"Absolute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Newfoundland dog, to the end of the voyage. The friends of this lady—the first woman who descended the great rivers of the West in a steamboat—used every argument they could offer to dissuade her from undertaking what was considered a dangerous experiment, an absolute folly. The good wife, however, clung to her husband, and accepted the risks, preferring to be drowned or blown up, as her friends predicted, rather than to desert her better- half in his hour of trial. A few weeks would decide his success or failure, ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... him standing before the fire, with that look upon his face which I had seen only once or twice in our acquaintance—a look which I may call an absolute concatenation of inductive and deductive ratiocination—from which all that was human, tender, or sympathetic was absolutely discharged. He was simply an icy algebraic symbol! Indeed, his whole being was concentrated to that extent that his clothes fitted loosely, ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... the city walls, it was not under the jurisdiction of the city authorities. Farrant probably did not anticipate any interference on the part of the Common Council with the royal choristers "practicing" their plays in order "to yield Her Majesty recreation and delight," yet the absolute certainty of being free from the adverse legislation of the London authorities was not to be ignored. Moreover, the precinct was now the home of many noblemen and wealthy gentlemen, and Farrant probably thought that, as one of the most fashionable residential districts ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... expressive pantomimic gestures of the South. You are placed on the horns of a dilemma: give, and the report that a generous and fabulously wealthy Signore has arrived in Amalfi will run like wild-fire through the whole place, and your life in consequence will become an absolute burden for the remainder of your sojourn in this spot. Refuse, and the wretches who have hitherto been wheedling and cringing at your heels, will at once grow insolent and threatening, especially ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... no coal to run out of, since electricity is its mechanical force; no collisions to fear, because it navigates the watery deep all by itself; no storms to brave, because just a few meters beneath the waves, it finds absolute tranquility! There, sir. There's the ideal ship! And if it's true that the engineer has more confidence in a craft than the builder, and the builder more than the captain himself, you can understand the utter abandon with which I place my trust in this Nautilus, since I'm ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... arise certain rules of art, that in a composition objects must not be too scattered and divided into many equal parts, that perplex and fatigue the eye, at a loss where to find the principal action. Nor must there be that "absolute unity," "which, consisting of one group or mass of light only, would be as defective as an heroic poem without episode, or any collateral incidents to recreate the mind with that variety which it always requires." Sir Joshua instances Rembrandt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... his absolute determination Ronder's anger began to rise: "That I have been plotting as you call it," he said, "I absolutely and utterly deny. That is an insulting word. That I have been against you in the matter of Pybus from ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... of cleanliness I have not touched. Miss M. Loane, a Queen's Nurse, in her remarkable book The Next Street but One, observes "Cleanliness has often seemed to me strangely far from godliness. Where the virtue is highly developed there is often not merely an actual but an absolute shrinkage in all sweet neighbourly charities. If an invalid's bedroom needs scrubbing and there is no money to pay for the service, or if a chronic sufferer's kitchen is in want of a 'thorough good do-out,' if two or three troublesome children have to be housed and fed during the critical days after ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... the inroads of the tribes of The Desert. The population is very mixed, and consists of Fullans, who are the dominant caste, Touaricks, Negroes, and Moors and Arabs from different oases of Sahara, as also from the Northern Coast of Africa. The majority of the Moors are Maroquines. The Government is absolute, and now in the delegated possession of a Marabout named Mokhtar, and the national religion Mahometan. There do not appear to be any Pagans or idolatrous Africans now resident in Timbuctoo, but some half century ago most of the Kissour Negroes, the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... "On the plea of the man being Cyril Hall's friend and Robert Moore's brother, we'll just tolerate his existence; won't we, Cary? You believe him to be intelligent, do you? Not quite an idiot—eh? Something commendable in his disposition!—id est, not an absolute ruffian. Good! Your representations have weight with me; and to prove that they have, should he come this way I ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... punctual. This country is among the lowest, in point of credit. Ours stands in hope only. They consider us as the surest nation on earth for the repayment of the capital; but as the punctual payment of interest is of absolute necessity in their arrangements, we cannot borrow but with difficulty and disadvantage. The monied men, however, look towards our new government with a great degree of partiality, and even anxiety. If they see that set out on the English plan, the first degree of credit will be transferred to us. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Denmark, in fact, was at this time occupied with new loves. Ogier's mother having died, he had married a second wife, and had a son named Guyon. The new queen had absolute power over her husband, and fearing that, if he should see Ogier again, he would give him the preference over Guyon, she had adroitly persuaded him to delay rendering his homage to Charlemagne, till now four years had passed ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... matters love is a mere detail. The parents, or those who stand in the place of parents, are the absolute masters, and therefore the high contracting powers. Sons as well as daughters are subject to this will until after marriage. It is a custom strong as statute law. If inclination coincide with parental desire, well and good; ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... Nicholas had been of the same general type—a type so pure, so disinterested, so concerned for the public good. Just so it endeared Mr. Carteret to him to perceive that he considered his father had done a definite work, prematurely interrupted, which had been an absolute benefit to the people of England. The oddity was, however, that though both Mr. Carteret's aspect and his appreciation were still so fresh this relation of his to his late distinguished friend made the latter appear to Nick even more irrecoverably dead. The good ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... commander-in-chief of the armed forces head of government: Prime Minister ABDALLAH bin Khalifa Al Thani, brother of the amir (since 30 October 1996) cabinet: Council of Ministers appointed by the amir elections: none; the amir is an absolute monarch ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... on "The Ethical Moment in Conjugal Love" or "Marriage as a Manifestation of Absolute Identity," for which the lecturer received nothing but his expenses and a grateful pressure of hands, they were sitting in the denuded dining-room on their uncomfortable cane chairs, discussing ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... instinctively reasoned that, since her mother could make plans for their future so far in advance, the danger of which she had just spoken must be remote. What is remote, we readily believe uncertain; and thus, after a few minutes of absolute hopelessness, she began to hope again, tremblingly and fearfully, but still with more ardour than if the previous ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... to the spirit. For morals are a personal affair; in the war of righteousness every man fights for his own hand; all the six hundred precepts of the Mishna cannot shake my private judgment; my magistracy of myself is an indefeasible charge, and my decisions absolute for the time and case. The moralist is not a judge of appeal, but an advocate who pleads at my tribunal. He has to show not the law, but that the law applies. Can he convince me? then he gains the cause. And thus you find Christ giving various counsels to varying ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... answered. "Of course we're not. I mean we have one kind of happiness—the happiness that come's from being loved and having a home and children. But there is another kind of happiness of which when you cut our wings we were no longer capable—the happiness that comes from a sense of absolute freedom. We can bear that for ourselves, but not for our daughters. Angela and all the girl-children who follow her must have the freedom that we have lost. Will ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... has always been pious. If it is noted for anything it is for its extreme devotion. You have no idea how many Democrats wear out the toes of their shoes praying. I suppose that in this country there ought to be an absolute divorce between church and state and without any alimony being allowed to the church; and I have always supposed that the Republican party was perfectly willing that anybody should vote its ticket who believed in its principles. The party was not established, as I understand it, in the ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... be all in all to her,—that he should be her one god upon earth. And he had done more even than this. "Bring your sister," he had said. "The house shall be big enough for her also, and she shall be my sister as well as yours." Who had ever done more for a woman, or shown a more absolute confidence? And now what was the return he received? She was not contented with her one god upon earth, but must make to herself other gods,—another god, and that too out of a lump of the basest clay to be found around her. He thought that he could remember to ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... "When he painted he would not have given audience to the greatest monarch on earth." He calmly set at nought established principles and conventional rules, in etiquette as well as in art, and followed the bent of his genius with absolute disregard for the opinions of his fellows. The story of "Night Watch" is characteristic of Rembrandt and shows the whole situation in minature. The members of Captain Banning Cocq's Company of the Civic Guards ...
— Rembrandt and His Etchings • Louis Arthur Holman
... first revolution occurred in Russia, absolute monarchy and divine, kingly rights have practically disappeared from Europe. Before the Russian Revolution, four-fifths of the people of Europe were under the sway of monarchs who exercised dictatorial power over the domestic and foreign ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... God, absolute master of all, whose mere will does whatever he resolves; but, if I may venture to say what seems to me true, our gods very often agree ill together; and, though their wrath crush me before your eyes, we have a good many of them for ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... confidence so desired, so complete!" Never had the witchery of the story to the ear of a child come more closely home to me. But the fact of the witchery was no new experience. The surrender of the natural child to the story-teller is as absolute and invariable as that of a devotee to the priest ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... by Russia between 1865 and 1885, Turkmenistan became a Soviet republic in 1925. It achieved its independence upon the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. President NIYAZOV retains absolute control over the country and opposition is not tolerated. Extensive hydrocarbon/natural gas reserves could prove a boon to this underdeveloped country if extraction and delivery ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... States? * * Although the President, like the Vice President, is elected for a term of four years, and each is elected for the same term, the President is not to hold the office absolutely during four years. The limit of four years is not an absolute limit. Death is a limit. "A conditional limitation," as the lawyers call it, is imposed on his tenure of office. And when the President dies his term of four years, for which he was elected and during which he was to hold provided he should so long live, terminates, and the office devolves upon the ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... old-fashioned room, walked straight into from the street," which would have served for the "umble" dwelling of Uriah Heep and his mother, but none can be pointed out with absolute certainty as being ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... wrestling-ground and not the resting-place of man, than is that of the Brahmin, ever seeking to abstract himself from the Christian's conflicts of action and desire, and to carry into its extremest practice the aesthetic theory, of basking undisturbed in the contemplation of the most absolute beauty human thought can reflect from its idea ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in which we were on the day when we first came in sight of the ramparts of Acre; we had made a less inconsiderate estimate of the strength of the place; if we had likewise taken into consideration the active co-operation of the English and the Ottoman Porte; our absolute want of artillery of sufficient calibre; our scarcity of gunpowder and the difficulty of procuring food; we certainly should not have undertaken the siege; and that would have been by ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... of time. The revolt in Umbria and Etruria was speedily suppressed, and at the close of the second year of the war, B.C. 89, the insurrection itself was virtually at an end. For, though the Sulpician revolution at Rome prevented its absolute extinction, and some embers of it still lingered for five years more, and though Roman forces were still required after 89 B.C. among the Sabines in Samnium, in Lucania, and at Nola, the war as a war ended in that year. [Sidenote: Twofold division of the ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... great effect the ancient German political system. By the regulations then determined on, that country was freed at one fell swoop from the vexatious and harassing dominion of the various petty Princes who exercised absolute sovereignties over little nations of fifty thousand souls. These independent sovereigns became subjects; and either swelled, by their mediatisation, the territories of some already powerful potentate, or transmuted into a state of importance ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... the entire state is 35 deg. , and there is an average of 35 days in each year in which the thermometer falls below the freezing-point. At extremely rare intervals the thermometer has fallen below zero, as was the case in the remarkable cold wave of the 12th-13th of February 1899, when an absolute minimum of 17 deg. was registered at Valley Head. The highesl temperature ever recorded was 109 deg. in Talladega county in 1902. The amount of precipitation is greatest along the coast (62 in.) and evenly distributed through the rest of the state (about 52 in.). ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... salesmanship cannot be mastered in a few hours of casual reading. You will not be able, immediately after glancing through these books, to unlock every long-desired golden opportunity with absolute assurance. CERTAIN SUCCESS WITH THE SELLING PROCESS must be studied out. You should keep them always at hand like your bank books, and draw on the contents for your salesmanship ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... misinformed if any man should deliver that the Kings of England have any absolute power in themselves either to alter religion, or to make any laws concerning the same, otherwise than as in temporal causes, by ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... eternal, holy, absolute, That grasps—as doth a noble bird of prey The steaming flanks of the foredoomed brute,— Its project, and with ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine
... am blind, deaf, and dumb!" her aunt commanded. "Say that I have the mumps and the chicken-pox, and am recommended absolute retirement. Say I have my sins to think about, and have no time for anything else. Say anything you like, Vesta, but run along now, like a good girl, and let me get smoothed out before that poor little parson comes to ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... coming. The autumn rains were setting in, the woods were often dripping, the mosses holding the rain like so much sponge, and the shelter of a roof becoming an absolute necessity for the one who had sought it merely of ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... East-India Company claimed the absolute sovereignty of the Straits of Sunda, as possessing the kingdom of Bantam, on the shore of Java, and having conquered the land of Lampon and other provinces on the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... an axiom, that no conquest, no racial incursion, ever succeeds in wiping out the conquered people; unless there is such wide disparity, racial and cultural, as existed, for example, between the white settlers in America and the Indians. There are forces in human nature itself which make this absolute. The conquerors may quite silence the conquered; may treat them with infinite cruelty; may blot out all their records and destroy the memory of their race; but the blood of the conquered will go on flowing through all the generation of the children of the conquerors, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... that the people are not satisfied with their religion. They are continually asking for evidence. They are asking it in every imaginable way. The sects are continually dividing. There is no real religious serenity in the world. All religions are opponents of intellectual liberty. I believe in absolute mental freedom. Real religion with me is a thing not of the head, but of the heart; not a theory, not a creed, ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... miles from headquarters. They told me that these snakes were in possession of hypnotic powers, but this, like many other assertions, should be taken with a large grain of salt. However, I will relate an incident which occurred while I lived at Floresta, and in which I have absolute faith, as I had the opportunity of talking to the persons involved in ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... entered the room found itself caught in a mesh of fine threads. His last words were not a command, they constituted a kind of appeal; and, though she felt that any expression of respect on his part could only be a refinement of egotism, they represented something transcendent and absolute, like the sign of the cross or the flag of one's country. He spoke in the name of something sacred and precious—the observance of a magnificent form. They were as perfectly apart in feeling as two disillusioned ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... patrimony, aloof from popular tumults. The successes of the Equi, (young Democracy,) however, rendered the appointment of a Dictator necessary, and CINCINNATUS was chosen to that high office. He laid aside his rural habiliments, assumed the ensigns of absolute power, levied a new army, marched all night to bring the necessary succor to the Consul MINCIUS, (W. M. TWEED,) who was surrounded by the enemy and blockaded in his camp, (Albany,) and before morning surrounded the enemy's army, and reduced it to a condition exactly similar to that ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... each other. I took her hand within mine, 'Ah! Manon,' said I, with a look of sorrow, 'I little thought that love like mine could have been repaid with treachery! It was a poor triumph to betray a heart of which you were the absolute mistress—whose sole happiness it was to gratify and obey you. Tell me if among others you have found any so affectionate and so devoted? No, no! I believe nature has cast few hearts in the same mould as mine. Tell me at least whether you have ever thought of me with regret! Can I ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... mother, the widowed countess, when Lafeu, an old lord of the French court, came to conduct him to the king. The King of France was an absolute monarch and the invitation to court was in the form of a royal mandate, or positive command, which no subject, of what high dignity soever, might disobey; therefore, though the countess, in parting with this dear ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... are not now dependent on the labour of men for their support—that some, or even most of them, are in a position of freedom. The plain truth of it is—almost all women depend for everything upon one man, who is or may be an absolute despot. A very small number of women have "money of their own," as we quaintly phrase it—that is to say, are supported by the labour of many among us, either in the form of rent or in the form of interest on capital bequeathed to ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... that, without absolute rudeness, I was able, I turned entirely from him, and asked Mrs. Selwyn if we should not be late home? How Lord Orville looked I know not, for I avoided meeting his eyes; but he did not speak another word as we proceeded to the garden gate. Indeed, I believe, my abruptness ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... the best remedy to such morbid tendencies towards the Superstitious was in the severe exercise of the faculties most opposed to Superstition,—in the culture of pure reasoning, in the science of absolute fact. Accordingly, I placed before me the very book which Julius Faber had advised me to burn; I forced all my powers of mind to go again over the passages which contained the doctrines that his admonition had censured; ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bear a hand in relief and restoration. Every person going up Market Street stopped to throw a few bricks from the street to make possible a way for vehicles. For miles desolation reigned. In the unburned districts bread-lines marked the absolute leveling. Bankers and beggars were one. Very soon the mighty tide of relief set in, beginning with the near-by counties and extending to the ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... afterward Constance rose from obscurity to semi-popularity. The story of her singing was noised about through school until it reached even the ears of the girls who had despised her for her poverty. Muriel and Susan had looked absolute amazement when a talkative freshman told the news as she received it from a girl who had attended the party. Mignon, however, was secretly furious at the, to her, unbelievable report that "that ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... higher into the mountains as the evening fell, and the mists closed down upon them. Outside they heard nothing but the rattle of the rain on the top of the carriage, and the tinkle of the horses' bells. By and by the lamps were lit. Later they were in absolute blackness—plunging through the streaming night; ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... Frank: I made inquiries myself at the island registry-office. The clerk told me this story, but said that the woman who had charge of the dead asserted that the grave was opened, and it was ascertained that absolute death ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... suffering, and I suffered it until my mind went out in that sickness. But, listen now: whatever has happened—I'm not yet sure what it is—I no longer suffer. Two things only I know: that our creed still has my godless, scoffing, unbaptised father in hell, and that my love for him—my absolute oneness with him—has ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... friend whose affectionate gaze rested all the while upon her; now stiff and icy he was sleeping his last sleep in the same spot, and his soul? Safely resting, after the feverish toil and strife of Time, amid the palms of Eternal Peace. Not the peace of Nirwana; neither the absolute absorption of one school of philosophy, nor the total extinction inculcated by a yet grosser system. Not the vague insensate peace of Pantheism, but the spiritual rest of a heaven of reunion and of recognition promised by Jesus Christ our Lord, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... and pretenders and dictators ruling every bailiwick in which they can get a foot-hold. Feudal government may have had some bad features, but certainly the republics and democracies of to-day, to say nothing of absolute ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... faculties and calming the mind, was forbidden. If at least he could have roamed on horseback through the forest of pines! But no; the autumn rains, even in this lovely climate, last for weeks. In the absolute solitude of a town like Ravenna, imprisoned, so to say, within his own apartment, how could he avoid some emotions of sadness? He was thus assailed; and, as it always happened where he himself was concerned, he mistook its causes. Engrossed by an affection ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... repressed, "you are undertaking to rule offhand on a question which is too vital to my life to be treated with snap judgment. I've tried to meet your wishes and I want to go on trying, but in this you must think well before you take a position so—so absolute ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... deserts of the world, these authorities say:—"Perhaps the most absolute desert tract on the face of the globe is that which occupies the interior of the great island, or as it may not improperly be styled, 'Continent ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... crept to the motor room. He had to work in absolute darkness, for the gleam of a light would have drawn the fire of the guards. But the youth knew every inch of his invention. The only worriment was whether or not the motor would start up after the breakdown, not having ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... the same centre and the same circumference. The term, however, is not ordinarily so used; it evidently is not so by such as undertake to trace out the distinction between synonyms; for, without venturing to deny that there may be such perfect synonyms, words, that is, with this absolute coincidence of the one with the other, yet these could not be the objects of any such discrimination; since, where no real difference exists, it would be lost labour and the exercise of a perverse ingenuity to attempt to draw ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... broke down; for with Falconer's eloquent eyes upon him, he realized the extent of the man's self-sacrifice, and it seemed to him that any attempt to express his own gratitude was worse than absolute silence. Can you thank a man for ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... Mr. Monk defended the Coalition, and assured the House that the navy was not only the most powerful navy existing, but that it was the most powerful that ever had existed in the possession of this or any other country, and was probably in absolute efficiency superior to the combined navies of all the world. The House was not shocked by statements so absolutely at variance with each other, coming from two gentlemen who had lately been members of the same Government, and who must be supposed ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... supposed that Roland Clewe intended to intrust such an expedition to the absolute command of such a man as old Samuel Block. There would be on board the Dipsey an electrician who had long been preparing himself for this expedition; there were to be other scientific men; there would be a submarine engineer, and such ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... to myself, "I must not treat her as so complete a novice; her inattention yesterday could not have proceeded from absolute ignorance, but merely from a want of poetic feeling. I'll ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... six essays in this volume the liberties taken with the absolute facts are so slight as to require no ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... empires, the discovery and settlement of countries, or the rise and fall of dynasties, the knowledge of the truth or falsity of the legendary narrative will be of importance, because the value of history is impaired by the imputation of doubt. But it is not so in Freemasonry. Here there need be no absolute question of the truth or falsity of the legend. The object of the masonic legends is not to establish historical facts, but to convey philosophical doctrines. They are a method by which esoteric instruction ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... were written, because the public, if relatively few, was absolutely fit. Secondly, these new educated people insist on our national cursed "actuality." They live solely in the distracted moment, whereas true literature lives in the absolute; in the past that perhaps never was present, and that ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... the White Linen Nurse sank down on her knees and began to grin at him. "Oh, no, sir," she said. "I couldn't do it that way,—not 'one thing at a time.' Oh, no indeed, sir! No!" Absolute finality was in her voice,—the inviolable stubbornness of ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... objects. No more relation could he discover between the steam and the electric current than between the Cross and the cathedral. The forces were interchangeable if not reversible, but he could see only an absolute fiat in electricity as in faith. Langley could not help him. Indeed, Langley seemed to be worried by the same trouble, for he constantly repeated that the new forces were anarchical, and especially that ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... to a single chord. He cannot tell where his direction tends; He strives unguided towards indefinite ends; He is an ignorant though absolute lord. ...
— Poems of West & East • Vita Sackville-West
... of protective tariffs. For a century and a half most serious students of economics have favored a larger measure of freedom, if not absolute freedom, in foreign trade. But the actual practice of most nations has never been in accord with the principles laid down by the philosophers. Great Britain alone among the larger countries has, since 1846, steadily pursued a low tariff policy for revenue ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... than that indeed,' replied Julia; 'she is in some sense a despot; her will is sovereign in the state; she is an absolute prince in fact; but it is through the force of her own character and virtues, not by the consent and expressed allowance of her subjects. Her genius, her goodness, her justice, and her services, have united to confer upon her this dangerous pre-eminence. But who else, ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... constitution, as it has ultimately taken place in the organism by the successive evolutions of forms which have gradually become permanent, and are perpetuated by embryogenic reproduction. This reproduction is in its turn the absolute condition of psychical and organic facts, which are thus manifested as primitive facts in the new life of the individual. By this law, the psychical facts, whether elementary or complex, as they occur in the individual up ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... activity—good as well as evil. His ideal is not greatness and goodness of heart, but the renunciation of all that animates and inspires. To him the highest virtue in its noblest activity has no charms; for he claims that he looks above and beyond all this to that absolute equilibrium of soul when passion, and when all desire, shall have been killed through self-mortification and self-abnegation and he shall have attained mental poise and repose rather than a perfect character. Thus, in its last analysis, his ideal is an intellectual, ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... between ten and fourteen years of age,—varying in color from a fine clear yellow to a deep reddish-brown or chocolate tint. They row with two little square, flat pieces of wood for paddles, clutched in each hand; and these lid-shaped things are dipped into the water on either side with absolute precision, in perfect time,—all the pairs of little naked arms seeming moved by a single impulse. There is much unconscious grace in this paddling, as well as skill. Then all about the ship these ridiculous little ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... Wilson's belief in the absolute necessity of the guaranty, which he proposed, to the preservation of international peace cannot be doubted. While his advisers were practically unanimous in the opinion that policy, as well as principle, demanded a change in the guaranty, he clung tenaciously ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... described in their real character by him who is the "Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God." Each of these titles speaks the divine dignity of Christ. They are all to be understood in an absolute, not in a comparative sense. As "there is none good (absolutely so,) but one; that is, God," Matt. xix. 17; so Christ only is the "Amen" in such sense that he "cannot lie" as a "witness.'" He "speaks that which he has seen with his Father." (John viii. 38.) Jesus is, moreover, ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... considered by them as a debt of gratitude, and a virtue. He had many excellent qualities. His manners were conciliating—His courage and abilities great—But the people by an entire confidence in him suffered him to lay a foundation for absolute monarchy. They were charmed with his moderation and wisdom, qualities which he really possessed; but they did not consider his ambition, nor had they a thought of his views. They found peace restored, order established, justice administered, commerce protected, and the arts ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... you, too," returned the good woman, dropping an old-fashioned courtesy; "and me that prizes my clergyman's visits and thinks no end of them! But Mr. Dancy he says to me, 'Now, my good Mrs. Williams, I have come here for quiet,—for absolute quiet; and I do not want to see or hear of any one. Tell no tales about me, and leave me in peace; and then we shall get on together.' And it was more than I ventured to give you the hint, hearing him speak so ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... died in the year 676, the oligarchy which he had restored ruled with absolute sway over the Roman state; but, as it had been established by force, it still needed force to maintain its ground against its numerous secret and open foes. It was opposed not by any single party with objects clearly ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... been near death. And each day Paul's strength returned, until his father began to hope they might still be home for his birthday the last day of July. They had crept up the coast of Italy now, when an absolute calm fell upon them, and just opposite the temple of Paestum they decided to anchor for ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... whatsoever he liked—-ay, and enjoy the doing of it. Friends, acquaintances, undergraduates, even down to children and servants, all did, more or less, sooner or later, the good pleasure of Dr. Grey. Perhaps the secret of this was that his "pleasure" was never merely his own. None wield such absolute power over others as those who ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... employed by the market-gardener discovered what old Clark must have known all the time, and that is that the Field had a cloud upon its title, or rather an absolute restriction which would render worthless any title that Samuel might give alone. To explain this legal obstacle we must go back before the war and my day into the previous generation. There had been a family quarrel between Samuel and his older brother, which had resulted finally in Edward Stanley—the ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... which followed the close of the War of 1812 was, perhaps, the longest which any nation has ever enjoyed. For the navy of the United States, it was a time of absolute peace, inactivity, even stagnation. The young nation was living literally up to Washington's rule of avoiding entanglements abroad, and its people looked with suspicion on the naval branch of the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... more pleased and complimented by her call than by mine. Then we were taken to the department store to which I have already alluded. Many people do all their buying there, because there are fixed prices with a reward for a discovery of any place where the same goods are sold cheaper, and absolute honesty as to quality. But they also said that was the easy way to visit Japan and learn about the clothes, ornaments, toys, etc., and also to see the people, as the Japanese from all over the country come there to ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... send telegrams to the War Department saying he needed more troops and didn't know where to get them. Yet he was in absolute command of all the troops in his department and could order them to march at a moment's notice in any direction he wished. He hesitated and continued to send telegrams and write letters for more ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... feeling—he gave me the notion of a very fine gentleman." You uttered the words as if you had felt that the adjunct had injured the substance and the increased degree altered the kind. Pliny was the courtier of an absolute monarch—Cicero an aristocratic republican. For this reason the character of gentleman, in the sense to which I have confined it, is frequent in England, rare in France, and found, where it is found, in age or the latest period of manhood; while in Germany the ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... party. On every ship we had friends. It seemed as if Canada herself were steaming across the ocean. Day after day, in perfect weather, keeping our relative positions in absolute order, we sped over the deep. There was none of the usual sense of loneliness which characterizes the ocean voyage. We looked at the line of vessels and we felt that one spirit and one determination quickened the whole ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... concepts that go in under the caption of the humanities in the world at large. The category is large enough to constitute an intellectual community, indeed a community of somewhat formidable magnitude, taken in absolute terms, although in percentages of the population at large their numbers will foot up to only an inconsiderable figure. Their contact with the superior class spoken of above is fairly close, being a contact, in the main, of service on the one side and of control on the other. With the populace their ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... of Governor Davey's administration in 1817, the population of Van Diemen's Land was 3,114, and of these 566 resided in the county of Cornwall. The convicts were slowly augmented by deportations from Sydney, and they were subject to the absolute will of the officers. It is in vain to look for systems in a community so small, and separated by so great a distance from public opinion. Management was lax or rigid, according to the temper of the moment; and no object was contemplated by those who had power, except to render its exercise ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... to enforce certain practices among all the people; and it would be very natural that, in reference to those points respecting which they wish to influence the outside masses, they should see the necessity of first having absolute conformity among all the evangelical denominations. They could not expect to influence non-religionists to any great degree on questions respecting which they were divided among themselves. So, then, let union be had on those ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... anything about the trial?" He was now beginning to be frightened, feeling that something terrible was coming; but still of the absolute truth he had ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... description given me of the meeting between these men in that early Spring morning in 1859. Both possessed unquestioned courage. Their demeanor upon the field, as in deadly attitude they confronted each other a few paces apart, was that of absolute fearlessness. "Each had set his life upon a cast, and was ready to stand ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... restlessly about the compartment, making vehement gestures in her desperation, but now a sudden, terrible, yet calming idea struck her to absolute quietness. There was a way, just one, to thwart this adversary; she could destroy the body into which it thought to return. At the same moment there arose in her soul two opposing waves of emotion—one of passionate self-pity ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... have met with, who has not shewn some slight symptoms of curiosity: indeed, he seemed totally indifferent about our staying or going, or about what we were doing in his house; and we left him without knowing whether to ascribe his apathy to fear, or to absolute stupidity. ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... criticism, to the contrary notwithstanding."—Webster's Improved Gram., p. 85. In the phrase, "notwithstanding them," the former word is clearly a preposition governing the latter; but Dr. Webster doubtless supposed the word "criticism" to be in the nominative case, put absolute with the participle: and so it would have been, had he written not withstanding as two words, like "non obstante;" but the compound word notwithstanding is not a participle, because there is no verb to notwithstand. But notwithstanding, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... II.," continued Athos, "left the Hague neither as a fugitive nor a conqueror, but as an absolute king, who, after a distant voyage from his ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... June, 1824, Mr. Judson was arrested at his own dinner table by a party of officers, led by an executioner whose power was absolute, and who held in his hand a black book, in which the names of his victims were recorded. With scarcely a moment's notice they threw him on the floor, and bound him with strong cords, and hurried him away. Mrs. Judson offered them money to release her husband; ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... do I mean, Sirrah! You've driven me to absolute perdition. All pow'rs of heav'n and hell confound you for't, And make you an example to all villains! —Here! would you have your business duly manag'd, Commit it to this fellow!—What could be More tender than to touch upon this sore, Or even name my wife? ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... the country, the land was divided and subdivided into lots—some as small as fifty acres—and each proprietor held his share—as their descendants do to this day—by udal right; that is, not as a fief of the Crown, or of any superior lord, but in absolute, inalienable possession, by the same udal right as the kings wore their crowns, to be transmitted, under the same title, to their ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... and grass, where I lay staring absently into my failing fire, with no further thought of either my dream or my surroundings. Suddenly the single remaining flame crouched for a moment, then, springing upward, lifted itself clear of its embers and expired in air. The darkness was absolute. ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... country, and not by the ideal of ourselves."—The Political Value of History, p. 50, New York, 1892. The distinction is that between the relative standard, which we apply to motives and persons, and the absolute standard, which we apply to actions. The effects of the latter, for good or evil, are fixed, and independent of the ...
— An Ethnologist's View of History • Daniel G. Brinton |
