"Invariable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into combination as their atomic weights. Solid ground for this expectation lies in the dynamic theory of heat. A body of water at a given height is competent by its fall to produce a definite and invariable quantity of heat or work, and in the same way two substances falling together in chemical union acquire a definite amount of kinetic energy, which, if not expended in the work of molecular changes, may also by suitable arrangements ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... He lamented the necessity of the murder, and complained in bitter terms of his sad fate. But in vain he tortured his brain—not a ray of light came to illumine his darkness. The pitiless "I must do it!" was the invariable refrain. ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... outlook inevitably creates, the inquirer seeks to estimate their relative values, and to bring his conception of life into harmony with the higher demands and larger ideals which have been disclosed to him. This has been the invariable course of ethical inquiry. At different stages of history—in the age of the Sophists of Ancient Greece, when men were no longer satisfied with the old forms of life and truth: at the dawn of the Christian era, when a new ideal was revealed in ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... his library, and even the Curators trembled before him when he told them what had been the invariable custom of the Library for years, and could not be altered. And, curiously enough, he had always funds at his disposal, which is not the case now, and whenever there was a collection of valuable MSS. in the market he often prided himself on having ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... severe a conclusion. I have made no sly allusions. My invariable love of truth impels me to state facts as they arise. That we have philosophers, poets, scholars, divines, lovers and collectors of books, equal to those of any nation upon earth is most readily admitted. But bibliography ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Bible, as we have seen, seventeen hundred times. Surely, once at least in that long list we shall be told that the soul is immortal, if this is its high prerogative. Seventeen hundred times we inquire if the soul is once said to be immortal, or the spirit deathless. And the invariable and overwhelming response we meet is, Not once!"—"Here and Hereafter" by U. ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... Indeed, I shall make a point of your seeing him once a day, as a rule." Then, seeing that both girls were thoroughly mystified, she added: "Dr. Abernethy is a very distinguished physician. He gives no medicine, his invariable prescription being a little gentle exercise. He lives—in the stable, my dears, and he has four ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... the highest perfection of character; "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor." In those passages where a summary of religion is presented by an enumeration of its most important points, this virtue is distinctly mentioned. It is stated as an invariable characteristic of the most eminent saints, as Abraham, Job, and others; it is often called righteousness, is represented as a fulfilment of the divine law, or the best expression of our love to God; and while tremendous judgments are threatened to those who disregard this sacred ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... although it is probably correct with regard to his visits to Mme. d'Albany, with whom consideration for gossip prevented his staying much after ten at night, must not be taken as the invariable rule; for Alfieri, devoted as he was to his lady, by no means neglected other society. He was finishing his allotted number of tragedies, and, as the solemn moment of publication approached, he began to be tormented with that same desire to display his ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... the professor was born of his invariable goodness of heart. Never did I know him to speak an uncharitable word of any one, while his practical generosity was far greater than expected of a second violinist. When I commended his magnanimity he would say, ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... are almost universally straight and well proportioned; their limbs are clean, but less muscular than those of the whites, and their whole appearance strongly indicative of effeminacy. In walking, they invariable place one foot directly before the other—the toes never verging from a right line with the heel. When traveling in companies, their manner of marching is so peculiar as to have given rise to the expression, "Indian file;" and while proceeding in ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... ever showed the smallest capacity for producing a philosophy of law. Legal science is a Roman creation, and the problem of Free-will arises when we contemplate a metaphysical conception under a legal aspect. How came it to be a question whether invariable sequence was identical with necessary connection? I can only say that the tendency of Roman law, which became stronger as it advanced, was to look upon legal consequences as united to legal causes by an inexorable necessity, a tendency most markedly exemplified in the definition of Obligation ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... was always like that; even in the very hour of elopement with Fyne. That transaction when one remembered it in her presence acquired a quaintly marvellous aspect to one's imagination. But somehow her self-possession matched very well little Fyne's invariable solemnity. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... kindly tell him his fortune also?" He was as much amused as we were when we explained that we were reformers and not fortune tellers. I have been a great lover of card games all my life; patience in solitude, and cribbage, whist, and bridge have been the almost invariable accompaniments of my evenings spent at home or with my friends. Reading and knitting were often indulged in, but patience was a change and a rest and relief to the mind. I have always had the idea that card games are an excellent ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... in speaking upon this point Father Walker desired me to note that he could only speak positively of the rules of this particular diocese, as they do not cover in their entirety the usages of other provinces, or even of other dioceses in this province of Ireland. One general and invariable rule indeed exists throughout Ireland, which is that every parish priest is bound to offer the Holy Sacrifice, pro populo, for the whole people, without fee or reward, on all Sundays and Holy Days, making in all ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... have been there. A new creed, even a new machine, may confound the wisest of speculations. Man is, in relation to the science that would survey society, a creator. In short, that stability in the order of events, that invariable recurrence of the same linked series, on which science depends for its very existence, here, in some measure, fails us. In such degree, therefore, as humanity can be described as progressive, or developing itself, in such degree is it an untractable subject for the scientific ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... that, whenever a child is born in New Zealand, it is the invariable practice to take it to the tohunga, or priest, who sprinkles it on the face with water, from a leaf which he holds in his hand. It is believed that the neglect of this ceremony would be attended with the most baneful consequences ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... discoloration of the skin showing that the gastric juices had begun to take effect; the fish, in fact, must have died immediately after swallowing the toad. The country people in South America believe that the milky secretion exuded by the toad possesses wonderful curative properties; it is their invariable specific for shingles—a painful, dangerous malady common amongst them, and to cure it living toads are applied to the inflamed parb. I dare say learned physicians would laugh at this cure, but then, if I mistake not, the learned have in past times laughed at other ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... minutiae. But Milt discovered that grammar was only the beginning of woes. He learned that there were such mental mortgages as figures of speech and the choice of synonyms. He had always known, but he had never passionately felt that the invariable use of "hell," "doggone," and "You bet!" left certain subtleties unexpressed. Now he was finding subtleties which he ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... seemed to be self-possessed enough to perform as carefully as ever was the obligation of being persistently civil and attentive to me. What vile object he has in view I cannot still discover, but be the design what it may, invariable politeness towards myself, invariable humility towards Laura, and invariable suppression (at any cost) of Sir Percival's clumsy violence, have been the means he has resolutely and impenetrably used ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... Protestant party, however closely united, were entirely without consideration. The advantage of this majority the Roman Catholics were now called on to relinquish; henceforward no one religious party was to be permitted to dictate to the other by means of its invariable superiority. And in truth, if the evangelical religion was really to be represented in the Diet, it was self-evident that it must not be shut out from the possibility of making use of that privilege, merely from the ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... were, force a passage to his heart, found an impassable barrier. Morcerf, who ran towards him with open arms, was chilled as he drew near, in spite of the friendly smile, and simply held out his hand. Monte Cristo shook it coldly, according to his invariable practice. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... generally of white calico, with a slit on the sides from the knee down. A calico shirt is worn. The stockings are of blue wool, without feet. Moccasins, with a sole of thick rawhide and uppers of dressed buckskin, are worn. The invariable silk handkerchief, or red bandana "bands" surrounds the hair, which is cut long, generally long enough ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... he felt the necessity of occupying the time. It was not unfrequently long enough for a very respectable discourse, if length gives the discourse its respectability. Then we had another prayer from another layman, and then the invariable announcement, "the meeting is now open," and the invariable result, a long, dead pause. In fact, the meeting would not open. Like an oyster, it remained pertinaciously shut. Occasionally some good elder would rise to break the painful silence, by repeating some thought from the previous Sunday's ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... boughs—perhaps of the palm and cypress—tied together and intertwined with ribbons (something like our Maypoles of old), were set up in the temples as reminders of the sacred symbol, and thus gave rise to the fixed type which remains invariable both in such Babylonian works of art as we possess and on the Assyrian sculptures, where the tree, or a portion of it, appears not only in the running ornaments on the walls but on seal cylinders and even in the embroidery ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... fell in with the wreck, proceeding to the Austral regions, and her putting about was greatly disadvantageous. The minister returned thanks publicly, on the part of his master, and expressed his majesty's sense of the invariable consideration and friendship with which his majesty's subjects are treated by the citizens of America. There appears to be a universal wish among the Americans to cultivate an alliance, offensive and defensive, with his majesty of Russia. ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... he, "I am then without virtue! Every thing overwhelms me and drives me to despair."—"Equal, constant, and invariable virtue," I replied, "belongs not to man. In the midst of the many passions which agitate us, our reason is disordered and obscured: but there is an everburning lamp, at which we can rekindle its flame; ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... for delay in replying to your letter is that it was mislaid. I am directed by Mr. —— to say that he has so many requests to read manuscripts that he is compelled to make it an invariable rule to decline. ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... case. We always hear in the that the dead are burned, and the ashes of princes are placed in a vessel of gold within an artificial hillock; but we do not hear, except in this passage, that they are burned in their armour, or that it is burned, or that it is buried with the ashes of the dead. The invariable practice is for the victor, if he can, to despoil the body of the fallen foe; but Achilles for some reason spared that indignity in the case of Eetion. [Footnote: German examples of burning the amis of the cremated dead and then burying them are given by Mr. Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, vol. ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... to the Lady Frances? Is she alive or dead? There is our problem. She is a lady of precise habits, and for four years it has been her invariable custom to write every second week to Miss Dobney, her old governess, who has long retired and lives in Camberwell. It is this Miss Dobney who has consulted me. Nearly five weeks have passed without a word. The last letter was from the Hotel National ...
— The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this subject; but, basing my judgment upon analogy, I am inclined to think that they are not removable: all the officers of a lodge are chosen to serve for one year, or, from one festival of St. John the Evangelist to the succeeding one. This has been the invariable usage in all lodges, and neither in the monitorial ceremonies of installation, nor in any rules or regulations which I have seen, is any exception to this usage made in respect to Deacons. The written as well as the oral law of Masonry being silent on this subject, we are bound to give ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... Breslau, on the pretext of raising there another contingent for service under Napoleon. The ruse completely succeeded: it deceived the French ambassador, St. Marsan: it fooled even Napoleon himself. With his now invariable habit of taking for granted that events would march according to his word of command, the Emperor assumed that this was for the raising of the corps of 30,000 men which he had requested Frederick William to provide, and said to Prince ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... insufficient to act upon," Thorndyke resumed, "there was nothing for it but to wait for some new facts. Now, the study of a large series of carefully conducted murders brings into view an almost invariable phenomenon. The cautious murderer, in his anxiety to make himself secure, does too much; and it is this excess of precaution that leads to detection. It happens constantly; indeed, I may say that it always happens—in those murders that are detected; of those that are not we say nothing—and I ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... defense comprises all the most striking remains in the canyon, many of which may properly be termed cliff ruins. The characteristics of the class are: A site more or less difficult of access—generally an elaborate ground plan, although sometimes they consist of only a few rooms—and the invariable presence of the kiva or estufa, here always circular in form. The largest ruin of this class occurs in Del Muerto, and is known as Mummy Cave ruin. It is called by the Navajo Tse-i-ya-kin. It is situated in the upper ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... must keep still and listen. You can't help but notice the food, because there's nothing to soften the effect of it upon your nerves, as it were. There are usually four courses, with chicken or ducks for the main dish, accompanied by potatoes cut in balls, the invariable rubber stamp of a party at Lucy's. Afterward there's coffee in the living-room, and you feel fearfully discouraged when you look at the clock and find it's only eight-thirty. You're surprised after the guests have ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... bearing twelve illumined torches. The great hall was crowded with knights and equerries, and those who would supped, saying nothing meanwhile. Mostly game seemed to be the favorite viand, and the legs and wings only of fowl were eaten. Music and chants were the invariable accompaniment and the company remained at table until after two in the morning. Little or nothing ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... had its little fling at the new-comer. "The Mistral it appears," said one pitiful punster, "has been incarnated in a poem. We shall soon see whether it is anything else but wind." Such has been the invariable welcome of great men in ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... between the husband of this woman and another of the French hunters. Their altercation filled her with terror, and she gave way to tears and lamentations, not doubting but that the antagonist, who was the aggressor, intended the death of her husband, as threats among Indians are the invariable preludes to fatal actions. When, at length, they began to struggle with each other, without any more ado she seized a hatchet, and would instantly have dispatched the man who fought with her husband, if she had not been prevented by the bystanders. In ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... positive certainty on any single point was obtained, until, in 1859, Gustav Kirchhoff, professor of physics in the University of Heidelberg, and his colleague, the eminent chemist Robert Bunsen, took the matter in hand. By them the general question as to the necessary and invariable connection of certain rays in the spectrum with certain kinds of matter, was first resolutely confronted, and first definitely answered. It was answered affirmatively—else there could have been no science of spectrum analysis—as ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... the history of our knowledge of the circulation of the blood in the animal kingdom until the year 1824. In every animal possessing a circulation at all, which had been observed up to that time, the current of the blood was known to take one definite and invariable direction. Now, there is a class of animals called Ascidians, which possess a heart and a circulation, and up to the period of which I speak, no one would have dreamt of questioning the propriety of the deduction, that these ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... unqualified voters principally, as we believe) were accordingly holden in the several towns, unauthorized by law, and contrary to the invariable custom and usage of the State from 1663 down to that period; that the aggregate votes appointing the delegates to that convention were, according to their own estimate, about 7,200, whereas the whole number of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... this point I omit the invariable formula which introduces each night, as its constant repetition is only calculated to annoy the reader and content myself with noting the various nights in the margin. {which will not be ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... been stirred by the tempest of a moral tragedy, Florent did not suspect it. When had he studied Lydia, the silent, reserved Lydia, of whom he had once for all formed an opinion, as is the almost invariable custom of relative with relative? Those who have seen us when young are like those who see us daily. The images which they trace of us always reproduce what we were at a certain moment—scarcely ever what we are. Florent considered his sister very good, because he had formerly found ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... whole, it is not now possible precisely to define when a year or a month or a week begins. There is no such interval of time as the commonly defined day everywhere and invariable. By our accepted definition, a day is local; it is limited to a single meridian. At some point on the earth's surface one day is always at its commencement and another always ending. Thus, while the earth makes one diurnal revolution, we have continually many days in ...
— International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. • Various
... less than seven other speeches by as many men, on a variety of barrels, each orator being affectionately tugged to the pedestal and set on end by his special constituency. Every speech was good, without exception; with the queerest oddities of phrase and pronunciation, there was an invariable enthusiasm, a pungency of statement, and an understanding of the points at issue, which made them all rather thrilling. Those long-winded slaves in "Among the Pines" seemed rather fictitious and literary in comparison. ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... of the attempt at a natural explanation, opens up the occasionalistic way of escape. Further, in his more detailed description of the intercourse between body and mind Descartes had been guilty of direct violations of his laws of natural philosophy. If the quantity of motion is declared to be invariable and a change in its direction is attributed to mechanical causes alone, we must not ascribe to the soul the power to move the pineal gland, even in the gentlest way, nor to control the direction of the animal spirits. These inconsistencies also are ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... cheap, manufactured goods. This is without a collar, and is usually hooked over the breast. There are no buttons. Wealthy Chinamen, and there are many such, indulge in richer garments. As a rule they have adopted the American felt hat of a brownish colour. The shoe has the invariable wooden sole with uppers of cotton or some kind of ordinary cloth. The hair is the object of their chief attention, however, in the making up of their toilet. It is worn in a queue or pigtail fashion as it is commonly styled. It is their glory, however, ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... an immutable truth, an idea a conviction, and a suspicion a certainty, by an almost instantaneous process; and, the process completed, action follows forthwith. The Kaiser is always resolved to do the right thing; the right thing, by some quaint but invariable coincidence, is whatever he is resolved ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... went up. It must be something Stefan had left for him. He walked up the path in leisurely fashion. There was evidently no hurry. He was feeling a little disappointment, for he had become fond of Stefan during his long prospecting trip and would have been glad of a chat to the invariable accompaniment of the hospitable tea-kettle. He had just made some pretty good biscuits, too. It was a pity the Swede wouldn't share them with him. He reached the black box which, to his surprise, turned out to be a small corded trunk lying on the hard dry snow, ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... rational analysis, but, with that reservation, Ithought, and I still think, it right to say that, until some other process of forming those inflections has been pointed out, inflection may be considered as the invariable result of combination. ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... father, wife, concubines, and various sorts of children who are born of the wife or of the concubine, or have been adopted into the family. With us, adoption is the exception, but in Japan it is the invariable rule whenever either convenience or necessity requires it of the house. Indeed it is rare to find a set of brothers bearing the same family name. Adoption and concubinage keep the house unbroken.[21] It is the house, ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... opinion of Paley, that the term corporal, as applied to oath, was derived from the corporale—the square piece of linen on which the chalice and host were placed. The term doubtless was adopted, in order to distinguish some oaths from others; and it would be very strange if it had become the invariable practice to apply it to all that large class of oaths, in every civil and criminal tribunal, to which it did not apply; and when it is remembered that in indictments (which have ever been construed with ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various
... turned off what, by ironical courtesy, is called the main road, upon a villainous track, consisting of a series of lateral corrugations, about a foot broad, with depressions between them more than a foot deep, formed by the invariable treading of the pack-horses in each other's footsteps. Each hole was a quagmire of tenacious mud, the ascent of 2400 feet was very steep, and the mago adjured the animals the whole time with Hai! Hai! Hai! which is ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... received any edible of any character whatever in response to his menacing demands. He had always assumed that boys who were well dressed had fruit or candy in their pockets. He had sometimes required them to verify their denials by an exhibition of the interior of these receptacles. His invariable demand had become a habit with him. Therefore the little sugared black brick which now hit him in the eye came as an unprecedented surprise. For a moment he did not know whether to construe it as a propitiatory ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... season, by him and all his clients, and on the 16th of that month he went to Gonda, where the Nazim, Mahommed Hussan, was encamped with his force, to take leave preparatory to his going to bathe at Ajoodheea, on the last day of the month of Kartick, as was his invariable custom. He was accompanied by the Rajah of Bulrampoor, and they encamped separately in two mango-groves near to each other, and about a mile and a half from the Nazim's camp. About nine at night the Nazim sent two messengers, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... not infrequent. The almost invariable cause of this is an improper distribution of the body weight over the hoof—that is, an unbalanced foot. Colts running in soft pasture or confined for long periods in the stable are frequently allowed to grow hoofs of excessive length. The long toe becomes "dished"—that is, concave from the ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... read the Scriptures for him. This he did for some time, until he became so infirm, that he was compelled to resign. But when he proposed to return to his native village, that he might die amongst his kindred, according to the invariable custom in Samoa, his people begged that he would not leave them; and that, as he had devoted so much of his strength to their good, they might be allowed to 'nurse' him in his old age, and to have the honour of burying him in their own village. But the national custom prevailed over their ...
— Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society • Various
... his eccentricities were such as did him credit. One thing she told me made a lasting impression on me. Mrs. Ransome, the lady in whose house he lived, had left her home very suddenly. He anticipated a like return; so, ever since her departure, it had been his invariable custom to have the table set for three, so that he might never be surprised by her arrival. It had become a monomania with him. Never did he sit down without there being enough before him for a small family, and as his food was all brought in cooked from a neighboring ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... custom with us was to eat only two meals a day and these were served at each end of the day. This rule was not invariable, however, for if there should be any callers, it was Indian etiquette to offer either tobacco or food, or both. The rule of two meals a day was more closely observed by the men—especially the younger men—than by the women and children. This was when the ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... The invariable result of an attack thus attempted, however vigorously made, was that the van of the assailant got into action first, receiving the brunt of the enemy's fire without proper support. Not infrequently, it also underwent a second hammering from the enemy's rear, ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... invariable reply. "No, thanks to St. Genevieve and your Lordship, whom we call in this village the poor man's friend, I have ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... richness of invention manifested in the stories which deal with the outwitting of evil spirits. The same devices are in almost all cases resorted to, and their effect is invariable. The leading characters undergo certain transmutations as the scene of the story is shifted, but their mutual relations remain constant. Thus, in a German story[474] we find a schoolmaster deceiving the devil; in one of its Slavonic counterparts[475] a gypsy deludes a snake; in another, current ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... "tag?" Does it receive this name because its invariable stupidity suggests those other worthless commodities "rag" and "bob-tail," which, outside of theatres, are ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... the unwisdom of having given currency to the phrase "self-determination." As the expression of an actual right, the application of which is universal and invariable, the phrase has been repudiated or at least violated by many of the terms of the treaties which brought to an end the World War. Since the time that the principle was proclaimed, it has been the excuse for turbulent political elements in various lands to resist established governmental ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... the germ-plasm and the consequent non-heredity of acquired characters, while in perfect harmony with all the well-ascertained facts of heredity and development, adds greatly to the importance of natural selection as the one invariable and ever-present factor in all organic change, and that which can alone have produced the temporary fixity combined with the secular modification of species. While admitting, as Darwin always admitted, the co-operation of the fundamental laws of growth and variation, of correlation ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... wife, in her whole intercourse with her husband, try the efficacy of gentleness, purity, sincerity, scrupulous truth, meek and patient forbearance, an invariable tone and manner of deference, and, if he is not a brute, he cannot help respecting her and treating her kindly; and in nearly all instances he will end by loving her and living ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... fortunate how habituated one gets to things, even to enduring discomfort. If I can only get my mind occupied, it hardly ever distracts me now." And again—"I think the only really valuable experiences are those that we can not lay down and take up at will, but which continue with us, invariable, unaltering, day after day, meeting us at every moment and tempering every mood." And once—"In spite of everything, I would not for an instant go back. I have every now and then, on breezy sunny mornings or after rain, an intense gush ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... that the Roman laws were too weak to govern the republic; but experience has proved it to be an invariable fact that good laws, which raise the reputation and power of a small republic, become incommodious to it when once its grandeur is established, because it was their natural effect to make a great people but not to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... ladies was invariable, bowed, and resuming his coat accompanied her through the 'garden gate. "He kicked my dog," he said; "no action could be ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... indeed being rather to lengthen the distance, by various circumlocutions and discursive staggerings, like unto those in which drunken men under the pressure of a too mighty flow of ideas, are prone to indulge); still, I do mean to say, and do say distinctly, that it is the invariable practice of many mighty philosophers, in carrying out their theories, to evince great wisdom and foresight in providing against every possible contingency which can be supposed at all likely to affect themselves. Thus, to do a great ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... sections cut by the microtome after suitable fixation and hardening of the tissue. In the case of any bacterium discovered, observation must be made in a long series of instances in order to determine its invariable presence. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... becoming more populated, the crotalus is rapidly being exterminated. Yet, considering the recklessness which characterizes the cow boy in his treatment of this reptile, it is astonishing that this class of injury is not more common. Thus it is the invariable custom among the cattlemen to dismount and destroy these snakes whenever they are seen. This is readily accomplished, since a slight blow will break the back. This blow is, however, generally delivered by means of the quirt, a whip not over two and a half ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... heart, however, for Warren's invariable courtesy and sweetness filled his wife with sick apprehension. Ah, for the old good hours when he scolded and argued, protested and laughed over the developments of the day. Sometimes, nowadays, he hardly ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... dreadful old tyrant for keeping you slaving away at your classics and mathematics, because you recollect the work that you are often so unwilling to do, while the hours I give you for play quite slip your minds. Now, this is my invariable rule, that you shall do everything well: work hard when it's work, and play hard when ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... impatiently searching for his cloak in the back parlour, when a voice behind said: "Let me assist you, sir—do:" and turning round with petulant quickness, he beheld again Mr. Adolphus Poole. It requires an habitual intercourse with equals to give perfect and invariable control of temper to a man of irritable nerves and frank character; and though, where Daxrell really liked, he had much sweet forbearance, and where he was indifferent much stately courtesy, yet, when he was offended, he could be extremely uncivil. "Sir," he cried almost stamping his foot, "your ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... invariable rule in French history that when the military temper of the nation is allowed free play its success is assured, and that only when the cross-current of a political object disturbs this temper do the French fail, as ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... the keys of the treasury. When the king needed money he applied to him for a supply. The almost invariable reply he ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... from the places to which, if we have the secondary base system of supply, he knows for certain that our ships must resort. We shall have to do one of two things—either let him carry on his operations undisturbed, or conform to his movements. To this is due the common, if not invariable, experience of naval warfare, that the fleet which assumes the offensive has to establish what are sometimes called 'flying bases,' to which it can resort at will. This explains why Nelson rarely ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... its own sweet will it comes, and, having shown itself long enough to convince everybody who is not an "innocent entirely" of its reality, it goes without leave-taking or ceremony, and always before boats can approach near enough to make a careful inspection. This is the invariable history of its appearance. No one has ever been able to come close to its shores, much less land upon them, but it has been so often seen on the west coast, that a doubt of its existence, if expressed in the company of coast fishermen, will at once ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... It was my almost invariable custom to be announced when I visited my wife's closet; but I had no mind now for such formalities, and swiftly passing two or three scared servants on the stairs, I made straight for her room, tapped and entered. Abrupt as were my movements, however, ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... legitimate hypothesis, for there is no reason to suppose that there is any transcendental operation in causal movement as this can be satisfactorily explained by molecular movement (parispanda). There is nothing except the invariable time relation (antecedence and sequence) between the cause and the effect, but the mere invariableness of an antecedent does not suffice to make it the cause of what succeeds; it must be an unconditional antecedent as well (anyathasiddhis'unyasya ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... the dust, the only pattern of survival that he knew when strength beyond his own was shown. But even while he knelt, to scheme a way that he-and-his might find ascendancy in future days. The one invariable pattern persisting from the cave man dressed in furs to diplomat in striped pants, the only pattern possible while me-and-mine ascendant is the aim ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... produce physical changes; you can trace no such exertion in Nature. You would believe, says he, that Nature is active, but for the fact that her doings are all conformed to laws that you can trace. But invariableness, he maintains, is no proof of inaction. RIGHT ACTION is invariable; RIGHT ACTION is absolutely conformed to law. Why, therefore, should not the secret of nature's invariableness be, not passiveness, but rightness?' The unchanging uniformity of Nature's course proves her holiness—her willing, unvarying obedience to the Divine law. 'The invariableness ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... briefly one complication that might arise from regarding the current of injury as the current of reference, and designating the response current either positive or negative in relation to it. If this current of injury remained always invariable in direction—that is to say, from the injured to the uninjured—there would be no source of uncertainty. But it is often found, for example in the retina, that the current of injury undergoes a reversal, or is reversed from the beginning. That is to say, the direction is now ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose
... pointed out how very improbable it is that, had Colin Fitzgerald been really the progenitor of the Mackenzies, his name would have been so completely ignored as a family name for more than three hundred years in face of the invariable custom among all other notable Highland houses of honouring their direct ancestors by continuing their names as the leading ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... virtues. The fruits of self-restraint are much greater than those obtainable in all the modes of life. I shall now mention to thee the indications of those persons who prize self-restraint highly.[829] They are nobility, calmness of disposition, contentment, faith, forgiveness, invariable simplicity, the absence of garrulity, humility, reverence for superiors, benevolence, compassion for all creatures, frankness, abstention from talk upon kings and men in authority, from all false and useless discourses, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... off her coat, silently, stealthily, then blew her nose also stealthily, sighed, and noiselessly returned to her invariable position on her stool ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... until this other thing is settled," was Willy's invariable answer. "I have a certain amount of time here, and the fellows can drop in to see me without causing suspicion. In an office it would be different. And besides, I can't throw Mr. Davis down. His wife is ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... At first Dawn suspected me of only pretending, but I was so emphatic in declaring that the fresh air and motion of the boat induced the sleep I could not woo in bed, that they grew to believe me, and carefully covering me from mosquitoes, it became invariable that at a certain distance on our homeward way the rower relinquished rowing, the steerer stopped steering, and the boat drifted down-stream with the gentle flow, while two-thirds of its occupants tasted of ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... were next to mine, were evidently held in great esteem, and my hostess displayed them with the reverent pride of a good New England woman showing her parlour. There were three of them, opening one into the other. In each there was the invariable platform covered by rugs, and big Chinese vases stood ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... Netherlands from the time of the abjuration of Spain down to that moment. Through the whole period of independence in the time of Anjou, Matthias, Leicester, as well as under the actual government, it had been the invariable custom thus to provide both by land and sea and on the rivers against robbers, rebels, pirates, mischief-makers, assailing thieves, domestic or foreign. It had been done by the immortal William the Silent on many memorable occasions, and in fact ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... least (and many others might be discovered), in which the confederates unite; which is, that of a rival eminence in their treatment of their enemies. Spain, in her conquest of Minorca and the Bahama Islands, confirms this remark. America has been invariable in her lenity from the beginning of the war, notwithstanding the high provocations she has experienced? It is England only who has been insolent ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... property, ay, perhaps even the lives of those who, in such a crisis as this, would naturally look to me for the preservation of both, I must resort to guile. I mortally hate anything that in the slightest degree savours of deception, either in words or conduct, and have made it an invariable rule never to engage in any transaction needing the one or the other for its successful accomplishment; but here was a case in which I had no choice but to meet guile with guile. How was it to be done? Possibly, if the treasure happened ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... silencing his battery, which they think "capital." If a man should say in their company, that Chaucer was a great poet, one will immediately enquire, "how much?" while another wishes to know if Chaucer is entered for the "Derby?" "How much?" is the invariable slang, whenever a man gets the bit out of his mouth, or, in other words, talks of any ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... organization is indicated only by the fact, to be verified by subsequent observation, that the two are invariably developed into perfectly distinct animals, belonging respectively to the same races with their parents. A theorist, whose whole system is based upon the invariable operation of natural agencies, cannot reasonably object ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... was his invariable remark in cases of the kind under discussion; which was unwise, for if he had even scolded a servant as he did his wife for the servant's fault he might have secured ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... Mordaunt was insane, while Chief Baron Kelly differed. The woman in the case was for years afterwards confined in a lunatic asylum, and it has long since been quite well understood that the only basis for scandal was the fact that a Royal visit which had been paid upon one occasion was made under the invariable rule of etiquette, which prescribes that no other caller shall be received while the visit lasts. Before and after the trouble Lady Mordaunt's sisters, and especially the Dowager Countess of Dudley, were amongst the Princess of ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... did not possess a wide range of reading, he had the habit of committing to memory entire pages of the text he delighted in. The consequence was his invariable ability to not only utter apt quotations at length, but to cap them, if need be. Joining a group of visitors to Washington, at the Soldiers' Home, during the war, he suddenly, but in an ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... agree in one point—that he did not talk cleverly, or try to talk cleverly, as that proceeding is understood in literary circles. He talked positively, he talked a great deal, but he never attempted to give that neat and aesthetic character to his speech which is almost invariable in the case of the man who is vain of his mental superiority. When he did impress people with mental gymnastics, it was mostly in the form of pouring out, with passionate enthusiasm, whole epics written ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... assassinate us. As night drew on, my judgment, as well as nervousness, convinced me that the darkness would not pass without a murderous attempt. There was an unusual silence. On reaching port, there is commonly fun and merriment among crews; but the usual song and invariable guitar were omitted from the evening's entertainment. I searched the deck carefully, yet but two mariners were found above the hatches apparently asleep. Inasmuch as I was only a subordinate officer, I could not ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... on, who act as operative causes. And we further observe that the production of effects invariably requires several instrumental agencies. The Vedanta-texts therefore cannot possess the strength to convince us, in open defiance of the two invariable rules, that the one Brahman is at the same time the material and the operative cause of the world; and hence we maintain that Brahman is only the operative but not the material cause, while the material cause is the Pradhana ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... that day until long after Dickens' death, through it have passed countless throngs of all classes of society, and it has always figured in such ceremony of state as the comparatively infrequent visits of the sovereign to the City. The invariable custom was to close the gate whenever the sovereign had entered the City, "and at ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... produced with trouble by an intelligent agent must, 'a fortiori', be more troublesome, if not impossible, to an unintelligent agent. Even putting aside the question whether Nature, acting as she does according to definite and invariable laws, can be rightly called an unintelligent agent, such a position as this is wholly untenable. Mix salt and sand, and it shall puzzle the wisest of men, with his mere natural appliances, to separate ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... Theodore? You remember the PHOS—phorescence?'—all so beautifully and vividly that I almost felt stormbound and in peril of my life. To disentangle one from another of the several occasions on which I heard him talk is difficult because the procedure was so invariable: Watts-Dunton always dictating when I arrived, Swinburne always appearing at the moment of the meal, always the same simple and substantial fare, Swinburne never allowed to talk before the meal was half over. As to this last point, I soon realised that ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... discrimination stripped them of their deceptive appendages, and separated fallacies from truth, marshalling their arguments, so as to elucidate or detect each other. But in all his disputations, it was an invariable maxim with him never to interrupt the most tedious or confused opponents, though, from his pithy questions, he made it evident, that, from the first, he anticipated the train and consequences of ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... evening, was perfectly heart-rending. There was a sudden inquiry concerning my loose change, and I was furnished with a memorandum-book in which to write down my daily disbursements. Frequent visits to the opera (oh, the torture of those evenings!) had been an invariable rule with the Mountchessingtons; and, at the risk of rendering impotent the tympanum of both ears, I was compelled to continue that respectable custom. Persons occupying our position should be careful with whom they associated; and the character ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... example of any living creature whose action we can understand, performing an ineffably difficult and intricate action, time after time, with invariable success, and yet not knowing how to do it, and never having done it before? Show me the example and I will say no more, but until it is shown me, I shall credit action where I cannot watch it, with being controlled by the same laws as when it is within our ken. It will become ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... is often done to subjects and personalities of national interest. The Ziegfeld perennial Follies invariably have bits that are played by impersonators of the national figure of the moment. Sometimes in musical revues great dramatic successes are travestied, and the invariable shouts of laughter their presentation provokes are an illuminating exemplification of the truth that between tragedy and comedy ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... a brief statement of the several planets, the asteroids, and the satellites, it will be well to consider in a general way the motions of these bodies about their centres and about the sun. The most characteristic and invariable of these movements is that by which each of the planetary spheres, as well as the satellites, describes an orbit around the gravitative centre which has the most influence upon it—the sun. To conceive ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... the same propositions, must necessarily surprise her imperial majesty, as it showed but little regard to her former declaration. The empress, therefore, commanded his excellency to be told, that as her intentions contained in her first answer remained absolutely invariable, no ulterior propositions for a mediation would be listened to; and that as for the menaces made use of by his excellency, and particularly that the king of Prussia himself would soon attack the Russian army, such threats served only to weaken the ambassador's proposals; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Patterson says. During the many months that it has been in this Medium's possession I have made to her the most urgent appeals, both in person and by letter, to fulfill her promise of causing the writing to appear in it. Her invariable excuse has been her lack ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... with the assistance of our glasses, we discovered sixteen Norwegians, and their invariable companions, as many dogs, leading and tormenting four rein-deer down the mountains; and for two hours, along the narrow road of descent, we watched the whole troop enlarging from the indistinctness of black-beetles to the symmetry and size of men and animals. When they had reached the plain on ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... I fabricated was, as I said before, of an invariable size, namely, a little ingot worth perhaps thirty or forty-five dollars. In two years I calculated that I had made five hundred of these ingots, which, rated at an average of thirty dollars apiece, would amount to the gross sum of fifteen ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... fairly intoxicated with success. Some of his followers would sometimes ask him if he had no fear that the Canadian Government would send out a large force of soldiers against him. His invariable reply was: ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... morning, Gellert was sitting at his table, and reading according to his invariable custom, first of all in the Bible. He never left the Bible open—he always shut it with a peaceful, devotional air, after he had read therein: there was something grateful as well as reverential in his manner of closing the volume; the holy words ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various |
