"Significant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... merchandise to Illinois annually between 1790 and 1796, which returned each season with a cargo of skins and furs. Pittsburgh was thus a distributing center of some importance; but the fact that no drayman or warehouse was to be found in the town at this time is a significant commentary on the undeveloped state ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... with music and singing; among the rest Miss Simmons sang a little Scotch song, called Lochaber, in so artless, but sweet and pathetic a manner, that little Harry listened almost with tears in his eyes, though several of the young ladies, by their significant looks and gestures, treated it ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... up with soil and debris, withered brackens and bramble,—no refuge for any one there. It vexed me that Jarvis should see me coming from that spot when he came up to me for his orders. I don't know whether my nocturnal expeditions had got wind among the servants, but there was a significant look in his face. Something in it I felt was like my own sensation when Simson in the midst of his scepticism was struck dumb. Jarvis felt satisfied that his veracity had been put beyond question. I never spoke to a servant of mine in such a peremptory tone before. I sent him away ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... or sense of pre-existence, of which this Suspiria may be regarded as one significant and affecting illustration, had this record in the outset of the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... significant that Vanhorn had originally been sent out by the Governor of Hispaniola to hunt for pirates, but once out of sight of land and away from authority the temptation to get rich quickly was too great to resist, so that he joined the pirates in the ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... Largely through the influence of such treatment as this, we moderns have almost forgotten at times that during this period there lived men inferior to none in history in endowments of mind and influence on succeeding generations, and that there then took place some of the most significant and far-reaching intellectual conflicts in the history of thought. "With Cicero," says Professor Stirling, "we reached in our course a most important and critical halting-place.... We have still ... to wait those ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole
... opposed this suggestion—saying, with a significant smile, that there was no need of such precautions, as he would answer for the bear not leaving his den, until they had all got up as near as ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... castle to assist Khudhr in bringing the rest of our property toward the tree. This done, Khudhr returned to the crowd to learn what he could of their intentions. He soon came back to us in evident terror, and said, with a significant motion of his hand, that they were intending ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... sitting up part of each day. I reached out my hands and took their hands, bringing them together in a significant contact. Miss Spurgeon bent over me, placing a kiss upon my brow. "You are a dear boy," she said. And Reverdy said: "The Lord keep you always, son." Their eyes showed the tears, and as for me my ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... examined was she whom he had loved and loved still, he felt rise in him emotion that threatened to make him conspicuous unless it could be hidden. The answers of these Mormon women had been not altogether unexpected by him, but once spoken in cold blood under oath, how tragic, how appallingly significant of the shadow, the mystery, the yoke that bound them! He was amazed, saddened. He felt bewildered. He needed to think out the meaning of the falsehoods of women he knew to be good and noble. Surely ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... It was significant that Laura Ann, in going in and out, now chose to ignore the gayly-illuminated placard that swung on the door—that she herself had adorned and hung there. But she did not go in and out as much now; for whole mornings she slipped ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... confident air of knowing that he was going not only to enjoy a piece of good-fortune himself, but to administer a great gratification to us. Our "casualty" turned out to be the affair of a Catholic priest, of which our informer spoke only in dark hints and with significant shoulder-shrugs and eyebrow-elevations, because it was "not exactly the thing to get out, you know"; but if it wasn't to get out, why did he let it out? and so from my dark corner I watched him as a cat does a mouse, and the lamp-light shone full upon him, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... guilt— accusation and inculpation of another. In case Lloyd were innocent and Mrs. Surratt the guilty coadjutrix and messenger of the conspirators, would not Lloyd have been able to cite so many open and significant remarks and acts of Mrs. Surratt that he would not have been obliged to recall, in all perversion and weakness of uncertainty, deeds and speech so common and unmeaning as his ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... some other northern animals, in these caverns seems to imply a colder climate than that of the Swiss lake-dwellings, in which no remains of reindeer have as yet been discovered. The absence of this last in the old lacustrine habitations of Switzerland is the more significant, because in a cave in the neighbourhood of the lake of Geneva, namely, that of Mont Saleve, bones of the reindeer occur with flint implements similar to those of the caverns ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... up for the night, the people always took him for my son; a fact I thought it useless to dispute in a foreign country. It would have had a more significant meaning in England. A red-headed, single lady could not have travelled alone, with a red-headed child, without disagreeable insinuations. Abroad I always passed myself off as a widow, and Adolphe of ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... suddenly and violently forward, breaking Rough Rorke's grip on Rhoda Gray—and, as his arms swept out to grasp at the detective in an apparently wild effort to preserve his balance, Rhoda Gray felt a quick, significant push upon ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... small circles on the serpents. The four large figures are, as we shall hereafter see, fanciful representations of certain ideas held by this people in regard to the four cardinal points, each probably with its significant color as understood by the artist, and each probably indicating one of the ...
— Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts • Cyrus Thomas
... look across at Elizabeth and caught the alert sign of approval in her face. He had heard Silas and some others discuss the Hunter mortgages, but here was a still more significant evidence. Elizabeth had not signalled him, but the look told the story; in fact, it told more ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... Emperor or the Chancellor or the Foreign Minister, I jotted down from time to time notes of their conversation as well as brief summaries of the information available to me from other sources. Naturally I cabled to the Department of State the most significant news, but much of this was not published because our Government was proceeding cautiously and did not wish to be embarrassed by publicity of its negotiations. There is every reason now, however, why the facts should be known. I am reproducing here the diary I kept from June, 1915, to the end ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... commercial prosperity, and upon every thing has settled down a long sabbath of decay. The vehicles in the street are few in number, and are merely passing through; the stores are shrunken into shops; you see here and there, like a patch of bright mould, the stall of that significant fungus, the Chinaman. Many great doors are shut and clamped and grown gray with cobweb; many street windows are nailed up; half the balconies are begrimed and rust-eaten, and many of the humid arches and alleys which characterize the older Franco-Spanish piles of stuccoed brick ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... nothing. Out of an abnormal childhood, a lonely boyhood, and a failure-haunted manhood, he had managed to achieve an absorbing career. Each successive enterprise had loomed upon his horizon big with possibilities, and before it sank to oblivion, another scheme, portentous, significant, had filled its place. Life was a succession of crises, and through them he saw himself moving, now a shrewd merchant, now a professional man, again an author of note, but oftenest of all a promoter of great enterprises, a financier, and ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... been none!" said Miss Elster, in a tone more significant than her words, and shutting the door as abruptly ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... beyond her individual life and sees in her experience but one item in God's dealing with humanity in His age-long work of "bringing His wanderers home." We should have far less difficulty and find our lives far more significant if we could get rid of our wretched egotism and find it possible to lose ourselves in the work of God. We should then find the work important because it is God's work and not because we are associated with it. We should also find it less easy to be discouraged because we should not understand ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... morals, I believe, have also escaped serious stricture. I would even say that I have never been hurt by any revelation, however distorted or untimely, that I found in books, good or poor; that I have never read an idle book that was entirely useless; and that I have never quite lost whatever was significant to my spirit in any book, good or bad, even though my conscious memory can give no account ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... refused much more than a first-class supper, but was satisfied he had taken the proper line. For one thing, Duveen knew Ruth had given him her friendship and, since he knew his daughter, it was significant that he had not thought it necessary to meddle. Lister wondered whether he had meant to use him, and was glad he had kept his independence. If he got the post now, he would know he had rather misjudged Duveen, but he doubted. All the ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... took no part in the endless contest between German and Danish, his personal preference was, no doubt, for the latter. It is thus significant that, although he must have been about equally familiar with both languages, he did not write a single hymn in German. He showed no ill will toward his German speaking compatriots, however, and worked harmoniously with his German speaking ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... just as much divided there as in the country; and the year 1577 saw another petty war, counted as the sixth, which was closed by the Peace of Bergerac, another ineffectual truce which settled nothing. It was a peace made with the Politiques and Huguenots by the Court; it is significant of the new state of affairs that the League openly refused to be bound by it, and continued a harassing, objectless warfare. The Duc d'Anjou (he had taken that title on his brother Henri's accession to the throne) in 1578 deserted the Court party, ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... out the fires of the Inquisition, and so curtailed the power of the priests that they could no longer plunder with impunity, or rob the Terreros of the fruits of their father's enterprise by threatening them with the censure of the Church, which, in the reign of a feeble king, had a significant meaning. The new code of mining laws, the cheapness of quicksilver, and the opening of commerce, had all combined to make their fortune, which they might lose in a moment if the heir to the throne should prove an idiot, as was most likely, and priests ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... laid down his gun, swung round the satchel containing the food, and passed the strap over his head, setting it afterwards on the ground in a very significant manner. ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... into the saddle he proceeds to his journey's end, is warmly welcomed by his host, and speedily forgetting his slight misadventure, mingles with a happy crowd of friends. In a little while people begin exchanging whispers and significant glances; men are seen smiling at nothing in particular; the hostess wears a clouded face; the ladies cough and put their scented handkerchiefs to their noses, and presently they begin to feel faint and retire from the room. Our hero begins to notice that there is something wrong, and presently ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... with the short address, "Meine Herren." There is then an uninterrupted gliding of pens for three-quarters of an hour, until, above the monotony, rarely the eloquence, of the speaker, the great clock in the centre of the building gives the significant sound of relief to busy fingers and rest to ear and brain unaccustomed to such slow, entangled, lisping, laborious, in rare instances manly delivery. The lecture is at an end, and each prepares to enter another auditorium, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... his significant shrug and said, "I don't meet notes till they are due," which was his way of saying: "Sufficient unto the day is ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... its soft rose-colored plumage peeps out like a flower. The cry of the voracious chuquimbis[86] accompanies the traveller from his first steps in the Montanas to his entrance into the primeval forests, where he finds their relative, Dios te de.[87] This bird accompanies its significant cry by throwing back its head and making a kind of rocking movement of its body. The Indians, who are always disposed to connect superstitious ideas with the natural objects they see around them, believe that some great misfortune will befall any one who ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... undeniable fact makes itself apparent that these ten political communities are nothing less than States of this Union. At the very commencement of the rebellion each House declared, with a unanimity as remarkable as it was significant, that the war was not "waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States, but ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... a path approaching the plantation in the rear, and a little after, passing from behind a clump of live-oaks, they came in sight of the villa. It looked so like a gem, shining through its dark grove, so like a great glow-worm in the dense foliage, so significant of luxury and gayety, that the poor master, from an ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... Bower's motives, but which was now cruelly searching its author's heart—had undoubtedly supplied to a slighted woman the clew to her rival's identity. Better posted than Bower in the true history of Helen's visit to Switzerland, he did not fail to catch the most significant word ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... Thales, he was not, however, satisfied with the conclusion he had reached. Water was not to Anaximenes the most significant, neither was it the most universal element. But air seemed universally present. "The earth was a broad leaf resting upon it. All things were produced from it; all things were resolved into it. When he breathed ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... him, he must reinstate himself in the favour of the King. He appeared struck with what I had said, rose after a profound silence, paced to and fro, and then asked, "But how?" Seeing the opportunity so good, I replied in a firm and significant tone, "How? I know well enough, but I will never tell you; and yet it is the only thing to do."—"Ah, I understand you," said he, as though struck with a thunderbolt; "I understand you perfectly;" and he threw himself upon ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... be understood in two ways. First, as overpassing (supergreditur) the rule of reason, and in this sense we say that it is a sin. Secondly, it may simply denominate "super-abundance"; in which sense any super-abundant thing may be called pride: and it is thus that God promises pride as significant of super-abundant good. Hence a gloss of Jerome on the same passage (Isa. 61:6) says that "there is a good and an evil pride"; or "a sinful pride which God resists, and a pride that denotes the glory ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... pressed his companion's hand; but, not finding the pressure returned, he laughed and said in a significant tone: ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... hill influence is partly complicated with that into its operation on domestic habits and personal character, of which hereafter: but there is one curious witness borne to the general truth of the foregone conclusions, by an apparently slight, yet very significant circumstance in art. We have seen, in the preceding volume, how difficult it was sometimes to distinguish between honest painters, who truly chose to paint sacred subjects because they loved them, and the affected painters, who took sacred subjects for their ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... life suggested unspeakable thoughts and memories that clung to silence. We had not been without so much sorrow in life as does not well afford to dwell on its own images; and we rose to retrace our steps to the measure of the eternal and significant psalm of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... grooming horses and milking cows. It made me think even more of the great Australian plains and of the Texas prairie and the round up. Ay de mi, I remember it now, sometimes, and I wish I was on horseback, swinging my whip and uttering diabolic yells, significant of the freedom of the spirit as I rush after the spirit of El Toro. For my pet, my brindled fighter, my own El Toro, whom I combed so delicately with a bent nail, for whom I gathered buckets of bruised but fat Californian pears, ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... Colours, Sounds, Fancies, Relations; much less the names of Words and Speech, as Generall, Speciall, Affirmative, Negative, Interrogative, Optative, Infinitive, all which are usefull; and least of all, of Entity, Intentionality, Quiddity, and other significant words of ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... have learned Orme's name. Possibly he had not known it; the clerk might have given it to him. The incident hardly seemed worth second thought, but he found himself persistently turning to one surmise after another concerning the Japanese. For Orme was convinced that he stood on the edge of a significant situation. ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... There is another significant fact which goes to prove that the denial of design, which is the "creative idea" of Darwinism, is the main cause of its popularity and success. Professor Owen, England's greatest naturalist, is a derivationist. Derivation ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... things;—of the pathos of human nature, the pathos, also, of non-human nature. Instead of the fluidity of Chaucer's manner, the manner of Burns has spring, bounding swiftness. Burns is by far the greater force, though he has perhaps less charm. The world of Chaucer is fairer, richer, more significant than that of Burns; but when the largeness and freedom of Burns get full sweep, as in Tam o' Shanter, or still more in that puissant and splendid production, The Jolly Beggars, his world may be what it will, his poetic genius ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... see each other!" Endicott exclaimed. Each horseman pulled up, hesitated a moment, and rode on. Distance veiled from the eager onlookers the significant detail of the shifted gun arms. But no such preclusion obstructed Bat's vision as he lay flattened upon the rim of the coulee with the barrel of his six-gun resting upon the edge of a rock, and its sights lined low upon the ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... exaggerate faults and make them appear more odious, they put an evil interpretation on the deed or intention; they keep back facts that would improve the situation; they remain silent when silence is condemnatory; they praise with a malignant praise. A mean, sarcastic smile or a significant reticence often does the work better than many words and phrases. And all this, as we have said, independently of the truth or falsehood of the ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... of style, poetry, and depth of feeling without gloominess, characterize this volume of stories of the Eastern poet. This new volume of his work which introduces him to English readers as a short-story writer is as significant of his power as are the verses that have ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... he saw that the first fellow was taking down a short section of the fence, either by cutting or by pulling out the staples. When this lay flat he remounted and, joining his companion, the two proceeded to drive through the gap nothing more significant ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... seen at an early period of the contest, that the bulk of the Southern people would be found supporting Breckinridge and Lane. * It was generally held in all the slave-holding States that the election of Mr. Lincoln would be significant of a purpose among Northern men to disregard their rights, and that the inauguration of the abolition policy by the Federal officers would compel and justify the secession of the Southern ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... restrained an odd smile at the significant question. "No, dear. Only this: be considerate of your grandmother, and bring her back ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... particular that deep secret of the Gospel, unspeakably precious to the soul which indeed longs to be holy—the Indwelling of God in the believer. It here appears in close and significant connexion with the revelation of the love and work of the Incarnate and Atoning Lord; as if to remind us without more words that He who gave Himself for us did so not only to release us (blessed be His Name) ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... and bulwarks of the archbishops of Cologne against the emperors of Germany. But Drachenfels keeps another token of its legend in its dark-red wine, called "dragon's blood." (Could any teetotaller have invented a more significant name?) One has often heard of the unbelieving monk who stumbled at the passage in Scripture which declares that a thousand years are but as one day to the Lord, and the consequent taste of eternity which he was miraculously ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... stockholder in the New York Central, or does not possess millions of money. When Mr. Vanderbilt finds that you are attacked, he is a gentleman and broad-minded enough to compensate you and will grant to you both significant promotion and a large increase in salary.'" Then I added: "Well, gentlemen, I have only to say that Mr. Pulitzer's experiment has been eminently successful. He has made his newspaper a recognized power and a notable organ of public opinion; its fortunes are made and so are his, and, in ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... does not mean twins, I am greatly mistaken. On questioning the man, using the word kina, and pointing to each, we learned, after he understood us, that one was named Wutchee, and the other Wunchee. The meanings of these words I have no need to translate: they were decidedly significant, and amused us a good deal. For sewing the hides together they used an awl of bone. The thread, which was of the sinew of some animal, was thrust through the awl-holes like a shoemaker's waxed-end, and drawn tight. When they had finished, Kit gave Wutchee (or Wunchee, for the life ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... may not return. But if he does I want you to go up and give him the once over. I can trust you to note every significant detail. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... narrow confines by which their very existence was bounded. There were no such things as "trifles" in the daily life of Trigger Island. The smallest incident took on the importance of an event, the slightest departure from the ordinary at once became significant. In other circumstances, these people would have been vastly amused by the quixotic settlement of the affairs of Joe and Matilda; they would have grinned over the extraordinary decree of Justice Malone, and they would have taken it all with an indulgent wink. As a matter of ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... the letters, she read once more through the press notices of her performance. It was significant that the musical critics whose opinion had any weight gave her only a word or two of cautious commendation; her eulogists were writers who probably knew much less about music than she, and who reported concerts from the social point of view. Popular journalism represented her debut ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... a moment. Mr. Carlyle's feeling was one of unconfessed perplexity. So far the incident was utterly trivial in his eyes; but he knew that the trifles which appeared significant to Max had a way of standing out like signposts when the time came to look back over an episode. Carrados's sightless faculties seemed indeed to keep him just a move ahead as the ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... the scene early. In fact one of the boys called for him, and induced him to come round to school earlier than usual. Significant glances were exchanged when he made his appearance, but Fitz suspected nothing, and was quite unaware that he was attracting more ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... enough to suit any one; and even while he was speaking in this manner Bobolink started to crawl under the canopy that sheltered him from the dew of the night. He allowed the end of his pencil to throb against the side of the boat, giving the one significant word: "Come!" An immediate answer assured him that Andy heard, and understood. Another minute, and the Irish boy came shuffling over from the other boat, trying to keep from making any more noise than ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... themselves were destined to shine as apostles, and we read on one of the first pages of the Portuguese edition of the Autobiography, these significant words ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... stoop to his society. Meantime her retinue, finding the contents of the travelling chest would furnish a sufcient repast, urged her to accept the shelter of a roof however humble; and Lady Bellingham, with a slight inclination of her head, significant of her condescension, ordered the horses to be put to, to draw her to the door. Dr. Beaumont observed that the road would not be practicable for her carriage, on which Her Ladyship required her gentleman-usher to hand ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... bulwarks and scatter clouds of heavy spray over the backs of all who must venture into, the waist of the ship. The dogs sit with their tails to this invading water, their coats wet and dripping. It is a pathetic attitude, deeply significant of cold and misery; occasionally some poor beast emits a long pathetic whine. The group forms a picture of wretched dejection; such a life is truly hard for these ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... nothing significant in the fact that Louise, dreamy and distraught, stood at her bedroom bureau that night, scribbling "Washington" here and there over a sheet of paper. But there was something significant in the fact that she scratched the word ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... women of the type whose photographs appear in "Vogue" and "Vanity Fair," and whose costumes were like fashion suggestions for "sport clothes" in those publications. One party was stationed on the top of an old-time mail coach, the boot of which bore the significant initials "F.F.V."—standing, as even benighted Northerners must be aware, for "First Families of Virginia"; others were in a line of motors and heterogeneous horse-drawn vehicles, parked beside the course; and scattered ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... brought of the wedding, correct as far as it went, was deficient in one significant particular, which had escaped him through his being at some distance back in the church. When Thomasin was tremblingly engaged in signing her name Wildeve had flung towards Eustacia a glance that said plainly, "I have ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... friend!" Athos held him in a long embrace, and the musketeer, who knew his discretion so well, murmured in his ear—"An affair of state," to which Athos only replied by a pressure of the hand, still more significant. They then separated. Raoul took the arm of his old friend, who led him along the Rue-Saint-Honore. "I am conducting you to the abode of the god Plutus," said D'Artagnan to the young man; "prepare yourself. The whole day you will witness the piling ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... purposes at least, virtually subject the treasure also to his disposal. The first Roman Emperor, in his attempt to seize the sacred treasure, silenced the opposition of the officer to whose charge it had been committed by a significant allusion to his sword. By a selection of political instruments for the care of the public money a reference to their commissions by a President would be quite as effectual an argument as that of ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Harrison • James D. Richardson
... Inchiquin "for himself and his heirs forever." It was also alleged that these life peerages had not been conferred by the King alone, but by the King with the authority and consent of Parliament, "these significant words ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... nuisance: one might as reasonably talk of the barrack ideal, or the forecastle ideal, or any other substitution of the machinery of social organization for the end of it, which must always be the fullest and most capable life: in short, the most godly life. And this significant word reminds us that though the popular conception of heaven includes a Holy Family, it does not attach to that family the notion of a separate home, or a private nursery or kitchen or mother-in-law, or anything that constitutes the family as we know ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... leads men to call forth and exercise in themselves this power, and who busily calls it forth and exercises it in himself, is at the present moment, perhaps, as Socrates was in his time, more in concert with the vital working of men's minds, and more effectually significant, than any House of Commons' orator, or practical operator ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... on in their importation, and probably ten thousand a year were brought into the country. This stream poured almost entirely into the Southern colonies. North of Maryland the number of blacks was not significant in proportion to the total population. A few Indians were scattered among the white settlements, but they were an alien community, and had no share in ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... they went, their numbers being swelled by groups from every by-street on their way. They drew two pieces of cannon with them, and carried abundance of tricolour flags and ribbons; and also various significant emblems, one of which was a bullock's heart with a spear through it, labelled "the Aristocrat's heart." The magistrates next met them: but again the crowd declared they intended only what was lawful, ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... In order to the better discover their intentions, I pretend not to understand, whereupon the spokesman reveals their meaning plain enough by reiterating the demand in a tone meant to be intimidating, and half unsheatns his sword in a significant manner. Intuitively the precise situation of affairs seems to reveal itself in a moment; they are but ordinarily inoffensive villagers returning from Erzingan, where they have sold and squandered even the donkeys they rode to ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... at the close of the war with the United States, and may be said to have been practically completed with the two North-West Rebellions of 1870 and 1885. The latter year, indeed, closed a real {31} epoch with three significant events: the end of the last Indian and half-breed war in Canada, the completion of the first trans-continental Canadian railway, and the return from Egypt of the first and last Canadians to go on an oversea campaign ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... Banks bore with him Halleck's instructions of the 9th of November, and more than once studied with care and solicitude these significant words: "As the ranking general in the Southwest you are authorized to assume the control of any military force from the upper Mississippi which may come within your command. The line of division between your department and that of Major-General Grant is, therefore, left undecided ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... it was the only thing that had never before happened in Athens." The women seized the helm, and forthwith instituted communism. Of course, Aristophanes turns this condition into ridicule, but the significant point in the play is that, the moment the women had a decisive word in public affairs, they instituted communism as the only rational political and social condition from the standpoint of their ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... through that severe trial which comes to almost all missionaries in the foreign field, which is often one of their heaviest crosses. His two eldest boys were sent home for education. They sailed from Tientsin March 23, 1886, the diary for that day containing the brief but significant reference: 'At 6.45 A.M. came all the friends once more, at 7.30 cast off, and the vessel slowly fell out into the middle of the river. Oh! the parting!' But at 8.30 on the same morning the sorrowful father had started on his solitary return journey to Peking. Bereft now of both wife, ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... Skeeter, recognized a significant bulge to the string bag which she carried, scrambled forth, the former skilfully evading her outstretched ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... on to say that the Sketch ought to be called a collection of extracts anticipatory or corroborative of the hypothesis of Natural Selection. "For no account is given of any hostile opinions. The fact is very significant. This historical sketch thus resembles the histories of the reign of Louis XVIII., published after the Restoration, from which the Republic and the Empire, ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... the rooms were the most rambling conceivable. They, as it were, dovetailed into each other. They were of all shapes; not one mathematically square room among them all—a peculiarity which by the master-mason had not been unobserved. With a significant, not to say portentous expression, he took a circuit of the chimney, measuring the area of each room around it; then going down stairs, and out of doors, he measured the entire ground area; then compared the sum total of the areas of all the rooms on ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... the gratuitous graces, inasmuch as they imply such a fullness of knowledge and wisdom that a man may not merely think aright of Divine things, but may instruct others and overpower adversaries. Hence it is significant that it is the "word" of wisdom and the "word" of knowledge that are placed in the gratuitous graces, since, as Augustine says (De Trin. xiv, 1), "It is one thing merely to know what a man must believe in order to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... to miss a sight of a captive bowl-man. Ken felt so callow and fresh in their presence that he scarcely responded to their jokes. Worry Arthur's nickname of "Kid" vied with another the coach conferred on Ken, and that was "Peg." It was significant slang expressing the little baseball man's baseball notion of Ken's ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... up their secret report to the U-League. Included was a recommendation to authorize distribution of ten per cent of the less significant plasmoids to various experimental centers in the Hub—the big and important centers which had been bringing heavy political pressure to bear on the Federation to let them in on the investigation. That should ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... geologically considered, to actions of yesterday, give us ground and courage to conceive what may be effected in geologic periods. Thus the modern portion of the Via Mala throws light upon the whole. Near Berguen, in the valley of the Albula, there is also a little Via Mala, which is not less significant than the great one. The river flows here through a profound limestone gorge, and to the very edges of the gorge we have the evidences of erosion. But the most striking illustration of water-action upon limestone rock that I have ever seen is the gorge at Pfaeffers. Here the traveller passes along ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... was in that airy, confident tone and those significant words—usually called pregnant words in books. The old answering signs of faith and hope showed up in Hawkins's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... encouraging. She didn't tell Considine what had happened. She knew very well that he would consider the incident trivial and, in a few words, shatter her illusion of its significance. And this fear proved that she was not so very sure that it was significant herself. ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... precincts. It will be remembered that after the first cleansing of the temple, the Jews had angrily demanded of Jesus a sign by which they might judge the question of His divine commission;[1089] and it is significant that on this latter occasion no sign was asked, but instead thereof, a specific avowal as to the authority He possessed and by whom it had been given Him. A three years' course of miracle and teaching was known to ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... wisest children, the Doge Tomaso Mocenigo, who expired five years later. The reign of Foscari followed, gloomy with pestilence and war; a war in which large acquisitions of territory were made by subtle or fortunate policy in Lombardy, and disgrace, significant as irreparable, sustained in the battles on the Po at Cremona, and in the marshes of Caravaggio. In 1454, Venice, the first of the states of Christendom, humiliated herself to the Turk in the same year was established the Inquisition of State, ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... at her sharply: Was it his own imagination, or had the girl laid a significant emphasis upon the "He." Her eyes did not meet his squarely, but seemed focussed upon the edge of the bandage. He shook his head: "I reckon ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... this potent, significant personality, lounging on the bench beside her, resting in the interval of a life the intensity of which was out of her world altogether, the life, all power, of a modern rich man in great affairs; controlling vast forces, ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the human race, whom I hate; because of all the world I alone am so deeply, so terribly accurst!" was the ominously fearful yet only dimly significant reply. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... if so, can it be doubted that it is an inheritance from those wild child-hearted Vikings, who were first among the peoples of Europe to conceive woman as the chosen vessel of the divine? And how wittily true, by the way, how slily significant, was both the Norse and the Greek conception of the ruling destinies of man, the Norns and the Fates, ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... was the master hand that did what others had been trying to do. Dodd, working, as I believe, quite independently, came very near it. A comparison of the Dodd bows shown in Plates III. and IV., with the Tourtes in Plates V. and VI., will make clear a very significant fact. Dodd's work—fine as it is—is distinctly earlier in spirit than that of his great French rival. Yet they were contemporaries—in point of fact Dodd was a few ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... as a student. He performed all required work, slighted no class, shirked no rule, transgressed no restriction. But he asked no questions of any man now, no longer roved distractedly among the sects, took no share in the discussions rife in his own church. There were changes more significant: he ceased to attend the Bible students' prayer-meeting at the college or the prayer-meeting of the congregation in the town; he would not say grace at those evening suppers of the Disciples; he declined the Lord's Supper; his voice was not heard in the choir. He was, singularly enough, in ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... depicts sailors with affectionate fidelity.) But whether at the sea-side by chance, or more often in the streets of the city, the poet seeks out for the subject of his story some incident of daily occurrence made significant by his interpretation; he chooses some character common-place enough, but made firmer by conflict with evil and by victory over self. Those whom he puts into his poems are still the humble, the forgotten, the neglected, the unknown; and it is the ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... is nothing!" Nattie said, in answer to the latter's significant laugh, when the customer had retired. "Some very ludicrous incidents occur almost daily, I assure you. Truly, the ignorance of people in regard to telegraphy is surprising; aggravating too, sometimes. ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... heart." She drew the sister to her and kissed her; and Mr. Wordley shook the sister's hand, and blew his nose so loudly that the patients, who had been watching them eagerly, nodded to each other and exchanged significant glances, and there was a suppressed excitement in the ward which found adequate expression when, half an hour afterwards, the sister with flashed cheek and quavering voice made them acquainted ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... saying whether totem kins exist among them, and, if so, how far the grouping is systematic; the Kutchin groups, according to one authority, are known by the generic names of birds, beasts, and fish. As a rule, however, no classification of kins is found, nor are the phratry names specially significant. ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... new Mrs. Kane. There would have been all those little familiar touches common to people living on the same social plane. Dodge would have asked Lester to bring his wife over to see them, would have definitely promised to call. Nothing of the sort happened, and Lester noticed the significant omission. ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... by the movement of life towards its more rational, that is, more provident, organization, is attended in all its stages with a very significant difference of emphasis. I refer to the old conflict between conservatism and radicalism. If this were merely a difference of temperamental bias, it would not need to detain us. But it is really an opposition between exaggerated ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... to be trifled with, shepherd," and as the leader spoke, he made a motion with his gun that was very significant, and Day understood it, although he manifested no ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... bread," and "field of fruit," and to lay stress upon their typical import: the place, the blessing of which, as regards temporal things, is indicated by its name, shall, at some [Pg 482] future time, be blessed and fruitful in a higher sense. It is just in Micah, who is fond of making significant allusions to names, that such a supposition is very natural, as is shown, not only by chap. i., but also by vii. 18, where he gives an interpretation of his own name. As, however, the two names elsewhere also occur thus connected, without any attention being given to their ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... the promise it gave of news from the one quarter I desired, that I stumbled as I rose, and found difficulty in answering him. Nor did I recover my self-possession for hours; for the story he had to tell—after numerous apologies for his presumption in disturbing me—was so significant of coming evil that my mind was thrown again into turmoil, and the passions which I had tried to smother were ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... should the French make an attack. It was agreed that if any necessity should arise for taking up arms, the bells of the various churches in the town should ring a peal and so serve as a general signal. Such a resolution was perhaps of more significant moment in Florence than it could have been in any other town. For the palaces that still remain from that period are virtually fortresses and the eternal fights between Guelphs and Ghibellines had familiarised the ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... prosperous, successful, triumphant years; prosperous, for we have known no quarrel or misunderstanding; successful, for the number of National Associations in our Alliance has more than doubled; triumphant, because the gains to our cause within the past five years are more significant in effect and meaning than all which had come in the years preceding. Indeed, when we look back over that little stretch of time and observe the mighty changes which have come within our movement; when we hear ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... permanent form it contained not merely the stipulation that "the Imperial Chancellor, to be appointed by the Emperor, shall preside in the Bundesrath and supervise the conduct of its business," but the significant provision that "the decrees and ordinances of the Emperor shall be issued in the name of the Empire, and shall require for their validity the countersignature of the Imperial Chancellor, who thereby assumes the responsibility ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... attitude toward off-base discrimination against servicemen underwent a significant change in the mid-1960's. At first Secretary McNamara relied on his commanders to win from the local communities a voluntary accommodation to his equal opportunity policy. Only after a lengthy interval, during which the accumulated evidence demonstrated that voluntary compliance would, in some ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... asleep, old fellow," said Paddy, who stood by, making a significant gesture, which the Chinaman seemed to understand fully, for his eyes twinkled more than ever, and he laughed heartily, as if he thought his proposal a ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... temperature grew gradually colder; that of the water underwent a more rapid and significant change. At twelve at night it was only three degrees centig. (about 37 degrees Fahr.). At that moment the vessel plunged into a bank of fog, the intensity of which we were enabled to ascertain, from the continuance of daylight in these latitudes at this time of the year. There ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... he proceeds, ever doing interesting things, but blind to the patent results because he had phlogiston constantly before him. He looked everywhere for it, followed it blindly, and consequently overlooked the facts regarded as most significant by his opponents, which in the end ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... there is another chance of safety; that of falling back, of flight on the part of one or the other; and that chance is often seized. Here is an example, and if it does not concern savages at all, but soldiers of our days, the fact is none the less significant. It was observed by a man of warlike temperament who has related what he saw with his own eyes, although he was a forced spectator, held to the spot ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... With significant promptitude effect was given to the recommendation of the local Inquisition: Grajal was apprehended on March 1; shortly afterwards Martinez de Cantalapiedra was likewise apprehended; and, as these measures seemed to arouse no feeling more dangerous than surprise ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... thought and said till then were trivial in comparison with my loneliness, in comparison with my present suffering, and the suffering that lay before me in the future. Alas, the thoughts and doings of living creatures are not nearly so significant as their sufferings! And without clearly realizing what I was doing, I pulled at the bell of the Dolzhikovs' gate, broke it, and ran along the street like some naughty boy, with a feeling of terror in my heart, expecting every moment that they would ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of Sir Duncan's castle, and verifying his own military ideas upon the nature of its defences. But a stout sentinel, who mounted guard with a Lochaber-axe at the door of his apartment, gave him to understand, by very significant signs, that he was in a sort of ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... of the manuscript until clearer spiritual vision showed him that the whole matter was not of faith and was therefore sin, so that he would neither sell nor print the novel, but burned it—another significant step, for it was his first courageous act of self-denial in surrender to the voice of the Spirit—and another stone or timber was thus ready ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... curious, if not significant, that in the language of Tahiti, which is related to that of these islands, Maui appears, not as a place, but as a sun god who destroyed his enemies with a jaw-bone, while the word hawaii means hell. Strange, indeed, that one of the most heavenly corners of the earth should have taken on a ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... whistle from the sidewalk opposite made her start, and look down. At first no one was visible; then a match was struck, flared yellow for a second, and went out, and again that low, significant whistle. Nance dropped on her knees beside the window and watched. A man's figure emerged from the gloom and crossed the street. A moment later she heard the ringing of the doorbell. Could Dan have ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... are interesting and valuable as records of the sentiments and attitudes which the racial struggle has called forth in the black man and in the white. The strange distortions of fact and opinion which they record are significant, not so much for what they tell us of the Negro, as for what they reveal of the intensity of the racial conflict, and of the nature of the passions involved. Most books on the Negro in America published prior to 1900, and some ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... and foreign aid. Once self-sufficient in food production, northern Yemen has been a major importer. Land once used for export crops—cotton, fruit, and vegetables—has been turned over to growing qat, a mildly narcotic shrub chewed by Yemenis that has no significant export market. Oil export revenues started flowing in late 1987 and boosted 1988 ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... to affirm that I have done something more than has been accomplished by my predecessors, or contemporaries, with the significant language under consideration. I have written a purely flash song, of which the great and peculiar merit consists in its being utterly incomprehensible to the uninformed understanding, while its meaning must ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... ready, and the characters were assembling for the great modern drama, in a century even more significant than the one ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... It is significant that Turgenev, who was so full of sympathy for the ideas and civilization of Western Europe, and who was so often regarded (unjustly) by his countrymen as a traitor to Russia, should have written all his masterpieces, ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... for them both, and, therefore, for the entire family. No father was in evidence; he was dead and never spoken of, and Linda was the only child. Linda's dresses, those significant trivialities, plainly showed two tendencies—the gaiety of her mother and her own always formal gravity. If Linda appeared at dinner, in the massive Renaissance materialism of the hotel dining-room, with a preposterous ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... to see a man of your calibre get as nervous and excited over a little fire as you seem to be," replied the captain, in significant tones. "If I may presume to ask the question, how does it come that yon are on the ground so early when there are no alarm-bells ringing? What is the reason those engines are not ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... unlike the others, is freely movable. We are thus enabled to bring the thumb in opposition to each of the fingers, a matter of the highest importance in manipulation. For this reason the loss of the thumb disables the hand far more than the loss of either of the fingers. This very significant opposition of the thumb to the fingers, furnishing the complete grasp by the hand, is characteristic of the human race, and is wanting in the hand of the ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... commences wiping the sun-scorched face of the inebriate with his handkerchief, and with his hand smooths and parts, with an air of tenderness, his hair; and when he has done this, he spreads the handkerchief over the wretched man's face, touches the querulous vote-cribber on the arm, and with a significant wink beckons him away, saying, "Come away, now, he has luffed into the wind. A sleep will do ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams |
