"Positive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... positive commands from that wandering physician not to give his address to chance applicants, the inmates of Chalk Cottage having come in for a special interdiction. Therefore Jan could ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... "I'm positive! You're such an extraordinary, woman. I'm pretty sure it all hinges on the treasure I told you about the other day. Whoever gets first hold of that holds all the trumps. I'd like to get it myself. That would be the making of me, politically speaking. If Gungadhura ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... And in the case of downright fraud—finding out what a man had offered for his farm and taking it over his head—the offender was "an ill gettit wratch." The two latter phrases were dark with theology, and even the positive degree of condemnation had ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... 'Proof positive of my two propositions,' said Hazel with a laugh. 'Waiting on me, is bewildering work ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... never be satisfied. Phocion might well think that poverty a virtue, in which, after having so often been general of the Athenians, and admitted to the friendship of potentates and princes, he had now grown old. Demades, meantime, delighted in lavishing his wealth even in positive transgressions of the law. For there having been an order that no foreigner should be hired to dance in any chorus on the penalty of a fine of one thousand drachmas on the exhibitor, he had the vanity to exhibit an entire chorus of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... undoubted acquaintance with the Baron Munchausen of real life and the first appearance of the work in 1785, when Raspe was certainly in England, there seems to be little difficulty in accepting his authorship as a positive fact. There is no difficulty whatever, in crediting Raspe with a sufficient mastery of English idiom to have written the book without assistance, for as early as January 1780 (since which date Raspe had resided uninterruptedly in this country) Walpole wrote to his friend Mason ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... with their clubbed sounds—than their opposite (Silence her sacred self) is multiplied and rendered more intense by numbers, and by sympathy. She too hath her deeps, that call unto deeps. Negation itself hath a positive more and less; and closed eyes would seem to obscure the great ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... possibility—nay, probability—we cannot apodictically deny the existence of organized beings on a planet merely because the conditions on the same are unsuitable for the existence of life as we conceive it. We cannot even, with positive assurance, assert that some of them might not be present here in this our world, in the very midst of us, for their constitution and life manifestation may be such that we are ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... opposite this couple I saw him halt just a perceptible instant, his eye upon the hurrying waiter; then he stepped quickly before the coming couple and made a courteous but positive gesture, clearly an order to halt. The man did not halt, but brushed past the polite guard with a scowling face. He was a big fellow, flashily dressed, and with a countenance at once coarse and dissipated; and as he made a second forward movement I could distinctly ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... hand of the President, pocketed it, and returned by the next stage to college. This prank only moved the Squire to mirth, when he heard of it. He knew that Hugh was a lad of spirit,—that in scholarship he was by no means a dunce; and as long as there was no positive tendency to vice, he thought but lightly of his boyish peccadilloes. But it was impossible for such irregularities to continue, and after a while Mr. Kinloch yielded to his step-son's request and took ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... Robinson to learn what he had to report. Apparently, my suspicions of Frank Woods were groundless. He had had dinner at the club and then waited around for Jim to keep his appointment. He had been seen by Jackson at eight twenty-five; Jackson was positive of that fact. Ten or fifteen minutes at the most in which to go six miles to the bridge and back to the club, put up his car and ask Jackson for a drink. The thing couldn't be done. He had heard of Jim's death with surprise and had heard of Helen's injury with the greatest horror. There seemed ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... my firm opinion is, that if the rascals had found us unprepared, she would have been alongside us before now. She had more people on board her than when she left Malta harbour this morning, though where they came from I can't say; and I'm positive as to the craft, though the young man denied having been there for many a day. I ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... "so named by Faraday from the Greek verb, io, to go. They are little positive and negative charges of electricity of which molecules are composed. You know some believe now that matter is really composed of electrical energy. I think I can explain it best by a simile I use with my classes. It is as though you had a ballroom in which the dancers ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... "Story of Bhazad (!) the Impatient." The name is Persian, Bih (well, good) Zd (born). In the adj. bih we recognize a positive lost in English and German which retain the comparative (bih-tar better) ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... standing upon the surface and listening attentively, we hear, from time to time, a grinding sound. The rocks which lie along the sides are pulverized, and are continually moving against each other and falling; and then, besides, which is a more direct and positive proof still of the motion of the mass, a mark may be set up upon the ice, as has been often done, and marks corresponding to it made upon the solid rocks on each side of the valley, and by this means the fact ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... off the blood which he would want in his struggle with disease, of making him sore and wretched with needless blisters, of turning his stomach with unnecessary nauseous draught and mixtures,—only because he was sick and something must be done. But there were positive as well as negative facts to be learned, and some of us, I fear, came home rich in the negatives of the expectant practice, poor in the resources which many a plain country practitioner had ready in abundance for the relief and the cure ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Woodstock, intending to speak with Benefield on the subject. The goodness of God however so ordered it, that while Basset was travelling to Woodstock, Benefield, by an order of council, was going to London; in consequence of which, he left a positive order with his brother, that no man should be admitted to the princess during his absence, not even with a note from the queen; his brother met the murderer, but the latter's intention was frustrated, as no ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... number of houses. Most of the houses had been looted systematically. According to the stories of those inhabitants who remain, there was a reign of terror for about a week, during which the Germans rendered themselves guilty of every sort of atrocity and barbarity. They are all most positive that there was no firing upon the German troops by the civil population. It seems to be generally believed that the massacre was due to resistance of retiring Belgian troops and the destruction of bridges and tunnels to cover their retreat. Whatever the ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... take no notice of us, but when Hollis threw open the lid of the box his eyes flew to it—and so did ours. The quilted crimson satin of the inside put a violent patch of colour into the sombre atmosphere; it was something positive to look ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... Perhaps there may be some little thing to say in exculpation. If the offender can, after a short space, continue to make his usual personal appearances, he is safe, because the great bulk of his old friends would rather continue to recognise him, than come to a positive rupture—an event always felt as inconvenient. Of course, they will be too well-bred to allude before him to any unpleasant fact in his history. He will never recall it to their minds. By being thus thrown out of all common reference, it will become obscured to a wonderful degree, insomuch ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... the Cloth of Gold rises a knight without fear and without reproach. Purely human and most heroic, as unpretending as spotless, womanly, gentle, yet of positive and aggressive strength, strength to do silently, to endure steadfastly, to die conquered, yet victorious, to live in the front, yet alone,—is it an ideal character? So much the more let it be studied, that our souls may absorb it and produce the reality: for it is ideal after no impossible sort. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... greatest book of the season for children. The authoress has a genius for story-telling. Prudy's letter to Mr. 'Gustus Somebody must be genuine; if an invention, it shows a genius akin to that of the great masters. It is a positive kindness to the little ones to remind their parents that there is such a book ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... France," he added, "have done no harm; their intentions towards us are most friendly. Can we, without reason, deprive them of that liberty and protection which we grant here to all men, and especially to men of prayer? Are we justified in rendering ourselves guilty of present and positive injustice, from the imaginary dread of evils ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... the subject before, and I was a little startled at Bessie's positive manner, for I thought even this matter would not be free from her mother's dictation. The old lady seemed surprised and vexed. "George is a much better name, I think," she said very quietly, keeping down her vexation, "but I ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... law is quite positive, and the Judge is bent on putting it in forcefive pounds penalty. I thought I heard your hounds out on the scent of sothing this morning; I didnt know but they might get you ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... fire; Can chance of seeing first thy title prove? And know'st thou not, no law is made for love? Law is to things which to free choice relate; Love is not in our choice, but in our fate; Laws are but positive; love's power, we see, Is Nature's sanction, and her first decree. 330 Each day we break the bond of human laws For love, and vindicate the common cause. Laws for defence of civil rights are placed, Love ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... this; you are to decide this cause upon evidence; you have no positive evidence of any thing that passed in the house of Lord Cochrane, except that evidence which my learned friend, Mr. Gurney, has given you from Lord Cochrane himself; you have had evidence upon the oath of my Lord Cochrane, that whatever concealed objects ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... antagonists, nor a desire to accumulate money—for his recklessness disproved that—but the liberation of the gambling passion. Wade recognized that when he met it. And Jack Belllounds was not in any sense big. He was selfish and grasping in the numberless little ways common to the game, and positive about his own rights, while doubtful of the claims of others. His cheating was clumsy and crude. He held out cards, hiding them in his palm; he shuffled the deck so he left aces at the bottom, and these he would slip off to himself, and he was so blind that he could not detect ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... a selfish feeling, that the planter of an elm or an oak does not reap such an immediate profit from it himself, as will compensate for the expense and trouble of raising it. This is an extremely narrow principle, which, fortunately, the rich are beginning to be ashamed of. It is a positive duty of a landed proprietor who cuts down a tree which his grandfather planted, to put a young one into the ground, as a legacy to his own grand-children: he will otherwise leave the world worse than he found it. Sir Walter Scott, who ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... useless the information the detective and himself had obtained with so much trouble and risk. But the first question that came into his head was the inquiry as to what his uncle was doing in Bermuda. He was a Confederate of the most positive type, had done everything in his power for his government, as he understood it, and was willing to sacrifice his life and all that he had in the world in ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... necessary to render their position complete. If they fail to obtain them then they are as irritated as if slander were being pronounced against them and as angry as if they were the recipients of positive insult. Consequently the world is more scrupulous in the case of such persons than (one might almost say) in the case of emperors themselves. To the latter it is ascribed as a virtue to pardon any one if an error is committed; but in the self-made persons that course ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... an old bureau. For many years she carried her savings about with her from town to town, sometimes retaining upon her person gold in rouleaux to a large amount. She is even said to have kept in her pocket for seven years a note for L200. At length her wealth became a positive embarrassment to her. She deposited sums in country banks and in the hands of respectable tradesmen, at three per cent., sometimes without receiving any interest whatever, but merely with a view to the safer custody of her resources. It was with ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... for giving our cousin the benefit of his detective work, although both Daphne and I were positive that Vandy had identified the pedestal from Adele's description before Jonah had volunteered the suggestion ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... my life I assisted at the simplest and grandest spectacle—the inauguration of a President. Lincoln's message good, according to circumstances, but not conclusive; it is not positive; it discusses questions, but avoids to assert. May his mind not be altogether of the same kind. Events will want and demand more positiveness and action than the message contains assertions. The immense ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... dignity. She gave herself away without reserve whenever occasion offered. She abused Deleah, she scolded her mother, she wept noisily over her wrongs. She declared that there was positive indecency on Deleah's part in encouraging the love-making of a young man who had once, however long ago it ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... information," she said, presently. "But I am as positive one way as you are another that you have never been in this house before. I may surmise things, but as I hope to be judged fairly I can give you no information. I am only a poor, unhappy girl, who is doing what she deems to be the best for all parties concerned. ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... to have behaved but once in this wise," she observed, "I feel positive that a couple of the tendons of her legs would have long ago been snapped. But, Miss, don't credit all they say. It's because they see that our senior mistress is as sweet-tempered as a 'P'u-sa,' and that you, miss, are a modest young lady, that they, naturally, shirk ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... astray by sixteenth-century writers whose smallest concern was to be critical and accurate. To avoid the tedious and entirely negative task to which it would be necessary to proceed if I took him for my starting-point I shall confine myself to a positive study of ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... self-realization, meet the constraint which the community, whose only object is likewise self-realization and self-preservation, puts upon all within its power. The law is negative and repressive, self-interest is positive and assertive; between the two there is no possible reconciliation—at most a compromise—so that in the last analysis it appears that the assertion of individual will as such is immoral, that is, contrary to the will of the community; and is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... her own vulgar and commonplace mind being capable of comprehending the Duchess's great qualities. It was impossible less to resemble each other. The one adored grandeur even to the romantic and the chimerical, the other was entirely positive and matter-of-fact, and absorbed with her own interest, especially in those relating to her property. Alienated from the Fronde through the jealous hatred she bore towards her stepmother, who in turn liked her almost as little, and probably also did not take pains ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... my Journal again to record another disquieting accident. It is odd, but I have missed one of the pieces of my father's clasp. I am positive it was in my pocket last night. I now have an indistinct recollection of hearing something fall whilst I was dressing this morning, but although I have searched both cabin and state-room thoroughly, I can find nothing. However, even if it has fallen into Colliver's hands, which is unlikely, ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in an hour—oh, heavens! what a revulsion! what an unheaving, from its lowest depths, of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the world within me! That my pains had vanished was now a trifle in my eyes; this negative effect was swallowed up in the immensity of those positive effects which had opened before me, in the abyss of divine ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the Persian king might easily have held with a small number of resolute men, the Cyreian forces passed, with no one to hinder them. The great trench, on which so much labor had been expended, was, therefore, not only useless as a defence to Artaxerxes, but it was a positive encouragement to Cyrus and his men, for it revealed the inefficiency and the cowardice of the Persians. The whole army now moved rapidly forward, confident of an easy victory, many even supposing that Artaxerxes would make no stand at all, but abandon his capital ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... silently emerging, appears on the streets, People's lips salute only doers, lovers, satisfiers, positive knowers, There will shortly be no more priests, I say their work is done, Death is without emergencies here, but life is perpetual emergencies here, Are your body, days, manners, superb? after death you shall ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... club. I invariably attend the matches unless the house happens to be on fire. I have enough of the sporting instinct to be able to take defeat cheerfully—if the defeat falls within certain limits. It must not be so crushing as to be a positive humiliation, nor must it be by so fine a margin as to constitute itself a tantalization. Of the two, I prefer the former to the latter. The former can be dismissed under certain recognized forms. 'The glorious uncertainty of cricket!' you say to yourself. 'It's ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... (population): The annual percent change in the population, resulting from a surplus (or deficit) of births over deaths and the balance of migrants entering and leaving a country. The rate may be positive or negative. ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... neighboring objects on the skin has probably arisen from the resemblance of the burns due to the ramifications of the blood-vessels as conductors, or to peculiar electric movements which can be demonstrated by positive charges on lycopodium powder. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... Cochut was so positive, that at length Balkishen, who calculated that the task of setting fire to the slow match might be the least dangerous, undertook it. Afraid of creeping out by daylight, they were unable to ascertain what was taking place in the fort above them; but they ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... was Mary's prompt and positive response. "I must go to church to-morrow, and cannot, of course, go out, without my ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... clearly present in his use of facts a true sense of historical method. He put an end also to the confusion which resulted from the effort of thinkers to erect standards of right and wrong independent of all positive law. He took the facts as phenomena to be explained rather than as illustrations of some favorite thesis to be maintained in part defiance of them. Conventional Whiggism has no foothold after he has done with its analysis. His utilitarianism was the first efficient substitute ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... in her simple riding-dress, so quaint and original in that very beauty, and, above all, so teeming with a certain vital earnestness of purpose just positive and audacious enough to set off that beauty, that the grave gentleman before her did not content himself with the usual formal inclination of courtesy, but actually advanced, and, taking her cold little hand in his, graciously led her to the ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... deference to their just rights, he should grant them a renewal of Henry's charter, and a confirmation of the laws of St. Edward. The king, alarmed with their zeal and unanimity, as well as with their power, required a delay; promised that, at the festival of Easter, he would give them a positive answer to their petition; and offered them the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Ely, and the Earl of Pembroke, the mareschal, as sureties for his fulfilling this engagement [a]. The barons accepted of the terms, and peaceably ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... build up; but my object is merely to give the reader a general idea of my poor sister's situation. In outward appearance, her countenance denoted that expression which the French so well describe, by their customary term of "fatigue," rather than any other positive indication of disease—Grace's frame was so delicate by nature, that a little falling away was not as perceptible in her, as it would have been in most persons; though her beautiful little hands wanted that fulness which ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... widely that it was deemed wise to send out more runners to observe this moving body closely, and ascertain definitely its character. These soon returned with the positive information that the Canadians were at hand, "for," said they, "there are no bright metals in the moving train to send forth flashes of light. The separate bodies are short, like carts with ponies, and not ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... me! nothing but such a positive coxcomb as I am, would have laid his money upon such odds; as if you did not know your own lodgings better than I, at half a day's warning! And that which vexes me more than the loss of my money, is the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... of the sexes is exempt from the despotism of positive institution. Law pretends even to govern the indisciplinable wanderings of passion, to put fetters on the clearest deductions of reason, and, by appeals to the will, to subdue the involuntary affections of our nature. Love is inevitably consequent upon the perception of loveliness. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... room there would have been a good deal to be said for him; for, though he did not know as much as Felix of the nature and sentiments of Tod's children, he knew enough to make any but an Englishman uneasy. The fact that he went on eating ham, and said to Clara, "Half a cup!" was proof positive of that mysterious quality called phlegm which had long enabled his country to enjoy the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... head. Not that it would have meant much if she had. They had found hundreds of pictures with captions; they had never been able to establish a positive relationship between any pictured object and any printed word. Neither of them said anything more, and after a moment Sachiko replaced the loup and bent her ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... that their animal population was a matter of chance; it has been termed the "flotsam and jetsam theory," and it has been maintained that nature does not work by the "CHAPTER of accidents." But in the case which I have here described, we have the most positive evidence that such has been the mode of peopling the islands. Their productions are of that miscellaneous character which we should expect front such an origin; and to suppose that they have been portions of Australia or of Java will introduce ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... published by the same institution, and entitled The Sovereignty of God Explained and Vindicated, the design of which is to present the doctrine of Divine decrees in such a light as will obviate the usual objections to the Calvinistic view, he says: "Certain things God brings to pass by a positive agency. Others he simply permits to come to pass. And let it be remarked, permission and approbation do not, by any means, mean the same thing." Again: "Does any one ask what is the difference between ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... principle of Being and the multitudinous principle of atoms, entered into the composition of the world; which could distinguish between the true and false analogy, and allow the negative as well as the positive a place in human thought. To such a philosophy Plato, in the Theaetetus, offers many contributions. He has followed philosophy into the region of mythology, and pointed out the similarities of opposing phases of thought. He has also shown that extreme abstractions ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... along. He was in the habit of spending the night here whenever Nita would give him an evening of her company. He was here last night, according to the maid, Lydia Carr. Nita sent her into Hamilton to a picture show. Nita and Sprague quarreled last night, but I am positive he spent the night here anyway. Certainly there was no actual rupture, since Sprague worded his note to her as he did. I have another strong reason for thinking his belongings were here at least until noon today, but that can wait for the moment. Furthermore, I ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... of Peter Grimm," is an expression in dramatic form of my ideas on a subject which I have pondered over since boyhood: "Can the dead come back?" Peter Grimm did come back. At the same time, I inserted a note in my program to say that I advanced no positive opinion; that the treatment of the play allowed the audience to believe that it had actually seen Peter, or that he had not been seen but existed merely in the minds of the characters on the stage. Spiritualists from all over the country flocked to see "The Return of ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... others, would be good enough to come here, or send somebody to supply the wants of our army dying of hunger, and actually after fighting two days, and defeating in the service of Spain an enemy of twice their number, without bread to eat. It is a positive fact that for the last seven days the English army has not received a third of its provisions, that at this moment there are 4000 wounded soldiers dying for want of the care and necessaries which any other ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... soldiers of the United States in and about Manila, male or female, staff or supply, signal or hospital corps, Red Cross or crossed cannon, rifles, or sabres, this indomitable woman was now the most sought after—the most in demand. Her identification of the dead man had been positive and complete. ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... time to discuss this prospect, a deciding step was announced, by Jarvis, He was under positive orders to catch the steamer Wrigley at Fort Resolution on the evening of July 10. It was now mid-day of July 9, and only by leaving at once and travelling all night could he cover the intervening ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... soldier thinks he must have this article of luxury and the other, until he finds that they are positive burdens to himself and horse, and gradually he throws off this weight and that incumbrance, until his entire outfit is reduced to nearly "the little end of nothing, whittled to a point!" Possessed of a coffee-bag and cup and a hard-tack or biscuit, the most ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... thousand dollars into the saddler's pocket: that's a positive good. He may or may not take thereby ten dollars out of your pocket: that's a negative injury. In this case there was no injury, for you had already cost Lacasse—how much had you cost him, Dauphin?" continued the Seigneur, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... land where there is no night for two or three months, is that the better houses never have shutters, and seldom blinds, at the windows; therefore the sun streams in undisturbed; and when a room has four windows, as happened to us at Sordavala, the light of day becomes a positive nuisance, and a few green calico blinds an absolute godsend; indeed, almost as essential as the oil of cloves or lavender or the ammonia bottle for gnat bites, or the mosquito head-nets, if one sleeps with open ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... people might think to be blood, this would satisfy the judges. They answered: "God forbid we should dissemble our faith." We have elsewhere taken notice that the Christians then observed in many places the positive temporary law of the apostles.[2] Thamsapor and the governor, after a short consultation, condemned both to be stoned to death by the Christians. Joseph was executed at Arbela. He was put into the ground ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the great lung-power of Caruso that made him a great singer. It was his remarkable heart-power that brought him through an illness in February, 1921, when every newspaper in the world carried on its front page the positive statement that he could not live another day. That he lived for six months afterward was due chiefly ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... writer of the tenth century, Mo[t.]ahhar ibn [T.][a]hir,[20] author of the Book of the Creation and of History, who gave as a curiosity, in Indian (N[a]gar[i]) symbols, a large number asserted by the people of India to represent the duration of the world. Huart feels positive that in Mo[t.]ahhar's time the present Arabic symbols had not yet come into use, and that the Indian symbols, although known to scholars, were not current. Unless this were the case, neither the author nor his readers would have ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... perfectly positive valve motion without dead points, great regularity and ease of motion, and entire absence of noise or shock of any kind. Both kinds of pumps are made by Mr. Worthington, of various size according to the requirements, the duplex being used for boiler feed ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... although you saw the entry, that would not help you?-It would not, but I could not say anything positive about that. ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... hopeless, and why should the North continue a contest at so much loss of blood and treasure, and at so great a loss to the commerce of the whole world? If a man thought—if a man believed in his heart that the contest was absolutely hopeless—no man in this country had probably any right to form a positive opinion one way or the other—but if he had formed that opinion, he might think, 'Well, the North can never be successful; it would be much better that they should not carry on the war at all; and therefore I am rather glad that the South should have success, ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... matches, summer resort dances, and all those events which gather together the youth of our prosperous classes. Of the medium height, with a strong look about the shoulders, with sufficiently, though not aggressively, positive features and a clear skin, with gray-green eyes, good teeth, and a pleasing expression, he had an excellent natural basis on which to build himself into a particularly engaging and plausible type of fashionable ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... impotent fury to a napping Gott!... Oh, an insufferable affront to a man of his order who held even the dearest woman as the favored pensioner on his bounty ... or she would be consumed with remorse, melt ... it was positive that she must visit him—not leave him to starve ... nor could she keep him bound ... and once more she would be his slave ... could she hold ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... a rule, these are for the lower ranks of needlewomen, but necessity will compel something more definite in form for the two classes we have been considering, as well as for those below them, and the time approaches when this will be plain to the workers themselves, and some positive action take the place of the present ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... above she is necessary while der civilization is incomblete, but der force is from der bottom. It is all time positive and primitive, for it was make when man was make at ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... to the westward. It was our easiest course; for we would ever have the wind from astern; and though we could not so much as hope to arrive at any one spot previously designated, there was still a positive certainty, if we floated long enough, of falling in with islands whereat to refresh ourselves; and whence, if we thought fit, we might afterward embark for more agreeable climes. I then reminded them ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... by devices not provided for in the Constitution, sometimes with unfortunate results. But a recognition of defects in our government should not cause us to lose respect for the Constitution. They are due not to positive blunders on the part of the framers, but to the mere absence of provision for conditions that did not exist when the Constitution was framed and that could not be foreseen by the wisest men of that time. The wise course for all good citizens is to seek to understand ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... personal excellence may be maintained together. And besides other names that our own annals might supply, he whom the providence of God removed from the highest office in this nation when he had but just crossed its threshold was, if we may believe various and positive testimony, an example of moral and religious character worthy of universal imitation. By the consent of all parties, the late President Harrison was a good man; and now that he has gone to the judgment where there is no respect of persons, who does not feel that this is a ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett
... perplexed to know what to do, whether openly to quarrel with Lady Neville and refuse to consummate the marriage, or to banish his suspicions and take her for his wife. His love for her finally triumphed, and he resolved to proceed with the marriage. He had no positive evidence against her, he said to himself, and then, besides, even if there were some secret attachment on her part, to account for these mysterious appearances, she might, after all, when once married to him, make him a faithful and affectionate wife. ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the history of what befel this country after the decline of the Roman empire is so intimately blended with that of Suabia, the Tyrolese, and the lower parts of the Grisons, which are known to have fallen to the share of the rising power of the Franks, that nothing positive can be drawn from authors as to the interior state of this small tract. The victory gained in the year 496 near Cologn, by Clovis I. king of the Franks, over the Alemanni, who had wrested from the Romans all the ...
— Account of the Romansh Language - In a Letter to Sir John Pringle, Bart. P. R. S. • Joseph Planta, Esq. F. R. S.
... Temple, where for some time he read statutes and reports with proficiency proportionate to the force of his mind, which was already such that he endeavoured to comprehend law, not as a series of precedents, or collection of positive precepts, but as a system of rational government and impartial justice. When he was nineteen, he was, by the death of his father, left more to his own direction, and probably from that time suffered law gradually to give way to poetry. At twenty-five he ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... risk his honor by taking her to wife; that thus the way might be left clear for himself; and he resolved, if possible, to effect this in such a manner—namely, by jests, innuendos and sneers—that it should never be directly traced to a positive assertion on his part. And in the mean time he determined to so govern himself in his deportment toward Capitola as to arouse no suspicion, give no offense and, if ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... I have no doubt on the subject," said Mrs. Tracy, in a positive tone. "He is the person most likely to take the money, and this makes less ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... "I am positive that when I at last gain your consent to marry me,"—he paused an instant to note the effect of his words, but there was not the quiver of an eyelash on her part,—"even then, you will have the audacity to tell me that you gave it for any other reason under heaven than consideration ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... which is plurality, nor that which is at once unity and plurality, nor that which is not at once unity and plurality. It is a negative concept in the sense that it is beyond all that is conditional and yet it is a positive concept in the sense that it holds all within it. It cannot be comprehended by any kind of particularization or distinction. It is only by transcending the range of our intellectual categories of the comprehension of the limited range of finite phenomena that we can get a glimpse of ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... Andre was as clear as light itself, and he did not materially contradict himself. Mrs. Checkynshaw was called for the defence; but, to the astonishment and disgust of the legal gentleman and his employers, she testified, in the most positive manner, that the elegant young lady in court was Marguerite Checkynshaw. She had taken care of her as a child, and she could not be mistaken. Mrs. Wittleworth was put upon the stand, with the letter announcing the death of Marguerite in her hand; but, ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... and her tone conveyed the most positive refusal to obey this behest. She sprang to her feet, and with flashing eyes, she cried: "We are not Greeks, neither she nor I, and I can tell you once for all that she is not my kind and welcome visitor, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... I never analyzed my impressions of Helen then, but I am sure I considered her far above any commonplace educational needs, for I knew that she was so wise, so disciplined, so true to all her duties, that she was altogether a woman, and not a little girl at all. It gave me a positive shock to discover that she was ciphering in vulgar fractions and that her spelling was, to say the least, crude. Not but that she was childish enough in many things, and so exquisitely docile with her father that he often scolded her for her over-careful obedience. I could ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... and positive holiness is true; but that the Pharisee's definition is, notwithstanding, false, will be manifest by and by. But I will first treat of righteousness in the general, because the text ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... top of the staircase that led down to the front door, when she saw that some one had preceded her. It was Madigan, who was on his way down to dinner; poor old Madigan, with his slippered, slow, but positive tread, his straight, assertive back expressing indignation, as it always did when his door-bell was rung. Oh, that familiar old back! Something swelled in Split's throat and held her choking, as she grasped the banister and gazed yearningly down upon him. For a moment ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... expectations, having compelled Lord Robert to provide for Polly, who is now safely ensconced in her own country castle somewhere in St. John's Wood, furnished to hand with servants and vassals complete. Thus you will be charmed to observe in me the growth of the prophetic instinct, for you will remember my positive prediction that if a girl were in trouble, and the necessity arose, Mr. Drake would be the first to help her. Of course, he had a great deal to say that was as sweet as syrup on the loyalty of my own friendship also, and he expended much beautiful rhetoric on yourself as well. It seems that you are ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... souls seem absorbed in the pleasures of the table. A divine, true to his cloth, swallows his soup with the highest gout. Not less gratified is the gentleman palating a glass of wine. The man in a black wig is a positive representative of famine; and the portly and oily citizen, with a napkin tucked in his button-hole, has evidently burnt his mouth ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... is certainly a bright girl. I am positive that she recognized at once in Mrs. Barnett a woman who would adorn any gathering of refined people. The homemade dress mattered nothing, nor the garb of the little ones, which showed infinite toil combined with scanty means for accomplishment. It was delightful to observe the positive ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... to throw up this place of yours in the University and get into business. You'll come into contact with realities that way and realities are eternally opposed to—cobwebs. You'll be happier and more contented, I'm positive, once you get adjusted." He gave his listener a keen look. "I've got an opening in mind right now. Say the word and I'll have the place ready for you the day they appoint your successor in the University. Do you care to ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... conversation with so small a stock of words. There is much pliability of meaning, however, in an interjection; and in company, where there are always several persons who are anxious to be heard, it is a positive virtue. In Miss Constantia's intonation of her favourite 'impossible!' it seemed to me that there mingled a dash of sadness, a kind of musical and melancholy cadence, which was followed by an unconscious absence of mind, evidencing ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... the much-sought-after crown-cousin, and that Green Fancy was as free from taint as the village chapel, when out of a clear sky and almost under my very nose two men were mysteriously done away with at the very gates of the place. In fact, so positive was I that O'Dowd was all right, that I had started for Washington to send my report back home and wait for instructions. The killing of those two men changed the aspect completely. You will certainly ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... respect to private interviews either with her most faithful majesty or her august consort, that neither the government nor the people may have a pretext for entertaining any undue impressions of the intentions of England. It is therefore my most positive orders that you do not yourself call at the palace, nor permit any officer to do so without my previous sanction." The British ambassador sought, though in vain, to obtain justice for the officers and soldiers who had been in Don Pedro's service, and whose claims upon the Portuguese ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... preacher uplifts his voice and speedily gathers a congregation, his zeal for whose religious welfare impels the good man to such earnest vociferation and toilsome gesture that his perspiring face is quickly in a stew. His inward flame conspires with the too fervid sun and makes a positive martyr of him, even in the very exercise of his pious labor; insomuch that he purchases every atom of spiritual increment to his hearers by loss of his own corporeal solidity, and, should his discourse last ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... view in order to conform with the exigencies of the day. The aim is to direct special attention to the failure to recognize the Negro as a human asset with untold economic possibilities. He believes that the matter of race values and interdependency of all races must find "a definite and assuredly positive place in the various policies of any nation which is made up of several race groups." In one sense the author believes that "racial conflict, strife and differences inspiring as they do, struggle, jealousy, and ambition, are essential to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... the handicap of the unpleasant "Felix." For to their ears Felix was not a proper sort of name at all; it was all right for a horse or a dog or even for a town, but for a man who was also a relation it was a positive disaster. It would not shorten for one thing, and for another it reminded them of "a king, or some one in a history book," and thus did not predispose them in his favour. It was simply what Tim called a "beastly name." Aunt Emily, however, was responsible for their biggest prejudice ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... before the Chinese received them. In the crucible of the local philosophy they would be assimilated with Chinese ideas until the resulting compound assumed a Chinese appearance. When these inevitable circumstances are recalled the value of any positive evidence of Western influence is of ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... ordered you up to the very front, Monsieur! 'Tis not often the women are brought so close—but it means, Monsieur, that our Generals are positive of driving the ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... himself—demanded a confederated state of equal nations and lands. But the dualist Austria-Hungary became the oppressor of non-German and non-Magyar nationalities. It is the obstacle to peace in Europe and it has degenerated into a mere tool for Germany's expansion to the East, without a positive mission of its own, unable to create a state organisation of equal nations, free and progressive in civilisation. The dynasty, living in its absolutist traditions, maintains itself a phantom of its former world empire, assisted in government by its undemocratic ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... by the tone of his correspondence. Deferential or indulgent, he never adopted a superior manner, was never positive or dogmatic. When his correspondents were wrong, he sought to justify their mistakes; when he combated the explanation of another, he never used a cutting expression, or a spiteful allusion, as Ibn Ezra did, and so ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... like him, Uncle Maje, but I'm positive that Fatty Budlow is not a boy I could ever feel deeply for. I don't believe our acquaintance will even ripen into friendship," and she looked with profound eyes into the ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... that Tchitcherin and all the other members of the government with whom I had talked had said in the most positive and unequivocal manner that the Soviet Government was determined to pay its foreign debts, and I was convinced that there would be ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt
... gay ranks again, and bids him—commandingly—to yell it; and with never a suspicion of what it stands for, the stamping and scraping fiddler shouts the name of a man who "loves a good story with a positive passion." ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... anxious minds; but while I was thus employed, an Irish seaman, distinguished even amongst our crew for his atrocities, came to the door, and would have forced his entrance. I instantly opposed him, urging the captain's most positive commands; but, having obtained a sight of the young females, he swore with a vile oath that he would soon find out whether a boy like me was able to oppose him, and finding that I would not give way, he attacked me fiercely. Fortunately, ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... supernaturalism in the case of all these pieces of organic machinery, is profoundly affected by the question whether they came into existence suddenly, or whether they did so gradually. For, if they all came into existence suddenly, the fact would constitute well-nigh positive proof in favour of supernaturalism, or creation by design; whereas, if they all came into existence gradually, this fact would in itself constitute presumptive evidence in favour of naturalism, or of development by natural causes. And, as shown in ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... the claim which has been made for Chatterton as the father of the romantic school, and as having influenced the actual style of Coleridge and Keats, though supported with great ability, appears to be overcharged. So also the positive praise given to the Rowley poems, as artistic productions full of rich color and romantic melody, may be deprecated without any refusal to recognize these qualities in measure. There are frequent flashes of brilliancy in Chatterton, and one or ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the Reform Club, where they were to be entertained at lunch. And, as every man and woman in the crowd was desperately anxious the moment they saw him to get near enough to Carson to shake him by the hand, the pressure of the swaying mass of humanity was a positive danger. Happily the behaviour of the people was as exemplary as it was tumultuously enthusiastic. The Times Special Correspondent thus summed up his impressions of ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... have no doubt as to the Saint's birth at Dumbarton. Ware believes that a town that once stood almost under the shadow of the crag possessed a stronger claim; Usher and the Aberdeen Breviary are equally positive that Kilpatrick was the town. Cardinal Moran, on the other hand, has convinced himself that St. Patrick first saw the light of day at a place that once stood near the present town of Hamilton, just where the river Avon discharges itself into the Clyde. Some English writers have strongly advocated ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... a fat Dutch woman, told a long story. She declared, on honor, that it was a black dog like a Chinese pug, that has no hair. However, she had only seen its back, but she was positive the creature talked English, for she heard it ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... for sleeplessness, loss of appetite, and nervous depression. There was no cause of death to be found. He would say the deceased had sunk. Deceased was not a temperate man, which doubtless accelerated death. Deceased complained of dumb ague, but witness had never been able to detect any positive disease. He did not know that he had any family. He regarded him as a person of unsound intellect, who believed himself a member and the victim of some secret society. If he were to hazard an opinion, he would say deceased had died ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... promoted foreman, felt that he had trouble a-plenty. When, short-handed as he was, two of his cowboys went a-spreeing and a-leisuring in town, with their faces turned from honest toil and their hands manipulating pairs and flushes and face-cards, rather than good "grass" ropes, he was positive that his cup was dripping trouble all ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... this consciously—of that I am positive. But it was betrayed in every line of her face, and my anxious ear caught it in every word she uttered as to the doings of the Johnson party. Doubtless she did not realize how naturally and closely I would associate ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... of the darts, we pulled towards the other boats leisurely; for now we were entirely safe against pursuit, and were free to go upon the lake in whatsoever direction we pleased. That some positive line of action had been determined upon was evident, for the flotilla already was in motion as we came up in the rear of it—the boat containing the members of the Council leading—and the order was passed back to us that we should follow with the rest. From the direction in which ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... me that the secret of the difficulty lies in the nature of the situation, with which an empirical treatment must necessarily fail to deal. What we have called "the aesthetic experience" is really a positive toning of the general aesthetic attitude. This positive toning corresponds to aesthetic excellence in the object. But wherever the concept of excellence enters, there is always the implication of a standard, value, judgment. But where there is a standard there is always ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... Perch doggedly. "Any girl could catch Freddie. He's a positive fool with one of these girls after him. Now she's got to have his uncle Henry's armchair in her room, if you please. That's ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... considered that to be a phrase of the novelists. But, after all, it was surely not a letter of farewell that she was holding in her hand, was it?... Was it really not a letter of farewell? Might not these kind words be also lies?... Also lies—that was it!... For the first time the positive word forced itself into her thoughts.... Lies!... Then it was certain that, when he brought her home the previous night, he had already made up his mind not to see her again. And the appointment for the present day and his desire to see her ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler |
