"Characteristic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rapture. Yesterday brought together as intelligent and perhaps as refined an audience of ladies as might he gathered in the city. Miss Anthony was dressed with her usual simplicity in black silk. She read the call for the convention and made thereon one of her characteristic addresses, full ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... are different: Charlie has such peculiarities of genius. The artistic nature, you know, requires soothing." Here they stopped, and rang at the door of a neat little house, and were ushered into a pair of those characteristic parlors which show that they have been arranged by a home-worshipper, and a mother. There were plants and birds and flowers, and little genre pictures of children, animals, and household interiors, arranged with a ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... traces of a belief in this worst and most malicious order of fairies among the Border wilds. Dr. Leyden has introduced such a dwarf into his ballad entitled The Cout of Keeldar, and has not forgot his characteristic detestation of ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... royal mandate ever went unheeded in any part of the king's domain. These forty intendants were the men who really bridged the great administrative gulf which lay between the royal court and the people. They were the most conspicuous, the most important, and the most characteristic officials of the old regime. Without them the royal authority would have tumbled over by its own sheer top-heaviness. They were the eyes and ears of the monarchy; they provided the monarch with fourscore eager hands to work his sovereign will. The intendants, in turn, had their underlings, ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... restricted and is so small that all who can employ wires will find it necessary to do so, leaving the ether available for those who have no other means of communication. This quality of the ether which thus restricts its use is really a characteristic of the greatest value to mankind, for it forms a universal party line, so to speak, connecting together all creation, so that anybody anywhere, who connects with it in the proper manner, may be heard by every one else so connected. ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... again beside her lover, with a mute obedience characteristic of impassioned natures at times, and when they had wrapped themselves up over head and ears in the sailcloth again, they plunged back into the now thick night. Tess was so receptive that the few minutes of contact with ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... discovered, and 'from that moment,' writes Haydon, 'the destiny of my life was changed. My picture was caricatured, my name detested, my peace harassed. I was looked at like a monster, abused like a plague, and avoided like a maniac.' There is probably some characteristic exaggeration in this statement, but considering the power wielded at this time by the Academy and its supporters, Haydon would undoubtedly have done better, from a worldly point of view, to keep clear of these controversies. The prudent and sensible Wilkie was much distressed ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... thought without robbing it of its ancient advantages. And those advantages are incalculable: Time first for thought and reflection (narrow streams cut deep) leading to the growth of a sturdy freedom of action—which is, indeed, a natural characteristic of the man who has his feet firmly ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... of Almighty God is one of the characteristic acts of humanity. The brute looks up to heaven, but man alone looks up with thought of God and to adore. "The entire creation grew together to reflect and repeat the glory of God, and yet the echo of God slumbered ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... with that quick change of mood characteristic of his temperament, had already decided that it was not worth while attempting to rear any seed from this barren soil. The Prince's intentions were good enough, but they would come to nothing—his father would see ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... as yet considered are characteristic of distinct breeds; but there are other differences, either confined to individual birds, or often observed in certain breeds but not characteristic of them. These individual differences are of importance, as they might in most cases be secured and accumulated by man's power of selection; and thus ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... threadbare constitutions, and lavish their rupees: next the obsequious, smirking, money-making China-man, with his poking shoulders, and whip-like pig-tail: then the stout, squat Hottentots—who resemble the Dutch in but one characteristic!—and half castes of every intermediate tint between black and white. These are well relieved and contrasted by the tall, warlike figures and splendid costume of his Majesty's 72nd Highlanders, who, with the 98th regiment, form the garrison of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... command. This will furnish fresh material for assaults in Congress on the President, if that body should meet again next month, for placing this officer in so responsible a command, whatever may be his skill, when the soldiers and the people have no faith in him. It is characteristic of the President to adhere to what he deems just and proper, regardless of anticipated consequences. This was the habit of ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... [His appointment of Superintendent of the Military Academy carried with it the temporary rank of Colonel of Engineers], and many think it a very good likeness. To me, the expression of strength peculiar to his face is wanting, and the mouth fails to portray that sweetness of disposition so characteristic of his countenance. Still, it was like him at that time. My father never could bear to have his picture taken, and there are no likenesses of him that really give his sweet expression. Sitting for a picture was such a serious business ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... editions illustrating Christian's journey. After the deaths by fire and sword of the Martyrs, the Pilgrim's difficulties in the Slough of Despond, or with the Giant Despair, afforded pleasurable reading; while Mr. Great Heart's courageous cheerfulness brought practically a new characteristic into Puritan literature. ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... "Their chief characteristic," said the man in black, "is a rage for grandeur and gentility; and that same rage makes us quite sure of them in the long run. Everything that's lofty meets their unqualified approbation; whilst everything humble, or, as they call it, 'low,' is scouted ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... everywhere; from the very ends of the country, and even from beyond the sea; and many brought ladies, and all brought squires and troops of servants. It was a most gaudy and gorgeous crowd, as to costumery, and very characteristic of the country and the time, in the way of high animal spirits, innocent indecencies of language, and happy-hearted indifference to morals. It was fight or look on, all day and every day; and sing, gamble, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... commonplace inactivity of mind there was one strong characteristic, one bit of colour in all these grey tints: Kate was dreamy, not to say imaginative. When she was a mere child she loved fairies, and took a vivid interest in goblins; and when afterwards she discarded these stories for others, it was not because ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... characteristic of Arlt. His letters were noncommittal; but Bobby says he has had his own fair share of honors. I am glad, for he ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... not distinctly appear at what period of his life Arago composed the autobiography, but it bears throughout the characteristic stamp of his ardent and energetic disposition. The reader will, perhaps, hardly suppress a smile at the indications of self-satisfaction with which several of the incidents are brought forward, while the air of romance which invests some of the adventures may possibly give rise to some suspicion ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... been a Venetian characteristic; nor is it now, when Venice is only a museum and show place. All the Venetians—the men, that is,—whom one sees in the Piazza have an air of profound self-satisfaction. And this palace of the Doges is no training-place for humility; ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... character, but could not have been more appropriate; because the wish of those who desire to testify their regard for you this evening, Mr Marrot, is not to give you an intrinsically valuable or useful present, but to present you with a characteristic ornament which may grace your dwelling while you live, and descend, after you are gone, to your children's children (here he glanced at Loo and her troop), to bear witness to them that you nobly did ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... attributes of a personal deity, an almighty and just creator, who would necessarily be responsible for these evils as for all things else, if he existed. If the world be the work of an omnipotent maker, its essential moral characteristic partakes of the nature of his attributes; and the main moral feature of our world is evil, and not good. This is the ever-recurring refrain of Job's discourses. Nor does he hesitate when occasion offers to proclaim his conviction in the plainest of plain language, for he entertains no fear ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... perfection in the peculiar school to which they belong, as any thing of the sort which in any part of the world I have visited. They are laid out in long umbrageous walks, in exquisitely kept lawns, in bowers, alcoves, and a lake at once extensive and well managed; and are, with characteristic liberality, thrown open to the public at all hours, both of night and day. Nay, nor is this all. Bands of music play here and there amid its alcoves; there is a sort of coffee-house or restaurateur within the gates; and the theatre may almost be said to form part of the establishment, ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... confusing from their very vividness. Confusing, also, because each one of them was doubled by a haunting consciousness of his likeness to her father. The traits common to both men, rather than those individually characteristic of the younger, had been in evidence. And, in her present happier mood, Damaris also desired a picture to set in the storehouse of memory. But it must represent this brother of hers in and by himself, divorced, as far as might be, from ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... characteristic of the gift is contrast of form, leading to the distinction of different objects. The mediation of contrasts here suggests the connection of ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... friend. With characteristic directness she had cut the Gordian knot of our misunderstanding by telling me, against Dicky's protests, all about the old secret which her past and that of my husband shared. After her story, with all that it revealed of her sacrifice ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... their companions, and crossed a highly cultivated district. Long stretches of prairie, known as the "Low Level Plains," next met their gaze, dotted with countless sheep, and shepherds' huts. And then came a sandy tract, without any transition, but with the abruptness of change so characteristic of Australian scenery. Mount Simpson and Mount Terrengower marked the southern point where the boundary of the Loddon district cuts ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... distinct painting; 10 he repeated with emphasis,—the last two lines conscious that his own age was eighty; 13, 14, and 15 are favourites with me. G. concurred in the suggested praise. The stanza 24 he declared to be sublime. The characteristic speeches of Wilkes and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... back upon it, I am tempted to think that the psychological peculiarity of that woman might be summed up in an exorbitant and absorbing interest in herself—a Narcissus attitude—curiously complicated with a fantastic imagination, a sort of morbid day-dreaming, all turned inwards, and with no outer characteristic save a certain restlessness, a perverse desire to surprise and shock, to surprise and shock more particularly her husband, and thus be revenged for the intense boredom which his want of ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... his back, along the cloisters behind the cathedral, and looked at the rich grass plot in the centre, he had the strangest sense of being at home—far more than he had ever been at home before. "Portly capons," he used to murmur to himself, under the impression that he was naming a characteristic ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... disappeared, or all but disappeared, in the Mississippi Valley. The only one that comes to me now, as possibly of the old French days, is one which is preserved in an adage not at all French but quite characteristic of the independent life that has occupied the banks of all the rivers: "Paddle your own canoe." Yet even in the space of one or two generations of agricultural life that, too, is disappearing, supplanted by a synonymous phrase, borrowed of fields that have entirely forgotten the primitive ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... with pleasure. She was so easy to get on with, he said to himself; and she certainly had a wonderfully kind smile. But he felt too that she needed greater wisdom, and he was ready to give it—a friendly characteristic of the big open spaces "where life is so simple ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to some characteristic anecdotes of Robert's youth, and wondered whether he would be appreciated now. She did not think Sir Bevil held the same opinions as Robert or Miss Charlecote; he was an upright, high-minded soldier, with honour and subordination ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... search in a remote room of the palace, busy on a map. Magruder accosted him and reproached him for his absence. The earnest worker looked up from his labors with the calm, mild gaze which was so characteristic of the man, and, pointing to his instruments, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... mustn't bother you," he said; "as for Sam, I suppose he will go his own gait! I don't know where he gets his stubbornness from. I myself am the most reasonable man in the world. All I ever ask is to be allowed to follow my own judgment. I asked his mother if obstinacy was a characteristic of her family, and she assured me it was not. Certainly Eliza herself has no will of her own. I don't think a good woman ever has. And, as I say, I never insisted upon my own way in my life—except, of course, in matters where ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... the class of social phenomena seemingly characteristic of the distinct races in France, if we extend our field of vision to cover all Europe, suggests an explanation for the curious coincidences and parallelisms noted above, which is the exact opposite of ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... counterpart in men, whose thighs are those of women when they are sly, cunning, false, and cowardly. Camille's neck, instead of curving inward at the nape, curves out in a line that unites the head to the shoulders without sinuosity, a most signal characteristic of force. The neck itself presents at certain moments an athletic magnificence. The spring of the arms from the shoulders, superb in outline, seems to belong to a colossal woman. The arms are vigorously modelled, ending in wrists of English ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... it must be understood, was none of theirs—and to replace him on that precarious throne from which he had been so rudely thrust. We have already said that he was a man who never knew when he was beaten, and in the years which we have yet to chronicle this characteristic appears again and again; for age had no effect apparently, either mentally or physically, on this man of iron who had by this time reached the age ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... have four: the ex ordium, or introduction; the narratio, or statement of facts; the confirmatio, or proof proper, both direct and refutative; and the peroratio, or conclusion.[59] This is the characteristic movement of rhetoric, which, as is readily seen, is quite different from the plot movement of poetic.[60] The parts are capable of further analysis. Consequently most writers of the classical period subdivide the proof proper ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... prefer gaudy colours, and keep their hair confined close to their head by a large comb. They have also another delightful characteristic, which indeed the men share with them; I mean a beautiful voice, soft and tremulous among the women, rich, sonorous, and majestic among their lords. An American traveller has said, "A common bullock-driver on horseback, delivering ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... true features of a Government than the morality or vices of its functionaries, I will finish this man's portrait with the following characteristic touches. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... woman, with curiously limpid blue eyes, and a shrill hard voice like a fog-siren, that does not seem to belong to her personality. One is always haunted with the idea that she might be Scotch. Lady Gastwyck rises. She is a short dark woman with deep-set eyes and one very remarkable characteristic. She has apparently only one eyebrow. She really has two, but they meet together in one dark straight line, and give her a forbidding aspect. She has a habit of walking with her chin thrust forward and her long arms curved like a boxer's. She advances upon Lord Gumthorpe. He instinctively ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... with the Dutch," their pending negotiations for settlement at "Hudson's River," he evidently made capital of, and traded upon, his former kindness to some of them when they were in straits,—a most contemptible thing in itself, yet characteristic of the man. He led the Pilgrims to "break off" their dealings with the Dutch by the largest and most positive promises of greater advantages through him, few of which he ever voluntarily kept (as we see by John Robinson's sharp arraignment of him), his whole object being ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... are not the same to us and to him. He is careful to give the doors and windows, the chimneys with their smoke, the lines of the fence, and the walk in front; he insists on the divisions of the bricks and the window-panes: but for what is characteristic and essential he has no eye. He gives what the house is to him, merely a house in general, any house; it would not help it, but only make the defect more prominent, to straighten and complete the lines. An artist, with fewer and more ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... ruling thing) is inconsistency and confusion in the things which relate to good and evil. But different men have different reasons; and generally what they imagine to be base, they do not confess at all. But they suppose timidity to be a characteristic of a good disposition, and compassion also; but silliness to be the absolute characteristic of a slave. And they do not at all admit (confess) the things which are offences against society. But in the case of most errors for this reason chiefly they are induced to confess them, because ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... were written by a man of thirty or thirty-five, strong, vigorous, aggressive, fortunate, and successful, the appeal seems out of harmony, and lacks that delicate adaptation of speech to surroundings which is characteristic ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... of graduation. Dudley led the class. There was a great crowd of fine people. The last speech of all on the programme was "Honest Work Honorable—Dudley Crawford." With a characteristic manliness he stood up bravely for work. So fine were his arguments, so undaunted his bearing, that the audience were carried away. Dr. Parmlee took off his spectacles to wipe his eyes. Dudley's mother could not conceal her pleasure. "Franklin's hands ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... it was. It was the Right Hon. Winston Churchill. As he darted into the crowded lobby, which, as usual at the luncheon-hour, was filled with Belgian, French, and British staff officers, diplomatists, Cabinet Ministers and correspondents, he flung his arms out in a nervous, characteristic gesture, as though pushing his way through a crowd. It was a most spectacular entrance and reminded me for all the world of a scene in a melodrama where the hero dashes up, bare-headed, on a foam-flecked horse, and saves the heroine or the old homestead or the family fortune, ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... which is at least as necessary to the formation of a fair and intelligent opinion. Her mind, however, is so keen and so incisive, so prompt to seize the most curious facts, so apt in discovering characteristic details, that even when she speaks of places and peoples with whom we are all familiar, she compels us to listen, and irresistibly holds our attention. It has been said that in some respects her manner ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... so characteristic of these upper regions, there are no fewer than sixty-seven in the basin of the main middle branch, besides countless smaller pools. In the basin of the Illilouette there are sixteen, in the Tenaya basin and its branches thirteen, ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... to consider it as a starting point for progress. This is the heavy Indian rug known as the Navajo blanket. Originally fashioned to withstand the cold and exposure of outdoor life, it has combined thickness, durability and softness with excellent colour and weaving and perfectly characteristic design. ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler
... hall in Quebec East, surrounded by the electors of the constituency which had been faithful to him for 40 years. He accepted the blow with the tranquil fortitude which was his most notable personal characteristic; but the feature in the disaster which must have made the greatest demand upon his stoicism was this indication that his old surbordinate and one time friend was—apparently—about to supplant him in the leadership of his own people. The election figures showed that whereas Laurier ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... regular, well-cut features indicating little to the physiognomist unless it be the great gift of self-possession. His hair was cut short, and he wore no beard beyond an absolutely black moustache. His teeth were perfect in form and whiteness,—a characteristic which, though it may be a valued item in a general catalogue of personal attraction, does not generally recommend a man to the unconscious judgment of his acquaintance. But about the mouth and chin of this ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... through the tranquillized thoroughfares; and as you saunter along, you have all London to yourself, Andrew Selkirk, but with the mart of the world for your desert. And when October comes on, it has one characteristic of spring,—life busily returns to the city; you see the shops bustling up, trade flowing back. As birds scent the April, so the children of commerce plume their wings and prepare for the first slack returns of the season. ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... accepted this notoriety with characteristic variation. Miss Flora, after cordially welcoming one "nice young man," and telling him all about how strange and wonderful it was, and how frightened she felt, was so shocked and distressed to find all that she said (and a great deal ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... him all possible assistance in his researches; and so he seeks him out and forms an acquaintance with him, which the old man encourages to a certain extent, taking an evident interest in him, but does not disclose himself; nor does Middleton suspect him to be an American. The characteristic life of the Hospital is brought out, and the individual character of this old man, vegetating here after an active career, melancholy and miserable; sometimes torpid with the slow approach of utmost age; sometimes feeble, peevish, wavering; sometimes shining out with a ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... attention, however otherwise occupied, has never relaxed in its record of the phenomena characteristic of the plague-wind; and I now define for you, as briefly as possible, ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... household about to remove itself half around the world, into a house distracted with packing, cheerless with linen-covers, desolate with rolled-up rugs and cold lunches and half-packed trunks, came, in a matter-of-fact manner characteristic of its writer, Judith's answer to Sylvia's letter. Sylvia opened it, shrinking and fearful of what she would read. She had, in the days since hers had been sent, imagined Judith's answer in every possible form; but never in any form remotely resembling what Judith wrote. The letter stated ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... position, where was there ever an American girl of any age who acknowledged to social inferiority? Katie alone felt, though she could hardly explain it, the want of something in her new teacher which had been peculiarly characteristic of the old one, who was a plain, elderly woman, without much education,—namely, personal love and devotion to the Lord Jesus, showing itself in an earnest desire that her scholars might also learn to ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... aren't paid for imagining!" interrupted the Billionaire, stabbing at him with that characteristic gesture. "Just what do you know about it? No technicalities, mind! Essentials, that's all, and ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... answers with a double meaning that were so much in the fashion of the time and so characteristic of ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... precede love, and carve it indelibly on the soul. At his age, the ardor of the heart, restrained by moral ardor, leads to an inward conflict, which explains the long and respectful hesitations, the tender debatings, the absence of all calculation, characteristic of young men whose hearts and lives are pure. Studying, though furtively, so as not to attract the notice of Conti, the various details which made the marquise so purely beautiful, Calyste became, before long, oppressed by a sense of her majesty; he felt himself dwarfed ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... as it once was to admire this [poem]; but I confess indocility to correctness, at least the correctness which varies with fashion. The Forsaken Merman is not a perfect poem—it has tongueurs, though it is not long; it has its inadequacies, those incompetences of expression which are so oddly characteristic of its author; and his elaborate simplicity, though more at home here than in some other places, occasionally gives a dissonance. But it is a great poem,—one by itself,—one which finds and keeps its own place in the fore-ordained gallery or museum, ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... greater part of the book is its one blemish, for we would fain know more of how he lived in China. There is some evidence that he consorted with the Mongol conquerors rather than with the Chinese, and that Chinese was not one of the languages which he learned. He makes no mention of several characteristic Chinese customs, such as the compressed feet of the women, and fishing with cormorants (both of which are described by Ordoric of Pordenone after him); he travelled through the tea districts of Fo-kien, but he never mentions tea-drinking, and he has no ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... that there shall be an improvement, either in some particular point, as a matter of utility, or some change in an artistic direction. A manufacturer in putting out a new chair, or a plow, or an automobile, adds some striking characteristic. This becomes his talking ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... what there was after all in Mr. Quisante. Their friends could only wonder, asking plaintively what the Duke thought of his brothers' proceedings. The Duke, however, made no sign; making no sign ranked as a characteristic of the Duke's. ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... about to discover the entrance, when a figure in white, shown by a small silver lamp which she held in her hand, beckoned him into a side apartment. Gurth had some reluctance to obey the summons. Rough and impetuous as a wild boar, where only earthly force was to be apprehended, he had all the characteristic terrors of a Saxon respecting fawns, forest-fiends, white women, and the whole of the superstitions which his ancestors had brought with them from the wilds of Germany. He remembered, moreover, that he was in the house of a Jew, a people who, besides the other unamiable ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... solid benefits which Germany owed to Masonic influences, one shrinks from saying much of the extravagances in which its Masonry indulged before the French Revolution. Yet they are so characteristic of the age, so significant to the student of human nature, that they must be hinted at, ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... prose was like that of a Frenchman writing his own language with the respect which Frenchmen pay to French. Even English things had to come to him through France, if he was to prize them very highly; and there is a passage in "Dilemmas" which I have always thought very characteristic of his own tastes, as it refers to an "infinitesimal library, a few French novels, an Horace, and some well-thumbed volumes of the modern English poets in the familiar edition of Tauchnitz." He was Latin by all his affinities, and ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... seeing the latter adorned with all the accomplishments (of a warrior). There is only one person in this world, viz., the son, and none else, whom people desire to become superior to themselves. All high-souled preceptors have this characteristic, viz., that they impart all the mysteries of their science unto either sons or devoted disciples. Becoming his sire's pupil, O Sanjaya, and obtaining all those mysteries with every detail, the son of Saradwat's daughter has become a second Drona, and a great hero. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... that day he was exceedingly busy, and he did not attempt further explanations to himself. He overhauled the bunk and spread the blankets out on the wild rose bushes to sun while he cleaned the floor. Billy's way of cleaning the floor was characteristic of the man, and calculated to be effectual in the main without descending to petty details. All superfluous objects that were small enough, he merely pushed as far as possible under the bunk. Boxes and ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... with Cambridge on neutral waters in an eight-oared cutter match, but is generally defeated, for a very characteristic reason—Cambridge picks a crew of the best men from the whole University; Oxford, more exclusive, gives a preference to certain colleges over men. Christchurch, Magdalene, and a few others, will ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... have something which will convince Mademoiselle that she is mistaken. I was able to get hold of one of his Majesty's collars which he had just worn. Its size is distinctly characteristic, being 18 inches. Now it would be very easy to verify the fact that the real King wears this size and also whether it fits the supposed impostor. In any case, Monsieur, from inquiries made among the hotel servants I find there can be no doubt that Frederick-Christian ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... cures, the miracles, are, indeed, the creation of that need of the Lie, that necessity for credulity, which is a characteristic of human nature. At first, when little Bernadette came with her strange story of what she had witnessed, everybody was against her. The Prefect of the Department, the Bishop, the clergy, objected to her story. But Lourdes grew up in spite of all opposition, just as the Christian religion did, because ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... The characteristic flavor and suggestion of these Idyls is like pure spring-water. This is, perhaps, why the modern reader is apt to be disappointed in them when he takes them up for the first time. They appear minor and literal and tasteless, as does most ancient poetry; ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... Everything would bear witness to this barbarism to whosoever should look closely. One would see that the number vingt comes from viginti, and that formerly this g and this t were pronounced with a roughness characteristic of all the northern nations; of the month of Augustus has been made the month of aout. Not so long ago a German prince thinking that in France one never pronounced the term Auguste otherwise, called King Auguste ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... reach the foundation for the faith in a moral government of the world, which it has been the uniform characteristic of religions to assert; but a government, as thus analytically reached, not easily corresponding with that which popular religion speaks of. Such feeble sentiments as mercy, benevolence and effusive ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... general state, usually used with an adjective describing the state. Use of the word 'mode' rather than 'state' implies that the state is extended over time, and probably also that some activity characteristic of that state is being carried out. "No time to hack; I'm in thesis mode." In its jargon sense, 'mode' is most often attributed to people, though it is sometimes applied to programs and inanimate objects. In particular, ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... Ginny, with her characteristic bluntness. "I just wanted to amuse the others and make them think I was awfully clever and that was plain outright conceit and selfishness. I guess that's the way I do most things. Well, I've learned a lesson. And there isn't anything I wouldn't do for you, Jerry Travis. If I don't play better ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... the diverse diarists to whom we owe so much of our intimate knowledge of their time, were both frequently here, and both have left us characteristic passages about it; Evelyn enlarging upon the art treasures and the gardens, Pepys noting that "it was pretty to ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... needless to remark that the "New Red" is not always red; sometimes it is yellow, at others, like some of the Storeton stone, white. These red rocks occupy a large part of Lancashire and Cheshire, and especially in the latter county give the characteristic scenery which distinguishes it. The escarpment of the Peckforton Hills of which Beeston Castle Hill is an outlier, and that at Malpas, farther south, gives rise to some very beautiful scenery; and again at Grinshill and Hawkstone, in Shropshire, ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... born the heir to the throne of one of the Grecian kingdoms. He possessed, in a very remarkable degree, the energy, and enterprise, and military skill so characteristic of the Greeks and Romans. He organized armies, crossed the boundary between Europe and Asia, and spent the twelve years of his career in a most triumphant military incursion into the very center and seat of Asiatic power, destroying the Asiatic armies, conquering the most splendid cities, defeating ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... when compared with Raffaelle's, they seem more touched with earthly feeling, and have less of the pure ideal: they are, if I may so express myself, too sentimental: sentiment is, in truth, the distinguishing characteristic of Guido's style. It is remarkable, that towards the end of his life, Guido more frequently painted the Mater Dolorosa, and gave to the heads of his Madonnas a look of melancholy, disconsolate resignation, which is ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... gave a cool nod to the newcomer, and stitched on with characteristic zeal and strict attention ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... long before the Massachusetts man planted his roof-tree in the soil of Mississippi. A hopeful scion he, showing no improvement on the paternal stock. Rather the reverse; for the grasping avarice, supposed to be characteristic of the Yankee, is not improved by admixture with the reckless looseness alleged to be habitual in ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... were as disastrous as in the time of Wang Mang. And once more, as then, a popular movement broke out, that of the so-called "Yellow Turbans". This was the first of the two important events. This popular movement had a characteristic which from now on became typical of all these risings of the people. The intellectual leaders of the movement, Chang Ling and others, were members of a particular religious sect. This sect was influenced by Iranian Mazdaism on the one side ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... characteristic story now reached my ears. Masudi, the merchant who took up Insangez, had been trying his best to deter Rumanika from allowing us to enter his country, by saying we were addicted to sorcery; and had it not been for Insangez's ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... letter explaining his extraordinary breach of good behaviour had been characteristic of the man. For whilst it was couched in more or less conventional terms of apology, the writer obviously regarded his action as justified and assumed in Paul an understanding which rendered pique impossible. Paul's theory regarding Thessaly's ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... said something to the men, Bill Hardacre and his mate Dugald Finlayson, about having everything on board—all his life and happiness, or something to that effect—at which they laughed and chaffed him as the launch backed from the pier, and started off in the tearing hurry characteristic ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... a state of feeling, of attitudes that mirror forth the soul, declared itself a main passion; and it grew and strengthened, to the detriment of the other Art still so dear to me. With the patience of a cat before a mouse-hole, I watched and listened, picking one characteristic phrase out of hours of vain chatter, interested and amused by an angry or loving glance. Like the midges that fret the surface of a shadowy stream, these men and women seemed to me; and though I laughed, danced, and ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... [20] Even the characteristic conditions of writing books, that least mechanical of pursuits, have been profoundly ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... perpendicular position of the letter in relation to the line. That is of great value in individualizing a machine. It is very seldom that machines, even when they are new, are perfect in this particular. It does not seem much until you magnify it. Then anyone can see it, and it is a characteristic that is fixed, continuous, and not much changed by variations in speed ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... Marxians, and the party became in effect merely one of advanced Radicalism. It is too soon to guess what will be the effect of the split between Majority and Minority Socialists which has occurred during the war. There is in Germany hardly a trace of Syndicalism; its characteristic doctrine, the preference of industrial to political action, has ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... shown that alcohol in all forms is not only useless for these purposes, but does actual damage, since it lessens the resistance of the patient, weakens the heart, and helps along the prostration which is the characteristic effect of the rattlesnake venom. Alcohol has, for many years, been used as an antidote for collapse under an anaesthetic administered for surgical purposes, but no intelligent physician nowadays thinks ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... about the worn capitals of pillars, or craning forth over the church-leads with the open mouths of gargoyles. About them all there is that sort of stiff quaint unreality, that conjunction of the grotesque, and even of a certain bourgeois snugness, with passionate contortion and horror, that is so characteristic of Gothic art. Esmeralda is somewhat an exception; she and the goat traverse the story like two children who have wandered in a dream. The finest moment of the book is when these two share with the two other leading characters, Dom Claude and Quasimodo, the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... acumen, notes that in Vecchi's five part madrigals for the stage the employment of the odd voice is plainly governed by musical needs. It has to be common to both personages in a scene for two and hence it is always the least characteristic voice. Its chief business is to fill in ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... course is the Dumb taught to sing by the favor of the earl; resolute John Florio, the translator of Montaigne, is Heavy Ignorance; Tom Nash is the Learned, who has had feathers added to his wing; and Marlowe is the Grace to whom is given a double majesty! Marlowe's chief characteristic was majesty, says Mr. Massey; therefore, we suppose, he is spoken of as grace. The rest of his "exquisite reasons" may be found at pages 134-143 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... and practice on this subject. Friend Hopper, Joseph Carpenter, and the few who resemble them in this respect, are exceptions to the general character of modern Quakers, not the rule. The following very characteristic anecdote shows how completely Isaac was free from prejudice on account of complexion. It is an unusual thing to see a colored Quaker; for the African temperament is fervid and impressible, and requires more exciting forms of religion. David Maps and his wife, a very ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... with Leicester at the moment. She ventured to call him 'traitor' and to accuse him of conspiring with the Prince of Orange. Notwithstanding this, his influence was still paramount with her, and it was characteristic of her shrewd petulance to confide in Leicester's protege, although not in Leicester himself. Towards the end of March, Raleigh settled ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... under any other designation; but "The four kinds of ground" (viererlei Acker), the title which seems to be in ordinary use among the Germans, is logically more correct, inasmuch as it points directly to the central idea, and expresses the distinctive characteristic. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... theme of it was to prove that every charge made by Socialism against the capitalist system could be justified by the writings of the foremost professors of economic science. It embodied another Fabian characteristic of considerable importance. Other Socialists then, and many Socialists now, endeavoured by all means to accentuate their differences from other people. Not content with forming societies to advocate their policy, they insisted that it was based on a science peculiar to themselves, ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... With characteristic irony Horace puts his fancies into the mouth of Alphius, a miserly money-lender. No one yearns so keenly for the country and its imagined peace as the overworked city man, when his pulse is low and his spirits weary ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... complete life of the greatest man of modern times, nothing has been omitted or slighted. His early History, Political Career, Speeches, both in and out of Congress, the great Lincoln-Douglas Debates, every state paper, speech, message and two inaugural addresses are given in full, together with many characteristic STORIES AND YARNS by and concerning Lincoln, which have earned for him the ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... document into a soda-water bottle, and rams the cork home. At the same moment, and without effort, he gives birth to one of his most characteristic epigrams.) ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... mentioned her bereavement, unless in such allusion to Frado. She donned her weeds from custom; kept close her crape veil for so many Sabbaths, and abated nothing of her characteristic harshness. ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson |
