"Exactness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wit and a poet, and occasionally employed hours which should have been very differently spent in composing verses more execrable than the bellman's. [484] His time however was not always so absurdly wasted. He had that sort of industry and that sort of exactness which would have made him a respectable antiquary or King at Arms. His taste led him to plod among old records; and in that age it was only by plodding among old records that any man could obtain an accurate and extensive knowledge of the law of Parliament. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Since La Laguna, whence are brought the timbers for the shipbuilding at Cavite, depends greatly on the religious, and without the latter the Indians would do nothing, and it is important to me to have there a person of great exactness, so that the cutting and sending of wood may not cease, and consequently, the building and repair of the ships; and since there are so few methodical men in this country, when there is one, I try to retain him in office all the time. In regard to appointing lawyers to judicial offices, I have made ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... he would become "a slacker." Freddy, in spite of his acknowledged ability as a scholar and Egyptologist, was practical and conventional in his methods and mode of living. Michael Amory had fits of exactness and fits of what he considered conventionality; he had also his fits of slackness, days in which Freddy Lampton would let his blue eyes rest on his carelessly-tied necktie, or on his shoelaces, which were an offence to his eyes. Freddy's exquisite delicacy ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... Thorpe's friend in trade, because while wishing him all happiness and eternity Thorpe dubs him 'the onlie begetter of these insuing sonnets,' is not formidable. Thorpe rarely used words with much exactness. {403b} It is obvious that he did not employ 'begetter' in the ordinary sense. 'Begetter,' when literally interpreted as applied to a literary work, means father, author, producer, and it cannot be seriously urged that Thorpe intended to describe 'Mr. W. H.' as the author of the 'Sonnets.' ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... chained, betokening a fierce and unsubdued nature, upon which it was still necessary to put restraint. All marching or being dragged along at an equal pace; sometimes with an approximation to military exactness—at other points breaking into a confused mass, as women and children clung despairingly together and prevented the maintenance of any regular order. Around them, the spectators closely pressing, with morbid curiosity, discussing with loud approval ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of the King's communications to the envoy, as appears from memoranda in the royal handwriting and from the correspondence of Margaret of Parma. Philip's exactness in conforming to his instructions is sufficiently apparent, on comparing his statements with the letters previously received from the omnipresent Cardinal. Beyond the limits of those directions the King hardly hazarded a syllable. He was merely the plenipotentiary ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... acknowledged by his brother composers. Meyerbeer could not restrain his tears when speaking of him. Weber, Mendelssohn, Rossini, and Wagner always praise him in terms of enthusiastic admiration. Haydn called him the greatest of composers. In fertility of invention, beauty of form, and exactness of method, he has never been surpassed, and has but one or two rivals. The composer of three of the greatest operas in musical history, besides many of much more than ordinary excellence; of symphonies that rival Haydn's for ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... sort will ask, and get, 30 pounds or 35 pounds per annum, a cook from 35 pounds to 40 pounds; and when they go "up country," they hint plainly they shall not stay long with you, and ask higher wages, stipulating with great exactness how they are to be conveyed free of all expense to and ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... Unfortunately for the facts, they contradict the philosophy, and are only to be ignored with silent contempt. A French Academician's report on the ventilation of a large public building, lately reprinted by the Smithsonian Institution, states with absolute assurance and exactness the cubic feet of air changed per minute, with the precise volume and velocity of its ascension, by burning a peck of coal at the bottom of the trunk flue. No mention is made of the anemometer or any other gauge ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... into wards fresh-scrubbed against his arrival, with white counterpanes exactly square, and patients forbidden to move and disturb the geometrical exactness of the beds, went Prince Ferdinand William Otto. At each bed he stopped, selected a flower, and held it out. Some there were who reached out, and took it with a smile. Others lay still, and saw neither boy ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... accident alone, nor an adverse fortune, which caused the loss of the three airships. The position of the British Isles, on the edge of the Atlantic, enabled British weather forecasters to tell with almost unfailing exactness when a storm was to be expected. The French also had an excellent service in this direction. Realizing that bad weather was the worst foe of the Zeppelin, aside from its own inherent clumsiness, the two governments agreed to suppress publication of weather ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... good conscience; for the best conscience is a sort of self-reproach, and this young man's brilliantly healthy nature spent itself in objective good intentions which were ignorant of any test save exactness in hitting their mark. He told Gertrude how he had walked over France and Italy with a painter's knapsack on his back, paying his way often by knocking off a flattering portrait of his host or hostess. He told her how he had played the violin in a little band of musicians—not of high celebrity—who ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... and Ward's lip curled while he reached around the man's bulky body and found the knife in its leather sheath. Evidently Buck was still remembering with disquieting exactness what reasons Ward might have for wanting to ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... expected to accomplish was aptly described by Cardinal Newman when he wrote: "The object of literature in education is to open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to comprehend and adjust its knowledge, to give it power over its faculties—application, flexibility, method, critical exactness, sagacity, address and expression." Reading at home and in the public schools as well as in the high school and colleges helps to accomplish these ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... was committed to her care, she resigned a week before her death, into the hands of Mrs. Hickman, according the direction of the will, and all the accounts and disbursements with it; which she had kept with such an exactness, that the lady declares, that she will follow her method, and only wishes to discharge the trust ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... steered like a fish both as regards direction and depth; she mastered the desired depth with ease and exactness; at full power she attained the anticipated speed of from nine to ten knots; the lighting was excellent, there was no difficulty about heating. It was a strange sight to see the vessel skimming along the ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... fervour with which she could adapt her mind to widely different conceptions of life. This characteristic, aided by the perspicacity which is bestowed upon every jealous woman, perchance enabled her to read the mysterious Sibyl with some approach to exactness. Were it so, prudence should have warned her against a struggle for mere hatred's sake with so formidable an antagonist. But the voice of caution had never long audience with Alma, and was not likely, at any given moment, to prevail against a ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... nobody would deny, and the famous sarcasms of the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, two centuries after our time, had been anticipated long before by satirists. But even the logical fribble, even the logical jargonist, was bound to be exact. Now exactness was the very thing which languages, mostly young in actual age, and in all cases what we may call uneducated, unpractised in literary exercises, wanted most of all. And it was impossible that they should have better ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... duty to carry messages or letters for his master or mistress to their friends, to the post, or to the tradespeople; and nothing is more important than dispatch and exactness in doing so, although writing even the simplest message is now the ordinary and very proper practice. Dean Swift, among his other quaint directions, all of which are to be read by contraries, recommends a perusal of all such epistles, in order that you may be the more able to fulfil your ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... had noted with exactness the spot whence it arose. It was at the point of a strangely formed rock, a sort of truncated pyramid, easily recognizable. Showing this to his companion, he kept ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... himself possessed of the quality of activity. The dingy cottage was converted into a neat, tasteful residence. Of part of the rough land he had made garden-ground, which he cultivated with singular, even with Flemish, exactness and care. As to the mill, which was an old structure, and fitted up with old machinery, now become inefficient and out of date, he had from the first evinced the strongest contempt for all its arrangements and appointments. His aim had been to ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... sufficient to observe, that the site of this romantic abode was granted by Henry VIII, in 1757, to a sir William Paulet, and that after having had many merry monks for its masters, who, no doubt, performed their matutinae laudes and nocturnae vigiliae with devout exactness; that it is at length in the possession of Mr. Dance, who has a very fine and picturesque estate on that side of the river, of which these elegant ruins constitute the chief ornament. The church still ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... excuses for her husband and explained in great detail the rundown condition of the children which made it necessary to get them out of Washington as quickly as possible. Archie was already mentally planning the details of his trip with his customary exactness. As he traveled constantly in the interest of his health, which had been a cause of solicitude to himself and all his relatives as far back as any one could remember, he knew train schedules by heart, and by catching ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... Mr. Jackson derived his whole knowledge of Tombuctoo from the accounts of native traders; upon whose unsupported testimony very little reliance can be placed; especially as to matters of detail, or such facts as require to be stated with any degree of exactness. Considering that Mr. Jackson's information was obtained from this source, the very minuteness and apparent precision of his account, are circumstances ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... Anglo-Egyptian and the historical student may find some anachronisms and other things to criticise; but the anachronisms are deliberate, and even as in writing of Canada and Australia, which I know very well, I have here, perhaps, sacrificed superficial exactness while trying to give the more intimate meaning and spirit. I have never thought it necessary to apologise for this disregard of photographic accuracy,—that may be found in my note-books,—and I shall not begin to do so now. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... represents at once, with rich pictorial effect and strict logical exactness, the legal relation of sinful men to a righteous God, apart from the peace that comes through the Gospel. While you think of the Judge, recording now your thoughts, words, and actions, in order to render unto you what you deserve in the great day, you cannot love him, and you do not ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... of ground selected for the playhouse is described with exactness in the lease printed below. The letters inserted in brackets refer to the accompanying ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... complaint must be described with the most minute exactness, and so far as possible in the patient's own words. To illustrate the kind of circumstances the patient is expected to record, I will mention one or two from the 313th page of the "Treatise on Chronic Diseases,"—being the first one ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... nicety with which, without any cement, they were joined together; and I cannot tell with what machinery the Peruvians could have raised blocks so enormous to such heights, or how they could have fitted them, shaped as they are in so many various forms, with exactness so remarkable. Had I believed in the existence of giants, I should have supposed that they alone could have lifted such vast masses into the positions they hold. Many of the modern residences of the conquerors stand on the foundations of the ancient buildings of the ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... first hear that negroes had been introduced into the colony. But their introduction into Spain and Europe took place early in the fifteenth century. "Ortiz de Zuigo, as Humboldt reports, with his usual exactness, says distinctly that 'blacks had been already brought to Seville in the reign of Henry III of Castile,' consequently before 1406. 'The Catalans and the Normans frequented the western coast of Africa as far as the Tropic of Cancer at least forty-five ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... describe with some exactness the forest of Wolmer, of which three-fifths perhaps lie in this parish, my account of Selborne would be very imperfect, as it is a district abounding with many curious productions, both animal and vegetable, and has often afforded me ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... exceedingly great, involving researches, not only into English records and chronicles, but into those of almost every civilised country in Europe. The style of Mrs. Green is admirable. She has a fine perception of character and manners, a penetrating spirit of observation, and singular exactness of judgment. The memoirs are richly fraught with the spirit of romantic ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... we accord but a limited confidence. The highest intellectual competence, the most admitted truthfulness, immunity from prejudice, and the absence of temptation to misstate the truth; these things may secure great credibility, but they are no guarantee for minute and circumstantial exactness. Two historians, though with equal gifts and equal opportunities, never describe events in exactly the same way. Two witnesses in a court of law, while they agree in the main, invariably differ in some particulars. It appears as if men could not relate facts precisely as they ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... I wonder you can take any interest in such observations or experiments. Don't you see how almost impossible it is to make them with any exactness, how entirely impossible to know anything about them unless made by yourself, when the least leaven of credulity, excited fancy, to say nothing of willing or careless imposture, spoils the whole loaf. Beside, allowing the possibility of some clear glimpses ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... not know with exactness. There may be some delay in getting the cabinet from the ship. Perhaps it would be better ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... scrutiny from military men. I write this foreword not to deprecate criticism, but to remind the professional reader that, while the scenes I have described are all from experience, the aim in writing them was not for technical exactness, often confusing to the lay reader, but rather for the purpose of giving a general picture of the fun and work at a ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... reader. The narrators everywhere are chosen from low life, or have had their origin in it; therefore they tell their own tales, (Mr. Coleridge has anticipated us in this remark,) as persons in their degree are observed to do, with infinite repetition, and an overacted exactness, lest the hearer should not have minded, or have forgotten, some things that had been told before. Hence the emphatic sentences marked in the good old (but deserted) Italic type; and hence, too, the frequent interposition of the reminding old colloquial parenthesis, 'I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... skipper was, however, equal to the occasion. He sponged the wound clean; put a couple of stitches in it with sailor-like neatness— whether with surgeon-like exactness we cannot tell—drew the edges of the wound still more closely together by means of strips of sticking plaster; applied lint and bandages, and, finally, did up our skipper's fist in a manner that seemed quite artistic to the observant ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... of so original a work. Still less shall I be able to answer here the many questions which arise. I must decide to pass rapidly over the technical detail of clear, closely-argued, and penetrating discussions; over the scope and exactness of the evidence borrowed from the most diverse positive sciences; over the marvellous dexterity of the psychological analysis; over the magic of a style which can call up what words cannot express. The solidity of the construction ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... know how to enamel (for enamel is not used in China), in other respects they produce marvelous work in gold and silver. They are so skilful and clever that, as soon as they see any object made by a Spanish workman, they reproduce it with exactness. What arouses my wonder most is, that when I arrived no Sangley knew how to paint anything; but now they have so perfected themselves in this art that they have produced marvelous work with both the brush and the chisel, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... (1) vividness and (2) exactness of thought, and from a corresponding (1) vividness and (2) exactness in the ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... I believe, noted for the smallness and precision of their ruffs, which were termed in print from the exactness of the folds. So in Mynshul's Essays, 4to, 1618. "I vndertooke a warre when I aduentured to speake in print, (not in print as Puritan's ruffes are set.)" The term of Geneva print probably arose from the minuteness of the type used at Geneva. ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... fluctuating benefits were inaugurated the unions were without experience in the exercise of beneficiary functions. They could not calculate with any exactness the amount of the assessment necessary to provide benefits in fixed sum. They preferred, therefore, not to guarantee the payment of any amount. The character of the first death benefit in the Granite Cutters' Union illustrates the reluctance of ...
— Beneficiary Features of American Trade Unions • James B. Kennedy
... remembering the last word in one line, we often call to mind both the verses." Then, in the quickness of repartees (which in discoursive scenes fall very often) it has, he says, so particular a grace, and is so aptly united to them, that the sudden smartness of the answer, and the exactness of the rhyme, set off the beauty of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... calculate the average of these mean prices, and thus to determine the relative value of the amounts to be estimated.(781) The person who should limit his comparison to a few species of commodities, says von Mangoldt, would lose in exactness what ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... city were written with anything like a due exactness of proportion, much of it would be but a weary record of human misery, and through even the most decorous and conventional of chronicles there appear constantly unpleasant glimpses of the terrible under-strata ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... apprehended and understood. In the absence, however, of any clear conception of what constitutes knowledge, of where the dividing line between it and opinion lay, departments of the universe of intelligence almost wholly wanting in exactness and certainty have been dignified with the same title which we apply to departments most positively known. We hear of the Science of Mathematics, the Science of Chemistry, the Science of Medicine, the Science of Political Economy, and even ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... he was unique in his generation. As the Besht was noted in his early life for dulness and indifference, so Elijah was remarkable for diligence and versatility. His life, like the Besht's, became the nucleus of many wonderful tales, which his biographer narrates with painstaking exactness. They present the picture of a man diametrically different from Israel Baal Shem Tob. Every year, we are told, added to the marvellous development of the young intellectual giant. When he was six years old, none but Rabbi Moses Margolioth, the renowned Talmudist ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... the stipulations, contained in the Constitution, in favor of the slaveholding States which are already in the Union, ought to be fulfilled, and so far as depends on me, shall be fulfilled, in the fulness of their spirit, and to the exactness ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... degree of skill exhibited by the mound sculptors in their delineation of the features and characteristics of animals, it is of the utmost importance to note that the carvings of birds and animals which have evoked the most extravagant expressions of praise as to the exactness with which nature has been copied are uniformly those which, owing to the possession of some unusual or salient characteristic, are exceedingly easy of imitation. The stout body and broad flat tail of the beaver, the characteristic physiognomy of the wild cat and panther, ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... He took from his waist-coat pocket the permit which Guerchard had given him, and a pencil. Then he took a card from the card-case, set the permit on the table before him, and began to imitate Guerchard's handwriting with an amazing exactness. He ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... until the bullock-carts came up with the tents. These were taken out and pitched on the other side of the road, and facing the wood. The ground being marked out, the men were told off to their quarters, and the poles of the tents aligned with as much regularity and exactness as could have been used when the regiment ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... the history. The French would have been very glad to find it an epic worthy of the name, for they have n't one. Voltaire frankly confesses that the French have not a genius for great poetry,—too much in love, he says, with exactness and elegance. ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... genius and learning, as of light, to illustrate other things, and not itself. The writers, who, of all others perhaps, have told us most of the world, just as it has been and is, have told us least of themselves. Their character we may infer, with more or less exactness, from their works, but their history is unwritten and must for ever remain so. Homer, though, perhaps, the only one who has been argued out of existence, is by no means the only one whose age and birthplace have been disputed. The native place of Tacitus is mere matter of conjecture. His parentage ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... sail from port to port, yet how awry the system goes! When does a ship come to her harbor at an hour determined when she sailed? What is a ship beside the smallest moon of the smallest world? But, there above us, moons, worlds, suns, all the infinite cluster of colossi, move into place to the exactness of a hair at the precise instant. That instant has been planned, you see; it is part of a system—and can a system exist that no mind made? Think of the Mind that made this one! Do you believe so inconceivably majestic an Intelligence as that could ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... intellectual nature there was a strange conjunction; an imagination as spiritual as Shelley's, though, unlike Shelley's, haunted perpetually with shapes of fear and the imagery of ruin; with this, an analytic power, a scientific exactness, and a mechanical ingenuity more usual in a chemist or a mathematician than in a poet. He studied carefully the mechanism of his verse and experimented endlessly with verbal and musical effects, such as repetition and monotone and the selection of words in which the consonants ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... interesting trial; to observe the demeanour and aspect of the witnesses; to listen to the impassioned flummery of the leading counsel; to note its effect on the Twelve Men in the Box; and then to see the Chinese Puzzle of conflicting evidence arranged in its damning exactness by a skilful judge, is to me an intellectual enjoyment which can hardly be equalled. I have never stayed in court after the jury had retired in a capital case, for I hold it impious to stare at the mortal agony of a fellow-creature; but ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... world can get along without the various information which they bring home about themselves! Honest observation and report will long continue, we fear, to be one of the rarest of human things, so much more easily are spectacles to be had than eyes, so much cheaper is fine writing than exactness. Let any one who has sincerely endeavored to get anything like facts with regard to the battles of our civil war only consider how much more he has learned concerning the splendid emotions of the reporter than the events of the fight, (unless he has had the good luck of a peep into the correspondence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... had been attracted to Stevens Institute by the associations of his home. The students from this great school gathered around his father's hospitable fire and rested their brains when weary with the curves of analytical geometry and the stupid exactness of the differential calculus. Emil was clever at his profession—that of mechanical engineer—and for five years after his graduation from the Institute had devoted himself to that career. Then his father needed his ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... had turned the primed propellers, the four mighty wings whirred—and four Minims were hurled head over heels a foot away, snapped from their positions. The sound of the wings was almost too exact an imitation of the snarl of a starting plane—the comparison was absurd in its exactness of timbre and resonance. It was only a test, however, and the moment the queen became quiet the upset mechanics clambered back. They crawled beneath her, scraped her feet and antennae, licked her eyes and jaws, and went over every shred of wing tissue. Then again she buzzed, ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... perfectly proper than the demeanor of this girl in relation to all the proprieties of her position. She seemed to give her whole mind to it with an anxious exactness; but she appeared to desire no relations with the family other than those of a mere business character. It was impossible to draw her into conversation. If a good-natured remark was addressed to her on any subject ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to see that if courage, devotion to an Idea, love of the Father- or Mother-land, Fidelity of comrade to comrade, Efficiency, daring in Adventure, exactness in Organization, and so forth, are the qualities which in the past have made the profession of arms great and glorious, it is these very qualities which will be demanded and evoked for all future time in the great free ...
— NEVER AGAIN • Edward Carpenter
... beautiful as they are, we can hardly help wondering they did not occur to ourselves; in studying Jonson, we have often to marvel how his conceptions could have occurred to any human being. The one is like an ancient statue, the beauty of which, springing from the exactness of proportion does not always strike at first sight, but rises upon us as we bestow time in considering it; the other is the representation of a monster, which is at first only surprising, and ludicrous ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... known, and he talked to its bacteriologist. The bacteriologist was competent, but not yet famous. With Holden giving honest guesses at the color of the sunlight, and its probable ultra-violet content, and with careful estimates of the exactness with which burning vegetation here smelled like Earth-plants, they arrived at imprecise but common sense conclusions. Of the hundreds of thousands of possible organic compounds, only so many actually took part in the life-processes of creatures on Earth. Yet there were hundreds of thousands ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... This they did under the eyes of modern Europeans. Tylor showed, "from among flint instruments and flakes from the cave of le Moustier in Dordogne, specimens corresponding in make with such curious exactness to those of the Tasmanians that, were they not chipped from different stones, it would hardly be possible to distinguish those of recent savages from those of European cavemen. It is not strange that ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... his faithful followers (who took a pride in obeying with the most scrupulous exactness the injunctions of their now deposed commander) encamped under Sir Alexander Scrymgeour to the northwest of the castle, near Ballockgeich. It was then night. In the morning, at an early hour, Wallace was summoned before the council in ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... captain-general of the said Philipinas Islands, and my audiencias there, and my other judges and magistrates, and all private persons whomsoever—each in so far as concerns him—to observe and comply with, and cause to be observed and complied with this decree, with exactness, and to execute the said penalties without any exemption or remission. And in all cases of remissness or carelessness which these my ministers shall display in the fulfilment and execution of the said orders, I command that the penalties be executed against them, and the example ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... Boarding and Day Establishment in the town, and who condescended to take a Private View with eight chosen young ladies, to be quite startling from their extreme correctness. Mr Pitt in a nightcap and bedgown, and without his boots, represented the poet Cowper with perfect exactness; and Mary Queen of Scots in a dark wig, white shirt-collar, and male attire, was such a complete image of Lord Byron that the young ladies quite screamed when they saw it. Miss Monflathers, however, rebuked this enthusiasm, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... a condition to help it. I admit it is true that there are cases of a nature so delicate and complicated that an act of Parliament on the subject may become a matter of great difficulty. It sometimes cannot define with exactness, because the subject-matter will not bear an exact definition. It may seem to take away everything which it does not positively establish, and this might be inconvenient; or it may seem, vice versa, to establish everything which it does not expressly ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the teachings of the Lord stand for ever, yet unto none is it possible to follow them in exactness, and therefore is there none that may attain unto supreme enlightenment in these last days of the ...
— Buddhist Psalms • Shinran Shonin
... himself was both a spectator and an actor; where his testimony, considering the advantages his position gave him for information, is of the highest value. Alcedo in his Biblioteca Americana, Ms., speaks of Zarate's work as "containing much that is good, but as not entitled to the praise of exactness." He wrote under the influence of party heat, which necessarily operates to warp the fairest mind somewhat from its natural bent. For this we must make allowance, in perusing accounts of conflicting ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... breeds of the {20} dog being the descendants of distinct wild stocks, is their resemblance in various countries to distinct species still existing there. It must, however, be admitted that the comparison between the wild and domesticated animal has been made but in few cases with sufficient exactness. Before entering on details, it will be well to show that there is no a priori difficulty in the belief that several canine species have been domesticated; for there is much difficulty in this respect with some other domestic quadrupeds and birds. Members ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... gradually pushed forward. From the cupboards of the house were brought old lace, silver and gold plate, glass, linen, furs, pearls, diamonds and all sorts of treasures, to be divided by Tatiana Markovna with Jew-like exactness into two equal shares, with the aid of jewellers, ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... may be an exact transcript of the Traveller's words as originally taken down in the prison of Genoa. We have again in the MSS. of the second type an edition pruned and refined, probably under instructions from Marco Polo, but not with any critical exactness. And lastly, I believe, that we have, imbedded in the Ramusian edition, the supplementary recollections of the Traveller, noted down at a later period of his life, but perplexed by repeated translation, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... not called Illustris, as in the previous letter? This seems to show that the titles 'Clarissimus' and 'Illustris' were not always used with technical exactness, as they would ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... day; and when, also, the products of each operative can be counted in number, weighed by the pound, or measured by the yard or cubic foot, then it is perfectly practicable to determine, with arithmetical exactness, the productions of one individual and class as compared with those of ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... Indians; it was after the death of captain Cook, on the Morai at Owhyhee, where I was left by lieutenant King: yet, notwithstanding, I did not conceive that the power of a man's arm could throw stones, from two to eight pounds weight, with such force and exactness as these people did. Here unhappily I was without arms, and the Indians knew it; but it was a fortunate circumstance that they did not begin to attack us in the cave: in that case our destruction must have been inevitable, ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... was charming. It was not quite perfect, however. It was too manifestly and studiously arranged, and it had the finnicking exactness of the favourite gallery of some connoisseur. For its nobility of form, its deft and wise softness of colouring, its half-smothered Italian joyousness of design in ceiling and cornice, the arrangement of choice and exquisite furniture ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, With exactness ...
— The Flag Replaced on Sumter - A Personal Narrative • William A. Spicer
... Folio 1,164, Sheet 10," ordered Powart with his usual decisive exactness. The attendant disappeared, and in less than a minute returned with a large sheet of parchment. Powart immediately located ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... account of the operations of Le Formidable, with the provisional command of which you entrusted me. Proud of the honourable charge of defending your flag, I endeavoured to execute your orders with the most scrupulous exactness. I immediately repaired on board to assume the chief command, and I put to sea as soon as you ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... and most accustomed to study might be best trusted to speak without the labor of written composition. That it has been thought otherwise, is probably owing, in a great measure, to the solicitude for literary exactness and elegance of style, which becomes a habit in the taste of studious men, and renders all inaccuracy and carelessness offensive. He who has been accustomed to read and admire the finest models of composition ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... it impossible to distinguish between her imitations and the works of nature. Plates with bread, radishes, and fish; dishes of fowls, and chile, and eggs; baskets full of the most delicious-looking fruit; lettuces, beans, carrots, tomatoes, etc.; all are copied with the most extraordinary exactness. But her figures show much greater talent. There are groups for which an amateur might offer any price, could she be prevailed upon to offer these masterpieces for sale. There is a Poblana peasant on horseback ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... pulmonary veins, and thus the force of the ventricle in propelling the blood through the system at large come to be neutralized, it is that these mitral valves excel those of the right ventricle in size and strength and exactness of closing. Hence it is essential that there can be no heart without a ventricle, since this must be the source and store-house of the blood. The same law does not hold good in reference to the brain. For almost no genus of birds has a ventricle in the brain, as is obvious in the goose and swan, ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... five feet.' The chevalier," said Quennebert, interrupting himself, "is four feet eleven inches three lines and a half, but I don't need absolute exactness." Angelique gazed at him ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a day or two afterward, that between the factory and his own writing he will hardly have an hour to spare, and that she must not feel hurt at his absence. Lindmeyer has come, and with Joseph Rising they are going over all with the utmost exactness. There are sullen looks and short answers on the part of the workmen. It has been gently hinted to them that other vacations may be given without any advance wages. Wilmarth is quietly sympathetic. It is necessary, of course, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... enjoyed a real picnic. Every little event of that delightful past was gone over again with exactness; and all of them pronounced the day one of the happiest of the calendar. The shack was still in serviceable condition, and the girls were pleased to pretend that they might still have need of a shelter whenever a cloud as big as a boy's pocket ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Archbishop of York, made an early display of classical taste, and the diligent cultivation of it. Some of his school exercises are extant, and show more than a promise of that refinement and exactness, which afterwards distinguished his performances at Christ Church. The Latin version of the fragment of Simonides, as beautiful as any thing in the whole range of poetical imitation, though published in the Oxford Lachrymo as Mr. Bournes, is known to be written ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... amazed at the knowledge that she was under the influence of a drug which was destroying her will, yet she felt no particular urge to make a fight for freedom of determination. "Freedom of determination." She repeated the words, having framed her thoughts with punctilious exactness, and remembered that that was a great war phrase which one was constantly discovering in the newspapers. All her thoughts were like this—they had the form of marshalled language, so that even her speculations ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... his fourteenth year, he was able to assist his foster-father in his business. He wrote a fine hand, did much of his "father's" clerical work, and carried out all orders with exactness. ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... economy and giving the father all they could spare to help pay interest on the mortgage which rested on factory, mills and home. He gave his notes for every dollar and, years afterwards, when prosperity came, paid all of them with scrupulous exactness. It was in these early days of teaching that Miss Anthony saw with indignation the injustice practiced towards women. Repeatedly she would take a school which a male teacher had been obliged to give ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... writer, and very impartial, but whose credit is somewhat impaired by his want of exactness in material facts, ascribes to the duke of Glocester more desperate views, and such as were totally incompatible with the government and domestic tranquillity of the nation. According to that historian, he proposed to his nephew, Roger Mortimer, earl ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... dates throughout these pages, but for the convenience of readers who may wish for greater exactness it may be as well to state here that Olaf was born A.D. 963, that he started on his wanderings as a viking in the year 981, that the sea fight between the vikings of Jomsburg and the Norwegians took place ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... is a diamond-ruled scale of glass, enabling us to fix the position of any line with great exactness. ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... which the author has labored most earnestly is that of Slavery. If the views he sets forth are the result of his own investigation, he is entitled to credit for unusual exactness. There is nothing new about them, to be sure; but there is also nothing absurd, which is a great point. He maintains the argument against Slavery, that it is to be practically considered in its injurious influences on the white people ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... there where we want little, much is given—now a blank eyed riddle,—dark with excess of self,—now a giant thought—vast but repulsive,—and now angel visitors startling us with wisdom and touches of heavenly beauty. Every where is seen exactness; but it is the exactness of hesitation, and not of knowledge—the line of doubt, and not of power: all the promises for ripeness are there; but, as yet, all are immature. And mature art is presented when all these rude scaffoldings are thrown down—when the ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... this thought is seen in his style. It is a remarkable style, and is only to be appreciated when the man is understood. It is made up of long sentences full of qualifying phrases until the thought is carved into perfect exactness; or—changing the figure—shade upon shade is added until the picture and conception are alike. But with all this piling up of phrases, he not only did not lose proportion and rhythm, but so set down his words that they read ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... we think should not be permitted to continue. This point was illustrated to some degree by the testimony of the chiefs of the appraiser's department, the important duties of which would certainly justify a reasonable exactness. The invoices, which are recorded in that office, and which are sent out to the different divisions to be passed upon and then returned to the chief clerk, are found to exhibit, on their return, errors on the part of the several divisions —according to one witness, nearly eight hundred errors ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... St. Julians's doctrine, though half a century old, applies with perfect exactness to those enemies of the human race who endeavour to keep alive or to resuscitate this desperate tradition. Juvenal described the untimely fate of the man who went into his bath with an undigested peacock in his system. Scarcely ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... America. It is a brown, much mottled bird, that creeps spirally around and around the trunks of trees in fall and winter, pecking at the larvae in the bark with its long, sharp bill, and doing its work with faithful exactness but little spirit. It uses its tail as a prop in climbing, like the woodpeckers. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... to require no answer unless it be to a sit-down wedding breakfast. In this case the same exactness in reply and the same form is demanded as for a dinner invitation. If the invitation is extended to friends at a distance and presupposes an intention to entertain the recipients for any length of time, the obligation for speedy reply ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... feudal atrocity can be made out with some degree of exactness, because in 1692, Don Diego Vargas with a military force visited Tusayan and mentions Awatubi as a populous village at which he made some halt. The Hano (Tewa) claim that they have lived in Tusayan for five or six generations, and that when they arrived there was no Awatubi in existence; hence ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... what conditions it is experienced. His end is reached when he has disengaged that [x] virtue, and noted it, as a chemist notes some natural element, for himself and others; and the rule for those who would reach this end is stated with great exactness in the words of a recent critic of Sainte-Beuve:—De se borner a connaitre de pres les belles choses, et a s'en nourrir en exquis amateurs, ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... she was simply heroic. She bore her pain without a groan, submitted to the imprisonment which was harder than pain with angelic patience. Joe, The Duke and I carried out our instructions with careful exactness to the letter. She never doubted, and we never let her doubt but that in a few weeks she would be on the pinto's back again and after the cattle. She made us pass our word for this till it seemed as if she must have read the falsehoods ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... of such knowledge that it should be deficient in "exactness," in precision of statement, and closeness of logical concatenation. We must not look for a mathematics of conduct. The subject-matter of Human Conduct is not governed by necessary and uniform laws. But this does not mean that it is subject to no laws. There are general principles ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... I am amused by the bolder defiance of all consistency which is exhibited by his prime Adviser, who, while he prompts his Chief to trample Rubrics, Canons, Statutes, under his feet, commands His own Clergy to observe them 'with Chinese exactness.' ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... thing had been certain. She had learned nearly the whole truth from Silverbridge, who was not good at keeping a secret from one to whom his heart was open. That story had been all but read by her with exactness. "I cannot lose you now," she had said to him, leaning on his arm;—"I cannot afford to lose you now. But I fear that someone else is losing you." To this he answered nothing, but simply pressed her closer to his side. "Someone else," she continued, "who perhaps ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... no account from Mr Adams of the presentation of his Memorial, or the reception it met with, nor any other particulars on this interesting subject, than what you have related. We consider this as a proof of his reliance upon your exactness in ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... and that the very men who attacked its principles and surpassed its practice had, in some cases, been actually trained in its school, and were in all, imitating and following its model. To analyse, with chemical exactness, the constituents of a literary novelty is never easy, if it is ever possible. But some of the contrasts between the style of criticism most prevalent at the time, and the style of the new venture are obvious and important. The older rivals of the Edinburgh maintained for the most part a decent ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... times are very well known, and their merit generally recognized. We cannot say that we have made use of any of them ourselves, yet in the course of our peregrinations we have frequently heard travellers speak in terms of high encomium of their general truth and exactness, and of the immense mass of information which they contain. There is one class of people, however, who are by no means disposed to look upon these publications with a favourable eye—we mean certain gentry generally known by the name ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... first of the introductory letters to Pamela, that with this way of writing 'the several Passions of the Mind must ... be more affectingly described, and Nature may be traced in her undisguised Inclinations with much more Propriety and Exactness, than can possibly be found in a Detail of Actions long past;'[19] and von Haller carries the charge even further by claiming not only that it allows the author a greater degree of psychological veracity but also that the ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... you may as well trust to the conscience of an itinerant Jew. Frenchmen are so aware of this, that have heard a traveller, on a maigre day, make his bargain for his aumlet and the number of eggs to be put in it, with an exactness scarce to be imagined; and yet the upshot ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... will not expect his own ideal Evangeline or Sir Launfal to appear before him on the page, but every reflective mind will find, we think, such a parallelism between poetry and picture as is not only consistent with exactness, but will further serve to illuminate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... mother was sister to Sir Richard Temple, afterwards Lord Cobham. Of his translation of Pindar, Dr. Johnson states, that he found his expectations surpassed, both by its elegance and its exactness. For his "Observations on the Resurrection," the University of Oxford, in March 1748, created him a Doctor of Laws by diploma. At his residence at Wickham, where he was often visited by Lyttelton and Pitt, there is a walk designed by the latter; while the former received at this place that conviction ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole |
