"Precision" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of them unite and flow into the Persian Gulf. Of the former of them the commander has spoken to you this morning. Scholars have not been able to locate Paradise, or the Garden of Eden, with anything like precision; but it is generally supposed to have been between these two great streams. Some think it was not a place at all, but only a location given to a moral idea; others place it in the mountains of ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... given, at the age of seven, to her young mistress, Elizabeth, who afterward was married to Mr. Gabe Hendricks. At her new home she served as maid, and later as nurse. The dignity of her position as house servant has clung to her through the years, forming her speech in a precision unusual ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... from all earthly ties of interest and kindred which they were at all times to be inspired with; the precautions to be taken in procuring the consent of parents, and securing the free action of the Oblates who might hereafter join the order, were all indicated with the greatest precision; and instructions were transmitted to Don Giovanni and his co-operators to enlighten them as to the guidance and government of the congregation. The miraculous manner in which the Saint had often read their most secret thoughts, ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... ascent of man, and other particular cases of evolution, had attracted not a few naturalists before Darwin's day, though no one (except Herbert Spencer in the psychological domain (1855)) had come near him in precision and thoroughness of inquiry. ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... communicated to both Houses of Parliament for six weeks before that decision was pronounced. Remembering, it should seem, how fertile a source of controversy ecclesiastical endowments had supplied throughout a large part of the Christian world, and how impossible it was to foretell with precision what might be the prevailing opinions and feelings of the Canadians on this subject at a future period, Parliament at once secured the means of making a systematic provision for a Protestant clergy, and ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... and spirits were injected hypodermically into his system. The fair young nurse stood a little in the background, trembling in her intense anxiety, and yet so trained and disciplined that with the precision of a veteran she could obey the slightest sign from the attendant surgeons. "He never failed me," she thought; "and if loving care can save his life he shall have it ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... seventy or eighty years that intervene between then and now. First and brightest to the eye are the dozen candles, scattered about regardless of expense, and kept well snuffed by the miller, who walks round the room at intervals of five minutes, snuffers in hand, and nips each wick with great precision, and with something of an executioner's grim look upon his face as he closes the snuffers upon the neck of the candle. Next to the candle-light show the red and blue coats and white breeches of the soldiers—nearly twenty of them in all ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... in the waters after his desperate dive from the cliff and rise with unerring precision on the surface near the sinking babe. The sea came thundering against the jagged rocks in long, terrific swells, and was hurled back in a torrential tumult of breaking foam. Ootah fought the seething waves in his effort to grapple the living thing which was to Annadoah as the heart of ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... and were sitting like so many bronze statues, waiting for the Doctor's permission to go; for military precision and discipline had of late been introduced, and regular guards and watches kept, much to the disgust of some of the Englishmen, who did not scruple to say that ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... out of sight; but in the next they appeared on the starboard beam, swimming parallel as before, both to the course of the Catamaran and to each other. The manoeuvre was executed with such precision and uniformity, as could not be imitated among men,—even under the tuition of the ablest drill-sergeant that ever existed. They swerved from right to left, as if each and all were actuated by the same impulse, and at the same instant of time. At the same instant their tails made ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... and there I could wish there was some little amendment. You will pardon this liberty I take, and set it down to the account of old-fashioned friendship." Mr. Ker, to judge from his letters, (which, in addition to their other laudable points, are dated with a precision truly exemplary,) was a very kind, useful, and sensible person, and in the sober hue of his intellect exhibited a striking contrast to the sparkling vivacity of the two sanguine and impatient young wits, whose affairs he so good ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... music from Bach to Beethoven and from Beethoven to Wagner—yes, even to Richard Strauss—but enthusiasm with discipline? German music has been our mobilization; it has gone on just as in a partitur by Richard Wagner—absolute rapture with perfect precision! ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... musket, and we are improving the material. We hope to make our guns as capable of resisting rapid and continued firing as well and as long as the English and the Swedish guns, which are the best in Europe, can do. And we find that we can throw a ball on the Minie principle with equal precision twice as far. This will double the force of ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... frightened creature had scarcely halted, when the great hen-hawk came at him with a whistling rush, and sent him back to the other side. The male bird had by this time turned and now darted with such suddenness and precision, that the squirrel, unable to pass round the tree again, sprang off into the air. Guided by his broad tail the hawk followed, and before the squirrel could reach the ground, the bird was seen to strike. Then with a loud scream he rose ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... English embroidery is the well-known "Black Work," which is said to have been introduced by Catherine of Aragon into England, and was also known as "Spanish work." The work itself was a marvel of neatness, precision, and elegant design, but the result cannot be said to have been commensurate with the labour of its production. Most frequently the design was of scroll-work, worked with a fine black silk back-stitching or chain-stitch. ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... capability of contentment with forms and things which, professing completion, are yet not exact nor complete, as in the vulgar with wax and clay and china figures, and in bad sculptors with an unfinished and clay-like modelling of surface, and curves and angles of no precision or delicacy; and in general, in all common and unthinking persons with an imperfect rendering of that which might be pure and fine, as church-wardens are content to lose the sharp lines of stone carving under clogging obliterations of whitewash, and as the modern Italians scrape ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... written about him. De Maupassant describes him in Notre Coeur with picturesque precision. He is tempting as a psychologic study. He appeals to the literary, though he is not "literary." His modelling arouses tempests, either of dispraise or idolatry. To see him steadily, critically, after a visit to his studios in Paris or Meudon, is difficult. If the master be there then you feel ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... a most formidable sheet, without gilt or black edging, and consequently very vulgar and indecorous, particularly to one of your precision; but this being Sunday, I can procure no better, and will atone for its length by not filling it. Bland I have not seen since my last letter; but on Tuesday he dines with me, and will meet M * * e, the epitome of all that ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... his own garment, as if it had been lying ready for him to put on when the occasion required it, and now became him admirably. He perceived it to be a proper male function to produce easily and with precision whatever utterly charming young ladies might reasonably require. He appreciated Miss Goodward's acceptance of it as she came down from the house bewilderingly tied into soft veils for the afternoon's drive, as a part of her hall-marked fineness. If ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... mid afternoon the streets were deserted. Then began the entrance of the real force of occupation. At the head rode a general of brigade, a sombre, stern-eyed man, accompanied by his staff. And behind him marched thousands of green-gray German infantry keeping step with a marvelous precision. These men had been fighting hard, but they looked fresh and trim. And as they marched they sang, raising their deep voices in ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... north of Philadelphia, he was very much surprised by what he saw. Instead of the ample proportions and regular system of European encampments, with the glitter and finish of their appointments; instead of feather-trimmed hats and violet-colored facings, with marching and countermarching in the precision and grace of a minuet, he saw a small army of eleven thousand men, poorly clad, with nothing that could by the utmost courtesy be called a uniform, and woefully lacking in knowledge of ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... seize upon the first promising opportunity to recover the lost ground. On the other hand, innkeepers were apt to be a well-informed class, as to public happenings, and this man told his tale with parrot-like precision. At any rate, there was nothing to do but reach Capua as soon as possible; for, the Carthaginian commander once within the walls, no one could tell what precautions and scrutiny might be ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... Florence; and Antonio, having become known to the architect Bramante of Castel Durante, began to give assistance to that master, who, being old and crippled in the hands by palsy, was not able to work as before in the preparation of his designs. And these Antonio executed with such accuracy and precision that Bramante, finding that they were correct and true in all their measurements, was constrained to leave to him the charge of a great number of works that he had on his hands, only giving him the order that he desired and all the inventions and compositions that were to be used in each work. ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... a great mahogany-appearing sideboard reached the ceiling. Upon its shelves rested pyramids of shimmering glasses that were never disturbed. Mirrors set in the face of the sideboard multiplied them. Lemons, oranges and paper napkins, arranged with mathematical precision, sat among the glasses. Many-hued decanters of liquor perched at regular intervals on the lower shelves. A nickel-plated cash register occupied a position in the exact centre of the general effect. The elementary senses of it all seemed to ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... summoning Clairmont, I gave her her breakfast, and then replaced her in the cupboard. Later on, I gave her her instructions over again, telling her to do everything with calm precision, a cheerful face, and, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and made a gruesome face. Syne I pulled out the little drawer, and got the sharping strap, the which I fastened to my button. Syne I took my razor from the box, and gave it five or six turns along first one side and then the other, with great precision. Syne I tried the edge of it along the flat of my hand. Syne I loosed my neckcloth, and laid it over the back of the chair; and syne I took out the button of my shirt-neck, and folded it back. Nanse, who was, all the time, standing behind, looking what I was after, asked ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... manner this poem was composed, I am sorry that I neglected to ascertain with precision, from Johnson's own authority. He has marked upon his corrected copy of the first edition of it, 'Written in 1738;' and, as it was published in the month of May in that year, it is evident that much time was not employed ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... foremost hurling their knives with deadly aim. One Stratton avoided by a swift duck of his head; the other he caught dexterously on the chair-bottom. Then, over the heads of the crowd, another chair came hurtling with unexpected force and precision. It struck Buck's crude weapon squarely, splintering the legs and leaving him only the back ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... supposed they were the savages they have been described. A party soon afterwards assembled, apparently to go out on a hunting expedition. Each man had a wooden tube about five feet long. This was a blow-pipe, through which bamboo arrows are shot with great precision. The points are dipped in a subtle poison, which destroys birds and small animals almost instantaneously when struck with them. Some of the men, also, were armed with bows and arrows. The chief men carried ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... adorn. Possessing the power which so few men have, of close, concentrated, continuous thought, he was at the same time prompt in his decisions. His instructions to juries, and his legal judgments, usually pronounced at considerable length, were marked by that precision of statement, clearness of analysis, and felicity of language, which made them seem like the flowing of a ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... large clinical experience and his extensive original work along the lines of gynecologic pathology have enabled him to present his subject with originality and precision. The work gives the early literature on adenomyoma, traces the disease through its various stages, and then gives the detailed findings in a large number of cases personally examined by the author. Formerly the ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... quarter-master general. The duties of this post were most arduous and exacting. To promptly equip, supply and forward the thousands of troops sent to the front to defend the Union was a task demanding the highest executive ability and rare organizing skill, besides the greatest precision in receiving, disbursing and accounting for the public funds. Millions of dollars passed through his hands; he had the letting of enormous contracts, and opportunities, without number, by which he might have enriched himself. But he was true to ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... not at once apparent. This work, however, was brought out before the war had ceased, and notwithstanding his intimate relations with his hero, it was impossible for the author to attain that fulness and precision of statement which the study of the Official Records can alone ensure. Nor was Dr. Dabney a witness of all the events he so vigorously described. It is only fitting, however, that I should acknowledge the ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... aiming, it is true, at the higher graces of style, somewhat diffuse, too, both in French and in English, but easy, natural, idiomatic, and lucid, with the distinctness of clear conceptions rather than the precision of vigorous conceptions, and a warmth which in his public letters sometimes rose to eloquence, and in his private letters often made you feel as if you were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... workmanship and solid weight? There is no government mint of words, and it is no statutable offence to invent a felicitous or daring expression unauthorised by Mr. Todd! When a man of genius, in the heat of his pursuits or his feelings, has thrown out a peculiar word, it probably conveyed more precision or energy than any other established word, otherwise he is but ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... and steel, precision equipment (bearings, radio and telephone parts, armaments), wood pulp and paper products, processed foods, ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... broadcloth. Shortly before the close of the service, Mr. Perrowne, in his most ecclesiastical manner, called the parties up, and put them through their catechism. The corporal answered with military precision and dignity, and Serlizer, glancing at his martial magnificence, was so proud of the bridegroom that she felt equal to answering a bench of bishops. Mrs. Newcome, who had given her daughter away, remarked, as all the bridal party retired from the vestry ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... they were kept and continued to matter, the Secretary of Defense would be saddled with the task of deciding in the end which racial tag to attach to each man in the armed forces. It was an unenviable duty, and it could be performed with neither precision ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... his glory. They are the "rhymes of a prose writer" as Jules Lemaitre said. To mould the expression of his thought according to the strictest laws, and to "narrow it down" to some extent, such was his aim. Following the example of one of his comrades of Medan, being readily carried away by precision of style and the rhythm of sentences, by the imperious rule of the ballad, of the pantoum or the chant royal, Maupassant also desired to write in metrical lines. However, he never liked this collection that he often regretted having published. His encounters with prosody had left him with that ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... do nothing," I told him, with the snapped precision of an old space dog. "The League fleet is already closing in on the renegades and you will be informed of the capture. Thank ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... possess, first, precision, and next (the subject of the present chapter), completeness. Some have argued that, in addition, names are fitted for the purposes of thought in proportion as they approximate to mere symbols in compactness, through ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... was to get home without a hat; but Partridge followed Chook into the kitchen, where a candle was burning. Chook held the candle in his hand to show the little dresser with the cups and saucers and plates arranged in mathematical precision. The pots and pans were already hung on hooks. They had all seen service, and in Chook's eyes seemed more at home than the brand-new things that hung in the shops. As Chook looked round with pride, he became aware ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... but we may the more readily pass over its complicated calculations since their precise formulas can never more than very roughly represent the true state of the case, which simply rebels against precision. The rock on which every immanent use of mathematics in psychology must strike, is the impossibility of exactly measuring one representation by another. We may, indeed, declare one stronger than another on the basis ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... began to ascend the river. I had the choice of the whole fleet, and selected the best, though not the largest; it was thirty-four feet long by twenty inches wide. I had six paddlers, and the larger canoe of Sekeletu had ten. They stand upright, and keep the stroke with great precision, though they change from side to side as the course demands. The men at the head and stern are selected from the strongest and most expert of the whole. The canoes, being flat bottomed, can go into very shallow water; and whenever the men can feel the bottom they use the paddles, which ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... to do. This helped to clear up his ideas as to what he and the others did mean to do. So that when, after thumping the statue hearteningly on its marble back, he returned to the rhododendrons, he was able to give his orders with the clear precision of a born leader, as he later said. And since the others had, neither of them, thought of any plans, his plan was accepted, as the plans of born leaders are apt ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... of France ought to be a sufficient guarantee that the manufacture of beet root sugar is not a speculative but a great staple trade, in which the supply can be regulated by the demand, with a precision scarcely attainable in any other ease, and when, in addition, this demand tends rather to increase than to diminish. That the trade is profitable there can also be no doubt from the large capital embarked in it on the Continent—a capital which ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... conclusion do the foregoing details point? It is needful here to speak with caution and precision. As the claims of the Brethren were never brought before Convocation, we cannot say that the Anglican Church as a body officially recognised the Brethren as a sister Episcopal Church. But, on the other hand, we ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... region, there prevails among the Mattoal a custom which might almost be dignified with the name of geographical study. In the first place, it is necessary to premise that the boundaries of all the tribes on Humboldt Bay, Eel River, Van Dusen's Fork, and in fact everywhere, are marked with the greatest precision, being defined by certain creeks, canons, bowlders, conspicuous trees, springs, etc., each one of which objects has its own individual name. It is perilous for an Indian to be found outside of his tribal boundaries, wherefore it stands him well in hand to make himself acquainted with the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... awakened susceptibility of sex; for it is only through the outward senses that the selection of an individual mate is made and the instinct utilized for nature's purposes. It would seem, however, that nature was determined that the force and constancy of the instinct must make up for its lack of precision, and that she was totally unconcerned that this instinct ruthlessly seized the youth at the moment when he was least prepared to cope with it; not only because his powers of self-control and discrimination are unequal to the task, but because his senses are helplessly wide open to the world. These ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... inevitable that he should reach us. I heard My Lady utter a little gasp, as she sat more erect; and here he was, espying us readily enough with that uncanny precision of a drunken man, ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... setting his chair back against the wall with preoccupied precision. "The spirit of prayer is upon me," he said; and in a moment he ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... rigid precision of bearing which denotes military training: he was young and slight of build, with unruly dark hair fluttering round the temples from beneath his white sugar-loaf hat, and escaping the trammels of the neatly-tied black silk bow at the nape of the neck; he held himself very erect ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... social apparatus and internal political methods. We shall then come to the discussion of language, nationality and international conflicts, equipped with such an array of probabilities and possibilities as will enable us to guess at these special issues with an appearance of far more precision than would be the case if we considered ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... up at the public-house which smiles goldenly upon Mount Pleasant, and music broke upon us. Instantly, with the precision of a harlequinade, a stream of giggling girls poured from Eyre Street Hill and Back Hill. With the commencement of a rag-tag dance, the Point was whipped to frivolous life. The loungers grunted, and moved up to see. Clusters of children, little angels with dark eyes and language sufficiently ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... turned pink with age, they compare disadvantageously with those of the more solid masters who preceded him. After all, Vasari's name and fame rest principally on the labours of his pen, not those of his brush. His "Lives of the Painters," although not a model of precision in facts or chronology, is nevertheless the mine from which all subsequent art historians ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... and legitimate way out? He pondered the political situation as he walked along with great coolness and precision. When the division on the hours clause was over the main struggle on the Bill, as he had all along maintained, would be also at an end. If the Government carried the clause—and the probability still was ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... river and entered the fields from which the crops had been reaped long since. When the horsemen came to a fence twelve men dismounted and threw down enough panels for the others to ride through without breaking their formation. Everything was done with order and precision. Harry could not keep from admiring. It was not often that he saw so early in the war troops who were drilled so beautifully, and ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... key to lock and unlock a padlock. The animal most proficient in this became able to select the right Yale key out of a bunch of half a dozen or more, with as much quickness and precision as the ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... has been brooding, though he may not be able to say exactly how the impression has been conveyed to him; and I doubt if the author could have explained his sympathetic process. He certainly would have lacked precision in any philosophical or metaphysical theme, and when, in his letters, he touches upon politics, there is a little vagueness of definition that indicates want of mental grip in that direction. But in the region ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... events of that evening must have been graven as if with a steel tool on Mr. Razumov's brain since he was able to write his relation with such fullness and precision a good many ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... earnest exhortations he immediately bases on the declaration he has made. He reasons that, since the world was destroyed once by water, it may be again by fire. The deluge he certainly regarded as literal: was not, then, in his conception, the fire, too, literal? He says, with calm, prosaic precision, "The earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holiness, looking for a new heaven and a new earth, and striving that ye may ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... primatial dignity, and erect his crozier in the diocese of the other: that the archbishop of Dublin should be titled the "Primate of Ireland;" while the archbishop of Armagh should be styled, with more precision, "Primate of all Ireland"—a distinction which ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... above them—swift, relentless, terrible, he hurled himself upon the savage warriors of Kovudoo. Blind fury possessed him. Too, it protected him by its very ferocity. Like a wounded lioness he was here, there, everywhere, striking terrific blows with hard fists and with the precision and timeliness of the trained fighter. Again and again he buried his teeth in the flesh of a foeman. He was upon one and gone again to another before an effective blow could be dealt him. Yet, though great was the weight of his execution in determining the result of the combat, it ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... some branch of employment, and make them more competent after this period of service was over to engage in private enterprise. Two years of such training would dissipate all the slackness, lack of precision, and laziness which are so often apparent in young men who have never had any strict discipline in their homes, and whom parental weakness has rendered unfit for the hard business ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... has surprised and puzzled me very much." She then related the whole conversation, with her usual precision. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... longing to be rid of the precision and order of everyday life drove them to the mountains, and to the literature of Wales and the Highlands, to Celtic, or pseudo-Celtic romance. To the fashion of the time mountains were still frowning and horrid steeps; in Gray's Journal of his tour in the Lakes, ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... arrivals with lack-luster eyes. And the dummies, and the wooden wall on which they were propped, with a strange painted motto consisting of snakes, and dogs, and sticks, and a yard measure, were all repeated with crystal-clear precision in the green ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... tricks. Three on one side and three on the other set to work to bring off a sham-fight. The youths made arrows of the branches of the palm, and, holding up a portion of their clothes for a shield, they throw these palm-branch arrows with great force and precision, almost always hitting one another. This they continued for some time. As the arrows are thrown by the party of one side they are picked up by the other. When a man falls by a slip or otherwise, the opposing combatants fight over his ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... down the ward, with swift precision, nurses move softly. They have the unanxious eyes of those whose days are mapped out with duties. They rarely notice us as individuals. They ask no questions, show no curiosity. Their deeds of persistent kindness are all performed impersonally. It's the same with the doctors. ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... are of the popular six-panel type with nicely molded and raised panels, and both doorheads are elaborated by short, broader sections of the vertical casings near the top. In refinement of detail and proportion, and in precision of workmanship the Germantown Avenue doorway surpasses ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... purpose in their original texts, or to have detected so many classical errors, or to have introduced such apposite history, or to have drawn up his propositions with so much logical and mathematical clearness and precision, or if he had not been among the first ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... all great wars had been fought. Perhaps they did not know whether all wars had been fought or not; but they knew this: That if any future wars were to be fought, those wars would be bigger than any conflict that had gone before, and that their armies would have to be handled with greater precision, and their tactics would have to be more daring than even those of Napoleon, or ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... little angry at his demonstration of frank selfishness, and not a little uneasy at the uncanny precision of her recital of his recent history, an uneasiness which grew, until he found himself waiting with growing concern for the rock-bound shore-line of Hong Kong to thrust its black-and-green ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... the ability to express one's ideas in a clear, appropriate style. The student should be able to tell what he knows. This clearness of thought and precision of expression is best acquired in the class room, in the literary societies, and in the classes devoted especially to the ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... The untiring precision of her demeanor and of her words protected the Empress from criticism, but aroused no enthusiastic praise. She was more esteemed than loved; and, in spite of her precocious wisdom, she aroused no fervent sympathy, none of the enthusiastic admiration which less ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... the "curious-knotted garden." Each of the large compartments was divided into a complication of "knots," by which was meant beds arranged in quaint patterns, formed by rule and compass with mathematical precision, and so numerous that it was a necessary part of the system that the whole square should be fully occupied by them. Lawn there was none; the whole area was nothing but the beds and the paths that divided them. There was Grass in other ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... he gave him a slip of paper, on receiving which, the messenger mounted his horse, and, with one of his assistants, rode away pretty sharply. The fellow who remained seemed to delay his operations purposely, proceeded in the rest of his duty very slowly, and with the caution and precision of one who feels himself overlooked by a skilful and ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the bayonet, cannon!" Colonel Rochefort exclaimed, "Thrust, bleed, slash!" and he added, "It is an economy of powder and noise." Before Barbedienne's establishment an officer was showing his gun, an arm of considerable precision, admiringly to his comrades, and he said, "With this gun I can score magnificent shots between the eyes." having said this, he aimed at random at some one, and succeeded. The carnage was frenzied. While the butchering ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... five hundred millions of francs, or twenty millions of pounds sterling, more than it has been able to collect from the French people in the way of normal revenue. The exact amount of this monstrous deficiency it is not easy to state with precision. So distinguished an economist as M. Leroy-Beaulieu, a Republican of the moderate type, puts it at the sum I have stated, of five hundred millions a year for ten years. At the elections of last year the Carnot Government ordered, or encouraged, the Prefect of the Herault, M. Pointu-Nores, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... word a sullen bell boomed heavily through and through the Temple.. and, at once, . . like a frenzied bird or butterfly winging its way into scorching flame, . . Niphrata rushed forward with swift, unhesitating, dreadful precision straight on the knife outheld by the untrembling ruthless hands of the Priest Zel! One second,—and Theos sick with horror, saw her speeding thus, . . the next,—and the whole place was ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... have expected a young woman in the midst of the Rocky Mountains to know the exact meaning of the term "clergyman of the Church of England," for the word is almost unknown in America, where they speak invariably of a minister. Yet the words were given with quick, firm precision, exactly ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... flirted, in fact, more or less with all men, but her opportunity for playing her harmless batteries upon Bernard were of course exceptionally large. The poor fellow was perpetually under fire, and it was inevitable that he should reply with some precision of aim. It seemed to him all child's play, and it is certain that when his back was turned to his pretty hostess he never found himself thinking of her. He had not the least reason to suppose that she thought of him—excessive concentration of mind ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... equality of justice be not observed in buying and selling: and he who has received more than he ought must make compensation to him that has suffered loss, if the loss be considerable. I add this condition, because the just price of things is not fixed with mathematical precision, but depends on a kind of estimate, so that a slight addition or subtraction would not seem to destroy the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... first edition, cribbed from the Graphite, and yet the paper would be on the street, with the newsboys shouting, "'Orrible scandal," before any other evening journal was visible. And this was accomplished the following day with a precision truly admirable. ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... is some weeks distant," d'Albigny answered in a grumbling tone. Still it was evident that he was impressed by the precision of ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... in the quality of animation. At this period the painters, like the sculptors, were trained as goldsmiths, and Paolo had been a craftsman of that guild before he gave his whole mind to the study of linear perspective and the drawing of animals. The precision required in this trade forced artists to study the modelling of the human form, and promoted that crude naturalism which has been charged against their pictures. Carefully to observe, minutely to imitate some actual person—the Sandro of your ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... demanded his audience, the family was at breakfast, though little was eaten, and less was said. The serjeant was admitted, and he told his story with military precision. ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... Poteet baby," answered the General with precision. "We bringed him to show you. He's going to be a boy; they can't nothing change him now. Shoofly is a girl, but Mis' Poteet didn't fool us this time. Besides if he'd been a girl we wouldn't ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... work with thoroughness and precision this commission has taken some time to make its report. The country is undoubtedly hoping for as prompt action on the report as the convenience of the Congress can permit. The recognition of the gross imperfections and marked inadequacy of our banking and currency system even in our most quiet ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... did not stop—strangely enough—to reflect how far they had gone, to demand by what right she brought him to the bar, challenged the consistency of his life. For she had struck, with a ruthless precision, at the very core of his trouble, revealed it for ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Prof. DuBois that our term "Afro-American" lacks precision and is somewhat high sounding, yet I prefer it, because it rids us of the word "nigger," and it has within itself an element of dignity and solidity which helps to promote aspiration in ourselves and to command respectful mention from others. And I think that the name is growing ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... it looked not like a man's hand holding a sword.—But touching my master, he, like a prudent man, hath kept himself aloof in these broken times, until he could see with precision what footing he was to stand upon. Right tempting offers he hath had from the Lords of Congregation, whom you call heretics; and at one time he was minded, to be plain with you, to have taken their way—for he was assured that the Lord James [Footnote: Lord James Stewart, afterwards the Regent ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... dignity and usefulness of written speech has depended, and must still depend, upon its borrowing largely from its parent or kindred source; that no man who is ignorant of Arabic or Sanskrit can write Hindustani or Bengali with elegance, or purity, or precision, and that the condemnation of the classical languages to oblivion would consign the dialects to utter helplessness and irretrievable barbarism."—H. H. Wilson, Asiatic Journal, Jan., 1836; vol ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... Gardner. It must have been a favorable time for young doctors since in 1771, a year after he began to practice, he married Dorothy Lynde, of Charlestown, Mass., for whom her little granddaughter was named. Mrs. Dix seems to have been a woman of great decision of character, and no less precision of thought and action, two traits which reappeared ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... with me. More of a mystic than a fanatic, he concerned himself but little with those who did not come immediately in his way. The finishing stroke was given by M. Gottofrey with a degree of boldness and precision which I did not thoroughly appreciate until afterwards. In the twinkling of an eye, this truly gifted man tore away the veils which the prudent M. Gosselin and the honest M. Manier had adjusted around my conscience in order to tranquillise it, and ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... eye. As the time went on and the impenetrable Carrados made no illusion to the case, Carlyle's manner inclined to a waggish commiseration of his host's position. Actually, he said little, but the crisp precision of his voice when the path lay open to a remark of any significance left little ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... rather two things, guns for the boys. Terror was such a sharp and faithful sentinel they would have felt almost safe with these additional fire-arms. Howard and Elwood were quite confident that they could shoot with remarkable precision, although, neither had ever aimed or discharged a gun; but in this respect they were not so very ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... country will therefore aid us materially in elucidating the natural history, and, to some extent, the moral history of its population. "History does not stand outside of nature, but in her very heart, so that the historian only grasps a people's character with true precision when he keeps in full view its geographical position, and the influences which its surroundings have ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... the early use of metals, or even from the Bronze age. As therefore they have been occupied at different times by different people, some of them having even been still in use in the time of the Romans, it is most difficult to fix with any precision the date to which belong the various objects mixed together beneath the deep waters of the lakes. We can only say that the nets differ very much in the size of the meshes, and the thickness of the rope used. Those found at Robenhausen are very like those in use in France at the present day. ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... feet across space at the dizzy heights of the forest top, and grasp with unerring precision, and without apparent jar, a limb waving wildly in the path of an ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... what it is." Lucille spoke now with cool precision, as yet untouched by the horror she had expected to feel. "It's a ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... distinctions in feeling. Should you see your sister dying in agony at sea, you would smile tranquilly at her temporary and childish sorrow. All the affairs of this life would not strike you, pierce your heart, or move your pulse. They would repeat themselves in your eyes with a monotonous precision, and they would be done almost before the actors had begun. Indeed, if you should not be incapable of blasphemy, you would rebel at this blind game, played out with ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... meaning of the signal. It was imperative that the bear's attention should be centered on himself alone. The only thing he found in his pocket was a jack-knife, but he threw this with such precision that it struck the bear full on the point of the nose and evoked a roar of fury. A shower of twigs and branches added insult to injury, until the great beast was beside himself with rage. He had no thought or eyes or ears ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... experiments, the plans for a new machine on the cylindrical principle were proceeded with. Koenig admitted throughout the great benefit he derived from the assistance of his friend Bauer. "By the judgment and precision," he said, "with which he executed my plans, he greatly contributed to my success." A patent was taken out on October 30th, 1811; and the new machine was completed in December, 1812. The first sheets ever printed with an entirely cylindrical press, were sheets G and X of Clarkson's ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... been inadequately trained. The mind which guided them is absent. The instrument is called on to become self-acting, and necessarily acts unwisely. Caesar's lieutenants while under his own eye had executed his orders with the precision of a machine. When left to their own responsibility they were invariably found wanting. Among all his officers there was not a man of real eminence. Labienus, the ablest of them, had but to desert Caesar, to commit blunder upon blunder, and to ruin the cause to which he attached ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... Cuba, but was educated and has resided in France. He attracted notice among the Parnassiens by the degree of perfection with which he rendered in words the element of plastic beauty and the rare finish and precision of his style. He has used almost exclusively the form of the sonnet, to which he has given a new ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... done by disparaging nomenclature is incalculable. Take the word "thief," for example. Its meaning can be expressed with infinitely greater precision and delicacy in the phrase, "one who is unable to discriminate between meum and tuum." Here you have in place of one mean little word a well-cadenced phrase of ten. Euphony as well ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... perfect thing about me," she said with closely cut precision, "is my health. I haven't the faintest notion what it means to be ill. I am merely waiting for the conversation to take a I turn where I ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... this connection I would recognize that repetition is better than effort. Mastery, perfection, the doing of difficult things with ease and precision, depend more upon doing things over and over than upon putting ...
— 21 • Frank Crane
... to impossible to find a good guide unemployed. He said he usually kept a dozen or two on hand, but he only had three now. He called them. One looked so like a very pirate that we let him go at once. The next one spoke with a simpering precision of pronunciation that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... on the hill and say how do you do to his cousin Honore. His foot was less painful after his good night's rest. His wonder and admiration were again excited by the neatness and perfect order that prevailed throughout the encampment, the six guns of a battery aligned with mathematical precision and accompanied by their caissons, prolonges, forage-wagons, and forges. A short way off, lined up to their rope, stood the horses, whinnying impatiently and turning their muzzles to the rising sun. He had no difficulty in finding Honore's tent, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... necessary to observe, that the utmost care was taken to ascertain, with the most scrupulous precision, that no one whose case is here adduced had gone through the Small Pox previous to these attempts to produce ...
— An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae • Edward Jenner
... manoeuvre he practised for two hours and a quarter, never allowing the CA IRA to get a single gun from either side to bear on him; and when the French fired their after-guns now, it was no longer with coolness and precision, for every shot went far ahead. By this time her sails were hanging in tatters, her mizen-top-mast, mizen-top-sail, and cross-jack-yards shot away. But the frigate which had her in tow hove in stays, and got her round. Both these French ships now brought their guns to bear, and ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... bear, her love for Maisie or Maisie's love for her. And who could have foreseen the pain of it? When she prayed that she might take the whole punishment, she had not reckoned on this refinement and precision of torture. God knew what he was about. With all his resources he couldn't have hit on anything more delicately calculated to hurt. Nothing less subtle would have touched her. Not discovery; not ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... governed by the trouble attending it, that I cannot say, with any precision; I should judge, from the calculation of the trouble that must attend it, that a compensation of from two to three hundred pounds, ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... and the quarter-quarter is often again divided and subdivided before it gets into the pot. In this division, you would imagine the Desert dissector would cut the meat all away;—no such thing; and so great is the precision with which he divides and subdivides, that he has no need of scales and weights, equally dividing every bit of muscle, cartilage, fat, and bone; indeed, every person goes away perfectly satisfied with the justice of the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... itself arose, that he was aware of any perturbation. Even then, amidst the tumult of his whirling emotions he had a sort of central calm, in which he noted the particulars of the occurrence with distinctness and precision. He had always supposed that if anything of the sort happened to him he would be greatly frightened, but he had not been at all frightened, so far as he could make out. His hair had not risen, or his cheek ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... began to feel some joyful anxiety when in a letter dated a week after Armour's arrival in Calcutta, the Director of Public Instruction wrote to inquire whether he had yet left Simla; but the sweet blow did not fall with any precision or certainty until the newspaper arrived containing his name immediately under that of Herr Vanrig and Mme. Dansky in the list of passengers who had sailed per S.S. Dupleix on the fifteenth of June for Colombo. There it was, 'I. Armour,' as significant ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... self-styled poets, who surrounded the "divine art" with all kinds of routine ordinances, and regulated the length of lines and number of syllables which each "poem" (?) should contain, so magisterially that they reduced it to a mathematical precision, and might class it among the "exact sciences." Before this august tribunal the muse of Sachs appeared, his poem was read, its lines were measured, its syllables counted, and he was admitted to the honour of being an acknowledged master of ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... apparent in two distinct ways. The Bhagavata Purana continues to be the chief chronicle of Krishna's acts but the last half of Book Ten and all of Book Eleven fall into neglect.[49] In their place, the story of Krishna's relations with the cowgirls is given new poignancy and precision. Radha is constantly mentioned and in all the incidents in the Purana involving cowgirls, it is she who is given pride of place. At the river Jumna, when Krishna removes the cowgirls' clothes, Radha begs him to restore them. At the circular dance in which he joins with ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... who had special courses to follow. We devoted all our time and attention to "Forming Fours" in as perfect a manner as possible; to saluting with the greatest accuracy and fierceness; and to unwearying repetition of every movement and detail, until machinelike precision was attained. ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... making a sign to his guest to take a chair, the little old man continued the letter he was then writing. After sealing it with wax, with a care and precision that denoted a nature extremely fastidious and particular, or else a man accustomed to discharge diplomatic functions, du Portail rang for Bruneau, his valet, and said, as he gave ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... saw little of the game. She watched Shere Ali's play furtively, however, hoping thereby to learn whether he had noticed her. And in a little while she knew. He played wildly, his strokes had lost their precision, he was less quick to follow the twists of the ball. Shere Ali had seen her. At the end of the game he galloped quickly to the corner, and when Violet Oliver came out of the enclosure she saw him standing, with his long overcoat already on ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... been able to gratify his taste as much as he desired. Often after breakfast the two sallied forth, and wandered about in the neighboring woods, gun in hand. Generally Melville returned first, leaving Herbert, not yet fatigued, to continue the sport. In this way our hero acquired a skill and precision of aim which enabled him to make a very respectable figure even among old and ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... chest with the open hand, and a strenuous movement of the pelvis and lower part of the body called ami. This consisted of rhythmic motions, sidewise, backward, forward, and in a circular or elliptical orbit, all of which was done with the precision worthy of an acrobat, an accomplishment attained only after long practice. It was a hula of classic celebrity, and was performed without the accompaniment ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... forms of the understanding itself abstractedly from the consideration of particulars, as in the case of geometry, numeral mathematics, universal logic, and pure metaphysics. The discursive faculty then becomes what our Shakspeare with happy precision calls "discourse of reason." ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... or there seems to be something, in the very air of France that communicates the love of style. Precision, clarity, the cleanly and crafty employment of material, a grace in the handling, apart from any value in the thought, seem to be acquired by the mere residence; or if not acquired, become at least the more appreciated. The air of Paris is alive with this technical inspiration. ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson |
