"Attribute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Then why should you attribute vulgar ingratitude to me?" retorted the Comte reproachfully. "My feelings I imagine are as sensitive as your own. Am I not trying my best to be kind to that Mr. Clyffurde, who is an honoured guest in my house—just because it was Sir Percy Blakeney ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... excusable! considering their ignorance and superstition," said I. "Mine, I am well aware, is not a face to win me the heart of man, woman, or child; they (especially women and children) share, in common with dogs and horses, that divine attribute which, for want of a better name, we call 'instinct,' whereby they love or hate for the mere tone of a voice, the glance of an eye, the motion of a hand, and, the love or hate once given, the prejudice for, or against, is ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... would not suffer to remain uncontradicted for an hour. It was natural, therefore, that when they heard a man of their own white race accused of conspiring to blow up the gaol and the prisoners who were there under the safeguard of his honour, they should attribute to the accused a similar impatience to be justified; and it is with a sense of painful surprise that they find themselves ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not find it easy to follow Faust's line of argument. Fair exchange is certainly said to be no robbery—but this theory of 'making everything good with money' is one which the average foreigner is apt to attribute especially to the average Britisher, and it does not raise Faust in one's estimation. I suppose he thinks he is doing the poor old couple a blessing in disguise by ejecting them out of their wretched hovel and presenting them with a sum of money of ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... Another Egyptian fish deity was the god Rem, whose name signifies "to weep"; he wept fertilizing tears, and corn was sown and reaped amidst lamentations. He may be identical with Remi, who was a phase of Sebek, the crocodile god, a developed attribute of Nu, the vague primitive Egyptian deity who symbolized the primordial deep. The connection between a fish god and a corn god is not necessarily remote when we consider that in Babylonia and Egypt the harvest was ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... perfect, must of Necessity be the everlasting Residence of the supreme Being, whom no Evil can approach. That great and first Cause has created an infinite Number of Worlds, and no two of them alike. This vast Variety is an Attribute of his Omnipotence. There are not two Leaves on the Trees throughout the Universe, nor any two Globes of Light amongst the Myriad of Stars that deck the infinite Expanse of Heaven, which are perfectly alike. And whatever you see on that small Atom ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... is not strain'd; It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd; It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown: His scepter shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above his sceptered sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... became known to modern Europe, attribute to the Hwang-Ho the great utility for navigation which Polo here and elsewhere ascribes to it. Indeed, we are told that its current is so rapid that its navigation is scarcely practicable, and the only traffic of the kind that we hear of is a transport of ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... have fallen into great evil and affliction, but have escaped from it, and with sixty-two men, women and children, without moccasins, without food and without a blanket, I have arrived in the midst of a great people, and now my heart is glad. I attribute it to the mercy of the Great Spirit." Other Day had been a member of the church for several years and his religion taught him that the ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... benevolent deity well disposed to mankind, his kinship with B being also in favor of this interpretation. His hieroglyph alone without his picture occurs in Dr. 10b, 49 (middle and bottom), 58 (bottom, left), and Tro. 8*b; with a variant of the attribute in Dr. 24 (third vertical row). A slight variation appears also in Dr. ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas
... near midnight. As the wind-drifted pleasure-boat told its grim story, desolation fell upon the hearts of four men, each being conscious in his own way that some part of the world had shifted from under his feet. The governor recommended patience; he was always recommending that attribute; he was always practising it, and fatally at times. The four men shook their heads. The Chevalier and Victor bundled together a few necessities, such as cloaks, blankets and arms. They set out at once while the moon was yet high; set out in silence ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... we will set aside, at present, the consideration, that the particular word "smiling" is hackneyed, and, as it involves a sort of personification, not quite congruous with the common and material attribute of "shining." And, doubtless, this adjunction of epithets for the purpose of additional description, where no particular attention is demanded for the quality of the thing, would be noticed as giving a poetic cast to a man's ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... window-pane, and I didn't get much happier thinking about it, I can assure you. I drank glass after glass of the wine—not that I enjoyed its flavour any more, but mechanically, as it were, and with a sort of hope thereby to drown unpleasant reminders. I tried to attribute my annoyance in the matter to holidays, and so denounced them more vehemently than ever. I rose once in a while and went to the window, but could see no one to whom the pale face ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... curious to see how prone the women were to attribute the result to a special interposition of Divine aid, and to share the laurels, gathered that bright June day, with a higher Power than rested in a Springfield rifle, or a ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... Europe. In Italy, as in Flanders, the fair ideal of civic freedom was blurred and defaced by party feuds and personal ambitions, by the fickleness and passion of the mob, by the lust of conquest and the fratricidal jealousies of neighbouring republics. Yet to the influence of this ideal we must attribute both the solidarity of the Italian city-state and the wealth of individual genius which it fostered. The Italian Renaissance was little more than the harvest-time of medieval Italy, the glorious evening of a day which had dawned with the Fourth Crusade and had reached high noon ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... than a fortnight, and would come and say good-bye to her immediately before his departure. The letter had been courteously kind throughout, but she had not felt tempted to read it again. It contained no reference to their wedding, save such as she chose to attribute to the concluding sentence: "We can talk everything over when we meet." A sense of chill struck her when she recalled the words. He was very kind, of course, and invariably meant well; but she had begun to realise of late that there were times when she found him a little heavy ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... the authority of those who rule not for God? Since the enjoyment of outward privileges—such as the protection of life and character, and property, brings under obligations, which may be acknowledged, without the recognition of any attribute of a government, nay even with a dissent from its enactments and constitution of evil, these obligations, in living at peace with all men, in giving scope wisely and consistently to every good law, and in the paying of dues lawful in themselves, they ought to acknowledge; even ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... did not feel that more was required than a temperately expressed surprise and a hinted disapproval of the course adopted. He declined his wife's invitation to regard the matter in the most serious light, or to attribute any heinous offence to the Premier, contenting himself with remarking that Medland had a more powerful motive to maintain order than any one else; he also ventured to suggest that the best way of considering the question was not ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... the most happy monarch of the world, as well on account of his peaceful as prosperous reign. One thing only disturbed his happiness, which was, that he was pretty old, and had no children, though he had so many wives. He knew not what to attribute this barrenness to; and what increased his affliction was, that he was likely to leave his kingdom without a successor. He dissembled his discontent a long while; and, what was yet more uneasy to him, he was constrained to dissemble. At length, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... bosom's alabaster!... Why didn't I burn that letter. (Throws it into the fire. Take up the other one) I must keep the lawyer's. I shall need it. (Puts it in his pocket) Now work—work—work—(Resumes writing) 'The Kingdom of the Sun is peopled with beings whose distinguishing attribute is color instead of form as with us. This color varies with each thought of the spirit that it invests, and also with the eye that beholds it. There is no need to pellet the ear with rude words, for the most refined meanings and emotions ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... No one laying claim to the smallest amount of that very uncommon attribute, common-sense, will venture to question the truth of that statement. Variety is so charming that men and women, boys and girls, are always, all of them, hunting after it. To speak still more emphatically on this subject, we venture to affirm that it is an absolute necessity of animal nature. ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... washerwomen, and understood nothing of what I saw. My blindness to Degas's merit alarmed me not a little, and I said to Manet—to whom I paid a visit in the course of the afternoon—"It is very odd, Manet, I understand your work, but for the life of me I cannot see the great merit you attribute to Degas." To hear that some one has not understood your rival's work as well as he understands your own is sweet flattery, and Manet only murmured under his breath that it was very odd, since there were astonishing ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... theory as very feasible, I do not attribute to cats, with the same degree of certainty, the power to presage good fortune, simply because I have had no experience of it myself. Yet, adopting the same lines of argument, I see no reason why cats should not prognosticate ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... views entertained of it by the North, whether physically or morally considered; views however that, on both these points, I have decided are singularly overcharged, even by persons one would conceive possessed of the information likely to lead to a correct judgment. This I attribute partly to the habit we are in of taking reports of places for granted, and repeating them from father to son without much personal examination, or rather comparison, and partly to the changes constantly operating upon society here, with a rapidity at least equal to the growth of building or the increase ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... door we were received by the new president, and several of the clergy chanting psalms for welcome, and the great bell was ringing at the same time. I could not but attribute all this unusual display to the operation ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... imagine that hand accustomed to dirty work which is enveloped in white kid? What Prometheus was to the physical, Stultz is to the moral man—the one made human beings out of clay, the other cuts characters out of broad-cloth. Gentility is, with us, a thing of the goose and shears; and nobility an attribute—not of the mind, but (supreme civilisation!) ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... therefore deterred from avowing, that I regard, and ever have regarded the obligations of intellect among the most sacred of the claims of gratitude. A valuable thought, or a particular train of thoughts, gives me additional pleasure, when I can safely refer and attribute it to the conversation or correspondence of another. My obligations to Mr. Bowles were indeed important, and for radical good. At a very premature age, even before my fifteenth year, I had bewildered myself in metaphysics, and in theological controversy. ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... too young a nation yet to have any distinguishing characteristic and, of course, it would not be exactly modest for us to attribute virtues to ourselves, but there can be harm in saying what we would like our character to be. Among the people of the world in the years to come, we will ask no greater heritage for our country than to be known as the land of the Fair ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... her lost bliss, and the tears fell from her eyes on the newspaper which protected the whiteness of the scrubbed table. She would not think of the future; could not. She went on cleaning, and that silver had never been cleaned as she cleaned it then. She cleaned it with every attribute of herself, forgetting her fatigue. The tears dried on her cheek. The faithful, scrupulous work either drugged or solaced her. Just as she was finishing, Mrs. Tarns, with her immense bodice unfastened, came downstairs, apronless. The lobby clock ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... George," observed the gentleman alluded to, "I do not attribute my respect for your country, in the least, to origin. I endeavour to keep myself free from all sorts of prejudices. My admiration of England arises from conviction, and I watch all her movements with the utmost jealousy, in order to see if I cannot find her tripping, though I feel bound to say I ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... Ascher put in an appearance for the first time. She was a tall, lean woman, with dark red hair—Gorman called it bronze—and narrow eyes which never seemed quite open. Her face was nearly colourless. I was inclined to attribute this to her long suffering from seasickness, but when I got to know her better I found out that she is never anything but pallid, even when she has lived for months on land and has been able to eat all she wants. The first thing she did after we were introduced to her was to put her ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... Cuzco in the valley of Pisac, and to Choyca, an adjacent place, and to Yuco. After that he oppressed by force and with cruelties, the towns of Chillincay, Taocamarca, and the Cavinas, making them pay tribute. The Inca conquered ten places himself or through his son and captains. Some attribute all the conquests ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... those natures which could better and more clearly conceive of religious things from its own perceptions and instincts, than many a matter-of-fact and practical Christian. The gift to appreciate and the sense to feel the finer shades and relations of moral things, often seems an attribute of those whose whole life shows a careless disregard of them. Hence Moore, Byron, Goethe, often speak words more wisely descriptive of the true religious sentiment, than another man, whose whole life is governed by it. In such minds, disregard of religion ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... But all, in my opinion, are illuminated by the dawn of Light." These men were deeply appreciative of the work of Greek philosophy so far as it went—even assigning to it a place analogous to the Hebrew Scriptures[88]—but they always attribute to it a distinctly propaedeutic office, and are careful to emphasize its failure to lead to any firm and positive conviction of the existence of God. That this was the position of the early Christian philosophers might be shown by many passages, ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole
... The Nation have never concealed the defects or flattered the good qualities of their countrymen. They have told them in good faith that they wanted many an attribute of a free people, and that the true way to command happiness and liberty was by learning the arts and practising the culture that fitted men for their enjoyment. Nor was it until we saw them thus learning and thus practising that our faith became perfect, and that we felt ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... empleados, are acquisitions to the society of the place; for being principally half occupied people, they are almost obliged to have recourse to amusements to kill the time, which would otherwise hang very heavy on their hands; and principally to their exertions must we attribute the means of enjoyment, such as they are, which are ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... flourished it seems they flourish no more. The production of idols and fetiches continues, but the production of fine art is apparently at an end. The tradition is moribund, a misfortune one is tempted to attribute, along with most that have lately afflicted that unhappy continent, to the whites. To do so, however, would not be altogether just. Such evidence as we possess—and pretty slight it is—goes to show that even ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... is that apparitions in most well-authenticated modern ghost stories are of a comforting character, whereas those in the ancient world are nearly all the reverse. This difference we may attribute to the entire change in the aspect of the future life which we owe to modern Christianity. As we have seen, there was little that was comforting in the life after death as conceived by the old pagan religions, while in medieval times the ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... She had no vulgar commonplace shyness, mere school-girl as she was, and she had, above all, a most delightful unconsciousness of her own beauty; so she was quickly at home with the stranger, listening to him, and talking to him with a perfect ease, which seemed to him a natural attribute of high breeding. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... what imports it you? Go, raise the ministers of my revenge, Guide with your breath this whirling tempest round, And see its fury fall where I design. At last a time for just revenge is given; Revenge, the darling attribute of heaven: But man, unlike his Maker, bears too long; Still more exposed, the more he pardons wrong; Great in forgiving, and in suffering brave; To be a saint, he makes himself a slave. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... we attribute it to his moderation or inexperience, was not dazzled by the prospect of such high promotion, but answered, that he was too much pleased with science and quiet, to leave them for such inextricable studies, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... is the task of conveying to our readers such information as will enable them to form an idea of our hero's ways and means. An accommodating world—especially the female portion of it—generally attribute ruin to the racer, and fortune to the fox-hunter; but though Mr. Sponge's large losses on the turf, as detailed by him to Mr. Buckram on the occasion of their deal or 'job,' would bring him in the category of the unfortunates; still that representation was nearly, if not altogether, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Why is he thus invariably moved towards this higher ideal? If the instinct were a mistaken one, foredoomed to disappointment, it would not be allowed to exist. Nature does not endow us with any sense of which we do not stand in need, or any attribute which is useless to us in the shaping and unfolding of our destinies. True it is that we see many a man and woman who appear to have no souls, but we dare not infer from these exceptions that the soul does not exist. Soulless beings simply have no need of spirituality, just as the ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... Discourse on the Causes of the Corruption of Latin Eloquence proceeded from Tacitus, or the other Roman to whom many impute it, Quintilian, for he says in his Preface to that Dialogue: "What will it matter whether we attribute it to Tacitus, or, as I once thought, to Marcus Fabius Quinctilianus? ... Though the age of Quinctilianus seems to have been a little too old for this Discourse to be by that young man. Therefore, I have my doubts." "Incommodi quid erit, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... 1st, Holiness towards God, which is one special and chief part of the covenant, and that not for a time only, but for ever; both in regard that God, the party covenanted with, is holy and unchangeably so, and calls his people to imitate him in this attribute especially; and also in regard that the covenant itself is for its nature holy, all the articles being morally good and consonant to the royal law, the scriptures of truth; and for the extent of its duration, of perpetual force and obligation. This duty of holiness ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... intended: therefore, that the Duke could not resolve to march with him; much less could the prince expect assistance from the Queen's army, in any design undertaken after this manner." The Duke told this beforehand, that he (the prince) might take his measures accordingly, and not attribute to Her Majesty's general ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... the sacred Triad; and recognizing the Sun as the ruling star, very appropriately made him the presiding genius of that luminary, under the title of God Sol. According homage to light as his chief attribute, he is referred to in the allegories as "The true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," John i., 9; and, although designated as the only begotten of the Father, his co-existence with him, under the title of the Logos or Word, is shown ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill
... divine attribute, and the foundation of every virtue. To be good and true is the first lesson we are taught in Masonry. On this theme we contemplate, and by its dictates endeavor to regulate our conduct; hence, while influenced by this principle, ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... all forms of impotence, from dislike, natural deficiency or fascination, the favourite excuse. Easterns seldom attribute it to the true cause, weak action of the heart; but the Romans knew the truth when they described one of its symptoms as cold feet. "Clino-pedalis, ad venerem invalidus, ab ea antiqua opinione, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... was a deliberate gratuitous intermeddling with vice. Mr. Gresley could not help reading, but, as he laid down the manuscript for a moment to rest his eyes, he felt that he had reached the limit of Hester's powers, and that he could only attribute the last volume to the Evil ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... jumped away from the glass, shouting at the absent Elizabeth in a fit of wrath so foreign to him, that he returned hurriedly to have another look at himself, and exclaimed at the pitch of his voice, 'I say I attribute it to an indigestion of that tonic. Do you hear?' The housemaid faintly answered outside the door that she did, alarming him, for there seemed to be confusion somewhere. His hope was that no one would mention Lady Camper's name, for the mere thought of her caused a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... into the go-cart from the leading-strings. 'If Endymion serves me for a pioneer, perhaps I ought to be content, for thank God I can read and perhaps understand Shakespeare to his depths; and I have, I am sure, many friends who if I fail will attribute any change in my life to humbleness rather than pride,—to a cowering under the wings of great poets rather than to bitterness that I am not appreciated.' And for evidence of any especial bitterness because of the lashing he received one will search the letters ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... tricks of this kind, till Diana, by artifice, subdued them, contriving, some way or other, to make them shoot their arrows against, and destroy each other, after which Jupiter sent them down to Tartarus. Some attribute to Apollo the honour of conquering them. This story has been explained, and allegorised, and tortured so many different ways, that it is not easy to ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... was no sentimental feature about his art. His conception was intellectual, highly imaginative, mysterious, at times disordered and turbulent in its strength. He came the nearest to the sublime of any painter in history through the sole attribute of power. He had no tenderness nor any winning charm. He did not win, but rather commanded. Everything he saw or felt was studied for the strength that was in it. Religion, Old-Testament history, the antique, humanity, all turned in his hands into ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... Rebellion threatened in the city itself. If he went out boldly to attack the oncoming rebels his own troops might go over to the enemy, or deliver him into their hands; if he stayed in the city the people would naturally attribute it to pusillanimity, and probably open the ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... those in 1844, 1864, and 1870, and the ravages of this latter were chiefly confined to Pisa, and were occasioned by the bursting of a dike or wall. They are all three generally ascribed to extraordinary, if not unprecedented, rains and snows, but many inquirers attribute them to the felling of the woods in the valleys of the upper tributaries of the Arno since 1835. See a paper by Griffini, in the Italia ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... and we also laid out an orchard of young fruit trees. So far everything looked well, but when summer came, and while we were working most zealously we all fell ill with fever, and many of us were attacked with dysentery. I attribute these maladies to many causes,—first to the miasma or poisonous vapors exhaled from newly cleared land, then to the great heat and the bad water that we had to drink, which, though it had been pure enough in the winter and ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul
... his personal friends and official advisers, and heard them with patience and dignity. At the close of a series of deliberative sessions which had almost the continuity of one session, two measures met his approval. Of these, the first was so extraordinary it is impossible not to attribute its suggestion to Phranza, who, to the immeasurable grief and disgust of our friend the venerable Dean, was now returned, and in the exercise of his high office of ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... hours when the moonbeams shone on his bed and the little white dog nestled itself close to his shoulder, he was tortured also by the sense that it was his duty to arrest Adone and the men of the Valdedera in their mad course, even at the price of such treachery to them as Adone had dared to attribute to him. But if that were his duty it must be the first duty which consciously he had ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... penance, it ought to rain, in order that yamunyi may grow to koatshit, and koatshit ripen to yakka." In these words she artfully shrouded the true objects of the Koshare. It enhanced their importance in the eyes of the uninitiated listener by making him believe that the making of rain was also an attribute of theirs. "See, uak," she proceeded, "on this bowl you see everything painted that produces rain." One after the other she pointed out the various figures. "Here you see the tadpole, here the frog, here the dragon-fly and the fish; they, as they stand here, pray for rain; for some of them cry ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... nurse-maids pursuing their laborious avocations. This preponderance of small children at the Villa, is as much its characteristic distinction, as whatever relates to gaiety, or novelty, or scandal, may be considered the peculiar attribute of the Ponte. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... "Sir, do not attribute this strange behaviour upon my part to rudeness. It has been prompted by feelings painfully, deeply, I may add tenderly, interesting to me. It may be accident, but your features bring memories before my eyes that have become a part of my soul's existence. Nor is it your features ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... they are sometimes something betwixt devils and children. All the weakness and failings they attribute to women come out in them—fear, timidity, inconsequence, greed, malice, gossip! And, as for courage—I tell you, women ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... speak of go back to their lonely dwelling, and look on the chairs round the hearth where their children once were, but never shall be again—then, truly, can they not escape some part of the sorrow that comes, overwhelming, to those whose suffering no noble thought chastens. For it were wrong to attribute to beautiful feeling and thought a virtue they do not possess. There are, external tears that they cannot restrain; there are holy hours when wisdom cannot yet console. But, for the last time let us say it, ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... you at least pity me. Nay, one word more; I have one favor more to ask,—it is my last, my only one. Do not, when time and distance may have separated us, perhaps forever, think that the expressions I now use are prompted by a mere sudden ebullition of boyish feeling; do not attribute to the circumstance of my youth alone the warmth of the attachment I profess,—for I swear to you, by every hope that I have, that in my heart of hearts my love to you is the source and spring of every action in my life, of every aspiration in my heart; and when I cease to love you, I shall ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... spring of 1609, a prosperous period of three months, the longest season of quiet the colony had enjoyed, but only a respite from greater disasters. The friendship of the Indians and the temporary subordination of the settlers we must attribute to Smith's vigor, shrewdness, and spirit of industry. It was much easier to manage the Indian's than the idle and vicious men that composed the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... kept Lonnie from leaving traces. Now, anything once embraced within the palpitating fields of the grid moved with and how the suit moved; not in accord with the natural laws of the surrounding continuum. That neat new attribute took care of the cubic yard ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... which most often decide the conduct of the greatest powers and the most able politicians. It is after the fair, when the course of facts and their consequences has received full development, that, amidst their tranquil meditations, annalists and historians, in their learned way, attribute everything to systematic plans and personal calculations on the part of the chief actors. There is much less of combination than of momentary inspiration, derived from circumstances, in the resolutions and conduct of political chiefs, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... who was park-keeper for more than forty years, and of course had ample means of observation, distinctly informed me that they had no mane, but only some curly hair, about the neck, which is likewise an attribute of the Kyloe Oxen. ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... so often treat those who are richer than ourselves. We observe men for the most part (admitting however some few abnormal exceptions) to be deeply impressed by the superior organisation of those who have money. It is wrong to attribute this respect to any unworthy motive, for the feeling is strictly legitimate and springs from some of the very highest impulses of our nature. It is the same sort of affectionate reverence which a dog feels for man, and is not infrequently ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... our people have recently been unwell, Yusuf amongst the rest. They take little care of themselves, and attribute their illness to the ghaseb. I expect we shall have ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... that the latter are not based on any clear, leading idea, but are chosen on grounds that are superficial and, in part, obviously false. Virtues must be qualities of the will, but Wisdom is chiefly an attribute of the Intellect. [Greek: Sophrosynae], which Cicero translates Temperantia, is a very indefinite and ambiguous word, and it admits, therefore, of a variety of applications: it may mean discretion, or abstinence, or keeping a level head. Courage is not a virtue at all; although sometimes it ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... that it was no use coaxing our hero, and that fear was the only attribute by which he could be controlled. So, as soon as Dr Middleton had quitted the room, he addressed him in a commanding tone, "Now, boy, what is ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a home as unostentatious as the Northern cottage, but larger, and endowed with every homelike attribute. Sweet Grace Graham is its mistress. Her lovely features are somewhat marked by time and her deep experiences, but they have gained a beauty and serenity that will defy time. Sounds of joyous young life ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... sure that he will see the eternal city again. We need not bind ourselves to Paris by such little superstitious practices. Its mysterious spell obtains the pledge without any intervention, and lures and draws the absent one so that he cannot rest until he returns. But why attribute this spell to Paris alone? Every place where we have been young, dreamed, loved, and suffered, possesses it. We feel the affection for it which the ploughman has for the field to which he entrusted his seed. We have the desire to see whether we shall still find ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... return with the light keeper's money, he was inclined to be thoughtful and nervous, to fall into troubled trances at table or in the middle of a conversation, and to start rather violently when aroused from those trances. Primmie was disposed to attribute these lapses to disease. She confided her ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... sovereignty without even a mention of it—when the tenth amendment confronts us with the declaration that nothing was surrendered by implication—that everything was reserved unless expressly delegated to the United States or prohibited to the States? Here is an attribute which they certainly possessed—which nobody denies, or can deny, that they did possess—and of which Mr. Everett says no mention is made in the Constitution. In what conceivable way, then, was it lost ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... consist, while the questionable man-made gauds of sensuous service are gradually being set aside. The religion of the future will neither be a political institution, nor a means of livelihood, but an expression of the highest moral attribute, human or ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... in what spirit I have educated my own daughters, even to the highest point of musical culture, without using the slightest severity. It will, indeed, cause great vexation to the ill-minded and even to the polite world, who attribute the musical position of my daughters in the artistic world to a tyranny used by me, to immoderate and unheard-of "practising," and to tortures of every kind; and who do not hesitate to invent and industriously to circulate the most absurd reports about it, instead of inquiring into what I ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... condition most encouraging, which they cannot but attribute to the personal efforts and instruction of the faithful Principal, who considers religious instruction a solemn duty which he cannot commit to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... power. But already the Constitution had captured the Guerriere and Java, the United States had made a prize of the Macedonian, the Wasp of the Frolic, and the Hornet of the Peacock. The honor of the new flag was established. England, humiliated, tried to attribute her multiplied reverses to the unusual size of the vessels which Congress had had constructed in 1799, and which did the fighting in 1812. She wished to refuse them the name of frigates, and called them, not without some appearance ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... my grandfather in this career was strong as the love of woman. It lasted him through youth and manhood, it burned strong in age, and at the approach of death his last yearning was to renew these loved experiences. What he felt himself he continued to attribute to all around him. And to this supposed sentiment in others I find him continually, almost ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... provide him with something to say. I don't want him to attribute it to some foolish charity. He might. In the New Testament, publicans are acknowledged to ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... To Murray I attribute the planning of the enterprise I am now about to relate. He had determined to rescue his chief from his prison in Virginia. His scheme required the cooeperation of Mrs. Talbot and one of her youngest children,—the pet boy, perhaps, of the family, some two or three years old,—I imagine, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... is so, I attribute not to any difference in the people of the two countries, not to an aptitude for letter writing among us which is wanting with the Americans, but to the greater convenience and wider accommodation of our own post-office. As ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... reached the ground, but I had to tie it up as carters do their horses' tails, to keep it out of the snow. My hair and eyebrows had increased in the same proportion, so that I was more like a wild beast than a man. This extraordinary exuberance I attribute entirely to my having lived so completely on bear's flesh. When cut off it served to stuff a large sized pillow, which I afterwards gave to the President of the United States, who sleeps every night on it to ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... Tilbury Fort, in Essex; but in consequence of spending those hours in the hilarity of the tavern which he ought to have employed in the calculations of the counting-house, his commercial schemes proved unsuccessful; and in 1694 he was obliged to abscond from his creditors, not failing to attribute those misfortunes to the war and the severity of the times, which were doubtless owing to his own misconduct. It is much to his credit however, that after having been freed from his debts by composition, and being in prosperous circumstances from ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... opinion of the antiquity of man is not only of interest, but should teach a lesson to all who think others are wrong because not holding the same views as they do. Hardly fifty years have passed since scientific men began to attribute to the human race an antiquity more remote than that assigned them by history and tradition. At first these views met with general opposition, much as did the theory of the present system of astronomy when it was first proclaimed. We laugh now at the ignorant fear's ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... generation might ascribe to the single personification of a passion, a faculty, or a moral and social principle, another would just as naturally refer to a personal and more complex deity:—that which in one instance would form the very nature of a superior being, in the other would form only an attribute—swell the power and amplify the character of a Jupiter, a Mars, a Venus, or a Pan. It is in the nature of man, that personal divinities once created and adored, should present more vivid and forcible images to his fancy than abstract personifications of physical objects and moral ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... returned to the house from our stroll, Varenika declined to sing as she usually did in the evenings, and I was conceited enough to attribute this to my doing, in the belief that its reason lay in what I had said on the bridge. The Nechludoffs never had supper, and went to bed early, while to-night, since Dimitri had the toothache (as Sophia Ivanovna had foretold), he departed with me to his room even earlier than usual. ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... the metropolis, the Counties of Wicklow and of Dublin, were now in as bad a state as the pacified North had ever been. Every reasonable man, who believes that nothing can be produced without a producing cause, must attribute this change of temper in the South and other parts of the country to some circumstance which did not exist at the time of the invasion; and that circumstance could only be the introduction of the military system—of the efficacy of which administration had ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... of steam vehicles and steamboats, the adding of third and fourth cylinders, to the invention of the turbine with its development and the accompanying development of the reciprocating engine to hold its place, is one long attribute to the inventive genius ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... passage in which Mary as a child listens to Sephorah the sorceress tell legends and myths of Assyria and Egypt. Mary interrupts with "Why you mean Moses! You mean Noah!" just as a child of today, if confronted with the situations in the Greek dramas would attribute them to Bayard Veiller or Eugene Walter. Saltus is too much of a scholar to find much novelty in Christianity. But aside from this passage cynicism is lacking from this book, a quality which makes another story on ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... of the beautiful consistency of Andersen's genius that it never stoops to mere amusing and fantastic trickery. The character of the darning-needle is the character which a child would naturally attribute to a darning-needle, and the whole multitude of vivid personifications which fills his tales is governed by the same consistent but dimly apprehended instinct. Of course, I do not pretend that he was conscious of any such consistency; creative processes rarely ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... receive full expression in a democracy, but, inasmuch as the righteously discontented must be always with us, the fundamental democratic principle should, above all, counsel mutual forbearance and loyalty. The principle of equal rights encourages mutual suspicion and disloyalty. It tends to attribute individual and social ills, for which general moral, economic, and social causes are usually in large measure responsible, to individual wrong-doing; and in this way it arouses and intensifies that personal and class hatred, which ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... and liberal philanthropy actuate us in regard to all men. To relieve the distressed is peculiarly the duty of Masons—a sacred duty, not to be omitted, neglected, or coldly or inefficiently complied with. It is also most true, that Truth is a Divine attribute and the foundation of every virtue. To be true, and to seek to find and learn the Truth, are the great objects of every ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... to harmonize the Gospels; the writing out of abbreviations; incorporation of marginal notes in the text; the embellishing of the Gospel narratives with stories drawn from non-apostolic, though trustworthy, sources,—it is to these that we must attribute the very numerous 'readings' or textual variations. It is true that the copyists were sometimes learned men; but their zeal in making corrections may have obscured the true text as much as the ignorance of the unlearned. The copies, indeed, came under the eye of an official reviser, ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... abuse of alcoholic stimulants, passed into gangrene, by which the greater part of the glans was destroyed. Such have been the accidents which I have observed on those whose prepuce was too narrow to permit the glans being uncovered; accidents which I can only attribute to the long retention of the sebaceous matter in a kind of cul-de-sac, into which a certain quantity of urine passes every ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... of religious teachers and writers attribute to Adam and Eve, in their first state, an amount of knowledge, and a perfection of righteousness, which the Scriptures nowhere ascribe to them, and which, if they had possessed them, would have rendered it ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... he hated you before that time?" asked Trent, and Mr. Cupples asked at the same moment: "To what did you attribute it?" ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... years. In that time, he had, among other things, managed to break up a gang of smugglers, track down a counterfeiting ring, and capture three kidnapers. For reasons which he could neither understand nor explain, no one seemed willing to attribute his ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... of nature of the world of plants which we began by considering, is far from possessing the attribute of permanence. Rather its very essence is impermanence. It may have lasted twenty or thirty thousand years, it may last for twenty or thirty thousand years more, without obvious change; but, as surely as it has followed upon a very different state, so it will be followed by an equally different ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Where we attribute to the King's Majesty the chief government, by which titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended; we give not to our Princes the ministering either of God's Word, or of the Sacraments, the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... way as the ground visible up there is doing—deprived of vegetation, and so it is with men," thought Nekhludoff. "Perhaps these governors, inspectors, policemen, are needed, but it is terrible to see men deprived of the chief human attribute, that of love and sympathy for one another. The thing is," he continued, "that these people consider lawful what is not lawful, and do not consider the eternal, immutable law, written in the hearts of men by God, as law. That is why I feel so depressed ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... this point. The Senator declared that it was because some American shares of hers had gone up in the market, but that struck momma and me as somewhat too general in its application. I preferred to attribute it to the Senator's Tariff Bill. Mr. Mafferton brought us the Times one evening in Verona, and pointed out with solemn congratulation that the name of J.P. Wick was mentioned four times in the course of its leading article. ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Henry seems to know a great deal about what transpires inside the Whitney house," observed Miller thoughtfully. "Tell me, Mitchell, what motive do you attribute to Miss Whitney for the killing ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... She was weeping now, her whole figure shaken with sobs. "Your goodness, your sweetness overwhelms me. It is more than I can bear. But, Bobby, you mustn't believe the worst things of me. I didn't take them from the motives you may attribute to me." ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... there is yet another subject for a platitude. Flavour! An impalpable quality, less easily captured than the scent of a flower, the peculiar and most essential attribute of any work of art! It is the thin, poignant spirit which hovers up out of a play, and is as much its differentiating essence as is caffeine of coffee. Flavour, in fine, is the spirit of the dramatist ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... may attribute a general want of courtesy in manners are certain incidental results of our domestic institutions. Our ancestors and their descendants have constantly been combating the aristocratic principle which would exalt one class of men at the expense of another. They have had to ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... expression, both with tongue and pen; the same intensity of feeling, thoroughness, and courage to look the ugliest truths full in the face; in both, these high qualities were marred by a tendency to attribute the worst motives to almost every one. Their joint contempt for all whom they called "fools," i.e. the immense majority of mankind, was a serious drawback to the pleasure of their company. It is indeed obvious that, whether or not it be correct to say that ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... have at present to say, and is as much intended for yourself, as for the person to whom it is directed. I leave Madrid in about three days, and it is my intention to write frequently whilst upon my journey; but should few letters reach you, be not surprised, but attribute it to the state of the country, which is terrible indeed. I am first going to Salamanca, by the pass of the Guadarama; from thence to Burgos; then to the Asturias, Galicia, and Biscay, and along the whole chain of ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... this idea as correct, but I attribute less importance to "organic selection" than I did at that time, in so far that I do not believe that it ALONE could effect complex harmonious adaptations. Germinal selection now seems to me to play the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... Harold sayin' as I got most to the boat landin', "the phosphorescence that ignorant sailors attribute to electricity in the air is really ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... intervention than that of an infinitely rarer ether than even the luminiferous; and to this ether—in unison with it—the whole body vibrates, setting in motion the unparticled matter which permeates it. It is to the absence of idiosyncratic organs, therefore, that we must attribute the nearly unlimited perception of the ultimate life. To rudimental beings, organs are the cages necessary to confine ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... and strongly resented our increasing efforts to impose ours upon them. Even those amongst the Native Princes who were too enlightened to believe that we intended to force our religion upon them and change all their customs, felt that their power was now merely nominal, and that every substantial attribute of sovereignty would soon disappear if our notions of progress continued to ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... necessities that compass our chaotic sense when we ascend by continual abstraction to the absolute, without entangling ourselves vainly in those wildernesses that no created intellect can range or measure—even one sole attribute of God, His holiness, makes it as impossible for Him to proceed except by certain steps as it would be impossible for a man, though a free agent, and apparently master, as he feels and thinks, of his own life, to cut his throat while ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... also the removal of the capital from Nineveh to Kalhu, [Footnote: First mentioned as starting point of an expedition in 879, Ann. III. 1.] which indicates that to this year we are to attribute the majority of the building inscriptions. But, as they are all more or less identical with the closing section of the Annals, we may best discuss them in that place. Continuing with the Annals, we now reach a section where it is the only source. And just here ...
— Assyrian Historiography • Albert Ten Eyck Olmstead
... feel the change in her and did not attribute it entirely to the thickness of the air. Rossland's inexplicable rudeness had disturbed her more deeply than she had ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... on giving "the best and most probable account that could be then given of GOD'S universe[302]." The Hebrew writer asserts indeed "solemnly and unhesitatingly that for which he must have known that he had no authority[303];" but we need not therefore "attribute to him wilful misrepresentation, or consciousness of asserting that which he knew not to be true[304]." If this "early speculator" "asserted as facts what he knew in reality only as probabilities," it was because he was not harassed by the scruples which result "from our modern habits ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... sister knew of the estrangement between Jean and his home. They had puzzled their heads in vain as to the reasons for Jean's retirement to the Rue St. Jacques, but were inclined to attribute it to politics ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... awkward in the near future. For in a few days after recovering his passion for food, the effect of his former abstemiousness would begin to reach his stomach; but of course all he could then devour would work no immediate relief. This he would naturally attribute to the quality of his fare, and would change his diet a dozen times a day, his menu in the twelve working hours comprising an astonishing range of articles, from a wood-saw to a kettle of soft soap—edibles as widely dissimilar ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... day he rode, lest from such indication his adversaries might conjecture in what house, or in company of what Catholics, he that day was." I quote these words of Lord Burleigh, lest any of my readers, discovering weakness in his verse, should attribute weakness ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... have seen a young koel being fed by crows. Now, at Almora alone of the hill stations does Corvus splendens, the Indian house-crow, occur, and this is the usual victim of the koel. I would therefore attribute the presence of the koel at Almora and its absence from other hill stations to the fact that at Almora alone the koel's ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... person of the ruler so religiously respected. If this was evident in one or two instances only, it would be idle to lay much stress upon it; but when we find the same truth holding good of several successive reigns, it is not too much to attribute it to that wide diffusion of Christian morals, which we have pointed out as the characteristic of the two preceding centuries. The kings of this age owed their best protection to the purer ethics ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... lesse. If these and the like doubtes maye be of importaunce, in your seeming, to frustrate any parte of your aduice, I beeseeche you without the leaste selfe loue of your own purpose, councell me for the beste: and the rather doe it faithfullye and carefully, for that, in all things, I attribute so muche to your iudgement, that I am euermore content to adnihilate mine owne determinations in respecte thereof. And, indeede, for your selfe to, it sitteth with you now to call your wits & senses togither (which are alwaies at call) when occasion is ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... to be said. Mr. Devlin wished to join also, but Redmond held that he could not be spared from Ireland, where his influence was enormous; and he was placed in a somewhat unfair position, even though everyone who knew him knew that his chief attribute was personal courage. But he was indispensable for the work which had to be done, of helping at this strange crisis to keep Ireland peaceful and united at a time when Government was at ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... own immediate day is weak and weary, because it is no longer young; yet it possesses one noble attribute—it has an acute and almost universal sympathy, which does indeed often degenerate into a false and illogical sentiment, yet serves to redeem an age of egotism. We have escaped both the gem-like hardness of the Pagan, and the narrowing selfishness of the Christian and the Israelite. We are sick ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... barn, and took his front seat, the mush and milk dripping down his excited and happy chops. In passing, I may point out that in thus forsaking his breakfast for the automobile he was displaying what is called the power of choice—a peculiarly lordly attribute that, according to Mr. Burroughs, belongs to man alone. Yet Glen made his choice between food ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... to pay you for these services; hitherto you have postponed receiving your reward, and the debt has become a heavy one—I wish not to undervalue your dangers; here are a hundred doubloons; remember the poverty of our country, and attribute to it the smallness of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... Essay, "Self-Reliance ": "This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on every topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ONE. Self-existence is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it constitutes the measure of good by the degree in which it enters into ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... fears. It was the sound of a footfall—far away, indeed, inside the house, but still a footfall—a heavy tread, as of some one in pursuit, and its sound was loud and menacing to her excited senses. There was only one to whom she could attribute it—Leon! ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... own country, which contain within them a rich mine of knowledge, too generally neglected by the wealthier classes." This complaint is we fear but too well grounded; and it is to such indifference, not to say ignorance, that we must attribute the perversion of wealth from the encouragement of art and science to objects less worthy of patronage. Unhappily for all states of mankind, enjoyment too often drives from the mind of the possessor, the bare remembrance of the means of acquisition: luxury forgets ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... is also found in Sanskrit, Zend, Oscan and Umbrian, and traces remain in other languages. The "Ablative Absolute,'' a grammatical construction in Latin, consists of a noun in the ablative case, with a participle, attribute or qualifying word agreeing with it, not depending on any other part of the sentence, to express the time, occasion or circumstance ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... least suspicion that the baronet's attack was the result of any predisposing emotion. Indeed, it seemed more possible that his medical attendants, knowing something of his late excesses and their effect upon his constitution, preferred, for the sake of avoiding scandal, to attribute the attack to ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... we meet the majesty of Cold, seated eternally at the pole in that regal silence which is the attribute of all absolute monarchy. Every extreme principle carries with it an appearance of negation and the symptoms of death; for is not life the struggle of two forces? Here in this Northern nature nothing lived. One ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... and you will be a comfort to your parents, in sickness or in health. "Forgiveness is an attribute ...
— No and Other Stories Compiled by Uncle Humphrey • Various
... aristocracy openly, but I know of no one who does not regard provincial independence as a great benefit. In both countries I have heard a thousand different causes assigned for the evils of the State, but the local system was never mentioned amongst them. I have heard citizens attribute the power and prosperity of their country to a multitude of reasons, but they all placed the advantages of local institutions in the foremost rank. Am I to suppose that when men who are naturally so divided on religious opinions and on ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... to withhold from Gower some acknowledgment of the share he had in producing a beneficial revolution in the English language; as it would be absurd and untrue to attribute to him any great degree of praise, as an inventor ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... look one Face alone I see, With every attribute of beauty in it blent; Still, still the Godhead's face entrances me, Yielding transcendency of all that ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... would have softened any heart but the unfeeling Shylock's; saying, that it dropped as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath; and how mercy was a double blessing, it blessed him that gave, and him that received it; and how it became monarchs better than their crowns, being an attribute of God himself; and that earthly power came nearest to God's, in proportion as mercy tempered justice: and she bid Shylock remember that as we all pray for mercy, that same prayer should teach us to show mercy. Shylock only answered her by desiring to have the penalty ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... to flaunt at a fete! Oh, mercy! mercy! Tell me—he left us quite well—no one could have guessed. I remember he looked at me from the carriage window. Tell me—it must be some moral shock—what do you attribute it to? Wilfrid cannot be the guilty one. We have been only too compliant to papa's wishes about that woman. Tell me what ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and only one. The original Finnish Bulgarians have, like Western conquerors, been lost among Slavonic subjects and neighbors. The geographical function of the Magyar has been to keep the two great groups of Slavonic nations apart. To his coming, more than to any other cause, we may attribute the great historical gap which separates the Slav of the Baltic from his southern kinsfolk. The work of the Ottoman Turk we all know. These latter settlers remain alongside of the Slav, just as the Slav remains alongside of the earlier settlers. The Slavonized Bulgarians are the ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... position explains this phenomenon. The pretty town overlooks a salt-marsh, the product of which is called throughout Brittany the Guerande salt, to which many Bretons attribute the excellence of their butter and their sardines. It is connected with the rest of France by two roads only: that coming from Savenay, the arrondissement to which it belongs, which stops at Saint-Nazaire; and a second road, leading from Vannes, which connects it with the ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... persons, even though innocent of all malignant purpose, and absolutely unconscious of their own fatal gift, until awakened to it by the results. Why, therefore, should there be any thing to shock, or even to surprise, in the power claimed by my brother, as an attribute inalienable from primogeniture in certain select families, of conferring knightly honors? The red ribbon of the Bath he certainly did confer upon me; and once, in a paroxysm of imprudent liberality, he promised me at the end of certain months, supposing that I swerved from my duty ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... must be confess'd that the last mention'd attribute of this Deity was stretch'd forth to promote pleasure in some instances, instead of fear;—for it was a sportive custom, in the hilarity of recent marriages, to seat the Bride upon his Palus;—but this circumstance by no means disproves its efficacy as a dread to Robbers; on the contrary, ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... "I follow you so far. Go on." And I was surprised to find how relieved I was at this suggested complication. I felt that if we could only attribute this amazing week of mysteries to some human agent I should be able ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... metopes and triglyphs of the Doric order. This is surmounted by a sharp conical dome, having large mouldings running round its base, and on the summit something like an imitation of flame. There is here again so strange a mixture of style and ornament, that one knows not to what age to attribute the monument as a whole. The square mass below is solid, and the Ionic columns which are seen on each of its faces are half-indented in the rock itself. The dome is of masonry, and on the eastern side there is a square aperture in it. Generally speaking, ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... pedlars, the barbers, and intriguers-general of south-western Asia, and therefore the Oriental materials with which the Arabian tales were wrought must have been completely at the command of the inventive people to whom I would attribute their origin. ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake |
