"Transitory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the grim epitaph, I should be disposed to rank those which remind the passer-by of his transitory estate. In different parts of the country—in Cumberland and Cornwall, in Croyland Abbey, in Llangollen Churchyard, in Melton Mowbray—are to be found lines more or ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... dwellers in the land, though they are the intimates of all sojourners and passengers; and if I have any regret in the matter, it is that I did not more diligently study them when I could. The opportunity once lost, seldom recurs; they are all but as transitory as the Object of Interest itself, I remember that years ago when I first visited Cambridge, there was an old man appeared to me in the character of Genius of the College Grounds, who showed me all the notable things in our ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... source of all fertility; she is the goddess of love. The servants of these goddesses were priestesses, or at a later date men dressed as women. At first the gods, in so far as they had any existence, appear in the form of temporary lovers of the goddesses; they are very plainly the transitory male element needful for fertilisation, and then destined to disappear.[235] We find very early the brother as the husband and dependent of the Mother-goddess. Thus Isis did not change or lose her independent position ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... in general, all evergreens were Dionysiac plants, that is, symbols of the generative power, signifying perpetuity of youth and vigor." The crowns of laurel, olive, etc., with which the victors in the Roman triumphs and Grecian games were honored, were emblems of immortality, and not merely transitory marks ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... constitutional instability is now a simple matter of fact, which has become too plain to be denied. The system is not fixed, but in motion; and the motion is for the time in the direction of complete self-dissolution.—We take it for a transitory scheme, whose breaking up is to make room in due time for another and far more perfect state of the Church.—The new order in which Protestantism is to become thus complete cannot be reached without the co-operation and help of Romanism.—NEVIN, ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... so rare in the life of any man when he says to himself, "I am happy." To Jack, these three words, never spoken, but somewhere within him articulate and peremptory, these three words almost overwhelmed him with their significance. He trembled for this treasure, so elusive, so transitory, perhaps, so surely ill deserved; he grew humble with the thought of his own unworthiness, and, though no believer in the ordinary sense, he began to feel the first stirring of religion. When Fetuao, with sweet shame, laid her head against his shoulder and told him of her impending ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... that dream of the perfect love between two beings immemorially paired was the most futile and ravaging of all the dreams civilization had imposed upon mankind. The curse of imagination. Only the savages and the ignorant masses understood "love" for the transitory functional thing it was and were undisturbed by spiritual unrest . . . by dreams . . . mad longings. . ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... thunder-bearing frigate, into fragments, as you would crack an eggshell?—No, not anger; deaf, blind, unheeding indifference,—that is all. Out of me all things arose; sooner or later, into me all things subside. All changes around me; I change not. I look not at you, vain man, and your frail transitory concerns, save in momentary glimpses: I look on the white face of my dead mistress, whom I follow as the bridegroom follows the bier of her who has changed her nuptial raiment ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... ostensible discomfiture whose symptoms Lanyard had remarked had been a transitory humour. Mr. Blensop was now in what seemed the most equable and blithe of tempers. His very posture at the telephone eloquently betokened as much: he had thrown himself into the chair with picturesque nonchalance, sitting with body half turned from the desk, his right hand holding the ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... natural selection suffices for the production of species remains to be seen. Few can doubt that, if not the whole cause, it is a very important factor in that operation; and that it must play a great part in the sorting out of varieties into those which are transitory and ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... the making of kings and priests, it is equally true that they are the creation of the servility and superstition of the mass of men. The eighteenth century chose to forget that man is a gregarious animal. Oppression and priestcraft are the transitory forms in which the flock has sought to cement its union. But the modern world is steeped in the lore of anthropology; there is little need to bring its heavy guns to bear upon the slender fabric of Shelley's dream. Queen ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... leave our old friend in one of those moments of unmixed happiness, of which, if we seek them, there are ever some, to cheer our transitory existence here. There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast. Some men, like bats or owls, have better eyes for the darkness than for the light. We, who have no such optical powers, are better ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... active virtue, nor habitual kindness, self-sacrifice, or liberality. Masonry plays about them like the cold though brilliant lights that flush and eddy over Northern skies. There are occasional flashes of generous and manly feeling, transitory splendors, and momentary gleams of just and noble thought, and transient coruscations, that light the Heaven of their imagination; but there is no vital warmth in the heart; and it remains as cold and sterile as the Arctic or Antarctic regions. They do nothing; they gain no ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... some Heir of your Royal Highness's making! Perhaps the tranquil convenience with which your Royal Highness at Reinsberg can now attend to that object, will be of better effect than all those hasty and transitory visits at Berlin were. At least I wish it with the best of my heart. I beg pardon, Monseigneur, for intruding thus into everything which concerns your Royal Highness;'—In truth, I am a rather impudent busybodyish fellow, with superabundant dashing manner, speculation, utterance; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... being here conceived as cause and effect, is no confusion at all, but is explained and vindicated by the deep truth that nothing but the indwelling of the Christ can fit for the indwelling of the Christ. The lesser gift of His presence prepares for the greater measure of it; the transitory inhabitation for the more permanent. Where He comes in smaller measure He opens the door and makes the heart capable of His own more entire indwelling. 'Unto him that hath shall be given.' It is Christ in the heart that makes the heart fit for Christ to dwell in the heart. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... on the point of urging her afresh to go with them to church; but something in her eyes brought a thought across his mind, as transitory as a breath passes over a looking-glass, and he desisted from his entreaty, and put away his thought as a piece of vain coxcombry, insulting to Hester. He passed rapidly on to all the careful directions rendered necessary by her compliance with the latter part of his request, coupling ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... in amber," He after eagles clamber? Nay, faction's ante-chamber Were fitter place for him, A trifler transitory, To gasconade of "glory"! He'd foul fair France's story, Her ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... a mystery, and it is a terror only because the urgency of our transitory desires makes us misconceive the mystery. But read over again the great peaceful words of Maeterlinck in his book on death, words ringing with compassion for our fears in ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... the same. And then, quite suddenly, in some vast storm or cataclysm, it was gone. I saw but a blurred chaos. This was near 4,000 A.D. Then it was rebuilt, smaller, with more trees growing about, until presently there seemed only a forest. People, if they still were here, were building such transitory structures that I ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... The scene is one which recurred again and again in the history of his race, yet nothing can take from it its touching features. At six years old even the intimation of a father's death, especially when taking place at a distance, would make but a transitory impression upon the mind; yet we may well imagine the child taken from his toys, wrapped from head to foot in some royal mantle, with a man's crown held over his baby head, receiving with large eyes of wonder and fright easily translated into tears, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... disciple in order to escape from this dilemma—'will seem as real as the chairs and tables round us; and remember that above all things, to the profound philosophy of occultism, are the chairs and tables, and the whole objective scenery of the world, unreal and merely transitory delusions of sense.' If, as he admits, they are material, why should they be more unreal than the chairs and tables in devachan, which are also material, since occult science contemplates no principle in ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... Agrippa and other wizards. The soap-bubble is such a globe; only one had need of second sight or double sight to see the pictures on so transitory a mirror. Perhaps it is some vague expectation of such wonders, that makes us so fond of blowing them in childish years. But, perhaps, it is rather as a prelude to the occupation of our lives, blowing bubbles where all things may be seen, that, "to the looker appertain," if we can ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... class, there are two sub-divisions: the floating, transitory, and erratic frontierman—including the hunter, the trapper, the scout and Indian-fighter: men who can not be considered citizens of any country, but keep always a little in advance of permanent ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... doing anything more than writing an ordinary letter of business, that—if the Earl's gaze was intended to interpret his feelings by any of those external marks, which betray the secrets of the heart, by slight and transitory characters written on nature's record book, the face—he was convinced at once that there was nothing concealed below. His brow relaxed, and he went on dictating, while the young gentleman ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... is not contrary to the New, for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ. Wherefore they are not to be heard who feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises, that is temporary promises, promises which would be fulfilled only in this life, and end and pass ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... were my new-born but transitory raptures. I forgot that this money was not mine. That it had been received, under every sanction of fidelity, for another's use. To retain it was equivalent to robbery. The sister of the deceased was the rightful claimant; it was my duty to ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... deemed of more value in their sight than the political union which you esteem so far above everything else, but which will nowhere ripen to manly beauty, and which, compared with the former, appears far more constrained than free, far more transitory than eternal. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... hundred square feet of it, upon which young Redwood was soon to crawl—stretched to the grill-guarded electric radiator that was to warm the whole place. A man from Cossar's hung amidst scaffolding overhead, fixing the great frame that was to hold the transitory pictures. A blotting-paper book for plant specimens as big as a house door leant against the wall, and from it projected a gigantic stalk, a leaf edge or so and one flower of chickweed, all of that gigantic ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... you know what secret societies are? what a place they occupy in the great kingdom of the world's events? Do you really think they are unimportant, transitory appearances?[572] etc. ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... our retirement as the end of the world," said Rastignac, modestly; "there are men to come after us, and many of them well able to govern; only, as we expected to give but few more representations in that transitory abode called 'power,' we have not unpacked either our costumes or our scenery. Besides, the coming session, in any case, can only be a business session. The question now is, of course, between the palace, ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... and solved by Christian Science according to Scripture. Thus we see that Spirit is Truth and eternal reality; that matter is the opposite of Spirit,—referred to in the New Testament as the flesh at war with Spirit; hence, that matter is erroneous, transitory, unreal. ...
— Unity of Good • Mary Baker Eddy
... of villainy that compel our admiration, and the villainy of McQuade was of this order. The newspapers were evidently subsidized, for their clamor was half-hearted and hypocritical. Once or twice Warrington felt a sudden longing to take off his coat and get into the fight; but the impulse was transitory. He realized that he loved ease and ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... tears glistened on her lashes, for she had the grace to realise that she was being blessed and trusted beyond her deserts. A sudden impulse assailed her to tell him everything—now, while his forgiveness enfolded her and gave her a transitory courage. But habit, and dread of losing the surpassing sweetness of reconciliation sealed her lips; and her poor little impulse went to swell the sum of ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... thou earth, hear, thou encircling sea, Yea, all that live beneath the sun, hear ye How of this world the bravery and the glory Are but vain forms and shadows transitory, Even as all things 'neath Time's empire show By their short durance and swift overthrow! Nothing avails the dignity of kings, Naught, naught avail the strength and stuff of things; The wisdom ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... she said, looking solemnly upwards, "that even in the case which you suppose, I would not sorrow so much for myself, as I would for the poor-spirited thoughts of the lover who could leave me because those transitory charms (which must in any case erelong take their departure) had fled ere yet the bridal day. It is, however, concealed by the decrees of Providence, in what manner, or to what extent, other persons, with whose disposition we are not fully acquainted, may be affected by such changes. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... risk of such an offer? Presently, what was my emotion at the sudden and abrupt entrance into the room of an officer of the king's garde du corps! in the self-same uniform as that from which I had parted with such anguish in the morning! A transitory hope glanced like lightning upon my brain, with an idea that the body-guard was all at hand; but as evanescent as bright was the flash! The concentrated and mournful look of the officer assured me nothing genial was awaiting me - and when the next ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... prevail with myself either to read over my deeds or examine my principal affairs, which ought, of necessity, to pass under my knowledge and inspection. 'Tis not a philosophical disdain of worldly and transitory things; my taste is not purified to that degree, and I value them at as great a rate, at least, as they are worth; but 'tis, in truth, an inexcusable and childish laziness and negligence. What would I not rather do than read a contract? or than, as a slave to my own business, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... easily away, the result is a rusty grayness of colour which shames the whole fabric. This grayness of aspect cannot be overcome in the carpet except by re-dyeing, and even then the improvement may be transitory, so an experienced maker of rugs lets the half-cotton ingrain drift to its ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler
... (QQ. 83, qu. 33) that "covetousness is the love of transitory things": so that it is not distinct from love. But all specific passions are distinct from one another. Therefore concupiscence is not a specific ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... Parliament at Dublin will be conducive to the benefit of the Empire. Nor is this wonderful. The plain truth is that the strength of the Home Rule movement depends, as far as England is concerned, on a peculiar, though not of necessity a transitory, state of opinion. The arguments of Home Rulers, whatever their worth (and I have not the remotest intention of denying that they have weight), derive at least half their power from their correspondence with dominant sentiments. That this is so is admitted by the now ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... wise did 1205 he die the death of this earth, as men [ordinarily] do here, young and old, when God takes away from them their possessions and substance, [all] earth's treasures, and their life as well: but while living he set forth with 1210 the King of Angels out of this transitory life into bliss,[17] [clad] in the robes which his spirit received before his mother brought him forth to men. He left the people to his to his eldest son, his first-born; 365 winters had he 1215 [numbered] ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous
... scrap of wisdom which unfortunately children do not find written large in their copybooks is that sorrow is as transitory as happiness. Although my childhood was strewn with the memorial wreaths of dead miseries, I always had a morbid sense that my present discomforts were immortal. So I had quite made up my mind that I would continue to be unhappy at school, when the intervention of two beings ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... everywhere, with no dread of difficulties about language, coinage, custom, or law, why should everyone continue to go to just a few special places? Such congestions are merely the measure of the general inaccessibility and insecurity and costliness of contemporary life, an awkward transitory phase in the first beginnings of the travel ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... slender arid transitory consolation. I knew that, wandering at random, I might never reach the outlet of this cavern, or might be disabled, by hunger and fatigue, from going farther than the outlet. The cravings which had lately been satiated would speedily return, ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... would seem to be a confluence of forces outside of the individual consciousness or will, focused at the instant into desire, which becomes the urge to creation. "The mind in creation," says Shelley, "is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power rises from within, like the colour of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure." The artist does not say, "Lo, ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... it', Evelyn made his will and put all his affairs in order 'that now growing in yeares, I might have none of the secular things and concerns to distract me when it should please Almighty God to call me from this transitory life'. In November 1682 he was asked by many friends to stand for election as president of the Royal Society, in succession to Sir Christopher Wren, but pleading 'remote dwelling, and now frequent infirmities' he declined the proffered honour. Subsequently, in 1690, he had actually, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... feelings were but transitory, however; they swept across him like a wind, and then he looked again at the old man and saw only his simplicity, his unworldliness,—saw little more than the worn and feeble individual in the Hospital garb, leaning on his staff; and then turning again with a gentle sigh to weed in the ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the philosophers as they pace along: there are the peaks of Parnassus, and there is the Stoic Porch. Here you will find Aristotle, the overseer of learning, to whom belongs in his own right all the excellent knowledge that remains in this transitory world. Here Ptolemy weaves his cycles and epicycles, and here Gensachar tracks the planets' courses with his figures and charts. Here it was in very truth that with open treasure-chest and purse untied I scattered my money with a light ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... a case of difficulty. Mynheer Vandersloosh, before he had quitted this transitory scene, had become a personage as bulky as the widow herself, and the bed had been made unusually wide; the widow still retained the bed for her own use, for there was no knowing whether she might not again be induced to enter ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... before his very eyes, the visible embodiment of power or wrath, so the Rugby schoolboy walked in a holy dread of some sudden manifestation of the sweeping gown, the majestic tone, the piercing glance, of Dr. Arnold. Among the lower forms of the school his appearances were rare and transitory, and upon these young children 'the chief impression', we are told, 'was of extreme fear'. The older boys saw more of him, but they did not see much. Outside the Sixth Form, no part of the school came into close intercourse with ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... was beginning to saw in his throat. The tram was quite near now, and the "Jolly Cricketers" was noisily barring its doors. Beyond the tram were posts and heaps of gravel—the drainage works. He had a transitory idea of jumping into the tram and slamming the doors, and then he resolved to go for the police station. In another moment he had passed the door of the "Jolly Cricketers," and was in the blistering fag end of the street, with human beings about ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... silence again pervaded heaven and earth. Suddenly the aurora shone out with increased brilliancy, and its waving swords swept back and forth in great semicircles across the dark starry sky, and lighted up the snowy steppe with transitory flashes of coloured radiance, as if the gates of heaven were opening and closing upon the dazzling brightness of the celestial city. Presently it faded away again to a faint diffused glow in the north, and ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... Life. Material and temporal thoughts are human, involving error, and since God, Spirit, is the 286:24 only cause, they lack a divine cause. The temporal and material are not then creations of Spirit. They are but counterfeits of the spiritual and eternal. 286:27 Transitory thoughts are the antipodes of everlasting Truth, though (by the supposition of opposite qualities) error must also say, "I am true." But by this saying 286:30 error, ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... appeal, solemnly and urgently delivered, was only transitory. Afrasiyab felt a little compunction at the moment, but soon resumed his ferocious spirit, and to ensure, without interruption, the accomplishment of his purpose, confined Ferangis in one of the remotest parts of ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... that of the martyr Babylas, whose ruined chapel you see just beyond us. I have had something to do with most of them in my time. They are transitory. They give employment to care-takers for a while. But the thing that lasts, and the thing that interests me, is the human life that plays around them. The game has been going on for centuries. It still disports ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... To him, though, she was cloaked in mystery; hence, more desirable. What better choice for him ultimately than Ria? That Ria had to die to achieve her happiness is of no real importance. Life is a transitory thing anyway. ...
— Each Man Kills • Victoria Glad
... points on which he was genuine and emphatic was common to the middle ages; a deep and somewhat snivelling conviction of the transitory nature of this life and the pity and horror of death. Old age and the grave, with some dark and yet half-sceptical terror of an after-world—these were ideas that clung about his bones like a disease. An old ape, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Harold." But having spoken of this character sufficiently elsewhere, in order to repel the unjust identification of the Pilgrim with the author,—for "Childe Harold" appears to me the personification of a moral idea, of the accidental transitory state of a soul placed under certain circumstances, rather than type,—I will only add here, that this unjust identification was also caused by that craving which Lord Byron experienced of leaning, in all things, on reality, on facts acquired through his own experience. For although it is incorrect ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... review of its character, the Myth will be seen to be one of the transitory expressions of the religious sentiment, which in enlightened lands it has already outgrown and should lay aside. So far as it relates to events, real or alleged, historic or geologic, it deals with that which is indifferent to ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... "In this 'transitory world wisdom alone is enduring and permanent. And woe to him who deserts the eternal for things as fleeting as clouds are. His heart will never know peace, and his mind will dance like a boat ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... frightened dreams she reached out to something that she felt must be beyond the pleasant sound of falling water, so small and transitory; beyond the drip and patter of human destinies—something vast, solitary, and silent. How should she find that which none has ever named or known? Men only stammer of it in such words as Eternity, Fate, God. All the outcries of all creatures, living and dying, sink in its depth ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... they could look back on the weary years, and recognise more clearly than while these were slowly passing how God had been in all the trouble, and had been carrying on His purposes of mercy through it all. And there will be a 'sign' for us in like manner when we look back from eternity on the transitory conflicts of earthly life, and are satisfied with the harvest which He has caused to spring from our ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... previous to her death she requested a season of prayer, in which her husband, Rev. Charles Galpin, led. Her prospect was bright, and, clearly foreseeing the ransomed throng she was soon to join, said she, "Oh! how vain, how transitory, does all earthly treasure appear at this hour—a mere bubble upon the water." About a half an hour before she left us, she said, "Hark! don't you hear that beautiful music? Oh! what music; I never heard ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... is it not taking pains to come at the finest creature in the world, not for a transitory moment only, but for one of our lives! The struggle only, Whether I am to have her in my own way, or ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... more. There are (though this may to some seem strange) people who consider the Church at least as important as the State, and even more so, inasmuch as its concernments relate to an eternal instead of a transitory order. What are the prospects of the Church? Here the mists are thicker than ever. Is the ideal of the Free Church in the Free State any nearer realization than it was three years ago? All sorts of discordant voices reach me ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... the rights of property," they do not go far enough to destroy capitalism and establish a Socialistic society. But they reassure their Socialistic critics by pointing out that these "insufficient" and "transitory" measures, "in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads on the old social order, and are indispensable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... chambers which had seemed dreary to him ever since the disappearance of George Talboys, were doubly so to-night. For that which had been only a dark suspicion had now become a horrible certainty. There was no longer room for the palest ray, the most transitory glimmer of hope. His worst terrors had ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... them; for speech is common to all, perhaps more or less articulate, and conveyed and received through different organs in the lower and more inert. Man's thought, which seems imperishable, loses its form, and runs along from proprietor to impropriator, like any other transitory thing, unless it is invested so becomingly and nobly that no successor can improve upon it by any new fashion or combination. For want of dignity or beauty, many good things are passed and forgotten; and much ancient wisdom ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... when they were in the height of their enjoyment, turned loose the Praetorian guards among the company, and had them tossed into the sea. This is no bad miniature of the dealings of nature with the transitory race of man. Only, what a chequered picnic we have of it, even while it lasts! and into what great waters, not to be crossed by any swimmer, God's pale Praetorian throws us over ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The other section, comprising the Hottentots and Australian black fellows, were allowed but 75 cubic inches of brain, or not more than 10 above the highest anthropoid apes, and in neither did the statical or dynamical intellect pass beyond a transitory stage of the lowest degree. The typical facial angle of the yellow or Turanian races—the bulk being Chinese, Mongols, Finns, Turks, with Malay, Gangetic, Lohitic, Tamulic, and American tribes—was given as 871/2 degrees. In cubic inches, the brain ranged ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... which the night seemed to have fallen; for with the extinguishment of the lantern we found ourselves enwrapped in darkness so thick that it could almost be felt. This, however, proved to be only transitory, for with the lapse of a few minutes our eyes became accustomed to the gloom, and we were then able not only to discern the shapes of the vast pile of clouds that threateningly overhung us, but also their reflections ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... are in a transitory state, most of them having adopted houses and sheds; but many of them are still unable to perceive why they should give up their safe and comfortable natural shelters for rickety abodes of their own making. Padre Juan Fonte, the pioneer missionary ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... nephew fall. He turned his eye on Evandale, while a transitory glance of indescribable emotion disturbed, for a second's space, the serenity of his features, and briefly said, "You ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... different trades in any one locality; and, thirdly, the formation of a great national organization of workingmen or trade unionists. The first of these forms of extension dates from the earliest years of the century, though such bodies had often only a transitory existence. The Manchester cotton spinners took the initiative in organizing a national body in that industry in 1829; in 1831 a National Potters' Union is heard of, and others in the same decade. The largest and most permanent national bodies, however, such as the compositors, the flint-glass makers, ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... with impunity be lived too long; else, it might have made me permanently other than I had been without transforming me into any shape which it would be worth my while to take. But I never considered it as other than a transitory life. There was always a prophetic instinct, a low whisper in my ear, that, within no long period, and whenever a new change of custom should be essential to my good, a ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... allow a certain show of magisterial pomp, and clothe its officers in silks and gold, without seriously compromising its principles. Privileges of this kind are transitory; they belong to the place, and are distinct from the individual: but if public officers are not uniformly remunerated by the state, the public charges must be intrusted to men of opulence and independence, ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... comforting, the warming faith in the unfailing wisdom of elders. A great need of something to lean on, and a great weariness of independence and responsibility took possession of my soul; and looking round for support and comfort in that transitory mood, the emptiness of the present and the blankness of the future sent me back to the past with all its ghosts. Why should I not go and see the place where I was born, and where I lived so long; the place where I was so magnificently happy, so exquisitely wretched, so close to heaven, so near ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... the body of man this long-traveled soul, bearing with it traces of its eternal past, these letters which are the elements of its speech have impressed on them a correspondence, not only with the forces natural to its transitory surroundings, but also with that vaster evolution of nature in which it has taken part. These correspondences ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... comes a set of toys, which are made to imitate the actions of men and women, and the notes or noises of birds and beasts. Many of these are ingenious in their construction, and happy in their effect, but that effect unfortunately is transitory. When the wooden woman has churned her hour in her empty churn; when the stiff backed man has hammered or sawed till his arms are broken, or till his employers are tired; when the gilt lamb has ba-ad, the obstinate pig squeaked, and the provoking cuckoo cried cuckoo, till no one in the ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... the station clock and eagerly pointed out its whereabouts, another because he has told you, without being asked, that the train starts in ten minutes, another because he pointed out your carriage, which for a brief transitory instant you failed to recognize, and others for equally trivial things, for which they all seem keenly on the alert—you shut yourself in with a feeling of relief that must be something akin to escaping ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... on this unfortunate expression of poor Hepzibah's brow. Her scowl,—as the world, or such part of it as sometimes caught a transitory glimpse of her at the window, wickedly persisted in calling it,—her scowl had done Miss Hepzibah a very ill office, in establishing her character as an ill-tempered old maid; nor does it appear improbable ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... baths is indicated,—in torpid reaction, cold and short tonic baths or affusions and long packs are required, in proportion to the degree of the reactive power of the patient. Therefore the packing sheet should be very cold, but thin and well wrung out, so as to make a strong, but transitory, impression, soon overcome by the reaction it calls forth, upon which all our success depends. The patient stays in the pack till he becomes quite warm and tired. Perspiration is seldom produced; if it ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... accounting the people to be 5,500,000, that the said five millions and a half (including the transitory people and vagrants) appear by the assessments on marriages, births, and burials, to bear the following proportions in relation to males and females, and other distinctions of the ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty
... which He loves unceasingly. Ideas—thoughts—sacred words! Light, which, without being detached from Him who wills it into being, shines from creature to creature, from cause to effect, on—on—until it produces only contingent and transitory phenomena; Light which, repeated and reflected from mirror to mirror, pales as its distance increases ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... funeral dirge, his mourner the murmuring ocean; and seeking in the everlasting solemnities of nature oblivion of the transitory ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... ever consisted in the main of musical instruments. Every man has his own superstitions, and for some reason Mr. Hucks—who had not a note of music in his soul—deemed it unlucky to part with musical instruments, which was the more embarrassing because his most transitory tenants happened to be folk who practised music on the public for a livelihood—German bandsmen, for instance, not so well versed in English law as to be aware that implements of a man's trade stand exempt from seizure in execution. Indeed, the bulk ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... quarter'd winds, God of this world invok't and world beneath; Who then thou art, whose coming is foretold To me so fatal, me it most concerns. The tryal hath indamag'd thee no way, Rather more honour left and more esteem; Me naught advantag'd, missing what I aim'd. Therefore let pass, as they are transitory, The Kingdoms of this world; I shall no more 210 Advise thee, gain them as thou canst, or not. And thou thy self seem'st otherwise inclin'd Then to a worldly Crown, addicted more To contemplation and profound dispute, As by that early action ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... stores of the middle distance of memory, and Beckenham seems to me a quite transitory phase. But really they were there several years; through nearly all my married life, in fact, and far longer than the year and odd months we lived together at Wimblehurst. But the Wimblehurst time with them is fuller in my memory by far then the Beckenham ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... pulse solely to injury to the vagus, as in each laryngeal paralysis pointed to concussion or contusion of the nerve. The pulse reached a rate of 120-140 to the minute. This disturbance was not of a transitory nature, for in the two cases referred to the rapid pulse persists, in spite of entire recovery of the laryngeal muscles, and the fact that in one case the aneurismal sac has been absolutely cured, and in the second only a small sac remains, ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... arm"—"redeemed His people from their enemies; for His mercy endureth for ever!" Nations and generations may rise and pass away; phases of dominion and civilisation may vary under Assyrian, Egyptian, Hellenic, and Roman forms, or under our modern modifications; yet all this is transitory. The God of creation, providence, and grace, He lives and abides for ever. His power is still great as in the days of old, His wisdom unsearchable, and His goodness infinite. Ay, and this dispenser of kingdoms is also the guide ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... From being knighted till he smote the thrall, And faded from the presence into years Of exile—now would strictlier set himself To learn what Arthur meant by courtesy, Manhood, and knighthood; wherefore hovered round Lancelot, but when he marked his high sweet smile In passing, and a transitory word Make knight or churl or child or damsel seem From being smiled at happier in themselves— Sighed, as a boy lame-born beneath a height, That glooms his valley, sighs to see the peak Sun-flushed, or touch at night the northern star; For one from out his village lately climed ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... swoln arch to gaze, And view the vivid flash eruptive blare; Light those high walls with transitory gleam, Illume the air, and sparkle in the stream. Ah! look, where yonder tempest-shaken cloud, Awful and black as the chaosian shroud, Breaks, like the waves which lash the sandy shore, And speaks its mission in a feeble row. ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... all is written for our doctrine, and for to beware that we fall not to vice nor sin, but to exercise and follow virtue by the which we may come and attain to good fame and renown in this life, and after this short and transitory life to come unto everlasting bliss in heaven" (Preface of William Caxton to "The ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... think the distinction has arisen entirely from confusing a transitory imperfection with an essential character. So long as our information concerning them is imperfect, we class all objects together according to resemblances which we feel, but cannot define; we group them round types, in short. Thus if you ask an ordinary person what kinds of ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... said, with a curve of the finger which included most of the Map of Europe. "Here are countries engaged—like the Bandarlog—in their own affairs. Quarrelling, snatching things from each other, blustering or amusing themselves with transitory pomps and displays of power. Here is a huge empire whose immense, half-savage population has seethed for centuries in its hidden, boiling cauldron of rebellion. Oh! it has seethed! And only cruelties have repressed it. Now and then it has boiled ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... for has not God eternal purposes for Israel? Is He not holy? How, then, can evil triumph? Psa. 90:2—"Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." Short and transitory is the life of man; with God it is otherwise. The perishable nature of man is here compared with the imperishable nature of God. Psa. 102:24-27—"I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... ascetic attitude in regard to the affections. He was spent by the emotions of the morning, but that also made for repose. For the time being devils were cast out. He was tranquil, yet exalted. His eyes had a smile in them, as though they looked beyond the limit of things transitory and material into the regions of the Pure Idea, where the eternal values are disclosed and Peace has her dwelling. And, precisely because of all this, he could take Honoria's presence lightly, be chivalrously solicitous of her entertainment and well-being, and talk to her with ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... whom she met there, said that this state of calm was very possibly only transitory. The night had been passed in a succession of paroxysms, and they were almost sure to return upon her, especially as he could get her to swallow none of the sedatives which might have carried her in unconsciousness past the fatal moment. She would have none of them; he thought that she was determined ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... from her little sheep-skin box, wherein they had been confined for a quarter of a century, a small number of round and flat golden ornaments, with which she adorned her sable bosom, and thereby totally eclipsed the transitory splendour of the button belonging ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... and since they were not permitted to employ force even in the defence of their religion, they should be still more criminal if they were tempted to shed the blood of their fellow-creatures in disputing the vain privileges, or the sordid possessions, of this transitory life. Faithful to the doctrine of the apostle, who in the reign of Nero had preached the duty of unconditional submission, the Christians of the three first centuries preserved their conscience pure and innocent of the guilt of secret conspiracy, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Prince Rupert was fond of those sciences which soften and adorn a hero's private hours, and knew how to mix them with his minutes of amusement, without dedicating his life to their pursuit, like us, who, wanting capacity for momentous views, make serious study of what is only the transitory occupation of a genius. Had the court of the first Charles been peaceful, how agreeably had the prince's congenial propensity flattered and confirmed the inclination of his uncle! How the muse of arts would have repaid the patronage of the monarch, when, for his ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... mullahs, priests of all faiths and every degree of raggedness, and Gobind, leaning upon his crutch, spoke so that they were visibly filled with envy, and a white-haired senior bade Gobind think of his latter end instead of transitory repute in the mouths of strangers. Then Gobind gave me his ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... general, says: "We believe that when once the first saga was written down, the others were in quick succession committed to parchment, some still keeping their original form through a succession of copies, others changed. The saga time was short and transitory, as has been the case with the highest literary periods of every nation, whether we look at the age of Pericles in Athens, or of our own Elizabeth in England, and that which was not written down quickly, in due time, was ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... to look forward to the cessation of war. At the present moment the latter event, however improbable, is more likely to happen than the former. War has ceased to be a normal condition of things in the comity of nations; it has become a transitory incident; but crime, which means war within the nation, is still far from being a passing incident; on the contrary, a conflict between the forces of moral order and social anarchy is going on continually; and, at present, there is not the faintest ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... occasion unites them psychologically; they do not know each other, and after the moment when they find themselves together, they may never see each other again. To use a metaphor, it is a psychological meteor, of the most unforeseen, ephemeral, and transitory kind. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park |
