"Positiveness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with wild witty Irish eloquence, "worthy," as the press say of poor misguided Mitchell, "of a better cause." Altogether, a much-enduring Ulysses, unscrupulous, tough-hided, ready to do and suffer anything fair or foul, for what he honestly believed—if a confused, virulent positiveness be worthy of the name "belief"—to be the true and ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... believe you," I said, not angrily nor resentfully, as might have been earlier in our acquaintance, but with a painful, slow positiveness. "Perhaps I was wrong in assuming the place I did in Wallencamp, but it was not in the way you think. I don't know—I can't see the way myself, clearly—always, but I believe that what you have ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... things in the world is success in getting money and ingenuity in spending it. With all the rest she was a woman of some direct force of character which, in times of crisis as at the present moment, asserted itself with considerable positiveness. ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... claim of infallibility put forth for eight hundred years by this haughty power? So far from being relinquished, this claim was affirmed in the nineteenth century with greater positiveness than ever before. As Rome asserts that the church "never erred; nor will it, according to the Scriptures, ever err,"(1000) how can she renounce the principles which governed her ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... the two, drawing himself up and speaking in the air, "how any educated man should—" his voice was overpowered by the grave enunciation of a small man behind them, who had hitherto kept silence, and now spoke with positiveness. ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... is serious," she rejoined with equal positiveness. "You do not know daddy. Nothing ever discourages him, and he meets everything with a smile—but he cannot stand any more losses. The explosion was bad enough, but if this 'fill' is to be rebuilt, I don't know what will be the end of it. Tell me over again, please—how ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... The mysterious positiveness of this assertion startled Razumov. Their eyes met. He looked away and, through the bars of the rusty gate, stared at the clean, wide road shaded by the leafy trees. An electric tramcar, quite empty, ran along the avenue with a metallic rustle. It seemed to ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... rejoined with great positiveness. "It's us for the San Joaquin. We don't know what's in our country. No wonder we're ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... says, with great positiveness, that they found in Yucatan "letreros de ciertos caracteres que en otra ninguna parte." Historia Apologetica, cap. CXXIII. I also add an interesting description of their books and letters, furnished ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... caricaturists—with every quality, good or evil, at its highest? Here are the rough crust over a kindly heart, the explosive temper, the arrogance, the insular narrowness, the want of sympathy and insight, the rudeness of perception, the positiveness, the overbearing bluster, the strong deep-seated religious principle, and every other characteristic of the cruder, rougher John Bull who was the great grandfather of the present ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Sageman's theory of Natural Law," answered I, slowly and deliberately. "I recognize in you the soul of Arletta, of Sageland, my eternal companion, and a fulfilment of her prophecy that she would be born again. But while I make this declaration with the utmost positiveness, still I am at a loss to understand how such a thing could be, as the soul of that lovely being, having but just left its material body, should according to Natural Law, have attached itself to an embryo form, while you are a full-grown woman." At these words she appeared considerably ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... affords no parallel, and of which our senses are inadequate to the conception. Thus far, my young friend, 1 believe in the Gods, or in what you will of existences removed from the sphere of my knowledge. That you should believe, with positiveness, in one unseen existence or another, appears to me no crime, although it may appear to me unreasonable; and so, my doubt of the same should appear to you no moral offence, although you might account it erroneous. I fear to fatigue your attention, and will, therefore, dismiss, for the present, ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... as an example of the havoc wrought by present- day university methods. The elder Anthony's wealth and position made it good copy. The yellow journals liked it immensely, and, strangely enough, notwithstanding the positiveness with which the newspapers spoke, the facts agreed essentially with their statements. Darwin K. Anthony and his son had quarrelled, they were estranged; the young man did prefer idleness to industry. ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... with great positiveness. "Sure. Before I speak English I know nobody but Greeks, and when I start learning English I got no time to learn Polish, or Italian, or whatever it is. English I got to speak, if I run a candy store, but not those ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... 23: In spite of BALE'S coarseness, positiveness, and severity, he has done much towards the cause of learning; and, perhaps, towards the propagation of the disease under discussion. His regard for Leland does him great honour; and although his plays are ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... vestiges of the Five Towns accent beneath his Americanisms. But apart from these reasons, she knew by a superrational instinct that Lionel Belmont was her father; it was not the call of blood, but the positiveness of a woman asserting that a thing is so because she is ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... used every effort to induce her to compose herself, and at length succeeded; but she only resumed her composure to express herself with the same positiveness as before. "No, Reuben, I'll bring disgrace hame to nae man's hearth; my ain distresses I can bear, and I maun bear, but there is nae occasion for buckling them on other folk's shouthers. I will bear my load alone—the back ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... adjoining parishes, in sullen respect: and he joined in the petitions for light and instruction, that were offered up on the occasion, with the deep reverence with which he ever drew near to the footstool of the Almighty; but he did both in a temper into which too much positiveness of spiritual pride had entered, to open his heart to that sympathy and charity, which, as they are the characteristics of our mild and forbearing doctrines, should be the study of those who profess to follow their precepts. All that was seemly, and all that was usual, were done; but the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... the doctor, "they are caused by the faith of the people and the concentration of their minds upon his operations with the expectation of being cured. Now," said he, "nobody would go to see Bryant unless they had some faith that he might cure them, and when he begins his operations with great positiveness of manner, and when they see the crutches he has there, and hear the people testify that they have been cured, it produces a tremendous influence on them; and then he gets them started in the way of exercising, and they do a good many things that they thought they could not do; their appetites ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... Instinct, or Guardian Angel,—call it what you will,—came forward and assumed control. Then my trembling muscles became firm again, every rift and flaw in the rock was seen as through a microscope, and my limbs moved with a positiveness and precision with which I seemed to have nothing at all to do. Had I been borne aloft upon wings, my deliverance could not ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... with equal positiveness. "And a fine fellow he was, too, and one of the best for cheering of us up with his stories and songs; and not above a bit of a prayer, too, when the worst came to the worst. I ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... golden-tongued oracle of the wise gods. His stride is the stride of a giant, from the sentimental beauty of the picture of Marie Antoinette at Versailles, or the red horror of the tale of Debi Sing in Rungpore, to the learning, positiveness and cool judicial mastery of the Report on the Lords' Journals (1794), which Philip Francis, no mean judge, declared on the whole to be the "most eminent and extraordinary" of all his productions. But even in the coolest and driest of his ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... discerns two main streams of influence. On the one hand, there is the influence of the original Puritans—whether of New England or of the South—, who came to the New World with a ready-made philosophy of the utmost clarity, positiveness and inclusiveness of scope, and who attained to such a position of political and intellectual leadership that they were able to force it almost unchanged upon the whole population, and to endow it with ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... the infinite, and ask a thousand questions of the spirits that are to unfold our destinies, too far-reaching to be clothed in words. Who does not feel the sway of such a voice? It makes the whole range of our capacities resound and tremble, and, when there is positiveness enough to give an answer, calls ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... and other animals by inoculating them with tuberculous material of human origin and his success in causing progressive and fatal tuberculosis in the same kinds of animals when inoculated with tuberculous material of bovine origin. With such positiveness did he hold to the constant and specific difference between the human and bovine bacillus that he promulgated an experimental method of discriminating between them. Speaking of the etiology of intestinal tuberculosis in man, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... a quick, clear, penetrating, searching, knowing, sagacious mind, and also a scold; indicate warmth of love, hate, generosity, moral sentiment—indeed, positiveness in everything. ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... positiveness. "No, I hated his eyes. They were not true eyes. But—I like Dale—lots." And just here, for the second time, she locked her lips on her precious secret for Dale must never know that she remembered him; all that belonged to her childhood. Beryl ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... was certain from the beginning; the Free Staters were equally certain to be neutral; but since they were not neutral, responsibility for the war was theirs, and theirs only. Perhaps it was; but how was the view to be reconciled with our previous positiveness to the contrary? As a fact, few were conscious of any weakness in their way of laying down the law, and they ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... sister seemed unimpressed. "In this country," she said with a certain snug positiveness that was the keynote of her personality, "it's the women that have the courage. They wouldn't be here if they didn't have. Think how close we are to the Mexican border, for instance. Anything that is horrible to woman can come out of Mexico. Not that I look down on ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... with equal positiveness; "since my turn-down by Wade on that bond deal, I'm out of touch with the lower Broadway and Wall Street element. It seems clear to me that you are the only one to carry ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... the battle, spread the report of such an appearance. No person could deny it whilst it was said to last. No person, perhaps, had any inclination to dispute it afterwards; or, if they had, could say with positiveness what was or what was not seen by some or other of the army, in the dismay and amidst the tumult ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... single decision, and that not a very long one. The amazing feature of the matter is that all these methods are lawful—made so, not by legislative enactment, but by the judges. Language can not be used with sufficient lucidity and positiveness to land them. ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... which left him helpless to openly resist the claim being made upon him on behalf of the mysterious Phyllis. His only hope, therefore, lay in recovering these; but, with time limited, he had been sent back on a wild goose chase, while Keith alone knew, with any degree of positiveness, where those documents really were. Hawley certainly had them in his possession the day before, for he had taken them to Miss Maclaire to thus convince her as to the truth of his statements. And Hawley was ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... have not yet knowingly used it so myself, nor does it appear to have been classed with the auxiliaries, by any of our grammarians, except Webster.[258] I shall therefore not presume to say now, with positiveness, that it deserves this rank; (though I incline to think it does;) but rather quote such instances as have occurred to me in reading, and leave the student to take his choice, whether to condemn as bad English the uninflected examples, or to ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... smiled at his crestfallen look. It was plain that, in talking over myself and my situation, he had declared with the positiveness which I found was part of his character, that I had fallen into some trouble at school ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... concerned that I should be pre- vailed upon, between your over-niceness, on one hand, and my mother's positiveness, on the other, to be satisfied without knowing how to direct to you at your lodgings. I think too, that the proposal that I should be put off to a third-hand knowledge, or rather veiled in a first-hand ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... But here lies the difference. Before, my positiveness was founded, without examination, upon prejudice; but now, ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... M. le Duc d'Orleans, plunged as he was in the most bitter grief. I made him traverse the chamber at once, and supplicated him to return to Paris. At last he consented. He wished me to remain and give orders, and begged, with much positiveness, Madame de Saint-Simon to be present when seals were put upon the effects, after which I led him to his coach, and he went away. I immediately repeated to Madame de Saint-Simon the orders he had given me respecting the opening of the body, in order that she might have them executed, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... one for certain sorts of feeling of significance, and other alienists (Wernicke, for example, in his Grundriss der Psychiatrie, Theil ii., Leipzig, 1896) have explained "paranoiac" conditions by a laming of the association-organ. But the higher mystical flights, with their positiveness and abruptness, are surely products of no such merely negative condition. It seems far more reasonable to ascribe them to inroads from the subconscious life, of the cerebral activity correlative to which we as yet ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... million Hurrys! yes, he's worth all the young men who ever came upon the lake put together," said Judith, with an energy and positiveness that caused her sister to wonder. "He is true. There is no lie about Deerslayer. You, Hetty, may not know what a merit it is in a man to have truth, but when you get—no—I hope you will never know it. Why ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... ever entered into his mind. Like a Sophist too, he is incapable either of framing a general definition or of following the course of an argument. His wrong-headedness, one-sidedness, narrowness, positiveness, are characteristic of his priestly office. His failure to apprehend an argument may be compared to a similar defect which is observable in the rhapsode Ion. But he is not a bad man, and he is friendly to Socrates, whose familiar sign he recognizes with interest. Though unable ...
— Euthyphro • Plato
... Man. "Twenty is nothing but the 'sere and yellow leaf' of infantile caprice! But thirty is the jocund youth of character! On land or sea the Lord Almighty never made anything as radiantly, divinely young as—thirty! Oh, but thirty's the darling age in a woman!" he added with sudden exultant positiveness. "Thirty's the birth of ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... parallel edition, above referred to, of the Chevalier a la Charette and the corresponding prose settled this in my mind long ago; and though I have been open to unsettlement since, I have not been unsettled. The most unlucky instance of that over-positiveness to which I have referred above is M. Cledat's statement that "nous savons" that the prose romances are later than the verse. We certainly do not "know" this any more than we know the contrary. There is important authority both ways; there is fair argument both ways; but the positive evidence which ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... another also, and that the Confederate commander was in fact moving in force on Knoxville. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 109, 127.] The source of the information is not disclosed, but the news was stated with a positiveness uncommon with Grant. It reached Foster just as he had Parke's report of our having most unexpectedly met Longstreet's infantry at Dandridge and of our retreat on Strawberry Plains. The news was without foundation, for Longstreet ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... young man of the type often seen among Americans. He was very fair, with a pink complexion, thin, yellow hair and weak eyes. His manner was nervously alert, and though he often began to speak with an air of positiveness, he frequently seemed to weaken, and wound up his sentences ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... him go with a friendly smile, and then sat down to think about him. He was rather direct, but the good-humor with which he stated his opinions softened their positiveness. Besides, she had invited them; and she felt that they were correct. He was such another as Nasmyth, simple in some respects, but reliable; one who could never be guilty of anything mean. She liked the type in general, and she admitted that ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... that Parliamentary Oratory, as our fathers understood that phrase, is a lost art. Must Conversation be included in the same category? To answer with positiveness is difficult; but this much may be readily conceded—that a belief in the decadence of conversation is natural to those who have specially cultivated Links with the Past; who grew up in the traditions of Luttrell and Mackintosh, and Lord Alvanley and Samuel Rogers; who have felt Sydney ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... are here again instantly heard—the characteristics of the sounds in this instance being rapidity and energy, or positiveness. ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... the buildings, which mostly have the appearance of mere factories or human hives, I asked Elder Frederick whether, if they were to build anew, they would not aim at some architectural effect, some beauty of design. He replied with great positiveness, "No, the beautiful, as you call it, is absurd and abnormal. It has no business with us. The divine man has no right to waste money upon what you would call beauty, in his house or his daily life, while there are people living in misery." ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... Maryland, on the 9th day of November, 1731, Benjamin Banneker was born. Various accounts are given of his ancestry. One of his biographers states that "there was not a drop of white blood in his veins," another asserts with positiveness that his parents and grandparents were all native Africans.[146] In still another sketch of Banneker's life, read before the Maryland Historical Society, on May 1, 1845, it is stated that "Banneker's mother was the child of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... observers recognize that alcohol as a medicine is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Ten years ago leading medical men and text-books spoke of stimulants as essentials of many diseases, and defended their use with warmth and positiveness. To-day this is changed. Medical men seldom refer to spirits as remedies, and when they do, express great conservatism and caution. The text-books show the same changes, although some dogmatic authors refuse to recognize the change of practice, and still cling to ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... last few years has been more discussed than that of their influence upon prices. Opinions have differed widely, the opponents of the Combinations usually believing that they have increased prices materially, their defenders claiming with equal positiveness that they have reduced prices. Differences of opinion have probably originated largely from the fact that the subject has been approached from different points of view; and mistakes have also, in many cases, been made through lack of a careful interpretation of available ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... than any one else in the world. Grandma was old-fashioned, and Aunt Alice insignificant, in Leslie's eyes, but stunning, arrogant, fearless Aunt Annie was the model upon which she would have based herself if she had known how. Annie's quick positiveness with her servants, her cool friendliness with big men, and clever men, her calm assurance as to which hats she liked, and which hats she didn't, her utter belief in everything that was of Melrose or von Behrens, and her calm contempt for everything that ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... said Aunt Mary with a positiveness that was final. "I don't want her. My heavens, Lucinda, ain't we just had enough of her? Anyhow, if you ain't, I have. I don't want her, nor no livin' soul except my trunk; an' I want that just as quick as Joshua can haul it down out ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... articles, contain the same points, even the doctrine of predestination.' JOHNSON. 'Why yes, Sir, predestination was a part of the clamour of the times, so it is mentioned in our articles, but with as little positiveness as could be.' BOSWELL. 'Is it necessary, Sir, to believe all the thirty-nine articles?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, that is a question which has been much agitated. Some have thought it necessary that they should all be believed; others have considered them to be only articles of peace, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... would repudiate the idea that the conscious subject is a mere phenomenon, or "series of phenomena," with more indignation than Hamilton. Notwithstanding the contradictory assertion, "that the subject is unknown," he still teaches, with equal positiveness, "that in every act of perception I am conscious of self, as a perceiving subject." And still more explicitly he says: "As clearly as I am conscious of existing, so clearly am I conscious, at every moment of my ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... stated with great positiveness by Swedenborg's followers, and indeed, apparently by the seer himself, if we may take as authoritative, the translations of his works, that the revelations accorded to him covered a period of many years, ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... ready tongue. He actually had a scheme for procuring the sum in question, and when he possessed confidence himself, it was rarely, indeed, that he failed to inspire it in others. For the second time, the landlord of the Gethin Castle found himself in doubt; he was staggered by the positiveness of the young man's assertions, and by the force and flow of his glowing words. In spite of himself, he began once more to think that he might have been mistaken in condemning him as an impostor, after ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... of what was really taking place in America[48]. The lesser British papers generally followed the tone of the leading journals, but without either great interest or much acumen. In truth the depth of British newspaper ignorance, considering their positiveness of utterance, appears utterly astonishing if regarded from the view-point of modern historical knowledge. But is this, after all, a matter for surprise? Was there not equal confusion at least, possibly equal ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... the trials his experience in connection with spiritualistic "circles" of his own day. It is curious to observe how readily this suggestion was adopted, and with what uniformity recent popular narratives of the delusion reiterate, with increasing positiveness of phrase, the unfounded assumption. The expression, to "try projects," is therefore taken by Mr. Drake from modern folk-lore. Fowler's address, entitled "An Account of the Life and Character of the Rev. Samuel Parris, of Salem Village, and of his Connection with the Witchcraft ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... grown in years since first we saw him, but not in conceit. Like all who succeed in this world, he had a good degree of positiveness in his make-up; but from this he left out strong self-conceit. In all things, as in his school life, he was prepared to sacrifice himself along whatever lines pointed to ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... great Revolution, underlying the impassioned contemplation of Wordsworth and giving wings and fire to the eagle-like flight of Shelley, and which in the sphere of philosophy, though displaced by the materialism and positiveness of our day, bequeathed two great schools of thought, the school of Newman to Oxford, the school of Emerson to America. Yet is this spirit of transcendentalism alien to the spirit of art. For the artist ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... with sufficient positiveness that I will finish the book at no particular date; that I will not hurry it; that I will not hurry myself; that I will take things easy and comfortably—write when I choose to write, leave it alone when I do so prefer... ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... happiness as she arranged meats, and sweetmeats, in tempting order for the hungry young man. He thoroughly enjoyed this provision for his comfort; and as he ate, he talked to his father of those things interesting to him, answering all questions with that complaisant positiveness of youth which decides everything at once, and without reservation. No one understood this better than General Hyde, but it pleased him to draw out his son's opinions; and it also pleased him to watch the pride of ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... not saying that one must believe that the other side are fools or knaves. Some such confusion of thought in the minds of some reformers, both eminent and obscure, accounts for the wake of bitterness which often follows the progress of reform. Modesty and toleration are as important as positiveness to the man who is to make a mark in ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... indefiniteness, that melting permanence, that evanescing changelessness. Clouds in vain strive to imitate it; they are made of slighter stuff; they can be blunt or ragged, but they cannot have that solid positiveness. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... He spoke with such positiveness that both boys believed him, and after a few words more both agreed to give him all the money they carried if he would ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... ignorance and shallowness." An uncomfortable pause fell upon, the company, for two of the best informed people present were entirely convinced that some one other than Shakespeare wrote the plays. It was simply lack of tact that betrayed this lady into a positiveness and obtrusiveness of statement that made others uncomfortable and aroused their antagonism. Here is still another instance: One lady was introduced to another lady who was the wife of a gentleman much older than herself. After catching the name the ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... the field to-morrow,"—his habitually calm, unfeeling positiveness left no ground for objection; "I cannot support you in ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... putting as strong a note of positiveness into his voice as possible, for he now began to suspect to whom the notebook had belonged. "The desk contained only personal and a little business correspondence. Morgan and I examined all the signatures. If you looked that correspondence over, as I presume you did, you will acknowledge ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... Mandeville's rigorism, the narrowness with which he defines "virtue," the broadness with which he defines "vice," his failure to recognize any intermediate ground between "virtue" and outright "vice," or any shades or degrees of either, the positiveness with which he assigns to eternal damnation all who depart in any degree from "virtue" as he defines it, is therefore to accept Mandeville as a genuine exponent of a rigorism too austere and too grim not only for the ordinary run of orthodox Anglicans ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... one will say, "We knew all that before. But how are we going to quit worrying? That's what we need to be told." Well, I can tell you. Sometimes a man speaks cautiously, but here one can speak with great positiveness. There are three simple rules how not to worry. They are infallible. I heard of a society whose purpose it was to cure worry. There were thirty-seven rules, I think. It would worry some of us a good bit ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... complained, turning her mind from the momentous decision between tea and chocolate. "Ford's simply fine! Chester thinks there's no one like him; and Buddy just tags him around everywhere. You can always," asserted Kate, with the positiveness of the person who accepts unquestioningly the beliefs of others, living by faith rather than reason, "depend upon the likes and dislikes of children and ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... little below the right shoulder, across the width of the deltoid muscle, and in figures about half an inch tall. "'Course yer couldn'," she repeated. "That's tattooin', if ever there was tattooin'; an', what's more," she went on, nodding her head with great positiveness, "I know who done it, leastways I know part of 'is name . . . Don't stare, now; lemme think . . . Yes, it's plain as plain. 'Four di'monds,' she said; an' di'monds they are, same as on a pack o' cards—me all the time thinkin' of them as the ladies ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... us a collection of frequently astonishing and important things, but when we ask for the source of this collection we get "that must be,'' in variations, from a shrug of the shoulders to a flood of words. The inexperienced judge may be deceived by the positiveness of such expressions and believe that such certainty must be based on something which the witness can not utter through lack of skill. If, now, the judge is going to help the "unaided'' witness with "of course you mean because,'' or "perhaps because,'' etc., the witness, ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... noble procrastinator had a very doubtful future. Every day at nine o'clock his lordship seated himself at his desk, and stayed there writing industriously, hour after hour, upon his dispatches; every day he foretold with much accuracy and positiveness of manner that these would surely be ready, and the ship would inevitably sail, on the next day. Thus week after week glided by, and still he uttered the same prediction, "to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow." Yet in spite of this wonderful industry of the great man his letters ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... marked out for her abhorrence, be the slave of jailers, be loaded with fetters; thus shall you be cleared from every unworthy aspersion, and restored to reputation and honour!' This is the consolation she affords to those whom malignity or folly, private pique or unfounded positiveness, have, without the smallest foundation, loaded with calumny." For myself, I felt my own innocence; and I soon found, upon enquiry, that three fourths of those who are regularly subjected to a similar treatment, are persons whom, even with all the superciliousness and precipitation ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... Evelina," Nell answered with the positiveness that only a very young person can get up the courage to use, "I have forgot that I was ever influenced by his narrow-minded, primitive personality at all. If I ever love and marry it will be a man who can appreciate and ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... positive goal. In formulating particular suggestions, however, we are always skating on the thin ice round our faults and ailments, always touching on subjects which have the most painful associations. So that our ideas have not the same creative positiveness. However that may be, it is a matter of experience that the general formula is the basis of the whole method, and that all else is merely an adjuvant, an auxiliary—useful, but inessential ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... of will, firmness of conviction, energy of character are conducive to strength. Where these exist there will be directness of aim, and the style will be clear, unwavering, and strong. There will be positiveness of statement, and sometimes intolerant dogmatism. Carlyle and Macaulay are among our strongest writers, the former being rugged, and the latter more polished in his strength. Macaulay's broad-shouldered, stout-limbed constitution is reflected in ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... case of an old maiden lady, who, having brought a cart-load of personal necessaries and comforts, which were positively essential to her continued existence, and having been firmly refused the transmission of the greater part of them, declared with the utmost positiveness that the lord chancellor had himself expressly informed all the guests at the banquet that each was at liberty to take an unlimited quantity of goods; nor could any explanation convince her of her mistake. Let ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... criticize, because his defects are pleasing defects. Dogmatism is commonly offensive, and Mr. Reade's dogmatism is of the most uncompromising, not to say insulting character; yet it is exhibited in connection with insight so sure and vivid, that we pardon the positiveness of the assertion for the truth of what is asserted. Then he has a way of forcing Nature, much against her wish, to be epigrammatic,—of producing startling effects by artifices almost theatrical; and though his devices are obvious, they are more than forgiven for the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... so;—but no one, I believe, ever experiences any shock at Romeo's forgetting his Rosaline, who had been a mere name for the yearning of his youthful imagination, and rushing into his passion for Juliet. Rosaline was a mere creation of his fancy; and we should remark the boastful positiveness of Romeo in a love of his own making, which is never shown where love is really ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... is it that this bearded patriarch, who now poses as the only original Adam, has never been able, with any degree of positiveness, to answer the question as to whether or not he was provided with a caudal appendage—a question which I am prepared to answer definitely, at any moment, if called upon by the proper authorities, and, if need be, to produce not only the tail itself, but the fierce ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... be mistaken for the substance. Positiveness of manner, and redoubtable inner conviction stem only from the mastery of superior knowledge, and this last is the fruit of application, preparation, thoroughness and the willingness to struggle to gain ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... the descendants of Attila and his people, though he acknowledged that they were probably of the same race. Attila and his armies, he said, came and disappeared in a very mysterious manner, and that nothing could be said with positiveness about them; that the people now known as Magyars first made their appearance in Muscovy in the year 884, under the leadership of Almus, called so from Alom, which, in the Hungarian language, signifies ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... conversation with his guests. Indeed, it assumed the character of a monologue in which he frequently adverted to the weather, to be off on a tangent the next moment on a discussion of finance, politics, sociology, on which subjects, however, he was far from showing the positiveness and fixed opinion that he did while descanting upon the weather. In all the subjects he touched upon, he exhibited a certain skill in so framing his remarks that they would not run counter to any prejudices or ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... stood in profound silence, leaning upon his walking-stick, whilst the committal was making out for Bampfylde the second. The fear of ridicule was struggling with the natural positiveness of his temper: he was dreadfully afraid that the story of his being taken in by the king of the gipsies would get abroad; and, at the same time, he was unwilling to give up his prejudice ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... in which she settled her cap-strings, I should have doubted this; but in respect of positiveness it was hardly to ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... outpouring of sympathetic emotions which finds no actual expression, no relief in deeds. The substance of this warning essay is repeated, often word for word, but considerably amplified with new material, and rendered more convincing by increased breadth of outlook and positiveness of assertion, the fruit of six years of observation and reflection, as part of a treatise, entitled, "Von der nthigen Sorge fr die Erhaltung des Gleichgewichts unter den menschlichen Krften: Besondere ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... whether it laughed or moaned, promulgated itself like an oracle. The teller seemed to have been listening to the voice of Fate, and whether, Guinevere swayed the bridle-rein, or Elaine's web flew out and floated wide, or Lancelot sang tirra-lirra by the river, it was asserted with the positiveness of a Hebrew chronicle, which we do not question because it is history. But we hardly have such an illusion in reading the late Idyls. We seem to be in the presence of a constructor who arranges things, of a moralist turning ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... "If there was a marriage," said I, "show me the marriage certificate, and I will acknowledge the marriage, and acknowledge the child;" but they could not, and I knew they could not; and I kept the estate for my darling boy,' cried the old gentleman, with the exultation of successful positiveness again appearing strong in his physiognomy; but suddenly changing and relaxing, his countenance fell, and he added, 'But now I have no darling boy. What use all!—all must go to the heir-at-law, or I must will it to a stranger—a lady of quality, who has just ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... good, too," said Leslie, with an effect of more impartiality but no less positiveness. "He would ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... with equal positiveness. "The law is very clear, my friend. Your men may return willingly, but you cannot force them. When we reach Terra we will give them a choice. Those who wish to return to the Consolidation will be given transportation to the ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... legislature to enact laws, or of the executive to enforce them; the power of an acid to corrode a metal; the power of a polished surface to reflect light. Ability is nearly coextensive with power, but does not reach the positiveness and vigor that may be included in the meaning of power, ability often implying latent, as distinguished from active power; we speak of an exertion of power, but not of an exertion of ability. Power ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... these symptoms off with great volubility. The Count looked at him with open-eyed wonder. The professor was not less astonished at the positiveness with which Dr. Jones thus detailed the Count's symptoms without any previous knowledge of ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... which needs reform in manners. We all need a new social intercourse, which shall breathe genuine refinement; which shall unite the two great elements of politeness, self-respect, and a delicate regard to the rights and feelings of others; which shall be free without rudeness, and earnest without positiveness; which shall be graceful, yet warm-hearted; and in which communication shall be frank, unlabored, overflowing, through the absence of all assumption and pretence, and through the consciousness of being safe from heartless ridicule. This grand reform, which I trust ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... at this frank reference to their looks; and a few in the encircling crowd laughed grimly. Plainly there could be no collusion between this witness and Ugger and Quinley; and this apparent fact gave almost the positiveness of proven truth to his testimony, in the eyes of ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... translate Nicomachus, although he embodied many of the ideas of the Greek writer in his own arithmetic. Gibbon follows Cassiodorus in these statements in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xxxix. Martin pointed out with positiveness the similarity of the first book of Boethius to the first five books of Nicomachus. [Les signes ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... Argument kills the spirit of any religion, and the person who desires to prove his position by argument is not ready to be convinced by the spirit. If you are obliged to carry on a conversation with an argumentative person, silently deny all his statements of error, and with calm positiveness affirm for him intelligence, wisdom, and a desire to know truth. In other words, recognize his spiritual self, which is in perfect peace and harmony, and the outward disturbance or inharmony, which is simply nothingness ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... the front yard, likely, Dick," said Tom, but his tone lacked positiveness. It was evident that he had fears that such ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... credulity with more than mere haphazard prophecy of mechanical and physical results which have been so lately reached in the progress of science as to be among new things even six centuries after Bacon's death. Its positiveness of statement is puzzling, when tested by what is known from other sources of the nature of the discoveries and inventions of that early time; and were there reason to question Bacon's truth, it would seem as if he had mistaken ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... His general expression suggested a conviction of his own extreme importance, but, in spite of this, his big underlip drooped rather weakly and his double chin slightly receded, giving a judge of character reason for suspecting that a certain obstinate positiveness observable in Mr. Bultitude's manner might possibly be due less to the possession of an unusually strong will than to the circumstance that, by some fortunate chance, that will had hitherto never met ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... error for say, state, and the like. It means "to declare," "to affirm," or "to assert with the idea of positiveness" and is not applicable to ordinary ...
— Word Study and English Grammar - A Primer of Information about Words, Their Relations and Their Uses • Frederick W. Hamilton
... again, his hand stiffly placed upon the sabre. "It is not given to man to say with positiveness what he can do, sir. But it is necessary that this right be turned before McClellan is aware of his danger. Each day makes it more difficult to conceal the absence of my army from the Valley. Between the danger ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... replied to Captain Downs's query did not sound human. It was a sort of muffled wail, but there was no mistaking its positiveness. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... of taking a deep breath when she was interested, that made her seem very strong, somehow, and brought her at one quite overpoweringly. If he seemed shy, it was not that he was intimidated by her worldly clothes, but that her greater positiveness, her whole augmented self, made him feel that his accustomed ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... tend to diminish and not to increase the just influence of the lawyer. There was never a weightier advocate before New England juries than Daniel Webster. Yet it is on record that he always carefully abstained from any positiveness of assertion. He introduced his weightiest arguments with such phrases as, "It will be for the jury to consider," "The Court will judge," "It may, perhaps, be worth thinking of, gentlemen," or some equivalent phrase by which he kept scrupulously off the ground which belonged ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... love story of a negative character, which, however, occasionally approaches positiveness. Suppressed passion manifests a tendency to explode, especially when it is confined by a vow of celibacy. But when an author steps into the prophetic department of the religious field, and mixes a little of this variety into a love story, making the lover and the lovees ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... his autobiography of having acquired the habit of expressing himself in terms of modest diffidence, "never using," he says, "when I advance anything that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, 'I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so-or-so'; 'It appears to me,' or 'I should not think it so-or-so, for such-and-such reasons'; or 'I imagine it to be so'; or 'It is so, if I am not mistaken.' This habit, I believe, has been of great ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... It was an old-fashioned house in more ways than in the manner of its heating. Outside of one of his two unscreened windows there was an iron grating—the topmost landing of a fire escape. Dundee could imagine Captain Strawn's positiveness in placing the murderer there—crouching in ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... Augsburg Confession, was not rescinded by the General Synod. The report of the delegate to the General Council, adopted by the General Synod in 1909, states: "In our address before the General Council [1907] as your representative, we defended, with all the courtesy, clearness, and positiveness we could command, the confessional position of the General Synod. This we did by referring to our official declarations, namely, the York Resolution of 1864, our revised formula of confessional subscription of 1869 [1864], in which this body planted itself unequivocally on the Augustana, ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... Positiveness of expression suggests the superior's fixity of purpose, with consequent inspiration to subordinates to prosecute their tasks with determination. The use of indefinite and weakening expressions leads to suspicion of vacillation and indecision. Such expressions tend to impose upon subordinates the ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... that Mr Pope is the author of it.' The writer of Gulliveriana is of another opinion, and says, 'The whole, or greatest part, of the merit of this treatise must and can only be ascribed to Gulliver.'[188] (Here, gentle reader! cannot I but smile at the strange blindness and positiveness of men, knowing the said treatise to appertain to none other but to me, Martinus Scriblerus.) We are assured, in Mist of June 8, 'That his own plays and farces would better have adorned the Dunciad than those of Mr Theobald, for he had neither genius for tragedy nor comedy;' which, whether ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... fellows, or giddy girls, misbehave in a first marriage, whether from noviceship, having expected to find more in the matter than can be found; or from perverseness on her part, or positiveness on his, each being mistaken in the other [a mighty difference, Jack, in the same person, an inmate or a visiter]; what a fine opportunity will each have, by this scheme, of recovering a lost character, and of setting all ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... surprise. This was news to him. It must have occurred while he was on the high seas. The verbose positiveness of the doctor did not permit any doubt whatever.... Besides, that lady ought to know better than those who lived on ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... closer daily intercourse between families. And it is questionable if the petty society of such a village can compensate for the freedom and purity of rural family life now existing. It may even be asserted with some degree of positiveness that the small village, on the moral and intellectual sides, is distinctly inferior to the ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... floor, was a stack of dilapidated books. These were mostly old novels and tomes dealing with geological and mathematical matters; laughter and tears and adventure, sandwiched in between the dry positiveness of straight lines and squares and circles and numerals without end; D'Artagnan hobnobbing with Euclid! Warrington was an educated man, but he was in no sense a scholar. In his hours of leisure he did not find solace in the classics. ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... with a quiet positiveness of tone, "I haven't a season ticket, and I don't mean to buy one, and I mean to go down there to meeting to-morrow, and ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... one can notice is a disappointed, somewhat peevish look in the eyes. Such was Henrietta. The fact that she had not been much wanted or appreciated hitherto began to show now she was eighteen. She was either shy and silent, or talked with too much positiveness for fear she should not be listened to; so that though she was not a failure at dances and managed to find plenty of partners, there were none of the interesting episodes that were continually occurring on Louie's evenings, and for a year ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... to read that book." Stuart's champion tossed her head with the positiveness of conviction. "It's not the kind of novel that a rake could write. It's straight and clean minded, and if what a man chooses to write, indicates what he thinks, ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... decide within yourself whether he is worth the sacrifice," Grace answered with deep positiveness. Privately she did not consider that a young man, who took it upon himself to interfere with an enterprise which benefited many and harmed none, was quite worthy of her generous little comrade. "It's like this, Arline. You must be true to yourself, no matter what ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... these. "Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth, as touching anything that they Shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father who is in heaven." Notice the place of prayer—"on earth"; and the sweep—"anything"; and the positiveness—"it shall be done." Then the reason why is given. "For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." That is to say, if there are two persons praying, there are three. If three meet to pray, there are four praying. There is always one more than you ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... not—at least—that is to say—well, no, not exactly," replied Mr. Brown, beginning his sentence with an asperity and positiveness that somehow did not hold out to its end. "She did say to me, I confess, how fond she was of dancing, and how she had refrained from saying much about it to you"—Mr. Port here interpolated a sceptical snort—"because ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... here at all," Dave replied, with a good deal of positiveness. "When we turned him out into the ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... conversation changed,—upon the weather, the hard winter, the prospects of the Cause, a criticism upon the commander-in-chief's management of affairs, the attitude of Congress, etc., between Mr. Blossom and the count; characterized, I hardly need say, by that positiveness of opinion that distinguishes the unprofessional. In another part of the room, it so chanced that Mistress Thankful and the baron were talking about themselves; the assembly balls; who was the prettiest woman in Morristown; and whether Gen. Washington's attentions to ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... subsequently their war inter se and the overthrow of Bulgaria. Under the impression created by this political co-operation the peace party in England also seemed to gain ground. On Feb. 18, 1913, Charles Trevelyan, M.P., paid me a visit and assured me with great positiveness that England would under no circumstances wage war. A Ministry which undertook to make preparations for war, he said, would at once be deposed. An inclination to bring about an understanding with Germany, he added, prevailed in all industrial circles. My impression that ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... to express energy or positiveness, the auxiliary do should precede the verb in ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... on a question that would make a crab laugh,—questions that were hypercritical and infinite, and about which everybody knew nothing at all, and they thought they knew as well as God. Questions were talked of with positiveness, and argued; and, when I look back upon them, I cannot help thinking they were no better than the contentions of children around the cradle. But all this gave me great repulsion for dogmatic theology, and it is a repulsion which I have not got over, and the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various
... the sympathetic ears of Donna Giulia, first of all, that I imparted the state of my feelings, my hopes, fears and prayers with regard to Aurelia. There was that about Count Giraldi, a diamantine brilliancy, a something hard and crystalline, a positiveness, an incisiveness of view and reflection, which on first acquaintance decided me not to take him into my confidence. When I came to know him better, or to think that I did, I followed my natural bent and talked to him unreservedly; but in the lady, from the beginning, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... begged his Ministers to stand by him, and day after day elapsed and nothing was settled. In the meantime London was alive with reports; and the on dit of the day, repeated with every variety of circumstance and with the usual positiveness of entire ignorance, would fill a volume. Time crept on, and Parliament was to adjourn on the 13th (this day). On the 9th Canning went to the King, and, after a long audience, he came away without anything being settled. On the 10th he went again, and told his Majesty that longer delay ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... foolish in the carrying out of the measure. She had made up her mind to visit her aunt on the following day, and though the weather was bitterly cold and damp, she adhered to her resolution. Madame, at first politely, finally with provoking positiveness, told her "she would not permit her to risk her life, and a life still more precious, ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... from the front fairly aflame with the fervor of their enthusiasm. Their convictions of what could be done, and should be done, are apt to be spoken out with great positiveness. They seem to some to suggest in an uncomfortable way the thought of a glowing furnace. And many in the home churches seem able to listen with such indifference as to suggest to these returned ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... by our sculptors unknown to classic art. The facts of our history, ideal and social, will be grand and of new import; it is perfectly natural to the American to mould in clay and carve in stone. The permanence of material and solid, relief in the forms correspond to the positiveness of his nature better than the mere ephemeral and even tricky methods of the painter,—to his need of motion and action, better than the chambered scribbling of the poet. He will thus record his best experiences, and these records will adorn the noble structures that must naturally arise for the public ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... words!" he cried with abrupt positiveness. "Before the year is out I'll put an even hundred of those little yellow-boys into your hand. I don't ask you to believe me. All you have to do is wait ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... little luggage as possible, and the Havildar assured me that two buffaloes were amply sufficient to carry all they would bring. I now find that they have more than full loads for two buffaloes, two mules, and two donkeys; but when these animals fall down under them, they assure me with so much positiveness that they are not overloaded, that I have to be silent, or only, as I have several times done before, express the opinion that they will kill these animals. This observation on my part leads them to hide ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... I said, "on every subject but one. His head must have been injured a little in his fall, and he imagines and asserts with positiveness that we found a young woman in the moon, the last of her race—a ridiculous idea, ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... Mr. Tilden. Not wanting the sense of humor, he seldom indulged it. In spite of his positiveness of opinion and amplitude of knowledge he was always courteous and deferential in debate. He had none of the audacious daring, let us say, of Mr. Elaine, the energetic self-assertion of Mr. Roosevelt. Either in his place would ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson |
