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Firm   /fərm/   Listen
Firm

adjective
(compar. firmer; superl. firmest)
1.
Marked by firm determination or resolution; not shakable.  Synonyms: steadfast, steady, stiff, unbendable, unfaltering, unshakable, unwavering.  "A firm mouth" , "Steadfast resolve" , "A man of unbendable perseverence" , "Unwavering loyalty"
2.
Not soft or yielding to pressure.  Synonym: solid.  "The snow was firm underfoot" , "Solid ground"
3.
Strong and sure.  Synonym: strong.  "Gave a strong pull on the rope"
4.
Not subject to revision or change.  "A firm offer"
5.
(of especially a person's physical features) not shaking or trembling.  "A firm step"
6.
Not liable to fluctuate or especially to fall.  Synonyms: steady, unfluctuating.
7.
Securely established.
8.
Possessing the tone and resiliency of healthy tissue.
9.
Securely fixed in place.  Synonyms: fast, immobile.
10.
Unwavering in devotion to friend or vow or cause.  Synonyms: fast, loyal, truehearted.  "Loyal supporters" , "The true-hearted soldier...of Tippecanoe" , "Fast friends"



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"Firm" Quotes from Famous Books



... She was an affectionate child, with a quick sense of fun, and a droll little coaxing manner, which usually won for her her own way, especially from her father, who delighted in her and never could resist Marian's saucy, caressing appeals. It required all Mrs. Gray's firm, judicious discipline to ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge

... walked back to the Great House that night, he made a firm resolution that no consideration of worldly welfare should ever induce him to break his engagement with Lily Dale. He went somewhat further also, and determined that he would not put off the marriage for more than six or eight months, or, at the ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... life, grieved him to the heart. He therefore resolved that, as he could not make it serve the high purpose for which it was intended, he would abandon it. And when he changed his profession, he changed his name. He is now Mr. Pickle of the firm I have before mentioned. We were privately married under that name, and have since lived as humble as you see us. When we have got money enough, my husband will return to his profession. And now, sir, pray adapt yourself to our ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... so great that he obeyed the order. The stone began to give way under his feet, and sank slowly down into the depths. When it was once more firm, and the tailor looked round, he found himself in a hall which in size resembled the former. Here, however, there was more to look at and to admire. Hollow places were cut in the walls, in which stood vases of transparent glass which were filled with colored spirit ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... preserved her youth. Charlotte was periodically morbid, a transmuted heritage. The financial need directed her training into practical lines; she studied stenography and was fortunate in securing a position in the office of John Evanson, the energetic senior member of a growing leather-manufacturing firm. There was something poetically appealing to this busy man in the quiet, sometimes sad-faced, fine- faced, competent woman, which gradually created in him a hungering sense of need-and he called one night. He afterwards said if he hadn't married Charlotte, he would have married her mother, who, to ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... words to grieve, Too firm for clamor to dismay, When Faith forbids thee to believe, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... It goes down best with them. If once a man begins discussing too much with them, then they don't know which way they want to go. Otherwise they are quite all right, and it's easy to get on with them—if one only treats them well. I never found it any trouble, for they like a firm hand over them. You've reason to be proud of your parents-in-law; they are capital people, even if they are a bit proud of their calling. And Ellen will make you a good wife—if I know anything of women. She'll attend to her own affairs and she'll understand how to save what's left over. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... was to France some thirty years ago. Ireland, always unquiet, had became a serious danger to Elizabeth's Government. It was its "bleeding ulcer." Lord Essex's great colonizing scheme, with his unscrupulous severity, had failed. Sir Henry Sidney, wise, firm, and wishing to be just, had tried his hand as Deputy for the third time in the thankless charge of keeping order; he, too, after a short gleam of peace, had failed also. For two years Ireland had been left to the local administration, totally unable to heal its ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... with light firm steps, up the bank, not exactly approaching them, but turning to the house-door, the party under the trees separated; the gentlemen, attracted by the lightness and beauty of the canoe, went down to the water's edge to look at it more closely. ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... to conclude my new song, And draw to a perfect conclusion, I have told you what is in my mind, And what is my [firm] resolution. For this I have made it appear, And prove by experience I can, 'Tis the excellen'st thing in the world To be ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... both of thought and action were great and comprehensive. By a solicitous examination of objections, and judicious comparison of opposite arguments, he attained what enquiry never gives but to industry and perspicuity, a firm and unshaken settlement of conviction. But his firmness was without asperity; for, knowing with how much difficulty truth was sometimes found, he did not wonder ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... had said, cheerily, as the "Firm" talked their prospects over on the day before the holidays, "you're bound to scrape through the July exam.; and then won't we have a jollification when ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... either side of the table, Evelyn was attracted, and then absorbed, by the distinctive appearance of the priest. His mind was in his face. The long, high forehead, with black hair growing sparely upon it; the small, brilliant eyes, and the long, firm line of the jaw, now distinct, for the head was turned almost in profile. The face was a perfect symbol of the mind behind it; and the intimate concurrence of the appearance and the thought was the reason of its attractiveness. It was the ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... rest of my days in that monastery up there," said Lorry, after dinner that evening. They were strolling about the town. One was determined to leave the city, the other firm in his resolve to stay. The latter won the day when he shrewdly, if explosively, reminded the former that it was their duty as men to stay and protect the Princess from the machinations of Gabriel, that knave of purgatory. Lorry, at ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... After proceeding in this way about a mile, we came to a small black ridge on the bottom, beyond which the water became suddenly salt, beginning gradually to deepen, and the bottom was sandy and firm. It was a remarkable division, separating the fresh water of the rivers from the briny water of the lake, which was entirely saturated with common salt. Pushing our little vessel across the narrow boundary, we sprang on board, and at length were afloat ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis

... don't know; but he tould me, that if I was provided for, he'd be firm, an' take chance of his thrial. But, he says, poor man, that it 'ud break his heart to be thransported, lavin' me behind him wid' nobody to take care o' me.—He says, too, if anything 'ud make him stag, it's fear of the thrial goin' against himself; for, as he said to me, what 'ud become ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... Herbert gazed upon the face of his mistress. At the first glance he would have started back, had not the firm affection of Catherine's embrace detained him. From the most vivid signs of love and hope fulfilled, his countenance altered to an expression of doubt and disappointment. 'Catherine?' he said in a tone ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... object they administered public chastisement to those scholars who showed lack of conscience or method, in a manner calculated to disgust them with erudition for ever. They performed sundry notable executions, not for the pleasure of it, but with the firm resolve to establish a censorship and a wholesome dread of justice, in the domain of historical study. Bad workers henceforth received no quarter, and though the Revue did not exert any great influence on the public at large, its police-operations ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... was on a Wednesday, and of course there could be no use for the tub before Saturday, she let the water set until that time, in order to let the paint get "set" good and firm. ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy

... sign rather of honour than death; this postpones, it does not hasten death. Wonderful result! They offer peace who had prepared slaughter. He cannot refuse it who had sought it at the risk of life. Therefore peace was made—a peace so firm that from that day the priest found his foe not merely appeased, but obedient, devoted.[459] When they heard this, all the faithful rejoiced, not only because the innocent blood was saved in that day,[460] but because by the ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor

... the front of the courtroom by Deputy Sheriff Albert Melms, everyone in the crowd stared at him, but the prisoner walked with a firm step, and looked neither to the right nor left. It was only when he was called before the bar and asked to plead, that he wavered, and then only for an instant. Judge Backus ordered him to stand and listen to the charge made against him, reciting that "John Schrank, ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey

... there, let the occasion be whatsoever it might be, he was to die for it; so that body of soldiers, preferring rather to die in fighting courageously, than as a punishment for their cowardice, stood firm; and at the necessity these men were in of standing to it, many of the others that had run away, out of shame, turned back again; and when they had set the engines against the wall, they put the multitude from coming more of them out of the city, [which they ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... little, and be as cautious over a groat as the keenest miser, and then go and trust their most important affairs to some perfect fool of a solicitor. His father, perhaps, or his uncle, or somebody connected with the firm, had a reputation about the era of Waterloo, and upon this tradition they carry their business to a man whom they admit themselves "doan't seem up to much, yon." In the same way, or worse, for there is no tradition ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... excellent clay, easily moulded into bricks, and not even requiring to be baked in order to fit it for the builder. Exposure to the heat of the summer sun hardened the clay sufficiently for most purposes, while a few hours in a kiln made it as firm and durable as freestone, or even granite. Chaldaea, again, yielded various substances suitable for mortar. Calcareous earths abound on the western side of the Euphrates towards the Arabian frontier; while ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... untouched—a ruin no longer habitable. The spirit, as well as the letter, of that particular clause in his father's will had so far been literally obeyed. The walls being of stone, had withstood decay, and still rose straight and firm; but the roof had begun to sag, and whatever of woodwork yet remained about it had rotted and fallen away, till the building was little more than a skeleton, with holes for its windows and an open gap for ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... had something up his sleeve, as they say, and was not yet ready to use it. Then Dean began to shear over to cut us off—a nasty trick of the low horseman. I saw Uncle Eb glance at the ditch ahead. I knew what was coming and took a firm hold of the seat. The ditch was a bit rough, but Uncle Eb had no lack of courage. He turned the horse's head, let up on the reins and whistled. I have never felt such a thrill as then. Our horse leaped into the deep grass ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... of the Krupp firm in the awful story developing around us is not quite sufficiently grasped. There is a kind of academic clarity of definition which does not see the proportions of things for which everything falls within a definition, and nothing ever breaks beyond it. To this type ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton

... in threading a mile and a quarter of very ugly road, a Nakb, passing through rocks glittering with mica; a ladder of stony steps and overfalls, with angles and zigzags where camels can carry only half-loads. The European dismounted; the Egyptian, who was firm in the saddle, rode his mule the whole way. We afterwards, however, explored a comparatively good road, via the Wady Murakh, to the seaboard, which will spare the future metal-smelter ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... whose Soul she was not able to touch with the least Tenderness; and of the cruel Fair One that had betray'd her: Yet, even while her Soul was upon the Rack, she was willing to excuse 'em, and ready to do all she could for Don Pedro; at least, she made a firm Resolution, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... was very solidly built. In form it resembled the Irish round towers, which have puzzled people for so long, nobody being able to find out when, or by whom, or for what purpose they were made; seemingly for no use at all, like this tower. It was circular, of very firm brickwork, with neither doors nor windows, until near the top, when you could perceive some slits in the wall through which one might possibly creep in or look out. Its height was nearly a hundred feet, ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... little over L2000 a year of which one-half goes to Mr. Brooke's mother. Mr. Brooke himself is a wealthy man, at the head of the most important firm of wine-merchants in Ireland, and he has repeatedly spent on the property more than he took ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... former troubles had emanated no more from Sejanus than from Tiberius. For not only were the accusers of various persons brought to trial, but those who had condemned them were in turn sentenced. So it was that Tiberius spared no one, but kept using up all the citizens one against another; no firm friendships existed any longer[9]; but the unjust and the guiltless, the fearful and the fearless stood on the same footing as regarded the investigation made into the complaints about Sejanus. At length he saw fit to propose a kind ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... her own and her marriage with his son. Perhaps the death of his beloved wife might render her father's mood more gentle. He did not yet know all Now he must learn it. If he again said "No," it would seal the ruin of the Eysvogel firm. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... to inform you that once I have paid what I owe (to owe deber), I shall not continue my transactions with your firm. ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano

... the May of the ensuing year, 1832, that Clarence was sent down to Bristol for a few weeks to take the place of one of the clerks in the office where the cargoes of the incoming vessels of the firm were received ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... fellows in the neighboring nests were still ragged and 'quilly' looking. In the second place, they had inherited from their eccentric parents an altogether surprising amount of originality. Their feathers were beautifully firm and black and glossy, their beaks sharp and polished; and in their full, dark, intelligent eyes there was an impishness that even a crow might regard as ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts

... names had taken firm hold upon the entire structure. Smoke tinged with red lines poured through the great double doors of the mansion house. Yet even as she met the act with an exclamation of horror, Josephine saw Dunwody fling away his weapons, run to the great doors and crash through them, ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... time, could not be broken; but at what valuation should be placed the courage inspired in our troops by the pressing necessities of the state, by past successes, and by a young prince of the blood in whose eyes could be read victory? Don Francisco de Mellos awaits the onset with a firm foot; and, without being able to retreat, the two generals and the two armies seemed to have wished to imprison themselves in the woods and the marshes in order to decide the issue of combat like two champions in ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... loft building in the new dry-goods section on Fourth Avenue. One could almost feel that a tragedy had invaded even his place of business. As we entered, we could see groups of clerks, evidently discussing the case. It was no wonder, I felt, for the head of the firm was almost frantic, and beside the loss of his only daughter the loss of his business would count as nothing, at least until the keen edge of ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... O all ye that are pure in heart, lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his love; for ye may, if your minds are firm, forever. ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... firm, even pressure to the wound with a dressing, clean cloth, or sanitary napkin. If you don't have any of these, use your bare hand until you can get something better. Remember, you must keep blood from running out of the patient's body. Loss ...
— In Time Of Emergency - A Citizen's Handbook On Nuclear Attack, Natural Disasters (1968) • Department of Defense

... She didn't consider the babies serious, so she just had some one telephone at the last minute that she had gone. I can't go; but please make Billy go with you! There is no use—" and she turned to Billy Bob who stood by in pathetically gorgeous array, but firm in his intention not ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... fell upon his ears, and made him forget that he was alone and footsore in this trying work; and once when his way led him over a great lake, and he was in a little boat in which it seemed impossible for him to reach the farther shore, and he was about to give up in despair, a strong, firm hand took the little helm, and soon he was safe at ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... still vigilant as to his interests—Virginia discovered a flaw in one of the plumes. The sylph in the trailing gown held volubly that it did not fait rien; the man with the open purse said he couldn't see that it figured much, but the small American held firm. That must be replaced by a perfect plume or they would not take the hat. And when she saw who was in command the sylph as volubly acquiesced that naturellement it must be tout a fait perfect. She would send out and get one that would be oh! so, so, ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell

... paused; for they say that the calm eye of man can tame the wild beast or the fury of the maniac; and so your eyes tamed the madness of these fierce ruffians. Was your look then, Talbot, as calm and as firm as it ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... it?" quoth the grim doctor. "That's entirely as it may be used. Doubtless his bite would send a man to kingdom come; but, on the other hand, no one need want a better life-line than that fellow's web. He and I are firm friends, and I believe he would know my enemies by instinct. But come, sit down, and take a glass of brandy. No? Well, I'll drink it for you. And how is the old aunt yonder, with her infernal nostrum, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... offer a thousand material rewards in observation and action. In their presence, a private dream begins to look rather cheap and hysterical. Not that existence has any dignity or prerogative in the presence of will, but that will itself, being elastic, grows definite and firm when it is fed by success; and its formed and expressible ideals then put to shame the others, which have remained vague for want of practical expression. Mature interests centre on soluble problems and tasks capable of ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... a hand or shoulder vor my knee Or voot. I'll scramble to the top an' zee What I can do. Well, here I be, among The fakkets, vor a bit, but not vor long. Heigh, George! Ha! ha! Why this wull never stand. Your firm 's a wall, is all so loose as zand; 'Tis all a-come to pieces. Oh! Teaeke ceaere! Ho! I'm a-vallen, vuzz ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... the Cabinet, until now. The most important things he decides and there is no cavil. I am growing more convinced that the good of the country demands that he should be kept where he is till this thing is over. There is no man in the country so wise, so gentle, and so firm."(27) ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... and eighteen inches from one corner of his mouth to the other. Its maw was like a leather sack, very thick, and so tough that a sharp knife could scarce cut it, in which we found the head and bones of a hippopotamus, the hairy lips of which were still sound and not putrified, and the jaw was also firm, out of which we plucked a great many teeth, two of them eight inches long and as big as a man's thumb, small at one end, and a little crooked, the rest not above half so long. The maw was full of jelly, which stank extremely. However, I saved for awhile the teeth and the shark's jaw. ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton

... something of a surprise for you. In coming to a settlement with Pelter, Japson & Company, they notified me that they were going out of business in New York City. Pelter claims that our exposing the firm practically ruined them, and at the present time there is still due father a matter of about fifteen hundred dollars, which they seem unable to pay. Both Pelter and Japson have offered to turn over to us the entire contents of their offices in Wall Street, along with their lease. I don't think ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield

... arrived, attended by all the paraphernalia of office, in company with Mr. Richard Hart Davis, whom I now eyed for the first time. All persons were pompously commanded to stand back from the door; but I had a sturdy set of friends now to support me, and they stood as firm as a rock, and almost as immovable. For some time the Jacks in office attempted in vain to approach the door, till at length I requested that those who were near it would fall back, and make way for the Sheriffs; which request was instantly complied with. The ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... fairer, kinder; she made her mother's awful talk about her a hideous dream. She told me her mother was coming to join her; she had remained indoors to write a letter. One couldn't write out there, though it was so nice in other respects: the table refused to stand firm. They too then had pretexts of letters between them—I judged this a token that the situation was tense. It was the only one nevertheless that Linda gave: like Archie she was young enough to carry it off. She had been used to seeing us always together, ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James

... that it might hold both her feet. Down over this shoe rolls a large red woolen stocking, leaving her shapely little ankle bleeding from brier-scratches. In her hand she swings a large, coarse straw hat by its broad red ribbons. Her every limb is full of force and fire; her voice is firm and resolute, but not rapid. Hers is a splendid ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller

... part. As they came closer and saw her in the way, all the snakes raised their horrid heads and swayed them to and fro, and looked at her with wicked beady eyes, while their breath seemed to poison the very air. Still the princess stood firm, and, when the leading snake was within a few feet of her, she cried: 'Oh, Queen of Snakes, Queen of Snakes, give me back my husband!' Then all the rustling, writhing crowd of snakes seemed to whisper to one another 'Her husband? her husband?' But the queen of snakes ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various

... pleasant as these jets of affection which make a young world for me again? What so delicious as a just and firm encounter of two, in a thought, in a feeling? How beautiful, on their approach to this beating heart, the steps and forms of the gifted and the true! The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed; there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Nature, in a word, is at first conceived mythically, dramatically, and retains much of the unintelligible, sporadic habit of animal experience itself. But as attention awakes and discrimination, practically inspired, grows firm and stable, irrelevant qualities are stripped off, and the mechanical process, the efficacious infallible order, is clearly disclosed beneath. Meantime the incidental effects, the "secondary qualities," are relegated to a personal inconsequential region; they constitute the realm of appearance, the ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... font. Josephus witnesseth us in this history that she had for name Celestre. And great joy made she of her baptism, and her affections turned she unto good. The hermit remained there with her, and taught her to understand the firm believe, and did the service of Our Lord. The damsel was of right good life and right holy, and ended thereafter ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown

... if this is loaded; and, if it is, should you make the slightest resistance, I will shoot you," I said in a firm tone. ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston

... sermons are a large fact in our social economy. When a million or two are preached every year, they have a strong claim on our attention. To use a trade phrase, sermons are firm, and I believe a moderate tax on them would ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr

... north speak much of the great preparations for war, making in the Austrian and Russian dominions. The firm conduct of the Court of France may dissipate this storm, if the accession of the Court of Prussia to this confederation should not prove true. I have been assured from a very good quarter, that Lord Shelburne saw with uneasiness the intentions of the Emperor and Russia. But the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... pleasure in giving me a specimen of its despotic caprice, and had insured my happiness through means which sages would disavow, had not the power to make me adopt a system of moderation and prudence which alone could establish my future welfare on a firm basis. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... but there was no confidence between them as there had been on that morning when Harry rowed his friend up to London. Ah me! what had occurred between them to break the bonds of their mutual trust—to quench the ardour of their firm friendship? But so it was between them now. It was fated that they never again should place full confidence ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... pelvis, thirty-four and a half inches; girth of thigh, upper third, twenty inches; heart healthy, sounds and rhythm perfectly normal; pulse, 76; lungs healthy; respiratory murmur clear and distinct over every part; respiration, easy and twenty per minute; the mammae are well developed, firm, and round; nipples, small, no areola; her skin is soft, smooth, and healthy; figure erect, plump, and symmetrical; her bowels are regular; kidneys, healthy. She has a good appetite, sleeps well, and in no particular ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... the boom itself; the fourth took only the dangling miles of wire. At the sixth trial nothing—apparently—happened; whereupon the wire was drawn in and a two-hundred-pound mass of steel was lowered until it was in firm and quiescent contact with the ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith

... at the foot of one of the big elms, and heard his quick, firm steps. She looked up, and would have risen and flown, but he was upon her before she could move—was upon her, and in some strange, never-to-be-explained way had ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... death of his wife, Baruch's affection spent itself upon his son Benjamin, whom he had apprenticed to a firm of optical instrument makers in York. The boy was not very much like his father. He was indifferent to that religion by which his father lived, but he inherited an aptitude for mathematics, which was very necessary in his trade. Benjamin also possessed his father's rectitude, trusted him, ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford

... out of the following circumstances, occurred yesterday in the shop of Mr. Thomson, gunmaker. In the beginning of July, last year, Mr. Hugh Miller bought a six-shot revolving chamber pistol, size of ball ninety-two to the pound, from the late firm of Messrs. Alexander Thomson & Son, gunmakers, 16 Union Place. A few days after, he called and said he thought it a little stiff in its workings, and got it made to revolve more readily. The pistol has not been seen by Mr. ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... quick firm step along the shady avenue. Soon I saw a cavalier, richly dressed, young, and, methought, graceful to look on, advance. I hid myself yet closer. The youth approached; he paused beneath the window. She arose, and again looking ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... prospective proprietorship that he slipped into the high dog-cart which his uncle sent for him. He took the reins, naturally, into his own hands, and the servant seemed to sink naturally into his place beside him; and if, as he drove with a firm hand the high-stepping, well-groomed horse along the high-road, he felt his heart swell with pride and self congratulation, can ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... go to Liverpool, and we will never go home till you've had your after-cure in Holland." She was very firm in this, but she added, "We will stay another night, here, and go to the Hague tomorrow. Sit down, and let us talk ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... philosophy. Upon this we place the Dutch quartos of Descartes and Spinoza; then a third story of Schoolmen in folio—the Master of Sentences, Suarez, Picus Mirandula, and the Telemonian bulk of Thomas Aquinas; and when the whole architecture seems firm and compact, we finish our system of metaphysics by roofing the whole with Duval's enormous Aristotle. So far there is some pleasure—building up is something, but what is that to destroying? Thus thinks, at least, my little companion, who now, with the wrath of the Pythian Apollo, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... decidedly a handsome girl—handsome seems the word. She was rather large, well-proportioned, blooming in colour, with somewhat strikingly modeled features. She wore sleeves to her elbows, and her arms were round and firm. She sat in a nonchalant attitude in which her ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond

... grandfather and grandmother of Pierrette Lorrain, sold wood for building purposes, slates, tiles, pantiles, pipes, etc. Their business, either from their own incapacity or through ill-luck, did badly, and gave them scarcely enough to live on. The failure of the well-known firm of Collinet at Nantes, caused by the events of 1814 which led to a sudden fall in colonial products, deprived them of twenty-four thousand francs which they had just deposited with ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac

... into a design to emancipate the Slaves of the South. We are made to disregard this description of property, and to touch without reserve the rights of our neighbors. We are said to tread this almost forbidden ground with firm step, and a hardihood of effort is imputed to us, which, if true, might well excite the indignation of our southern citizens.—But, Sir, our Society and the friends of colonization wish to be distinctly understood upon this point. From the beginning they ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... the public attorney, M. Terray, hunting on his own property with two officers, meets a gang of poachers who fire on the game under their eyes, and soon afterwards fire on them. Terray is wounded and one of the officers has his coat pierced; guards arrive, but the poachers stand firm and repel them; dragoons are sent for and the poachers kill of these, along with three horses, and are attacked with sabers; four of them are brought to the ground and seven are captured.-Reports of the States-General show that every year, in ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... immediately below it. I walked round the outside of the ditch in twelve minutes. The upper hill, except in places where the rock is firm, is paved with large flat stones, similar to those of the castle of Aleppo: a number of these stones, as well as parts of the wall, have fallen down, and in many places have filled up the ditch to half its depth. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... laid a firm hand upon the muskrat's shoulder and started off along the edge of the lake. When they reached the opposite side Iktomi pried about in search ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa

... by the progressive and zealous Serbs of Hungary, who ever since the fifteenth century in increasing numbers made their home there, refugees from the oppression of the Turk, but who ever longed to push out from the frontier and rebuild Serbia anew. [Krizanic], a Croat Catholic Dalmatian priest, a firm believer in Jugo-Slav and Slavic unity in general, appealed to the rising Russian empire to ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,

... He was now sixty-two years of age, hale, and well proportioned,—with a manly countenance, tanned by the weather, yet having a ruddiness in his cheeks, over a great part of which his rough beard extended. His eye was quick and lively, yet his look was not fierce, but he appeared at once firm and good-humoured. He wore a pair of brogues[484],—Tartan hose which came up only near to his knees, and left them bare,—a purple camblet kilt[485],—a black waistcoat,—a short green cloth coat bound with gold cord,—a ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... terrible nor consoling thoughts, but of vague and wistful speculation. Here, again, Michelangelo is the disciple not so much of Dante as of the Platonists. Dante's belief in immortality is formal, precise, and firm, as much so almost as that of a child, who thinks the dead will hear if you cry loud enough. But in Michelangelo you have maturity, the mind of the grown man, dealing cautiously and dispassionately with serious things; and what hope he has is based on the consciousness of ignorance—ignorance ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater

... average is practically the same as for the failing graduates. Moreover, the failing non-graduates continue in school, even in the face of failure, much longer than do the non-failing non-graduates. That gives evidence of the same quality to which the manager of a New York business firm paid tribute when he said that he preferred to employ a high school graduate for the simple reason that the graduate had learned, by staying to graduate, how to 'stick to' ...
— The High School Failures - A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or - Commercial High School Subjects • Francis P. Obrien

... precious to me just now, Madame de Netteville. Besides, my firm conviction is that the upper class can produce a Brook Farm, but nothing more. The religious movement of the future will want a vast effusion of feeling and passion to carry it into action, and feeling and passion are only to be generated ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the powers of Europe will be continually manoeuvring with us to work us into their real or imaginary balances of power.... But I think that it ought to be our rule not to meddle." Washington's refusal to enter into an alliance with France and his firm insistence upon neutrality were inspired by this same fear. Jefferson's negotiations for the purchase of New Orleans were motivated by the fear that France, once in possession of the mouth of the Mississippi, would threaten ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... Monteagle, and was quite as good an actress as her brother was an actor. She possessed the power of assuming the most complete outward composure, as if nothing whatever were the matter, however adversely things might be going to her wishes. She had also a very quiet, very firm, very unmanageable will. Mr Abington was not at home; but that signified little, for the grey mare was unquestionably the superior ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... soft nose, too, that looked like a plump thumb, and moved up and down and to right and left when he was intent upon his work. He was the best-tempered man in the works, and seemed to me as if he was always laughing and showing his two rows of firm ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn

... Riedesel, in testimony of respect and affection for their late brave companion in arms joined the mournful procession which necessarily passed in view of both armies. The incessant cannonade, the steady attitude and unfaltering voice of the chaplain, and the firm demeanor of the company, though occasionally covered with the earth thrown up by the shot from the hostile batteries ploughing the ground around them, the mute expression of feeling pictured on every countenance, and the increasing gloom of the evening, all contributed to give an affecting ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... closely cropped hair is turning gray, and his face that of a man far advanced in the fifties, if not past sixty. And a striking face it is—long and oval, with a straight nose and fine nostrils, a broad forehead, and a firm, resolute mouth. His complexion, though it bears traces of age, is clear, healthy, and deeply bronzed. Save for a heavy gray mustache, he is clean shaved; his dark, keenly observant eyes are overshadowed by black and all ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall

... project, old chap, Around our two waists I will wrap This beautiful belt Of bottle-green felt And fasten it firm ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells

... things for me to think about and to arrange. I wanted some sort of accompaniment for my songs, and how to get it puzzled me for a time. But there was a firm in London that made pianos that heard of my coming trip, and solved that problem for me. They built, and they presented to me, the weest piano ever you saw—a piano so wee that it could be carried in an ordinary motor car. Only five octaves it had, but it was big enough, and sma' enough ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... clear that selection on these terms could only by a rare accident find the suitable men for sending abroad. And yet it is my firm conviction that I, or any other man possessing ordinary intelligence and insight into human character and experience of convict life, could, with the utmost ease, have selected from the inmates of our prisons a very large number for exportation, whom our ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... insulted. He resigned his position, arrogantly declaring that he would not work for a house where results were so little appreciated. He was cocksure of himself. However, when he offered his services to a competing firm, his application was turned down. The rebuff stunned him. He did not realize that his egotism disgusted the second executive as much as the first. The salesman's spirit was broken. He has never since been more than ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... a high authority, and a firm believer in the theory that glaciers or ice-sheets caused the ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... He could have gone at the hedge a yard or two on one side; he could have spoiled the chestnut's take-off and made him jump short. It might have brought him down—the hurdle was firm in the ground—but that would have been better than ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... tell you a falsehood, ma'am," she said at last, with a firm voice; "I was not on the road by chance; I came to follow you. I knew the man you had to guide you was unwilling to go, and I thought he would leave you, as he has done. And, besides, the road is ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... I, but no such copies of II, III. and V. Each of these is endorsed by James Primrose, Clerk of Council, is endorsed by Sprot, in faded ink, and is also endorsed in Sprot's ordinary everyday hand, very firm and ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang

... daily sacrifice, so the Mass ought to be a daily sacrifice of the New Testament. The adversaries have managed well if we permit ourselves to be overcome by allegories. It is evident, however, that allegories do not produce firm proofs [that in matters so highly important before God we must have a sure and clear word of God, and not introduce by force obscure and foreign passages, such uncertain explanations do not stand the test of God's judgment]. Although we indeed readily suffer the Mass to be understood as a ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... him on the path, the strong firm muscles of her frame holding her erect and still without effort of her will. The stillness of her pose, the fashionableness of gown and hat, and the broad display of her radiant hair, made a painful impression on Bates as he looked, but the impression on two ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... pent life rushes swift along Channels it used to know; Up, up, amid the wondering throng, She rises firm ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... difference!) "I could quite as well," he persisted, "have worked out the impulse which drove me to write, by taking Galileo, for instance, as my hero—assuming, of course, that Galileo should stand firm and never concede the fixity of the earth—or you yourself in your struggle with the Danish reactionaries." This is not to the point, since in fact neither Georg Brandes nor Galileo, as hero of a mystical drama, could have produced such a capacity for evolution ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... Aristotelian, partly because Coleridge had known what it was to be a great poet, the reference to life pervades the whole of what is permanently valuable in Coleridge's criticism. In him, too, there is a strict and mutually fertilising relation between the moral and the aesthetic values. This is the firm ground beneath his feet when he—too seldom—proceeds to the free exercise ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... wonderful girl, she is," said old Tozer. "Wind us all round her little finger, that's what she could do—leastways, except when there was principle in it, and there I stood firm. But I've done things for Phoebe as I wouldn't have done for no other breathing, and she knew it. I wouldn't give in to her tho' about church folks being just as good as them as is more enlightened. That's agin' reason. But I've done ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... corps, "and to these two gentlemen am I indebted for my life. Look at them well, and remember that they are my friends for life, and if you can ever benefit them in any way, you are to do it. They are Americans, and strangers in Ballarat, and must be protected in their business if every other firm is ruined. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... Aguinaldo is one of the most conspicuous of the Chinese mestizos. Individual examples might be multiplied without limit; it will be sufficient to mention Bautista Lim, president of the largest tobacco firm in the islands and also a physician; his brother, formerly an insurgent general and later governor of Sampango province under the American administration; the banker Lim Hap; Faustino Lechoco, cattle king of the ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... the question of slavery, would now have been a Free State within the American Union, the first trophy of legitimate popular sovereignty, and a great national party with Stephen A. Douglas at its head would have been existing and triumphant, standing upon firm constitutional ground, knowing no North and no South, but regarding and protecting equally the constitutional rights of ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton

... great principle of the preservation of useful variations in the struggle for life, not only thrown a flood of light on the process of development of the whole organic world, but also established a firm foundation for all future study of nature." ("Darwinism", London, 1889, page 9). See also Prof. Karl Pearson's "Grammar of Science" (2nd edition), London, 1900, page 32. See ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... was jerked with an energy that snapped the wire, but Rachel was immovable. Five minutes elapsed, and then Mrs. Smith fully aroused, from the lethargy that had stolen over her, came down with a quick, firm step. ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur

... getting soup and himself omitted, he demanded soup, and repeated, "If I dinna get it, I'll tell thon." Well, soup was given, and various other things yielded to his importunities, to which he always added the usual threat of "telling thon." At last, when it came to wine, his mother stood firm, and positively refused, as "a bad thing for little boys," and so on. He then became more vociferous than ever about "telling thon;" and as still he was refused, he declared, "Now, I will tell thon," and at last roared out, "Ma ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... Pierres Couvertes, and is similar in construction to the large one, but not a quarter its size. Its position is most picturesque, and the landscape spread out before its rugged arch exquisite. It is covered in, and its walls are firm and close; though, from its exposed situation, one would expect that it must long ago have fallen. Remains of large stones lie around, partly covered with vegetation, and many, no doubt, are embedded in the earth. Perhaps the two temples ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... went back to review the scene of the killing. There were plenty of tracks around the place. The gravel obscured a great part of the marks, and still other prints were blurred by the dead grass. But there were pockets of rich, loamy soil, moist enough and firm enough to take an impression as clearly as paper takes ink. The sheriff removed the right shoe from the foot of Sandersen and made a ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... Then tenderly he speaks: "Alas! for all thy valor, comrade dear! Year after year, day after day, a life Of love we led; ne'er didst thou wrong to me, Nor I to thee. If death takes thee away, My life is but a pain." While speaking thus, The Marchis faints on Veillantif, his steed. But still firm in his stirrups of pure gold: Where'er Rolland may ride, ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier

... claim to be the first of our historians rests upon two little books, both printed by a well known publishing firm in Market Square, in the City of St. John, in the early years of the last century. The first of these books appeared in 1825. It comprises 110 pages, written in excellent literary style and, considering Mr. Fisher's limited sources of information, is remarkably accurate. In the preface ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher

... Canadian, his wrinkled face tender with solicitous interest, and he chuckled when he welcomed the new member of the firm. ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... pale with joy, and in a not very firm voice, "People would be very proud of me in my country," said he, "if I were a marechal of France; but a man must have commanded an expedition in chief to obtain ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... be forgiven for sinking at the sight, but Mr Beveridge merely turned to his now firm friends and said with his easiest air, "On the opposite platform I perceive one of my runaway lunatics. Bring a couple of stout porters as quickly as you can, for he is a person of much strength and address. My name," he drew ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston

... dry to the root of my tongue. I dropped the reins and whirled around in the saddle. Ump, whose knee was against El Mahdi's flank, reached over and caught me by the shoulder. The grip of his hand was firm and steady, and it brought me back to my senses, but his face will not be whiter when they lay him finally in the little chapel at ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post

... a gap in the hedge by this particular corner, thinking to laugh at Aaron's voice, for he milked there and sang to the cows, when she saw him sitting on the three-legged milking-stool, stooping in the attitude of milking, with the bucket between his knees, but firm asleep, and quite alone in his glory. He had had too much ale, and dropped asleep while milking the last cow, and the herd had left him and marched away in stately single file down to the pond, as they always drink after the milking. ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies

... such "knacked bals" in Cornwall, with their iron "bobs"— horizontal, depressed, or raised aloft, according to the attitude in which they expired—holding forth similar firm, silent, and perpetual protests and cautions. Many Wheal Dooems (which having accomplished their ends may now be termed Wheal Donems) are to be seen all over the country on gorse-clad hills and on bold headlands; but, alongside of these, may be seen their venerable ancestors, still ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... against us: now humility casts them down. You have also seen many women turn from their vanity to simplicity; vicious youths who are now improved and conduct themselves in a new way. Many, indeed, have received this doctrine with humility. That doctrine has stood firm, no matter how attacked with the intention of showing that it was a doctrine opposed to Christ. God does that to manifest His wisdom, to show how it finally overcomes all other wisdom. And He is willing that His servants be spoken against that they may show their patience and ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various

... with a distinct recognition of the Divine character, and a conscious sense of God's scrutiny, paradoxical as it may appear, is the surest means of producing a firm conviction in a guilty mind that God is merciful, and is the swiftest way of finding Him to be so. Opposed as the Divine nature is to sin, abhorrent as iniquity is to the pure mind of God, it is nevertheless a fact, that that sinner who goes directly into this Dread Presence ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... acceptance of her future rule and an abiding trust in her sense and strength, which included the details of the light work that employed her rather luxurious leisure. Jombateeste himself came to Cynthia with his mending, and her needle kept him tight and firm against the winter which it amused Westover to realize was the Canuck's native element, insomuch that there was now something incongruous in the notion of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... enabled Senator Durham to turn a cool hundred thousand. "He'll be down here to-morrow to watch over his stocks! I must wait and see him before I go West. Besides, I must see Witherspoon and give him his cue. He knows nothing! He searched the Detroit title and never even made a kick. His firm passed on the whole matter. I need him to carry out ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... very seriously to Nat. She had told him about Dorothy's message from the strange woman, and he had suggested that the handwriting expert might in some way be connected with the Chicago firm to which Tavia had written, and through which she had made ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose

... conscious of the greatness and excellence of the State, and anxious that the Church should not provoke its jealousy, and in urging her claims should "take her stand, as to all matters of substance and principle, on the firm ground of history and law." It makes his judgment on the present state of things more solemn, and his conviction of the necessity of amending it more striking, when they are those of one so earnest for conciliation and peace. But on constitutional not less than on other grounds, he pronounces ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... fini. Fir abio. Fire fajro. Fire, to set on ekflamigi. Fire-dog kamenstableto. Fire-engine brulpumpilo. Firing (guns, etc.) pafado. Fireman (stoker) hejtisto. Fireplace kameno. Fireside hejmo. Firework fajrajxo, artfajrajxo. Firm (fast) firma. Firm (strong) fortika. Firm (comm.) firmo. Firmness fortikeco. Firmament cxielo. First unua. Firstly unue. Firtree pinarbo. Fisc fisko. Fiscal fiska. Fish fisxo. Fish fisxkapti. Fisher ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... telegram aside while a shadowy smile hovered about his firm lips. Then he settled himself back in his chair, and gave himself up to the thoughtful contemplation of the brilliant sunlight, and the perfect, steely azure of the sky beyond ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... between these kingdoms, denied in former times to our progenitors, is, by the good providence of GOD, granted unto us, and hath been lately concluded and settled by both Parliaments; we shall each one of us, according to our place and interest, endeavour that they may remain conjoined in a firm peace and union to all posterity; and that justice may be done upon the wilful opposers thereof, in manner expressed in ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... and firm of purpose, she intently watched its coming on, until it was very near; then, with a touch unshipped her sculls, and crept aft in the boat, between kneeling and crouching. Once, she let the body evade her, not being ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... can see in the French Government only a power regardless of their essential rights, of their independence and sovereignty; and if they possess the means they can reconcile nothing with their interest and honor but a firm resistance. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson

... spake the hag And through redoubled night, a squalid veil Swathing her pallid features, stole among Unburied carcases. Fast fled the wolves, The carrion birds with maw unsatisfied Relaxed their talons, as with creeping step She sought her prophet. Firm must be the flesh As yet, though cold in death, and firm the lungs Untouched by wound. Now in the balance hung The fates of slain unnumbered; had she striven Armies to raise and order back to life Whole ranks of warriors, the laws had failed Of Erebus; and, summoned up from ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... The most abundant and conspicuous of these western forms are the long-crested jays, so called on account of the long tuft of black feathers adorning the occiput. This distinguishing mark is not like the firm pyramidal crest of the eastern jay, but is longer and narrower, and so flexible that it sways back and forth as the bird flits from branch to branch or takes a hop-skip-and-jump over the ground. Its owner can raise and lower ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... and the firm pressure of his hand reassured her. Her father had said to her a few hours before that Forde would take her refusal "like a man," and she had replied that ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke

... the total inadequacy of the tragic climax, measure the author's power as a dramatist. It is the lyrical passages—Aristeo's song, Orfeo's impassioned pleading, the bacchanalian dance chorus—that supply the firm supports of art upon which rests the slight ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... Bultitude's trials, that former forgotten words and deeds of his in his original condition were constantly turning up at critical seasons, and plunging him deeper into the morass just when he saw some prospect of gaining firm ground. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... nightmare; there was nothing spooky to him in the glittering knife blade, and only ghosts and the supernatural could give Big Pete the nightmare. Calmly he looked at the hand grasping the power of death with its strong tapering fingers. Suddenly and in a firm, commanding voice he gave the ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... diameter, and running through the center are seven bright copper wires, surrounded by a hard, dark brown substance, the nature of which you do not immediately recognize. It is gutta-percha, the wonderful vegetable juice, which is as firm as a rock while it is cold and as soft as dough when it is exposed to heat. This is inclosed within several strands of Manilla hemp, with ten iron wires woven among them. The hemp is saturated with tar to resist water, and the wires are galvanized ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various

... himself accredited from God. He drew closer towards the voluntary martyr beside him, the humbleness of his reverential love for his elder brother mingling in that voice of the priest, which was natural to him, and which he did not scruple to adopt. "Gerald,—your wife," he said, in softened but firm tones, laying his hand on his brother's arm. And it was at this moment, when in his heart he felt that his influence might be of some avail, and when all the powers of his mind were gathering to bear upon this last experiment, that the ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... a full-grown male grizzly who had become a notorious raider. At the psychological moment Jones lassoed him in short order, getting a firm hold on the bear's left hind leg. Quickly the end of the rope was thrown over a limb of the nearest tree, and in a trice Ephraim found himself swinging head downward between the heavens and the earth. ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... I tread upon firm pavements into the centre of the town. Here there is almost as brilliant an illumination as when some great victory has been won, either on the battle-field or at the polls. Two rows of shops, with windows down nearly to the ground, cast a glow from side to side, while the black night hangs ...
— Beneath An Umbrella (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... 1. That the Constitution of the United States is a compact or contract. 2. That to this contract each state is a party; that is, the united states are equal partners in a great political firm. So far they agree; but at this point they differ. The Kentucky Resolutions assert that when any question arises as to the right of Congress to pass any law, each state may decide this question for itself and apply any remedy it likes. The Virginia Resolutions declare that the states ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... sheet of water some four and a half miles long, but, the dam at its end having given way in July, it had drained off rapidly; and when I had crossed it in November of the same year, the mud of its bed was only just becoming firm and was cracked and fissured in every direction. It was now covered with a sheet of snow, through which the river twined dark ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon

... most essential condition of true happiness," writes Professor Carl Hilty, the eminent Swiss jurist, "is a firm faith in the moral order of the world. What is the happy life? It is a life of conscious harmony with this Divine order of the world, a sense, that is to say, of God's companionship. And wherein is the profoundest unhappiness? ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke

... the midst of an avalanche of lucrative orders promising a brilliant winter season she took it into her head to withdraw her husband from the firm, in which he was a silent partner. Her decision was apparently based on the extreme efforts she had once seen me making to raise five hundred dollars. As a matter of fact, this was due to the rapidity of our growth. I lacked capital. But then my credit was growing, too, and altogether things ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... a great deal of obloquy for dragging monarchs, princes, and the respected nobility into the Snob category, I trust to please everybody in the present chapter, by stating my firm opinion that it is among the RESPECTABLE classes of this vast and happy empire that the greatest profusion of Snobs is to be found. I pace down my beloved Baker Street, (I am engaged on a life of ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... I went into business—save the mark—taking the exalted position of entry clerk in a wholesale drygoods house in Boston. As entry clerk I did not shine, but I continued to keep the place until the firm failed—whether or not because of my connection with it I am not sure, though I doubt if my services were sufficiently important to contribute toward even this result. A month later I obtained another position and, after ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... yesterday to embark at Little West Beach, at the north point of Suvla Bay. We were there at 7.30 p.m. and were to embark at 8. It was a weary trudge, for we were heavily laden, along the very edge of the bay to take advantage of the narrow strip of firm sand that gets washed by the "tideless Mediterranean". Our four Battalions were present, and after some delay over our baggage, all which was finally got on board, the great lumbering barge, which had 400 men ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... of cassia had a different power of refraction from water, and the white of an egg still a different power. He discovered also that the first lens of the eye, the aqueous humor, is very like water; that the crystalline lens is a firm jelly, and that the vitreous humor is about the consistency of the white of an egg. The combination of these three lenses, of different powers of refraction, secures the correction of their separate errors. He could not make telescope lenses of jelly, nor water; therefore, he could not make a ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... reconstructed by giants. I am, however, thinking not of the "skyscrapers" only. I am thinking rather of buildings, lofty indeed, but not tower-like, such as certain clubs, blocks of residential flats, or business premises in Fifth Avenue—such, for instance, as those of the great firm of Tiffany. Though metal frameworks are, no doubt, embedded in these, the stonework is structurally true to the strains of the metal which it incases, and the stones of the rusticated bases might have been hewn and put together by Titans. We have more here than an ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... therefore, who decided to abandon the seafaring life. Worked upon by the suggestions of his cousins, it needed only a little dispute with one of the directors of the shipping firm to make him hand in his resignation, and refuse to reconsider it, although urged by the protests and entreaties of ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... their touching unanimity. The debate lay between the United States as voiced by Mr. Wilson and Great Britain as represented by Mr. Lloyd George. On the morrow, before the conversation was renewed, a colleague adjured the British Premier to stand firm, urging that his contention of the previous day was just in the abstract and beneficial to the Empire as well. Mr. Lloyd George bowed to the force of these motives, but yielded to the greater force of Mr. Wilson's resolve. "Put it to the test," urged the colleague. "I dare not," was the rejoinder. ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... last, was all astir about them and full of sudden bustle and tumult. And ever the clamour of voices waxed upon the misty air from hurrying groups dim-seen that flitted by, arming as they ran, and ever the fifty and five, crouching in the dark, impatient for the sign, watched Beltane—his firm-set lip, his frowning brow; and ever from belching arrow-slit the curling smoke-wreaths waxed blacker and more dense. Of a sudden, out from the narrow sally-port burst a huddle of choking men, whose gasping cries pierced high ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol



Words linked to "Firm" :   publishing company, auction house, corp, dealer, hard, concern, business concern, faithful, resolute, tighten, business organisation, healthy, business organization, settled, business, publishing house, forceful, fasten, corporation, consulting company, stable, publisher, fixed, secure



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