"Critical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he was taken off to the police station, it seemed the hardest sort of hard luck that his chase of Graves should be interrupted at such a critical time and just because he had been over-speeding. But he realized that he was helpless, and that he would only waste his breath if he tried to explain matters until he was brought before someone who was really in authority. Then, if he had any luck, he might be able to clear things ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... would be with infinite gratitude that he would regard the man, who, retaining in his delineation of natural scenery a fidelity to the facts of science so rigid as to make his work at once acceptable and credible to the most sternly critical intellect, should yet invest its features again with the sweet veil of their daily aspect; should make them dazzling with the splendor of wandering light, and involve them in the unsearchableness of stormy obscurity; should restore to the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the early history of our country; to appreciate the reasons for the grievances of the colonists against their mother country; and to gain an intelligent idea of the events of that most critical period of our history, when the colonies, then free, were in doubt as to the nature of the federal government they should adopt; properly to understand all these facts, it is of essential importance that we should ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby
... Genuineness of the Gospels, it is enough to answer to the Reviewer in the Prospective, that the writer of this volume addressed himself to a different course of argument, starting from other divergences of opinion, philosophical rather than critical in their relations. He certainly was free to select the method and the direction of his argument, if he candidly represented the answering point of view of those ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... was to lift the coffin down from the rack, and place it on the seat beside him, and then to put the parcel of cheese on the coffin. He surveyed the cheese on the coffin; he surveyed it with the critical and experienced eye of an undertaker, and he decided that, if anyone else got into the carriage, it would not look quite decent, quite becoming—in a word, quite nice. A coffin is a coffin, and people's feelings have ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... thought in capitals. "Oh when I've run him to earth," he also said, "then, you know, I shall knock at his door. Rather—I beg you to believe. I'll have it from his own lips: 'Right you are, my boy; you've done it this time!' He shall crown me victor—with the critical laurel." ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... that quaint! Now in America we . . ." etc. So speaks an uncultivated American on seeing something that strikes him—or her—as novel in London, not unkindly critical, but anxious to give information about his country—and uninvited. But whereas the Englishman is so accustomed to the abuse and criticism of other peoples that the harmless chatter of the American ripples more or less unheeded by him, the American, ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... another fact which I have mentioned goes to confirm this belief. It seems that Emerson accepted the duty of delivering the Poem on Class Day, after seven others had been asked who positively, refused. So it appears that, in the opinion of this critical class, the author of the 'Woodnotes' and the 'Humble Bee' ranked about eighth in poetical ability. It can only be because the works of the other five [seven] have been 'heroically unwritten' that a different impression has come to prevail in the outside world. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to be asking itself whether to remain in the street where it was being terrified and knocked about by the people passing by, or whether to go back into the chemist's even at the risk of being kicked out a second time. Jeanne thought it was in a very critical position, and understood its hesitation. It looked so stupid; and she knew it looked stupid only because it could not decide what to do. So she took it up in her arms. And as it had not been able to obtain any rest either indoors out out-of-doors, it allowed her to ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... elaborately into the supposed condition of this girl's mind on this critical evening that you may understand why I felt a certain sympathy for her, which forbade harsh measures. I was sure, from the glimpse I had caught of her face, that she longed to be relieved from the tension she was under, ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... affection, agony of heart, all for a man who had wronged them—had never really behaved towards either of them anyhow but selfishly. Neither one but would have wellnigh sacrificed half her life to him, even now. The tears which his possibly critical situation could not bring to her eyes surged over at the contemplation of these fellow-women. She turned to the balustrade, bent herself upon ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Theists and Muslims of India (1907); Cults, Customs and Superstitions of India (1908); Rev. F. Lillingston's Brahmo Samaj and Arya Samaj (1901). The following brief account is simply compiled from the above works and makes no pretence to be critical.] ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... At this critical moment in the process of social disorganization, the influence of foreign destructive thought made itself felt. The arrival of Johann Most from Europe, in the fall of 1882, supplied this revolutionary movement with a leader who made anarchy its principle. Originally a German Socialist aiming ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... that in spite of his strength and manhood, he was morbidly sensitive of her opinion, and was never so conscious of his defects as when he was presiding at his own table, or playing the part of host in her drawing-room, under her critical eye. And yet Richard Sefton loved his stepmother; he had an affectionate nature, but in his heart he knew he had no cause to be grateful to her. She had made him, the lonely, motherless boy, the scapegoat of his father's deceit and wrongdoing. He had been allowed to live at The ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... were in supporting distance of each other, with Negley still in front of Dug Gap, the enemy holding the east entrance with a heavy force, and the Gap full of obstructions. Negley discovered early on the following day that his situation was critical, and that he was in danger of losing his train. He determined to fall back to a strong position in front of Stevens's Gap, which movement he proceeded to execute, and succeeded in the face of the enemy by his energy and skill, with the prompt co-operation of Baird, ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... the development of rapid railroad service, both steam and electric, that made both of these developments possible at this time. The critical importance of this transportation was recognized ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... The earliest critical notice of the battle of Lissa, fought on July 20th, appeared in the 'Revue des deux Mondes' of November 15th. It was at the time, and has been ever since, generally attributed to the Prince de Joinville; an error which gives the following letter a more especial interest, though it may be thought ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... fleet, despite his recent flesh-wound, and presently reappeared, dragging a man by the arm, who bared his brown head and bowed low over a frankly extended hand. He looked a trifle dusty and travel-stained to Cary's critical eye, and the boy meant to comment on the foreign cut of his Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, provided a chance were afforded him to enter a remark edgewise, but Florence, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, was pouring ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... at this critical moment that Cassidy entered from the opposite side of the office. As his eyes fell on the girl at the door across from him, his stolid face lighted in a grin. And, in that same instant of recognition between the two, the color went out of the girl's ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... solitary ant breasting a current of his fellows as he retraces his steps to pack off something he has forgotten. At each meeting with a neighbour there is a mutual pause, and the two confront each other for a moment, reaching out their delicate antenn, and making a critical examination of one another's person. This the little creature repeats with tireless persistence to the end of ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... new creed, some, in the arrogance of their understanding, were limiting the Scriptures by their own devices, and others failed not to make religious character or spiritual rank the means of rising to temporal power. Thus it happened at this critical period, that the effects of this great change in the religion of the country, although producing an immediate harvest, as well as sowing much good seed which was to grow hereafter, did not, in the fourth century, flourish so ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... of the dramatic poet. He was to address himself to the heads and judgments of his audience, on the acuteness of which they piqued themselves; not to their feelings, stupified, probably, by selfish dissipation. Even the acquisition and exercise of critical knowledge tends to blunt the sense of natural beauties, as a refined harmonist becomes indifferent to the strains of simple melody. Hence the sacrifices which Shakespeare made, without being aware, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... fact that they had put out the fire cut very little figure. There was much bickering. It seemed that Bert Taylor, in his enthusiasm, had, out of his own pocket, hired extra men who appeared at the critical moment to relieve the tired men at the brakes; and it was under their fresh impetus that the Monumental had so triumphantly "sucked." Now Bert Taylor was freely blamed. The regular men stoutly maintained that if they had been left ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... upon the sketch which his amiable niece-in-law submits to his critical taste ere she ventures to show it to Vance, is looking from under his brows towards the grove, out from which, towering over all its dark brethren, soars the old trysting beech-tree, and to himself he is saying: "Ten to one that the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... color, but had been painted in a tasteful style of art, with graceful nymphs, winged cupids, vases of flowers, and many other embodiments of fancy, or representations from nature. The effect on the beholder was pleasant and cheering at first view, but a more critical observation would lead to the conclusion that there was too much of the voluptuous in the design and execution of the penciling. In one corner of the room was a door which opened into an inner room of small dimensions, in which was a downy couch, and all the paraphernalia of a luxurious ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... fleet from 1792-4, but it was also his flagship in 1790 at the time of the 'Spanish Armament,' when he put to sea in immediate expectation of war with Spain. While the tension lasted he is known to have used the critical period in exercising his fleet in tactical evolutions, in order to perfect it in a new code of signals which he had been elaborating for several years.[1] It is probable therefore that this Signal Book belongs to that year, and that it is one of several ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... swelled on my hand like summer corn under sunny showers; one thing has brought another to remembrance; sowds of bypast marvels have come before my mind's eye in the silent watches of the night, concerning the days when I sat working crosslegged on the board; and if I do not stop at this critical juncture—to wit, my retiring from trade, and the settlement of my dear and only son Benjie in an honourable way of doing; as who dares to deny that the barber and hair-cutting line is a safe and honourable employment?—I do not know when I might get to the end of my tether; and the interest ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... the military religion of the Roman frontier, Greek literature is permeated with a kind of intense language about the Sun, which seems derived from Plato.[139:3] In later times, in the fourth century A. D. for instance, it has absorbed some more full-blooded and less critical element ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... born in Saxony; spent his life in textual criticism; his great work "Critical Edition of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the comedy of human life that is more difficult to play well than that of an old bachelor. When a single gentleman, therefore, arrives at that critical period when he begins to consider it an impertinent question to be asked his age, I would advise him to look well to his ways. This period, it is true, is much later with some men than with others; I have witnessed more than once the meeting of two wrinkled old lads ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... sit for hours gazing at an Etruscan vase on the bookcase in the library, while her sisters played with their dolls—and if seeing beauty was the only excuse one needed for talking about it, why, she was sure I would make allowances and not be too critical and sarcastic, especially if, as she thought probable, I had heard of her having lost her poor husband, and how she had to do it ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... amounted to reverence. She cheerfully performed any tasks set her, and was perfectly content to be a kind of general help and underling, without attempting the least interference with any of the arrangements. Critical friends sometimes hinted that Miss Edith's position at Briarcroft was hardly a fair one, and that Miss Poppleton took advantage of her good nature and affection; but Miss Edith herself never for a single instant entertained ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... conscious at this critical moment of no questionings on that particular score. He was merely a prey to the normal tremors and agitations of a husband ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... abstract of Dr. Burnet's seventh chapter of "Archaeologia." The eighth chapter equals the above in boldness; but far exceeds it in breadth of logic and critical acumen, without, however, appearing so iconoclastic or so vulgar. The next chapter abounds in classical quotations, the Creation of the world and the Deluge is the theme on which so much is advanced, at a time when such language was greeted with the stake and the prison. We cannot ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... heroic of women, whose name recalls the most romantic incident in the history of this region. Out of this past there rises no figure so captivating to the imagination as that of Madame de la Tour. And it is noticeable that woman has a curious habit of coming to the front in critical moments of history, and performing some exploit that eclipses in brilliancy all the deeds of contemporary men; and the exploit usually ends in a pathetic tragedy, that fixes it forever in the sympathy of the world. I need not copy out of the pages of De Charlevoix ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... my sovereign," said he in a voice that trembled with emotion, "my whole life will not be long enough to thank you for what yon are doing for me in this critical hour. Till now I have loved you indeed as my father, but henceforth I must look upon you as my benefactor also, as my dearest and best friend. My heart and my soul are yours, dear father; may I be worthy of your love ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... aggregate at normal levels of precipitation, the great distance between major water supplies and population centers poses serious distribution problems. The water problem is exacerbated by rapid population growth, industrial expansion, and increased water pollution. Private investment is critical to the modernization of the agricultural, energy, and export sectors. Oil production is leveling off, and the efforts of the nonoil sector to penetrate international markets have fallen short. Syria's inadequate infrastructure, outmoded technological base, and ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... wave it before the advancing masses against the Liberal party. Out of this difficulty, Mr. Gladstone rescued himself with all that perfect, that graceful ease which he most displays when situations are most critical. The debate was further made remarkable by a speech from Lord Randolph Churchill, who, amid the grim and ominous silence of the Tory Benches, thundered against Capital and Capitalists in tones for which Trafalgar Square or the Reformers' Tree ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... the critical Lucius, "now, to take one thing only, a point so often overlooked. Observe how fresh and firm her flesh is. When I press it thus," and he suited the action to the word, "as I thought, my finger leaves scarcely ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... presents, without reference to the disposition of the savages to labor for their own support, and even without reference to the good or ill desert of individuals,—this, though doubtless expedient in the critical situation of our frontier population, is the merest expediency, not in any sense a policy. Yet the two features specified have been the only ones that have been added to the scheme of Indian control during the continuance of the present administration; while, ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... Epinomis (Diog. Laert.) That the longest and one of the best writings bearing the name of Plato should be a forgery, even if its genuineness were unsupported by external testimony, would be a singular phenomenon in ancient literature; and although the critical worth of the consensus of late writers is generally not to be compared with the express testimony of contemporaries, yet a somewhat greater value may be attributed to their consent in the present instance, because the admission of the Laws is combined with doubts about the Epinomis, ...
— Laws • Plato
... became so much crowded, that the crew were, in a great measure, prevented from using their fire-arms, or giving what assistance they otherwise might have done, to Captain Cook; so that he seems, at the most critical point of time, to have wanted the assistance of both boats, owing to the removal of the launch. For, notwithstanding that they kept up a fire on the crowd, from the situation to which they removed in that boat, the fatal confusion which ensued on her being withdrawn, to say the least of it, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... had borrowed from his foe. Well may one suspect "the gifts of an enemy!" as the student might have cited: "Timeo danaos," etc. At the very moment when the officer's head was most in peril, while he guarded it with the staff held horizontally in both hands separated widely for the critical juncture, it ominously cracked at the reception of a vigorous blow—it parted as though a steel blade had severed it, and the unresisted cane came down on his skull ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... is generally anxious to bespeak public attention, and to solicit public indulgence. Except on professional subjects, military men are, perhaps, too fearful of critical censure. For the present narrative no other apology is attempted, than the intentions of its author, who has endeavoured not only to satisfy present curiosity, but to point out to future adventurers, the favourable, ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... things that he had ever drawn and examined them with critical eyes. Several things looked quite different to-day from what they had ever done before, and that not worse, but better. His attention was especially attracted by one of his childish attempts, of the time when he was quite a boy; it was a sketch of the old burgomaster ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... enormous authority is a fine thing; but to have the on-looking world consent to it is a finer. The tower episode solidified my power, and made it impregnable. If any were perchance disposed to be jealous and critical before that, they experienced a change of heart, now. There was not any one in the kingdom who would have considered it good judgment ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... besought her mother to consent to an immediate union, sanctified as it would further be by art. Angela had nothing to urge against his suit; and the Councillor the more readily gave his consent that the young composer's productions had found favour before his rigorous critical judgment. Krespel was expecting to hear of the consummation of the marriage, when he received instead a black-sealed envelope addressed in a strange hand. Doctor R—— conveyed to the Councillor the sad intelligence that Angela had ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... by Tish of a girl as chauffeur; but even before that there were contributing causes. There was the faulty rearing of the McDonald youth, for instance, and Tish's aesthetic dancing. And afterward there was Aggie's hay fever, which made her sneeze and let go of a rope at a critical moment. Indeed, Aggie's hay fever may be said to be one of the fundamental causes, being the reason we went ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and historians. The most important work on the subject is that of Dr. Chaponniere, before cited: this is reprinted (but without the documents attached) as a preface to the new edition of the Chronicles. M. Edmond Chevrier, in a slight pamphlet (Macon, 1868), gives a critical account both of the man and of his writings. Besides these may be named Vulliemin: Chillon, Etude historique, Lausanne, 1851; J. Gaberel: Le Chateau de Chillon et Bonivard, Geneva. Marc Monnier, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... impossible, if it were not so. There is no sort of social existence possible for a person who is ingenuous enough to say always what he thinks, and, on the whole, one may be thankful that there is not. One naturally enough objects to form the subject of a critical diagnosis and exposure; one chooses for one's friends the agreeable hypocrites of life who sustain for one the illusions in which one wishes to live. The mere conception of a plain-speaking world is calculated to reduce one ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... team from Miss Martin's approached the field, the critical observer could mark the difference between these girls and those from the home team. Long hikes, sensible clothing and food, and two weeks at the Scout camp with exposure to all kinds of weather, had hardened ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... took it, and began to feed little Pat. Perhaps the presence of a critical and interested audience embarrassed us, for Jonas and Pomona were at the door, with streaming eyes, while Euphemia stood with her handkerchief to the lower part of her face, or it may have been that I did not understand the management ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... "drill-stick" with a rude bow, and with his other hand holds a piece of stone or of wood above it, both to steady it and to give the requisite pressure—gentle at first, and increasing judiciously up to the critical moment when the fire is on the point of bursting out. Another man puts his hands on the lower piece of wood, the "fire-block," to steady it, and holds a piece of tinder ready to light it as soon as fire is produced. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... as the critical moment approached which was to decide their fate, Colonel Cochrane, weighed down by his fears lest something terrible should befall the women, put his pride aside to the extent of asking the advice, of the renegade dragoman. The fellow was a villain and a coward, ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... Then followed Worry's critical account of the game, and a discussion in which the boys went over certain plays. During the evening many visitors called, but did not gain admission. The next morning, however, Worry himself brought in the newspapers, ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... an eagle. The vessel rose on a sluggish wave—the lingering remains of the former breeze—and then settled heavily over the rolling surge, borne down alike by its own weight and the renewed violence of the gusts. At this critical instant while the seamen aloft were still gazing in the direction in which the little cloud of canvas had disappeared, a lanyard of the lower rigging parted with a crack that even reached the ears ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... putting her hand upon the King's heart, said, "This is what I wish to secure." The King's eyes then filled with tears, and I also began weeping, without knowing why. Afterwards, the King said, "Guimard will call upon you every day, to assist you with his advice, and at the critical moment you will send for him. You will say that you expect the sponsors, and a moment after you will pretend to have received a letter, stating that they cannot come. You will, of course, affect to be very much ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... nominated by the King to the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. In 1688 he was going to Ireland on a second expedition at the time that the advanced guard of William of Orange reached Honiton, and when the advanced guard of King James's English army was at Salisbury. It was at this critical period that Lord Wharton, who has been described as "a political weathercock, a bad spendthrift, and a poet of some pretensions," joined the Prince of Orange in the Revolution, and published this famous song. He seems to have been a dissolute man, and ended badly, although ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... must be found outside their own lids. It was said of a great French scholar: "He was drowned in his talents." Over-culture, without practical experience, weakens a man, and unfits him for real life. Book education alone tends to make a man too critical, too self-conscious, timid, distrustful of his abilities, too fine for the mechanical drudgery of practical life, too highly polished, and too finely ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... expression of the blue button remaining. She was supposed to be sweetly sleeping in the library this pleasant afternoon. She was really lying in a heap on the kitchen door step, and Flora, for lack of something better to do was hanging lazily on the big gate, gazing down the road. She was in that critical condition ...
— Baby Pitcher's Trials - Little Pitcher Stories • Mrs. May
... our minds, at least in Jeff's and mine, a keen appreciation of the advantages of this strange country and its management. Terry remained critical. We laid most of it to his ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... disturbing their hair, however naturally arranged it might seem. Margaret, when anything excited her, had a trick of putting her long fingers through her hair, upwards from her forehead, and letting it fall down again as it felt inclined. Her nicety of dress, too, pleased her critical inspector. It was fastidiously simple and fastidiously worn. In this again she was one ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... more comparable with A Toccata of Galuppi's, the rendering of the impressions and sensations caused by a particular picture. Old Pictures in Florence is not unsimilar to Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha, critical, technical, lovingly learned, sympathetically quizzical. But Browning's artistic instinct and knowledge are manifested not only in special poems of this sort, but everywhere throughout his works. He writes of painters because he has a kinship with them. "Their pictures are windows through which ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... he explained. "The audience may be critical; we must try to give them a good show! And now give me a report. What are you doing? Has anything else turned up? I am counting on you to stand by and see that that electrician is on his toes ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... combination of flutes and tenor trombones. In this number he also returns to the music of the opening number, "Requiem aeternam," and closes it with an "Amen" softly dying away. Thus ends the Requiem,—a work which will always be the subject of critical dispute, owing to its numerous innovations on existing musical forms and the daring manner in which ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... notwithstanding his life was at stake, and at one time saved only by shifting his place of concealment every night; and this young lady it was who afterwards became the mother of his only daughter. Both mother and daughter, it is remarkable, perished prematurely, and at critical periods of Csar's life; for it is probable enough that these irreparable wounds to Csar's domestic affections threw him with more exclusiveness of devotion upon the fascinations of glory and ambition than might have happened under a happier condition of his private life. That ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... a mixture of all methods—paper, peat, and cork, their lines broken up or blended with wadding. The whole of this, well glued, sanded, and properly coloured, will defy the most critical unprofessional judgment to declare it anything ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... leaders: left wing of the Catholic Church and labor unions allied to leftist Workers' Party are critical of government's ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... unfortunately, has not been justified by events, led me to allow myself to be brought forward as a candidate for a seat on the London School Board. Thanks to the energy of my supporters I was elected, and took my share in the work of that body during the critical first year of its existence. Then my health gave way, and I was obliged to resign my place among colleagues whose large practical knowledge of the business of primary education, and whose self-sacrificing zeal in the discharge of the ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Premier, conscious of his danger, had determined on a demonstration of his power. On the Sunday before that eventful, much-discussed Monday, when the critical clause was to come before the Legislative Assembly, he and his followers had decided to convene mass-meetings throughout the country, in every constituency whose member was a waverer, or suspected of being ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... convinced, over-nervous and, unfortunately, over-rigorous. This can be explained in part by the state-wide apprehension over the I.W.W.; in part by the normal California country posse's attitude toward a labor trouble. A deputy sheriff, at the most critical moment, fired a shot in the air, as he stated, 'to sober the crowd.' There were armed men in the crowd, for every crowd of 2000 casual laborers includes a score of gunmen. Evidence goes to show that even the gentler ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... tales like those of the vampires or vroucolacas, which concern only what he considered a heretical church, and with which, therefore, he might deal according to his own will—apply to them the ordinary rules of evidence, and treat them as mundane affairs—there he is clear-sighted, critical and acute, and accordingly he discusses the matter philosophically and logically, and concludes without fear of sinning against the church, that the whole is delusion. When, on the other hand, he ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... usually entertained for three weeks, in the spring, at Houghton. The whole is a slashing example of the robust eighteenth-century political warfare, polished by constant classical allusions and quotations; and doubtless it was read with delight in the coffee houses of the Town in that critical winter of 1740-1741. Two characteristic allusions must not be omitted. Even in the heat of party hard hitting Fielding finds time for a thrust at Colley Cibber, whose prose it seems was in several places by no means to be comprehended till "explained ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... families of languages represented upon the map can not have sprung from a common source; they are as distinct from one another in their vocabularies and apparently in their origin as from the Aryan or the Scythian families. Unquestionably, future and more critical study will result in the fusion of some of these families. As the means for analysis and comparison accumulate, resemblances now hidden will be brought to light, and relationships hitherto unsuspected will be shown to exist. Such a result may be anticipated with the more certainty inasmuch ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell
... to the most critical portion of our course, where we might equally expect to fall into the hands of French or English, when a terrible calamity befell us. Chew was taken suddenly sick with symptoms like those of poison, and in the course of a few hours expired in the bottom ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to get away before anything like this occurred," Harris said. "I knew that maybe we'd have tough going for a while at some critical time and wanted you to miss all of that—to come back and find the Three Bar booming along without having been through all the grief. So I wrote him to urge you ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... times and all nations, presents to the choice of a writer all characters of remarkable persons which may be best opposed to, or compared with, each other; and is, perhaps, one of the most agreeable methods that can be employed of conveying to the mind any critical, moral, ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... to be a very short letter; for I have nothing to tell you, nor any thing to answer. I have not had one letter from you this month, which I attribute to the taking of the packet-boat by the French, with two mails in it. It was a very critical time for our negotiations; the ministry will say, it puts their ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... after nearly twenty years of critical discussion, there are two chief theories of the structure of the atom. At first Sir J. J. Thomson imagined the electrons circulating in shells (like the layers of an onion) round the nucleus of the atom. This did not suit, and Sir E. Rutherford and others worked ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... clearer-headed man, was almost equally puzzled. He turned the conversation again upon Elsie, and endeavored to make her minister feel the importance of bringing every friendly influence to bear upon her at this critical period of her life. His sympathies did not seem so lively as the Doctor could have wished. Perhaps he had vastly more important objects of solicitude in his ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... man in a frock-coat, with a huge spray of mignonette in his button-hole, met the critical gaze of Mr. Clark. He paused at the door and, striking an attitude, pronounced in tones of great amazement the Christian name of the lady ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... in your honour would that bird be slain If they should kill her—and the hour is critical— But for their own ends, thus to gain An object palpably profane (That is to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... the spirit of reformation, of wisdom, and of unanimity, which seems to have succeeded to that of blunder and dissension in the British government, and the universal reluctance of these states to do what is right, I cannot help viewing our situation as critical, and I feel it the duty of every citizen to exert his faculties to ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... satisfied with it all, and, after another critical examination of the patient, glanced about the room, straightened up, took a deep ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... our intention here to enter into any critical analysis of the volume before us, but rather to give the reader an idea of what he may find within it, in the words of Mr. Greeley himself. It is inscribed to Mr. Bright, under the following dedication: 'To John Bright, British Commoner ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... not so easy as he had expected to snatch an opportunity of interesting Ena in Miss Child. His sister was even more than ordinarily interested in her own affairs, which had reached a critical stage, and if Peter, having run her to earth in her cabin, attempted to talk of any one save Ena Rolls or Lord Raygan her eyes became like shut windows. He could almost see her soul turning its back and walking away behind the panes of opaque ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... wee," replied Walker, "an' she canna' expect as much as a laddie," and he looked at Mysie, as if measuring her with a critical eye ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... it on a better principle and a surer foundation. Now, the Duke of Sutherland (with some of his brother proprietors) has just succeeded in showing us a signal flaw in our scheme of religious toleration, and this at an exceedingly critical time. He has been perpetrating a great and palpable wrong, which, if rightly represented, must have the effect of leading men, in exactly the old mode, to arouse themselves in behalf of the corresponding right. If a single proprietor can virtually do what ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... turning point. bearings, how the land lies. surroundings, context, environment 232; location 184. contingency, dependence (uncertainty) 475; causation 153, attribution 155. Adj. circumstantial; given, conditional, provisional; critical; modal; contingent, incidental; adventitious &c (extrinsic) 6; limitative^. Adv. in the circumstances, under the circumstances &c n., the circumstances, conditions &c 7; thus, in such wise. accordingly; that being the case, such being the case, in view of the circumstances; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... to the boys had been carried into the school-yard, that they might not drift away. Mrs Price was full of fear and alarm; she was afraid the river would overflow. The doctor was away from home, but she wrote him urgent letters requesting him to return, for she felt her position to be somewhat critical should danger arise, with only two children and two women servants, the rest having gone ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... bright bluish light burst forth above their heads, exhibiting their countenances to each other, with their hair streaming, lank and long, over their faces, giving them at the same time a very cadaverous and unearthly appearance. Jack, in spite of their critical position, burst into a fit of laughter. "Certainly, we do look as unlike two natty quarter-deck midshipmen as could well be," he exclaimed. "Never mind, ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... length. "I'll dance for you this night—for you only!" she repeated with emphasis. Yes, she would dance as she had never danced before; for would not the most critical eye in the world be watching her? It was worth while. Blanch gave a little laugh as she returned to her seat by the side of ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... of the land, especially in Europe and North America, at the end of the Tertiary Era. Every mountain chain advanced, and our Alps, Pyrenees, Himalaya, etc., attained, for the first time, their present, or an even greater elevation. The most critical geologists admit that Europe, as a whole, rose 4000 feet above its earlier level. Such an elevation would be bound to involve a great lowering of the temperature. The geniality of the Oligocene period was due, like that of the earlier warm periods, to the low-lying land and ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... some," he observed, shading his eyes with his hands; "hittin' up the breeze for fair." He meditated long, a critical smile reaching ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... "But I have no doubt whatever of the purpose for which I shall presently be taken hence. However," he continued, cool and critical, "I can guess from your judicial attitudes the superfluous mockery that you intend. If it will afford you entertainment, faith, I do not grudge indulging you. I would observe only that it might be considerate ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... are genuine, well vouched for, and I have taken pains to subject them to a critical examination, as scrupulous and minute as heretofore in times of peace I expended in weighing the authority of some ancient chronicle, or in scrutinizing the authenticity of some charter. Perhaps this care was born of professional habit, or due to a natural craving for exactness, but in either case ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a sensibility, even a private ideal, which made him as privately disown the stuff his people were made of. Morgan had in secret a small loftiness which made him acute about betrayed meanness; as well as a critical sense for the manners immediately surrounding him that was quite without precedent in a juvenile nature, especially when one noted that it had not made this nature "old-fashioned," as the word is of children—quaint or wizened or ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... agreed, however, with Shenstone, that it was wrong in the brother of one of his correspondents to burn his letters; 'for,' said he, 'Shenstone was a man whose correspondence was an honour.' He was this afternoon full of critical severity, and dealt about his censures on all sides. He said, Hammond's Love Elegies were poor things. He spoke contemptuously of our lively and elegant, though too licentious, lyrick bard, Hanbury Williams, and said, 'he had no fame, but from boys ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... presented. When, starting with the inevitable preformation and constitutional bias, we sought to build up a simpler and nobler edifice of thought, to be a palace and fortress rather than a prison for experience, our critical philosophy would still be dogmatic, since it would be built upon inexplicable but actual data by a process of inference ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... power. But this position, while clearing Protestantism of any moral stigma, is such a manifest violation of the laws of symbolic language and the general principles of Scriptural interpretation that I marvel that any critical thinker could decide to adopt it. The two beasts are especially distinguished, and in each case the symbol is complete. The first beast combines with its beastly characteristics the qualities of ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... Dr. Israel Gollancz, with critical essays by Bagehot, Stephen and other distinguished Shakespearian scholars and critics. This life relates all that the world ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various
... handsome balconies. The elegant windows of this and the principal chamber story are of the Ilissus Ionic, and are decorated with a colonnade, completed with a well-proportioned entablature from the same beautiful order. Mr. Elmes, in his critical observations on this terrace, thinks the attic story "too irregular to accompany so chaste a composition as the Ionic, to which it forms a crown;" he likewise objects to the cornice and blocking-course, as being "also too small ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... present volume, the author trusts will be deemed worthy of being treasured in the scrap books of his friends. Of the literary merits of the composition, it would ill become the author in any way to descant upon; but in regard to these he leaves himself entirely and absolutely in the hands of a critical, and, he hopes, an indulgent public, feeling assured that he may trust himself in ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... than the styles of his contemporaries. It does not seem that this is due to deliberate intention of shortening and proportioning his prose; for he is as careless as any one of the whole century about exact grammatical sequence, and seems to have had no objection on any critical grounds to the long disjointed sentence which was the curse of the time. But his own ruling passion insensibly disposed him to a certain brevity. He liked to express his figurative conceits pointedly and antithetically; and point and antithesis are the two ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... were slain by the hand of God for such their rashness and profaneness, according to the Divine threatenings, Numbers 4:15, 20; but how other copies come to add such an incredible number as fifty thousand in this one town, or small city, I know not. See Dr. Wall's Critical ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... that I meet the 6th Congress of the United States of America. Coming from all parts of the Union at this critical and interesting period, the members must be fully possessed of the sentiments and wishes of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Adams • John Adams
... a man of resource and ingenuity; and, as usual, the expedient he found at a critical moment was effective enough to alter the situation radically. He had the gift of evolving safety out of the very danger, this incomparable Nostromo, this "fellow in a thousand." With Giorgio established ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... have been in a perpetual state of tension that allowed of no reaction. His was a mind not morbidly self-conscious, but ever aglow with the consciousness of power and the ardor of its achievement, in-sensible of waste and undisturbed by critical introspection. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... subject and stuff of the Lay. Jeffrey's remark about 'the present age not enduring' the Border and mosstrooping details was contradicted by the fact, and was, as a matter of taste, one of those strange blunders which diversified his often admirably acute critical utterances. When he feared their effects on 'English readers,' he showed himself, as was not common with him, actually ignorant of one of the simplest general principles of the poetic appeal, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... much more open than the other, and this gave people who did not especially like her, excuse for saying that her eyes were not mates. As for John Stuart Mill he used, at times, to refer to the wide-open orb as her "critical eye." ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... Louis XIV. the kingdom was almost ruined by civil wars. At this critical juncture, the protestants, heedless of our Lord's admonition, "They that take the sword, shall perish with the sword," took such an active part in favour of the king, that he was constrained to acknowledge himself indebted to their arms ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... certain of one, and leave no chances. But James, even as an engaged man, had always been certain. He had taken her, and everything else, for granted. She remembered how her sisters, not only Mabel, but the critical Agnes (now Mrs. Riddell in the North), had discussed him and found him too cocksure to be quite gallant. Kissed her? Of course he had kissed her. Good Heavens. Yes, but not as he had that night at the Opera. "You darling! You darling!" Now James had called her "my ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett |
