"Intelligible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mr. Wood's present position, and subsequent proceedings fully intelligible, it may be necessary to give some notion of the shape and structure of the platform on which he had taken refuge. It has been said, that the pier of each arch, or lock of Old London Bridge, was defended from the force of the tide by a huge projecting spur called a starling. These starlings ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... must be acknowledged that, though his view was commonplace, it was also common sense; that he looked at the matter as a great many people look at it; and that his ideas were at any rate sufficiently intelligible. But George Bertram's view was different, and much less easy of explanation. He had an idea that in choosing a profession he should consider, not so much how he should get the means of spending ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... are dead allusions to persons and tales which are left dark, e. g. vol. i. pp. 43, 57, 61, etc. The digressions are abrupt and useless, leading nowhere, while sundry pages are wearisome for excess of prolixity or hardly intelligible for extreme conciseness. The perpetual recurrence of mean colloquialisms and of words and idioms peculiar to Egypt and Syria[FN306] also takes from the pleasure of the perusal. Yet we cannot deny that it has its use: ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... I stood once more looking idly down over the balustrade, going over in my mind the parts of the puzzle which had been set for me to bring together into an intelligible and perfectly rounded whole, and wondering what I would succeed in making of it all. For a while I was aware of a strange lack of confidence in myself, of a feeling of uncertainty. Had I been negligent in not arresting both Maillot and Burke? It seemed the simplest ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... graver misapprehensions I had it in my mind to warn the reader against; but on the whole, as I have honestly tried to make the book intelligible, I believe it will be found intelligible by any one who thinks it worth a careful reading; and every day convinces me more and more that no warnings can preserve from misunderstanding those who have no desire ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... generally. Of the long period that divides the death of Sakya-muni from the introduction of Buddhism into Japan about 550 A.D., it is no part of our purpose to treat in detail. But enough must be said to connect in some intelligible way these ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... Houdas explains this miswritten passage, Quand le soleil fut leve et qu'il penetra par ces ouvertures (lis. abkhash, trou de flute), il repandit le sable dans ces cylindres formes par la lumiere du soleil. It is not very intelligible. I understand that the Sage went behind the Palace and drove through a mound or heap of earth a narrow hole bearing east -west, which he partially filled up with sand; and so when the sun rose the beams fell upon it and made it resemble a newly made cord of white flax. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... have given are all of them confined to signals seen or signals heard. But the dot-and-line alphabet, in the few years of its history, has already shown that it is not restricted to these two senses, but makes itself intelligible to all. Its message, of course, is heard as well as read. Any good operator understands the sounds of its ticks upon the flowing strip of paper, as well as when he sees it. As he lies in his cot at midnight, he will expound the passing message without striking a light to see it. But ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... series, as part of a frieze for his Temple of Peace. This is most clear—for he who runs may read; yet, on a second view, we doubt that—for we see, what we did not at first see, writing under each tablet that is by no means intelligible. Having, with Mr Bell, seen an end of the battle, it is fit time, with Mr Herbert, to discuss "The Day after the Battle." "Next day did many widows come"— that verse of Chevy Chase is the subject. The slaughtered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... the gen'lm'n means to go up afore the court, it's hardly worth while waiting for detainers, you know. Our governor's wide awake, he is. I'll never say nothin' agin him, nor no man; but he knows what's o'clock, he does, uncommon.' Having delivered this eloquent, and, to Parsons, particularly intelligible harangue, the meaning of which was eked out by divers nods and winks, the gentleman in the boots reseated himself in the cab, which went rapidly off, and was soon out of sight. Mr. Gabriel Parsons continued to pace up and down the pathway for some minutes, apparently absorbed ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... superstitious fear of an angry woman, and, recoiling as she swept by, lost his unsteady foothold, and rolled helplessly on the sofa. Here, after one or two unsuccessful attempts to regain his foothold, he remained, uttering from time to time profane but not entirely coherent or intelligible protests, until at last he succumbed to the exhausting quality of his emotions, and the narcotic quantity ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... and Mind says, when speaking of Bergson's doctrine of Evolution: "Its recognition of the continuity of all Life is the great merit of Professor Bergson's theory of Creative Evolution; its failure to give any intelligible account of individuality is its greatest defect. I venture to think," he continues, "that the most urgent problem confronting the philosophic biologist is the construction of a theory of life which will harmonize the facts of individuality with the appearance of the continuity of ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... word, Julian Estcourt lived over again through the wild dread and horror of his Dream. Scene for scene, word for word, those wondering startled listeners saw it reproduced, though to them it was scarce intelligible. ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... various matters which a paper would like to have, and finally I gave him a veiled but still intelligible story, which we both knew the papers were anxious to get. He told me afterwards that he sold the interview for enough to meet his present needs and his wife's journey. Some time after he entered Wall Street and made ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... "I will make myself intelligible to you," said he, in a milder tone. "You must understand, that I know you, Corilla. That assassin who followed the Princess Tartaroff at the festival of Cardinal Bernis, was employed by you, Signora ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... regarded in a fourfold light, having reference to the spiritual, rational, psychic and physical planes of existence. It is by means of symbols that the spiritual intelligences signal themselves to our minds, and the most exalted vision is, as an expression of intelligence, only intelligible by reason of its symbolism. Something more may be said in regard to the interpretation of symbols which may possibly be of use to those who have made no special study of the subject, and this may conveniently form the material ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... would be, "The artisan of all kinds who handles the chisel is more motionless than he who handles the hoe." Both here, and in several other passages of this little satiric poem, I have been obliged to paraphrase the text in order to render it intelligible to the modern reader. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... alone, preferably with our Bible outspread before us. Then if we will we may draw near to God and begin to hear Him speak to us in our hearts. I think for the average person the progression will be something like this: First a sound as of a Presence walking in the garden. Then a voice, more intelligible, but still far from clear. Then the happy moment when the Spirit begins to illuminate the Scriptures, and that which had been only a sound, or at best a voice, now becomes an intelligible word, warm and intimate and clear as the ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... 25th April, 1732, among his LETTERS yet extant: Preuss, OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part lst, p. 4; xvi. 49.] and he contin his residence there till August, 1736. Four important years of young life; of which we must endeavor to give, in some intelligible condition, what traces go hovering about in such records as ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... it, however, that there was no "traceable" connection between the circumstances which led to his sudden departure and the information he had succeeded in extracting from his friend. What did he mean by a "traceable" connection? Gordon never used words idly, and he meant to make of this point an intelligible distinction. It was this sense of his usual accuracy of expression that assisted Bernard in fitting a meaning to his late companion's letter. He intended to intimate that he had come back to Baden with his mind made up to relinquish his suit, and that he had questioned Bernard simply from moral ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... poet is intelligible and lucid, we ought not to grope and grub about his work in search of obscurities and oddities, but should, in the first instance at all events, attempt to regard his whole scope and range; to form some estimate, if we can, of his general purport and effect, asking ourselves, for this purpose, ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... surprised by the encounter, would have passed the captain by without notice, had he been allowed to do so; but this the captain perceived, and stopped him suddenly, taking him roughly by the collar of his coat. This Harry naturally resented, and before a word of intelligible explanation had been given the two ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... the guise of vision may be concealed in these words, and in the fulfilment of them in the next chapter, they belong to the 'things which it is impossible for a man to utter,' even if he has received them. We are on more intelligible ground in the next clause of the promise, the proclamation of 'the Name.' That expression is, in Scripture, always used as meaning the manifested character of God. It is a revelation addressed to the spirit, not to the sense. It is the translation, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... length of time, obsolete; and scarce intelligible. They were, however, translated, or rather imitated, by Pamphos, Rhianus, Phemius, Homer, Bion Proconnesius, Onomacritus, and others. Many of the sacred terms could not be understood, nor interpreted; they were however [548]retained with great reverence: and many which they did attempt ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... worth while here to observe, that the affecting parts of Chaucer are almost always expressed in language pure and universally intelligible ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... consisted of a long strip of thin bluish paper less than a quarter of an inch in width and containing a succession of apparently arbitrary and unmeaning characters written in ink. I reproduce a section of the strip, which should make my description more intelligible. ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... applied to trains like those in question. What that something is, we think, has been made clear by what precedes; since it is impossible in any sense to add together motions which are unlike, it will be seen that in order to obtain an intelligible result in cases like these, the equation must be of the form n'/(m' - a) n/m. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... attempts to relate the biography of Edmund Burke as a private person and a public character in an easily intelligible shape. The author's aim has been to furnish a plain and popular biography, in which he ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... Philip found the lines of his policy laid down for him, before he assumed the crown of Spain, by the conditions under which his father abdicated. The ancient function of the empire passed to him, and the purpose of his vast dominion, the intelligible reason of its apparition among the nations, was to accomplish that in which, under his more gifted father, imperial ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... streaming out. Here, they say, a satyr, such as statuaries and painters represent, was caught asleep, and brought before Sylla, where he was asked by several interpreters who he was, and, after much trouble, at last uttered nothing intelligible, but a harsh noise, something between the neighing of a horse and crying of a goat. Sylla, in dismay, and deprecating such an omen, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... hope entirely died, several false alarms had thrilled him with happiness. One was a cablegram from Gibraltar in which the only words that were intelligible were "congratulate" and "engagement." This lifted him into an ecstasy of joy and excitement, until, on having the cable company repeat the message, he learned it was a request from Miss Kirkland to congratulate two mutual friends who had just announced their engagement, and of ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... had become so habitual to him, that, after various attempts to conclude with some other form of words, he found himself at last obliged to pronounce the first words of his usual formula aloud, and mutter the rest in such a manner as not to be intelligible even by those who ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... They become comprehensible, however, if we consider that the French Revolution, constituting a new religion, was bound to obey the laws which condition the propagation of all beliefs. Its fury and its hecatombs will then become intelligible. ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... teaching, never very intelligible, has been gravely called in question. The advocates and self-supposed practisers of "High Art" are beginning to be looked upon with doubt, and their peculiar phraseology to be treated with even a certain degree of ridicule. And other forms ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... hand at a big Symphony (in C major); in this work I showed what I had learnt by using the influence of my study of Beethoven and Mozart towards the achievement of a really pleasant and intelligible work, in which the fugue was again present at the end, while the themes of the various movements were so constructed that ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... represents; but which, taking from the Gravity of the Character, adds to the Agreeableness of it. This pleasant Fellow gives one some Idea of the ancient Pantomime, who is said to have given the Audience, in Dumb-show, an exact Idea of any Character or Passion, or an intelligible Relation of any publick Occurrence, with no other Expression than that of his Looks and Gestures. If all who have been obliged to these Talents in Estcourt, will be at Love for Love to-morrow Night, they will but pay him what they owe him, at ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... reflection before the intimation that "bleakfast belong leady top-side" could be translated into the information that breakfast was ready on deck. Why adding "ee" to every word should render it more intelligible to the Celestial understanding, beats me. There are people who think that by tacking "O" on to every English word they render themselves perfectly clear to Italians and Spaniards, though this theory seems hardly justified by results. "Pidgin English," of course, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... intelligible sketch I have encountered of this unintelligible arrangement of things was contributed to the 'Traveller's Record' by Mr. Forrest Morgan, of Hartford, three years ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... is the difference, emphasized by the happily-antithetic epigram of Garrick, between his written style and his conversation; and collaterally, between his eminence as a literary man and his personal insignificance. Much of this is easily intelligible. He had started in life with few temporal or physical advantages, and with a native susceptibility that intensified his defects. Until he became a middle-aged man, he led a life of which we do not even now know all the degradations; and these had left their mark upon ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... want to know this,' I said, speaking slowly, in fear lest my language should be little more intelligible to them than their PATOIS to me. 'There are a dozen horsemen in the old castle there, are ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... "Intelligence" principle remained practically liable to many of the same defects as the "Necessity" of the poets. It was the presentiment of a great idea, which it was for the time impossible to explain or follow out. It was not yet intelligible, nor was even the road opened through which ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... consequently by their submissive followers, with regard to the structure and functions of the organs concerned in the circulation, were particularly fanciful and confused; so much so that it would be no easy task to give an intelligible account of them that would not be tedious from its length. It will be enough to say, that a scarcely more oppressive mass of mischievous error was cleared away from the science of astronomy by the discovery of Newton, than that from ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... longer understood, which is the present case. I grant that something must be lost in all transfusion, that is, in all translations; but the sense will remain, which would otherwise be lost, or at least be maimed, when it is scarce intelligible; and that but to a few. How few are there who can read Chaucer, so as to understand him perfectly! And if imperfectly, then with less profit and no pleasure. 'Tis not for the use of some old Saxon friends that I have taken these pains with him: let them neglect my version because ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... campaign asset his value could be expressed in intelligible terms. But as a party liability, or asset,—many a good Republican wishes he knew which,—he remains an enigma. There is not one of the array of elders of either political persuasion who, while laughing at his satirical sword-play, does not watch him covertly out of the corner ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... destroy my faith in Mr. Hooker, General," said the President, in half-weary, half-humorous deprecation. "Don't tell me that any of his inventions are TRUE! Leave me at least that magnificent liar—the one perfectly intelligible witness you have. For from the time that he first appeared here with a grievance and a claim for a commission, he has been an unspeakable joy to me and a convincing testimony to you. Other witnesses have been partisans and prejudiced; Mr. Hooker was frankly true to himself. ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... with some friends, he spent a Sunday in the Hygeia Hotel at Old Point. At the request of one of the party he recited "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," and "Ulalume," saying that the last stanza of "Ulalume" might not be intelligible to them, as it was not to him and for that reason had not been published. Even if he had known what it meant, he objected to furnishing it with a note of explanation, quoting Dr. Johnson's remark about a book, that it was "as obscure ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... chaotic condition of the administration of the army. Dilke revealed a grasp of every branch of the subject. His criticisms reflected the judgment of officers familiar with the branch of service discussed. His proposals were modest and intelligible, and in every case represented some body of competent military opinion. He told the public much that none of his readers fully appreciated at the time. The German army had been largely increased in the spring of 1887, and in the beginning of 1888 a Bill passed the Reichstag which increased by a ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... or Brute, and in it, in imitation of the English, he traces the Scottish royal lineage to Brutus. Although by no means equal to Chaucer, he is far superior to any other English poet of the time, and his language is more intelligible at the present day than that of Chaucer or Gower. Sir Walter Scott has borrowed from Barbour's poem in ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... Afanasy Ivanovitch Vahrushin, of whom I presume you have heard more than once, a remittance is sent to you from our office," the man began, addressing Raskolnikov. "If you are in an intelligible condition, I've thirty-five roubles to remit to you, as Semyon Semyonovitch has received from Afanasy Ivanovitch at your mamma's request instructions to that effect, as on previous occasions. Do ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... vants?" I reply with meekness, "Dinner, sir, if you please." He brings me an elegantly bound book containing the bill of fare. But it is in German: I look at it knowingly: Sanscrit would be quite as intelligible. I put my finger on a word which I suppose means soup. I look up meekly at the functionary. He glowers contemptuously upon me. He recommends me to an underling, and bustles off to guests more important. There are in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... myself with giving the feelings, incidents, and interests of what is purely private life, connecting them no farther with things that are of a more general nature, than is indispensable to render the narrative intelligible and accurate. With these explanations, which are made in order to prevent the person who may happen first to commence the perusal of this manuscript from throwing it into the fire, as a silly attempt to write a more silly fiction, I shall ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... voices used were intelligible to Abel Keeling, and he knew not what it was in the tone of these last words that reminded him of the honour due to the Mary of the Tower. Blister-white and at the end of her life as she was, Abel Keeling was still jealous of her dignity; the voice had a youngish ring; and it was not fitting ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... intelligible without some elucidation of the pedigrees of the three families whose members are constantly meeting the reader—Barry, Basset, and Lisle. I have tried to put them into a form at once as short and as easy ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... uncouth names of Hook and Kabbeljaw, come into existence, dividing noble against noble, city against city, father against son, for some hundred and fifty years, without foundation upon any abstract or intelligible principle. It may be observed, however, that, in the sequel, and as a general rule, the Kabbeljaw, or cod-fish party, represented the city or municipal faction, while the Hooks (fish-hooks), that were to catch and control them, were the nobles; iron and audacity ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... If a London ballroom were suddenly invaded by Phoebus, Ares, and Hermes, such as Homer drew them, they would probably be unwelcome guests; at least in the eyes of the gentlemen. The latter would, I suspect, thoroughly sympathise with the Negro in the old story, intelligible enough to those who know what is the favourite food ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... ordinary speech, read with fair intelligence, and write in a passably intelligible manner the foreign language or languages, the social, political, and intellectual necessities of the ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... getting a pledge that he would not be put to death nor handed over to the princes, as he had already been, and his consent for Sedekiah's sake, as well as for his own, to prevaricate to the princes are features not found in the other reports of such interviews, but intelligible and natural after the terrible treatment he had suffered. Dr. Skinner, too, admits that the two accounts may be read as of different experiences of the Prophet, "if we can suppose that the offence with which he is charged in XXXVIII. 1 ff. could have been committed while he was a prisoner ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... one day so spent must not be undervalued. Whatever the circumstances, the children learn the meaning of fields and woods, so that descriptions of country scenery in the books they read, which before conveyed no impression, become now intelligible." ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... work for them—to execute some forgeries, in fact. Of course I refused, and pretty bluntly, too, whereupon Hearn began to throw out vague hints as to what might happen if I made enemies of the gang, and to utter veiled, but quite intelligible, threats. You will say that I was an idiot not to send him packing, and threaten to hand over the whole gang to the police; but I was never a man of strong nerve, and I don't mind admitting that I was mortally afraid of that cunning ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... was terrified when she saw what two months of anguish and sleeplessness had done for Jacques. But he was kneeling at her feet upon the muddy pavement, and said in a barely intelligible voice,— ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... weather may be, till they shall make up their minds to call us; and I hope that you will be disposed to reject any continuation of similar communication to that which they have already made to you, unless it is accompanied with a direct and intelligible proposal. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... work: "To exhibit a full and consistent scheme of the Christian Dispensation, and more largely of all the peculiar doctrines of the Christian faith; and to answer all the objections to the same, which do not originate in a corrupt will rather than an erring judgment; and to do this in a manner intelligible for all who, possessing the ordinary advantages of education, do in good earnest desire to form their religious creed in the light of their own convictions, and to have a reason for the faith which they profess. There are indeed mysteries, in evidence of which no reasons can be brought. ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... forget; you should remember that we are betrothed!" said Mabel hastily, and in a voice so low that it required acute attention in the listeners to catch the syllables. Indeed the last word was not quite intelligible to the guide, and he confessed ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... divide, and we have attempted to deal thus with the poems of Bryant; but some of the best of his productions cannot be classified and arranged under any particular head. They breathe the spirit of universal humanity, and speak a language intelligible to every human heart. Among these are "The Evening Wind," "The Conqueror's Grave," and "The Future Life." All of these are exquisite alike in conception and execution. We suppose that most persons have in regard to poetry certain fancies, whims, preferences, founded on reasons too ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... mountain range which formed the boundary of the universe in puranic geography]. By the application of water is made ascertainment of the revolution of time. One may construct a sphere-instrument combined with quicksilver: this is a mystery; if plainly described, it would be generally intelligible in the world. Therefore let the supreme sphere be constructed according to the instruction of the preceptor [guru]. In each successive age this construction, having become lost, is, by the Sun's favour, again revealed to some one or other, ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... increasing light warned us of our approach to its superior limits, and shortly after, the sun and we rising together, a scene of splendour and magnificence suddenly burst upon our view, which it would be vain to expect to render intelligible by any mode of description within our power. Pursuing the illusion, which the previous events had been so strongly calculated to create, the impression upon our senses was that of entering upon a new world to which we had hitherto been strangers, and in which not a vestige could ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... is really an era in the intellectual history of Europe, and I think that the Edinburgh Review ought at least to have given a luminous abstract of it. The very circumstance that Niebuhr's own arrangement and style are obscure, and that his translators have need of translators to make them intelligible to the multitude, rendered it more desirable that a clear and neat statement of the points in controversy should be laid before the public. But it is useless to talk of what cannot be mended. The best editors cannot always have good ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... degree. Afterwards they spoke with me by means of ideas still less discrete, so that hardly any interval was perceived: in my perception it was like the meaning of words with those who attend only to the sense abstractedly from the expressions. This speech was more intelligible to me than the former, and it was also fuller. Like the other, it inflowed into the face, but the influx was more continuous according to the character of the speech; it did not, however, like the former, begin at the lips, but at the eyes. Afterwards they ...
— Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There • Emanuel Swedenborg
... well-lighted room. Our host comes forward with outstretched hands, and with great cordiality welcomes and presents us to his friends. We can't understand all he says, for his English at the best is not always intelligible, and he is now particularly talkative and jolly: it is evident he has dined. There is a great noise; every one is talking and laughing; and the talking is loud, for it has to overcome the sounds made by sundry musicians seated ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... law for the publication and distribution, periodically, of an analytical digest of all the patents which have been or may hereafter be granted for useful inventions and discoveries, with such descriptions and illustrations as may be necessary to present an intelligible view of their nature and operation. The cost of such publication could easily be defrayed out of the patent fund, and I am persuaded that it could be applied to no object more acceptable to inventors and beneficial to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore
... bone is as thick as a man's finger, and between five and six inches long, it reaches quite across the face, and so effectually stops up both the nostrils that they are forced to keep their mouths wide open for breath, and snuffle so when they attempt to speak, that they are scarcely intelligible even to each other. Our seamen, with some humour, called it their spritsail-yard; and indeed it had so ludicrous an appearance, that till we were used to it, we found it difficult to refrain from laughter.[91] Beside this nose-jewel, they had necklaces made of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... whole Gospel almost by heart, but he said that every time he read it he enjoyed a new and genuine spiritual delight. He said that not only was everything intelligible to him in the Gospel, but that when he read it he seemed to be reading in his own soul, and felt himself capable of rising higher and higher toward God and ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... comrades came to his house, read with him, and copied something from the books. So greatly occupied were they that they hardly even took the time to wash. They ate their supper and drank tea with the books in their hands; and their talks became less and less intelligible to the mother. ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... an intelligible word on the second sheet; it was simply a succession of scrawls and puerile outline pictures, such as a child ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... whole course of the fifth century, so no less in the sixth, it is necessary to bear in mind the close interweaving of political with ecclesiastical facts. The force and bearing of the one only become intelligible when the others are weighed. In 519, under Pope Hormisdas, the schism of Acacius had collapsed, and the most emphatic acknowledgment of all which the Popes had claimed in the contest with him, and with the emperors ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... the reader, I have not the faintest idea that he can discover any merit in it; I quote it only that a subsequent experience of mine may be more intelligible. When I had composed these wretched lines I became conscious that I had neither pencil nor paper wherewith to preserve them. Should I lose them—my first self-constructed poem? Never! This was not the first time in which I had found it necessary to preserve words ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... as this, though backed by copious citations from the Misna and Maimonides, was not generally satisfactory even to zealous churchmen. For it admitted of one answer, short, but perfectly intelligible to a plain man who knew nothing about Greek fathers or Levitical genealogies. There might be some doubt whether King Solomon had ejected a high priest; but there could be no doubt at all that Queen Elizabeth had ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... any single influence can be assigned to render intelligible a result brought about by many agencies, various in themselves and operating from time to time in varying degrees, the explanation is to be found in a little incident that happened in the second year of the Dutch East India Company's settlement at ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... or intelligible,' I replied, 'than the principles of the Christian religion; and wherever it has been preached with simplicity and power, even the common people have readily and gratefully adopted it. I certainly cannot but desire that it may prevail. If any thing ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... canon of England, and even when the Latin mass was sung by the tonsured priest, the promises which accompany the delivery of the symbolical pledge of union were repeated by the blushing bride in a more intelligible tongue.[133] This is a curious and significant fact, and as we trace out these rhythmical lines farther back in their original vernacular, the more clearly distinct is their archaic nature. According to the usage of Salisbury ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... occurrence of these five characteristics together is meant that when these are properly attended to by a speaker or writer, only then can his sentence be said to be complete and intelligible. In Nyaya philosophy, the five requisites are Pratijna, Hetu, Udaharana, Upanaya, and Nigamana. In the Mimansa philosophy, the five requisites have been named differently. Vishaya, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... of the Road Book of Scotland is clear and intelligible, and, moreover, it is a book which may be read in the post-chaise or the parlour, on or off the road, before or after the journey, with equal pleasure. It is so portable, that the pedestrian will not complain of its weight, for it bears the same proportion to an old Road Book that a Prayer Book ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various
... which we could not understand; nor could we make them comprehend what we wished to learn with reference to the sealing schooners, although the skipper shouted out the word "ship" to them as loudly as he could bawl, thinking thereby to make himself more intelligible. ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the note into the boy's hands, was already some paces off. He called out some rather incoherent reply, of which 'thank you, thank you,' were the only intelligible words. ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... Macbeth is susceptible of all three. You smile! but that remains to be proved. The reason that Shakspeare's wicked women have such a singular hold upon our fancy, is from the consistent preservation of the feminine character, which renders them more terrible, because more credible and intelligible—not like those monstrous caricatures we meet with ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... that though we constantly have to speak of "astral sight" or "astral hearing" in order to make ourselves intelligible, all that we mean by those expressions is the faculty of responding to such vibrations as convey to the man's consciousness, when he is functioning in his astral body, information of the same character as that conveyed ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... grantor had been omitted in the operative part of a grant, but, as it was clear from another part of the grant who he was, the deed was held to be valid. (2) Latent ambiguity is where the wording of an instrument is on the face of it clear and intelligible, but may, at the same time, apply equally to two different things or subject matters, as where a legacy is given "to my nephew, John,'' and the testor is shown to have two nephews of that name. A latent ambiguity may be ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... by an uncommon effort so far subdued her grief, as to render her words intelligible. Her eyes, streaming with tears, were fixed with a mixture of wildness, sorrow, and devotedness, upon the countenance of her mother, until she had completed ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... thoroughly disheartened from undertaking any new artistic scheme. Only recently I had had proofs of the impossibility of making my art intelligible to the public, and all this deterred me from beginning new dramatic works. Indeed, I thought everything was at an end with my artistic creativeness. From this state of mental dejection I was raised by a friend. By the most evident and undeniable proofs he made me feel ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... months less duration than you and I, and the world, had supposed. I can quite understand that, viewed from any side, the news must have shaken and disturbed you; and your unequivocal refusal to entertain any thought of a new alliance at such a moment was, of course, intelligible, natural, and praiseworthy. At present I will say no more beyond expressing a hope that you will accept my assurances that I was quite ignorant of the news at the hour of writing, and a sincere desire that in due time, and as soon ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... two was added to my previous information relating to the fair Marian. She was married. Married— and to some odd sort of man, of whom the Indian appeared to speak slightingly. His name I could make out to be Steevens, or Steebins, or something of the sort—not very intelligible by the Indian's mode of pronouncing it—and, furthermore, that he had been a schoolmaster ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... a confused and rambling account of the circumstances of the wreck, but it was sufficiently intelligible to make the captain acquainted with ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... Volsung tale, first became aware of Regin's designs against his life, when he accidentally tasted the heart-blood of Fafnir, whom he had slain in dragon shape, and then all at once the swallow's song, perched above him, became as intelligible as ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... her. He shook his head, speaking to her first in English and then in the language of the great apes; but neither of these was intelligible to her. She leaned forward and touched the hilt of the long knife that the Arab wore. Then she raised her clasped hand above her head and drove an imaginary blade into her breast above her heart. Korak understood. The old man would kill her. The girl came to his side again and stood ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the ears to which they were addressed. If to readers remote from the facts and the feeling of the hour they perhaps strike a note of scarcely intelligible emotion yet our story cannot spare them. To us who heard them they were an expressive summary of many thoughts, and fears, and hopes of that time, which our narrative cannot give expression to otherwise than in this indirect fashion. Had those ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... voice ceased, and gave place to automatic writing, except at the moment of return to the physical body, when a chance sentence or two might be uttered during the transition period, but that these were not always intelligible to the listener. ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... building, in the plastic arts, in poetry, in prose, is a problem which has to be determined relatively to the subject-matter. To Plato himself, the enquiry 'what was the intention of the writer,' or 'what was the principal argument of the Republic' would have been hardly intelligible, and therefore had better be at once dismissed (cp. the Introduction ...
— The Republic • Plato
... just outside the door. He wished that the walls of the square room were not so thick, that some sound from the town might come in and mingle with the chant. He strained his ear in vain to catch a word of the Hebrew which might be intelligible to him. He wondered much what sort of a man this Jew might be, actuated by what motives, impelled by what impulses to his lonely task. All the sorrow of a hope deferred through ages, and a long torture patiently borne, seemed gathered ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... fooling; Punch in his wildest humour, backed by the whole colony of Leicester Square, could not produce funnier English. "He burns one's self the brains," "He was fighted in duel," "They fight one's selfs together," "He do want to fall," would be more intelligible if less picturesque in their original form of "Il se brule la cervelle," "Il s'cet battu en duel," "lis se battent ensemble," "Il manque de tomber." The comic vein running through the "Familiar Phrases" is so inexhaustible that space forbids further quotation from this portion of the book, ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... Moses to have spoken in the Spirit of truth; -of all these then, he taketh one, who saith, In the Beginning God made the heaven and the earth; that is, "in His Word coeternal with Himself, God made the intelligible and the sensible, or the spiritual and the corporeal creature." He another, that saith, In the Beginning God made heaven and earth; that is, "in His Word coeternal with Himself, did God make the universal bulk of this corporeal ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... magnification as distinct from amplification, that our recent lenses so brilliantly excel. It is not easy to convey to those unfamiliar with objects of extreme minuteness a correct idea of what this power is. But at the risk of extreme simplicity, and to make the higher reaches of my subject intelligible to all, I would fain ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... loved "Dombey's sister" at that party, and Paul, sitting in a cushioned corner, heard her praises constantly. There was a half-intelligible sentiment, too, diffused around, referring to Florence and himself, and breathing sympathy for both, that soothed and touched him. He did not know why, but it seemed to have something to do with his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... placed on such a ground that, in everything they enforce or forbid, they may be liable to have their reasons demanded by the children, as an understood condition of their compliance. Far from it; they will sometimes have to require a prescribed conduct for reasons not intelligible, or which it may not be discreet to explain, to those who are to obey. But their authority becomes odious, and as a moral force worse than inefficient, when the natural shrewdness of the children can descry that they really have no reasons better than ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... guilty conscience and his soft-hearted affection for Luck so deeply stirred by the money laid in his big-knuckled hand, shuffled his feet and cleared his throat and did not get one intelligible ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... of the arrangement and formation of the astral and planetary systems of the heavens. He first describes the solar system, of which our earth is a member, consisting of the sun, planets, and satellites with the less intelligible orbs termed comets, and taking as the uttermost bounds of this system the orbit of Uranus, it occupies a portion of space not less than three thousand six hundred millions of miles in diameter. The mind cannot form an exact notion of so vast an expanse, but an idea of it may be ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... closed his eyes tightly. When he opened them, Miss Courtenay was walking beside him and asking questions about the weather. Her cheeks were very pink. Windomshire had awkwardly clasped the hand of Miss Thursdale, muttering something not quite intelligible, even to himself. Eleanor was replying ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... with such grace and earnestness, was blushingly granted; not indeed, in express words, but with a silence equally intelligible ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... church. Protect our sinful brother from his love of lucre. Cleanse from our unawakened brother's breast his sin of worldly- mindedness. The prayer said infinitely more in words, but nothing more to any intelligible effect. ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... and intelligible. One need have no special knowledge to understand the bearing of it. You will have every enlightened man ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen
... demanded of him with great indignation an explanation of the circumstances that had led him to represent himself to Boehmer as authorized to buy a necklace for the queen. Terrified and confused, he gave an explanation which was half a confession; but which was too complicated to be thoroughly intelligible. He was ordered to retire into the next room and write out his statement. His written narrative proved more obscure than his spoken words. In spite of his prayers that he might be spared the degradation of being arrested while still clad in his pontifical habits, he ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... determined); and, lastly, the known range of each species—a matter of acknowledged importance. This is supplemented by an artistically-coloured chart, representing each example (also numbered), in the corresponding position which it occupies in any given group case. Thus is conveyed, in a concise and intelligible form, all the information which can fairly be embodied in the limited ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... watch Dad and mother still pushing, scheming, intriguing; always with the affectation of despising reclame, yet doing nothing—not the most simple act—without a careful eye to it! Years ago, as I've said, there was an intelligible motive for our paltry ambitions; but now, when they have force les portes and can afford to be sincere and independent——! [Checking herself.] But I oughtn't to speak of my folks like this, ought I, even to you whom I can trust! [Penitently.] It's awfully wrong of me. I—I ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... so, because those words are obvious to scholars, I believe the method observed by the famous Lord Falkland[1] in some of his writings, would not be an ill one for young divines: I was assured by an old person of quality who knew him well, that when he doubted whether a word was perfectly intelligible or no, he used to consult one of his lady's chambermaids, (not the waiting-woman, because it was possible she might be conversant in romances,) and by her judgment was guided whether to receive or reject it. And if that great person thought such a caution necessary ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... shall not want the omnibus," said Colville, with a laugh, doubtless not perfectly intelligible to the landlord, who ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... in summer out-of-doors. Though in shadow the bright light fills it, summer shadows are broadest daylight. The page is so white and hard, the letters so very black, the meaning and drift not quite intelligible, because neither eye nor mind will dwell upon it. Human thoughts and imaginings written down are pale and feeble in bright summer light. The eye wanders away, and rests more lovingly on greensward and green lime leaves. The mind wanders yet ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... Fullnesses (19). And the Father sealed the Man His Son in their interior so that they might know Him interiorly, and the Word moved them to contemplate the Invisible One beyond knowledge, and they gave glory to this One and Only One, to the Concept which is in Him and to the Intelligible Word, praising these Three who are One, because by Him have they been made essential beings. The Father took their total image and made of it a City or a Man and figured in Him all those of the Pleroma, that is to say, all the powers. Each one of them knew his ...
— The Gnosis of the Light • F. Lamplugh
... other. But as a panorama of the unfolding of heaven in the soul of Levin, and of hell in the soul of Anna, the story of Kitty and Levin cannot be read apart from the story of Anna and Vronsky and still remain a unit, and still remain intelligible. ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... could sit up and use pen and pencil, he set to work to finish his cottage plans, and soon drew and talked himself into a vehement condition about Marksedge. Mary's patronage drew on the work, even to hasty learning of perspective enough for a pretty elevation intelligible to the unlearned, and a hopeless calculation ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the air-population, as a whole, is "lower" or less "complex" than the land-population. On the contrary, every beginner in the study of animal morphology is aware that the organisation of a bat, of a bird, or of a pterodactyle presupposes that of a terrestrial quadruped; and that it is intelligible only as an extreme modification of the organisation of a terrestrial mammal or reptile. In the same way winged insects (if they are to be counted among the "air-population") presuppose insects which were wingless, and, therefore, as "creeping ...
— The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature - Essay #4 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... by law, a peculiar power is given to it by opinion. The business of banking ought to be simple; if it is hard it is wrong. The only securities which a banker, using money that he may be asked at short notice to repay, ought to touch, are those which are easily saleable and easily intelligible. If there is a difficulty or a doubt, the security should be declined. No business can of course be quite reduced to fixed rules. There must be occasional cases which no pre-conceived theory can define. But banking comes as near to fixed rules certainly as any existing business, perhaps as any ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... Performance so outragiously exclaim'd against was never calculated for either of these Classes of People, is self-evident from every Circumstance. The Beginning of the Prose is altogether Philosophical, and hardly intelligible to any, that have not been used to Matters of Speculation; and the running Title of it is so far from being specious, or inviting, that, without having read the Book it self, No body knows what to make of it, whilst at the same Time the Price is Five Shillings. From all which it is very plain, ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... constitutionally convicted or punished for any crime by a legislative proceeding of any sort. Nevertheless, here is a bill of attainder against 9,000,000 people at once. It is based upon an accusation so vague as to be scarcely intelligible and found to be true upon no credible evidence. Not one of the 9,000,000 was heard in his own defense. The representatives of the doomed parties were excluded from all participation in the trial. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... is part of the universe, then the universe is not intelligible apart from man, and the cosmic process is not fully understood unless we also have an understanding of human activity. This, therefore, is the counter-claim that I would suggest. The course and method of evolution, or of the 'cosmic process'—to use Huxley's term—is imperfectly ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley
... received an intelligible philosophy, and so a new vitality, from Ira Steward, a member of the Boston Machinists' and Blacksmiths' Union. Writing as a workingman for workingmen, Steward found in the standard of living the true reason ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... one chance for the wretched man—had he been more dishonest than he was. He might have denied all knowledge of the signature. But to do this never occurred to him. Instead, he plunged into a wandering, scarcely intelligible, explanation, for even in his dreadful plight his vanity would not permit him to tell all the truth before Elsa. Moreover, in that fearful silence, soon he became utterly bewildered, till at length he hardly knew what he was saying, and in the end ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... well as in the light, of Christian experience, whether the cloud seems to rest on the tabernacle, or moves guidingly forward. It is perhaps too exclusively addressed to those who minister in the inner sanctuary, to be entirely intelligible to the vaster number who wait in the outer courts; it overlooks, perhaps, too much the solidarity and oneness of humanity;' but all who read it will feel its earnestness, and confess to the singular beauty of its style, the strong, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... necessary,' observes Mr Bland, 'to turn the Arabic commentary a little, in order to make the solution more intelligible to those unacquainted with the trick of Eastern riddles. Some further explanation is also required to illustrate the solution itself. The vow of Moses refers to his forty days' fast; the four temperaments—the bile, the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... tropes and maritime conceits were not always intelligible to me, but it was clear that he had set his heart upon my accompanying him, which I was equally determined not to do. At last by much reasoning I made him understand that my presence would be more hindrance than help, and would probably be fatal to ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... by the allies. Edward was a brilliant soldier, lacking, however, the prudence of his great brother, Robert. The story of his two years of fighting, ravaging, and slaying, is hard at this distance to reconcile with intelligible strategy. In the end, in 1318, the gallant Scot fell in battle near Dundalk, losing at the same time two-thirds of his army. For two years Scot and Irish had fought victoriously side by side. That is the fact of moment that comes out ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... Carlyle's task on the "Life of Oliver Cromwell" was finished in August, 1845, when he was fifty years of age. It was the greatest contribution to English history; Mr. Froude thinks, which has been made in the present century. "Carlyle was the first to make Cromwell and his age intelligible to mankind." Indeed, he reversed the opinions of mankind respecting that remarkable man, which was a great accomplishment. No one doubts the genuineness of the portrait. Cromwell was almost universally ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... idea of the way in which these nations lived and what calamities they had to endure, that it is impossible to calculate the duration of their existence, even approximately, from the thickness of their ruins. It is extremely remarkable, but perfectly intelligible from the continual calamities which befel the town, that the civilization of all the four nations constantly declined; the terra-cottas, which show continuous decadence, leave no ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... eye caught sight of the necklace, Daisy was much embarrassed, for she could, in no intelligible way, account for having taken it. Mortimer was equally pained. He had unwillingly become possessed of the ornament, and saw no means by which he could return it to Mr. Flint without acknowledging that he had also taken ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... discourse to the Chief Preceptor of Music at the court of Lu, the Master said, "Music is an intelligible thing. When you begin a performance, let all the various instruments produce as it were one sound (inharmonious); then, as you go on, bring out the harmony fully, distinctly, and with uninterrupted flow, ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... proud that they had read it before; he is proud that the edition was taken off by the nobility and persons of the first distinction. The edition of which he speaks was, I believe, that which, by telling in the text the names, and in the notes the characters, of those whom he had satirised, was made intelligible and diverting. The critics had now declared their approbation of the plan, and the common reader began to like it without fear. Those who were strangers to petty literature, and therefore unable to decipher initials and blanks, had now names and persons brought within their view, and delighted ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... deeper import Lurks in the legend told my infant years That lies upon that truth, we live to learn. For fable is Love's world, his home, his birthplace; Delightedly dwells he 'mong fays and talismans, And spirits, and delightedly believes Divinities, being himself divine. The intelligible forms of ancient poets, The fair humanities of Old Religion, The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty, That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain, Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, Or chasms or wat'ry depths;—all ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... these celestial intelligences, while, on the other hand, the Devil, teste Cotton Mather, is unversed in certain of the Indian dialects. Yet must he be a semeiologist the most expert, making himself intelligible to every people and kindred by signs; no other discourse, indeed, being needful, than such as the mackerel-fisher holds with his finned quarry, who, if other bait be wanting, can by a bare bit of white rag at the end of a string captivate those foolish fishes. Such piscatorial persuasion is Satan ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... substratum, but because the investigation will give almost a history of human aberrations, that this otherwise unpromising topic assumes so high an interest. The superstitions of every age, for no age is free from them, will present the popular modes of thinking in an intelligible and easily accessible form, and may be taken as a means of gauging (if the expression be permitted) the philosophical and metaphysical capacities of the period. In this light, the volumes here presented to the reader will be found of great value, for they give a picture of the popular mind ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... myself intelligible. In a certain arrondissement of the Pas de Calais, there was, in 1822, a man who had fallen out with justice, and who, under the name of M. Madeleine, had regained his status and rehabilitated himself. This man had become a just man in the full force of the term. In a ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... strange intelligible thunder Sang to the earth the secret of a star, Scarce could ye catch, for terror and for wonder, Shreds of the story that was ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... in his notes to the artist Haydon's Autobiography, tells us that a favourite expression of the Duke of Wellington, when people tried to coax him to do what he had resolved not to do, was, "The rat has got into the bottle." This not very intelligible expression may refer to an anecdote I have heard of the Duke's once telling, in his later days, how the musk-rats in India got into bottles, which ever after retained the odour of musk. "Either the rats must be very small," said a lady who heard him, "or the ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... he directed, and having explained to the surgeon the nature of the document, I put the pen in Paton's hand; but was obliged to guide his hand with my own in order to make an intelligible signature. The surgeon signed below, and Paton seemed satisfied. He closed his eyes; his sufferings appeared to be very slight. But, even while I was looking at him, a change came over his face—a deadly change. His eyes opened; they were ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... a machine, is a proposition neither correctly true nor wholly false.... I contend that there is a mechanism in animals; that this mechanism is as properly such, as it is in machines made by art; that this mechanism is intelligible and certain; that it is not the less so because it often begins and terminates with something which is not mechanical; that wherever it is intelligible and certain, it demonstrates intention and contrivance, as well in the works of nature as in those of art; and that it is the ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... cover his disgraced uniform with the rough great-coat, which he had formerly despised. He pulled the stained, drooping cockade out of his unfortunate hat; and he was now sufficiently recovered from his vexation to give an intelligible account of his accident to his uncle and Patty, who anxiously inquired what had detained him so long, and what had been the matter. In the midst of the history of his disaster, he was just proving to Patty that his taking ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... admitted Julius, regarding the old doctor with interest, "and therefore it is intelligible. The spirit of life is electric and elective, and it is 'imponderable:' it can neither be weighed nor measured! It flows and thrills in the nerves of men and women, animals and plants, throughout the whole of Nature! It connects the whole round of the Cosmos by one glowing, teasing, ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... while Philip arriving with a slice of diet-bread and a cup of sack, the one fanned him, and the other fed him with morsels of the cake soaked in the wine, till he revived, looked up with eyes that were unchanged, and thanked them with a few faltering words, scarcely intelligible to Lucy. The little girls came nearer, and curiously regarded him but when he held out his hand to his favourite Dolly, she shrank back ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to be intelligible, I appear to degrade art by bringing her down from her visionary situation in the clouds, it is only to give her a more solid mansion upon the earth. It is necessary that at some time or other we should see things as they really are, and not ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... considerations furnished the background to the drama of Laurier's premiership. Much that took place on the fore-stage is only intelligible by taking a long vision of the whole setting. There was nothing of assertiveness or truculence in this steady movement by which Liberal policy and outlook was given a new orientation, Quebec replacing Ontario as the determinant. Students ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... distorted. On the other hand, a cast from a real head, placed on high like the Cardinal's, would become insignificant, and laid at the height of a table, like the dead warrior's, would look lumbering and tumid. Thus, again, the head of Donatello's Poggio, which is visible and intelligible placed high up in the darkness of the Cathedral of Florence, looks as if it had been gashed and hacked with a blunt knife when seen in the cast at the usual ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... Edition hath ventured to discard but few more upon his own judgment, the most considerable of which is that wretched piece of ribaldry in King Henry V. put into the mouths of the French Princess and an old Gentlewoman, improper enough as it is all in French and not intelligible to an English audience, and yet that perhaps is the best thing that can be said of it. There can be no doubt but a great deal more of that low stuff which disgraces the works of this great Author, was foisted in by the Players after his death, to please the vulgar ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... position clear, for these matters are very plain. You came and made a certain proposal. The British Government gave a clear reply—they refused to accept it. The reply was entirely straightforward and quite intelligible; and at the same time the British Government said: "We are desirous of peace; will you make other proposals?" You said: "No, we have no authority to do so without consulting the people." We admitted that argument. ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... new ones of a particularly insoluble character. The old deistic notion which interposed a distance between the Creator and His creation, and in particular represented God as there and man as here, might be untenable in philosophy, but it was at least intelligible and practically helpful to ordinary minds; but does not the idea of God's immanence in the world and in man tend to efface that distinction, and thus to introduce confusion where confusion ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... Haton, never more himself than when recounting the circumstances of a case of murder, whether by sword or by poison, fully credits the story; but the letter of Catharine to M. de Matignon, written on the 31st of May, gives an intelligible account of the results of the medical examination establishing the pulmonary nature of the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... inquiry was as intelligible to her mother as a cipher to the holders of a key. "Oh, he's very nice about that. He has dropped out of society completely and keeps out of everybody's way. Of course you see him when he comes to set up a piece of his furniture or to take an order, but that's all. And he used to be so popular!" ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield |
