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Desirability   /dɪzˌaɪrəbˈɪlɪti/   Listen
Desirability

noun
1.
The quality of being worthy of desiring.  Synonym: desirableness.
2.
Attractiveness to the opposite sex.  Synonyms: desirableness, oomph, sex appeal.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Desirability" Quotes from Famous Books



... examination. But a judge of assizes and a jury in 1815, were not to be baulked of the necessary victim by mere circumstantiality when certain offences against society and against His Majesty had to be avenged; and the dispensers of justice were less concerned with strict evidence than with the desirability of making examples. Strong presumption was all that was required to them to hang their man; and indeed the hanging of Captain Jack upon the other and more serious counts than that of unlawful occupation, was, as has been ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... in a purely administrative spirit. It declared distinctly that it considered it was not compulsory for them to give an opinion as to the suitability or desirability[21:2] of the arrangement, or of the political importance that might be assigned to the same. This limitation of the duty of the Committee is of importance in order to understand the terms of its conclusions; it was meant simply to describe ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund

... "rebels" in France. Segur's mission to Berlin was therefore an utter failure. That of Talleyrand, on the other hand, achieved its purpose, mainly because Pitt and Grenville never had any other desire than to remain strictly neutral. It was therefore superfluous for Talleyrand to hint delicately at the desirability of the friendship of France for England, in view of the war with Tippoo Sahib in India, and the increasing ferment ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... precise, old-fashioned, kind-hearted nonentity, a simple tool of more intelligent Conservatives; and Henry Smith, an Irishman of the keenest order of intelligence, ready to give an intellectual assent to the abstract desirability of the best and highest in all things. On another of the names originally suggested I may quote Smith himself, for when Dean Burgon's appointment was attacked in the House of Commons by me and others, Smith, approaching Lord Salisbury at a party, and engaging in conversation upon the matter, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... we must see that elements to occasion anxiety are by no means lacking; and especially must we see how much more remains to be done that has already been achieved. The possibility of some form of Christianity being adopted as the national religion, is a matter as to the desirability of which it is extremely difficult to express an opinion, until the proposition assumes a more definite shape than is likely for some time to ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.

... worth while to seek for something better. Confined to two varieties, a more satisfactory selection could scarcely be made. But you want six or seven, either being, I think, about the right number for the home garden. I will give them in the order of desirability according to my judgment— Cumberland, Charles Downing, Duchess, Mount Vernon, Warren, ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... on fixed posts is of value in discipline and training because of the direct individual responsibility which is imposed and required to be discharged in a definite and precise manner. While the desirability of this type of duty is recognized, it should only be put in practice to an extent sufficient to insure thorough instruction in this method of performing guard duty and should not be the routine method ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... inclined to emphasise this caution because I once had a rather embarrassing and pointed proof of its desirability,—which I relate for the enlightening of ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant

... 9. "THE DESIRABILITY AND PRACTICABILITY of limiting offspring," says Dr. Stockham, "are the subject of frequent inquiry. Fewer and better children are desired by right-minded parents. Many men and women, wise in other things of the world, permit generation as a chance result of copulation, without ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... combine indeed something of both pension-list and college-lectureship, without the drawbacks of either. It was not enough considered that schemes for self-help, to be successful, require from those they are meant to benefit, not only a general assent to their desirability, but zealous and active co-operation. Without discussing now, however, what will have to be stated hereafter, it suffices to say that the enterprise was set on foot, and the "Guild of Literature and ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... The congress protests against the use of military drill in schools by way of physical exercise, and suggests the formation of brigades for saving life rather than of a quasi-military character; and urges the desirability of impressing on the Board of Examiners who formulate the questions for examination the propriety of guiding the minds of children ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... (p. 40), that is, he made far-fetched applications of religious truth. A tall man suggested to him high attainments in Christianity; washing his hands, the desirability of a ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... committee;[IC] and bill and report were referred to the whole House on the state of the Union. Later the views of the minority were filed.[IC] On January 23 a message from President Roosevelt in behalf of the measure was received. The president particularly urged the "great desirability of enacting legislation to help American shipping and American trade by encouraging the building and running of lines of large and swift steamers to South America and the Orient." As striking evidence of the "urgent need of our country's making an effort to do something like its ...
— Manual of Ship Subsidies • Edwin M. Bacon

... there is the beauty and the value that well kept fruit trees add to a place, no matter how small it is. An apple tree in full bloom is one of the most beautiful pictures that Nature ever paints; and if, through any train of circumstances, it ever becomes advisable to sell or rent the home, its desirability is greatly enhanced by the few trees necessary to furnish the loveliness of showering blossoms in spring, welcome shade in summer and an abundance of delicious fruits through autumn and winter. Then there is the fun of doing it—of planting and caring ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell

... police, and prisons, but when a whole community or state rises against another, the civil law becomes powerless and a state of war ensues. It is not proposed here to discuss the ethics of this question, nor the desirability of providing a suitable court of nations for settling all international difficulties without war. The great advantage of such a system of avoiding war is admitted by all intelligent people. We notice here a singular inconsistency in the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... large body of public opinion not only opposed but antagonistic to them. In spite of the rapid development of Japan in recent years, there is a very strong conservative party in the country—a party which, though it recognises or acquiesces in the desirability of change in many directions, is not prepared to throw overboard everything because it is old. I sincerely hope that the distinctive literature and dramatic art of the country will not be allowed to die out. Japan cannot ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... young teachers, of whom I was extremely fond, hard to endure, as was a long series of conversations in my senior year conducted by one of the most enthusiastic members of the faculty, in which the desirability of Turkey as a field for missionary labor was enticingly put before me. I suppose I held myself aloof from all these influences, partly owing to the fact that my father was not a communicant of any church, and I tremendously admired his scrupulous morality ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... acting entirely by the advice of his two uncles, Kikkawa and Kohayakawa, both men of profound insight. They fully admitted the desirability of peace, since Hideyoshi's army effectually commanded the communications between the eastern and western parts of Chugoku, but they resolutely rejected the notion of sacrificing the life of Shimizu on the altar of any compact. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... the particular case in question, it is obvious that our new knowledge points to the desirability of keeping the seed beds and nurseries especially clean from groundsel and weeds of that description: on the one hand, such weeds are noxious in themselves, and on the other they harbor the Coleosporium form of the fungus Peridermium under the best conditions ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various

... 1806; but whereas he had urged the adoption of amendments to the Constitution which would authorize Congress to provide for roads and canals and education, Adams seemed oblivious to the limitations of the Constitution. In much alarm Jefferson suggested to Madison the desirability of having Virginia adopt a new set of resolutions, bottomed on those of 1798, and directed against the acts for internal improvements. In March, 1826, the general assembly declared that all the principles of the earlier resolutions applied "with full force against the ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... as is related in this diary. After the return home of our party, I was informed by General Washburn that on the eve of the departure of our expedition from Helena, David E. Folsom had suggested to him the desirability of creating a park at the grand canon and falls of the Yellowstone. This fact was unknown to Mr. Hedges,—and the boundary lines of the proposed park were extended by him so as to be commensurate with the wider range of ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford

... had indulged in occasional day-dreams of an ideal state of social equality, but his wildest flights of fancy had never located it nearer than heaven, and he had felt some misgivings about its practical working even there. Its desirability he had never doubted, and the speech of the evening before had given a local habitation and a name to the forms his imagination had bodied forth. Giving full rein to his fancy, he saw in the North a land flowing with milk and honey,—a land peopled by noble men and beautiful ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... mechanism and the registrar were equal to all emergencies. But it is obvious that the record had to be carried away to the brokers' offices and other places by messengers; and the delay, confusion, and mistakes soon suggested to Doctor Laws the desirability of having a number of indicators at such scattered points, operated by a master transmitter, and dispensing with the regiments of noisy boys. He secured this privilege of distribution, and, resigning from the exchange, devoted his exclusive attention to the "Gold Reporting Telegraph," ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... modified by the influence of Christianity. From the Greek poets, then, Arnold derived a sense of the large part which destiny plays in our lives and the wisdom of conforming our lives to necessity; the importance of conceiving of life as directed toward a simple, large, and noble end; and the desirability of maintaining a balance among the demands that life makes on us, of adapting fit details to the main purpose ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... way has the war made YOU think about the right-to-life and the need for physical well-being? about security in property? about freedom of thought? about the desirability of an education? about the right of people to pleasant ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn

... intimated to her the desirability of her quitting a home where she is no longer respected," the old gentleman declared. "She leaves on the 10.45 train. Her conduct this morning at the house of Mrs. Webb—who perhaps you do not know was most cruelly and foully murdered last night—was such as ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... the art of war as set forth in the manuals; whereas latterly the somewhat profligate excesses of the government of occupation—decently covered with diplomatic parables on benevolence and legality—have been dictated by military convenience, particularly by the need of forced labor and the desirability of a reduced population in the acquired territory. So also the "personally conducted" dealings with the Armenians by use of the Turks should probably also best be explained as an endeavour to reduce the numbers of an undesirable ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... rare erudition, he possessed nevertheless the true temper of a bigot. In middle life he had been brought into close acquaintance with the fanatic extravagances of Scotch Covenanters, his aversion to which might seem to have taught him, not the excellence of a more temperate spirit, but the desirability of rushing toward similar extremes in an opposite direction. He delighted in controversy in proportion to its heat, and too often his pen was dipped in gall, when he directed the acuteness and learning which none denied to him against any who swerved, this way or that, from ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... obtained without effort and previous calculation, and casting an equal eye upon all creatures and objects.[1482] Thus, O son, have I told thee in brief (of what the way is for freeing thyself from attachments). Hear me now, for I shall presently tell thee, in detail, the desirability of the acquisition of Emancipation.[1483] Those persons who live in this world freed from attachments and fear, succeed in obtaining happiness. Those persons, however, who are attached to worldly objects, without doubt, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... who had a vague notion of the greatness of her uncle's Menike friends, Teddy and Gotali, and of the desirability of an alliance with one of their tribe, approached me softly and rubbed my back in a circle the while she crooned a broken song of the whaling days, concerning the "rolling Mississippi" and the "Black Ball line." Seventh Man Who Wallows ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... by the French Administration to ensure the co-operation of a tribe that with its far reaching influence might have proved a dangerous element in an unsettled district, shared in his inmost heart the sentiments of his heir, but with a larger and more discriminating wisdom saw the desirability of associating at least one of his family with the Government he was obliged, though grudgingly and half contemptuously, to acknowledge. He had hovered long between prejudice and policy before he reluctantly gave his consent for Said to be placed on the roll of the regiment of Spahis. And the unusual ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... observe that the seedlings of the old heartnut tree that were apparently of hybrid origin were not injured in the least and bore good crops of nuts this year, but the seedlings that were pure heartnuts were injured slightly. This point suggests the desirability of crossing the finest heartnuts with the best butternuts to get a combination of the hardiness of the butternut with the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... never twice alike. He is unanimous on few debatable matters. One of them, as I have said, is the desirability of finishing the war—in the proper way. (But even here there are differences as to what constitutes the proper way.) Another is (I trust I shall not shock the reader) the extreme displeasingness of life at the front. I would not say that our hospital patients are positively ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir

... the desirability of taking tickets in lotteries—of the moral side of it, I mean. She was all in white, and so tall and fragile; and she had only just put her hair up, so that the carriage of her neck had that charming touch of youth and of unfamiliarity. Over her throat there ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... shunning active exercises, and though at the time of his marriage (1558) he was too young to have been actively engaged in the vices of the outwardly devout court, he appears to have been fully alive to the desirability of his bride. Mary was precocious and ambitious; she was surrounded by profligates, male and female, and, though she can hardly have been in love with her young husband, she appears to have been fully reconciled ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... manifest themselves as early as 1742, as a reaction from the intense revivalism of that Period.[59] Rev. Chandler Bobbins, who was strictly Calvinistic in his theology, was the minister from 1760 until his death in 1799. In 1794 a considerable number of persons in the parish discussed the desirability of organizing another church, in order to secure more liberal preaching. It was recognized that Mr. Robbins was an old man, that he was very much beloved, and that in a few years the opportunity desired would be presented without ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke

... played a part in the establishment of the sanctity of the number four. Professor Lethaby has suggested[405] that the four-sided building was determined by certain practical factors, such as the desirability of fashioning a room to accommodate a woven mat, which was necessarily of a square or oblong form. But the study of the evolution of the early Egyptian grave and tomb-superstructures suggests that the early use of slabs of stone, wooden boards, and mud-bricks helped in the ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith

... doubtful whether a much older and, therefore, more thoughtful person than Harry would have considered anything but the fierceness of the dog, and the desirability of getting away as quickly, and as ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly

... and by his influence and the solid vote of his ignorant Dopper Party completely blocked all legislation tending to control the Company. Indeed at the end of the Session of 1895, on receiving representations from the business communities of the Republic as to the desirability of removing this incubus from the overtaxed people, the President stated plainly that the Netherlands Railway Concession was a matter of high politics and did not concern any but the burghers of the State, and that he would receive no representations from the Uitlanders on the subject ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... been present at Gyp's birth, was in a queer state. The obvious desirability of such events to one of motherly type defrauded by fate of children was terribly impinged on by that old memory, and a solicitude for her "pretty" far exceeding what she would have had for a daughter ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... practicability in regard to territory, expense, and the abundance of willing colonists. The wide benevolent objects to be attained were emphasized. John Randolph of Roanoke, and Robert Wright of Maryland, dwelt upon the desirability of removing the turbulent free-negro element and enhancing the value of property in slaves.[6] Resolutions organizing the Society passed, and committees appointed to draft a Constitution and present a memorial to ...
— History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies In Historical And Political Science • J.H.T. McPherson

... always been the policy of the Government to invite and induce the purchase and settlement of its public lands; and as the existence of game thereon and in their localities adds to the desirability of the lands, and is a well-known inducement to their purchase, it may well be considered whether, for this purpose alone, and without reference to the protection of the lands from trespass, Congress may not, on its own lands, prohibit ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... re-elected President in 1804. He was himself doubtful about the desirability of a second tenure, but the appearance at the moment of a series of particularly foul attacks upon his private character made him feel that to retire would amount to something like a plea of guilty. Perhaps it would have served his permanent ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... sophisms and specious arguments by which they support their wrongdoing, and show that they have chosen the lesser good, is a valuable help to the community and to one's own integrity of conduct. Too often the people perish for lack of vision; an understanding of the naturalness and enormous desirability of morality, together with an appreciation of its main injunctions, would enlist upon its side many restless spirits who now chafe under a sense of needless restraint and seek some delusory freedom which leads to pain and death. Morality is ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... are therefore entitled to wholesale prices, consumers' cooperation as usually conducted through cooperative stores is not a distinctively agricultural problem, but is the same for the farmer as for the villager or industrial worker, and its desirability and limitations are determined ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... difficult to see. The inexperienced sportsman cannot invariably discern one when it is pointed out to him, and the bush deer very seldom stand silhouetted against the sky. Their pale tinting blends with that of the fir trunks and the tall fern, and they seem to recognize the desirability of always having something near them that breaks their continuity of outline. Besides, to hunt in the thick bush needs the keenest powers of observation of both ear and eye, and an infinite patience, of which a worn-out, famishing white man is very rarely ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... has been destroyed. These experiences have caused some doubt and despondency as to the future of the new Settlement, and the question is now being agitated in the South Australian Parliament as to the desirability or not ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... birth, marriage, old age, and death. Each man seems to know in what part of the mountains his a-ni'-to will dwell, because some one of his ancestors is known to inhabit a particular place, and where one ancestor is there the children go to be with him. This does not refer to desirability of location, but simply to physical location — as in the mountain north of Bontoc, or in one to the east ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... to see her facts in another light. Those things that had been wont to be considered as axioms and irrefutable postulates in her daily acceptance were suddenly seen as the most ephemeral hypotheses. The desirability of Bloomfield and the lustre about the name "McCallum"—two rocks upon which she had builded the edifice of her confidence—were found of a sudden to be but shifting sands, hard-packed enough on the surface, but subjected to the most insidious and devastating undertow. ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... thence to cross the continent to the Pacific. The explorers were carefully instructed to report upon the geography, physical characteristics, and zoology of the region traversed, as well as upon its wild human denizens. Jefferson was fond of science, and in appreciation of the desirability of non-remunerative scientific observation and investigation he stood honorably distinguished among the public men of the day. To him justly belongs the credit of originating this first exploring expedition ever undertaken ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt

... Difference, until some abatement of honour has been associated with its presence under special circumstances. But the stereotyped use of the bordure wavy in England with a set meaning, gives to the wavy variety a lack of desirability. Marks of illegitimacy are intended to remain upon a shield for all time, although in a few historic cases their use has been discarded. And precisely the same words may be applied to any other charge that has been employed, or may be ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell

... absolute standard. When this is accomplished it can easily be made a matter of international agreement, and all future forms of instruments be based upon it. This commission would suggest that the attention of the proper authorities should be called to the desirability of official action by this government with a view to co-operation with other countries for the adoption of international standards for polarimetric work. Until this is done, however, it will be necessary for the Internal Revenue Bureau to adopt, provisionally, one of the best existing ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various

... this alteration during the war, and it was also difficult under the hour to hour stress of war to rearrange all the duties of the Naval Staff in the manner most convenient to the conduct of Staff business, although its desirability was recognized ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe

... pages that follow, the writer has had in view the desirability of familiarizing the youth of Georgia with the salient facts of the State's history in a way that shall make the further study of that history a delight instead of a task. The ground has been gone over before by various writers, but the ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris

... Sunday in early May, one of those days when the feminine assumes a large importance. I had been to the Hutchinses' church; and Maude, as she sat and prayed decorously in the pew beside me, suddenly increased in attractiveness and desirability. Her voice was very sweet, and I felt a delicious and languorous thrill which I identified not only with love, but also with a reviving spirituality. How often the two seem ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... school before, and of this school he often bragged as the acme of desirability and wickedness. He was always telling boys what they did at "his old school," and he quite inflamed the minds of such as fell under his influence by marvellous tales of the wild and wilful things which he and his former school-fellows ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... which it is surrounded and in the consideration of which it is bound to be connected and concerned. Therefore, without going further, prematurely, into a discussion of the merits of the proposition itself or its desirability, I say that it should take the usual course which the practice and laws of this body have given to grave public questions. Let it go to the Committee on the Judiciary, and let them, under their sense of duty, deal with it according to its gravity and importance, and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... "When asked to act, I could hardly refuse a brother officer. Besides, my superiors suggested that I take the part. As you probably have ascertained, major, there is considerable doubt the desirability ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... upon a practicable ideal of industrial society. To put the matter more expressly, if half of the community sincerely believed in a policy of the greatest possible freedom of individual enterprise, and the other half were ardent believers in the desirability of a socialist state, the hope of the adoption of a policy of wage settlement ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis

... in some of her belongings? I remembered the cloak in the closet and thought it wise to assure myself that the jewel was not secreted in this garment, before I proceeded to extreme measures. Mrs. Ashley, upon being consulted, agreed with me as to the desirability of this, and presently I had this poor ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green

... Methodism and early Quakerism were not of the sort who congregate in groups and discuss the relative desirability of various appointments. They did not spend their leisure in jesting, punning and guffawing, but in praying, studying, and working, for even their vacations were turned into days of toil. They spent their all in one endeavor—to save men from a yawning Pit and a lurid ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees

... its seemingly unlimited buying power. Dear Auntie, poor thing! knew no force higher than "Now, Francis, I wouldn't," or "Please don't," or on very extreme occasions, "I shall certainly tell your father"—as utterly ineffective in introducing one slightest gleam of the desirability and potency of unselfishness into this boy's mind, as was the gracious servility ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... one of the reasons—and there are many of them—why the social ideal of Herbert Spencer, in which the adjustment of life is so perfect that friction is impossible, can never be attained. Putting aside the question of the desirability of such an ideal it is impossible to see how it could be achieved, either along the line of working at Heredity, or along the line of working at the Environment. Even the most keenly intellectual people that ever existed, the most amorous of novelty, the most supple-minded, ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... that Sherman was not contemplating merely a flanking movement to make Johnston retreat and yield territory; on the other hand he strongly expressed the desirability of forcing conclusions as near his own base as possible, and showed his apprehension of the disadvantages which must come from stretching still further his long line of communications. The same desire and the same ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... see two highly civilized nations, England and France, joining the onslaught of autocratic Russia. That this could happen will remain one of the anomalies of history. It is not our fault; we firmly believed in the desirability of the great nations working together, we peaceably came to terms with France and England in sundry difficult African questions. There was no cause for war between Western Europe and us, no reason why Western ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... head, for his lucubrations were received with favour. That entitled, "How to Live Cheerfully on Forty Pounds a Year," created a sensation among the unemployed. "Education: Its Aims, Objects, Purposes, and Desirability," gained him the respect of the shallow-minded. As for his celebrated essay on "Life Insurance Regarded in its Relation to the Masses," read before the Working Men's Mutual Improvement Society, Isle of Dogs, it was received with a "literal ovation" by an unintelligent audience of both sexes, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... people sometimes regarding the desirability or the undesirability of marriage," mollified Dr. Crafts. "This is a sort of clearing house for scientific race investigation ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... supposed that I was a young gentleman of means who had sought advice as to the desirability of investing capital in rural New South Wales, and taking up, say, the pastoral life, in preference to a professional career in Sydney. I pinched my knees exultingly; perhaps to demonstrate to myself the fact that ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... the St Lawrence and Industry Village, was also built in Lower Canada, running from Lanoraie on the north bank of the St Lawrence twelve miles to the village of Industry, later Joliette. It was opened for traffic in 1850, and was a road for use in summer only. Meanwhile, the desirability of building a road to circumvent Niagara had not escaped attention. In 1835 the Erie and Ontario Railroad was chartered, and in 1839 the line was opened from Queenston to Chippawa. The grades near Queenston were too steep for the locomotives of the day, and the road was operated by horses; even ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton

... he advocated government trading houses. Pickering, of Massachusetts, who was his Secretary of War with the management of Indian affairs, may have strengthened Washington in this design, for he was much interested in Indian improvement, but Washington's own experience had shown him the desirability of some such plan, and he had written to this effect as early as 1783.[213] The objects of Congressional policy in dealing with the Indians were stated by speakers in 1794 as follows:[214] 1. Protection of the frontiersmen from ...
— The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin • Frederick Jackson Turner

... left the Holland Landing this morning for the purpose of visiting the islands north-east of Lake Simcoe, to ascertain their desirability for a settlement. I find the situation very pleasant. The chief has a comfortable house containing four rooms, with everything decent and convenient. This island contains about four hundred acres of beautiful basswood, beech, and maple. The chief told me that the Mohawks once had a ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... out what seems to me the desirability of a considerable variation between the curriculum of one school and another. This would be possible and probably certain under the scheme proposed, but barring this, it is surely an open question whether the pretty thoroughly standardized curriculum now in operation would not be considerably ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... George Grey, when Governor in 1858, and had even received the support of the Orange Free State, whose Volksraad passed a resolution favouring it in that year. Many considerations of practical convenience suggested this scheme, chief among them the desirability of having both a uniform policy in native affairs (the absence of which had recently caused trouble) and a common commercial policy and tariff system. Accordingly, in 1875 Lord Carnarvon addressed a despatch to the Governor of Cape Colony, recommending such a scheme as fit to be ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... also instructed to look about for a desirable site on which to build the works. This raised the hopes of the towns within the iron districts. Delegates from several States have appeared before the board to extol the desirability of their various townships. As yet, however, it is not decided whether the Government will build the works at all, and so the matter of place has not ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 47, September 30, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... of the right of Secession had now long been taught, and had become a part of the Southern Slave-holders' Democratic creed, as fully as had the desirability of Slavery and Free-Trade—and even many of the Northern Democrats, and some Republicans as well, were not much inclined to dispute, although they cared not to ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... prevent its getting to their enemies, but it placed the United States in a humiliating position and if we had not been in sympathy with their side it would have aroused more resentment than it did. But it made evident the desirability of having at least part of our supply under our own control and, if possible, within our own country. Rubber is not rare in nature, for it is contained in almost every milky juice. Every country boy ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... and led to a result which might not have been reached had the question been nothing more than one of art and art-education. Competition supplied the stimulus which should have been furnished by a sense of the desirability of securing a collection so rich and in every way, historically and artistically, so valuable. The New York public, again, was never really interested in the Castellani collection. It grudged the additional entrance-fee of twenty-five cents levied by the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... gun!" Joyce was sitting in a rocking-chair under the glow of the lamp. She was darning one of Keith's stockings, and to the young man watching her—so wholly winsome girl, so much tender but business-like little mother—she was the last word in the desirability of woman. "That's the very way to find trouble, Dad. He's been doing his best to keep out of it. He can't, if he stays here. So he must go away, that's ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine

... of desirability for planting I would make a list about as follows: Niblack, Major, Greenriver, Busseron, Indiana. I list the Niblack as first choice because it seems to be about as productive as any of the other varieties, and because of its excellence as a cracking nut and the quality of the kernel. The Niblack ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... title to all the rights, conveniences and profits appertaining to control of the land, issued by their creator, the community, for value received. I have the same title to the land that I have to the watch; not to the material made by the Almighty, but to whatsoever has been added of desirability thereto by the action of man. The community has been settled with up-to-date for both the land and the watch, but has a continuing claim against them so long as it enables me to employ them advantageously than I could without its assistance. If I sell my land ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... hands. But he looked at Maril with respect. Not every woman could have faced the fact that a man did not feel impelled to make passes at her. It is simply a fact that has nothing to do with desirability or ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster

... clerk. Those who pleased him were admitted to Mr Simpson's private room; to those who did not he proved himself an almost insuperable obstacle. Unfortunately Borrow's standards were those of the physiognomist rather than the lawyer; he inverted the whole fabric of professional desirability by admitting the goats and refusing the sheep. He turned away a knight, or a baronet, and admitted a poet, until at last the distressed old gentleman in black, with the philanthropical head, his master, was forced to expostulate and adjure ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... its finding, but without any power of enforcement. The movement has for the present stuck there, and is likely to take a long time to get further. Yet every one recognises the damage inflicted by industrial disputes, and would admit in the abstract the desirability of a more rational method of settlement than that of pitting combination against combination. Such a method may, I would suggest, grow naturally out of the system which has been devised for the protection of unskilled and ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various

... diligently avoiding the highroad, they continued to fly onward, until they had advanced several miles into "the bowels of the land." At that time "the bowels" of Augustus Tomlinson began to remind him of their demands; and he accordingly suggested the desirability of their seizing the first peasant they encountered, and causing him to exchange clothes with one of the fugitives, who would thus be enabled to enter a public-house and provide for their mutual necessities. Paul ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of conciliating piety and worldliness, the nothingness of this life and the desirability of cut glass, the consciousness at once of filthy rags and the best damask, was not a sufficient relief from the weight ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... faith in the desirability of human life in general had been rudely shaken. She therefore kept her eyes fastened sadly on the immoral couple, and wondered how two such sinful beings could eat and talk ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... would undoubtedly be of considerable inconvenience occasionally," admitted Ling, "yet none the less the sage remark of Huai Mei-shan, 'When actually in the embrace of a voracious and powerful wild animal, the desirability of leaving a limb is not a matter to be subjected to lengthy consideration,' is undoubtedly a valuable guide for general conduct. This person has endured many misfortunes and suffered many injustices; he has known the wolf-gnawings of great hopes, which have withered and daily ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... Miss Livingstone, as it will to everybody else who knows or cares," he said; "I mean chiefly Laura's tremendous desirability. Her beauty would go for something anywhere, but I don't want to insist on that. What marks her even more is the wonderful purity and transparency of her mind; one doesn't find it often now, women's souls are so clouded with knowledge. I think that sort of thing appeals ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... youthful author was paid two pesos for the production. This was as much money as a field laborer in those days would have earned in half a month; although the family did not need the coin, the incident impressed them with the desirability of cultivating the ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... not the probable, desirability of attacking the United States troops was, it is evident, clearly foreseen from the beginning. Active preparations for doing ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... the bullet, provided always that the bullet contained some portion of steel. Against leaden bullets his system is powerless, and he therefore intended to represent to the International Committee, which met at Geneva, the desirability of recommending an admixture of steel in the manufacture of all future bullets. Dr. Milio's experiments with bullets containing only a slight admixture of steel are said to have ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 15, February 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... men, (b) young men, (c) women the desirability of men's giving up their seats in street cars to women. (Also modify the question by requiring only young men to give up their seats, and then only to old people of either sex, to sick people, or to people with ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... conditions the sound of an electric bell caused no visible movement of the leg, but if at the instant the back was touched the bell was rung, the leg movement was much greater than that brought about by the touch alone. This suggests at once the desirability of studying the sense of hearing in the dancer by some indirect method. The animal may be stimulated, and yet it may not give any visible sign of the ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... suggesting an examination of Casa Grande with a view of its further protection 344 IV. Letter of the Acting Secretary of the Interior to the Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology approving the suggestion that Casa Grande be visited with a view of determining the desirability of its further protection 347 V. Letter of the Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Interior regarding the examination of Casa Grande by Mr W J McGee 347 VI. Report ...
— The Repair Of Casa Grande Ruin, Arizona, in 1891 • Cosmos Mindeleff

... provide ships and men and money and provisions. Altogether rather a large order; for it was not an unusual thing in those days for master mariners, tired of the shore, to suggest to some grandee or other the desirability of fitting out a ship or two to go in search of the isle of St. Brandon, or to look up Antilia, or the island of the Seven Cities. It was very hard to get an audience even for such a reasonable scheme as that; but to suggest taking a flotilla ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... the completion of the house which I was building for our occupancy in one of the most desirable parts of the city, that is to say, a part chiefly inhabited by the rich. For it must be understood that the comparative desirability of different parts of Boston for residence depended then, not on natural features, but on the character of the neighboring population. Each class or nation lived by itself, in quarters of its own. A rich man living among the poor, an educated man ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... figs of thistles, as to secure a desirable disposition out of undesirable moods. A sunny disposition never comes from gloomy moods, nor a hopeful one out of the "blues." And it is our disposition, more than the power of our reason, which, after all, determines our desirability as ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... thing it would be if little children at their first lessons were taught the desirability of observing melodic phrases. Teachers lay great stress upon hand formation, with the object of getting the pupil to keep the hand in a perfect condition—a condition that is the result of a carefully developed habit. Why not develop ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke

... been deeply sensible of a feeling of awe and reverence? Even putting aside all such sentiments as the contemplation of such a memento mori is usually found to inspire in most men, the purely scientific historical inquirer must have felt the importance of the occasion, and the great desirability of making the most in an historical point of view of so rare an opportunity. I am sorry to be obliged to record that the Florentines, so far as could be judged from their conduct and bearing, felt nothing of all this. No one ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... particularly interested in these domestic reminiscences, and seemed as if he wanted to be left alone, Mrs. Sampson, with a final crackle, went down stairs and talked with a neighbour in the kitchen, as to the desirability of drawing her money out of the Savings Bank, in case the Russians should surprise and capture Melbourne. Brian, left alone, stared out of the window at the dusty road and the black shadows cast by the tall poplars in front of ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume

... of course lose the opportunity to impress upon so influential a person as the Senator the desirability of improving the navigation of Columbus river. He and Mr. Brierly took the Senator over to Napoleon and opened to him their plan. It was a plan that the Senator could understand without a great deal of explanation, for he seemed to be familiar with the like improvements elsewhere. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... course, would be to give each person the amount of general education for which he is fitted and then stop. This would be difficult of realization even if financial considerations did not so often interfere. But at least we may keep in view the desirability of preventing too many misfits and of insisting, so far as possible, on any selective features that we may ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... that a privileged status was to be conferred on the Jews in eastern Europe and in Palestine, while the other states were to be in the leading-strings of the Four. This view was not lightly expressed, however inadequately it may prove to have been then supported by facts. As to the desirability of forming this rude hierarchy of states, the principal plenipotentiaries were said to have been in general agreement, although responding to different motives. There was but one discordant voice—that of France—who ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... Sydney Street, formerly Robert Street, running out of the King's Road on the north side. Here stands St. Luke's Church. The foundation-stone of this building was laid in 1820, and it was consecrated in 1824. For many years previously a discussion concerning the desirability of further church accommodation had been going on. The church was built on the old burial-ground, and the tombstones which were removed in the course of erection are placed in long rows round a low wall. The building is of Bath stone, ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton

... for liberty to consult the vicar. Miss Bacon requested to tell her own story to the reverend gentleman, and seems to have been received by him with the utmost kindness, and even to have succeeded in making a certain impression on his mind as to the desirability of the search. As their interview had been under the seal of secrecy, he asked permission to consult a friend, who, as Miss Bacon either found out or surmised, was a practitioner of the law. What the legal friend advised she did not learn; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... inside is a space varying in width as above, and cut up by little islands and detached reefs. Now to get to India from Sydney, ships must go either inside or outside the Great Barrier. The inside passage has been called the Inner Route in consequence of its desirability for steamers, and our business has been to mark out this Inner Route safely and clearly among the labyrinth-like islands and reefs within the Barrier. And a parlous dull business it was for those who, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... remarkable book; eminently instructive. The newest political thought is addressed to the beginnings and the desirability of a complete transformation of the British Empire. They are not all dreamers and faddists who commend the change and would hasten it. Of such is Mr. Bernard Holland, a man whose studies, whose sagacity, whose freedom from the limitations of partizanship and the heats of controversy, ...
— Mr. Edward Arnold's New and Popular Books, December, 1901 • Edward Arnold

... The early settler contented himself with the log cabin, the corduroy road, and the wooden bridge, and loose stone enough for foundation purposes could readily be gathered from the surface of the earth. Even after the desirability of more handsome and durable building material for public edifices in the colonial cities than wood became apparent, the ample resources which nature had afforded in this country were overlooked, and brick and stone were imported by the Dutch and English settlers from the Old World. Thus we find ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various

... moment the possibility and desirability of freedom from the depressing passions has been a reality to me, it took me some months to feel absolute security in my new position; but, as the usual occasions for worry and anger have presented themselves over and over again, and I have been unable to feel them in the slightest degree, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... also be used to marinate salads before mayonnaise or other dressing is mixed with them. A point that should always be remembered in the making of this dressing or any other dressing containing oil is that the flavor of the oil has much to do with the desirability of the ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... declared that if he was not a human being really, the next best state of existence he should desire would be that of a monkey on the banks of the Amazon. We were not aware at the time of certain facts, which afterwards came to our knowledge, which might detract somewhat from the desirability of the existence; among others, that the natives shoot and eat the poor little fellows with as little compunction as we should young ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... Moslems and Hindoos; they did not say Moslems were Hindoos, or send a highly intelligent Hindoo from Oxford to rule Moslems as an Englishman. They may not have cared for things like the ideal of Zionism; but they understood the common sense of Zionism, the desirability of distinguishing between entirely different things. But I remembered that of late their tact had often failed them even in their chief success in India; and that every hour brought worse and wilder news of their failure in Ireland. ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... the domestic servant, with comparisons in plenty unfavorable to the factory occupations into which girls still persist in drifting. Yet in freedom and in social status, two of the tests by which to judge the relative desirability of occupations, the paid domestic employments take inferior ranks. Again, they offer little prospect of advance, for they ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... though they admit it when it is expressly stated and dismiss it even as a tiresome commonplace, are apt to neglect it when the occasion for applying it arises. For example, the great importance to any industry of good management is generally recognized, and the consequent desirability of paying adequate salaries to the managerial staff. The importance of securing a supply of capital is very widely recognized, and the practical necessity of paying a fair rate of interest is thus, however grudgingly, conceded. ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson

... social reasons our principal interest for the near future lies along two lines: first, the immediate desirability of increasing the wages of the lowest paid groups in all industry; and, second, in thinking in terms of regularizing the work of the individual worker more greatly through the year—in other words, in thinking more in terms of the worker's total pay ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt

... good one in a country where there is a total absence of all precedents and experience in so grave a matter." Cousin then pointed out the bases, derived from Prussian experience and French historical development, on which a satisfactory law could be framed (R. 284 a-c); the desirability of local control and liberty in instruction (R. 284 f-g); and strongly recommended the organization of higher primary schools (a new creation; first recommended (1792) by Condorcet, p. 514) as well as primary schools (R. 284 e) to ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... those elements of the population whose American citizenship was not yet deeply rooted. However indignant the better elements may have felt at first over this cowardly desertion of the flag, the continual repetition of such arguments evoked faint-hearted considerations of the desirability of peace in ever ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... in amassing these, they were on the whole but scanty. In fact, he was helplessly unable to realise a world with nothing in it except endlessly swelling up slopes of furzy grass, no Molly nor Micky for him to trot after, and to carry him wherever they were going, whenever he intimated the desirability of that step by abruptly plumping down on the way. So he set off in a great hurry to escape from such a wilderness. He still walked with a wobbling stagger, and his long frock of whity-brown homespun kept on tripping him up, which retarded his progress. But he was not at all long in mentally ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... certain training in the care of children, and other duties that either permanently, or for the time being, must fall to them and not to boys. But a more important moral reason for separate education consists in the desirability of prolonging as late as possible, the first unconsciousness of sex. At this age the stimulus derived from co-education, acting upon imperfect organizations, is liable to be other than intellectual—liable to ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... event through hate desirability thorough fact expressly thoroughness faction wish light inconvenient will garden ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock

... had taken a prominent part in the agitation against Confederation, but it appears that they had no very settled convictions on this question, and that they differed on many others. At any rate, dissension soon broke out among them. The colonial secretary pressed upon the province the desirability of the union in terms described as 'earnest and friendly suggestions,' and which left no doubt as to the wishes of the home government. 'You will express,' said the colonial secretary to the lieutenant-governor, 'the strong and deliberate opinion of Her Majesty's Government ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun

... point to which, although it hardly comes within the scope of this volume, I have made some allusion, and which I venture to suggest deserves the consideration of thinking Englishmen. I refer to the question of the desirability of allowing the Dutch in South Africa, who are already numerically the strongest, to continue to advance with such rapid strides towards political supremacy. That the object of this party is to reduce Englishmen and English ideas to a subordinate position in the State, if not actually to rid ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... garden. Charles Baxter says that on these occasions he is asking his gardener the names of the vegetables. However that may be, he has seemed to our community the very incarnation of contentment and prosperity—his position the acme of desirability. ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... prepared the way for the issue of the permanent and periodical Journal of the Menorah Association, the desirability of which has been felt almost from the beginning of the Intercollegiate organization and reaffirmed at the last Convention. It had been hoped that the first number of THE MENORAH JOURNAL would appear in time for this Convention, but the demands of an initial number ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... alarming wave threatens us: Community of wives and children. "You must prove both the possibility and desirability of that." Men and women must be trained together and live together, but not in licentiousness. They must be mated with the utmost care for procreation, the best being paired at due seasons, nominally by lot, and for the occasion. The offspring of the selected will have a common nursery; ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... which any one branch of industry requires in a single year is not constant, and, in some cases, is subject to great fluctuations; yet there are few or no statistics available for the guidance of those who are specially concerned with that branch, or who are considering the desirability of entering it. The establishment of Employment Exchanges is a tacit admission of the need of such statistics, and—though less certainly—of the duty of the Government to provide them. Yet even if they were provided it seems beyond dispute that, in ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... distance three times. Twice to bow and exchange smiles. The other time she didn't see me. Seeing her meant two or three days of torture; then her image and desirability would begin to fade once more. But at least no other woman interested me ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris

... no disagreement on the question of educating boys and girls of primary-school age together. The desirability of co-education at the post-primary school level, however, was frequently disputed. Many opinions ...
— Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents - The Mazengarb Report (1954) • Oswald Chettle Mazengarb et al.

... view there could be no question as to the wisdom and desirability of the match, and Miss Warren's family was worldly to ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... acquisition from the illegal, some of which are so fine that no one can see more than a technical difference. For instance, under an indictment for obtaining money by false pretenses, one may make all sorts of statements as to the quality, value, style and desirability of the article sold, if he does not make a specific statement of a fact regarding the material contained in them or the amount, number, quality or the like. He may lie, but to be safe he must know the kind of lie the law permits. Many lies pass as "puffing goods" and are within the pale. A trader ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... house, and to have 'a little talk' on geology. Greatly was I surprised at the vigour which he showed on that afternoon, for, contrary to his usual practice, he did not interrupt the conversation to retire and rest for a time, though I suggested the desirability of his doing so, and offered to stay. His brightness and animation, which were perhaps a little forced, struck me as so unusual that I laughingly suggested that he was 'renewing his youth.' Then a slight shade passed over his countenance—but only for ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd

... continued, changing his position and speaking in a quieter voice, "we did not say much to anybody, and, in fact, we never really planned any expedition at all. We merely talked about its practical nature and the desirability of having it distinctively American. This was all last summer. What we wanted to do was to make the scheme a popular one. It would not be hard to raise a hundred thousand dollars from among a dozen or so men whom we both know, and we found that we could ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... could and should also discuss in a pertinent way the question of disarmament. This question has to-day reached a stage much beyond that of mere desirability. It is now a question of commanding necessity, one can justly say of life and death of the reached stage of civilisation. Not pious wishes or theoretical expositions will in regard to it now suffice. We must ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... hot. We, on the other hand, delayed answering. Danger undoubtedly threatened Petrograd and the question of defending the capital loomed before us in all its terrible significance. But after the Korniloff experience, after Rodzyanko's words concerning the desirability of the German occupation, whence should we take the assurance that Petrograd would not be maliciously given up to the Germans in punishment for its seditious spirit? The Executive Committee refused to affix its seal blindly to the order ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky

... followed, urged upon the company the desirability of the silk-hat mode. If tall hats, he said, went out of fashion, what would become of conjurers? Rabbits could be satisfactorily extracted only from tall hats. (Prolonged cheering.) An omelette made in a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various

... side to the existence of this parasitical group is that great numbers of other women, not free, forced to produce, accept their standards of life. We hear women, useful women, everywhere talking about the desirability of not being obliged to do anything, commiserating women who must work, commiserating those who have heavy household responsibilities, and by the whole gist of their words and acts influencing those ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell

... could dispute the desirability of ridding the country of the brute which came so near eating little Nellie Ribsam; and, where there was so much talk, something was done, or ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis

... Somehow I saw that they had known about it beforehand, and Bernd told me tonight it was the Graf who had drawn the authorities' attention to the desirability of having tongues like Kloster's on ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley

... Will Warburton brought himself, urged by conscience and fear. Little by little, since the afternoon when he gazed at Boxon's closed shop, had this purpose grown in his mind, until he saw it as a possibility—a desirability—a fact. By shopkeeping, he might hope to earn sufficient for supply of the guaranteed income to his mother and sister, and at the same time be no man's servant. His acquaintance with Allchin enabled him to ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing

... the world, the stronger party, in material strength or in actual numbers, massacred the weaker, which was frequently the fitter from the standpoint of desirability as progenitors of the race. Thus posterity was deprived of what probably was the representative, potential strength ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.

... expired the work had far exceeded its original limits and yet seemed hardly begun. Its authors were amazed at the amount of history which already had been made and still more deeply impressed with the desirability of preserving the story of the early struggle, but both were in the regular employ of lecture bureaus and henceforth could give only vacations to the task. They were entirely without the assistance of stenographers and typewriters, who at the present ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... who was most warmly received, said in he first place he must tender his hearty thanks to the Chairman for the very kind manner in which he had introduced him. The attention of the audience this evening would be directed to the desirability of promoting the unity of the British Empire. Before commencing his address, he wished to emphasize what the Chairman had already expressed with regard to the rules of the association on political subjects. In connection with that, he would say that the subject ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young

... and away the king of the romantics. THE LADY OF THE LAKE has no indisputable claim to be a poem beyond the inherent fitness and desirability of the tale. It is just such a story as a man would make up for himself, walking, in the best health and temper, through just such scenes as it is laid in. Hence it is that a charm dwells undefinable among these slovenly verses, as the unseen cuckoo fills the mountains with his note; hence, ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... — N. expedience, expediency; desirableness, desirability &c adj.; fitness &c (agreement) 23; utility &c 644; propriety; opportunism; advantage. high time &c (occasion) 134. V. be expedient &c adj.; suit &c (agree) 23; befit; suit the time, befit the time, suit the season, befit the season, suit the occasion, befit the occasion. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... have!" she said—"otherwise I could not live. It is a necessary muscle. But what YOU call 'heart'—and what the dear elusive poets write about, is simply brain,—that is to say, an impulsive movement of the brain, suggesting the desirability of a particular person's companionship—and we elect to call that 'love'! On that mere ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli

... West v. American Telephone and Telegraph Co.[555] the Supreme Court held that a decision of an Ohio county court of appeals which the Supreme Court of the State had declined to review was binding on the lower federal courts regardless of the desirability of the rule of the decision or of the belief that the highest court of the State might establish a different rule in future litigation. In Fidelity Union Trust Co. v. Field[556] the Court went even farther and ruled that the lower courts were bound to follow the decisions ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... in saying that I claimed a personal acquaintance with you, general. What I said was that you would recognize, somewhat quicker than he did, who I was, and the desirability of treating me with reasonable decency. Just show the general that telegram you took from ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... men doomed in some important respect to lead frustrated lives. Mr Beerbohm recently said that he has never known a man of genius whose life was not marred by some obvious defect. People have talked for two thousand years of the desirability of mens sana in corpore sano, but if everybody possessed this—possessed it from birth and without effort—there would probably soon be a shortage of genius. The sanity of genius is not the sanity of the healthy minded athlete: it is the sanity of the human ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... complexion of his prejudices, which, in spite of noble intention and sympathy, were half of them such as are found in ordinary men of the world: that distinction of mind which belonged to his intellectual ardor, did not penetrate his feeling and judgment about furniture, or women, or the desirability of its being known (without his telling) that he was better born than other country surgeons. He did not mean to think of furniture at present; but whenever he did so it was to be feared that neither biology nor schemes of reform would lift him above the vulgarity of feeling ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... made just the same little set remarks about the desirability of stopping so dangerous an acquaintance, and the impossibility of interfering with other people's affairs, and the sad necessity of standing by with folded hands. I laughed so much over their hollow little phrases that at last I was fain to beat a retreat, and, prompted by curiosity to know ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall

... Different Goods Never Uniform.—The cost of all articles is never reduced at the same time, and it is impossible that all of them should remain in the same order of desirability in the estimation of purchasers. Many things, however, are often cheapened at the same time, though in different degrees. Whatever furnishes a very common raw material at a lower cost than has prevailed, as did the invention of the Bessemer process ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... accentuated as small and insignificant Studia came to claim for themselves equality of status with their older and greater contemporaries. Thus, in the latter half of the thirteenth century, there arose a necessity for a definition and a restriction of the term Studium Generale. The desirability of a definition was enhanced by the practice of granting to ecclesiastics dispensations from residence in their benefices for purposes of study; to prevent abuses it was essential that such permission ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait



Words linked to "Desirability" :   sultriness, attractiveness, undesirability, desirable, good, oomph, goodness



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