"Abortive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The abortive attempt of the brigantine to stem the tide at the western end of Blackwell's, will be remembered. It had no other effect than to place her pursuer more in advance, and to convince her own commander that he had now no other resource than to continue his ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... They had exhausted their repertory of questions. Their mission threatened to become abortive, unless they could extract some positive admission. They must put a leading question; and their spokesman, for the fourth time, challenged the strange being, whom they found it so hard to label and place on any shelf of their ecclesiastical museum. "They ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... stamens and pistils) while others are staminate or pistillate. Hermaphrodite: Said of a flower having both stamens and pistils. Fertile: Said of a flower capable of bearing seed without pollen from another flower. Sterile: Said of a flower without or with abortive pistils. Perfect: Said of a flower having both stamens and pistils. Imperfect: Said of a flower wanting either stamens or pistils. Peduncle: The stalk of a flower-cluster. Pedicel: The stalk of each ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... writer last quoted, "presided over all. The chivalrous sincerity and disinterestedness of Hamilton pervaded the assembly with all the power of his fascinating manners. The flashing eloquence of Gouverneur Morris recalled the dangers of anarchy, which must be accepted as the alternative of an abortive experiment. The calm, clear, statesmanlike views of Madison, the searching and profound expositions of King, the prudent influence of Franklin, at ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... Mrs. Besant, Sidney Webb, and Edward Carpenter, besides one by Stuart Glennie, who subsequently left us because we fought shy of the Marriage Question when revising our 'Basis.' I mention all this in order to show you how much more important this abortive Conference looked than the present one. Yet all that can be said for it is that it made us known to the Radical clubs and proved that we were able to manage a conference in a businesslike way. It also, by the way, showed ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... all parties, the weak Duke of Alencon, after a vain and abortive attempt to raise himself into a position of greater distinction, as the husband of Elizabeth of England, in whose eyes he found no grace or favour, died ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... 'Shepherds-tell-me' air and tone. Lead me to one of your garden-seats: out of hearing to Dr. Middleton, I beg. He mesmerizes me, he makes me talk Latin. I was curiously susceptible last night. I know I shall everlastingly associate him with an abortive entertainment and solos on big instruments. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Society do the same effect, and is judged to be the same thing with the poyson both in colour and smell, and effect. I saw also an abortive child preserved fresh in spirits of salt. Thence parted, and to White Hall to the Councilchamber about an order touching the Navy (our being empowered to commit seamen or Masters that do not, being hired or pressed, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... for the moment, dodged moving logs, trod those not yet under way, and so arrived on solid ground. The jam itself started with every indication of meaning business, gained momentum for a hundred feet, and then plugged to a standstill. The "break" was abortive. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... Sheldon's ill luck, and declared he would never forgive himself for having advised the young man to embark in the cursed speculations. But Sheldon begged him not to be unnecessarily distressed, as it was no fault of his that the schemes proved abortive; and the good doctor finally coincided, and settled down to his ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the lake in silence. Geoffrey's sermon was abortive. This girl was altogether outside the circle of his code of Good Form. He might as well preach vegetarianism to a leopard. Yet she fascinated him, as she fascinated all men who were not as dry as Aubrey Laking. She was so pretty, so frail and so fearless. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... are, and what His judgment will be, are the things here taught: not what He once did, nor what He once suffered, but what He is now doing—and what He requires us to do. That is the pure, joyful, beautiful lesson of Christianity; and the fall from that faith, and all the corruptions of its abortive practice, may be summed briefly as the habitual contemplation of Christ's death instead of His Life, and the substitution of His past ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... terminus just as Mary finished speaking. In the pause that followed she did not at first look at him. Her gaze had come to rest upon that abortive musical typewriter of his. Not quite in focus upon it, but as if in some corner of her mind she was wondering what it might be. But as the pause spun itself out, her glance, seeking his face, moved ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... minutes ago—when the odds had been set at one in a hundred. He knew that he could not press the wolverines in again. Taggi's distaste was too manifest; Shann had been lucky that the animal had made one abortive attack. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... Couch's corps was now brought up, and Carroll's brigade struck the rebels on the left, and doubled them back on the centre, capturing a great many prisoners and confusing and rendering abortive Hill's attack in front. Hill sent for his reserves to come up, and three rebel brigades were thrown against Carroll, who was supported by the remainder of French's division and a brigade from Humphrey's division of Meade's corps, and ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... Basilica is incredibly splendid. It seems a last pompous effort of formal Catholicism, and there are few more striking emblems of later Rome—the Rome foredoomed to see Victor Emmanuel in the Quirinal, the Rome of abortive councils and unheeded anathemas. It rises there, gorgeous and useless, on its miasmatic site, with an air of conscious bravado—a florid advertisement of the superabundance of faith. Within it's magnificent, and its magnificence has no shabby spots—a rare thing in Rome. Marble ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... the church. It is not so easy, however, to establish a schism. The Prussian chancellor learned this fact when he beheld the failure of his alt-Catholic scheme in Germany. Having tried the same game in Turkey, his projects, notwithstanding the aid and countenance of the Mussulman Power, proved abortive. The government of the sublime Porte had been very tolerant hitherto, as regarded its Catholic subjects. In the early days of Pius IX. it had concurred with the Holy See in establishing a Catholic bishop at Jerusalem; ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... conversation, she named a little abortive plan which I had not heard of till then; how, in the previous July, she had been tempted to join some friends (a married couple and their child) in an excursion to Scotland. They set out joyfully; she with especial gladness, for Scotland was a land which had its roots deep ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... bludgeons to break folk's heads, and are perpetually and officially employed in scenes of riot, the title of peace-officers—that is, because by his valour he compelled others to act with discretion. The Captain was the general referee in all those abortive quarrels, which, at a place of this kind, are so apt to occur at night, and to be quietly settled in the morning; and occasionally adopted a quarrel himself, by way of taking down any guest who was unusually pugnacious. This occupation procured Captain ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... would attract nobody. The true Temptation of this world and flesh wears grey rags, dishevelled hair, and an ashen cheek. Any expert will prove that. I can never believe that any one would be lured to destruction by those birds of paradise whom one has met in the stuffy, over-gilded, and, happily, abortive night-clubs and cabarets. If a consensus were taken, I think it would be found that wickedness gaily apparelled is seldom successful. It is the subtle and the sinister, the dark and half-known, that make the big appeal. Lace and scent and champagne and the shaded ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... other Southern States would have been left to their own counsels, South Carolina would have stood alone, and her Secession of 1860 would have proved as abortive as her Nullification of 1832. The Disunion movement in the remaining States of the South originated in Washington. Finding that the Cotton States, especially those bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, were moving too slowly, the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... hooks of the boa constrictor, the complete series of jointed finger-bones in the paddle of the manatee and the whale, are a few of the most familiar instances. In botany a similar class of facts has been long recognised. Abortive stamens, rudimentary floral envelope and undeveloped carpels are of the most frequent occurrence. To every thoughtful naturalist the question must arise, What are these for? What have they to do with the great laws of creation? Do they not teach us something of the system of nature? ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... between the two World Wars, Lithuania was annexed by the USSR in 1940. On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first of the Soviet republics to declare its independence, but Moscow did not recognize this proclamation until September of 1991 (following the abortive coup in Moscow). The last Russian troops withdrew in 1993. Lithuania subsequently restructured its economy for integration into Western European institutions; it joined both NATO and the EU in the spring ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... abortive attempt at insurrection under the earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, the whole course of public events had tended to increase the difficulties and aggravate the sufferings in which the catholics of England found themselves inextricably ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... fight; the States General gave him the means for carrying on war, by establishing the odious "gabelle" on salt, and other imposts. John hoped with his new army to drive the English completely out of the country. Petty war began again on all the frontiers,—an abortive attack on Calais, a guerilla warfare in Brittany, slight fighting also in Guienne. Edward in 1335 landed at Calais, but was recalled to pacify Scotland; Charles of Navarre and the Duke of Lancaster were on the Breton border; the Black Prince sailed for Bordeaux. ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... establishment of San Juan Capistrano is naturally mentioned in this place, partly because of the abortive start made there a year before, and partly because its actual foundation constituted the next noteworthy incident in Junipero's career, this mission is, in strict chronological order, not the sixth, ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... she kept an eye of deep distrust. When, in 1541, Cartier and Roberval essayed to plant a colony in the part of ancient Spanish Florida now called Canada, she sent spies and fitted out caravels to watch that abortive enterprise. Her fears proved just. Canada, indeed, was long to remain a solitude; but, despite the Papal bounty gifting Spain with exclusive ownership of a hemisphere, France and Heresy at length took root in the sultry forests ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... so, my dear friend; I am at Besancon, while you thought I was traveling. I would not tell you anything till success should begin, and now it is dawning. Yes, my dear Leopold, after so many abortive undertakings, over which I have shed the best of my blood, have wasted so many efforts, spent so much courage, I have made up my mind to do as you have done—to start on a beaten path, on the highroad, as the longest but the ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... much, having always a childish aspect, although the features of his face were those of a man. They were, however, hard and badly cut. He seemed incomplete, abortive, only half finished, and disquieting as a mystery. He was a close impenetrable being, in whom there seemed always to be some active, dangerous ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... a mask having proved abortive, he was attired in a pirate flag of black, worn as a blanket, and having on it, in white muslin, what purported to be a skull and cross-bones but which looked like the word "ox" with the "O" ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... from the room. Since the night of the abortive raid upon The Cedars he had showed a marked aversion from the society of newspaper men. Regarding the facts of his donation to the fund he had vouchsafed no word to Zoe. Closely had the story of his doings at Richmond been hushed up; as closely as a bottomless ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... negotiations were conducted through the Bishop of Tarbes,[116] and at the first conference the Bishop raised a question in the name of his government, on the validity of the papal dispensation granted by Julius the Second, to legalise the marriage from which she was sprung. The abortive marriage Scheme perished in its birth, but the doubt which had been raised could not perish with it. Doubt on such a subject once mooted might not be left unresolved, even if the raising it thus publicly had not itself destroyed the frail ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... friend out With the expedition, and from him he had received a letter only a short time ago, telling him of all the delays and procrastinations which were already beginning to render abortive a well-planned scheme. It made his blood boil in his veins to think how the incapacity of those in command doomed the hopes of so many to such bitter disappointment, and lowered the prestige of England in the eyes of the ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... attempt to establish a channel of commerce without allowing them to participate in the profits, or to be permitted to exact a duty on all goods passing by water through their territory, must necessarily prove abortive. The jealousy of their character would be aroused, they would see in the traffic of the European a gradual decline of their own emoluments, and by degrees a total exclusion from those branches of commerce, from which they had hitherto derived the greatest profit. That the commerce ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Motion sleep; 310 Where silent Hours their death-like sway extend, Save when the avalanche breaks loose, to rend Its way with uproar, till the ruin, drowned In some dense wood or gulf of snow profound, Mocks the dull ear of Time with deaf abortive sound. [83] 315 —'Tis his, while wandering on from height to height, To see a planet's pomp and steady light In the least star of scarce-appearing night; While the pale moon moves near him, on the bound Of ether, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... This abortive attempt of the Ephraimites to leave Egypt was the first occasion for oppressing Israel. Thereafter the Egyptians exercised force and vigilance to keep them in their land. As for the disaster of the Ephraimites, it was well-merited punishment, because they had paid no heed to the ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... considered it so; for he left it in an unfinished condition, and immediately began a different story on the same theme,—the elixir of life. It has no connection with the sketch already mentioned, in which Alcott's personality becomes the mainspring, but with another abortive romance, called "The Ancestral Footstep," which Hawthorne commenced while he was in England. It is invaluable for the light it throws on his method of working. Descriptive passages are mentioned in it "to be inserted" at ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... national debt, which ministers would have to supply, would, according to the present disbursements and receipts, amount to 11,578,000l. unless that expenditure were reduced, every such attempt as they were at present making would, he was convinced, prove abortive: it was a mere topical application while a mortal distemper was raging within. He had taken no notice in his estimate of the charges for sinecures or the bounties on exports and imports: and yet the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... little, hook-nosed fellow, who eyed us askance and was obviously glad when Holmes's architectural studies had come to an end. I could not see that in either case Holmes had come upon the clue for which he was searching. Only at the third did our visit prove abortive. The outer door would not open to our knock, and nothing more substantial than a torrent of bad language came from behind it. "I don't care who you are. You can go to blazes!" roared the angry voice. "To-morrow's the exam, and I won't ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Cruickshank was an able man and, what was rarer a fastidious politician. He had held office in the Dominion Cabinet, and had resigned it because of a difference with his colleagues in the application of a principle; they called him, after a British politician of lofty but abortive views, the Canadian Renfaire. He had that independence of personality, that intellectual candour, and that touch of magnetism which combine to make a man interesting in his public relations. Cruickshank's name alone would have filled ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... was much perplexed as to Henchard's motives in opening the matter at all; for in such cases we attribute to an enemy a power of consistent action which we never find in ourselves or in our friends; and forget that abortive efforts from want of heart are as possible to ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... manufactured between 1780 and 1814 were all of one pattern, and the one which Gourdon composed upon the Cup-and-Ball will give an idea of them. They required a certain knack or proficiency in the art. "The Chorister" is the Saturn of this abortive generation of jocular poems, all in four cantos or thereabouts, for it was generally admitted that six ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... last effort. This was hosiery webbing, which could be cut up and made into as-yet-unheard-of garments. Miss Pinnegar kept her thumb on this enterprise, so that it was not much more than abortive. And then ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... perception of matter yields as its result, a remote as well as a proximate object. The proximate object is the perception—the remote object is the reality. And thus the analysis of the given fact necessarily renders abortive every endeavour to construct a doctrine of intuitive perception. The attempt must end in representationism. The only basis for a doctrine of intuitive perception which will never give way, is a resolute forbearance from all analysis of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... a gesture whisked a couple of attentive waiters to the table, and in the twinkling of an eye—even an American eye—a place was laid for the Prince, with duplicates of all our abortive wine glasses. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... days of the Holy Alliance, and after the revolution of 1830. The hatred of Protestantism led the two kings to draw together, though Henry II. had had no mean part in that work which had enabled the Protestant Maurice of Saxony to render abortive all the plans of Charles V. for the full restoration of Catholicism in Germany. During the thirty years that followed the death of Henry II., the dissensions of France had rendered her unable to contend with the House of Austria, then principally represented by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... three grand divisions, and a re-assignment of leading generals. Franklin was placed in command of the Third Grand Division, consisting of the First Corps under General Reynolds, and the Sixth Corps under General Smith. In the abortive Fredericksburg campaign which followed, these corps had the extreme left of the Union line, but it should have been evident from the start that with the opposing armies separated by a broad river occupying ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... thy father favours him. Richard, that vile abortive changeling brat, And Fauconbridge, are fallen at Henry's feet. They woo for him, but entreat my son Gloster may die for this, that ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... complicated obstructions to early marriages; and the chance is very great, that such obstacles prove insurmountable. In fine, there are few men who do not look back in secret to some period of their {p.226} youth, at which a sincere and early affection was repulsed or betrayed, or became abortive from opposing circumstances. It is these little passages of secret history, which leave a tinge of romance in every bosom, scarce permitting us, even in the most busy or the most advanced period of life, to listen with total indifference to a tale ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... heir, male or female, born after the making of the will, be passed over in silence, the will, though originally valid, is invalidated by the subsequent birth of the child, and so becomes completely void. Consequently, if the woman from whom a child was expected to have an abortive delivery, there is nothing to prevent the instituted heirs from taking the inheritance. It was immaterial whether the female family heirs born after the making of the will were disinherited specially or by a general clause, but if the latter mode be adopted, some legacy must be left them ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... the King of France, and the French prelates; where Becket also offered to make his submissions, with a salvo to the honour of God and the liberties of the church; which, for the like reason, was extremely offensive to the king, and rendered the treaty abortive. [MN 1169.] A third conference, under the same mediation, was broken off, by Becket's insisting on a like reserve in his submissions; and even in a fourth treaty, when all the terms were adjusted, and when the primate expected to be introduced to the king, and to receive the kiss of peace, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... present occasion Tim Flaherty had outstayed his usual time, and was still in the kitchen when Ben reached home. They did not at first hear him, but when he made his last abortive attempt, and the shoes came clattering down, they could ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... five-and-twenty years drew on, he became less and less resigned. Circumstances were against the growth of such a feeling. One after another of his fellow-prisoners was ransomed and went home. More than once he was himself permitted to visit France; where he worked on abortive treaties and showed himself more eager for his own deliverance than for the profit of his native land. Resignation may follow after a reasonable time upon despair; but if a man is persecuted by a series of brief and irritating hopes, his mind no more attains to a settled frame of resolution, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for the present at least, was dead; knew, too, that a change had come over Dan's usually respectful attitude towards him, and Horse Egan's laughter and frequent allusions to abortive conspiracies emphasised all that the conspirator had guessed. The horrible fascination of the death- stories, however, made him seek the men's society. He learned much more than he had bargained for; and in this manner. It was on the last night before the regiment entrained to the front. ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... scurry before the Bourbons scuttled out of Paris in 1814, Bourrienne was made Prefet of the Police for a few days, his tenure of that post being signalised by the abortive attempt to arrest Fouche, the only effect of which was to drive that wily minister into ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... of attempts have been abortive in this field. Why they have failed to arouse the ardor of the parent has puzzled some of the pioneers. Child-culture as the foundation of all systems of education has continued more or less of a hope rather than an achievement because of a lack of appreciation ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... in a God of absolute and unbounded love, therefore I believe in a loving anger of His, which will and must devour and destroy all which is decayed, monstrous, abortive, in His universe, till all enemies shall be put under His feet, to be pardoned surely, if they confess themselves in the wrong and open their eyes to the truth. And God shall be All in All. Those ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... presented anew in Chile by the unauthorized action of the late United States minister in receiving into his official residence two persons who had just failed in an attempt at revolution and against whom criminal charges were pending growing out of a former abortive disturbance. The doctrine of asylum as applied to this case is not sanctioned by the best precedents, and when allowed tends to encourage sedition and strife. Under no circumstances can the representatives of this Government be permitted, ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... a campaign at Twickenham furnishes as little matter for a letter as an abortive one in Flanders. I can't say indeed that my generals wear black wigs, but they have long full-bottomed hoods which cover as little entertainment ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... the less easy seemed the justification of her desire for obscurity. From regarding it as a high instinct she passed into a humour that gave that desire the appearance of a whim. But could she really set in train events, which, if not abortive, would take her to the altar with ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... along to inquire after me; and if I happened to be awake, and the doctor permitted it, they would sit and chat with me for half an hour or so before retiring to their cabins, by which means I gradually acquired all the missing links in the story of the squadron's abortive cruise. ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... serious dissensions arising, but at the end of that time the natives laid a plot against the whites, of which, however, the latter were informed by an Otaheitan woman, and the two leaders paid for their abortive attempt with their lives. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the plot for the overthrow of the king, and the means whereby it had been hoped to accomplish it, including the murder of the six chiefs who, it was believed, were powerful enough to render the scheme abortive. As the full, cold-blooded atrocity of the conspiracy became revealed, murmurs of anger and detestation, low at first, but louder as the story proceeded, began to run round the line of chiefs, while those who sat next the parties implicated edged away from ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... solved here with infinite tact—a problem of protuberant eyes and paralyzing self-consciousness, of unnatural silences and then unexpected attempts at speech that died in painful rasps and gurgles, of stubbing toes and nudging elbows, of a centipedal supply of arms and legs that interfered with abortive and conscience-stricken attempts at courtesy, and above all an interest in the weave of the carpet that was at once a mania and an epidemic—but by the time supper was well under way, things, in the language of Roger, had begun to hum, and by ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... Crusca in his closet pent, He toils to give the crude conception vent Abortive thoughts, that right and wrong confound, Truth sacrific'd to letters, sense to sound; False glare, incongruous images combine, And noise and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... factious jargon. All which, if it were to be first rased from his book (as just so much of nothing to the purpose) how little would remain to give the trouble of an answer! To which let me add, that the spirit or genius, which animates the whole, is plainly perceived to be nothing else but the abortive malice of an old neglected man,[8] who hath long lain under the extremes of obloquy, poverty and contempt; that have soured his temper, and made him fearless. But where is the merit of being bold, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... be worth the saving. But this is not the point at issue. Government too good, as well as too bad, may have a baneful influence on men. Its character is a secondary matter. The purpose of self-government is to intensify individual responsibility; to promote abortive attempts at wisdom, through which true wisdom may come at last. Democracy is nature-study on a grand scale. The republic is a huge laboratory of civics, a laboratory in which strange experiments are performed; but by which, as in other laboratories, wisdom may arise ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... our inability to conceive it as false. "The inconceivability of its negation is the test by which we ascertain whether a given belief invariably exists or not." "For our primary beliefs, the fact of invariable existence, tested by an abortive effort to cause their non-existence, is the only reason assignable." He thinks this the sole ground of our belief in our own sensations. If I believe that I feel cold, I only receive this as true because I can not conceive that I am not feeling cold. "While the proposition ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... actions, and sometimes even determine them, by a process analogous to that of suggestion upon a hypnotized person, and this is so because of the tendency in every idea to resolve itself into action—an idea being simply an inchoate or abortive act. It was this notion that suggested to Fouillee his theory of idea-forces. But ordinarily ideas are forces which we accommodate to other forces, ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... Quaker conference, where, for hours perhaps, nobody opens his mouth. It now bore an aspect of a political club meeting. But it was a quiet, peaceful, obedient debating society. It has left the record of its abortive undertakings in the "Kogisho Nishi" or journal of "Parliament." The Kogisho was dissolved in the year of its birth. And the indifference of the public about its dissolution proves how small ...
— The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881 • Toyokichi Iyenaga
... abortive, Russia refusing to accept the third point, and though a compromise was proposed by Austria, which was favoured by the British and French Plenipotentiaries, their respective Governments did not ratify ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... Paris, have often dwelt on this notion of a Renaissance in the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century, a Renaissance within the limits of the middle age itself—a brilliant, but in part abortive effort to do for human life and the human mind what was afterwards done in the fifteenth. The word Renaissance, indeed, is now generally used to denote not merely that revival of classical antiquity which took place in the fifteenth century, and to which the word ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... burning backwards towards the breech—an arrangement identical in principle with that of the modern Prussian "needle gun," for which great merit has been claimed. The flint-locks induced more determined efforts, but all were abortive, as the magazines for priming and the pan covers were continually blown off on the explosion of the charge. Indeed, from the earliest match-lock down to the present time, the premature explosion of several chambers, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... By no rational being could a just and benevolent life be accepted as proof of such astonishing announcements. Miracles are the necessary complement then of the truth of such announcements, which without them are purposeless and abortive, the unfinished fragments of a design which is nothing unless it is the whole. They are necessary to the justification of such announcements, which, indeed, unless they are supernatural truths, are the wildest delusions. The matter and its guarantee are the two parts of a ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... design had proved abortive, went directly to the place of rendezvous, and told the first of his troops whom he met that they had lost their labour, and must return to their cave. He himself set them the example, and they all returned as they ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... Society was incorporated in 1663 as the Royal Society of London for promoting Natural Knowledge. In the same year there was an abortive insurrection in the North against the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... significance of this ultimate duality would be rendered abortive if the future were determined in any more definite way than by the premonition, the hope, the dream, the passion, the prophecy, the vision, of those invisible companions whose existence is implied whenever two separate souls communicate their ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... write with the imbecile idea of rendering those preparations abortive. No, I am not so mad. My sole view is to explain the motive of my conduct in a particular instance, and to obviate the accusation of treachery which may be ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... happen, then it concerns the protestants of England to do that something, which, if they had spoken out, had been direct treason. Here is fine legerdemain amongst them: they have acknowledged a vote to be no more than the opinion of an house, and yet from a debate, which was abortive before it quickened into a vote, they argue after the old song, "that there is something more to be done, which you cannot chuse but guess." In the next place, there is no such thing as incapacity ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... fully expressed in action the benevolent views which he has indicated in the following words. "No humble cottage youth or maiden will ever acquire the charm of pleasing manners by rules, or lectures, or sermons, or legislation, or any other of those abortive means by which we from time to time endeavour to change poor human nature, if they are not permitted to see what they are taught they should practise, and to hold intercourse with those whose manners are superior to their own." This intercourse will probably lead to something like accomplishments ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... have,' he answered, as rather nervously he began to gather up some abortive commencements and ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one went about high-booted, and possibly his fangs were not powerful enough to penetrate a boot, but, anyhow, he never made the attempt; he tried to snap at the hands instead, and as he could only jump up a foot or so, he continued making a series of abortive little leaps, each futile attempt at reaching his aggressor's hands adding to the creature's insane rage. When the escuerzo was beside himself with fury, the pupil would dip his stick into the oily residue of his pipe, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... significant than the movements which succeeded it; for it was a definite attempt, seriously undertaken, to force modern languages into a classical mould, while the other and later affectations were merely passing extravagances, possessing little dynamical importance. In this way, short-lived and abortive as it seemed, euphuism anticipated the literature of the ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... given the above resume of the correspondence in 1875-77, and of the abortive efforts to induce the Ameer to comply with our demands, because it is evident that if he continued to resist compulsion must almost inevitably ensue. At about the same time, Quetta, in the Bolam, was occupied by a considerable British force, which was naturally regarded as a threat on Afghanistan. ...
— Indian Frontier Policy • General Sir John Ayde
... horse stumbled, the laden car ran on top of him like a landslip, and, with an abortive flounder, he collapsed beneath it. Once down, he lay, after the manner of his kind, like a dead thing, and the covered car, propped on its shafts, presented its open mouth to the heavens. Even as I sped headlong to the rescue in the wake of Robert and Croppy, I fore-knew that Fate had after all ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... vacillated and delayed—for she was informed of the schemes of the royalists, and hoped that if Louis XVIII. should ascend the throne, she would be delivered from all the burdensome exactions of the republic—now saw that this abortive attempt had removed the royalists still further from their object and more firmly consolidated the republic; she was therefore inclined to push on negotiations more speedily, and to show greater readiness to bring on a ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... tedious, are his readings marked only by their general tameness and mediocrity, be sure of this, he will speedily find himself talking only to empty benches, his enterprise will cease and determine, his name will no longer prove an attraction. Abortive adventures of this kind have in our ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... infinitely wise Being make such glorious creatures for so mean a purpose? Can he delight in the production of such abortive intelligences, such short-lived reasonable beings? Would he give us talents that are not to be exerted? capacities that are never to be gratified? How can we find that wisdom which shines through all his works, in the formation of man, without looking on this world as only a nursery ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... deprives the King of every expedient and every hope, on this subject, by its invariable resolution to regard and treat the Americans as its subjects. Such a resolution renders abortive every exertion, that may be made for obtaining peace. It utterly destroys the plan of the two mediating powers, since it decides, in the most peremptory manner, the question which is the subject of dispute, and the direct ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... pretended lady the small-pox. Other contrivances in his head to bring Clarissa back, if she should get away. Miss Howe's scheme of Mrs. Townsend is, he says, a sword hanging over his head. He must change his measures to render it abortive. He is of the true lady-make. What that is. Another conversation between them. Her apostrophe to her father. He is temporarily moved. Dorcas gives him notice of a paper she has come at, and is transcribing. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... and interruption used to come freely now stand empty. There had long been complaint of its inadequacy; Oxford had set the example of a special edifice, and as far back as 1857 a Building Fund had been started, which, however, dragged on an abortive existence from year to year, a constant matter of gibes. 'Can the North restore the Union?' Mr. Trevelyan asked. 'Never, sir; they have no Building Fund'; and the punning jest brought down a storm ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... to a juke box in Manfred's Tavern. He'd been there many times before, and he was sure several of the couples recognized him. But except for a few abortive glances in his direction, it was as if he were a stranger in a city halfway around ...
— The First One • Herbert D. Kastle
... a saying that a man may have typhoid while still on his legs. Twenty, maybe thirty years ago I had abortive typhoid, and was going about with it, had had it some days before it knocked me over. Well, England and France and Italy have caught the disease already. England may seem to you to be untouched, but the microbe ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... prosperous operation, than in plans for changing them, or substituting others in their stead. Were it not that such a course would be unjust to individuals, a long and melancholy catalogue might easily be made out of abortive plans which have sprung up in the minds of young men in the manner I have described, and which, after perhaps temporary success, have resulted in partial or total failure. These failures are of every kind. Some ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... not a reverse to this picture? Are there no drawbacks to this success? Is there no chapter of abortive plans, of unfaithful agents, of surgeons and attendants appropriating or squandering charitable gifts? These are questions which are often honestly asked, and the doubts which they express or awaken have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... you tread, a dry spot flashes around your step, and grows moist as you lift your foot again. Pleasant to pass along this extensive walk, watching the surf-wave;—how sometimes it seems to make a feint of breaking, but dies away ineffectually, merely kissing the strand; then, after many such abortive efforts, it gathers itself, and forms a high wall, and rolls onward, heightening and heightening, without foam at the summit of the green line, and at last throws itself fiercely on the beach, with a loud roar, the spray flying above. As you walk along, you are preceded by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the abortive efforts of Cartier and Roberval, the French authorities had made no serious or successful attempt to plant a colony in the New World. That is not surprising, for there were troubles in plenty at home. Huguenots and Catholics were ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... once taken to render such an attempt abortive. Our pickets were doubled; Admiral Porter was notified, so that the river might be more closely watched; material was collected on the west bank of the river to be set on fire and light up the river if the attempt was made; and batteries were established along ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... force was engaged in abortive attempts, the Athenians and their allies came up fresh from their victory over the Thebans. Headed by the Tegeans, they burst like a deluge into the encampment, and the Persians, losing all heart, sought wildly to hide ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... Secocoeni tribe and the head wife of the late chief, Secocoeni. This tribe, it will be remembered, was the one which successfully resisted the Boers under President Burger and Commandant Paul Kruger—a successful resistance which was one of the troubles leading directly to the abortive annexation of the Transvaal. The Secocoeni tribe were afterwards conquered by British troops, and handed over to the tender mercies of the Boer Government upon ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... leave unsack'd, If Jove, esteeming me too good for earth, Raise me, to match [239] the fair Aldeboran, Above [240] the threefold astracism of heaven, Before I conquer all the triple world.— Now fetch me out the Turkish concubines: I will prefer them for the funeral They have bestow'd on my abortive son. [The CONCUBINES are brought in.] Where are my common soldiers now, that fought So ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... cruel compulsion; but would leave me to my choice, or to my desire of living single; he would have been content to undergo a twelvemonth's probation, or more: but he was confident, that one month would either complete all their purposes, or render them abortive: and I best knew what hopes I had of my father's receding—he did not know him, if I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... placenta and nerve centers explains the pathogenesis of abortion and the birth of dead fetuses ("mortinatatite") Copper and lead did not cause abortion, but mercury did so in two out of six cases. Arsenic is a powerful abortive agent in the guinea-pig, probably on account of placental hemorrhages. An important deduction is that whilst the placenta is frequently and seriously affected in syphilis, it is also the special seat for the accumulation of mercury. May this not explain its therapeutic action in this disease? ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... rickety, incongruous, faded, tattered, good-for-nothing patchwork of its substance, ready to sink in a heap upon the floor, as conscious of its own unworthiness to be erect. Shall I confess the truth? At its present point of vivification the scarecrow reminds me of some of the lukewarm and abortive characters composed of heterogeneous materials used for the thousandth time, and never worth using, with which romance writers (and myself, no doubt, among the rest) have so overpeopled the world ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... show how Shakespeare has developed in the interval. Both are stern, able, and heartless; but Edmund unites to these more complex feelings known only to the close student of life. Weakness and passion mingle in his love; superstition and some faint, abortive motion of conscience unite ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... interview with him. That unfortunate minister had, indeed, the highest esteem for Borrego, and had intended raising him to the station of minister of finance, when the revolution of the Granja occurring, of course rendered abortive this project, with perhaps many others of a similar kind which he might ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... true that the greatest successes grow out of great failures. In numerous instances the result is better that comes after a series of abortive experiences than it would have been if it had come at once. For all these successive failures induce a skill, which is so much additional power working into the final achievement. Nobody passes at once to the mastery, in any branch ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... my friend, has proved abortive; Still there remains an after-game to play: My troops are mounted; their Numidian steeds Snuff up the winds, and long to scour the desert. Let but Sempronius lead us in our flight, We'll force the gate where Marcus keeps his guard, And hew down all ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... break through these obstructions, the toil had been intolerable and disproportioned to the object. Nero, however, who longed to achieve things that exceeded credibility, exerted all his might to perforate the mountains adjoining to Avernus, and to this day there remain traces of his abortive project. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... evident that the small rent which had been produced in the lower part of the balloon, by the abortive attempt to obtain access to the valve, could not have been the cause of a fall ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... depends upon foresight of possible future results, and there is no intelligence in present behavior. Let there be imaginative forecast but no attention to the conditions upon which its attainment depends, and there is self-deception or idle dreaming—abortive intelligence. ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... viable in modern conditions. The assemblage of the States in one Union was never intended to put one State at the mercy of another. If, however, well considered programs of legislation are rendered abortive in a State in consequence of the flow of commerce into it from other States, then it becomes the duty—certainly it is within the discretion of Congress—which alone can govern commerce among the States, to supply the required relief. See especially Assistant Attorney General ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... Argentina theatre has lost his voice on the way, or when the male prima donna[4.1] of the Valle theatre is laid up with a cold,—in brief, when the chief source of recreation which the Romans were hoping to find proves abortive, and then comes Holy Thursday and all at once cuts off all the hopes which might perhaps have been realized It was just after one of these unlucky Carnivals—almost before the strict fast-days ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... little further, it may even appear that many of the lower, and particularly the more distorted, forms of animal life, instead of being abortive or undeveloped stages in a continuous evolutionary progress, are actually the product of a diminishing energy, stages in a process of degeneration, and therefore leading not upward to ever higher stages of development having issue at last in a completed perfection, ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... collect each faculty of face, And every feat perform of sly grimace; 170 Let the grave sneer sarcastic speak thee shrewd; The smutty joke ridiculously lewd; And the loud laugh, through all its changes rung, Applaud the abortive sallies of her tongue; Enroll'd a member in the sacred list, Soon shalt thou sharp in company at whist; Her midnight rites and revels regulate, Priest of her love, and ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... inspire the current literatures of Europe. He is conscious of the conflicts of family and sex, of the contrasts of poverty and wealth. Of such stuff, also, are his books. Their body is mature: but their mental and spiritual motivation remains infantile. At once, it is reduced to an abortive simplification whereby the reality is maimed, the reader's wish fulfilled as it could only be in fairyland. But the fairyland is missing: the sweet moods of fairyland have withered in the arid sophistications of American life.... And yet the authors of this sort of book are ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... quilt was embroidered by the hands of Mary-Queen of Scots, during her imprisonment at Fotheringay Castle; and having evidently been a work of years, she had doubtless shed many tears over it, and wrought many doleful thoughts and abortive schemes into its texture, along with the birds and flowers. As a counterpart to this most precious relic, our friend produced some of the handiwork of a former Queen of Otaheite, presented by her to Captain Cook: ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... distinguish it. They differ, however, in all cases, in the opposite arrangement of the leaves and small branches of the Ash, and their alternate arrangement in the Hickory. One of these branches invariably becomes abortive, as the tree increases in size, so that their opposite character is apparent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... seditione civili, i.e. after the abortive attempt of Lepidus to make himself master of the state 77 B.C. C. Dolabellam, impeached for illegal extortion during his government of Macedonia. Repetundarum (sc. pecuniarum), post-Aug. for de repetundis (pecuniis), used i. of money extorted by an ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... to think—the Bonnie Lassie says that I am flattering myself thereby—that it was the momentary halt caused by my abortive effort to hold the gate, which gave time for a greater than my ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the distance between the branches and glanced at the abyss below. Its companions seemed to entertain a feeling of pity for it. Numbers of them came back, as if to watch the jump and encourage the little one. A third time it made an abortive effort to spring, and looked round pitifully, whereupon Moses gave vent to an uncontrollable snort of ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... table-land, covered with low shrub growths; after some ten or twelve miles of this, they descended among winding ridges, into a narrow valley,—the Poway valley. It was here that the Mexicans made one of their few abortive efforts to ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... seem to have excited in Denham's contemporaries expectations which were never fulfilled. This uprise, as well as that of the Irish (which took place the year before it), turned out, on the whole, abortive. And yet what fine lines and sentiments are the following, culled from "Sophy" almost ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... another, fully endorsed the principle underlying Fremont's abortive Emancipation Proclamation. He advocated immediate emancipation both as a political and a ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... described above as so worthy of encouragement. By the time that the voluntary practice thus initiated has given some steadiness of hand, and some tolerable ideas of proportion, there will have arisen a vague notion of body as presenting its three dimensions in perspective. And when, after sundry abortive, Chinese-like attempts to render this appearance on paper, there has grown up a pretty clear perception of the thing to be done, and a desire to do it, a first lesson in empirical perspective may be given by means of the apparatus occasionally ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... with joy, had been the expedition of Delvile to open to him his plan, than was his own, though only goaded by desperation, to make some effort with Cecilia for rendering it abortive. Nor could all his self-denial, the command which he held over his passions, nor the rigour with which his feelings were made subservient to his interest, in this sudden hour of trial, avail to preserve his equanimity. The refinements of hypocrisy, and the arts of insinuation, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... absence, of the monarch. It became, therefore, a monarchy only in name, composed, in fact, of democratic forces. The constitution of 1812 was the attempt of inexperienced men to accomplish the most difficult task in politics. It was smitten with sterility. For many years it was the standard of abortive revolutions among the so-called Latin nations. It promulgated the notion of a king who should flourish only in name, and should not even discharge the humble function which Hegel assigns to royalty, of dotting ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... these triumphant operations in Western Affghanistan, General Pollock still lay inactive at Jellalabad; and some abortive attempts were made to negotiate with the dominant party at Cabul for the release of the prisoners taken the preceding winter. Since the death of Shah-Shoojah, the throne had been nominally filled by his third son, Futteh-Jung, the only one of the princes who was on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... abortive effort was the establishment of the notorious "Dead Line." A few days later a gang of negros came in and drove a line of stakes down at a distance of twenty feet from the stockade. They nailed upon this a strip of stuff four inches wide, and then an order ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... grieved at making her yearly preserves for no one but her uncle and herself, was becoming almost ridiculous. Those who felt a sympathy for her on account of her good qualities, and others on account of her defects, now made fun of her abortive marriages. More than one conversation was based on what would become of so fine a property, together with the old maid's savings and her uncle's inheritance. For some time past she had been suspected of being au fond, ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... lodge, why you came, how long you mean to stay; with twenty more inquisitive speeches, which to a subject of more liberal governments must necessarily appear impertinent as frivolous, and make all my hopes of bringing home the most trifling presents for a friend abortive. So there is an end of that felicity, and we must sit like the girl at the fair, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... then and for ever after. He showed a generous mind; he wrote to his wife soon after: "Executive force and vigour are rare qualities; the President is the best of us." And Lincoln's generosity was no less; his private secretary, Nicolay, saw these papers; but no other man knew anything of Seward's abortive rebellion against Lincoln till after they both were dead. The story needs no explanation, but the more attentively all the circumstances are considered, the more Lincoln's handling of this emergency, which threatened the ruin of his Government, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... pencil, and is headed "Maer, May 1842, useless"; it also bears the words "This page was thought of as introduction." It consists of the briefest sketch of the geological evidence for evolution, together with words intended as headings for discussion,—such as "Affinity,—unity of type,—foetal state,—abortive organs." ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... Peterkin of the baptismal charge across the line of white posts, had been the first out of the redoubt on to the glacis in that abortive effort, living up to the bronze cross on his breast. He was one of the half dozen out of the score that had started to return alive. The psychology of war had transformed his gallantry; it had passed from simulation to reality, thanks to his established conviction ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... spot "Septimius Felton" was written; but the manuscript, thrown aside, was mentioned in the Dedicatory Preface to "Our Old Home" as an "abortive project." As will be found explained in the Introductory Notes to "The Dolliver Romance" and "The Ancestral Footstep," that phase of the same general design which was developed in the "Dolliver" was intended to take the place of ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... but possess the original character of their father, fierce and unsettled, living in a state of perpetual hostility against the rest of the world. Every attempt to subdue or extirpate them, has proved abortive. The Egyptians and Assyrians were equally unsuccessful, and whatever partial dominion Cyrus and the Persians might obtain, they could never penetrate the interior of the country, or reduce them to ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... matter which we call crystals take on the form of regular geometrical solids? Or, again, are they, as others thought, the products of the germs of animals and of the seeds of plants which have lost their way, as it were, in the bowels of the earth, and have achieved only an imperfect and abortive development? It is easy to sneer at our ancestors for being disposed to reject the first in favour of one or other of the last two hypotheses; but it is much more profitable to try to discover why they, who were really not one whit less sensible persons ...
— The Rise and Progress of Palaeontology - Essay #2 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... of it, if kept constantly working, to obtain just water enough to keep us alive. The party who had tried to sink a well had invariably been stopped by hard limestone rock in every place they had tried, and all their attempts to penetrate it by means of a cold chisel and pickaxe had proved abortive. The party which had been out with me searching for water had not seen the slightest sign which indicated its presence on the island: we had taken a spade with us, but wherever we dug had come down upon the solid rock. Under these circumstances I reduced ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... Brummel, or D'Orsay, or any other professional dandy might die envying! As for the King of Hearts, he looks as much like a pet of the fair sex as Boanerges or Bung the Beadle. And what strange anatomical proportions they exhibit, with their gigantic heads, abortive necks, and the calves of their legs protuberant around their tibias and fibulas, alike before and behind! And then they are all left-handed! Were these the gay gallants and fair dames of the golden age of chivalry? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... were still more disturbed by the abortive issue of Louvet's denunciation of Robespierre: he began to forebode the commencement of the Reign of Terror; he was paralysed with sorrow and dismay, and stung with disappointment, that no paramount ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... apparentes, modo disparentes", especially, when one comes near them; and if one come in the way against them, unto whom they vanish; but presently appear behind and hold on their course. If it be a little candle pale or bluish, then follows the corps either of an abortive or some infant; if a big one, then the corps of some one come to age: if there be seen two, or three, or more, some big, some small together, then so many and such corpses together. If two candles come from divers places, and be seen to meet, the corpses ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... are gratuitous by Article 22; consequently, they have from fifteen to thirty thousand francs per annum. They have the peculiar privilege of receiving their salary, and the prerogative of "not opposing" the promulgation of the laws. They are all illustrious personages."[2] This is not an "abortive Senate,"[3] like that of Napoleon the uncle; this is a genuine Senate; the marshals are members, and ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... few words, he told her of West's abortive attempt to plunge a second time into the black depths from which he had so recently escaped, of the man's absolutely selfless devotion, of his rigid refusal to suffer even her love for him to move him ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Walton, after an expression of impatience, as if disappointed at finding that the advance which he had made towards an explanation with his young friend had proved unexpectedly abortive, composed his brow as if to deep thought, and walked several times to and fro in the apartment, considering what course he was to take in these circumstances. "It is hard to censure him severely," he said, "when I recollect that, on ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... all the doctrine, all the literature based upon that conception has become irrelevant and meaningless in the light of the new ideal. We no longer conceive the individual save as one in a chain of births. Fatherless, he is inconceivable; sonless, he is abortive. His soul, if he have one, is inseparable from its derivation from the past and its tradition to the future. His duty, his happiness, his value, are all bound up with the fact of paternity; and the same, mutatis ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... consequence of this was that, between October and April, he was in the hospital four times, always owing to an increase in the low fever induced by physical and mental exhaustion. Through the winter, Becker had made a few feeble attempts at protection, all of which proved abortive. But finally, in the early spring, noting Ivan's look of frailty, and fearing a breakdown that must be brought to the notice of Prince Michael, he took the case in hand vigorously, and procured ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Canea, my archaeological mission being abortive, I was told by the Christian secretary of the pasha that the difficulty had been that I had not offered to give to His Excellency the coins that might be found in the excavations, and that if I did this I might hope for a firman. As it was not in my power to give what, by the agreement arrived ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... Congress, in which also the Poles and Yugoslavs participated, issued a manifesto to Europe on June 12, 1848, proclaiming the "liberty, equality and fraternity of nations." It ended prematurely by the outbreak of an abortive revolt in Prague, provoked by the military, which resulted in bloodshed and in the re-establishment of reaction ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... title to a long deserted camp— interesting testimony to the diligence and patience of the deceased occupants was obtained. It was evident that the sea had been largely drawn upon for supplies, if only on account of the many abortive and abandoned attempts at fishhooks in more or less advanced stages of completion. The brittleness of the fabric and the crudeness of the tools employed had evidently put the patience of the makers to severe task, who for one satisfactory hook must have ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... European, American and Indian pharmacopoeias is emmenagogue, antispasmodic, anthelmintic, excitant, diaphoretic, antiseptic and abortive. It contains an essential oil, and rutinic acid (C25H28O15, Borntrager), starch, gum, etc. The essential oil is greenish-yellow, thick, acrid and bitter; specific gravity 0.911. It boils at 228, is slightly soluble in water, and soluble in absolute ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... Correspondence of Montcalm. His Employments. His Impressions of Canada. His Hospitalities. Misunderstandings with the Governor. Character of Vaudreuil. His Accusations. Frenchmen and Canadians. Foibles of Montcalm. The opening Campaign. Doubts and Suspense. London's Plan. His Character. Fatal Delays. Abortive Attempt against Louisbourg. Disaster to the ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman |
