"At first hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... must be a sturdy breed of men and women, possessed of brawn and fortitude and high courage, who made their homes here. Back in her country, once beyond suburban areas, the farms lay like the squares of a chess board, trim and orderly, tamely subdued to agriculture. Here, at first hand, she saw how man attacked the forest and conquered it. But the conquest was incomplete, for everywhere stood those stubborn roots, six and eight and ten feet across, contending with man for its primal heritage, the ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... to England in 1589, after a two years' absence upon the Continent, and cannot have acquired at first hand the knowledge he shows of dramatic affairs in London during the preceding year. It is evident that this knowledge was gained from Greene for that purpose. Mr. Fleay has demonstrated that Nashe, in his preface to Greene's Menaphon, alludes ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... dinner, and my bachelor host A. Binning, so between these people and G.'s host and hostess, Mr and Mrs E., information about Burmah and its dependencies, its social, commercial, or political prospects was available at first hand and ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... mysterious. The French would defend the country, reconquering, besides the lost territories, but the Cossacks—of whom so many were speaking but so few had seen—were going to give the death blow. The only person who knew them at first hand was Tchernoff, and to Argensola's astonishment, he listened to his words without showing any enthusiasm. The Cossacks were for him simply one body of the Russian army—good enough soldiers, but incapable of working the miracles that ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of the two graves, a tale of every-day heroism of the kind of which life on the frontier has many to tell, to the credit of our poor human nature. He was "cadging" supplies to the camp that winter and was a witness at first hand ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... November of the year 1860, Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer, and a man who had made his own intellectual fortune, had been elected president by the Republicans who were very strong in the anti-slavery states. He knew the evils of human bondage at first hand and his shrewd common-sense told him that there was no room on the northern continent for two rival nations. When a number of southern states seceded and formed the "Confederate States of America," Lincoln accepted the challenge. The Northern states were called upon for volunteers. Hundreds ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... ultimately awarded to the decision would have belonged to him alone, who as head of the Order was best able to bear it. Mark's whole sympathy had been on the side of Brother George, and as one who had known at first hand the work in Aldershot, he did feel that it ought not to be abandoned so easily. Then when Brother Athanasius was speaking, Mark, in his embarrassment at such violence of manner and tone, picked up ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... business to be found in a canoe just discovered under the mud of Clyde, and cleared out by Mr. Bruce himself, a man or affairs, and of undisputed probity. In this case the precise site of the dubious relics is given, by a man of honour, at first hand. I confess that my knowledge of human nature does not enable me to contest Mr. Bruce's written attestation, while I marvel at the astuteness of the forger. As a finder, on this occasion, Mr. Bruce was in precisely the same position ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... this pleasure through a volume of twenty-four representative drawings collected under the apt title of Personalities (SECKER). Not for me to attempt detailed consideration, even if it were not the duty of every amateur to fall a victim at first hand to Mr. KAPP'S amazing art. But one can hardly pass without tribute such things as the head of the Japanese poet on page 1 ("Seer of Visions"), a really wonderful example of much meaning in few lines, or the WYNDHAM LEWIS, the only drawing in the book in which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... the facts in this chapter of adventures with grizzlies in Placer and El Dorado counties in 1850 and 1851, I am indebted to Dr. R. F. Rooney, of Auburn, Cal., who obtained the details at first hand from pioneers.—A. K. ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... description of some of the most common of the typical defects of rubies and sapphires is to follow, the jeweler, who may not yet be familiar with them by actual experience, owes it to himself and to his customers to acquaint himself at first hand with the natural defects of such material, which he is always in a position to do through the courtesy of representatives of houses dealing in precious stones, if he himself does not carry such ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... however, drew him aside from the direct path to Marrow Lane. He had resolved not to see her for a year, but thought it right to break through that resolution in order to tell her at first hand of Harry West's death. But the janitor told him that Miss Ferris had not been coming to the studio for a long time. She had had no word from her. She had left one day by the back stair without her hat; a little later the legless beggar had ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... getting on to ground perilous for me, because Marget had evidently heard something and was determined to test it at first hand. Behind the curiosity there seemed, judging by her tone, to be a fight going on between friendliness and pique. It is a dangerous mixture for a man to have to counteract in a woman, because, responding to the friendliness, he may make admissions ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... as a disciple of Mr. Herbert Spencer in regard to the religious ideas of the Australians—according to that writer, mere dread of casual 'spirits'—she was obliged to alter her attitude, in consequence of all that she learned at first hand. She also explains that her tribe are not 'wild blacks,' though, in the absence of missionary influences, they retain their ancient beliefs, at least the old people do; and, in a decadent form, preserve their tribal initiations, or Boorah. How she tested and controlled the evidence ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... suited her, and one may also say an economy. And then as regarded fashion, it might perhaps not be beyond the power of a Mrs. Proudie to regild the word with a newly burnished gilding. Some leading person must produce fashion at first hand, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... on at a lazy mule-trot, hearing the unwritten annals of the range from one who had seen them enacted at first hand. Pretty soon we passed a herd of burros with mealy, dusty noses and spotty hides, feeding on prickly pears and rock lichens; and just before sunset we slid down the last declivity out upon the plateau and came to a ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... years of delay into the main currents of human thought. But these dilatory methods of professional pedantry, miscalled "ethics," shall not longer be allowed to delay the publication of highly important principles which the public are entitled to know at once, and to know at first hand. Then, too, it is more than doubtful if any purely academic body could be found willing to become responsible for giving to the world conclusions so contrary to the vogue of the ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... books and magazines scrutinize the character of the source. Is it impartial or partisan? Is its treatment of the subject exhaustive and definite, or cursory and superficial? Does the author know the subject at first hand, or does he rely on other men? On such points the second book or article will be easier to estimate than the first, and the third than the second; for with each new source you have the earlier ones as a basis ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... you are to understand, secondly, Mr. Pip, that the name of the person who is your liberal benefactor remains a profound secret, until the person chooses to reveal it. I am empowered to mention that it is the intention of the person to reveal it at first hand by word of mouth to yourself. When or where that intention may be carried out, I cannot say; no one can say. It may be years hence. Now, you are distinctly to understand that you are most positively prohibited ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... is fair enough, as is the comment about Grandison's "showy and ostentatious" benevolence and his excessive variety of accomplishments. The judgment about Richardson's incessant emphasis on sex anticipates much later criticism, and is made at first hand, though connected with the stock comment that modern tragedies dwell too exclusively on the passion of love. There is truth in the observation that Mr. B— and Lovelace think nothing can be done with women except by bribery, corruption, and terror, that Richardson is unable to describe ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... consent to borrowing traditions and living at second hand. "If John was perfect, why are you and I alive?" Emerson writes; "As long as any man exists there is some need of him; let him fight for his own." This faith that in a life at first hand there is something sacred is perhaps the most characteristic note in Emerson's writings. The hottest side of him is this non-conformist persuasion, and if his temper could ever verge on common irascibility, it would be by reason of the ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... first workings of that spirit which made Gibson afterwards into the greatest sculptor of all Europe. He didn't try even then to draw horse or man by mere guess-work; he went out and studied the subject at first hand. There are in that single trait two great elements of success in no matter what line of life—supreme carefulness, and ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... wounds, he had the calf of his leg badly torn by one that burst. He would put his hand to any labour and his life to any risk, if so he might stir the activity of others and promote the cause. He convinced himself, by studying the question at first hand, that the Baluch Am[i]rs, who ruled the country, were not only aliens but oppressors of the native peasantry, not only ill-disposed to British policy, but actively plotting with the hill-tribes beyond the Indus, and at the right ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... look of remonstrance and deprecation was his only reply. However, as it has always been my rule to seek information at first hand, I tried, in a friendly and confidential way, to draw him out respecting certain of his Church's usages and tenets, which I knew to be garbled and falsified by Protestant bigotry. But it was evident that throughout every fibre of ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... of Mr. Choate which occasionally goes the rounds of the papers, and which is often repeated quite inaccurately. The true version is this. I heard it within a few hours after it happened, and have heard it at first hand more than once since. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... business form. Lord Charles Hay, "Lieutenant-Colonel," practical Head, "of the First Regiment of Foot-guards," wrote, about three weeks after (or dictated in sad spelling, not himself able to write for wounds), a Letter to his Brother, of which here is an Excerpt at first hand, with only the spelling altered:... "It was our Regiment that attacked the French Guards: and when we came within twenty or thirty paces of them, I advanced before our Regiment; drank to them [to the French, from the pocket-pistol ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... tracking down the breakers of the laws that are made in the picturesque building with the clock tower so close by. And not very distant is the War Office, where mobilisation-while-you-wait may be studied at first hand, we don't think. Indeed, London offers such opportunities that we shall be surprised if the Selborne Society ever looks at a mole ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... adventures of members of the U. S. Geological Survey, graphically woven into a stirring narrative that both pleases and instructs. The author enjoys an intimate acquaintance with the chiefs of the various bureaus in Washington, and is able to obtain at first hand the material ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... more important than the endorsement by any Englishman as to the historical accuracy of the statements which it contains. For what every judicial tribunal desires, first of all, is to hear witnesses at first hand. Hitherto the British public has chiefly been condemned to second-hand testimony. In the pages of A Century of Wrong it will, at least, have an opportunity of hearing the Dutch of ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... de Toledo," was sent on a special embassy to the Pope to acquaint the Pontiff at first hand of all that happened, and the success which had attended the arms of the Emperor, and also to thank his Holiness for the assistance which he had rendered by sending the Papal galleys. Jorge de Melo, a Portuguese caballero, was sent to his own country with despatches, ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... wise as are those who come into contact with Nature at first hand, did not interfere with his son's queer predilections or attempt to stay his development on the lines of instinctive preference, aiding the boy indeed in every way to make the most of himself on the ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... a girl in years, Valerie was a woman in experience. Experience, not gained altogether at first hand, be it understood, but such as a clever woman easily gathers from the lives of those about her. As the motherless daughter of M. Selpdorf, she had had exceptional opportunities. Thrown into the midst of a brilliant but vicious society, her eyes had seen more of the bare ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... he has been little known in modern times but for his connexion with Heloise. Indeed, it was not till the 19th century, when Cousin in 1836 issued the collection entitled Ouvrages inedits d'Abelard, that his philosophical performance could be judged at first hand; of his strictly philosophical works only one, the ethical treatise Scito te ipsum, having been published earlier, namely, in 1721. Cousin's collection, besides giving extracts from the theological work Sic et Non (an assemblage of opposite opinions on doctrinal points, culled from ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... glimmering of a notion of some way of replacing linen rags with an exceedingly common vegetable product, not previously manufactured, but taken direct from the soil, as the Chinese use vegetable fibre at first hand. I have classified the guesses made by those who came before me, and have begun to study the question. The bamboo is a kind of reed; naturally I began to think of the reeds that ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... the study of physiology in schools many things must be taken for granted. The observation and experience of medical men, and the experiments of the physiologist in his laboratory must be depended upon for data which cannot be well obtained at first hand by ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... Margaret if she would like to have a visit from Mr. Wilmot. She enjoyed this very much, and he sat there nearly an hour, talking of many matters, especially the Cocksmoor scheme, on which she was glad to hear his opinion at first hand. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... suggestion, I would say, remind yourself frequently of the very words of the Prayer Book (including the Catechism) and the Articles on these great subjects. And inform yourself to some extent, at first hand, of the views of the men who cast our Services and our Articles into their practically present shape; the views of Cranmer, of Ridley, of Jewell, and, just after them, of Hooker; not forgetting one great foreign theologian, Henry Bullinger, who exercised a special influence on ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... Menaechmi in 1595, which some critics think Shakespeare may have seen in manuscript. But no verbal similarities confirm this conjecture, and there is no reason why the dramatist should not have known both plays at first hand. ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... make inconsistency painful. Of the vast piles of books which load our libraries, ninety-nine hundredths and more are but printed echoes: and it is the rarest of pleasures to say, Here is a distinct record of impressions at first hand. We commonplace beings are hurried along in the crowd, living from hand to mouth on such slices of material and spiritual food as happen to drift in our direction, with little more power of taking an independent course, or of forming ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... great age of art before the era of Vandyck and Rubens—even before Michelangelo and Raphael; and that, towards setting up as a critic of the present, he must understand the past out of which it had grown. So he determined to go to Florence and Venice, and to study the religious painters at first hand. ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... or by my teacher. I think I detect in several recent books a fresh, less final, and less tidy treatment of the kinematics of mechanisms, but I would yet recommend that anyone who thinks of writing a textbook take time to review, carefully and at first hand, not only the desk copies of books that he has accumulated but a score or more of earlier works, covering the last century at least. Such a study should result in a better appreciation of what constitutes ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson
... to the state, on two occasions, as believed by himself to have been rendered. Into the actuality of these services it is not necessary here to inquire;[138] it is sufficient to say that Nelson's knowledge of them could not have been at first hand, and that the credence he unquestionably gave to them must have depended upon the evidence of others,—probably of Lady Hamilton herself, in whom he felt, and always expressed, the most unbounded confidence. "Could I have rewarded ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... for the natives had their tales heard at first hand, and not through an interpreter. "Ma's" complete mastery of their tongue, customs, habits, and very nature, gave her, of course, an exceptional advantage. One District Commissioner spent three days in trying a single case, hearing innumerable ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... a troubled sleep.... When she awoke the room's outlines were reviving before the advances of early morning. For the first time in her life she caught the poetry of the new day at first hand. For years she had reveled vicariously in the delights of morning. But it had always been to her a thing apart, a matter which the writers of romantic verse beheld and translated for the benefit of late sleepers. It never ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... difference, that difference includes bluer skies, brighter streets and gardens, and all the originals of which you have here the copies. There, at least, I shall have the fashion of my peruke and my speech at first hand. Here you only adopt a mode when Paris ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... people to meet because of their familiarity with the first half of the eighteenth century, that brightest and most prosperous period of colonial life. They could tell us at first hand of those happy, easy-going times that lay between the long struggle to establish the colonies and the fierce struggle to ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... names, most of them Italian, a few Dutch, Flemish, or German. I began to work systematically through them, pleased at the want of a catalogue and the small number of inscriptions on the frames. To be your own guide doubles your pleasure; you can get your impression of a picture entirely at first hand; you are filled with admiration without any one having told you that you are bound to go into ecstasies. You can work out for yourself from a picture, by induction and comparison, its subject, its school, and its author, unless it proclaims, in every stroke ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... place in much less time than it would take in Europe, where objects of historic and other interest are so crowded together. If interested in the work of foreign missions abundant opportunity offers for their study at first hand. ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... urge on Congress the repeal of the silver-purchase clauses of the Sherman act. Mr. Cleveland's intention became known in official circles in Calcutta. That this was the case I learned at the time and at first hand. The government of India believed that the cessation of all silver purchases in America would still further reduce the exchange value of the rupee, and therefore, in advance of the pending anti-silver legislation anticipated from Washington, the ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... Billy Kasker answered. "The faculty thinks we should see the situation at first hand. Then we will have a better understanding ...
— Be It Ever Thus • Robert Moore Williams
... emphasis is laid upon a knowledge of history, of constitutional, administrative and international law, politics, economics, diplomacy and any other subjects that may fall within the scope of action of the special official. When, however, a law-maker or a high administrative official deals at first hand with a great population, it is extremely important that he be so experienced and so fitted by temperament that he may know his people. He must see how far he can go without arousing too much opposition. Even in promoting good measures, ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... themselves in turn. Virtually I was dead to all my friends in England, or I should be in a day or two, when the letter which would be found in Gastrell's pocket had been printed in the newspapers. That belief, I felt, would help me to carry out the plan I had formed for discovering at first hand the actual movements of the gang, some members of which would, I felt sure, be present at Eldon Hall for the coming-of-age festivities ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... of men of great prominence and power of any age we get closer to the real condition of the affairs of that age than by any other means. In this way, we get information at first hand from the participants in the events of which they write. It is fortunate for us that we have this first hand material with which to deal, when we come to study the early growth ...
— Bible Studies in the Life of Paul - Historical and Constructive • Henry T. Sell
... of "gentle exercise," Bob found himself put on to work. He learned something of cutting out and mustering, both in cleared country and in scrub; helped bring home young cattle to brand, and studied at first hand the peculiar evilness of a scrub cow when separated from her calf. They gave him jobs for himself, which he accomplished fairly well, aided by a stock horse of superhuman intelligence, which naturally knew far more of the work than its rider could ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Europe with his blessing and a heavy wallet, but Hamilton would as soon have forged a man's name as travelled at his expense. He hoped that the Congress would send him. He was keenly alive to the value of studying Europe at first hand before he was called upon to help in the modelling of the new Republic, and the vision of wandering in historic lands with his bride kept him awake at night. Moreover, he was desperately tired of his life at Headquarters. When the expedition to Staten Island was in question, he asked Washington, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... no man can safely speculate about the nature and relation of things with which he is unacquainted at first hand, and the acquirement of an intimate and practical knowledge of the process of species-making and of all the uncertainties which underlie the boundaries between species and varieties, drawn by even the most careful and ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... whether the holding of assizes or on State visits, were occasions for the dissemination of news. The ordinary citizen gathered news and information also from the pulpit and from guild and parochial meetings, and from the bellman. The only authoritative news he received at first hand he got by listening to the public reading ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... many questions about my trip. He told me of his own journey through the Congo in 1908 (he was then Prince Albert), when he covered more than a thousand miles on foot. He said that he was glad that an American was going to write something about the Congo at first hand and he expressed his keen appreciation of the work of American capital in his big colony overseas. "I like America and Americans," he said, "and I hope that your country will not forget Europe." There was a warm clasp of the hand and I was off on the first lap of the journey that ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... it so well that, while still a young man, he could read it—rare faculty—almost as swiftly as English; and he was one of the swiftest readers I have known. Thus equipped, he had the advantage of being one of the few English men of science who made it a practice to follow German research at first hand, and turn its light upon their ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... experiment and the following study of dreams is offered as fulfilling in some degree the latter requirement. While there is a certain familiarity on the part of the writer with the general theory advanced by Freud and with his principles of interpretation, there is no acquaintance at first hand with his Die Traumdeutung, the reading of which has been postponed lest there be ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... —under such names as Old Horny—into a familiar acquaintance not without a certain grim charm of his own. No doubt also there enters into their humour something of the original barbaric attitude towards things. For a primitive people who saw death often and at first hand, and for whom the future world was a vivid reality that could be felt, as it were, in the midnight forest and heard in the roaring storm, it was no doubt natural to turn the flank of terror by forcing a merry and jovial acquaintance with the unseen world. Such a practice as a wake, and the merry-making ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... that she neglected, and when people were admiring her brow she was wondering whether there were a good fire in her bedroom. She was simple, kind and good; inexpressive but not inhuman or stupid. Now and again she dropped something that had a sifted, selected air—the sound of an impression at first hand. She had no imagination, but she had added up her feelings, some of her reflections, about life. Lyon talked of the old days in Munich, reminded her of incidents, pleasures and pains, asked her about her father and the others; and she told him in return that she was so impressed with ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... goal towards which its efforts are directed, is an absurdity. There must be good teachers before there can be good schools, and good teachers can only be formed in institutions that are chiefly concerned with knowledge at first hand. This has been a recognized principle in Germany for half a century, or longer; is now almost universally admitted in France, and is the goal toward which the whole ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... appears you had of yourself previously determined on something of the same sort, and probably are far on with the printing of your Two select volumes. I confess myself greatly better pleased with it on that footing than on another. Who Mr. Loring may be I know not, with any certainty, at first hand; but who Waldo Emerson is I do know; and more than one god from the machine is not necessary. I pray you, thank Mr. Loring for his goodness towards me (his intents are evidently charitable and not wicked); but consider yourself as in nowise bound ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... called himself a Republican in politics and often spoke of "the rule of the people," he was regarded by Jackson's followers as "an aristocrat." He was not a son of the soil. Neither was he acquainted at first hand with the labor of farmers and mechanics. He had been educated at Harvard and in Europe. Like his illustrious father, John Adams, he was a stern and reserved man, little given to seeking popularity. Moreover, he was from the East and ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... walk through a country, I should not only see many things and have adventures that I should otherwise miss, but that I should come into relations with that country at first hand, and with the men and women in it, in a way that would afford the deepest satisfaction. Hence I envy the good fortune of all walkers, and feel like joining myself to every tramp that comes along. I am ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... verse-lovers—what mean they? The inevitable tendency of poetic culture to morbidity, abnormal beauty—the sickliness of all technical thought or refinement in itself—the abnegation of the perennial and democratic concretes at first hand, the body, the earth and sea, sex and the like—and the substitution of something for them at second or third hand—what bearings have ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... new fort then building. The wagon-beds were taken from the wagons to enable the hauling of greater loads. The beds were piled up at Fort Laramie, and I was assigned to watch them. It was here that I had abundant time and opportunity to study the West at first hand. Heretofore I had been on the march. Now I was on fixed post with plenty of ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... engaging young gentleman, but a wofully poor protagonist. The situation where (in the midst of whirling events) he makes the startling discovery that he himself has been in some way switched on to the part of villain is one that you can appreciate only at first hand. Certainly if you want (as who does not in these days?) an anaesthetic of agreeable nonsense The Plot-Maker is a medium that I can cordially recommend: one obvious advantage being that you need not try to believe a single word ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... cyberneticist through every unit of final check-up. Much of it he knew already from the "Required Annual Basic" ... or thought he knew. For this was so different from the Manuals! He felt at once ashamed and awed as he viewed at first hand the unfolding schematic structure. He was thrilled at sight of the selectors and analyzers of processed beryllium, the logic-and-semantic circuits in complex little bundles, the sensitized variant-tapes ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... period of his life, he had occasion to study at first hand certain places where he received original information which he later used in writing "Konovalov" and "The Ex-Men," which have thus acquired an autobiographical value. In fact, he worked a long while with these "ex-men;" like them, he sawed wood, and carried heavy burdens. ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... keeping officers to the straight and narrow path to the U.K., and the roads, railways, quays and gangways being policed with stalwarts whom it is impossible to circumvent and unwise to push into the sea, the only remaining resource is to apply to the Officer in Charge. I am told, at first hand, that there is as much variety in the reasons urged in support of applications as there is in the manner of the applicants. They attempt to melt him with piteous tales of their future in England, to shame him ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... scant draughts, so deeply was it choked by the pile of ashes from the logs that had served to brighten the busy room the night before. It is important to note this fireplace, for long afterward, when I went forth to gather impressions at first hand, and there heard Mr. Stuffer and his guests warm to the discussion of every topic under the sun, I decided that the glow of inspiration and the stimulating incense of resinous knots, arising from that corner, cast the witchery which wrought conviction in the ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... Frank N. Doubleday, to-day the senior partner of Doubleday, Page and Company. Bok had been attracted to advertising through his theatre programme and Brooklyn Magazine experience, and here was presented a chance to learn the art at first hand and according to the best traditions. So, whenever his stenographic work permitted, he assisted Mr. Doubleday in preparing and placing the advertisements of the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... celebrated assault of paternal Majesty on Wilhelmina; the rumor of which has gone into all lands, exciting wonder and horror, but could not be so exact as this account at first hand. Naturally the crowd of street-passengers, once dispersed by the Guard, carried the matter abroad, and there was no end of sympathetic exaggerations. Report ran in Berlin, for example, that the poor Princess was killed, beaten or trampled ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... that, I've a pretty strong pull on you. But I've said enough. You're coming with me—now—and if you make any attempt to rouse your friends, you'll have a chance of learning something about the other world at first hand a few seconds afterwards." ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... other times. You have seen and watched the unfolding of forces that sprang up after the Civil War. Those forces mounted in the eighties and exploded in free silver in 1896. They began to hit through the directed marksmanship of Theodore Roosevelt during his second term. You knew at first hand all that went with these forces of human hope, futile or valiant endeavor, articulate or inarticulate expression of the new birth. You saw and lived, but in greater degree, what I have seen and lived. And with this back-ground you inspired and ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... girl, quickly, but smiling. "We young ones have got to learn through our own experiences, haven't we? When you were young, sir, you had to learn at first hand—isn't that so? You would not accept the opinions of the older men as infallible. Now, did ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... slave-morality as an invention of the superior white race to subjugate the minds of the inferior races whom they wished to exploit, and who would have destroyed them by force of numbers if their minds had not been subjugated. As this process is in operation still, and can be studied at first hand not only in our Church schools and in the struggle between our modern proprietary classes and the proletariat, but in the part played by Christian missionaries in reconciling the black races of Africa to their subjugation by European Capitalism, we can judge for ourselves whether ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... purpose with shrewd American investors. That report goes back too far; it covers too many points that you might be supposed to know were true, but which engineers who had been here but a few weeks could hardly be expected to know at first hand. Do you see the point ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... person. God, so they held, had finished his teaching when Malachi uttered his last prophecy. And now it was for them to teach, and expound the law at secondhand. There could be no more prophets, no more revelation; and when one came and spoke with authority, at first hand, out of the depth of his own heart, he was to be persecuted, stoned, crucified. No. They had the key of knowledge; and no man could enter in, unless they chose to open the door. Nothing new could be true. John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, 'He hath a ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... involve a point for decision. Let them instead present to their governor whatever they please and through him forward to you all such requests of theirs as he may approve. In this way they will neither spend anything nor effect their object by crooked practices, but receive their answers at first hand ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... can be of use later on. When we went to Miss Northcote's School we learned to weave mats and paint on china, and I can give instructions in them. In their turn they will instruct me, for I shall learn much about Housing Conditions and have an opportunity to examine at first hand the various industrial problems of the day. Who knows? when we are through, I may prepare a paper for the Nation." Her sisters indicated their disapproval ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... men themselves: and—as Shakespeare has it—to talk of Robin Hood, though they never shot in his bow. Thus they become mediators to the masses between the scientific and the unscientific worlds. They tell them—You are not to trust the conclusions of men of science at first hand. You are not fit judges of their facts or of their methods. It is we who will, by a cautious eclecticism, choose out for you such of their conclusions as are safe for you; and them we will advise you to believe. To the ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... historic accounts of the lives of other Arabian heroes (Duraid and others) and are transferred bodily to the biography of Antar. They date back to the sixth century. Most of the details must be imaginary, but they are skillfully contrived by a writer who knew the life of the desert Arab at first hand. The verses with which the volumes abound are in many cases undoubtedly Antar's. (They are printed in italics in what follows.) In any event, the book in its present form has been the delight of all Arabians for many centuries. Every ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... was an example of that almost extinct type— a naturalist with a wide knowledge gained at first hand from nature as a whole. This width of culture was combined with a severe and narrow religious creed, and though, as Edmund Gosse points out, there was in his father's case no reconcilement of science and religion, since his "impressions ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... of learning at first hand the truth of the revolutionary system in Europe. I have not been abroad of late, indeed not for some years. But I know that our diplomacy is all a-tangle. The reports are at variance, and we get them colored ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... new—born bard of the Holy Ghost, cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint men at first hand with Deity. Look to it first and only, that fashion, custom, authority, pleasure, and money are nothing to you,—are not bandages over your eyes, that you cannot see,—but live with the privilege ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... I shall have to ask Private Watson to give you the details at first hand, for as yet I know nothing about the matter, except that one of these young men is accused of being ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... learning set in. Men turned first of all to a more independent choice of authorities, and then rose to the conception of a philosophy independent of authority, of a science based upon an observation of nature, of a science at first hand. The special ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... indeed, he scarcely denied it on accusation. But my single experience of the more magnificent scoundrels of whom he bought the wood originally, contented me with the swindle with which I had become familiarized. On this occasion I took a boat and went to the Custom House, to get my fuel at first hand. The captain of the ship which I boarded wished me to pay more than I gave for fuel delivered at my door, and thereupon ensued the tragic scene of bargaining, as these things are conducted in Italy. We stood up and bargained, we sat down and ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... class-morality may, I think, be gathered from Chesterfield's Letters. Though written at a later period, they sum up the lesson he has imbibed from his experience at this time. Chesterfield was no mere fribble or rake. He was a singularly shrewd, impartial observer of life, who had studied men at first hand as well as from books. His letters deal with the problem: What are the conditions of success in public life? He treats it in the method of Machiavelli; that is to say, he inquires what actually succeeds, not what ought to succeed. An answer to that question given by a man of great ability is ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... birds migrate by night is by this time too well established to need corroboration; but if the student wishes to assure himself of the fact at first hand, he may easily do it by one or two seasons' observations in our Common,—or, I suppose, in any like inclosure. And if he be blest with an ornithologically educated ear, he may still further confirm his faith by standing on Beacon Hill in the evening—as I myself have often done—and listening ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... expressed his thanks and arose to go, but Philip asked him to stay a few moments. He wanted to know at first hand what the man's representative fellows would do if the church should at any time decide to ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... use of them to teach her little charge court etiquette. And indeed, some means of teaching the child court etiquette was necessary, as her mother refused to allow her to appear at the royal court and receive her lessons there at first hand. The court of George IV was most disreputable, and the Duchess of Kent wisely judged that it was no place for her little daughter. When William IV came to the throne in 1830, Victoria's mother still refused to allow the child to be much at court, for though the new ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a hiding-place was quickened by the announced determination of the French king, Francis I, to put an end to religious dissent among his subjects. Calvin abruptly left France and found an asylum in the Swiss town of Basel, where he became acquainted at first hand with the type of reformed religion which Zwingli had propagated and where he proceeded to write a full account of the Protestant position as contrasted with the Catholic. This exposition,—The Institutes of the Christian Religion,—which was published in 1536, was ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... is made up from the writings of naturalists who have told us of the behavior of animals as they have seen it at first hand and of the beginnings and the growth of life so far as they know about it. In selecting these from the wealth of available material the editor has been guided by this rule: The subject matter must be interesting to young people; it must be told in a clear ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... to set down what follows in these pages, it is because I had certain opportunities for forming a judgment at first hand for myself. I am not referring to the circumstance that for a brief period I once, long ago, lived the life of a student at a German University, or that I was frequently in Germany in the years that followed. Nor do I mean that ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... that the old lady was crazy, or else she really had an important story to tell. In either case, it was his duty to let Fleming Stone hear it, at first hand, if possible. But he felt sure that to call in the rest of the household, or to take the narrator out to them would—as he expressed it to himself "upset her applecart and spill ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... in Shakespeare never be seized, that he would never give me an account of himself. For some years Shakespeare had been the object of my study and of all my respect before I had learned to love his personality. I was not yet able to comprehend nature at first hand. All that my eyes could bear was its image only, reflected by the understanding and arranged by rules: and on this score the sentimental poetry of the French, or that of the Germans of 1750 to 1780, was what suited me best. For the rest, I do not blush at ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... children have only vague, incomplete and incorrect conceptions of the things they see. Like these physically and mentally blind men we are too often satisfied with mere wordy descriptions of subjects when we might study the subject at first hand ...
— Where We Live - A Home Geography • Emilie Van Beil Jacobs
... University, Biddle University, Allen University, and Bishop College.[2] Fisk University has a university settlement house, the Bethlehem House, which operates under the social science department. This affords the Fisk students a splendid opportunity to serve society at first hand. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... American men of letters whose reminiscences would seem to promise more. The man's experiences cover so wide a period; he has had such exceptional opportunities of seeing interesting men and events at first hand."—Bookman. ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... China. While residing in the above-mentioned foci it was my privilege to visit six other provinces (some of them more than once), thus gaining a personal acquaintance with ten out of the eighteen and being enabled to gather valuable information at first hand. ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... is a novel of incident, of the open air, of the sea, the shore, the mountain eyrie, and of breathing, living entities, who deal with Nature at first hand.... The adventures described are peculiarly novel and interesting.... Packed with incidents, infused with humor and wit, and faithful to the types introduced, this book will surely appeal to the large audience already won, and beget new friends among those who believe in fiction that is healthy ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... are, I admit that their cause is lost for the time. I believe that your uncle is contemplating an early visit to England. He is of the opinion that perhaps he has misunderstood the Allied point of view, and he is going to study matters at first hand." ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for the first time in months, had turned in, we sat talking about our fire. We were considerably subdued and sobered; for this was the first coherent account we had heard at first hand. Two things impressed us—the tragedy, the futility. The former aspect hit us all; the latter struck strongly at Old and Cal. Those youngsters, wise in the ways of the plains, were filled with sad surprise over the incompetence ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... might develop into something worth while. Her friend had told her that Durand had made a flat offer to one of the dope fiends caught in the raid to look after him if he would swear that "Slim" had not drawn a gun. Though the story had not come at first hand, she believed it was true, and thought from her knowledge of him that the man would weaken under a ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine |
