"Practical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Through Asia Minor," and one of his first questions is whether I am acquainted with "my friend Burnaby, whose tragic death in the Soudan will never cease to make me feel unhappy." Suleiman Effendi appears to be remarkably intelligent, compared with many Asiatics, and, moreover, of quite a practical turn of mind; he inquires what I should do in case of a serious break-down somewhere in the far interior, and his curiosity to see the bicycle is not a little increased by hearing that, notwithstanding the extreme airiness of my ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... long, not through Friedrich's influence at Paris, some small Appointment in the ECOLE MILITAIRE there. He is, of all the Frenchmen Friedrich had about him, with the exception of D'Argens alone, the most honest-hearted. The above Letter, lucid, innocent, modest, altogether rational and practical, is a fair specimen of D'Arget: add to it the prompt self-sacrifice (and in that fine silent way) at Jaromirz for Valori, and readers may conceive the man. He lived at Paris, in meagre but contented fashion, RUE DE L'ECOLE MILITAIRE, till 1778; and seems, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... afraid he thinks it's wisdom, and for all practical purposes it amounts to that. You see what my 'influence' has done at the outset, Mrs. Munger. He'll never give way on such ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... could not possibly have been guilty of any act of piracy; although I could have little doubt that, in his early days, he must, in some way or other, have been connected with the person whom I knew alone by the name of Captain Ralph. It was a practical evidence of the truth of that saying of Holy Writ, that the sins of his youth rise up in judgment against a ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the nineteenth century a number of American engineers and mechanics were working diligently to develop a practical self-propelled vehicle employing an internal-combustion engine as the motive force. Among these men were Charles and Frank Duryea, who began work on this type of vehicle about 1892. This carriage was operated on the ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... that, after all, they are but accommodations to human infirmity; that they are in a sense objectively false (because of their inadequacy), though subjectively and very practically true. But the difference between this mode of treatment and that adopted by Mr. Spencer is wide indeed; for the practical result of the mode inculcated by the Church is that each one may freely affirm and act upon the highest human conceptions he can attain of the{249} power, wisdom, and goodness of God, His watchful care, His loving providence for every man, at every moment and in every need; for the Christian ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... was crying softly in her lace handkerchief. It was touching and I saw that Kennedy was deeply moved, although at once to his practical mind the thought must have occurred that nothing was to be gained by ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... personality and expand the number of monopolists, and alter the character, not the quantity, of economic waste. Society has an ever-deepening and more vital interest in the economical management of the machinery of transport, and this interest is no whit more secure if the practical control of railways and docks were in the hands of the Dockers' Union or the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, or of a combined board of directors and trade union officials, than it is under present circumstances. ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... appropriation by law, any former law or usage to the contrary notwithstanding.' The 'law and usage' were plain, to pay such decrees, as required by the law and Constitution; but both were disregarded, and the act of 1833, for all practical purposes, repealed. It remained in part, on the statute book, only to invite to the gambler's game of 'odd I win, even you lose'—that is, if, under the act of 1833, there should be a decision in any case in favor of the State, it should be conclusive, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... understand both the theory and practical part of music may best inform us why harmony or melody should so strangely assist some men, as it were by recollection, for days after the concert is over. What I mean the following passage ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... upon a plantation of five hundred acres, worked by the young men under the direction of the farm superintendent, a graduate of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, who gives them "talks," as he terms his lectures, upon practical themes pertaining to general farming, fruit-growing, and the care ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 1, January 1888 • Various
... had suspected all along that poor, dear Professor Barwig was not doing well, but she never dreamed it had come to this. Tears came into the good woman's eyes as she showed Mrs. Mangenborn the pawn tickets and tearfully asked her what she could do. Mrs. Mangenborn, being a practical person, suggested reducing his rent and Miss Husted made up her mind to do ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... when he presented the earlier books of the "Faery Queen" to Elizabeth, a pension of fifty pounds a year was conferred upon him, and that the praises of Gloriana ring through his realm of Faery in unceasing panegyric. But guineas are not laurels, though for sundry practical uses they are, perhaps, vastly better; nor are the really earnest and ardent eulogia of the bard of Mulla the same in kind with the harmonious twaddle of Tate, or the classical quiddities of Pye. He was of another sphere, the highest heaven ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... our towns and villages, where the schools are visited by persons appointed by the Committee of Privy Council on Education. I am satisfied with throwing out these suggestions without dwelling further upon them, under the persuasion that every practical hint of the kind will be well considered, and acted upon (if it commend itself to their judgment,) by those who preside over naval affairs, and who have at heart the mental ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... sensible, practical woman, who knows how to manage men. She has soothed Mostyn's wounded pride with appreciative flattery and stimulated his ambition. She has promised him great things in India, and she will see that he ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... fellow-Kentuckians," he said, "I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kindness, but I assure you that I have done nothing worthy of it [loud protests]. I am a simple, practical man, who loves Kentucky better than he loves himself. This is no virtue, for we all have it. We have the misfortune to be governed by a set of worthy gentlemen who know little about Kentucky and her wants, and think less [cries of "Ay, ay!"]. I am not decrying General Washington and his cabinet; ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... upon the feature of intimate physical contact with the magazine. He went into the matter of the printing schedule, the various kinds of paper used, the advertising pages, illustrations—into all the detail, indeed, which a practical managing editor must compass in his daily rounds. It was pretty evident that Clemens would not be able to go sailing about on Mr. Rogers's yacht or live at will in London or New York or Vienna or ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... simplicity is needed in entomology. Without a good dose of this quality, a mental defect in the eyes of practical folk, who would busy himself with the lesser creatures? Yes, let us be simple, without being childishly credulous. Before making insects reason, let us reason a little ourselves; let us, above all, consult the experimental ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... hands full with household care and nursing, and perhaps it was as well, for it drove self into the background of her mind, for a part of the time at least, and filled with anxiety the empty days. Grace, living five miles away and loaded down with family cares and duties of her own, could be of little practical assistance. ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... to take the affair as a practical joke, but Peter Winn, after an examination of the ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... false pretense of modesty, that they have yet seen no reason to fear you in rigidly logical argument when the Single Tax is the question at issue. Their cause is so palpably just, its underlying principle so transparently simple and elementary, its practical application so direct, feasible and efficient that no mere wizardry of words, no thimble-riggery or language, can by any possibility obscure the principle—or confuse the advocates. Of course there are among Single Taxers, as among other enthusiasts, men who indiscreetly ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... dispassionate and impartial treatment by the historian, and a juster proportion of impression in spectators, tend also to produce indifference and lethargy in the people at large; whereas in fact the need for sustained interest of a practical character still exists. Intelligent provision for the present and future ought now to succeed to the emotional experiences of the actual war. The reading public has been gorged and surfeited with war literature, a fact which has been only too painfully realized by publishers ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... acquaintance were added the results of daily experience, and the frequent opportunities which the incessant demands of the infirm upon their skill afforded them of correcting previous errors and improving their practical knowledge: of gradually ascertaining the various kinds and appearances of human disorders; and of digesting such data as would enable them, with the least possible chance of failure, to prescribe the modes of cure and treatment suitable to the various stages and ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... essays from their brevity, and others were exceedingly incomplete. About twelve, however, required and were worthy of careful consideration. That of Mr. D. A. Compton, of Hawley, Wayne County, Pa., was, in the opinion of your committee, decidedly superior to the others as a practical treatise, sure to be of use to potato-growers in every part of the country, and well worthy the liberal prize offered ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... Mistress La Certe, how long is that lobscouse—or whatever you call it,—goin' to be in cookin'?" Slowfoot gave vent to a sweet, low giggle, as she lifted the kettle off the hook, and thus gave a practical answer to the question. She placed before him the robbiboo, or pemmican, soup, which the ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... in nothing but resolutions to continue the controversy at Worms, and fearing the objections of Canisius, who was known to feel great repugnance towards these public conferences with heretics which never came to any practical conclusion, Ferdinand sought to anticipate his refusal by obtaining a promise from Father Lainez that so able a defender of Catholic doctrine should also ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... discovered the commercial possibilities of Italy and when the first Greek vessels reached Rome. The Greeks came to trade, but they stayed to instruct. They found the tribes who inhabited the Roman country-side (and who were called the Latins) quite willing to learn such things as might be of practical use. At once they understood the great benefit that could be derived from a written alphabet and they copied that of the Greeks. They also understood the commercial advantages of a well-regulated system of coins and measures and weights. Eventually the ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... you into a belief that we have no other intention than the amusement of a thoughtless crowd, and the collection of pence. We have a higher object. Few of the admirers of our prototype, merry Master PUNCH, have looked upon his vagaries but as the practical outpourings of a rude and boisterous mirth. We have considered him as a teacher of no mean pretensions, and have, therefore, adopted him as the sponsor for our weekly sheet of pleasant instruction. When we have seen him parading in the glories of his motley, flourishing his ...
— Punch, Volume 101, Jubilee Issue, July 18, 1891 • Various
... of a grand truth or a great tree. It faces the future. It is the only anniversary in which humanity looks futureward instead of pastward, in which there is a consensus of thought for those who are to come after us, instead of reflections concerning those who have gone before us. It is a practical anniversary. It is a beautiful anniversary. To the common schools of the country I confide its perpetuation and usefulness with the same abiding faith that I would commit the acorn to the earth, the tree to the soil, or transmit the ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... a street for favors that mean more than money. Of course, it's the easy thing and the pleasant thing not to refuse, and after all, most men think, it doesn't cost anything but a few strokes of the pen, and so they will give a fellow that they wouldn't ordinarily play on their friends as a practical joke, a nice sloppy letter of introduction to them; or hand out to a man that they wouldn't give away as a booby prize, a letter of recommendation in which they crack him up as having all the qualities necessary for an A1 Sunday-school superintendent ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... been made against any Person in the Ship.* (* This history of Mr. Orton's misadventure is omitted from the Admiralty copy. It is an illustration of the times to note that the fact of Orton having got drunk does not seem to call for the Captain's severe censure. In these days, though the practical joker receives punishment, the drunkard would certainly come in ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... architecture in England was never both sound and strong enough to get its own way against all opposition. But with the issue of life and death always dependent on sea power, and with so many men of every class following the sea, there was at all events the biggest rough-and-tumble school of practical seamanship that any leading country ever had. The two essential steps were quickly taken: first, from oared galleys with very little sail power to the hybrid galleasse with much more sail and much less in ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... had a practical mind and was not lacking in courage, she said to herself: "I am a lost woman!" For some time she remained under that feeling of certainty that irreparable misfortune had befallen her, horror-struck, like a man fallen from a roof, knowing that his legs are broken but dreading ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... the numerous objections—theoretic on the one hand, practical on the other—with which we are sure to be met. As it will be a question of maintaining iniquity at any price, our opponents will of course protest "in the name of justice." "Is it not a crying shame," they will exclaim, "that the people of Paris ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... entirely out of the range of her husband's sympathies; while he was becoming more deeply absorbed in a profession that required close application of thought, intellectual force and clearness, and cold, practical modes of looking at all questions that came up for consideration. The consequence was that they were, in all their common interests, modes of thinking and habits of regarding the affairs of life, steadily receding ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... with it, the influx of wounded slackened and ceased, almost of a sudden. In the city nothing remained now but to bury the dead, and in haste, lest their corpses should breed pestilence. It was horribly practical; but every day, as she awoke, her first thought was for the set of the wind; her first fear that in the night it might have shifted, and might be blowing from the east across Lisbon. The wind, however, kept northerly, as though it had been nailed to ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... grim Corsican existence the Buonapartes passed their lives during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Occupied as advocates and lawyers with such details of the law as were of any practical importance, they must have been involved in family feuds and the oft-recurring disputes between Corsica and the suzerain Power, Genoa. As became dignitaries in the municipality of Ajaccio, several of the Buonapartes espoused ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... found at once the truest and the most intimate of his friends, a man whom he both liked and respected, and to whose opinion and judgment he repeatedly deferred. On Hobhouse's side, the sentiment which induced him, eminently sensible and practical as he was, to treasure the nosegay which Byron had given him, long after it was withered, shows how attractive must have been the personality of ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... is the practical advice which I would venture to deduce from what I have tried to show you. Use Greek art as a first, not a final, teacher. Learn to draw carefully from Greek work; above all, to place forms correctly, and to use light and shade tenderly. Never allow yourselves black shadows. ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... It may be more practical for some readers to use books and periodicals at the library which holds them rather than request them on interlibrary loan. For periodicals, you may refer readers on the basis of the Nassau-Suffolk Union List of Serials. Please ...
— The Long Island Library Resources Council (LILRC) Interlibrary Loan Manual: January, 1976 • Anonymous
... place. So heavy is the iron weight of custom—when it takes the form of an elderly and widowed domestic to a single gentleman—that even Jan's growing influence would not have secured her dismissal, had not the artist had a particular reason for wishing the boy's practical talents to be displayed. He suspected his business friend of distrusting them because of Jan's artistic genius, and he was proud to boast that he had never known the comfort of clean rooms and well-cooked food till "the boy Giotto" ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... only to repeat what many learned men have said before; a few observations, however, may not be superfluous to the generality of readers. The Arabic language is spoken by a greater proportion of the inhabitants of the known world than any other: a person having a practical knowledge of it, may travel from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the Cape of Good Hope, and notwithstanding that in such a journey he must pass through many kingdoms and empires of blacks, speaking ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... from her lap at this, and, as she followed it with her eyes, she seemed to see a practical demonstration of Droop's ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... of slavery in the Territories is the practical exclusion of free labor in them. True, there is no direct provision for the exclusion of free labor in your propositions, but such will certainly be their effect. I appeal to gentlemen from the South ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... beginning of his connection with the printing-house, he was mainly concerned in reading the proofs of the learned works entrusted to his father for printing, and though towards the latter end of the elder Bowyer's days the son may have taken a more active part in the practical work, as we read of his appointment as printer of the votes in the House of Commons in 1729, and as printer to the Society of Antiquaries in 1736, it was not until his father's death, in 1737, that the sole management of the ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... most especially in relation to the Crown, to which the speech did not indicate the consciousness of his holding any special relation," wrote Mr. Gladstone to Sir Henry Ponsonby (Morley's Life of Gladstone, vol. iii., p. 112).] I pointed out that Hartington had committed his colleagues on a practical question when he spoke as to Irish Local Government last January, and Mr. Gladstone had committed them when he talked on Ireland and on London government to Ribot and Clemenceau at Cannes. Mr. Gladstone defended himself, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... the normal standpoint, Beddoes' idea of the drama was something wildly amateurish. As a practical playwright he would be beneath contempt; but what he aimed at was something peculiar to himself, a sort of spectral dramatic fantasia. He would have admitted his obligations to Webster and Tourneur, to all the macabre Elizabethan ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... know whether interference would break the spell," interposed the practical doctor. "And it will take a lot of practise to follow that wave. It jumps back and ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West
... After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because ...
— On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... of Mauritius to the western coasts of Terra Australis, which remained to be examined, I was desirous to see in what state it had been left by the revolution, and to gain a practical knowledge of the port and periodical winds; with a view to its being used in the future part of my voyage as a place of refitting and refreshment, for which Port Jackson was at an inconvenient distance. It was also desirable to know how ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... of domestic animals has been written with the primary purpose of placing in the hands of stock owners, a book of practical worth; hence, all technical language or terms, as used by the professional veterinarian, have been eliminated and only such language used as all may ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... with the pointed suggestion that inasmuch as the hero of the story was an animal-painter of decided, though as yet unrecognized, ability, Mr. Brush could not do better than manifest his interest in a practical way by giving him an order. The sporting man rose to the suggestion with ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... beat backwards and forwards under close-reefed sails to maintain our position, and several times we had to run for Milford Haven, to escape the danger of shipwreck. We young seamen, however, thereby gained much practical experience in nautical affairs, as did undoubtedly our superiors, who had hitherto been more accustomed to the command of regiments of foot and horse than ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... cried at length, with something like desperation, "let us abandon this animated discussion on the subject of education, and take up the more practical topic of bread. Would you believe, Miss Howard, that I am an expert ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... there came a slight gust of wind; and it gave a practical illustration to his words; for the tapping was heard as often as the plant was moved by ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... legislative powers should be always regarded in this twofold aspect—as effecting their direct objects, good government and good legislation; and as educating the nation more or less extensively, by affording to a greater or less number of persons practical ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... volume is in great part a reprint of articles contributed to Reviews. The principal bond of union among them is their practical character. Beyond that, there is little to connect them apart from the individuality of the author and the ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... of his wanderings which I learned afterwards, but of his natural history and ethnological (I believe that is the word) studies he spoke a good deal. As, in my humble way, I also am an observer of such matters and know something about African natives and their habits from practical experience, these subjects ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... Adelaide, or Laide, as she was also called, was certainly the prettiest; that she well knew also, therefore she would have a fur cape, and no cloak; her figure should be seen. Christiane was what one might call a practical girl; she knew how to make use of everything. Alvilde had always a little attack of the tooth-ache; Julle went shopping, and Miss Grethe was the bride. She was also musical, and was considered witty. Thus she said one evening when the house-door was closed, and groaned dreadfully ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... solemn words put a silence on the lips for a few minutes, but practical Mrs. Brown broke it ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... to the Colossians against intruding into those things which she hath not seen. In the matter of this extraordinary belief of yours I can give you no such comfort as one honest man should offer to another: for I do not share it. But in the more practical matter of your conduct towards July Constantine, it may help you to know that I have accepted your word and propose henceforward to trust ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the most part, not only costly and hard to procure, but also far too voluminous. The object of this work is to condense into the smallest possible compass the essence of information which usually runs through many volumes, and place it into a practical form for the common reader. We hope, however, that this work will give the reader a greater longing to extend his inquiries into these most interesting subjects, so rich in everything that can refine the taste, enlarge the understanding and improve the heart. ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... began to talk in a very low voice, and Mother Bunch listened, nodding vehement approval, chuckling audibly once or twice, grinning broadly at other times, and throwing out several practical and shrewd suggestions of her own. Before Hester left Paradise Row the two had ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... spritsail, pull an oar or handle a tiller as well as any boy on the north coast of England. John was equally fond of the water, but his constant habit of putting the heavy work on me prevented his becoming as good a practical sailor as I was. No man can make a good sea-captain who has not had plenty of experience in splicing sheet-ropes and climbing shrouds. In our vacations we had plenty of pocket-money and went about pretty much as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... sort of a Jonah, and wherever I was, something went wrong. The chaplain wouldn't have me, because he had a suspicion that I was giddy, and full of the devil, and I have thought he had an idea I would sacrifice the whole army to perpetrate a practical joke, and he also maintained that I would lie, if a lie would help me out of a scrape. I never knew how such an impression could have been created. The colonel said he would try and get along without me, the adjutant didn't want any more of my mathematics in his reports and ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... way through the difficulties of the parable, and found the key-note of its interpretation, we turn again to its terms for the sake of observing and applying the practical lessons which ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... whenever it is desired; but if I had been a rank tenderfoot they couldn't have jarred me loose with greater ease. It was smooth work, and I couldn't guess the object, unless it was a Mounted Policeman's idea of an excellent practical joke on a supposedly capable citizen from over the line. Anyway, they had left me holding the sack in a mighty poor snipe country. Dark was close at hand, and I was a long way from shelter. So when the creeping shadows blanketed pinnacle and lowland ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... toward the Rhine. Suddenly he uttered a loud imprecation, and his companions, thronging to the window, were all fiercely incensed at the sight which greeted their eyes. For the famous seven sisters were perpetrating something of a practical joke; they were leaving the castle in a boat, and on perceiving the men's faces at the windows they gave vent to a loud laugh of disdain. Hardly had the angry suitors realized that they were the butt of the ladies' ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... of practical experience with wild animals of many species, I am reluctantly compelled to give the prize for greatest cunning and foresight in self-preservation to the common brown rat,—the accursed "domestic" rat that has adopted man as his perpetual servant, and regards man's goods as his lawful prey. ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... extremely picturesque Irish revolutionary, whom the author not very happily christens Count Kettle, has a daughter who secretly abhors romance and the high-falutin sentimentality that he and his circle mistake for patriotism. To her father's disgust she marries an apparently staid and practical young Scotch ship-owner, who at heart is a confirmed romantic. The circumstances which lead to their marriage and the subsequent events which reveal to each the other's true temperament provide the "plot" of The Inscrutable Lovers. Though slender it is original and might lend itself either to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... taking service; he went next to fight in Africa at Azamor, a town in Morocco, where he received a slight wound in his knee, but one which by injuring a nerve made him lame for the remainder of his life, and obliged him to return to Portugal. Conscious of the superiority which his theoretical and practical knowledge and his services had earned for him above the herd of courtiers, Magellan naturally felt more keenly than another would have done the unjust treatment he received from Emmanuel with regard to certain complaints laid by the people of Azamor against ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... the voice was not that of Swing Tunstall. On the heels of this unwelcome discovery Racey made another. The man had dragged out a knife from under his armpit, and was squirmingly endeavouring to make play with it. Racey's intended practical joke on Swing Tunstall was in a fair way to become ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... aspiration of African colonies. It was the disappointment of obtaining possessions in Tunis by the establishment of French control there in 1881 that found expression in the Triple Alliance. Her antagonism against Austria and the Hapsburgs was still unmitigated, but as a practical matter of statesmanship she had to choose between two antagonists—Austria opposing her on the Adriatic, and France on the Mediterranean. Since Africa presented the larger field for expansion, she enlisted ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... the morbid and unhealthy dwelling upon a single idea which remains one of the conditions of 'illumination' to-day, we are confronted with the same thing. In every case the object—unconscious, maybe—is the provision of conditions that render hallucination and illusion a practical certainty. In connection with non-religious matters the unhealthiness of mind, distortion of vision, and unreliability of judgment induced by methods akin to those named is now generally recognised. We have yet to see the same thing as generally recognised in ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... was far from a favorite among the men; they teased, and played practical jokes upon him. Sunday was his only day of rest and relaxation. Then, with one of Dr. Rivals' books, Jack sought a quiet nook on the bank of the river. He had found a deep fissure in the rocks, where he sat quite concealed from view, his book ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... world of Nature, and think of the panoramic scenes that have passed before those now impassive eyes. In our friend's boyhood there was no practical mode of swift communication of news. In great emergencies, to be sure, some patriot hand might flash the beacon-light from a lofty tower; but news crept slowly over our hand-breath nation, and it was ...
— The New Minister's Great Opportunity - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... sale"—"We always suppose," said another, "the broker has a right to sell the person he offers us"—"I never heard of such a question being asked," said a third; "a man would be thought a fool, who should put such a question."—He hoped the House would see the practical utility of this logic. It was the key-stone, which held the building together. By means of it, slave-captains might traverse the whole coast of Africa, and see nothing but equitable practices. They could not, however, be wholly absolved, even if they availed ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... bit of poetry out of that sign. Howsomever, poetry ain't the chief business of a drug store, and when you come to the practical side we done mighty well. We got in a line of patent medicines with pretty red and blue labels that took the popular taste. As there was a minin' boom over the hill, our line of gold pans and gunpowder went well. A new seeder brought in some money, ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... going to be rash enough to step in to contest the terms of the treaty that they imposed on the conquered. Annexation had probably never been a dream before the war; after the war it suddenly became temptingly practical. Warum nicht? became the theme of leader-writers in the German press; they pointed out that Britain, defeated and humiliated, but with enormous powers of recuperation, would be a dangerous and inevitable enemy for the Germany of to-morrow, while Britain incorporated ...
— When William Came • Saki
... adoring her, and wanting to marry her. Miggs was hovering about too; and the fact of her existence, the mere circumstance of her ever having been born, appeared, after Dolly, such an unaccountable practical joke. It was impossible to talk. It couldn't be done. He had nothing left for it but to stir his tea round, and round, and round, and ruminate on all the fascinations of ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... money for it being a part of the first United Offering of the Women's Auxiliary. Little by little the people came out of their holes in the earth and built themselves houses. The community has been physically and morally transformed. A saw-mill, the gift of a generous Eastern layman, has been a most practical means of evangelising, not only furnishing lumber for houses, but healthful occupations for the men. This transformation has been wrought, not by legislation or civilization as such, but by the consistent ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... there was, a little wooden gate. It had been put there when the children were little, and had remained ever since at the top of the stairs. Why? It may have been mere routine. It may have been romance. The Owner was a practical man, and the little gate was in the way; it was true he never had to shut and open it on his way to bed, and but rarely even saw it. Did he leave it there from a weak sentiment or from a culpable neglect? He was not a sentimental man; on the other hand, he was not negligent. There is a great ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... these here old houses mostly did, it was difficult for the gentleman of independent means to gainsay him, especially as the latter's wife became a convert to Mr. Bartlett on the spot. It was his responsible and practical manner that did it. She directed her husband—a feeble sample of the manhood of Brixton—not to set up his judgment against that of professional experience, but to affix his signature forthwith to the document made and provided. He ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... perhaps than his fellows, and holds him spellbound in a kind of ecstasy. There are things, he feels—there are things here which—well, which are things. Something unreasoning, unreasonable, is upon him; when he tries to define it with the precision of a practical man, it eludes him, slips away, as the glow of the wine he has drunk is slipping away, leaving him cross, and conscious of his liver. He feels that he has been extravagant, prodigal of something; virtue has gone out of him. He did not desire this glimpse ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... statement of the two great truths of Sovereignty and Free Will without attempting the impossible task of harmonizing these into a perfect system. After a half-hour of discussion, she brought the lesson to a close with a very short and very simple presentation of the practical bearing of the great doctrine. And while the mystery remained unsolved, the limpid clearness of her thought, the humble attitude of mind, the sympathy with doubt, and above all, the sweet and tender pathos that filled her voice, sent the class away humbled, subdued, comforted, and willing ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... and when the mistress of the house, massive in black silk, velvet and gold embroidery, moved like a pageant to the head of her table, where she remained like a sacerdotal effigy, not even the presence of the practical Scotchman at her side could remove the prevailing sense of restraint. For a while the conversation of the relatives might have been brought with them in their antique vehicles of fifty years ago, so faded, so worn, ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... homophone, and that outside Gulliver's travels one might as little expect to find a house-beam as a castle-moat in a man's eye, the confusion of beam is indefensible, and the example will serve three purposes: first to show how different significations of the same word may make practical homophones, secondly the radical mischief of all homophones, and thirdly our insensibility towards an absurdity which is familiar: but the absurdity is no less where we are accustomed to it than where it is unfamiliar ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... of historical allusions," chided the practical man. "Always the literary man, always the dreamer. This girl is a disturber. ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... No practical attorney is unaware that the judgment of his case depends largely upon who presides, the whims, the prejudices, the moods, the viewpoint of the judge; and that the law merely provides justification ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... are according to nature, because reason presupposes things as determined by nature, before disposing of other things according as it is fitting. This may be observed both in speculative and in practical matters. Wherefore just as in speculative matters the most grievous and shameful error is that which is about things the knowledge of which is naturally bestowed on man, so in matters of action it is most grave and shameful to act against things as determined by nature. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... said, "we are getting practical at last. Let one thing be understood, though. If our young friend here is really able to solve this little mystery, he will not object to my making use of ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... times for us, for with that magnificent disregard for practical matters that characterizes many men of otherwise great gifts, father had invited each separate family to make headquarters at his home until other arrangements could be perfected. As a result, our house overflowed, while the land about us was dotted ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... the loss of innumerable souls is the want of early religious teaching and religious training. By the various teaching communities of religious priests, brothers, and sisters, thousands are saved; for in youth their pupils acquire a love and a practical knowledge of faith; they are nurtured in purity and piety, and they are enlightened and encouraged in habits of industry ...
— Vocations Explained - Matrimony, Virginity, The Religious State and The Priesthood • Anonymous
... am but a reed. But I beg you to allow me the superiority of the thinking reed over the unthinking forces that are about to crush him out of existence. Practical thinking in the last instance is but criticism. I may perhaps be allowed to express my wonder at this action of the police being delayed for two full days during which, of course, I could have annihilated everything compromising by burning it—let us say—and getting rid of the ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... man of business. A miscalculation may involve the loss of hundreds or thousands of dollars, in many cases, while a slow and tedious calculation involves loss of time and the advantage which should have been seized at the moment. It is proposed in the following pages to give a few brief methods and practical rules for performing calculations which occur in every-day transactions among men, presuming that a fair knowledge of the ordinary rules of ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... unlike Chrissy, was quite alive to the practical. She remarked everything with keen eyes, and determined now to be at the bottom of the business. She should either go in and win triumphantly, or take a sudden tack and sail away with flying colours, as if she had never entertained ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... there was no such thing as a steam locomotive in use in the United States. The first ever used here for practical purposes was built in England and brought to New York city in 1829, and in August of that year made a trial trip on the rails of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. The experiment was a failure; and for several years horses were ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... fancy were yet more frequent when she was endeavouring to fix her attention to drawing, needle-work, or to any other sedentary employment. Exercise she found useful. She spent more time than usual in planting and in gardening—a simple remedy; but practical philosophy frequently finds those simple remedies the best which Providence has put within ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... broke out the excited girl, with a propensity, meanwhile, to repay this second impudence of the day by such a sound boxing of the ears as would make the event one to be remembered; while Miss Crawford took a rather more practical view of the matter, with the single word "Impertinence" and a supplementary ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... her tastes, with a love of gardening, and a practical knowledge of all the details of country life, which tend to make the home so comfortable, her unfailing sweet temper, ready wit and espieglerie, her powers of sympathy and strong common sense, caused her to be the life and center ...
— Mrs. Hungerford - Notable Women Authors of the Day • Helen C. Black
... not surmise how the shade of Margeret had been made do duty for the occasion, her subdued, serious manner giving the denial to any practical joke escapades. ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... at the polls. The doctrine that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed was popular in the West; indeed, it was here that the doctrine was first applied to the problem of suffrage in a definite and practical manner. In the more sparsely settled portions of the country, able-bodied men were more important than social distinctions and religious ties, so much so, in fact, that some of the western states attracted settlers by giving the ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... her anything special had occurred," said the second man. "Are you prepared to say that all our resources are equal to blowing off the muzzle of a hundred-ton gun or spiking a ten-thousand-ton ship on a plain rock in clear daylight? They can beat us at our own game. Better join hands with the practical branches; we're in funds now. Try a direct scare in a crowded street. They value their greasy hides." He was the drag upon the wheel, and an Americanised Irishman of the second generation, despising his own race and hating the other. ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... condition, while others again by their violent ignorance and excessive love of pleasure[867] are carried into the bodies of animals; for one by weakness of reasoning power, and slowness of contemplation, is impelled by the practical element in him to generation, while another, lacking an instrument to satisfy his licentiousness, desires to gratify his passions immediately, and to get that gratification through the medium of the body; for ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... or 70,970, or 71,328, it is quite equally held up by Messrs Taylor and Smyth that the Sacred Laver of the Israelites, and the Molten Sea of the Scriptures, also conform and correspond to its (yet undetermined) standard "with all conceivable practical exactness;" though the standard of capacity to which they thus conform and correspond is itself a size or standard which has not been yet fixed with any exactness. Professor Smyth, in speaking of the calculations and theoretical dimensions of this coffer—as published ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... I need not tell you that this matter has excited the interest of our philanthropic and public-spirited citizens, and especially of the medical faculty, to whom it is, in its sanitary aspect, a matter of most important practical interest. And, through their representations to the city government and to the state legislature, a bill was brought before the legislature, which I had the honor myself to report in the House of Representatives a little more than a year ago, and ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... desired to be the first to get hold of the dice and struggle for the rich prize. There were many ungentle encounters, many a thrust in the ribs, many invectives, many a gross, unseemly word; the empress saw all, heard all, laughed at all, and said to Alexis: "These gentlemen are very practical! Two thousand rubles are estimated by them at a higher rate than the proudest title! I comprehend that a title is a nonsensical thing, of which no real use can be made, but what beautiful dresses can be bought with two ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... of a prolific writer's books for boys, being full of practical instructions as to keeping pets, from white mice upwards, and inculcates in a way which a little recalls Miss Edgeworth's 'Frank' the virtue of self-reliance, though the local colouring of the home of the Aberdeenshire boy is ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... Eighth, every ordinary practical problem can be solved conveniently on an adding machine. Our adding machines are used almost solely for ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... considerable sum of money to restore it externally and internally, in the original spirit, and thus, as he thought, to bring it into harmony with the resurrection-field which lay in front of it. He had himself much practical skill, and a few laborers who were still busy at the lodge might easily be kept together, until this pious work too ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... obscure chamber in the Palace of Versailles, where resided the supreme power, only by a slight door or curtain, which permitted her to hear all that was said there. She had for a 'cher ami' the greatest practical philosopher of that period, Dr. Quesnay, the founder of political economy. He was physician to Madame de Pompadour, and one of the sincerest and most single-hearted of men probably in Paris at the time. He explained to Madame du Hausset many things that, but for his ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... turbulent, seeing that he will be obliged, in any event, to come in May, when he has to be in London for professional purposes, at which time he can take us easily on his way both coming and going. When Caroline becomes his wife she will be more practical, no doubt; but she is such a child as yet that there is no contenting her with reasons. However, the time will pass quickly, there being so much to do in preparing a trousseau for her, which must now be put in hand in order that we may have plenty of leisure to get it ready. ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... she must needs turn the paper over and over in her hands as she watched Tom, with the help of the rather abashed practical jokers, haul the ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... natural ones, as Englishmen hold; or merely for something good to eat, the colour whereof strikes their fancy, as Scotchmen think—a theory which has been stated in detail, and with great semblance of truth, in Mr. Stewart's admirable 'Practical Angler,'— is a matter about which much good sense has been written on ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... curled, hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which his idea has been most successfully embodied; these pictures, so destitute as they are of all brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but the mere negative, feminine one of submission and endurance, which on all hands it is conceded, form the peculiar practical ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... aside; or, in another and not less offensive form of pride, in the externals of humility and rotten with innate malignity, groaned audibly through his clenched teeth; and with shut eyes and crossed hands, as in prayer, sought to pass a practical rebuke upon the less devout exhibitions of those around him. The cant and the clatter, as it prevails in the crowded mart, were here in miniature; and Charity would have needed something more than a Kamschatka covering to have ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... dozen men, mostly trudging on foot, and but slightly armed, commanded by Selameh; and one of them, named Salem, was the merry-andrew of the party, full of verbal and practical jokes. The ride was exhilarating,—over a level plain, green with thin grass or weeds, and low shrubs, whose roots extended to surprising distances, mostly above the surface of the ground; the morning breeze delicious, with larks trilling high above us in the ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... she was a disappointment. She had submitted for one winter to be taken to receptions and teas, and to have a dinner given in her honor, in the newspaper accounts of which the rare old Russell silver figured effectively, and on the whole she had enjoyed it. But a season of it was enough; her practical mind rebelled against the expense and uselessness of such a life. She adopted the plainest style of dress, declined invitations, and privately ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... quickly across his brain it lingered, taking practical shape. Surely it was worth his while to make an effort, to strike one bold blow for liberty now, before it was ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths |
