"Problematical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... associated with Michelozzo,[90] who began as assistant and finally entered into a partnership which lasted until 1433. The whole subject is obscure, and until we have a critical biography of Michelozzo his relation with various men and monuments of the fifteenth century must remain problematical. Michelozzo has not hitherto received his due meed of appreciation. As a sculptor and architect he frequently held a subordinate position, and it has been assumed that he therefore lacked independence and originality. But the man who ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... essay on p. 155; and there succeeded, in subsequent editions, a paragraph aiming to show that the inferred structure of the Sun's interior was congruous with the low specific gravity of the Sun—a conclusion which, as indicated on p. 156, implies some very problematical assumptions respecting the natures of the unknown elements of the Sun. ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... I, for one, felt it to be a serious misfortune that up to nightfall nothing had been sighted; for, to tell the whole truth, I regarded the possibility of our reaching either Corvo or the Canaries as mighty problematical, trusting for our eventual rescue very much more to the chance of our falling in with a ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... a whip and saying: "I'll teach you to be 'an Ebrew Jew,' I will." His credulity and prejudice are beyond belief. He accepts every malicious and rancorous tale told against the Jews, and records as historical facts even such problematical stories as the murder of Hugh of Lincoln. Thus he managed to exasperate representatives of almost every class. But perhaps it was his championship of the Shazlis that made the most mischief. Says Lady Burton, "It broke his career, it shattered ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... of a habitual invalid. He seemed so little upon his first visit to his aunts, the Queens Eleanor and Mary, accustomed to look upon proper men in Flanders and Germany, that he was fain to win their favor by making certain attempts in the tournament, in which his success was sufficiently problematical. "His body," says his profest panegyrist, "was but a human cage, in which, however brief and narrow, dwelt a soul to whose flight the immeasurable expanse of heaven was too contracted." The same wholesale admirer adds that "his aspect was so reverend that rustics who met him alone in the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... contingency he should have foreseen had risen; for the present he could not appear at the bank to draw against the balance he always maintained there. His own future, how he should be able to subsist, even if he could evade those who sought him, had thus become problematical. John Steele fingered that last sovereign; started to turn, when he caught the look in the other's eyes. Did it recall to him his own plight but a ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... departure for Los Angeles, our next field of labor, and, permit me to add, at this time a difficult one. There was an agitation on foot for the closing of all the questionable resorts, and this meant much strenuous, problematical work on the part of the agitators. Amongst these I make mention of the, late Rev. Sidney Kendall, a noted writer and rescue worker, a person who proved to be one of our very valuable friends and advisers during our sojourn in that great ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... Slegge's remarks remained problematical for a few moments, and then the meaning came with a flash to Burton, who had suddenly caught sight of Singh ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... of the Hochelagan race, the question how long they had been in the St. Lawrence valley must be problematical. Sir William Dawson describes the site of Hochelaga as indicating a residence of several generations. Their own statements regarding the Huron country—that they "had never been there", and that they gathered their knowledge of it from the Ottawa Algonquins, ...
— Hochelagans and Mohawks • W. D. Lighthall
... of Rome in Latium may be mainly regarded as direct extensions of her territory and people presenting the same general features, a further and special significance attached to the conquest of Alba. It was not merely the problematical size and presumed riches of Alba that led tradition to assign a prominence so peculiar to its capture. Alba was regarded as the metropolis of the Latin confederacy, and had the right of presiding among the thirty communities that belonged to it. The destruction of Alba, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... we don't do that in Jingalo. No Jingalese Church-woman may throw away her whole life on so problematical a benefit as a religious vow of celibacy. She may lease herself to Heaven for a given number of years, but freeholds are ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... places of the Alleghany; that their detestation of the excise law is universal, and has now associated to it a detestation of the government; and that separation, which perhaps was a very distant and problematical event, is now near, and certain, and determined in the mind of every man. I expected to have seen some justification of arming one part of society against another; of declaring a civil war the moment before the meeting of that body which has the sole right ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... owner shall appoint them. The day is likely to be long delayed. Of the collector's whereabouts now no one of his friends dares to speak positively; for at the time when knowledge of him was most exact THE BIBLIOTAPH was like a newly-discovered comet,—his course was problematical. ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... off. In this daylight they could not see the observer ship hovering out in space, but its occupants had no doubt seen them, seen what had happened. It, no doubt, was telling Earth what it had seen—the attorney general's office, at any rate. Doubtful that it was including E.H.Q. in its report. Problematical that the attorney general would tell E.H.Q. what ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... Edie to be the one lady in a party of four men, and he invited the Professor's wife as an excellent neutral figure-head, to keep her in countenance. Ladies were scarcer then in Oxford than they are nowadays. The married fellow was still a tentative problematical experiment in those years, and the invasion of the Parks by young couples had hardly yet begun in earnest. So female society was still at a considerable local premium, and Berkeley was glad enough ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... with their furniture, a third million. Against those three millions, yielding forty-seven thousand francs a year, Mademoiselle Natalie brings eight hundred thousand francs in the Five-per-cents, the diamonds (supposing them to be worth a hundred thousand francs, which is still problematical) and fifty thousand francs in money; in all, one million and fifty thousand francs. In presence of such facts my brother notary tells you boastfully that we are marrying equal fortunes! He expects us to encumber ourselves with a debt of eleven hundred and fifty-six thousand francs to our children ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... advertising. It is simply the commercial process of "acquainting the trade" and if done right may prove one of the most fortunate investments for the young artist. Do not imagine, however, that the pianist's American manager speculates in the problematical success of the coming virtuoso. On the contrary, his fee for putting the artist on his "list" and promoting her interests may range from five hundred dollars to two thousand dollars in advance. After that the manager usually ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... perversity set the thing afloat to trouble the critical world after he was gone, foreseeing perhaps some such international comedy as was actually played with the 'Zorzi' as leading gentleman? All these things must remain problematical for Mantovani cannot tell, and the Marquesa del Puente will not ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... receive their talents and tendencies, we begin to see that the matter is a very serious one. I am sometimes told that young people will not be influenced by a consideration for the welfare of unborn generations whose existence is very problematical in their thought; but my observation is that young folks are much more sensible than we give them credit for being. More than one young man has said to me: "I was never taught that my conduct and thought would impress themselves upon ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... seemed to us problematical in its outcome, we did not dare to borrow money or to induce friends to invest; and of course Mission funds were not available. For the day has not yet arrived when all those who seek by their gifts to hasten the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth recognize ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... make him one of his chief lieutenants in the South. He understood the young man's relations to his daughter perfectly, and was not at all averse to a union between them. At the same time, he knew how problematical Caroline's action would be, and that it would be useless for him to appear for or against the match. He was aware of his daughter's attitude in regard to marriage, and also convinced that she ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... the Citizen Captain would have gone is problematical. I had noticed a look of disgust slowly creeping into the Citizen Quartermaster's eyes, and at this juncture he seized the Citizen Captain and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... monument to Vetta, the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa. But I did not consider the question as a settled question. I began and ended my paper by discussing this early Saxon origin of the monument as problematical and probable, but not fixed. At the same time, I may perhaps take the liberty of remarking, that both in archaeology and history we look upon some questions as sufficiently fixed and settled, regarding which we have less inferential and direct proof than ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... moral nature of man, because lawfulness can alone have authority over this. At the same time this natural condition is quite sufficient for the physical man, who only gives himself laws in order to get rid of brute force. Moreover, the physical man is a reality, and the moral man problematical. Therefore when the reason suppresses the natural condition, as she must if she wishes to substitute her own, she weighs the real physical man against the problematical moral man, she weighs the existence of society against a possible, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... late Councillors and Sir Charles Metcalfe, but between them and Her Majesty's Government. I see, therefore, nothing in prospect but a renewal of the scenes of 1837, and 1838, only on a larger scale. Whether the point contended for is worth that price, or will be even obtained at that price, is problematical. I see no alternative, unless some enlightening, healing agency interpose. I pray for the safety of our Zion and people, especially, while I implore Divine interposition in ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... Elgin about the most problematical public man in high position I had ever met, but I now know him one of the ablest. Deeds, not words; ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... board question cannot be postponed further. I must not leave you under any misapprehensions. If this money came from my father, it is the first I ever had from him in my life. Whether I am to get any more from him is problematical, to say the least. Due consideration must be given the fact that he ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... unnumbered and of every sort. And while champions of the Union would fight with all the prestige of law, national history and the status quo on their side, Europe's aid to the South, or even that of the border slave States, was more than problematical, as was a successful career for the Confederacy in case its independence should chance to be won. Events proved that the very defence of slavery had best prospect in the Union, and it seems as if this might have been foreseen by all, as ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... and festivals, the seeds of civil war, sown by a few of the still discontented nobles, began to germinate; and Henry constantly received intelligence of seditious movements in the provinces. On the banks of the Loire and the Garonne the symptoms of disaffection had already ceased to be problematical; while at La Rochelle and Limoges the inhabitants had assaulted the government officers who sought to levy an ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... is problematical, but who says, "I's been here for a long time," lives in a small cottage at 3151 Clay St., Houston, Texas. Born on the Kit Patton plantation near West Columbia, Texas, Aunt Sarah was probably about fifteen years old when emancipated. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... harmonious organisation under the control of a lucid reason—whether it will ever be possible again to realise this ideal, and that not only in the members of a privileged class, but in the whole body of the State, is a question too problematical to be raised with advantage in this place. But it is impossible not to perceive that with the decline of the Greek city-state something passed from the world which it can never cease to regret, and the recovery of which, if it might be, in some more perfect ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... battleships were building in England and another was purchased from one of the South American states. There would this time be no escape. The death sentence had been passed upon the Turk, and if he waited for his enemies to gather and descend upon him defense would be problematical. It was, of course, realized that in the long run Germany would save Turkey by battles won in France or in Poland, and also that German defeats in Europe would in the long run spell the downfall of Turkey whatever the Turk did. It was, therefore, advisable to postpone action as long as possible. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... were preparing the longboat and jolly-boat for service, which was a tedious job, for the gunwales and bottom planking of both had been damaged greatly by the knocking about they had sustained since leaving England, even if they had been properly seaworthy then—a very problematical point, for many of the boats of merchant ships which carry passengers on distant voyages are never taken off the chocks or tested from year's end to year's end, in spite of all marine codes and Passenger Acts or Board ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... had rolled off the slightly sloping roof after accomplishing their duty. If only he could lay hands on them they might be made to serve again but the darkness would make this problematical. There was that log he had mentioned to Jack—with it he fancied he might do something to keep up the feverish interest in the game and hold Oswald's ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... the other, with a bald head, "By St. Jago, I did not think of that!" In the face of Columbus there is not that violent and excessive triumph which is exhibited by little characters on little occasions; he is too elevated to be overbearing; and, pointing to the conical solution of his problematical conundrum, displays a calm ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... strength of the powers most to be dreaded; that opinions cannot be controlled by arms; that experience has demonstrated the futility of every attempt to interfere in the internal government of France, even if the justice were problematical; and that we must incur the keenest reproaches, if we encouraged further revolts in a country where we had been unable to save those who put confidence in us from extermination and ruin—therefore to implore his majesty to declare, without delay, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... bring them up at once—that there was no chance of killing any of them by a single bullet, unless it passed through the brain or the heart; and this, aiming, as they must do, over a cliff, was a very problematical affair. Even should one fall, the others would avenge the death of their comrade. A volley would not be likely to ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... year. But practically I think that grafting will be limited to that part of the year during which the cambium layer of the stock is active. At other times of the year preservation of the vitality of the scion will be too problematical, it seems to me, even if it is very carefully waxed. However, I may be mistaken. At any rate grafting is not very pleasant work out of doors in very cold weather. The success of bench grafting would be an argument for the success of dormant season ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... not occurred to either of them that this coming back, so tragically considered, was dependent on an entirely problematical going away. Nothing, that early summer night, seemed more unlikely than that Sidney would ever be free to live her own life. The Street, stretching away to the north and to the south in two lines of houses ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... upon the readers of his "Astronomical Discourses." No one was satisfied with his arguments, no one could answer them, but every one wanted to try what he could make of them, as we try to find out a riddle. "By his so potent art," the art of laying down problematical premises, and drawing from them still more doubtful, but not impossible, conclusions, "he could bedim the noonday sun, betwixt the green sea and the azure vault set roaring war," and almost compel the stars in their courses to testify to his opinions. The mode in which ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... this, and read in the sad story of its inscription a sufficient warning on the subject of marsh malaria. Once or twice I have come in its way, but never willingly, and happily always without calamitous result. Once only I have slept within its problematical range, and that was off that pestiferous bit of coast near Epidaurus, and I fancy at a season when the marshes had not their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... three sum; while, in the hour of temptation, the question will crop up, whether, as something has to be sacrificed, a bird in the hand is not worth two in the bush; whether it may not be as well to give up the problematical greater happiness in the future, for a certain great ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... Murchisons always did. Indeed, from the arrival of a new baby until the important Sunday of the christening, nothing was discussed with such eager zest and such sustained interest as the name he should get—there was a fascinating list at the back of the dictionary—and to the last minute it was problematical. In Stella's case, Mrs Murchison actually changed her mind on the way to church; and Abby, who had sat through the sermon expecting Dorothy Maud, which she thought lovely, publicly cried with disappointment. Stella was the youngest, and Mrs Murchison was ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... correspondent appendages of military establishments. Standing armies, it is said, are not provided against in the new Constitution; and it is therefore inferred that they may exist under it.(1) Their existence, however, from the very terms of the proposition, is, at most, problematical and uncertain. But standing armies, it may be replied, must inevitably result from a dissolution of the Confederacy. Frequent war and constant apprehension, which require a state of as constant preparation, will infallibly produce them. The ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... children of problematical nature into the following sixteen classes: the sad, the extremely good or bad, star-gazers, scatter-brains, apathetic, misanthropic, doubters and investigators, reverent, critical, executive, stupid and clownish, naive, funny, anamnesic, disposed to learn, and blase; patience, foresight, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... the unbusiness-like Nott would take—which the girl herself might be tempted to listen to. Clearly he could do nothing but abandon the Pontiac and her owner to the fate he could not in honor avert. And even that fate was problematical. It did not follow that the treasure was still concealed in the Pontiac, nor that Nott would be willing to sell her. He would make some excuse to Nott—he smiled to think he would probably be classed in the long line of absconding tenants—he would say good-by ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... thing. Has any new and terrible engine of destruction ever accomplished that result? No—the enemy always finds a way of combating the new weapon and of devising another still more terrible. You've discovered a marvelous thing, but its value is quite problematical." ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... then, ye young and fair; and if, as I suspect, your object be to please the Lords of the Creation, let your dress, in summer, be snowy-white muslin, never worn after its pristine purity becomes problematical; and in winter, let some half-dozen plain and simple silk gowns be purchased, instead of the two or three expensive ones that generally form the wardrobe, and which, consequently, soon not only lose their lustre but give the wearer the appearance of having suffered ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... came. The rich tried on the new winter fashions, and the poor shivered with the cold. It became more and more difficult for well-gloved hands to leave the warm muff or the fur-lined coat to take out a copper for the beggar, and more and more desperate became the struggle for bread amongst the problematical existences [Footnote: The problematical existences. Explain ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... bumptious and endeavoured to resume his old position of chief officer in the absence of the skipper, when the latter frequently went off alone, as it was his habit now, in solitary search of the buccaneers' buried hoard like all the rest of us—notwithstanding that in public he utterly pooh-poohed its problematical existence and urged on the crew in digging out the dock under the ship, so as to get her afloat again, the only good, as he said, that we could expect from the island being the hope of leaving it behind us as quickly ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the reflection that the freemasonry between them was all hers, and the things she said to him had still the flavour of adventure. She found herself inclined—and the experience was new—to make an effort for a reward which was problematical and had to be considered in averages, a reward put out in a thin and hesitating hand under a sacerdotal robe, with a curious, concentrated quality and a strange flavour of incense and the air of cold churches. There was ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... may extend their views.... I do not doubt that the approach of the allied armies to the frontiers of France may facilitate the formation of great armaments by her Government. The questions will become problematical for the civilized world; but the Emperor Napoleon will not make peace. There is my profession of faith, and I shall never be happier than if ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... slight Etruscan element of doubtful classification. The latter stock is an object of much mystery to ethnologists, being at present described by most authorities as of the brachycephalic Alpine variety. Many Roman customs and habits of thought are traceable to this problematical people. ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... the other hand, the Sphagnales show such considerable and important differences from the rest of the mosses, that like the Anthocerotales among the liverworts, they may be regarded as a group, the relationship of which to the main stem is at least problematical. Between the Hepaticae, Anthocerotales, Sphagnales and Musci, there are no connecting forms known, and it must be left as an open question whether the Bryophyta are a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... and as copious as faith; he was never so fine as on a shy return, and even better at forgiving than at being forgiven. I dare say it was a smaller matter than that famous night at Wimbledon, the night of the problematical sobriety and of Miss Anvoy's initiation; but I was as much in it on this occasion as I had been out of it then. At about 1.30 he ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... life. From time to time, however, and specially, I think, in talking art, talk becomes effective, conquering like war, widening the boundaries of knowledge like an exploration. A point arises; the question takes a problematical, a baffling, yet a likely air; the talkers begin to feel lively presentiments of some conclusion near at hand; towards this they strive with emulous ardour, each by his own path, and struggling for first utterance; and then one leaps upon the summit of that matter with a shout, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... remain Christians 'tis extraordinary. But a Christian would have the advantage over me in a case like this. First of all, I suppose, they would feel that they could serve their God as well on their backs as upright, while all the help I shall be able to give the cause is dreadfully indirect and problematical. Then certainly they would feel that they might be getting ready for the next world where all wrong is, they believe, to be set right, while I am only terribly hindered in getting ready for this world a ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... three or four hands only. Hence it is easy to conclude, that the history and inventions of past ages, recorded by these perplexed symbols, must frequently prove unintelligible; and consequently the learning and boasted antiquity of the nation most, in numerous instances, be extremely problematical. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... has been since added) was the subject of special mention in several leading newspapers after the production of Epigrams at the Niobe Theatre; while each of the twelve bedrooms represents some recent triumph in the Problematical Drama. An attractive feature is the fitting of an artificial sunlight attachment to the outside of each window; while every room is provided with one or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... supreme symbol of divinity, the sun, can only be explained by the fact that in the period of woman-worship the highest value was no longer felt as male but as female, that secretly a goddess had usurped the place of a god. Very likely the minnesingers finally fixed the female gender when it had become problematical, and worshipped the loved woman under the ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... the menace from injunctions than the officials who might face a prison sentence for contempt of court. Probably for this reason the "delivery" of the labor vote by the Federation has ever been so largely problematical. That the Federation leaders were able to force the desired concessions from one of the political parties by holding out a quid pro quo of such an uncertain value is at once a tribute to their political sagacity as well ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... of rain in the interior to balance the effects of evaporation from the surface of an extensive sheet of water, the Torrens Basin, instead of being occupied by salt marshes, in which the existence of anything beyond shallow lagoons of salt-water is yet problematical, would be maintained as a permanent lake. Therefore, if the waters flowing from so large a tract of country are insufficient to meet the evaporation from the surface of Lake Torrens, there is even less probability of the waters of the western ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... everywhere its indispensable foundation. But we get nowhither unless we carefully distinguish between the foundation of the problem and the problem itself. There is nothing in the unlikeness of the unlike that is necessarily problematical; it may be simply accepted and dealt with as a fact, like any other fact. The problem arises only when the people of one race are minded to adopt and act upon some policy more or less oppressive or repressive in dealing with the people of another race. In the absence of some such policy, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... an audience to appreciate the plays. Whether with the poetic plays of Mr. Yeats and the ironic extravaganzas of Synge alone, such an audience as has been built up—an audience estimated by Mr. Yeats in 1906 to consist of four thousand young men and women—could have been won is problematical; that is, it may be doubted that the very best the movement has produced would have attracted a sufficient audience to enable the company to keep together after the expiration in 1910 of Miss Horniman's guarantee. ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... life are hidden from us, the ailments too numerous, the remedies problematical. No reasonable definitions are to be found in the authors of health, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... He gave largely to the various religious organizations and charities in which he was interested, and it was characteristic of him that he could not wait until he had the actual cash in hand, but, even while his own future was uncertain, he made donations of large blocks of stocks, which, while of problematical value while the litigation was proceeding, eventually rose ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... conditions, at the price of which the commander in chief of one of the enemy's armies would consent to an armistice, are of a nature to alarm us respecting those, which the commanders of the armies of the other powers might also demand, and to render the possibility of an arrangement very problematical. However unfavourable our military situation at the present moment may be, there are sacrifices, to which the interest of the nation will not ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... an ejectment proceeding, are (or their privies are) parties here. It certainly cannot be that the law, seeking the truth, will not avail itself of this scientific method of ascertaining the genuineness of the instrument because of some problematical effect upon the rights or opportunities of parties to future litigations respecting the same instrument. The possibilities of litigation over a will are almost infinite, and if such a rule should obtain this important channel of investigation ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... if at all, more comfortable than the red man's wigwam. In "towns," so called, there was of course somewhat more of civilization than in the clearings. But one must not be misled by a name; a "town" might signify only a score of houses, and the length of its life was wholly problematical; a few days sufficed to build the wooden huts, which in a few years might be abandoned. In the early days there was almost no money among the people; sometimes barter was resorted to; one lover ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... ascertain demonstratively that the palm kernels which are thrown away here (leaving out the whole leeward coast of our possessions) are sufficient to make thirty thousand gallons of oil, more or less. This is not at all a problematical speculation of ours, but we feel authorised to advance this assertion from the fact that one bushel of kernels, completely worked up, will make two gallons of oil. But to work them up is the thing, plentiful as they are; we however, hesitate not to say, ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... custom to pay a pious visit to the problematical dungeon in which Tasso, mad with love and grief, passed so many years, according to the poetic legend which grew up concerning his misfortune. We did not have time to spare and we regretted it very little. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... to stand up for this poor lady, whose usefulness in the world is apparently problematical. She seems to me like a picture which has fallen from its gilded frame and lies, face downward, on the dusty floor. The picture never was as needful as a window or a door, but it was pleasant to see it in its place, and it would be ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... only the possibility of it, but the past and the present are facts not to be gotten away from. What we have done and what we are doing are things which stamp us, mould us, live with us and after us: what we will do cannot be counted on, has no part in us, has only a problematical existence, and can be interfered with, hindered, nullified or amplified by the thousand ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... their privileges, what will act as a check on the demands and encroachments of the commons? How far such ultra-democratic tendencies may be right respecting mankind in general is, I think, extremely problematical. With respect to this nation I am sure it is wrong. I am frank but I am sincere when I say that I believe you, Monsieur de Lafayette, and you, Monsieur d'Azay, to be too republican for ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... are that none of us would ever again meet in this world! No, no, I suppose we should all be willing to risk a great deal to help our fellow-creatures in extremity; but we must not lightly undertake an adventure that may be fatal to us, while of very problematical advantage to the others. Ah! see, there is the answer to your appeal, Gracie! They have cleared away the longboat, and now they are hoisting her out, none too soon either; for if my eyes do not deceive me, one gang have to sluice her with water to prevent her taking fire while ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... stranger came, though the days became weeks, and the weeks months, until it was almost time for Greif to go back to Schwarzburg. Greifenstein began to think that the problematical personage was dead, though Clara evidently did not share his opinion, for she never regained her former manner. Under any other circumstances Greifenstein would have enjoyed the change, the absence of irrelevant interruption, the rest from her unnatural laughter, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... apart from the small services which I have required of you, directed altogether by your own inclinations. Be thankful for those six years. As you well know, but for me they would have been spent either in prison or in the problematical future world—a matter entirely at the discretion of the judge who tried you. It pleased me to rescue you for my own purpose. You were possessed of a certain amount of low cunning and a complete absence of all ordinary human qualities, a combination which made you a useful servant of my will. ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... evidently a desire to restore San Martin to the Empire of Peru! when possession could be got of the squadron, and he in return had deluded General O'Higgins into the plot by promise of support. Whether this was so in reality is problematical, but there is General Freire's letter, for the first time published, and the Chilian people can thence draw their ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... ever such things as vampyrs?" tantamne rem tam negligenter? I turn to the learned pages of Horst for a luminous and precise definition of the destructive and mysterious beings, whose existence you have ventured to consider problematical. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... silent. Here was a matter on which he really had no ideas except the broad and general one that truth is mighty and shall prevail—but that the speed of its forward march is problematical. ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... first, perturbed at this wanton attack upon the humanity of another world, but since the earth was such an unknown quantity, and the fact of its being inhabited at all was problematical, interest in the affair soon lagged. The government of the Light Country concerned itself ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... value of medicated salts advertised under various trade names as preventives against worms is problematical. Commonly they contain little else than ordinary salt, the other substances being in such small quantity that their therapeutic effect is practically negligible. Definite evidence that they are more efficacious than plain salt ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... in the fresh air, walking westward to his club, he found himself wondering more and more what could have possessed him to throw away a guinea—when he had few enough for legitimate expenses—on an article of such exceedingly problematical value. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... of a house, but one flash following another showed it to be in swift rolling movement. It was an elusive vision—a moment of bewildering darkness, and then, in a flash like daylight, the red masses of the Orphanage near the crest of the hill, the green tops of the pine trees, and this problematical object came out ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... this will be deeper than those were probably proposed, but even if it be made three columns deep, it will not take half the number of columns. The beauty of this is insured by experience, and by the suffrage of the whole world: the beauty of that is problematical, as is every drawing, however well it looks on paper, till it be actually executed: and though I suppose there is more room in the plan begun, than in that now sent, yet there is enough in this for all the three branches of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... pronounce on either side without the suspicion of flattery or detraction. I shall say nothing of his military accomplishments, which the opposite reports of his friends and enemies among the soldiers have rendered problematical. Those maligners who deny him personal valor, seem not to consider that this accusation is charged at a venture, since the person of a general is too seldom exposed, and that fear which is said ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... retain the same partner for several dances, or even for the greater part of the evening, he will, unless he is a Bayard absolutely sans peur et sans reproche, naturally think twice of engaging a lady from whom his release is problematical. Hence the tendency is to increase the triumphs of the belle, and decrease the chances of the less popular maiden. It is also extremely uncomfortable for a girl to feel that a man has (to use the ugly slang of the occasion) "got stuck" with her; and it takes more adroitness and self-possession ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... said, addressing some problematical individual. "You oughtn't to be doing anything like that. These girls," and he waved an inclusion of all shop and factory girls, "don't get anything. Why, you can't ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... letter of the 27th of June (1786), "seem to lead to some crisis, some revolution—something that I cannot foresee or conjecture. I am uneasy and apprehensive, more so than during the war. Then, we had a fixed object and, though the means and time of obtaining it were often problematical, yet I did firmly believe that we should ultimately succeed, because I did firmly believe that justice was with us. The case is now altered, we are going and doing wrong and therefore I look forward to evils and calamities, but without being able to guess at the instrument, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... my observation, and added the interesting discovery that, not unfrequently, bodies similar to these "coccoliths" were aggregated together into spheroids, which he termed "coccospheres." So far as we knew, these bodies, the nature of which is extremely puzzling and problematical, were peculiar to the ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... for all of His children, and will ultimately blend them in the blessed bonds of an endless confraternity. Whether we or our posterity will ever become better acquainted in this life with the man in the moon is problematical; but in the ages to come, "when the manifold wisdom of God" shall be developed among "the principalities and powers in heavenly places," he may be something more than a myth or topic of amusement. He may be visible among the first who ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... at the stupidity of that move as I might have been had not the usefulness of our centre in Hermione Street become already very problematical. In fact, in my opinion it was much more of a police trap by ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... ornamental flourish of defiance. The possibility of some long- legged, slouch-hatted, wire-moustached cowboy ambling into his august presence armed with a shooting iron carrying iron bullets as big as goose-eggs and hurling him with a flash and whoop into the problematical hitherto, does not shake to its base the heroic fortitude of the man whose mother named him for the most notorious chippy-chaser known to history. Byron proposed to express his opinion, to say what he dad-burned pleases, though the redoubtable ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... it becomes yesterday. A proper historical fact is one of the rarest shots in the journalist's bag, as time is sure to prove. If we had newspaper-accounts of the age of Augustus, the chances are that no other epoch in history would be so absolutely problematical, and Augustus himself would be lucky, if he were not resolved into a myth, and the journal into sibylline oracles. The dissertational department is equally faulty; for to first impressions everything on earth is chameleon-like. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... it,—representing to him that the "New Monthly" would lose its most valuable contributor, Mr. Hook, and other useful allies with him,—that the ruin of the "New Monthly" must be looked upon as certain, while the success of his "Joker's Magazine" was problematical at best. Such arguments prevailed; and he called upon Mr. Hook with a view to relinquish his design. Mr. Hook was exactly of Mr. Colburn's new opinion. He had received the money, and was not disposed, even if he had been able, to give ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... life. And thus it happened with me. I had just purchased "Fortunatus with his Purse and Wishing-hat," when I was attacked by a restlessness and fever which announced the small-pox. Inoculation was still with us considered very problematical; and, although it had already been intelligibly and urgently recommended by popular writers, the German physicians hesitated to perform an operation that seemed to forestall Nature. Speculative Englishmen, therefore, had come to the Continent, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... himself have been happier with a Fellowship than with any other position, but the possibility did not stimulate him to work with that aim in view. He wrote: "Existence generally is so extremely problematical, that I can not consent to throw away three birds in the hand for one which I do not believe to be in the bush—my present life for a doubtful future provision. I think I am ambitious after the event. Every ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... is rather a curious notion, for though the Scripture tells us of St John the Baptist, that when in the wilderness 'his meat was locusts and wild honey,' we have no reason to suppose that he lived always even on these. What these locusts were is problematical, but it is likely they were the fruit of the locust-tree, Hymenaea, which bears a pod containing a sort of bean, enclosed in a whitish substance of fine filaments, as sweet as sugar or honey. The wild bees frequent these trees, and it is probable that here ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... doubt if it can be considered as expressive of the deliberate opinion of Dryden. The essayist himself, in his epistolary address to lord Buckhurst, gives a caution on that point. He observes, "All I have said is problematical." In short, the essay Of dramatick poesie is in the form of a dialogue—and a dialogue is "a chace of wit kept up ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... the comparatively narrow creed of this or that particular Church, but the Divine Spirit of its Founder, that Spirit which, exactly in proportion as they are true to their name, informs, and animates, and underlies, and overlies them all—is not problematical, but certain, and in His good time, across the lapse of ages, will prove to be, not local but universal, not partial but ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... in scouts; and also that the young and virgin queen, being unencumbered and ardent, will fly much further, and in the first stage lead the swarm to a considerable distance from the hive. The conduct of these second and third migrations will be far more rash, and their future more problematical. The queen at their head, the representative of the future, has not yet been impregnated. Their entire destiny depends on the ensuing nuptial flight. A passing bird, a few drops of rain, a mistake, a cold wind—any ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... courage to speak the truth. Surely no great amount of that noble quality is required to make accusations in a paper far from the scene of action, and pronounce a verdict where there can be no adequate defence, no judges, only the advantage of the fashion of the day, and the craving for problematical benefits and friendship, to which we must ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... nature in itself, that it is hard to pronounce on either side, without the suspicion of flattery or detraction. I shall say nothing of his military accomplishments, which the opposite reports, of his friends and enemies among the soldiers, have rendered[26] problematical: but if he be among those who delight in war, it is agreed to be not for the reasons common with other generals. Those maligners who deny him personal valour, seem not to consider that this accusation is charged at a venture; since the person of a wise general is too seldom exposed, to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... reflected in the costumes of the inmates of the house; all were alike threadbare. The color of the men's coats were problematical; such shoes, in more fashionable quarters, are only to be seen lying in the gutter; the cuffs and collars were worn and frayed at the edges; every limp article of clothing looked like the ghost of its former self. The women's dresses were faded, old-fashioned, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... military minds at the council, for it was possible and legal for the opinions of sixteen corporals to be adopted although fifteen generals and commandants opposed the plan with all their might. That there ever was such a result is problematical, but there were many Krijgsraads at which the opinion of the best and most experienced officers were cast aside by the votes of field-cornets and corporals. It undoubtedly was a representative way of adopting the will of the people, but it ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... easily are they led by the hope of acquisition than by the fear of loss. The suggestions of the latter appear incredible till they are verified; and the pleasing anticipations of the former are cherished as facts, even while the advantages are very problematical, or at best, remote. The people of Florence were inspired with hope, by the acquisitions which Niccolo Fortebraccio had made, and by letters received from their rectors in the vicinity of Lucca; for their deputies at Vico and Pescia had written, that if permission ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... thought some of the excitement will be gone, and the struggle of the 'survival of the fittest' will become less problematical," said Bearwarden. ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... labour from our ports, I should inflict great evil on my fellow-subjects and constituents. But the good which, by taking such a course, I should do to the negroes in the United States seems to me very problematical. That by admitting slave grown cotton and slave grown sugar we do, in some sense, encourage slavery and the Slave Trade, may be true. But I doubt whether, by turning our fiscal code into a penal code for restraining the cruelty of the American planters, we should ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... believe in the gods after the simple manner of the people, and he therefore seizes every opportunity of interspersing something of the allegorical interpretation of them, and carefully gives his spectators to understand that the sincerity of his own belief was very problematical. We may distinguish in him a twofold character: the poet, whose productions were consecrated to a religious solemnity, who stood under the protection of religion and who, therefore, on his part, was bound to honour it; and the sophist, with his philosophical dicta, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... most realize profits, another fourth hold their own, and the rest are constantly running behind in their business. Take, then, half at most of the six million so-called leaders in enterprises, which we will add to the very problematical twelve million landed proprietors, and we shall attain a total of fifteen million Frenchmen in a position, by their education, their industry, their capital, their credit, their property, to engage in competition. For the rest of the nation, or nineteen million ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... place. It was agreed, in advance, that the adversaries were to be satisfied with one exchange of shots. Monsieur de Ronquerolles, in spite of the great distance determined by the seconds, which seemed to make the death of either party problematical, if not impossible, brought down the baron. The ball went through the latter's body just below the heart, but fortunately ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... affairs, it appears still problematical whether France will take part in defending by force of arms revolutionary movements and doctrines in other countries than her own. You will of course know pretty readily, how these matters are to go in the Italian States, or those ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... forgive, O Hara San," he said awkwardly, and as she sought to go this time he did not keep her. She walked to the edge of the verandah and stared down into the garden. Problematical ghosts and demons paled to insignificance before this real trouble. She fought with herself gallantly, crushing down her sorrow and disappointment and striving to regain the control she had let slip. ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... periodicity in earthquakes, synchronous with that in the tides of the ocean, the greatest number occurring at the time of new and full moon.[96] If this theory be sustained, we must admit the existence of a vast subterranean sea of lava. But all this is problematical. Earthquakes appear independently of the geology of a country, though the rate of undulation is modified by the mineral structure. Earthquake waves seem to move more rapidly through the comparatively ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... much more rapidly under suitable conditions and furnishes much more food. The advantage of growing it northward in the Western mountain valleys when sown in spring, as intimated by the writer of the bulletin already referred to, would seem to be at least problematical, since it could not be sown early enough in the spring to produce a crop as early as alfalfa already established. It would then be grown also as the crop of the season, rather than as a catch crop. The place for Egyptian clover in the rotation is clearly that of a winter ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... was limited to an old creature almost doting and totally deaf, the advantages of whose presence might have been considered problematical; but, then, as Miss Blake ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... of an hour taking a bearing based upon the problematical position of the lights, the height and density of the box screen and then boldly and rapidly opened the door, stepped through and closed it behind him. His calculations had been accurate. He found himself in a room, the extent of which ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... inserted) and the legends of the negroes who, generation after generation since forgotten times, had told the story of the "Mountain of the Golden Pyramid." Nobody, within the memory of man, had ever searched for the problematical tomb: and as tales of more or less the same character are common in Egypt, I did not place much faith in the enthusiastic jottings of Ferlini. However, my love of the unknown, the mysterious and romantic, made me ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... beautiful Mme. Permon, mother of the future duchess of Abrantes. Although born in Corsica, she belonged to a branch of the noble Greek family of the Comneni. In view of the stringent regulations both of the military school and of Saint-Cyr, these visits are problematical, though not impossible. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... heavily wooded at its head and on its sides. It became evident at once that the bees had made good their escape, and that whether they had stopped on one side of the valley or the other, or had indeed cleared the opposite mountain and gone into some unknown forest beyond, was entirely problematical. I turned back, therefore, thinking of the honey-laden tree that some of these forests would hold before the ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... from those now existing. It is quite out of the question, however, to build a new economic structure and new economic units at the same time. Habit and convention are too strong. Innovation is too terrifying and too problematical. The life of local economic units will be carried on to-morrow very much as it is carried on to-day by the masses of the people. The most workable economic superstructure, for a new society, will be built upon an answer to the question: ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... obtain and examine them with care and attention. The history of the times to which these memorandums and documents relate are enveloped in thick darkness. Whether the period has yet arrived when an effort should be made to dispel that darkness is problematical. The means, however, do exist of proving, to the satisfaction of the most skeptical, what are the facts in the case; and, consequently, of doing full justice to all the parties concerned; and that duty, however unpleasant, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... "Attack of the mole-men growing increasingly ferocious ... heat-ray projectors—almost invincible ... our forces have entered the Tonah Basin—they are descending into the crater. But whether warfare can be carried on advantageously under ground is problematical...." Rawson unconsciously gritted his teeth behind his set lips as ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... as captivating, and almost as fantastic, as a trip to the Moon or Mars would, to an adventurer of our time. Given the vehicle, no doubt many volunteers would offer for the journey; Columbus could get a ship, but the chances of his arriving at his proposed destination must have appeared as problematical to him as the Moon enterprise in a balloon would to a world-weary globe-trotter of to-day. It was not merely that the ship was small and the Atlantic large and stormy; there were legends of vast whirlpools, of ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... pointed out that the interest of man is not held nor the emotions aroused when the objects of attention have grown so familiar in consciousness that the problematical and elusive elements disappear;[235] and I have also alluded to the laws of sexual life, that an excited condition of the nervous system is a necessary preparation to pairing.[236] And just here we must recognize ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... absurdly, about decorations from kings and ministers; Bjoernson having determined to reject all such gewgaws, Ibsen announced his intention of accepting (and wearing) every cross and star that was offered to him. At this date, no doubt, the temptation was wholly problematical in both cases, yet each poet acted on his determination to the end. But Bjoernson's hint about the comedy seems to have been, for some years, the last flicker of friendship between the two. On this Ibsen presently acted in a manner very offensive ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... little problematical. The left and right we satisfied ourselves about at once, but the centre was in a class by itself. We demanded an investigator, somebody with wide ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... was so far satisfactory to our companions, that we were not likely to be starved to death, and as peace would come some day or other, we might then hope to make our escape. No one, however, seemed at all desirous of attacking the French settlement; the risk was considerable, the gain problematical. It was finally agreed that we should remain quiet where we were, and only in case of extremity make ourselves known to our foreign neighbours. The more energetic of the party became, as may be supposed, very impatient of the inactive life we were compelled ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... denies. In any case it was a work of great merit to have transferred the existence of objects beyond our ideas, of things-in-themselves, out of the region of the self-evident into the region of the problematical. We never get beyond the circle of our ideas, and if we posit a thing-in-itself as the ground and object of the idea, this also is simply a thought, an idea. For us there is no being except that of the perceiver and the perceived. Later we shall meet two other forms of idealism, ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... It was wholly problematical how long Aguinaldo unaided could dominate Luzon, still more so whether he would rule tolerably, and more uncertain yet whether centre or south would ever yield to him. The insurgents had foothold in four or five Visayan islands, but were never admitted ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... has been already expressed whether the Mongols would ever have risen to higher rank than that of a nomad tribe but for the appearance of Genghis. Leaving that supposition in the category of other interesting but problematical conjectures, it may be asserted that Genghis represented in their highest forms all the qualities which entitled his race to exercise governing authority. He was, moreover, a military genius of the very first order, and it may be questioned whether either Caesar or Napoleon ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Hood's resentment might have taken is problematical; but as the German's words left his mouth the electric lights suddenly went out and the windows rattled ominously. At the same moment each occupant of the room felt himself sway slightly toward the east wall, on which appeared a bright yellow ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... him. Christ was only a superior man who said many things not agreeing with the facts of modern psychology. Much of his forecast of the future had been discredited. There was no such thing as a resurrection and a future existence was very problematical. ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... expressed in the words of an old sea-captain whom Mark Twain had known intimately. It is only another link in the chain of evidence which goes to prove that Mark Twain had thought long and deeply upon the problematical nature of a future life. It is, in essence, a reductio ad absurdum of those professors of religion who still preach a heaven of golden streets and pearly gates, of idleness and everlasting psalm-singing, ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... ties of nationality. Under these circumstances, and bearing in mind the immense political machinery which the Papacy can set to work in Canada, the transfer of British institutions to the colony must at present remain a matter of problematical success. It is admitted that the failure of representative institutions arises from the unworthiness of constituencies; and if the efforts which are made by means of education to elevate the character of the next generation of electors should prove fruitless, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... peculiar sensations, as to the precise criterion of truth; so that we must all be just of your size in order to pass the gate of that New Jerusalem which you are building. After this, your reputation as a divine might have become problematical with me; but recollecting the principle of the association of ideas so well developed by Locke, whom you hold in estimation, and whom, for that reason I am happy to cite to you, although to him I owe that pernicious use of my understanding which makes me disbelieve what I do not comprehend—I ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... settled, I proceed to observe that the concatenation of self-existence, proceeding in a reciprocal duplicate ratio, naturally produces a problematical dialogism, which in some measure proves that the essence of spirituality may be referred ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... them, and the clearness of the principles to which you have reduced them—this is my treasure, my beloved friend, and with this you have made me rich and happy. Believe me, and take comfort, this is better for me than tons of gold and cases of diamonds, even were they not as problematical as the clouds we see in the morning floating over the sea, which we take for terra firma, and which evaporate and vanish as we draw near to them. To have you as long as possible near me, to hear your eloquent speech,—which embellishes my mind, strengthens ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... half a pound of arrowroot; the native had nothing left and was wholly dependant on me for his subsistence. Now we had been seven days on our route, and had made but little more than seventy miles, and as the men were much weaker than when they first started it appeared to me to be extremely problematical whether we should ever reach Perth unless some plan different from what we had hitherto pursued was adopted. And even granting that we did eventually make this point, it was evident that we must previously be subjected to wants and necessities of the most ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... But the controversy now developed was insidious—its influences, its weapons, its designs, and its possible end, were in a measure hidden from the public—public opinion was divided, and its results, for good or ill, problematical. The wisest political sagacity and the broadest statesmanship possible were needed, and in their application no time ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... was no way out, no royal road to fortune by the route he had chosen; nothing but grinding work, with a result problematical and years ahead. There were even no legacies to expect, he thought whimsically. Peter had known a chap once, struggling along in gynecology, who had had a fortune left him by a G. P., which being interpreted is Grateful Patient. Peter's patients had a ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... glittering fiend comes up from below, snaps his lump out of the whale's side, and is shouldered out of the way by his fellows. We were unlucky indeed, in the matter of sharks; for, with the exception of a problematical back-fin or two, we saw none in the West Indies, though they were ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley |
