"Random" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... asking the directest road to Scotland—a strangely random question for two Englishwomen to make, surely, ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... terrace you take in a more or less comprehensive view of the city and its surroundings, and also form some conception of its inner meaning. Then descend from your terrace and wander at random about the streets, choosing as the more appropriate time the long twilight of a summer morning which brings the cruder modern aspect of the place into harmony with the fundamental values. Then, before she awakens to the stir and activity of everyday life, old Prague will speak ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... start he comes back from the reverie into which he had sunk and answers at random ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton
... beside an Indian trail. I suppose the fellow may be the descendant of some gay young lieutenant of the regiment Carignan-Salieres, who came out with De Tracy, or Courcelles. An amour with the daughter of a habitant,—a name taken at random,—who can unravel the skein? But here's the old thread of chivalry running through all the ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... ambush on Kandar was a possibility that simply hadn't been considered—hadn't even occurred to anyone. But once it was mentioned it seemed horribly likely. There was no time for a search at random, but if Morgan had been right about one thing he might have some way to know ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... tell you that there is an enormous difference in the value of the two hypotheses. That one which is based on sound scientific knowledge is sure to have a corresponding value; and that which is a mere hasty random guess is likely to have but little value. Every great step in our progress in discovering causes has been made in exactly the same way as that which I have detailed to you. A person observing the occurrence of certain facts and phenomena asks, naturally ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... comparison of values: the economists do better still. Every year they gather from tables of statistics the average prices of the various grains. Now, what is the meaning of an average? Every one can see that in a single operation, taken at random from a million, there is no means of knowing which prevailed, supply—that is, useful value—or exchangeable value,—that is, demand. But as every increase in the price of merchandise is followed sooner or later ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... helped her in and gave at random the first place that suggested itself to him, which was ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... this random verse The high enigmas to rehearse, And touch with desultory tongue Secrets no man from Night hath wrung. We ponder, question, doubt—and pray The Deep to answer Yea or Nay; And what does the engirdling wave, The undivulging, yield us, save Aspersion of bewildering ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... the appeal of the drawing and legend entirely upon a naive literalness to their remarks. The charming atmosphere of the well-ordered nursery must be felt by readers, and then we can quote from the text of some of his drawings of the kind; this we shall do somewhat at random and as ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... for purposes of divination certain signs were scratched on slips of wood from a fruit-bearing tree (including, no doubt, tile beech; cp. book, German Buch, and Buchstabe, a letter of the alphabet); the slips were thrown down promiscuously on a white cloth. whence the expert picked them up at random and by them interpreted fate. In these slips we have the origin of the Norse kefli, the Scots kaivel, which were and are still used as lots. The fishermen of north-east Scotland, when they return after a successful haul, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... resounded with the dull thud of the pick as it was driven deep into the hard-trodden earth. There was a feverish haste and unnecessary energy in the manner of his work. At first what he intended was not quite clear. He seemed to be digging at random. Then he laid his pick aside and plied the shovel, and gradually his purpose became plain. A long, narrow trench was cleared, and its outline was that of a grave. Again the pick was set to work, and ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... the Congress a fair and impartial random selection system for the draft. I submit it again tonight for your ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... gardens yield, High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield; But thou, beneath the random bield O' clod or stane, Adorns the ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... would have it, this random shot, fired at every strange boy from the upper world, hit the mark, to his unspeakable astonishment. Pulling out of his pocket a licorice jaw-breaker of vast dimensions, Pee-wee sent it shooting in a bee-line at the face ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... had been fired at the troops, the latter entered ten or twelve houses, at random, and despatched with their bayonets every one they found. In all the houses on the boulevard, there are metal pipes by which the dirty water runs out into the gutter. The soldiers, with no idea why it was so, conceived a feeling of mistrust or hatred for such and such ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... clear lucid thinker he is undoubtedly in the first rank; while as a mystic he is a long way in front of it. The specimens of Mr. Spudd's verse which we append herewith were selected, we are happy to assure our readers, purely at random from his work. We first blindfolded ourselves and then, standing with our feet in warm water and having one hand tied behind our back, we groped among the papers on our desk before us and selected for our purpose whatever specimens first came ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... and bravery of a holiday suit, came the perjured Clarence. Conflict now it could scarce be called: as well might the Dane have rolled back the sea from his footstool, as Warwick and his disordered troop (often and aye, dazzled here by Oxford's star, there by Edward's sun, dealing random blows against each other) have resisted the general whirl and torrent of the surrounding foe. To add to the rout, Somerset and the on-guard of his wing had been marching towards the earl at the very time that the cry of "treason" had struck their ears, and Edward's charge was made; ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... where she pleases, on the one condition that she does not hamper her neighbours' work; otherwise she can look out for rough handling from the parties interested. The cells, therefore, accumulate at random in this workyard where there is no organization. Their shape is that of a thimble divided down the middle; and their walls are completed either by the adjoining cells or by the surface of the old nest. Outside, they are rough and display successive layers ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... ships Much speedier than their huge antagonist, Keeping to windward, worked their will with her. In vain she burnt wild lights and strove to scan The darkening deep. Her musketeers in vain Provoked the crackling night with random fires: In vain her broadside bellowings burst at large As if the Gates of Erebus unrolled. For ever and anon the deep-sea gloom From some new quarter, like a dragon's mouth Opened and belched forth crimson flames and tore Her sides as if with iron claws unseen; Till, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... and the results achieved are conditioned only by the ingenuity of the commentator. It would require a body of citation from the pages of "Science and Health," not possible here, to follow through Mrs. Eddy's peculiar exegesis. One needs only to open the book at random for outstanding illustrations. For example, Genesis 1:6, "And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters." The word "firmament" has its own well established connotation gathered from a careful study of all its ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... With his back to the door he drove his fists at his assailants in a dogged, persistent way that felled three more of them before the others drew away from his stalwart bows. By that time Larry and Fitzgerald, who had been summoned by Louise, rushed from the office armed with iron bars caught up at random, both eager for a fight. The workmen, seeing the reinforcements, beat a retreat, carrying their sadly pommeled comrades with them, but their insulting language was not restricted until they ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... number 1 disk contains about 80,000 bytes of free space for files. Each additional disk has 89,600 bytes of file space. The Disk System has its own set of commands that allow manipulation of files and expanded abilities in file use. The TRS-80 Mini-Disk System uses sequential or random access. The disks will allow use of ...
— Radio Shack TRS-80 Expansion Interface: Operator's Manual - Catalog Numbers: 26-1140, 26-1141, 26-1142 • Anonymous
... whereof we imbibe nor the images by our senses, but perceive within by themselves, without images, as they are, is nothing else, but by conception, to receive, and by marking to take heed that those things which the memory did before contain at random and unarranged, be laid up at hand as it were in that same memory where before they lay unknown, scattered and neglected, and so readily occur to the mind familiarised to them. And how many things of this kind does my memory bear which have been already found out, and ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... salted" a la Timothy Dexter, apparently quite by chance, among the words. Periods were placed in the middle of sentences; words of one syllable were divided by hyphens; capitals and italics were used after the fashion of the time, apparently quite at random; and inverted letters were common enough. The pages were unnumbered, and on every left-hand page the word "Psalm" in the title was spelled correctly, while on the right-hand page it is uniformly spelled "Psalme." But after all, these typographical ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... With these random finds, with wild boar and deer that come from an occasional chase, with such salted and dried fish, including jerked crocodile, as he may purchase directly or indirectly from Bisya traders or from Christianized Manbos, and with a casual pig or fowl killed on ceremonial ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... On I go at random from street to street. As I walk, my curiosity increases and I quicken my pace. It seems impossible that a whole city can be like this; I am afraid of stumbling across some house or coming into some street that will remind me of other cities, and disturb my beautiful dream. But no, the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... to our strength until the morrow, believing that if we waited till daylight we might be able to take them more completely then by surprise and ensure a victory; for in the dark we might get mixed up and, firing at random, hit our friends as well as our foes. So I went up above and spoke to Captain Alphonse, who agreed with me about it, and we planned a pleasant little fete ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... in smiling and replying. "It would be presumption in my part to think so," he observed. "I was simply at random humming a few verses composed by former writers, and what reason is there to laud me to such an excessive degree? To what, my dear Sir, do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" he went on to inquire. "Tonight," replied Shih-yin, "is the mid-autumn feast, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... simple. If this were a mere random stripping of the room of its pictures, all would have suffered. Look," indicating a spot in the wall, "here is a place where the plaster is broken. A hook had been driven here to hold one of the portraits; and the breaking of the plaster shows that some determination was required to ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... Now, I shall concern myself here principally with literature, because, in England at all events, literature plays the largest part in general culture. It may be said that we owe some of the best literature we have to amateurs. To contrast a few names, taken at random, Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Dr. Johnson, De Quincey, Tennyson, and Carlyle were professionals, it is true; but, on the other hand, Milton, Gray, Boswell, Walter Scott, Charles Lamb, Shelley, Browning, and Ruskin were amateurs. It is not a question ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... conclude in the most satisfactory and unobjectionable manner, by his marrying a dowager countess, as that wise man Addison did, or by his settling down as a great country gentleman, perfectly happy and contented, like the very moral Roderick Random, or the equally estimable Peregrine Pickle; he is hack author, Gypsy, tinker, and postillion, yet, upon the whole, he seems to be quite as happy as the younger sons of most earls, to have as high feelings of honour; and when the reader loses sight of him, he has money ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... with an instinctive desire to postpone the inevitable moment of trial, she simulated deadly languor for some moments after becoming conscious of her position: and lay passive, long lashes all but touching her cheeks,—in which now a faint color was growing,—gaze wandering at random out over a dreary wilderness of flat rectangular roofs, livid in the moonlight, broken by long, straight clefts of darkness in whose depths lights gleamed faintly. Far in the south the sky came down purple and black to the horizon, where a silver spark glittered like a low-swung star: ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... like two baskets or bundles of traits from which the child takes its traits at random. In the wonderful play of Maeterlinck's, called the "Bluebird," we are taken to the "land before birth," where the children are waiting to be born, having selected their parents to be. Of course, ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... with great skill throughout the engagement. Kept in reserve, and silent, though posted close up to the firing line, they have had a disconcerting effect, in that their fire has reached far behind the Italian lines at intervals between the attacks, firing shots at random which did little actual damage, but gave the impression of continued advance. With the front of this battle line extending now to a length of twenty-two miles, the artillery of the enemy works out at nearly 100 pieces to the mile, or one ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... vaguely conscious of their surroundings; they saw all things dimly, as through a veil; they were steeped in dreams, often they did not hear when they were spoken to; they often did not understand when they heard; they answered confusedly or at random; Sally sold molasses by weight, sugar by the yard, and furnished soap when asked for candles, and Aleck put the cat in the wash and fed milk to the soiled linen. Everybody was stunned and amazed, and went about muttering, "What CAN be the matter ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... "Beloved of his townspeople" was Mr. Ball's phrase. "Although a multi-millionaire, no man is more considerate of the feelings and the rights of his more humble neighbours. Send him to the Legislature! We'd send him to the United States Senate if we could. He'll land there, anyway." Such was a random estimate (Mr. Ball's) the reporters gathered on their way to Ripton. Mr. Crewe did not hesitate to say that the prosperity of the farmers had risen as a result of his labours at Wedderburn where the most improved machinery and methods were adopted. His ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... now had no alternative but to push on to the line at all risks, as it was the nearest point where they could obtain supplies, and it was useless to think of going back without them. Unhappily, Forrest was unprovided with a map of the line, which led to his having to strike at random; and, as it happened in the end, resulted in his turning north instead of south, which brought about needless pain and suffering. Forrest's account of their ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... Aylmer seized her impetuously by the shoulders, kissed her roughly and at random before she could stop him, and said incoherently: 'Edith! Good-bye. I love you, Edith,' and then stood ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... eyes and opened my Bible at random, and put my finger on a text. Then I opened my eyes and ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... people who use these words, myself and my own, thoughtlessly and at random. How false is this belief that they profess! If there were no system of government by superiors, but an anarchy, these people, who vaunt themselves and their own powers, would not stand for a day. In the old days, at the time of the war at Ichi-no-tani, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... was only a sabre. Former days did not recognize Yesterday. People no longer had the feeling for what was grand. There was some one who called Bonaparte Scapin. This Society no longer exists. Nothing of it, we repeat, exists to-day. When we select from it some one figure at random, and attempt to make it live again in thought, it seems as strange to us as the world before the Deluge. It is because it, too, as a matter of fact, has been engulfed in a deluge. It has disappeared ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... speakers followed me and moved and seconded all sorts of things at random. We were all in a hopeless muddle, and all quite good-humoured about it; and we wound up by singing ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... left we see the Foreign Department. Here we watch with rapt attention the arrival of countless business telegrams from all parts of the world. We choose one or two at random and see for ourselves the ramifications of Pryce's far-flung booking service. This one from China: "Puttee fifty taels Boko Lanchester Cup;" another from distant Siberia, emerging from the primeval forests of that wondrous land of the future: "Tenbobski Quitter Ebury Handicap." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... eye down the road and over the Random River, flowing smooth and peaceful through its great ox-bow. He recognized Dannie Snow, scuffling through the dust with his bare feet, as he drove home his father's great, placid, full-uddered cow. The comfort of the scene, the cosy pleasantness of the place ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... learned wisdom, not the learned ability to draw conclusions and to develop previous thoughts in to new ones. No, this world of thought was also still on this side, and nothing could be achieved by killing the random self of the senses, if the random self of thoughts and learned knowledge was fattened on the other hand. Both, the thoughts as well as the senses, were pretty things, the ultimate meaning was hidden behind both of them, both had to be listened to, both had to be played with, ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... hundreds of his followers, he forgot himself as a man and a minister and remembered only that as a servant of the Most High he was being interrogated and dishonored. His soul shook and thundered within him to repel these attacks upon his Lord and Master. As those unexpected random questions had poured in upon him thick and fast, all emerging, as it seemed to him, like disembodied evil spirits from the black pit of Satan and the damned, it was joy to him to deal to each that same straight, God-directed spear-thrust of a reply—killing them as they rose. His soul exulted ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... Then dozed awhile herself, but over-toil'd By that day's grief and travel, evermore Seem'd catching at a rootless thorn, and then Went slipping down horrible precipices, And strongly striking out her limbs awoke; Then thought she heard the wild Earl at the door, With all his rout of random followers, Sound on a dreadful trumpet, summoning her; Which was the red cock shouting to the light, As the gray dawn stole o'er the dewy world, And glimmer'd on his armor in the room. And once again she rose to look at it, But touch'd it unawares: jangling, the casque ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... ideas or essences of mixed modes depend on the mind, and are made by it with great liberty, yet they are not made at random, and jumbled together without any reason at all. Though these complex ideas be not always copied from nature, yet they are always suited to the end for which abstract ideas are made: and though they be combinations made of ideas that are ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... find one that isn't improved and finished and rounded off by an Amen at the end." He selected a hymn at random, and sang a stanza in his rich voice that poured itself out gloriously on ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... critical analysis of experience, are as true and valuable now as they were then. Progress in scientific discovery is made mainly, if not solely, by the employment of hypothesis, and for that no code of rules can be laid down such as Bacon had devised. Yet the framing of hypothesis is no mere random guesswork; it is left not to the imagination alone, but to the scientific imagination. There is required in the process not merely a preliminary critical induction, but a subsequent experimental comparison, verification or proof, the canons of which can be laid down ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... farther, and it might be practised as well on a milliner's lay-figure. 'He that loves a coral cheek or a ruby lip admires' is simply a red hot donkey, Bob. Nature provides the imbecile desire, Propinquity furnishes an object at random. Imagination does all ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... I'm not one of those novel readers who open a book at random. I do not appreciate effects till I have found out the causes. I want to know everything about ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... the courts and corridors connecting them they lose all their meaning and more than half their beauty. Being now situated in the midst of a British barrack yard, they look like precious stones torn from their settings in some exquisite piece of oriental jeweler's work and set at random in a bed of the ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... moved forward again, walked to the valleys and wandered towards southern Teign, unconsciously calmed by his own random movements and the river's song. Anon, he entered the lands of Metherill, and soon afterwards, without deliberate intention, moved through that Damnonian village which lies there. A moment later and he stood in the hut-circle where he himself ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... letter of Mr. Coleridge, was written a short time before his death, to a young friend. This deliberate exposition of his faith, and at such a season, cancels every random word or sentence, Mr. C. may ever have expressed or written, of an opposing tendency. In thoughtless moments Mr. C. may sometimes have expressed himself unguardedly, attended, on reflection, no doubt with self-accusation, but here in the full prospect of dissolution, he pours forth ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... once, the boatswain is constantly sounding his whistle. There is no appearance of order, confusion seems to reign triumphant, and there is every reason to believe that the commands are issued at random." ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... my cheek, my heart bounded with exultation; my step, infirm and tottering but a moment before, became fixed and steady, and I felt a thrill of proud enthusiasm playing through my veins. How little did the speaker of those few and random words know what courage he had given to a drooping heart, what renewed energy to a breaking spirit! The voice of praise, too, coming from those to whom we had thought ourselves unknown, has a magic about it that must be felt to be understood. So it happened that in a few seconds a revolution ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... his terrible paw, threw him down outside the door. Boone could have escaped, but, maddened with the pain of his fall, he only thought of vengeance,—and, seizing his knife and tomahawk, which were fortunately within his reach, he darted furiously at the beast, dealing blows at random. Great as was his strength, his tomahawk could not penetrate through the thick coat of the animal, which, having encircled the body of his assailant with his paws, was pressing him in one of those ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... the library; placed pen and ink, and some legal-looking documents, selected at random, before me. Red tape and the formal pomp of law constitute half its force with women and men of Louisa's calibre. I had hardly arranged myself and my materials when the door slowly opened, and she entered. She was alarmed, yet wary. To see a naturally hearty, merry little ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... bed, very good post-horse,' he replied at random, and I left the County Hotel without being able to find out why suspicion had ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... slip the crucifix into his other hand, and open the book, apparently at random. His lean finger dropped upon the page; and he read aloud softly, as ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... could not be set up at random. The number of bishops and by consequence the size of dioceses must be carefully considered. The puny bishoprics of Meath, for example, could form no part of a scheme ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... these pages; but I offer it as a serious conviction, from what I have been able to observe, that the England of to-day is the unscrupulous old England of Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews, Humphrey Clinker and Roderick Random; and in our refined era, just the same as at that more free-spoken epoch, this singular people has a certain contempt for any fine-strained purity, any special squeamishness, as they consider it, on the part of an ingenuous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... fusillade broke out simultaneously at various points in the city (Louvain), notably at the Porte de Bruxelles, Porte de Tirlemont, Rue Leopold, Rue Marie-Therese, Rue des Joyeuses Entrees. German soldiers were firing at random in every street and in every direction. Later fires broke out everywhere, notably in the University building, the Library, in the old Church of St. Peter, in the Place du Peuple, in the Rue de la Station, in the Boulevard de Tirlemont, ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... communicate it to his father. 'Do thy part well,' was his reply, 'and let the deceit of the augur fall on himself. The "tripudium" has been announced to me, and no omen could be better for the Roman army and people!' As the troops advanced, a javelin thrown at random struck the 'pullatius' dead. 'The hand of heaven is in the battle,' cried Papirius; 'the guilty is punished!' and he advanced and conquered."(1b) A coincidence of this sort, if it really occurred, would very greatly strengthen the popular belief ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... misunderstood my meaning, for she was childishly offended. To restore her to good humor I asked at random: ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... of theology, as a direct and separate branch of study, the points are so many at which theology inosculates with philosophy, and with endless casual and random suggestions of the self- prompted reason, that inevitably from that same moment in which I began to find a motive for directing my thoughts to this new subject, I wanted not something to say that might have perplexed ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... leaving out an incident, or omitting to appeal to a sentiment, a Greek tragedian could flood his whole work with a new significance. So that the temptation to be eccentric, the temptation to hit too hard or at random because he was not sure of exactly where the mind stood that he would impress, did not exist in anything like the same degree for him as it did for Shakespeare and Michael Angelo as it does for romantic and origina natures to-day. The absence of a sufficient body of traditional culture belonging ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... program for tomorrow?" I once asked him. "Waal, I callerlate, if they rig up the callerlation they callerlate on, we'll go to the Boreas." Starting out for a day's tramp in the woods, he would ask whether we wanted to take a "reg'lar walk, or a random scoot,"—the latter being a plunge into the pathless forest. When he was on such an expedition, and became entangled in dense brush, and maybe a network of "slash" and swamp, he was like an old ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the affluent. In the meantime Stanley made a short excursion up the tributary, the water of which was inky-black owing to the dark tree roots which wound about its bottom. On his return he found the camp island surrounded by hostile canoes and heard random shots, but when his boat drew near, the savages ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... as they fired from a breastwork upon their foes, who were in the open. But the darkness, lit only by the flashes of the rifles, kept the fire of both sides from being very destructive, the bullets being sent mainly at random. ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... indeed a startling innovation. On the other hand, the development of such a policy was a logical sequence of the Monroe Doctrine. That it was a step in the general development of policy on the part of the United States and not a random leap is indicated by the manner in which it has been followed up. In 1911 treaties with Nicaragua and Honduras somewhat similar to the Dominican protocol were negotiated by Secretary Knox but failed of ratification. Subsequently under President ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... conditions prepared by men, the assumption being that the god has prepared the event or thing in question, and that, when properly approached, he will be disposed to give his worshipers the assistance desired. The casting of lots and similar random procedures have been common methods of divination the world over. The African Kafir diviner detects criminals by the fall of small objects used as dice. The Ashanti discover future events by the figures formed when palm wine is thrown on the ground, and from ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... their rifles, which was all we three in the lead thereafter saw of them; for after the first volley most of them lay close and directed their fire at the men in the edge of the timber, but occasionally a rifle was tipped over the edge of a boulder and fired at random in our direction. And all the time they were yelling at us, "Que vienen, puercos! Que vienen!" (Come ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... nor the other having, as regarded philosophy, any internal principle of gravitation or determining impulse to draw him in one direction rather than another, was left to the random control of momentary taste, accident, or caprice; and this indetermination of pure, unballasted levity both Pope and Horace mistook for a special privilege of philosophic strength. Others, it seems, were chained and coerced by sertain fixed aspects of truth, and their efforts were overruled ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... he will insist, not only that he knows what these things are, but also that he knows the end they have in view: this, unfortunately, is the rock he splits upon. According to his own admission, the ways of God are impenetrable to man. If we grant his position, what is the result? Why, that it is at random he speaks. If these ways are impenetrable, by what means did he acquire his knowledge of them? How did he discover the end proposed by the Deity? If they are not impenetrable, they then can be equally known to other ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... darkness of the night, barefoot, wearing a short-sleeved tunic and a skull-cap of felt seven years old and carrying a cake of dry bread, three days stale, and betook himself to the gate El Arij of Baghdad. Here he waited till the gate opened, when he was the first to go forth; and he went out at random and wandered in the deserts day and night. When the night came, his mother sought him, but found him not, whereupon the world, for all its wideness, was straitened upon her and she took no delight in aught of its good. She looked for him a first ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... overlooked, with prudent disdain, the strength of Nisibis; but as he passed under the walls of Amida, he resolved to try whether the majesty of his presence would not awe the garrison into immediate submission. The sacrilegious insult of a random dart, which glanced against the royal tiara, convinced him of his error; and the indignant monarch listened with impatience to the advice of his ministers, who conjured him not to sacrifice the success of his ambition to the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... And these random names are but a few of those whose love of nature early imbibed, and in later life enjoyed in their own calm and retired homes, amid the serene beauty of woods and waters, which might be named, as illustrations of the influence which fine scenery may exercise ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... random, gathering his thoughts on the wing. Nothing hurt him in quite the same way as that suggested havoc under the bandage. He steadied himself, and talked of the little lens-maker. Strength came from the joy he was giving ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... island, where it crosses the valley of Taipi, Mr. Osbourne tells me they are to be reckoned by the dozen; and as the roads have been made long posterior to their erection, perhaps to their desertion, and must simply be regarded as lines drawn at random through the bush, the forest on either hand must be equally filled with these survivals: the gravestones of whole families. Such ruins are tapu in the strictest sense; no native must approach them; they have become outposts of the kingdom of the grave. It might appear a natural and pious custom in ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... another state of human existence in which we expressly dismiss from our hands the reins of the mind, and suffer our minutes and our hours to glide by us undisciplined and at random. ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... and judgment,' wrote the Preacher of Judah. Yet mindful though we be of these ancient words of wisdom, how rarely do we apply them to our everyday reading! If we be in the mood for reading we pick up any book at random; if it please us at the moment, we continue to read it. If it be distasteful to us, we put it aside immediately. Possibly we recollect, next time that our eyes light upon a volume so discarded, that it was once displeasing, and we never ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... day fear returned to my heart, and my newly discovered Utopia was no more. I do not know what chance word of the grown-up people or what random thought of mine did the mischief; but of a sudden I realised that for all my dreaming I was only separated by a measurable number of days from the horror of school. Already I was sick with fear, and in place of my dreams I distressed myself by visualising the scenes of ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... their ground, and were handed a brace of pistols each. The signal was given. Both reserved their fire for some moments. D'Esterre first changed his position, moving a pace towards the left hand, and then stepped towards O'Connell. His object was to induce him to fire, more or less, at random. He lifted his pistol, as if about to fire. O'Connell instantly presented, pulled the trigger, and ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... returned it was a very merry-seeming tea party. Even Miss Falconer unbent to the artist, as she persisted in calling Billy, though he had dutifully enlightened her that engineering was his true and proper life work, and art but a random diversion, and she promised to show him the sketches which she had been making, and piled him with questions about his ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... opening sentences of Sir Launcelot Greaves. "The great northern road!" It was that over which the youthful Smollett made his way to London in 1739; it was that over which, less than nine years later, he sent us travelling in company with Random and Strap and the queer people whom they met on their way. And so there is the promise that Smollett, after his departure in Count Fathom from the field of personal experience which erstwhile he cultivated ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... members of the expedition didn't know any of that information for sure. The probe teams had made spot checks and taken random samples, but it was up to the First Analytical Expedition to ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett
... themselves in this opening, the librarian described to Evan the exact location of seat 433 outside, and pointed out a spot where Evan could command a view of seat 433 through the archway. Evan proceeded to the spot, and, taking down a book at random, affected to be lost in studying its pages. Then, half turning and letting his eyes rise carelessly, he glanced into the ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... ten minutes' reflection (in which I decline to indulge) would provide me with a handsome list of instances in support of it. I remember a riotous argument about Bacon and Shakespeare in which I offered quite at random to show that Lord Rosebery had written the works of Mr. W. B. Yeats. No sooner had I said the words than a torrent of coincidences rushed upon my mind. I pointed out, for instance, that Mr. Yeats's chief work was "The Secret Rose." This may easily be paraphrased as "The Quiet or ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... shooting into you in trying to hit the mark. [The two arms are grasping the m[-i]gis, which he the Mid[-e] is going to shoot into the body of the candidate. The last word means, literally, trying to hit the mark at random.] ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... seemed no more than a gay tent pitched against the sunshine. It had the crispness of a freshly starched summer gown, and the geraniums on the veranda bloomed as simultaneously as the flowers in a bonnet. The garden was prospering absurdly. Seed they had sown at random—amid laughing counter-charges of incompetence—had shot up in fragrant defiance of their blunders. He smiled to see the clematis unfolding its punctual wings about the porch. The tiny lawn was smooth as a shaven cheek, and a crimson rambler mounted to ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... from the situation of the persons, or the peculiarity of their external appearance, as Roderick Random's carroty locks, which hung down over his shoulders like a pound of candles; or Strap's ignorance of London, and the blunders that follow it. There is a tone of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... State House, by quick march, to overhaul it at a bend of the river, a fusillade of whose rifle shots killed the captain, wounded several others, and disabled the steamer, which was captured and brought back to the State House. A restless quiet then ensued, occasionally broken by random shots. ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... to that little spitfire without much result. She talks in a random fashion of going to Udalkhand. What her actual intentions are I don't know. Possibly she doesn't know herself. But one thing is certain. She is not going to be attached to your train any longer, and ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... He made ferociously unqualified attacks on the statesmen of his day, and in spite of much power, the coarseness of his works renders them now almost unreadable. But he performed one definite service; in 'Roderick Random,' drawing on his early experiences as a ship's surgeon, he inaugurated the out-and-out sea story, that is the story which takes place not, like 'Robinson Crusoe,' in small part, but mainly, on board ship. Prominent, on the other hand, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... rapidly, and as accurately as possible in the outline, from nature, instead of daubing down what they call "effects" with the brush, they would soon find there is more beauty about their forms than can be arrived at by any random felicity of invention, however brilliant, and more essential character than can be violated without incurring the charge of falsehood,—falsehood as direct and definite, though not as traceable as error in the less varied features ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... the widespread wings of wrong brood o'er a moaning earth, Not from the clinging curse of gold, the random lot of birth; Not from the misery of the weak, the madness of the strong, Goes upward from our lips the cry, "How long, oh Lord, how long?" Not only from the huts of toil, the dens of sin and shame, From lordly ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... the statements of James can be disproved, and it is for this reason that I have been obliged to criticise the latter's work very fully. Many of James' remarks, however, defy criticism from their random nature, as when he states that American midshipmen were chiefly masters and mates of merchantmen, and does not give a single proof to support the assertion. It would be nearly as true to assert that ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Vivian, he had one infallible charm for dispelling melancholy;—he stepped up close to the patient, and whispered, "It will be a boy!—My life upon it, it will be a boy!" Sometimes it happened that this universal remedy, applied at random, made the patient start or smile; and then his lordship never failed to add, with a nod of great sagacity, "Ah! you didn't know I knew what you were thinking of!—Well! well! you'll see we ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... affectionate and in due season may turn their thoughts to marriage. But at Athens Cecrops was the first person who married a man to one woman only, when before his time connections had taken place at random and men had ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... of nettles growing round the big stones, and the patches of lichen along the three windows, whose shutters, always closed, were rotting away on their rusty iron bars. Her thoughts, aimless at first, wandered at random, like her greyhound, who ran round and round in the fields, yelping after the yellow butterflies, chasing the shrew-mice, or nibbling the poppies on the edge of ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... almost most motionless; but the black, quick, piercing eyes flash into every window and door-way to watch for a customer's signal. And the creole street-cries, uttered in a sonorous, far-reaching high key, interblend and produce random harmonies very ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... or so men who had gathered in Van Deventer's office went about among the gathering and simply selected men at random, ordering them to follow and begin work. This began to awaken the crowd, but they wakened to fear rather than resolution. They were city-bred, and unaccustomed to face the ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... conversation Guentz avoided such topics with his friend. If Reimers tried to draw him again on the subject, he answered evasively, "I have told you I must fight it out with myself. Until then I don't want to talk at random." ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... always talk, at random, scarcely knowing, and certainly not half meaning what you say. There is no real reason in your rages against fate and fortune. Leave the accursed drink, and you may still ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... the present war will be far-reaching in its consequences. The truth of this is apparent from the following notices, gathered at random from the column of "Personal Paragraphs" which the Editor of The Shrimpington-on-Sea Gazette publishes weekly, without charge, thereby earning ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... throat, it was but eight when we set out of Chesson. Sir John and his Sexton are at ale to night, the clock runs at random. ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... swell was admitted from the sea, causing the ships to strike violently and almost constantly on the masses of ice alongside of them. In this situation they continued for several hours so completely beset as to render it impossible to extricate them, and drifting about at random with the tides. The Hecla was, by a different set of the stream, separated five or six miles from the Fury, while both ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... from under the monitor half filled and nearly swamped us as we sped away. The noise was so great that it nearly drowned for an instant the shouts, cries, and firing of the Turks. The whole flotilla now began in alarm to fire at random on their unseen foes, and sometimes into ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... of club life at White's as they crop up in Selwyn's letters it is difficult to pick and choose, but a few taken almost at random will revive scenes of a long-past time. Here is one of a supper-party in 1781: "We had a pretty group of Papists—Lord Petres at the head of them—some Papists reformed, and one Jew. A club that used to be quite intolerable is now becoming tolerating and ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... are scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation. Bring these fellows into the country, or set them aboard ship, and you will see how they pine for their desk or their study. They have no curiosity; they cannot give themselves over to random provocations; they do not take pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own sake; and unless Necessity lays about them with a stick, they will even stand still. It is no good speaking to such ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... happened in consequence of Henri having omitted to replace the stopper of his powder-horn, and when, in his anxiety for Joe, he fired at random amongst the Indians, despite Dick's entreaties to wait, a spark communicated with the powder-horn and blew him up. Dick and Crusoe were only a little singed, but the former was not disposed to quarrel with an accident ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... re-construct a Whig government—and the return of Sir Robert Peel to power. Still there was no explanation. Men were left to guess, as they best might, at the Eleusinian drama performing behind the veil of Isis—to speculate for themselves, or announce to others at random the causes of this huge mystification. "The oracles were dumb." This only was certain, that Lord Stanley was no longer in ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... swore, and sitting down to the piano, began strumming a valse, banging on the keys almost with his fists, at random. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... when it should be sustained by evidence the most decisive and perspicuous. The lists of bishops, commencing with the ministry of the apostles, and extending over the latter half of the first century, are little better than a mass of contradictions. The compilers seem to have set down, almost at random, the names of some distinguished men whom they found connected with the different churches, and thus the discrepancies are nearly as numerous ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... be done rashly, and at random, but all things according to the most exact and perfect rules ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... lack of means, or of interest; for it is plain that to the period of the Revolution, after which its scanty remnants passed into humble occupation (a few circular turrets, a crenellated curtain wall, giving a random touch of dignity to some ordinary farm-buildings) the place had been scrupulously maintained. It might seem to have been a kind of reverence rather that had allowed the work to remain untouched for future ages precisely at this ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... it. He went in and kissed the silent, stone-white Marie, looked resentfully at George, answered his mother-in-law at random, and hurried out again. He was shivering. He remembered too well now that day which, ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... author. About 1780 the vendors of children's books issued abridgments of "Tom Jones" and "Pamela," "Clarissa" and "Joseph Andrews," adapted to the needs of infant minds. It was a curious enterprise, certainly, but the booksellers do not seem to have produced "Every Boy's Roderick Random," or "Peregrine Pickle for the Young." Smollett, in short, is less known than Fielding and Sterne, even Thackeray says but a word about him, in the "English Humorists," and he has no place in the series ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... importance of making this a killing shot. Should the bear, wounded as he now was, retreat back into his den, there would be no chance whatever of getting him out again. Alexis thought of this; and therefore resolved not to fire at random, as he had done before. He knew that a full-grown bear, unless shot in the brain or heart, can accommodate a score of bullets without being ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... a sentry. They ran away on all fours in the dark, and so doing plumped upon another sentry, whom Laupepa grappled and flung in a ditch; for the Sheet of Paper, although infirm of character, is, like most Samoans, of an able body. The second sentry (like the first) fired after his assailants at random in the dark; and the two shots awoke the curiosity of Apia. On the afternoon of the 16th, the day of the hand-shakings, Suatele, a high chief, despatched two boys across the island with a letter. They were most ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
