"Comprehend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nothing more to be gained from Napoleon or his brother. It was all proper and decorous to retain the title of King of Wurtemberg, which the former Duke and then Elector had owed to the exile of St. Helena, but King Frederick, and still less his son William, who succeeded him in 1816, could not comprehend Catherine's clinging to her husband when he had lost his kingdom. "I was a Queen; I am still a wife and mother," wrote the Princess to her disgusted father. Another complaint against this extraordinary Princess was that she actually saw Las Cases ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the strange change of mood when she had repeated her full name to Miladi of the island. She was her father's true wife now, and though Jeanne could not comprehend the intricacies of the case, she could see that her father's real happiness lay in this second marriage. It took an effort not to blame her own mother for giving him up. That handsome woman glowing with life in every pulse, ready to dare any danger ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... his novels must always be a kind of caviare; for they have no analogue in letters, but are the output of a mind and temper of singular originality. To the honest Tory, sworn to admire and unable to comprehend, they must seem inexplicable as abnormal. To the professional Radical they are so many proofs of innate inferiority: for they are full of pretentiousness and affectation; they teem with examples of all manner of vices, from false English to an immoral ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... all the year round in what were then called lodgings, that is, apartments appropriated to the royal household, or even to others, in St. James's, or at Richmond, or at Windsor. In order fully to comprehend all the intimate relations which he had with the court, it is necessary to present the reader with some account of the family of George II. Five daughters had been the female issue of his majesty's marriage with Queen Caroline. Three of these princesses, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... criticism. The next group of dialogues is marked by metaphysical teaching. The Parmenides is a searching examination of the Ideas. If these are in a world apart, they cannot easily be brought into connection with our world; a big thing on earth and the Idea of Big will need another Idea to comprehend both. Besides, Ideas in an independent existence will be beyond our ken and their study will be impossible. Socrates' system betrays lack of metaphysical practice; at most the Ideas should have been regarded as part of a theory whose value should have been tested by results. This ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... is but one deep and all-pervading cause of the miseries of man: it is, that he does not comprehend the ways of God, or, in other words, the laws of his own being. If humanity does not work well, and with the same harmony that the planetary system exhibits, it is because he is determined to impress upon it other movements ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... lightness of manner, and inclined to the view that a person who made a joke took rather a liberty with him, his tendency to be jocular, even about himself and the estate of Temple Barholm, was irritating and somewhat disrespectful. Mr. Palford did not easily comprehend jokes of any sort; especially was he annoyed by cryptic phraseology and mammoth exaggeration. For instance, be could not in the least compass Mr. Temple Barholm's meaning when he casually remarked that something or ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... mainly come those single lines and passages which are among the memorable words recorded in universal literature. Such, to specify only a few, are the Song of the Earth-Spirit; the lines commenting on man's vain endeavour to comprehend the past, and on the dreariness of all theory,[242] contrasted with the freshness and colour of life; Faust's confession of his religious faith, and Margaret's songs. To have added in this measure to the intellectual inheritance of the race assures the testator ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... point under a fortunate direction. Ecclesiastes says in his first chapter, "The number of fools is infinite;" and when he calls it infinite, does he not seem to comprehend all men, unless it be some few whom yet 'tis a question whether any man ever saw? But more ingeniously does Jeremiah in his tenth chapter confess it, saying, "Every man is made a fool through his own wisdom;" attributing wisdom to God alone and leaving folly ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... besides, cousin Pao-y to lend her a hand in her task. Not that cousin Pao knows how to give any hints about painting; that in itself would be more of a drawback; but in order that, in the event of there being anything that she doesn't comprehend, or of anything perplexing her as to how best to insert it, cousin Pao may take the picture outside and make the necessary inquiries of those gentlemen, who excel in painting. Matters will ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... into the past with the incalculable velocity of thought, and he began to comprehend his day's adventures, to conceive them as a whole, and to recognise the sad imbroglio in which his own character and fortunes had become involved. He looked round him as if for help, but he was alone in the garden, with his scattered diamonds and his redoubtable interlocutor; and when he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to comprehend a word, Sally listened while Mary told her of the relationship between them; but the mists which for years had shrouded her reason were too dense to be suddenly cleared away; and when Mary wept, winding her arms around her neck and calling her ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... said that "the true spirit of good manners is so nearly allied to that of good morals that they seem almost inseparable." John G. Holland says somewhere: "Young men would be thoroughly astonished if they could comprehend at a glance how greatly their personal happiness, popularity, prosperity, and usefulness depend on their manners." Emerson remarked that,—"Manners should bespeak the man, independent of fine clothes. The general does not need a ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... are each and all, of course, accustomed to the guidance of man's hand, but—here in Europe, at all events—they live their lives apart and are not so domesticated; they cannot, therefore, form so intimate an acquaintance with man, by means of eye and ear, as can enable them to comprehend both language and gestures. For practical purposes horses would seem to come next to dogs in the matter of intelligence—more particularly Arab horses. An Arab talks to his horse as he would to a friend, and the sparkle in the eye ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... strange thing happened. Fell asleep just now, amid deadly dulness, depth of which no one outside House can comprehend. Woke up, hearing familiar voice. 'Twas the voice of Prince ARTHUR, I heard him complain; something about Ground-rents in London. Not, quite his subject; voice, too, didn't seem to come from Treasury Bench. But no mistaking it; same tone; same inflection. Now I come to think ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... I can't comprehend it!" Mr. Murray cried, looking quite fierce. "I must make them better acquainted. Ah! I've hit on the very thing. I'm going to take the Gregory boys for a trip in my yacht along the south coast; the Rivers lads shall come too. You must all come: there's nothing ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... cultivation, and real kindness towards herself. Fleda would readily have given her credit for them all; and yet, the nautilus may as soon compare notes with the navigator, the canary might as well study Maelzel's Metronome, as a child of nature and a woman of the world comprehend and suit each other. The nature of the one must change or the two must remain the world wide apart. Fleda felt it, she did not know why. Mrs. Carleton was very kind, and perfectly polite; but Fleda had ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... remain very long, to the great relief of Melchisedec, who, as he probably did not comprehend their conversation, felt their movements and whispers ominous. The young secretary seemed interested in everything. He wrote down things about the floor, the fireplace, the broken footstool, the old table, the walls—which last he touched with his hand again and again, seeming much pleased when he ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... found himself unable to comprehend fully the other terrific results of his intervention. Before the echoes of his shot died, there came to him the rumble of what seemed to be tons of falling rock. In the bright air a slight mist was precipitated. To all of which was added the effect upon the ape-men ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... had heard of this incident from Mrs. Penhallow, and at last from Leila, was alone in a position to comprehend the motives which combined to bring about an act of rashness. The rector had some sympathy with the boy and liked him for choosing a time when no one was present to witness his trial of himself. He too had the good sense like the Squire to ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... loss," said Philemon, "to comprehend exactly what you mean?"—"I will cease speaking metaphorically," replied Lysander; "but Sycorax was a man of ability in his way. He taught literary men, in some measure, the value of careful research and faithful quotation; ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... quite assomm, Sir," returned the Captain, "to disturb you, but I must really hint you don't comprehend me: the ladies are extremely inconvenienced by these sort of sights, and we make it a principle they should never be ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... falling to pieces. The Dowager Lady Anstruthers had never either attracted desired, or been able to afford company. Her son's wife suffered from the resulting boredom and unpopularity without being able to comprehend the significance of ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to Ease was properly conducted, so that it might always appear to have Respect for its Motive; And only to act in Obedience to that, as the ruling Principle, it would then comprehend the just Plan of good Breeding; But as this was formerly encumber'd with Ceremonies and Embarrassments, so the modern good Breeding perhaps deviates too far into Negligence and Disregard; —A Fault more unpardonable than the former; As an Inconvenience, ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... all the expense of lodgings, coach, dress; servants, etc., which, according to the several places where you may be, shall be respectively necessary to enable you to keep the best company. Under the head of rational pleasures, I comprehend, first, proper charities, to real and compassionate objects of it; secondly, proper presents to those to whom you are obliged, or whom you desire to oblige; thirdly, a conformity of expense to that of the company which you keep; as in public spectacles; ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... taught Hernani in school, his fist he brought Like a trip-hammer down on his bulbous knee, And he roared: "Her Nanny? By gum, we'll see If the public's time she dares devote To the educatin' of any dam goat!" "You do not entirely comprehend— Hernani's a play," said his learned friend, "By Victor Hugo—immoral and bad. What's worse, it's French!" "Well, well, my lad," Said Smith, "if he cuts a swath so wide I'll have him took re'glar up and tried!" ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... they really believe that the prosperity of the country depends upon them. They really believe that if the leadership of economic development in this country dropped from their hands, the rest of us are too muddle-headed to undertake the task. They not only comprehend the power of the United States within their grasp, but they comprehend it within their imagination. They are honest men, they have just as much right to express their views as I have to express mine or you to express yours, but it is just about time that we examined ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... your telegram. I comprehend that you are forced to mobilize, but I should like to have from you the same guaranty which I have given you, viz., that these measures do not mean war, and that we shall continue to negotiate for the welfare of our ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... loose writer would. He needs all the three; specially those three, and no more than those—"creep," and "intrude," and "climb"; no other words would or could serve the turn, and no more could be added. For they exhaustively comprehend the three classes, correspondent to the three characters, of men who dishonestly seek ecclesiastical power. First, those who "creep" into the fold: who do not care for office, nor name, but for secret influence, and do all things ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... even if it seems ferocious, and so it gives less pain than one would think. At any rate, the little animals had the best of it very soon; for they entirely outstripped Annie in learning to walk, and they could soon scramble away beyond her reach, while she sat in a sort of dumb despair, unable to comprehend why anything so much smaller than herself should be so much nimbler. Meanwhile, the kittens would sit up and look at her with the most provoking indifference, just out of arm's length, until some of us would take pity on the young lady, and toss her furry playthings back ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Then he drew the charge, blew down the barrel to see that it was clear and reloaded the musket. Doctor Tom took some smoked salmon from his pouch, made a cup of coffee and silently ate his supper, and Boston began to comprehend that there was a reason for his refusal to eat while the stranger was in camp. But it was useless to try to make Doctor Tom talk until he had smoked, and Boston ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... which, in the language of another eminent writer, 'is the one thing most essential to the right development of individuals, and to the real grandeur of nations,' it was necessary that its foundations should be made so broad, in any correct philosophical analysis of its nature, as to comprehend the whole field of human activity. Accordingly, Mr. Mill includes within its proper domain the three great departments: consciousness, or the internal operations of our own minds; will, or the external manifestation of our thoughts and feelings in acts and habits; and lastly, association, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... strong, and therefore the hopeless aspirations for personal freedom have become extinct. But nations that are cut off from the sea, or that have accepted the dogma that to travel upon it is unholy, can never comprehend liberty. From the general tenor of the Vedas, it would appear that the condition of women was not so much restrained as it became in later times, and that monogamy was the ordinary state. From the great extent of these works, their various dates and authorship, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... as if in a shell, all the other spheres, in which was included the created universe, and, although of vast dimensions, its conception did not overwhelm the mind in the same manner that the effort to comprehend ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... we do understand, Ella?" rejoined Algernon. "When I say understand, I mean the word to be used in its minutest and broadest sense. You say there are many things we may not understand concerning ourselves—what ones, I pray you, do we fully comprehend? We are here upon the earth—so much we know. We shall die and pass away—so much we know also. But how came we here, and why? How do we exist? How do we think, reason, speak, feel, move, see, hear, smell, taste? All ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... she said, quite proudly, beginning at last to comprehend. "You are not afraid of ...
— Mere Girauds Little Daughter • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... cannot comprehend! the prince to gaze on me with such emotion! wildly exclaim, "the sight of her is hateful!" and, with the baron, leave the banquet, to be told the whole of my sad history—'Tis well! I shall not suffer by the truth; for, as I guess, mine, is a story ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... determine, heaving steadily toward him, not fifty paces away, some huge, murmuring, moving mass. And then there rang out on the silence of the night, clear, stern, and commanding, a voice the like of which their ears had never heard, in words that even they could not fail to comprehend: ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... gain an insight into the habits, ways of thinking, laws, and language of the natives. To this he ascribed most of his success as a missionary and explorer, for Livingstone's way was ever the gentle method of those who comprehend—not the harsh cruelty of those who feel superior to the ones among whom they work. In a day whose superficiality is only equalled by the ease with which we gloze over the faults of the unprepared, this bit of information of Livingstone's preparation ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... influence that aids the venous circulation is attributed to the propulsive power of the heart. It is not easy to comprehend how this power of the heart can be extended through the capillary vessels to the blood in the veins. Again, an important agency has been found, by some physiologists, in the inspiratory movements, which are supposed to draw the blood of the veins into the ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... level, a real psycholepsy. It is very likely that studies of this kind will produce some day the key of the epilepsy problem, for vertigos and certain epileptic fits are certainly phenomena of relaxation, the meaning of which we do not comprehend because we do not study sufficiently the state of psychological tension before ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... 'I really think they comprehend thus much, that God, who made all things, made man, Adam and Eve, very good and holy; that Adam and Eve sinned, that they did not listen to the word of God, but to the Bad Spirit; that God found them out, though they were afraid ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mrs. Schwellenberg, she said, "You might know I had something to say to you, by my calling you before the queen." She then proceeded to a long prelude, which I could but ill comprehend, save that it conveyed much of obligation on my part, and favour on hers; and then ended with, "I might tell you now, the queen is going to Oxford, and you might go with her; it is a secret—you might not tell it nobody. But ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... had been said to make Mr Gordon fully comprehend the case. The men were dissatisfied. They had come in a roundabout way to the conclusion that some pecuniary concession, not mentioned in their bond, should come from the side of capital to that of labour. Whether wages, interest of capital, share of profits, reserve ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... assurance that the dreaded power would be first entrusted to his hands to form precedents persuaded many to try the change. John Adams, recently returned from representing his Government in Great Britain, and finding himself chosen to the second place, was said to be unable to comprehend how Washington's military experience had fitted him for this civic duty. Yet it was simply the first of many instances in which the gratitude of the people, backed by innate hero-worship, has singled out a war hero for the highest civic ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... He repeated the words as if he sought to comprehend them. He seemed like a man with defective sight who has come suddenly against a wall that he had thought far off. Higbee now ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... engineer, and to the successful turning movement of Hancock, based thereon; and, second, to the certainty that if properly reinforced by the rest of Smith's division, and by other divisions, if necessary, as it surely would be as soon as the national commander had come to comprehend the real condition of affairs, the Confederate forces would be taken in flank and ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... to comprehend the full extent of what had occurred, the party, which had started out so merrily and under such bright auspices in the ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... hall and the adjacent corridors until an official, who took him to be lost, asked him if there was any particular part of the building he wanted. For a moment Spargo stared at the man as if he did not comprehend his question. Then his mental powers ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... such conditions we might contract our volume of money to a million dollars or expand it to five billions, and harm nobody; but it seems to me that any fool on earth—even the editor of the Advertiser could comprehend the following unequivocal facts: (1) that a majority of the American people owe money; (2) that an enhancement of the purchasing power of the dollar must work grievous injury to the debtor; (3) that ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... resorted to for the procuring of justice, men might then see the necessity of establishing equality of rights for all. But the power of women lies in spiritual, not in brute force; therefore men have failed to comprehend them, or to see the necessity of granting rights that are not contested at the point of the bayonet. Add to this the ambitious but weak love of power—of having some one to rule—inherent in the natures of most men, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... think not with the most; Whatever 'twould have been, before My Cousin's time, 'tis now so sore A treason to the abiding throne Of that sweet love which I have known, I cannot live so, and I bend My mind perforce to comprehend That He who gives command to love Does not require a thing above The strength He gives. The highest degree Of the hardest grace, humility; The step t'ward heaven the latest trod, And that which makes us most like God, ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... way, Pyrophilus to be mention'd, by which a Liquor may alter the Colour of another Body, and this seems the most Important of all, because though it be nam'd but as One, yet it may indeed comprehend Many, and that is, by Associating the Saline Corpuscles, or any other Sort of the more Rigid ones of the Liquor, with the Particles of the Body that it is employ'd to Work upon. For these Adventitious Corpuscles Associating themselves with the Protuberant Particles of the Surface of a Colour'd ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... together, failing to support the weight, suddenly broke asunder and the timbers together with all those who had taken their stand on them fell to the ground with a mighty crash. When this was heard by other Romans also, who were fighting from the adjoining towers, being utterly unable to comprehend what had happened, but supposing that the wall at this point had been destroyed, they beat a hasty retreat. Now many young men of the populace who in former times had been accustomed to engage in factional strife with each other in the hippodromes descended into the city from the ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... every sort she fell in with, and made inquiries at every island and place where anything like a truthful answer could possibly be procured. They had an interpreter, a Chinese, who spoke English, though rather of a funny sort, and as it required a good deal of cleverness to comprehend it, it may be supposed what he professed to wish to communicate was not always very clear. The man who might most have assisted them, Hoddidoddi, had been missing ever since Rogers' and Adair's battle on the island, ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... the red-tape routine. It only behooved us to use circumspection enough to avoid making mistakes in our papers, and fortune was ours. I knew everything was all right, but George, being a thorough business man himself, could not comprehend that it could be quite right, and he insisted upon one supreme test. Any single bill of exchange is seldom drawn for more than L1,000, rarely for L2,000, and one of L6,000 is almost unheard of. If a party in Bombay wanted exchange on London for L100,000, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... truth about widow-burning; but it is not the whole truth. To comprehend all the horrors of the situation we must realize clearly that it was the fiendish selfishness of the men, extending even beyond death, which thus subjected their wives to a cruel death, and that the widows, on their part, did not follow them because of the promptings of affection, but either ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... is a free man. Now tell me, Louise, if I have not divined all. Is not this the king's cruel work? Ah, you do not answer, you are silent. I understand—the king has made you swear not to betray him. Now look at me, Louise; make me a sign with your hand, tell me with your eyes, and I will comprehend you—I will take you in my arms and carry you to the altar. My God! Louise do you not see that I am waiting for this sign?—that ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... rose before his eyes, yet, when it passed, his vision was clearer than it had ever been. The men sitting around him represented the flower of the business world, each one of whom stood before his fellow-men as a tangible expression of honor and integrity. Yet not one was able to comprehend Gorham's viewpoint, not one could be anything but incredulous that he stood sincere in the position he had taken. This was what hurt him most. The applause which his associates had awarded him had been as that won by a clever actor rather than, as he ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... the hermit; "and more than that, there be some who, though dead, yet speak to their fellows, and will continue to do so as long as the records are preserved and the power to comprehend them ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... the peculiar advantage of position; that their assailants would be compelled to advance from only one direction. The three within were barely struggling to their feet, dazed, bewildered, failing as yet to comprehend fully those distant yells, when he sprang into their midst, uttering his swift orders, and unceremoniously jerking the men into ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... like one before an august assembly; and so it was to him, with his views of the future of the great empire of the Northwest. A part of the pupils could not comprehend all that he said any more than they had understood the allusion to the pilot of the Argo; but his manner was so gracious, so earnest, so inspired, that they all felt the spirit of it, and some had come to regard themselves as the students ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... company as commissary to the soldiers stationed at Fort St. George. His duties were those of a clerk. He was now twenty-five years old, but had had no experience in military affairs. Like Dupleix, however, he seemed to comprehend the political situation of the country, and when the emergency came that called forth his powers, he was found to possess both military genius and profound statesmanship. He represented to the officers of the post that if Trichinopoly, now besieged by Chunda Sahib and his French allies, should ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... things. The process cannot be explained in clear-cut fashion—any more than mediums can tell the source of their thoughts and impressions. A little intuition is needed in order to grasp the problem and comprehend its difficulties. ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... shall, therefore, make no apology for using as guide the main divisions of the great philosophers of that nation, who alone, in modern times, have made for Education a place among the sciences. Truth is of no country, but belongs to whoever can comprehend it. ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... was about love, and all the rest ABOUT RHETORIC. They stick not (that is, the ancients) at these variations, and have a marvellous grace in letting themselves to be carried away at the pleasure of the winds; or at least to seem as if they were. The titles of my chapters do not always comprehend the whole matter, they often denote it by some mark only, as those other titles Andria Eunuchus, or these, Sylla, Cicero, Torquatus. I love a poetic march, by leaps and skips, 'tis an art, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... and the bread of life which He had to offer, He added: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven," and again declared "the living Father hath sent me." Not a few of the disciples failed to comprehend His teachings; and their complaints drew from Him these words: "Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... faith, who had fallen under the anathema of the Patriarch. Shutting up their shops had sent them to the seminary, where their minds would be disciplined, and where, studying the history of the Church, and comparing the past and present with God's Word, they would be prepared to comprehend the Oriental Apostasy. Of the other five, three were from anathematized families, and two were without relatives. A lad, who had been expelled from his father's house because he was a Protestant, was about to enter the seminary, through ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... girls of the poets are so ideal that no living daughter of Eve can compete with them. And now tell me, what will you gain,—you, a young girl, brought up to be the virtuous mother of a family,—if you learn to comprehend the terrible agitations of a poet's life in this dreadful capital, which may be defined by one sentence,—the hell in ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... House of Lords is an inheritable privilege, it will be readily believed that there is a considerable number of peers with no natural or acquired fitness for legislative duties,—men whose dullness in debate, and whose utter incapacity to comprehend any question of public interest or importance, cannot be adequately described. They speak occasionally, from a certain ill-defined sense of what may be due to their position, yet are obviously aware that what they say is entitled to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... and it began to thicken so fast that swimming was very difficult indeed. If you don't understand this, you need only ask the attendants at your nearest swimming-baths to fill the baths with treacle instead of water, and you will very soon comprehend how it was that Billy reached the shore of his kingdom ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... would in any case be more useful than a polemic attempt at rebutting these criticisms in detail. Mr. Bradley in particular can be taken care of by Mr. Schiller. He repeatedly confesses himself unable to comprehend Schiller's views, he evidently has not sought to do so sympathetically, and I deeply regret to say that his laborious article throws, for my mind, absolutely no useful light upon the subject. It seems to me on the whole an IGNORATIO ELENCHI, ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... his eyes leaving the young man fixed themselves on his companion. "I begin to understand," he murmured, his voice low, but not the less menacing for that, or for the cat-like purr in it. "I begin to comprehend. This is one of your tricks, Messer Grio. One of the clever tricks you play in your cups! Some day you'll do that in them will—No!" repressing the bully as he attempted to rise. "Have done now and let us understand. The 'Bible and Hand,' eh? ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... thought, but darena tell, I've studied them wi' a' my skill, I've lo'ed them better than mysel', I've tried again to like them ill. Wha sairest strives, will sairest rue, To comprehend what nae man can; When he has done what man can do, He'll end at last where he began. That they ha'e gentle forms an' meet, A man wi' half a look may see; An' gracefu' airs, an' faces sweet, An' waving curls aboon the bree! ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... wondered with great wonder at his verse, and could not comprehend the cause. But when the youth snatched up the bit of linen and placed it under thigh, he asked him, "What is that piece of linen?" "O my Lord," answered the merchant, "thou hast no concern with this piece." Quoth the King's son, "Show it me;" and quoth the merchant, "O my lord, I refused to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... some measure, abated. His head again fell upon his breast; he appeared as I had seen him at first. I observed that he now took the course in which had gone the greater number of the audience—but, upon the whole, I was at a loss to comprehend the waywardness ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... passion of weeping. She threw her arm round him as if to shield him from evil as she said, "Oh, Jamie, nothing can reach you now—nothing." He looked at her with the look that was always so touching, as if he were vainly trying to remember or comprehend: that occasional look of effort was the only remnant left of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... without knowing why, followed the example. He did not even comprehend where his companion was going, for he had said nothing to him ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... that his attention always strained and always directed toward the externals of the cult, does not leave his mind a moment in which to reflect upon the profound meaning of some of these prayers, and you will comprehend the extraordinary scene that the banks of the Ganges at Benares present every morning; this anxious and demented multitude, these gestures, eager and yet methodical, this rapid movement of the lips, the fixed gaze of these men and women who, standing in the water, seem ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... all-pervading, ever-flowing spirit; the different inertiae conflict, and end by combining in an organic being, since neither can be annihilated or transmuted. Perhaps we can tell you, by-and-by, how this antagonism commences; at present, you would scarcely be able to comprehend it clearly." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... strange that girls should fail to see all the dangers of such conduct—that they should not comprehend that thus they become sources of temptation to their lovers, and may even imperil their ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... of the cock, recurring regularly at fixed hours, has some signification, but we cannot comprehend it. If on a fine afternoon in autumn the cock crows, and repeats his strain between two and four o'clock, the countrymen in some places will say there will be a fog on the morrow, and they are generally not mistaken. Hens do not mistake his ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... Osteopath means a perfect plan and specification to build in form a house, an engine, a man, a world, or anything for an object or purpose. To comprehend this engine of life or man which is so constructed with all conveniences for which it was made, it is necessary to constantly keep the plan and specification before the mind, and in the mind, to such a degree that there is no lack of knowledge ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... room, and then down into the streete. I did give the boys 4s. among them, and mighty merry. So home to bed, with my heart at great rest and quiett, saving that the consideration of the victory is too great for me presently to comprehend. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... about it," her husband said anxiously, as she sat staring before her, trying to comprehend the tragedy. "I have arranged to take you on to-morrow. The Colonel writes that your brother Ezra is seedy,—touch of malaria, he thinks. The Colonel is looking forward a ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... about the extent of the regal power in England, that the daily care and responsibility of the affairs of government, in its ordinary administration, rested directly upon the king. It is not possible that any one mind can even comprehend, far less direct, such an enormous complication of interests and of action as is involved in the carrying on, from day to day, the government of an empire. Offices, authorities, and departments of administration spring ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... held them to be [Greek: katalepta], and Numenius in Euseb. Praep. Ev. XIV. 8, p. 739, who treats him throughout his notice as a renegade. (2) is evident from the Academica and from Sextus as quoted above. The foundation for knowledge which he substituted is more difficult to comprehend. Sextus indeed tells us that he held things to be in their own nature [Greek: katalepta (hoson de epi te physei ton pragmaton auton katal.)]. But Arcesilas and Carneades would not have attempted to disprove this; they never tried to show that things in themselves ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... did not study it to understand. I knew little more about grammar when I left off going to school than I do about Greek or Hebrew. It is one thing to commit a lesson, and another to comprehend it. I am determined to understand ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... expenses of living. In his inmost consciousness he knew very well that Innocent was not of the ordinary feminine mould—she had visions of the high and unattainable, and her ideals of life were of that pure and transcendental quality which belongs to finer elements unseen. The carnal mind can never comprehend spirituality,—nevertheless, Jocelyn was a man cultured and clever enough to feel that though he himself could not enter, and did not even care to enter the uplifted spheres of thought, this strange child with a gift of the gods ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... virtue and of manliness; happy was she to find them realized in Marion. And he, when sitting in the shadows of the old marble pile, gazing up at the brilliant sky, had pictured a being beautiful and good, whose soul could comprehend the yearnings of his own, and this he found in May. Thus their two souls grew together, until their thoughts, their hopes, ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... not write as I do—I could not recall these thoughts and that time—if I had not another thought to bring to bear upon them; a thought which at that time I was not able to comprehend. It came to me later with its healing, and I have seen and felt it more clearly as I grew older. I see it very clearly now. I had not been mistaken in my childish notions of the loftiness and generosity of my father's character. He was what I had ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... her was still hidden behind the earnest brow and the deep-set eyes. In them, indeed, did she read exultation, an ardour at least equal to her own, but an ardour for an object which she—the proud, exquisite pagan, the daughter of Augustus—wholly failed to comprehend. She had shown him the way to the imperium, to the diadem of Augustus, the sceptre of the Caesars, yet in his eyes, which were unfathomable and blue as the ocean that girt his own ancestral home of far away, there ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... conclusion of a syllogism, not from each term, but from a comparison of the premises—and this requires an intellectual operation entirely distinct from a mere apprehension of the terms. It is one thing to comprehend the premises; it is quite another to deduce a conclusion from them. It may necessarily follow, but it requires a separate act of the mind to reach it. Premises will not of ...
— The Philosophy of Evolution - and The Metaphysical Basis of Science • Stephen H. Carpenter
... during the arithmetic lesson that Alice's heart went out in pity for the youthful instructor. The majority of the pupils were bright; but an unruly fraction, one child, refused to comprehend. ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... discourse, the keen-sighted minister had fathomed his determination to raise some obstacle in every instance; and he began to entertain a suspicion that this was not done without a powerful motive, which he immediately became anxious to comprehend. Thus, therefore, when Henry pressed him to declare his sentiments upon the subject, he answered cautiously: "I cannot, in truth, hazard an opinion, Sire; nor can I even understand the bent of your own wishes. Thus much only do I comprehend—that you consent to take another wife, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... at least followed by an heightening of the distemper, until, by a variety of experiments, that important country has been brought into her present situation—a situation which I will not miscall, which I dare not name, which I scarcely know how to comprehend in the terms ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... like roses, but his pretty mouth was hard set and his black eyes blazed. The boys danced and made threatening feints at him. They called out confused taunts and demands whose purport Anderson at first did not comprehend, but the boy never swerved. When one of his tormentors came nearer, out swung the little white fist at him, ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... remorse, telling me that he could not bring himself to publish it, although obedience to the orders of his party might endanger one who was very dear to him. Alas! madame, a man of letters must needs comprehend all passions, since it is his pride to express them; I understood that where a mistress and a friend are involved, the friend is inevitably sacrificed. I smoothed your brother's way; I corrected his murderous article myself, and gave it ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... man, I treated him too harshly! But it was all a misunderstanding! (To SELWYN.) You quite comprehend, don't you? The gentleman said he was already engaged to my girl; that's why I consented. ...
— Three Hats - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Alfred Debrun
... doubt it will be difficult for those who think about things loosely, and have not been accustomed to know them by their primary causes, to comprehend the demonstration of Prop. vii.: for such persons make no distinction between the modifications of substances and the substances themselves, and are ignorant of the manner in which things are produced; hence they may attribute to substances the ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... stand foremost among the natural attractions of the world. Astonishment and wonder become so firmly impressed upon the mind in the presence of these objects, that belief stands appalled, and incredulity is dumb. You can see Niagara, comprehend its beauties, and carry from it a memory ever ready to summon before you all its grandeur. You can stand in the valley of the Yosemite, and look up its mile of vertical granite, and distinctly recall its minutest feature; but amid the canon and falls, ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... frequent Examples in Ancient Authors of a Sort of Conversation which seems to clash with Reason; for 'tis not Natural for a Man to entertain himself, for we only speak that we may communicate our Thoughts to others; besides, 'tis hard to comprehend how an Author that relates Word for Word, the like Conversation cou'd be instructed to repeat them with so much Exactness; these Sort of Conversations are much more Impertinent when they run upon strange Subjects, which are not indispensibly allied to the Story handled: If the Conversations ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... the world, with the blessings of liberty all around us, we do not realize the priceless boon they are to us; but when we stand in the presence of the perils that are undertaken in order to gain them when deprived of their benefits, we begin to comprehend the real value of these sacred ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... of all. There is nothing peculiar to the Trinity that is near so perplexing as eternity.' And then he finely adds: 'I know no remedy for these things but a humble mind. If we demur to a doctrine because we cannot fully and adequately comprehend it, is not this too familiar from a creature towards his Creator, and articling more strictly with Almighty God ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... bandages before I permitted. However, it has done no harm! But it was lucky that I mistrusted your patience and put the time for the experiment a week later than I thought necessary . . . What is it?' He turned from one to the other questioningly; there was a look on Harold's face that he did not quite comprehend. ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... effect that, 'the last campaign, when they had a fort, how had the enemy fired then?—stabbed them, speared them, &c. &c.; and without a fort, assaulting!—how could it be expected they should succeed? how unreasonable they should go at all!' But even his stolid head seemed to comprehend the sarcasm when I asked him how many men had been killed during all this severe fighting. However, it was clear that it was no battle. We were all very savage, and I intimated how useless my being with them was, if they intended ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... above the level of the fields, and along each road there is a deep ditch or two, while there is sure to be one along each hedge. Water is invariably found at a depth of about two feet. One can therefore quite comprehend how in such a country trenches dug in the form of ditches would be full of water ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... disease and its proper cure. If there are any actual villains responsible for this suppressive tragedy some of them are to be found in the inner core of the AMA, officials who may perhaps fully and consciously comprehend ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... builders looking back at the teeming slime upon the ocean floor. All the history of mankind, all the history of life, has been and will be the story of something struggling out of the indiscriminated abyss, struggling to exist and prevail over and comprehend individual lives—an effort of insidious attraction, an idea of invincible appeal. That something greater than ourselves, which does not so much exist as seek existence, palpitating between being and not-being, how marvellous ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... her unsophisticated country cousin failed to comprehend her, although Beth's intuition was not greatly ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... that Patricia Dale should thus die. And yet I had had an earnest of the devil's ferocity. East of the mountains I could not have imagined a hand ever being raised against her. And I had seen her buffeted and struck down this day. Therefore, I did comprehend the inconceivable. ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... it. Under such circumstances she would put forth the silliest statements, such as: "No one can be in two places at once—unless it is a little bird," by which she one day roused, and not without success, a discussion on the ubiquity of the apostles, which she was unable to comprehend. Such efforts at conversation won her the appellation of "that good Mademoiselle Cormon," which, from the lips of the beaux esprits of society, means that she was as ignorant as a carp, and rather a poor fool; but many persons of her own ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... Jim. There were several recent happenings which she did not fully comprehend. At the inquisitive age and a girl, she wanted to know ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... permit me to seat myself in your august company," continued the stranger, "I will gladly relate my history, so that you will be better able to comprehend my unusual — may I ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum |
