"Random" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dinner seemed to be equally plain. Foiled in their first attempt at discovery by her own prudence and tact, his suspicions had set their trap. Her gross husband had been tempted to drink, and to talk at random (for Mr. Mountjoy's benefit) in a state ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... resulting from it to our existence; for the ignorant man who knows neither causes nor effects, commits every instant errors most pernicious to himself and to others; he resembles a blind man groping his way at random, and who, at every step, jostles or is jostled by every one ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... for some time, walking on without ceasing, traversing at random streets of which he knew nothing, forgetful of his fatigue, as is often the case when a man is sad. All at once he felt the pangs of hunger sharply. Night was drawing near. He glanced about him, to see whether he could ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... tendency does not produce the series of movements all by itself, but, as was explained in speaking of tendencies in general, cooeperates with sensory stimuli in producing them. Clearly enough, the nest-building bird, {111} picking up a twig, is reacting to that twig. He does not peck at random, as if driven by a mere blind impulsion to peck. He reacts to twigs, to the crotch in the tree, to the half-built nest. Only, he would not react to these stimuli unless the nesting fit were on him. The nest-building tendency favors response to certain ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... She stood in bold relief against the black background, lighting up the Roads and reflecting her lurid lights on the bosom of the now placid and hushed waters. Every now and then the flames would reach one of the loaded cannon and a shell would hiss at random through the darkness. About midnight came the grand finale. The magazines exploded, shooting up a huge column of firebrands hundreds of feet in the air, and then the burning hulk burst asunder and melted into the waters, while the calm night spread her ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.
... at random, will serve to indicate what an intimate companion she made of her Bible, and with what loving patience and insight she studied it for the illumination and deepening of ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... equivalent of the French -age, and is a suffix of frequent occurrence in forming new words. Oulivage is a synonym of oulivado, mentioned above. A rather curious word is the adverb arrage, meaning at random, haphazard. It appears to represent a Latin ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... home on account of my daughter's health, I do not know your address, and fly this at random, and it is of very little consequence if it never ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... seemed to point in that direction—here was the man who knew all—or certainly knew much. His strong, sterling face progressively and silently persuaded of his full knowledge. That was not the mouth, these were not the eyes, of one who would act in ignorance, or could be led at random. Nor again was it the face of a man squeamish in the case of malefactors; there was even a touch of Brutus there, and something of the hanging judge. In short, he seemed the last character for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for perfect: they are moods Purifying my women to become My unexpressive, uttermost intent.— As music binds into a strict delight The manifold random sounds that shake the air, Even so fashioned must I have the being That fills with rushing power the boundless spirit: Amidst it, musically firm, a joy That is a fiery knowledge of itself, Thereby self-continent, a globed fire. And she who gave thee wonder, is the sign Of those who ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... at random, dislodged two leather cases, placed them on the floor, and with a blade of his pen-knife forced ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... "Then I heartily beg your pardon—" "No offence in the least," says she, "for I have a cousin-german whose name is Betty." "Indeed," said he, "I protest to you that was more than I knew, I spoke at random: but since it happens that I was near in the right, give me leave to present this gentleman to the favour of a civil salute." His friend advances, and so on, till that they had all saluted her. By this means, the poor girl was in the middle of the crowd of these fellows, at a loss ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... is perhaps also Mongol, for Remusat has Tosiyal "Veille." (Mel. As. I. 231.) Such an example of Polo's correctness both in the form and meaning of a Turki word is worthy of especial note, and shows how little he merits the wild and random treatment which has been often applied to the solution of like phrases ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... roof They knew not; but like ants still buried, delved Deep in the earth and scooped their sunless caves. Unmarked the seasons ranged, the biting winter, The flower-perfumed spring, the ripening summer Fertile of fruits. At random all their works Till I instructed them to mark the stars, Their rising, and, a harder science yet, Their setting. The rich train of marshalled numbers I taught them, and the meet array of letters. To impress these ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... as they are, it will be better to read through from the beginning, rather than dip into at random. A certain thread of meaning binds them. Memories of childhood and youth, portraits of those who have gone before us in the battle - taken together, they build up a face that "I have loved long since and lost awhile," the face of what was once ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... success in any enterprise. One is, that there shall be the most definite and clear conception of what is aimed at; and the other, that there shall be a wisely considered plan to get at it. Unless there be these, if you go at random, running a little way for a moment in this direction, and then heading about and going in the other, you cannot expect to get to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... capital of America only to abandon it; and these assertors and representatives of the dignity of England, at the tail of a flying army, let fly their Parthian shafts of memorials and remonstrances at random behind them. Their promises and their offers, their flatteries and their menaces, were all despised; and we were saved from the disgrace of their formal reception, only because the congress scorned to receive them; whilst the state-house of independent Philadelphia ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... made such a confident assertion that he had nothing upon which to base it; that he was talking vaguely and at random; but he also knew the intense desire that had arisen in him to reverse conditions upon the man who had waited until the father died to wrest that father's pride from the son; and in some way he felt coming strength. In Biff's present frame of conviction Bobby was pleased enough to drop ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... the other's side under the stab of her words—words that, uttered at random, flew, straight as the arrow that slew Ahab, to the joint of his armour. "To-day you and that man are one," she repeated. "One! What are ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... no random work here. Every attraction and repulsion acts with its proper force collecting the atoms into molecules, the molecules into tissues, the tissues into organs, and the organs into individuals. At each stage of the progress we get the ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... tall, fair man. He was at his ball. They pointed him out to me. He bowed at random right and left. He was not much amused, I will answer for it. He looked at us as if he were thinking, 'Who are all these people? What are they doing at my house?' We went to see Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival, ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... very little hold upon writers, it is interesting to notice that such an author as Nash, with his stirring style and unbridled pen, with his prison and tavern life, understood that words had a literary value of their own. They were not to be taken at random, but chosen with care. His theory may on some points be disputed, but it is certainly interesting to note that he had a theory at all. First, he desires that a man shall write in his own vein and not copy others, especially those who by ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... by striking at random; and knowing that I must strike, and strike heavily, I would fain see exactly where the stroke ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... quiver, filled With arrows dipped in honey, thrice distilled From all the roses brides have ever worn Since that first wedding out of Eden born. Beneath a cherub face and dimpled smile This youthful hunter hides a heart of guile; His arrows aimed at random fly in quest Of lodging-place within some blameless breast. But those he wounds die happily, and so Blame not young Cupid with his dart and bow: Thus has he warred and won since time began, Transporting into Heaven ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... about to choose at random, when he was struck by a difference in the colour of the water of the two branches. The right-hand fork was a clear brown, the other greenish with a milky tinge. Now brown water, as everybody knows, comes from swamps or muskegs, ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... to the door, and there before it stood Ishmael, chopping away at random, upon the pile of wood, his cheeks flushed with fever and his ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... anxious to make him drink up the cup of his humiliation; but he knew her well enough to know that she spoke at random; she hurt him frightfully, and never even tried to. He ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... degrees, and even somewhat at random, a constitutional fabric, very naturally followed the precedents and models which they found in the regions which bordered on them, and from which their forefathers had emigrated. The Lombard system, which was of far longer duration than its predecessors on the same soil, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... individuals? Any Athenian gentleman, taken at random, if he will mind him, will do far more good to him ...
— Meno • Plato
... their numbers. The clump of trees was surrounded by the party, and the dogs encouraged to go in, which they did, every now and then rushing back from the paws of the lioness. The Hottentots now fired into the clump at random, and their volleys were answered by the loud roars of the animal, which would not however show herself, and half an hour was passed away ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... rarely; for there are Persians of my spearmen who will consent to fight with three men of the Hellenes at once: but thou hast had no experience of these things and therefore thou speakest very much at random." ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... answered; "and therefore the best thing, we can do is to wait until we hear in which direction he makes his reappearance. If we wait in St. Albans at the end of the telegraph wire, we shall be much more likely to meet him than running about at random." ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... testimony that Cecil argued that what George Brooke knew Cobham must know, and that Raleigh was privy to all Cobham's designs. What form the accusation finally took, we shall presently see. When it was over Raleigh wrote a letter to the Council, in which he made certain random statements with regard to offers made to Cobham about June 9 by a certain attendant of Count Aremberg, the ambassador of the Archduke Albert. From the windows of Durham House he had seen, he said, Cobham's boat cross over to the Austrian's lodgings in St. Saviour's. He probably felt ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... of fear and panic from the horde of slaves. They began bellowing like the collective death-agony of a world. Most of them dropped their ropes and ran in blind panic, trampling over each other in their random flight for safety. The human overseers were part of the same panic-stricken riot. Only the mandrakes stood stolidly in place, flicking each running man ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... opened it at random, mechanically sinking at her feet. The quest, the idle quest! Was it but an awakening? So far lay the branch above his reach! His voice rose and fell with the mystic rhythm of the meter, now dwelling on death and danger, the shortness ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... of his most prodigal moods: the rescue and taming of the cat, the passage-at-arms with Avery, her stimulating forbiddal, and, last and best, the one silent listener in the dark—this stranger, picked up at random in the streets, who had never yet heard him play, and to whom he might reveal himself with an ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... good-looking, rather coarsely built young fellow, with one of those awful Cockney accents which literally make one jump. But he looked painfully nervous, stammered at every word spoken, and repeatedly gave answers entirely at random. ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... typical cases, taken at random from a small area. But consider the human race at large, and you will find that 'bluffing' is indeed one of the natural functions of the human animal. Every man pretends to have what (not having it) he covets, in order ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... it possible that this was a random shot, or did Trimble know about Bolsover and young Forrester? The next remark somewhat ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... on the gods, stealing the arms of Hercules, and even breaking the thunderbolts of Jove. His bow and arrows were a source of great amusement to him. He delighted in taking aim at unsuspecting mortals, and his random shots often ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... auld flame,' said Teen, apparently at random, but all the while keenly watching her companion's face. She saw Liz become as pale as death, though she smiled a sickly smile, and tried to speak as indifferently ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... 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 ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... of Purcell than of Shakespeare. There is no adequate biography. Hawkins and Burney (who is oftenest Hawkins at second-hand) are alike rash, random, and untrustworthy, depending much upon the anecdotage of old men, who were no more to be believed than the ancient bandsmen of the present day who tell you how Mendelssohn or Wagner flattered them or accepted hints ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... lying on the bed, with its grim head on the pillow. A man? Or a corpse arisen from its unhallowed grave, and awaiting the demon that animated it? There it lay—a gaunt, gigantic form, wasted to a skeleton, half-clad, foul with dust and clotted gore, its huge limbs flung upon the couch as if at random, its shaggy hair streaming over the pillows like a lion's mane. His face was toward me. Oh, the wild hideousness of that face, even in sleep! In features it was human, even through its horrid mask of mud and half-dried bloody gouts, but the expression was brutish ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... to 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 ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... Faith is a spiritual and personal thing, if Belief given at random to mere high pretensions is an immorality, if Truth is not to be quite trampled down, nor Conscience to be wholly palsied in us,—then what, I ask, was I to do, when I saw that the genealogy in the first chapter of Matthew is an erroneous copy of that in the ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... lack of opposition the mob grew more cheerful. The lion played. They pressed forward, wanton and jeering, firing now and then at random, breaking windows as they passed, looting small shops which they stripped like locusts. Their pockets bulging, and the taste of pillage forecasting what was to come, they moved onward more rapidly, shooting at upper windows or into the air, laughing, yelling, cursing, talking. From the barricades, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... I shall pray For thee when I am far away; For never saw I mien or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! And seemliness complete, ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... Does, then, nature impress us as the outcome of chance? If we saw a faultlessly executed mathematical diagram illustrating a proposition in Euclid, should we really be satisfied with the statement that it represented the random pencil-strokes made by a blindfolded child ignorant of geometry? On the other hand, if a fretful baby is allowed to divert himself by hammering the piano keys, is the result ever remotely akin to a tune? We know perfectly well that we never get harmony, order, beauty, rationality by accident; ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... philosopher, eh!" Having little German he turned away and lighted his pipe. After a while he began to fidget, wondering how long he was to be kept waiting. "Damn the fellow!" he muttered and picked up one of the books on the table, Les Ba-Rongas, par A. Junod, opened it at random and began ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... ah, too late! to eager Xerxes taught— Trusting random counsellors and hare-brained men of nought, Who said Darius mighty wealth and fame to us did bring, But thou art nought, a blunted spear, a palace-keeping king! Unto those sorry counsellors a ready ear he lent, And led away to Hellas' shore ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... is probable, the qualities of the novelist, the narrator. An excellent critic he might have been if he had 'descended to criticism,' but he had, at this time, no introductions, and probably did not address reviews at random to editors. As to poetry, these much-vexed men receive such enormous quantities of poetry that they usually reject it at a venture, and obtain the small necessary supplies from agreeable young ladies. Had Murray been in London, with a few literary ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... passing taxi, helped her in and gave at random the first place that suggested itself to him, which ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... an island off a certain part of the coast of Maine,—a little rocky island, heaped and tumbled together as if Dame Nature had shaken down a heap of stones at random from her apron, when she had finished making the larger islands which lie between it and the mainland. At one end, the shoreward end, there is a tiny cove, and a bit of silver-sand beach, with a green meadow beyond it, and a single great pine; but all the rest is ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... religious things he said, and yet the reality and force of them, struck her powerfully. He had forgotten her, forgotten everything save the bitter human need, and the comfort it was his privilege to offer. Catherine stood answering Mrs. Tyson at random, the tears rising in her eyes. She slipped out while he was still talking, and went ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... boys get together than, as a usual thing, they divided into squads and chose sides; then a leading arrow was shot at random into the air. Before it fell to the ground a volley from the bows of the participants followed. Each player was quick to note the direction and speed of the leading arrow and he tried to send his own at the same speed and at an equal height, so that ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... far as those phases are completed, there are common characteristics, and, as like accordances in individuals point out that all are living under a reign of law, we are justified in inferring that the course of nations, and indeed the progress of humanity, does not take place in a chance or random way, that supernatural interventions never break the chain of historic acts, that every historic event has its warrant in some preceding event, and gives warrant to others ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... the house with the look of a man who sees a vision before him. His wife was in the room. Without taking off his hat he sat down at random. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... passed into a proverb.] and assert, and accuse this or that person, is possible; but so your affairs are ruined. The general commands wretched unpaid hirelings; here are persons easily found, who tell you lies of his conduct; you vote at random from what you hear: ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... room, - and took out his rifle and packet of ammunition. "Don't go playing the goat, Sim!" said Losson. "Put it down," but there was a quaver in his voice. Another man stooped, slipped his boot, and hurled it at Simmons's head. The prompt answer was a shot which, fired at random, found its billet in Losson's throat. Losson fell forward without a word, ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... home she spoke of Lucia Catherwood as one comes to a subject in the course of a random conversation, and connected her name with that of the Secretary in such a manner that Prescott felt a thrill of anger rise, not against Mrs. Markham, but against Lucia and Mr. Sefton. The remark ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the previous three days. I talked to the infant, and played with him, asked her if she would like a child, if she would let me be the father, and got a chaffing reply. Suddenly it struck me from the scuffle I had heard in the barn, that she and the page were very intimate, and said as a random shot, "You would not mind Robert cuddling you, would you now?" She coloured up, looked confused, then said, as if she did not recollect, "Robert?—who is Robert?" "Fat Robert the page." "Pough." said she, "that big boy!" She took up the child, and walked off,—not to the house, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... many a hard place in my life by your work. At times when I have felt myself worn out with my business, or face to face with some knotty problem in my career, I have found much relief in picking up and reading your books at random. They have helped me to forget my weariness or my knotty problems for the time being; and to-day, finding myself in this town, I resolved to call upon you this evening and thank you for all that you have done ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... to engage at the same time as the van, at four, but at a most improper distance, and our rear, being barely within random shot, did not fire while the signal for the line was flying. The London had the signal for close action flying, as well as the signal for the line ahead at half a cable was under her topsails, with the main topsail to the mast,[99] though the enemy's ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... the last bolt the gate opened and the soldiers rushed in, firing at random as they did so. Bathurst had stepped behind the gate as it opened, and as the soldiers ran up the yard he took Isobel's hand, and, passing through the gate, ran with her round the building until he reached the spot where Rabda was awaiting them. Half a minute later ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... did nothing to advance Medicine beyond the point where the Greeks had left it. The treatises of Haly, Avicenna, and Maimonides were little better than faint transcriptions of the writings of the great forerunners. Their teaching was random and spasmodic, whereas the system of Hippocrates was conceived in the spirit of Greek philosophy, moving on by select experience, always observant and cautious, and ascending by slow and certain steps to the generalities of Theory. ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... She was a big woman, dressed in loose folds of red and blue. Her hair was dishevelled, and ornamented with brass pins fastened into it at random. Her sleeves were rolled up to her armpits, and she had her arms akimbo—fat, flabby arms that shook as she laughed. Her eyes were almost hidden, she screwed them up so closely, but her wide mouth opened and disclosed a ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... Probing at random I had touched a very sensitive nerve. We had got down from underneath the political and reached the social. What is the true and original root of Dutch aversion to British rule? It is not Slagters Nek, nor Broomplatz, nor Majuba, nor the Jameson Raid. Those incidents only ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... library, but there ought to be some systematic work where the topics are thoughtfully chosen, the librarian informed of them in advance, and the notes criticised. A moderate amount of reference work so conducted would be of greater benefit than a large quantity of the random sort which we now commonly have. Five librarians state that they are usually given the topics beforehand. Several others are provided with courses of study or attend grade meetings in which ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... or Balam, and the names of his two brothers, Huuncay and Aac, the latter the builder of the 'House of the Governor' at Uxmal, are not given by us at random. They are written on the monuments where represented, written in characters just as intelligible to my wife and myself, as this paper is to you in latin letters. Every person represented on these monuments ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... of such a course of action may be seen on a large scale in India. In one of the colleges of an Indian University in a large manufacturing town, fourteen young men—very agreeable and frank, outspoken fellows—met at random in one of the hostels, were asked what, on completing their college course, they intended to do; twelve answered to become "pleaders," and two hoped for something in the Government service. None proposed ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... subject. The first question is, how to cut the vine-leaf? Shall we cut its ribs and notches on the edge, or only its general outline? and so on. Then, how to arrange the vine-leaves when we have them; whether symmetrically, or at random; or unsymmetrically, yet within certain limits? All these I call questions of treatment. Then, whether the vine-leaves so arranged are to be set on the capital of a pillar or on its shaft, I call a question ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... only a random thought; I didn't expect you to understand it. How did you get your English; is it an acquirement, or ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... their opportunities or lived the best possible lives; they have veered this way and that according to the moment's impulse, they have been misled by ingrained habits and paralyzed by inertia, they have wandered at random for lack of a clear vision of their goal. The task of the moralist is to attain such a clear vision; to understand, first, the basis of all preference, and then, in detail, the reasons for preferring this concrete act to that. Here are a thousand impulses and instincts ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... halt in front of the club-house. Frederick seemed to have lost his speech. Without saying a word, he escorted Ingigerd to the door, pressed her hand, and returned to the cab. He chose a place at random, and called to the coachman to ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... phial, containing only common air, I force a quantity of nitrous air at random, out of a bladder, and instantly clap my finger on the mouth of the bottle. I then immerse the neck of it into water, a small quantity of which I suffer to enter, which squirts into it with violence; and immediately replacing my finger, remove the phial. The water ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... spot from which the Ark had so lately moved. Her own course has been described, and it has now become our office to follow that of her father and his companions. The shriek announced the effects of the random shot of March, and it also proclaimed that the victim was a woman. Hurry himself was startled at these unlooked for consequences, and for a moment he was sorely disturbed by conflicting sensations. At first he laughed, in reckless and rude-minded exultation; and then conscience, that ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Natalya pulled herself together, got up, wiped her eyes, and, lighting a candle, she burnt Rudin's letter in the flame, and threw the ash out of window. Then she opened Pushkin at random, and read the first lines that met her. (She often made it her oracle in this way.) This ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... evenings. I could make up a new "Thousand and One Nights," in my own way, out of these pictures, but the number might be too great, after all. The pictures I have here given have not been chosen at random, but follow in their proper order, just as they were described to me. Some great gifted painter, or some poet or musician, may make something more of them if he likes; what I have given here are only hasty ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... trying his power or playing with it, for he talked to Jonathan, and looked towards him as he received his adversary's fire. Charles' bullet broke a branch of willow, and ricocheted over the surface of the water; Raphael fired at random, and shot his antagonist through the heart. He did not heed the young man as he dropped; he hurriedly sought the Magic Skin to see what another man's life had cost him. The talisman was no larger than a ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... paper afterwards with seeming great attention, said it was quite correct, and that if he had not seen him do it he never could have believed his friend capable of writing music after him. Roubiliac had jotted down notes at random. Neither had any real knowledge of music, and Goldsmith ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... they were all coming out, he seized his bow and arrow, and aimed among the horses at random. ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... drought—but why mix up a plain thing with a lot of nonsense about a black cross down a hole? Genesmere was critically struck with the words of the tune he now noticed steadily running in his head again, beneath the random ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Kensington Palace Gardens, where he was ushered into the drawing-room, to find Marilda, resolved upon unconsciousness, but only succeeding in a kind of obstreperous cordiality and good will, which, together with the hot room, made him quite dizzy; and his answers were so much at random, that he sent Fulbert to an examination at Cambridge, and Clement prospecting in Australia. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Underwood made their appearance; but when Felix spoke of getting a cab, Marilda said the carriage was ordered. Then ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... These random jottings scarcely lend themselves to the scrupulous preservation of a chronological continuity. Many other matters meriting some mention as affecting the War Office had claimed one's attention before the Dardanelles ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... Somalia has no functioning government; the United Somali Congress (USC) ousted the regime of Maj. Gen. Mohamed SIAD Barre on 27 January 1991; the present political situation is one of anarchy, marked by inter-clan fighting and random banditry ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... That was all. Random remarks here and there, being pieced together gave Laura a vague impression of a man of fine presence, abort forty-three or forty-five years of age, with dark hair and eyes, and a slight limp in his walk—it was not stated which leg ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... a perfect blaze of rifles. Every man fired at random. At least a dozen bullets crashed against the rock. A violent tug at his left sleeve and some spatters of hot lead on his cheek showed that one missile had come too near to be pleasant. After passing through his coat it had splashed on the granite ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... infectious disease. But it is an essential element in every attempt to deal with the prevention of disease. Unless we know precisely the exact incidence, local variations, and temporary fluctuations of a disease we are entirely in the dark and can only beat about at random. All progress in public hygiene has been accompanied by the increased notification of disease, and most authorities are agreed that such notification must be still further extended, any slight inconvenience thus caused to individuals being of trifling ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... 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; ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... busy with thoughts of his own. Carolyn June had been very impartial during the evening meal, distributing her smiles and little attentions freely among them all. Now she was sitting at the piano playing snatches of random melodies as they came to her mind, while Skinny sat stiffly on a high-backed chair at the corner of ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... without water. They 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 terrible trip ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... but, as I was amused to find, without the smallest success. I had braced myself to meet the crucial moment early the next morning, when the policeman came into my room and, not knowing to whom the passports belonged, gave me three at random to choose from. With joy in my heart I seized my own, and dismissed the dreaded messenger in the most friendly way. Once on board the steamer I realised with true satisfaction that I had now stepped on to Swiss territory. It was a lovely spring ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the forms and summaries for the two men who had been discharged, and compared them with several random ...
— Day of the Moron • Henry Beam Piper
... court in Fleet street." His joy was too great for utterance when he saw it in print. It was the beginning of a career as a writer unparalleled in English or American history. And he told the secret of it when he wrote, "While other boys played, I read Roderick Random, Tom Jones, The Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Bias, and other books. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... that listens. The sun continued to shine on the brown moorland hills across the gray-green river, the world was quite the same, yet one sensed that something had changed. A village lay ahead of us, disfigured by random shells and half deserted. Beyond the still, shell-spattered houses, a great wood rose, about a mile and a half away, on a ridge that stood boldly against the sky. Running from the edge of the trees down across an open slope to the river was a ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... this a gleam of random joy Hath flush'd my unaccustom'd cheek; And, with an o'er-charg'd bursting heart, I feel the thanks I ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Mrs. Winscombe's place before the fire. She spoke trivially, at random intervals. A great longing swept over him to tell his mother everything, try to find an escape in her wise counsel; but his emotion seemed so ugly that he could not lay it before her. Besides, he had a conviction that it would be hopeless: he was gone. She was discussing Ludowika ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... than their radicals."—Dr. Murray cor. "Few of us would be less corrupted than kings are, were we, like them, beset with flatterers, and poisoned with those vermin."—Kames cor. "But it seems these literati had been very ill rewarded for their ingenious labours."—R. Random cor. "If I had not left off troubling myself about things of that kind."—Swift cor. "For things of this sort are usually joined to the most noted fortune."—Bacon cor. "The nature of those ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Bible; and opening it at random, Christie read. She read softly and slowly, psalm after psalm; and soothed by her voice, Mrs Lee lay and listened. After a time, Christie thought that she slept, and made ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... extraordinary or unusual feat for him to conquer the distance between the Winkelried and the shores of Vaud; but, like all the others, on casting himself into the water, he was obliged to shape his course at random, and this, too, amid such a driving spray as rendered even respiration difficult. As has been said, the waves were compressed into their bed rather than augmented by the wind; but, had it been otherwise, the mere heaving and settling ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... It is, indeed, an exercise for all the powers of the mind, except the inventive faculty. Perception, judgement, reasoning, memory, and method, are indispensable to the performance. Nothing is to be guessed at, or devised, or uttered at random. If the learner can but rehearse the necessary definitions and rules, and perform the simplest exercise of judgement in their application, he cannot but perceive what he must say in order to speak the truth in parsing. His principal difficulty is in determining ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... umbrellas, or forget to return a book, or take a rise out of the railway company. In fact he is a thoroughly honest man who allows his honesty the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he takes your umbrella at random from the barber's stand. He knows he can't get a worse one than his own. He may get a better. He doesn't look at it very closely until he is well on his way. Then, "Dear me! I've taken the wrong umbrella," he says, with an ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... keeping up with the swift motion of the boat in such a leisurely way. The porpoise is a deceiver. As he rolls up to the surface of the water, in his lumbering way, he looks as if he were a huge lump of unwieldy awkwardness, floating at random and almost helpless; but when you come to know him better, you find that he is a marvel of muscular power and swiftness. I have seen a "school" of porpoises in the Pacific swimming for hours alongside one of our fleetest ocean-steamers, darting a few ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... satisfaction to discover that our forces still held Governor's Hill, and had thrown up works on it from which they were bombarding the town. As the wind would not allow us to get in close to the forts, we hove-to main-topsails to the masts, and employed ourselves in firing random shots at the enemy's works while the Lowestoffe repaired damages. At five in the afternoon, seeing a British Union Jack flying close to the woods at the water's edge, the Porcupine was directed to run in and land her guns. This was done under a heavy fire from the fort. ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... tree. Click! flash! bang! and a bullet came with a heavy thug into the tree. Bang! went another gun,—another,—and another; and the pickets all along the rebel lines, thinking that the Yankees were coming, blazed away at random. The Yankee pickets, thinking that the rebels were advancing, became uneasy and fired in return. Paul could hear the bullets spin through the air and strike into the trees. His first thought was to ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... silent as the three men left the tent. They walked as if from boredom, changing direction often as though at random; yet they moved with a deceiving swiftness, and each step brought them closer to the crude dome. The sound of their movements was as a whisper that lost itself with the quiet murmur of the night wind through the ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... it. She had wound into his heart to bleed him of all he knew and sell the secrets for money. A wonderful sort of eloquence lay there, on those coals, no doubt. He felt a slight movement of curiosity to glance at two or three random sentences: very slight. And why read them now? They were valueless to him, mere outcries. He judged her by the brute facts. She and her slowly-consuming letter were of a common blackness. Moreover, to read them when he was plighted to another ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... you enclosed an exercise by one of my pupils chosen at random, for all of them are animated by the same sentiments. You will see how the immortal glory of your son shines even in humble villages, and that the admiration and gratitude which the children, so far away in the country, ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... with Krag and Nightspore—to follow Surtur. I must have fainted the moment I arrived. When I sat up, it was night and the others had—vanished. Since then I've been travelling at random." ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... to him—but if the water could be depended on, he wouldn't go hungry or thirsty. Even tobacco and liquor were present in comparably liberal quantities. The liquor he'd seen was all good; almost at random he had selected a bottle of cognac and brought it and a glass to the main room with him. The thought of food wasn't attractive at the moment. But ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz
... attended it. The continual calls of a responsible business, itself sufficient to occupy a man,—when divided with the oversight of his farm, overtasked his powers, and left him no leisure for poetic work, except from time to time crooning over a random song. Then the habits which his roving Excise life must have induced were, even to a soul less social than that of Burns, perilous in the extreme. The temptations he was in this way exposed to, Lockhart has drawn with a powerful ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... a cloud of smoke soon collects in front of a line firing at will, hiding, more or less completely, the enemy from view. The fire being then at random, it is, ...
— A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry • Francis J. Lippitt
... were in sight of a solidly built house on the hill. There was one thing which struck his mind at once. No attempt had been made to find level for the foundation. The log structure had been built apparently at random on the slope. It conformed, at vast waste of labor, to the angle of the base and the irregularities of the soil. This, perhaps, made it seem smaller than it was. They caught the scent of wood smoke, and then saw a pale drift of ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... in each line, and you can fill up the fifteen divisions with any numbers running from one to ninety, that you may see fit. Ninety tickets, with numbers from one to ninety, are put in a revolving glass barrel, and after being well shaken up, some one draws out one number at random, (the slips of paper being rolled up in such manner that the numbers on them can not be seen.) It is passed to the judges, and is then read aloud, and exposed to view, in conspicuous figures, on a stand or stands; and so on until the tombola is won or ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... reader will cut out the little circular disks which he will find at the back of the book, and place them at random on the numbered spots, leaving number ten vacant for his first move, he may find Bright-Wits' task to be less ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood
... Carter was invited to admire, and so on to a score of topics. The first thing was to make Carter think and talk, which he did in the happy-go-lucky way of his class, uttering nine mighty simple remarks, and then a bit of superlative wisdom, or something that sounded like it. And when he had shot his random bolts, Mr. Eden would begin and treat each picture as a text, and utter much wisdom on it ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... table is covered with a cloth, and on it is set a dish or bowl (blyudo) containing water. The young people drop rings or other trinkets into the dish, which is afterwards covered with a cloth, and then the Podblyudnuiya Songs commence. At the end of each song one of the trinkets is drawn at random, and its owner deduces an omen from the nature of the words which have just ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... during the salutations of the parties had sat in rather sullen silence, sprang from the sleigh of Marmaduke to the heads of the refractory leaders. The horses, which were yet suffering under the injudicious and somewhat random blows of Richard, were dancing up and down with that ominous movement that threatens a sudden and uncontrollable start, still pressing backward. The youth gave the leaders a powerful jerk, and they plunged aside, and re-entered the road in the position in which they were first ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper |
