specimens from Lipari, which are very instructive in this point of view, because fragments of red porphyry, or porphyry lavas, which do not entirely fill up the cavities of the obsidian, are found enveloped in them. We might say, that these fragments ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... to watch the show. He found many new points of interest and much that was instructive, as he studied each act attentively and with the keenness of one who had been in the show business all ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... the ancien regime, and the ancien regime is the concealed defect of the modern State. The struggle against the German political present is the struggle against the past of modern nations, which are still vexed by the recollections of this past. For them it is instructive to see the ancien regime, which enacted its tragedy with them, playing its comedy as the German revenant. Its history was tragic so long as it was the pre-existing power of the world, and freedom, on the other hand, a personal ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... on pack-horses, and the company started again.[9] Most fortunately a full account of their journey has been kept; for among Henderson's followers at this time was a man named William Calk, who jotted down in his diary the events of each day.[10] It is a short record, but as amusing as it is instructive; for the writer's mind was evidently as vigorous as his language was terse and untrammelled. He was with a small party, who were going out as partners; and his journal is a faithful record of all things, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... my expositions were worthy of further development; he drew attention to their usefulness in various connexions, and he laid stress upon what might still cause difficulty. I could not but reply in a suitable way to expressions so civil and to reflexions so instructive as his. In order to turn them to greater account, I published some elucidations in the Histoire des Ouvrages des Savants, July 1698. M. Bayle replied to them in the second edition of his Dictionary. I sent[64] him a rejoinder which has not yet been published; I know not whether ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... the end of the last chapter, our absorbing chronicle might with every propriety have been then and there concluded; but we can't part from our gracious and most indulgent reader before giving him a few more details which may be instructive perhaps, if ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... ample Index (why have authors forgotten, what was once so well known, that an index is all that saves the contents of a book from being mere birds in the bush?) makes the volume as useful on the shelf as it is interesting and instructive in the hand. Of the catholic spirit in which Mr. Mueller treats his various topics of discussion and illustration, his own theory of the true method of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... their cytoplasm increases, their growth being accompanied by a correspondingly direct multiplication of the nuclei. They serve chiefly to nourish the plant, but, unlike the other cells, they are incapable of producing any offspring. This is a very instructive case, because it clearly shows that the nuclei are not only carriers of hereditary characters, but that they also play a definite part in the metabolism ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... discovery of truth; it is difficult to preserve from the beginning to the end a connected relation unbroken by irrelevant matter; and it is difficult to render the narration no less elegant in the diction, than instructive in its matter, for in prosecuting the series of events, the choice of happy expressions is equally perplexing, as the search after them painful. Whatever is written requires the most intense thought, and ...
— The Description of Wales • Geraldus Cambrensis
... promontories, express. But get a river-side seat, and keep your patience up the lumbered length of Tenth Avenue, and restrain your impatience as the train goes at half-stroke along that first bit of road where people are fond of getting on the track; watch the other shore, meantime, or the instructive market gardens on this; then feel the quickened speed, as the engine gets her "head;" then use your eyes. Open your windows boldly; people don't get cold from our North river air; never mind the sun; hold up a veil or a fan; only look. See how the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... of the war had passed before Gordon set foot in the Crimea, but for an engineer officer the siege and capture of the fortress created by Todleben under the fire of his foes presented the most attractive and instructive ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Mr. Larkyns, "that Miss Mary was giving one of those delightful object-lessons, wherein she blends so much instructive-" ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... AND LANGUAGE. Entertaining and Instructive Lessons in Natural History and Language for Primary and Grammar Schools. ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... he warmed it back to life the reptile turned and fatally bit his benefactor. Worry is as a dangerous, injurious book, the reading of which not only takes up the time that might have been spent in reading a good, instructive, and helpful book, but, at the same time, poisons the mind of the reader, corrupts his soul with evil images, and sets his feet on the pathway ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... fortunate that revelation in my case preceded marriage. I can now look back upon the episode with equanimity and thankfulness for my near escape from the consequences of what was no more than an aberration of the senses. It is a thing commonly confused with love. The experience, as you see, was very instructive." ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... marked by a great revival which lasted two weeks and resulted in the conversion of 130 persons. His next charge was Trinity Church, St. Augustine, where he served five years with success. He is now pastor of Trinity M. E. Church, Fernandina. As a preacher he is deliberate, convincing, persuasive and instructive. His sermons are well constructed, choicely worded, rhetorically polished, full of thought and eloquently delivered. He was honored with the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Wiley University of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Marshall, ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... your office in plenty of time. We'll watch Lola get started. It will be highly instructive for you to watch a really ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... J.G. Haecker, a well-informed and prosperous German who took the journey by steerage in a sailing vessel in 1849, wrote an instructive description of his experiences. Of his fellow passengers he said: "Our company was very mixed. There were many young people: clerks, artists, musicians, architects, miners, mechanics, men of various professions, peasants, one man seventy-eight years old, another very aged ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... There are friends still alive who remember him well, and on whom he made a deep impression. He was a great reader from his youth upward, especially of religious works. His reading and his religion refined his character, and made him a most pleasant and instructive companion. His conversational powers were remarkable, and he could pour out in a most interesting way the stores of ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... to the mere election of managers, the other party demanded a scrutiny of the votes, and instructive figures came out. There voted with us twenty-eight ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... make up their minds to write as they think; they resent the idea of their work looking too simple. It would always be of some value, however. If they would only go honestly to work and in a simple way express the few and ordinary ideas they have really thought, they would be readable and even instructive in their own sphere. But instead of that they try to appear to have thought much more deeply than is the case. The result is, they put what they have to say into forced and involved language, create new words and prolix periods which go round the thought and cover it up. They hesitate ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... divine ecstasy did not attempt the grand feelings of humanity, the love which is faithful to death, the emotions such as Shakespeare describes. While this wish exists, and there are artists who can carry it out, art is not dead. After a very instructive chapter on the modern history of the Papal States, we again find Mary among the scenes dearest to her heart and her nature: her next letter is dated from Sorrento. She feels herself to be in Paradise; and ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... suggestions. He does not mince matters at all, but puts every thing in a straightforward and, not seldom, homely way, perspicuous to the dullest understanding. His style is lively and readable, and the book is very entertaining as well as instructive. —Register, Salem, Mass. ...
— Publisher's Advertising (1872) • Anonymous
... two patent theatres on which my friend has so kindly dilated, I wish to say but little. The preamble of their patents recites as a condition of their grant, that the theatres shall be instituted for the promotion of virtue and to be instructive to the human race. I think those are the words. I can only say that it was my ambition to the best of my ability to obey that injunction ["Hear! Hear!"] and believing in the principle that property has its duties as well as its rights, I conceived that the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... British provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and was followed by the collection obtained by the Hon. Horatio Hale. His statement of the time and manner of its being procured by him is not only interesting but highly instructive: ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... eyes would open, the drooping heads would be raised, the vacant faces would brighten, and the little cramped legs would be stretched out with a sigh of relief. And then the Dominie would read them something that was not only instructive, but very entertaining. Sometimes, instead of reading to them, he would set them to declaiming or reciting poetry, or they would choose sides and have a spelling match. They would get so interested that they would forget all about the ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... responsibility—could not be assured, and whose action, therefore, was defective in real weight and value. The juries were badly constituted: they had too much to do of an illusory and useless description, and they had too little to do that was solid and instructive. Special mentions, diplomas, half a dozen grades of medals and other honors, formed a programme too large and complicated to be discriminatingly carried out. So it happened that to exhibit and to get a distinction of some kind came, at Vienna, to be almost convertible ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... as well have something instructive," I replied, "and as for Biddy—nothing's too good ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... than point out how the context of the words that I have ventured to detach from their surroundings is instructive: 'Let all those that put their trust in Thee rejoice because Thou defendest them.' The word for defending there continues the metaphor that lies in the word for 'trust,' for it means literally to cover ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... is making rapid headway. It is entering very largely into the instructive and the entertaining departments of the world's curriculum. Millions of dollars are annually expended in the production of films. Companies of trained and practiced actors are brought together to enact pantomimes which will concentrate within the space of a few minutes the most entertaining ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... having been written by our excellent prelate. I was even pleased with the apprehended ingenuity of my discoveries. But the whole was a mistake, which, whilst it will be a warning to myself, may furnish an instructive lesson to others. At the same time, I do not retract the character which I have given of the Adventures of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca. Whoever was the author of that performance, it does credit to his abilities and to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... Acts of the Apostles we have mention of two governors of senatorial provinces—in other words, two "proconsuls"—Gallio in Achaia (or Greece), and Sergius Paulus in Cyprus. It is instructive to compare the lenient and common sense attitude of these trained Roman aristocrats with that of the turbulent local mobs who dealt with St. Paul in Asia Minor, Judaea, or Greece. Of the minor governors of smaller provinces—styled "agents" or "factors" ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... Leicester. He says: 'Notwithstanding Rathlin, Essex was one of the noblest of living Englishmen, and that such a man could have ordered such a deed, being totally unconscious of the horror of it, is not the least instructive feature in the dreadful story.' It is certainly a strange fact that nearly all the official murderers who ruled in Ireland in those times were intensely religious, setting to their own class a most edifying example of piety. Thus, from the first, Protestantism ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... convenient summary for an English reader. H. Winckler's History of Babylonia and Assyria (translated from the German by J. A. Craig, 1907) is more brilliant and suggestive, but needs to be used with more caution. A. T. Olmstead's Western Asia in the Days of Sargon of Assyria (1908) is an instructive study of the Assyrian ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... sing and give praise with the best member that I have,' I added 'But the old Greek was an "all-round" man; he sought to praise and give thanks with all his members, and to tune each to perfection.' Now a great many instructive lectures might be written on that text: nevertheless you may think it a strange one, and obscure, for the discourse on 'English Literature in our Universities' which, according to promise, I ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... and lucidity, in the following pages the eminent British astronomer furnishes important particulars concerning the life of Copernicus; and he gives an account, no less interesting than instructive, of the evolution of the Copernican astronomy in its ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... attempt of so many of our forefathers to solder the crown of Charles Stuart to the crown of Jesus Christ. How those two so fatal, and not even yet wholly remedied, mistakes, brought Argyll to the block and Guthrie to the ladder in one day in Edinburgh, we read in the instructive and inspiriting histories of that terrible time; and we have no better book on that time for the mass of readers than just honest John Howie's Scots Worthies. There is a passage in our Scottish martyr's ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... in the ruts of custom and conventionality, as if bound to do so because such was prescribed by custom and conventionality. His sentiments he never concealed, and his actions harmonised, almost without exception, strictly with his sentiments; for one of his most striking and instructive characteristics was the remarkable fearlessness which he displayed no less in his actual conduct than in his habits of thought. Affectation was far from him; thorough genuineness was stamped upon all he did, showing unmistakably that it came direct ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... confusion by one steady, consistent color, which tinged and killed by its brilliancy the hundred other rainbow fragments. Such was life for him—such at least it had become—a gay chaos in which the one important thing was himself; a game, partly instructive, partly amusing, with no rules save that the player is expected to win. Of course, as in all matters, a certain order, or appearance of order, had to be maintained; but Travers believed, and thought every one else believed, that it was a mere "appearance," and that, as in the childish game of "cheating," ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... dispersed of Israel and Judea at any period of their history, we believe a tolerably well-informed school-girl already knows much more of it than she will find in this "Tale of the Jewish Dispersion." "Adonijah" is simply the feeblest kind of love story, supposed to be instructive, we presume, because the hero is a Jewish captive and the heroine a Roman vestal; because they and their friends are converted to Christianity after the shortest and easiest method approved by the "Society for Promoting the Conversion of the Jews;" and because, instead of ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... and for distant time,—and which inevitably lose much of their truth and freedom by the fatal consciousness of so doing,—there were traditions about the ancestor, and private diurnal gossip about the Judge, remarkably accordant in their testimony. It is often instructive to take the woman's, the private and domestic, view of a public man; nor can anything be more curious than the vast discrepancy between portraits intended for engraving and the pencil-sketches that pass from hand to hand behind ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... children may have swallowed in the way of sham-adventurous stories and wildly fictitious tales. 'The Jolly Rover' runs away from home, and meets life as it is, till he is glad enough to seek again his father's house. Mr. TROWBRIDGE has the power of making an instructive story absorbing in its interest, and of covering a moral so that it ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... change, from the moment when Mirabel decided that his time had come to take the lead. A remark made by Alban offered him the chance for which he had been on the watch. He agreed with the remark; he enlarged on the remark; he was brilliant and familiar, and instructive and amusing—and still it was all due to the remark. Alban's temper was once more severely tried. Mirabel's mischievous object had not escaped his penetration. He did his best to put obstacles in the adversary's way—and ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... Emilia thought. It made her look on herself with a foreign eye. This is a dreadful but instructive piece of contemplation; acting as if the rich warm blood of self should have ceased to hug about us, and we stand forth to be dissected unresistingly. All Emilia's vital strength now seemed to vanish. At the renewal of Mr. Pericles' peremptory mandate for her to sing, she could neither ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and pride it was to drive me from place to place, and indicate to me the important buildings of his majestic city. He was a patriotic showman, and I am bound to say he showed us a great deal; but the most memorable moment of that instructive day was when he stopped before, what seemed to us, a respectable mansion in a respectable street, and announced to us that "you" was "the Free Kirk Univairsity." It was the first time in my life that I had heard four stone walls with a roof over them called a ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... lessons of a severe and instructive experience to persuade the American people that their greatness, their prosperity, their happiness, and even their safety, imperiously demanded the substitution of a government for ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... summer long is the swallow a most instructive pattern of unwearied industry and affection; for, from morning to night, while there is a family to be supported, she spends the whole day in skimming close to the ground, and exerting the most sudden turns and quick ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... successful. In each book a business-like description is given of the fabric of the church to which the volume relates, and an interesting history of the relative diocese. The books are plentifully illustrated, and are thus made attractive as well as instructive. They cannot but prove welcome to all classes of readers interested either in English Church history or in ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... as a made man. Most of the receipts went to my father; whatever he returned to me I spent at a neighbouring book-stall, and in the course of twelve months I possessed a library of most amusing and instructive literature,—Heaven knows! of a most miscellaneous character, for I had no one to guide ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... twenty four States in the Union, and gotten up for a purpose which is of no pecuniary benefit to those concerned in it, effectually silences all slanders about "we won't or we can't do," and teaches its own instructive and greatly needed lessons of self-help,—the best help that any man can ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... could be more interesting and instructive, than to trace how, as tribes and nations have progressed in civilization, government has advanced in its development. How, as men have progressed, first from the condition of savage hunters to the roving feeders of flocks, then to tillers of ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby
... myself, and made a pianoforte arrangement for two hands; but I was so much astonished at the utterly confused and bewildering effect of the Gewandhaus performance that I lost courage, and gave up the study of Beethoven for some time. Later, I found it instructive to note how I came to take true delight in performances of Mozart's instrumental works: it was when I had a chance to conduct them myself, and when I could indulge my feelings as to the expressive rendering of ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... will we travel forth, and in our journey make survey of all that's interesting and instructive. Man's but the creature of a little hour, the phantom of a transitory life; prone to every ill, subject to every woe; and oft the more eccentric in his sphere, as rare abilities may gild his brow, setting form, law, and order at defiance. His ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... by side. It was a delicious day, and the dew still glistened on the grass and leaves. Sylvia thought it would be very pleasant, and also instructive, ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... derived from theirs; sometimes his faculties are blends of ancestral qualities; but more frequently they are mosaics, patches of resemblance to one or other of them showing now here and now there. The life-histories of our relatives are prophetic of our own futures; they are far more instructive to us than those of strangers, far more fitted to encourage and to forewarn us. If there be such a thing as a natural birthright, I can conceive of none superior to the right of the child to be informed, ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... Halleck's headquarters was exceedingly agreeable, and my personal intercourse with officers on duty there was not only pleasant and instructive, but offered opportunities for improvement and advancement for which hardly any other post could have afforded like chances. My special duties did not occupy all my time, and whenever possible I used to go over to General Sherman's division, which held the extreme right ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... much about our winter evenings at home. After a game of draughts my sisters read aloud Dom Gueranger's Liturgical Year, and then a few pages of some other interesting and instructive book. While this was going on I established myself on Papa's knee, and when the reading was done he used to sing soothing snatches of melody in his beautiful voice, as if to lull me to sleep, and I would ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... of by the togati; but is certainly little calculated to impress the youthful mind with any serious respect for these relics of monkish custom, which, after all, must be considered more in the light of a punishment for those who are compelled to attend than any necessary or instructive service connected with the true interests of orthodoxy. In a quarter of an hour the whole group had dispersed to their respective rooms, and within the five minutes next ensuing, I should suppose, the greater part were again comfortably deposited beneath ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... disengaging his feet from the stirrups and directing his movements in such a way that the animal did not fall upon him. But poor Turpentine, what of him? He tumbled clean over his head upon his back, and I want to confess in all candor that one of the most instructive and interesting "animal pictures" I have ever seen, including those done by Landseer, Rosa Bonheur, and Ernest Thompson Seton, was that little iron-gray, long-eared donkey lying on his back on the street and clawing the ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... nearest, perhaps, to the characteristic Greek type. Of that type, it is true, it was an exaggeration, and was recognised as such by the best thinkers of Greece; but just for that reason it is the more interesting and instructive as an exhibition of a distinctive aspect of ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... dealing with one of the burning questions of the day in a manner alike entertaining and instructive. Mr. Thorne has taken considerable pains to explain the real meaning of Socialism as understood and taught by leaders of what may be styled the higher Social movement. We congratulate the author on having produced a first-class novel ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... of my esteemed friend and partner, the Hon. Seth Sprague, I had the privilege, with him and the Rev. Dr. Kirk, of dining with Mr. Webster the next day. It afforded an opportunity to listen to his entertaining and instructive anecdotes, of which I will relate one only. He said: "On a certain occasion, when President Kirkland, of Harvard University, was called upon by one of his familiar friends, a clergyman, he inquired as to the state of affairs in his parish; to which ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... managed, at some time or other, to fail in every one of them; if, before we approach an appreciation of Shakespeare, we have applied to other great creators the same analysis which we are about to apply to him; if we have learned from the most instructive examples what is meant by creation, by imagination, by insight, by wisdom, by wit, by humour, by eloquence, and by verbal music; then we cannot fail to acknowledge that here is the all-round, the all-comprehensive ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... canyon, and how marvelously the great rocks kindle to her light! Every dome, and brow, and swelling boss touched by her white rays, glows as if lighted with snow. I am now only a mile from last night's camp; and have been climbing and sketching all day in this difficult but instructive gorge. It is formed in the bottom of the main canyon, among the roots of Cloud's Rest. It begins at the filled-up lake basin where I camped last night, and ends a few hundred yards above, in another basin of ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... specified below for each publication. All of these books and pamphlets are fresh from the press, many of them handsomely illustrated, and accurate as regards the region of country described. They will be found entertaining and instructive, and invaluable as guides to and authority on the fertile tracts and landscape wonders of the great empire of the West. There is information for the tourist, pleasure and health seeker, the investor, the settler, the sportsman, the artist, and ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... part of the elliptic path within which the comet is both near enough and bright enough to be seen from the earth, is indistinguishable from a parabola. Applying these principles, Halley thought it would be instructive to study the movements of certain bright comets, concerning which reliable observations could be obtained. At the expense of much labour, he laid down the paths pursued by twenty-four of these bodies, which had appeared between the years 1337 and 1698. Amongst them he noticed ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... insistent in your hospitality. It is always instructive, and sometimes pleasant, to extend our knowledge of our friends, and now let me say that a more blackguardly lot of thieves I have never met, and if this gentleman who has dropped in so opportunely will kindly stand at my back for a few minutes, I shall be delighted to make ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... believe concerning the unknowable." Why, this was the very thing he ought to have considered, before pronouncing the position to be untenable, or to be irreconcilable with something else. Meanwhile, it is instructive to observe that Mr. Mill himself believes, or requires his readers to believe, something concerning the unknown. He does not know, or at any rate he does not tell his readers, what Hamilton requires them to believe concerning the unknowable; but he himself believes, and ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... the career of Humanity was the sole object of God's creative forethought and fostering care? When we bear this in mind, we see how natural and inevitable it was that the Church should persecute such men as Galileo and Bruno. At the same time it is instructive to observe that, while the Copernican astronomy has become firmly established in spite of priestly opposition, the foundations of Christian theology have not been shaken thereby. It is not that the question which once so sorely puzzled men has ever been settled, but that ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske
... of all science.) No science can flourish, while it is received on authority. Science comes to us by external transmission, but is not believed because of that transmission. The history of the transmission is generally instructive, but is no proper part of the science itself. All this is ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... 'Gentleman's and Gardener's Kalendar,' (which was the fourth part of the preceding book) both at home, and in translations abroad. His 'Philosophical Account of the Works of Nature,' 4to. 1721, was a popular, instructive, and entertaining work, and continued in repute several years. The same may be said of his 'General Treatise of Husbandry and Gardening,' 8vo. 2 vols. 1726; and of his 'Practical Discourses concerning the Four Elements, as they relate to the Growth ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... John Yeardley attended for the first time the Yearly Meeting in London. He describes the business as very various and instructive, but bewails his own condition as that of "one starving in the ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... decorative pictorial composition the wood blocks have great possibilities as an adjunct to the courses of work followed by art students. The same problems that arise in all decoration may be dealt with by their means on a small scale, but under conditions that are essentially instructive. Colour schemes may be studied and worked out with entire freedom by printing and reprinting until a problem is thoroughly solved. A colour design may be studied and worked out as fully by means of a small set of blocks, and with more freedom ...
— Wood-Block Printing - A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting and Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice • F. Morley Fletcher
... self-instruction, but when he talked naturally he was always worth listening to. Never having had any schooling to speak of, he had, almost from the time he first ran away, tried to make good his loss. As a sheep-herder he had worried an old grammar to tatters, and read instructive books with the help of a pocket dictionary. By the light of many camp-fires he had pondered upon Prescott's histories, and the works of Washington Irving, which he bought at a high price from a book-agent. Mathematics and physics were easy ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... composed exclusively of falsehoods; the author must localise his facts, and needs to surround them with a framework of truth. The facts which form this framework had no interest for him; at that time every one knew them. But for us they are instructive, and we can depend on them, for the author had ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... are of a superior quality, and he cuts them to the finest point: but he says they will only serve to work with on vellum, or on fine skin. He is an eccentric genius, deeply read in Scripture history, which he expounds in the most methodistical tone; but it is very delightful and instructive to listen to his observations on the beauties and merits of these masterpieces of Raphael. A Madame Bouiller, an interesting French emigrant is also occupied on the same subjects. She is patronized by West, who has given her permission to study here; and says that he never saw such masterly artist ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... rich, high or low, learned or unlearned, who have a true public spirit, and take care of the public weal. As soon as he was free from the trammels of poverty he fell into the habit of taking extensive journeys into foreign countries, a thing most instructive and enlarging to a genuine nobleman. His first public act was the publication of a pamphlet called, "England, Ireland and America," in which he maintained that American institutions and the general policy of the American government were sound, and could ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... was in 1761, and the argument inspired him with zeal for the cause of the American colonies. Years afterwards, when an old man, Adams undertook to write out at length his recollections of this scene; it is instructive to compare the two accounts. John Adams had none of the qualities of popular leadership which were so marked a characteristic of his second cousin, Samuel Adams; it was rather as a constitutional lawyer that he influenced the course of events. He was impetuous, intense and often vehement, unflinchingly ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of the GUIDE for 1889 are the complete record of the pitching in the League and American championship contests; the instructive chapters on "the lessons of the campaign," then on "team work;" the analyses of the play in the world's championship series of contests; the new tables showing the figures of the campaigns of the past eighteen years, and especially the explanatory appendix or chapter of official ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... which prevails (as in memory of Mr. Hayes) on smuggling, ship-scuttling, barratry, piracy, the labour trade, and other kindred fields of human activity, he will find Polynesia no less amusing and no less instructive than Pall ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... instructive chapter on Hasisadra's flood in Suess, Das Antlitz der Erde, Abth. I. Only fifteen years ago a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal gave rise to a flood which covered 3000 square miles of the delta of the Ganges, 3 to 45 ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... an hereditary king; the most memorable and salutary improvements in the laws, the most abandoned administration of them; in fine, whatever can happen to a nation, whether of glorious of calamitous, makes a part of this astonishing and instructive picture. ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... other men of note in England, France, and Italy. He made journeys, to Holland, to Cambridge, to ancestral places and the homes of surviving relatives; but mostly, one may imagine, he gave himself to a steady flow of that "agreeable and instructive conversation" of which he was so much the master and the devotee. He was more famous than he knew, and the reception that everywhere awaited him was flattering, and as agreeable to his unwarped and emancipated mind as it was flattering. ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... His charts are much praised. The charts of the coasts and harbors of the United States, made under the direction of Dr. Bache and published at government expense, are admirable. The reports of Captain Fremont concerning his travels are also most interesting and instructive; to botanists especially so, on account of the scientific ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... comes and goes, thrown out sharply against the clear background of the sea. And yet his isolation is not to be compared with the isolation of Robinson Crusoe, for example; indeed, no two books could be more instructive to set side by side than LES TRAVAILLEURS and this other of the old days before art had learnt to occupy itself with what lies outside of human will. Crusoe was one sole centre of interest in the midst of a nature utterly dead and utterly unrealised by the artist; but this is not how ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... author's mind, the culmination of the religion of personal will, and he devotes many glowing and instructive pages to bringing out the meaning and heart of the religion of Islam, especially in its later and in its more spiritual developments. The final object of the volume is to show the relation of the religion of ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various |
