"Imaginary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was standing near, seemingly engaged in the light occupation of catching imaginary flies, buzzing with his motions. As Leicester disappeared he looked from under his arm at Lempriere. "If a bird will not stop for the salt to its tail, then the salt is damned, Nuncio; and you must cry David! and get thee to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... best he should die, only unfortunately I cannot die unless I kill myself,—which it is possible I may do ere long. But in the meantime,"—he hesitated a moment, then went on, "in the meantime, I have a strong wish to be deluded—I use the word advisedly, and repeat it—DELUDED into an imaginary happiness, though I am aware that as an agnostic and searcher after truth—truth absolute, truth positive—such a desire on my part seems even to myself inconsistent and unreasonable. Still I confess to having it; and therein, I know, I betray the weakness of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... volume condensation of the Frederick gives a good idea of Carlyle's method of combining biography and history. Carlyle outlived all his contemporaries—a lonely old man, full of bitter remorse over imaginary neglect of his wife, and full also of despair over the democratic tendencies of the age, which he regarded as the ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... night with all its stars, and watching all, the shepherd, with unslumbering eye. In the fold is rest for the weary limbs that have been plodding through valleys of the shadow of death, and dusty ways; peace for the panting hearts that are trembling at every danger, real and imaginary. Inside the fold is tranquillity, repose for the wearied frame, safety, and the companionship of the Shepherd; and without, ravening foes and a dreary wilderness, and flinty paths and sparse herbage and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of the lines of the exclusive fisheries from the common fisheries will give certainty and security as to the area of their legitimate field. The headland theory of imaginary lines is abandoned by Great Britain, and the specification in the treaty of certain named bays especially provided for gives satisfaction to the inhabitants of the shores, without subtracting materially from the value or convenience of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... needed to suffer and to struggle. He sometimes dreamed of hanging there himself, in Jesus's place, his head crowned with thorns, nails driven through his hands and feet, and his side rent by spears. What a coward he must be to complain of an imaginary wound, when God bled there from His whole body, and yet preserved on His lips the blessed smile of the Redemption! And however unworthy it might be, he offered up his wound as a sacrifice, ended by falling ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... have asserted, without the slightest foundation, that a pardon was granted to Ferguson by James. Some have been so absurd as to cite this imaginary pardon, which, if it were real would prove only that Ferguson was a court spy, in proof of the magnanimity and benignity of the prince who beheaded Alice Lisle and burned Elizabeth Gaunt. Ferguson was not only not specially pardoned, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... which might be desirable to him. She had heard of people being confined in private mad-houses, through the conspiracy of relatives who coveted their property. Thus far she had believed these stories to be wholly imaginary, but now she began to believe them true. Her own case had shown her the possibility of unjust and illegal imprisonment, and she had not yet been able to find out any mode of escape. This place seemed now to be her future ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... was somewhat strange. He pretended to be holding a baby, cuddling an imaginary child in his arms. Then he tossed the non-existent little one up in the air, and ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... made for Constantinople, whose long array of marble domes and gilded spires gleamed like a far mirage over the waveless sea. It was too faint and distant and dazzling to be substantial. It was like one of those imaginary cities which we build in a cloud fused in the light of the setting sun. But as we neared the point of Chalcedon, running along the Asian shore, those airy piles gathered form and substance. The pinnacles of the Seraglio shot up from the midst ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... the exasperating tactfulness of a woman checking a flirtation; a smile like an airy pat on the arm. She sighed, "You're a dear to let me tell you my imaginary troubles." She bounced up, and trilled, "Shall we take the pop-corn in ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... of the natives; another class insists that he has his foot upon the neck of the poor Hindu and is grinding his brown face into the dust. In both England and India are organizations of good people who have conceived it to be their mission to defend and protect the natives from real or imaginary wrongs they are suffering, while there are numerous societies and associations whose business is to see that the Englishman gets ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... a little, bilious-looking personage, who, to use the master's phraseology, was never quite happy unless he was damned miserable. He was full of misfortunes and grievances, and always complaining or laughing, at his real or imaginary disasters; but his complaint would often end in a laugh, or his mirth terminate in a whine. You never could exactly say whether he was in joke or in earnest. There was such a serio-comic humour about him that one side of his countenance ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... adopted sister, he wished to discover, to claim, and restore to the household; but Salome, his wife,—was a monstrous imaginary incubus ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... imaginary crimes, attributed to individuals or townships, or without even taking the trouble to discover any kind of pretext, the Germans often, especially after looting, set everything on fire so as to make all traces disappear. Sometimes, as at Courtacon, they compelled ...
— Their Crimes • Various
... not credible that they can obtain the same materials, it must be expected they will supply from invention the want of intelligence; and that under the title of "The Life of Savage," they will publish only a novel, filled with romantick adventures, and imaginary amours. You may therefore, perhaps, gratify the lovers of truth and wit, by giving me leave to inform them in your Magazine, that my account will be published in 8vo. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... Giblett, Sir John Sebright, Youatt, Druce, Lord Weston, and other eminent breeders, as finding from experience that close interbreeding does produce bad effects; and it cannot be supposed that there would be such a consensus of opinion on this point if the evil were altogether imaginary. Mr. Huth argues, that the evil results which do occur do not depend on the close interbreeding itself, but on the tendency it has to perpetuate any constitutional weakness or other hereditary taints; and he attempts to prove this by the argument that "if crosses act ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... she was engaged to a young architect. He, with his triangles and T-squares and things, succeeded in making an imaginary scale-drawing of her heart (up to that time a virgin forest, an unmapped territory), which enabled him to enter in and set up a pedestal there, on which he has remained ever since. He has been only a memory for many years, to be sure, ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... on he watched him keenly and earnestly. He heeded not the oaths, or the taunts, or the threats which flowed from his lips; but as word followed word, and gesture gesture, and look look, he became gradually convinced that the resemblance was more than imaginary—that, indeed, this blaspheming convict was one whom he had ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... orbit and the imaginary line called the equator are not substance. The earth's motion and position are sustained by Mind alone. Divest 90:9 yourself of the thought that there can be sub- stance in matter, and the movements and transitions now possible for mortal mind will be found to be equally 90:12 possible for the ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... would like to see it while it was still on the loom. So, accompanied by a number of selected courtiers, among whom were the two faithful officials who had already seen the imaginary stuff, he went to visit the crafty impostors, who were working away as hard as ever they could at ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... dishonour. It was with a sort of grim pleasure that he got up after this and lighted a candle, which shone strangely yellow and smoky in the clear September sunshine. "I'll balk them," he said to himself, with fierce satisfaction, as if those respectable imaginary executors of his had been ill-natured gossips bent on exposing him. And he burnt the papers one by one at his candle, watching the last fibre of each fade away in redness and then in blackness, ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... seldom soa heavy 'at we connot bear em, tho it may be hard wark, but when we're a bit cast daan, we dooant freeat hawf as mich abaat what we have to put up wi, as to what's gooin to happen. Imaginary evils are allus war to bide nor th' ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... summing up, for no careful trial lawyer opens a case without first having prepared, to some extent, at least, his closing address to the jury. He has thought about this for weeks and perhaps for months. In his dreams he has formulated syllogisms and delivered them to imaginary yet obstinate talesman. He has glanced through many volumes for similes and quotations of pertinency. He has tried various arguments on his friends until he knows just how, if he succeeds in proving certain facts and the ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... figure supposed to represent him. Or a contact, even merely passing by, was believed to have created indestructible affinities, for instance where the garments of an absent person were operated upon. Often, also, these imaginary relations were founded on reasons that escape us: like the qualities attributed by astrology to the stars, they may have been derived from old beliefs the ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... succeeded in making his age think, he did succeed in making it smile. He never attacked it in front, nor with his face uncovered, in order that he might not set the laws in array against him; and to avoid the fate of Servetius, he, the modern AEsop, attacked under imaginary names the tyranny which he wished to destroy. He concealed his hate in history, the drama, light poetry, romance, and even in jests. His genius was a perpetual allusion, comprehending all his age, but ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... a succession of these imaginary potentates, from the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, the Jews have ever been strenuous in maintaining, partly to aggrandize their nation, and partly to deprive Christians of the benefit of an argument furnished by the prophecy of Jacob, concerning the termination ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... the Phoenix because, after bewailing my unhappy lot, I proceeded to predict how she would afterwards give her heart to a mortal whose qualities would make him deserve the name of Phoenix. A hundred lines were taken up in the description of these imaginary mental and moral characteristics, and certainly the being who should have them all would be right worthy of worship, for he would be rather a god than ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... which arise from verbal contract, and no others, for it seemed only natural that where words can bind words may also loose: but a debt due from any other cause may be transformed into a debt by stipulation, and then released by an imaginary verbal payment or acceptilation. So, too, as a debt can be lawfully discharged in part, so acceptilation may be made ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... "The intellectual background of our time is Agnosticism, and the reply which faith makes to Agnosticism is couched in terms of the immanence of God." [1] Dr. Horton's meaning will grow clearer to us if we once more glance at our imaginary diagram, letting the smaller figure a, the sphere of immanence, stand for our universe. If the sphere of God's being lay altogether outside the universe, i.e., outside the radius of our knowledge—if He, in other ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... orange-golden glow of the Numidian stone of "giallo antico"; the Carystian marble or "cipollino" with its onion-like layers of white and pale-green; the serpentine variety from Laconia, and the porphyry from Egypt. We might descant upon the lavish wall-paintings, representing landscapes real and imaginary, scenes from mythology and semi-history, floating figures, genre pictures, and pictures of still life; or upon the mosaics in floor and wall depicting similar subjects and often serving to the occupants not so much in the place of pictorial ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... and dozens of items are administered with the same spirit of jealous guardianship by Day, Lashly, Oates and Meares, while our main storekeeper Bowers even affects to bemoan imaginary shortages. Such parsimony is the best guarantee that we are prepared to ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... insurrections. Many a matron throughout the South retires at night in dread of what may befall herself and children before the morning. Should this apprehension of domestic danger, whether real or imaginary, extend and intensify itself until it shall pervade the masses of the Southern people, then disunion will become inevitable. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and has been implanted in the heart of man by his Creator for the wisest purpose; and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... treated him with that complacency which is the most engaging quality in a wife. But all this is perfectly compatible with his fondness for her, especially when it is remembered that he had a high opinion of her understanding, and that the impressions which her beauty, real or imaginary, had originally made upon his fancy, being continued by habit, had not been effaced, though she herself was doubtless much altered for the worse. The dreadful shock of separation took place in the night; and he immediately dispatched ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... marble, nor wrought in clay, a more vivid likeness than this, cunning a bust-maker as you think yourself. The portraiture is perfect in character, sentiment, and feature. If it were a picture, the resemblance might be half illusive and imaginary; but here, in this Pentelic marble, it is a substantial fact, and may be tested by absolute touch and measurement. Our friend Donatello is the very Faun of Praxiteles. Is ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Veitel Itzig; and, having concocted his plans, he locked his door, threw himself down exhausted on his hard bed, the imaginary possessor of ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Principle of Cause and Effect has been accepted as correct by practically all the thinkers of the world worthy of the name. To think otherwise would be to take the phenomena of the universe from the domain of Law and Order, and to relegate it; to the control of the imaginary something which ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... the aforesaid pattern, The unexpected palms Destroying, certainly, the artist's urge, Left him delighted with the imaginary ...
— Hugh Selwyn Mauberley • Ezra Pound
... with my editor to be dealt with at his discretion. My view is, you understand, that I am not entitled to suppress it on the strength of a mere possibility that presents itself to my imagination. But if I gather from you—and I can gather it from no other person—that there is substance in that imaginary possibility I speak of, then I have only one thing to do as a gentleman and as one who'—he hesitated for a phrase—'wishes you well. I shall not publish that dispatch of mine. In some directions I decline to assist the police. Have you followed me so far?' he asked with a touch ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... of the superior moral sense of woman. It is superior in spots but not as a whole.... Here is an imaginary case which will show how undeveloped in some respects woman's moral sense still is: Suppose a train was coming with a children's picnic on board—three hundred merry, laughing children. Suppose you saw this train was about to go through ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... twenty feet in length should bisect the circle to separate the territory for the players. In addition to the circle and line, two spots should be marked on the ground, from which the ball is served. These should be at the ends of an imaginary line crossing the first line at right angles, and should be six feet from the pole, one on ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... their daily practice for all the aches and pains, coughs and colds, inflammations and consumptions, fevers and chills, at the hour of birth and at the time of death, and all intermediate points of life, to induce sleep and to promote wakefulness, and for all real or imaginary ills." ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... were pleased with the neighbors, from whom they had trade for their furs, and could procure spirituous liquors and other articles, which tended to the gratification of their real or imaginary wants. And they were required to surrender larger and larger portions of their domain, and at last, the removal of families from the neighborhood of their long cherished memories of the graves of their ancestors, ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... painting of these scenes from real life, he passed gradually to the painting of things purely imaginary—to those visible only ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... much boasted (supposing them real) could not give him joy, but only in proportion as they should be made subservient to an advantageous peace: he then undertook to prove, that the mighty exploits, on which they insisted so much, were wholly chimerical and imaginary. "I have cut to pieces," says he (continuing Mago's speech,) "the Roman armies: send me some troops.—What more could you ask had you been conquered? I have twice seized upon the enemy's camp, full (no doubt) of provisions of every kind.—Send me provisions and money.—Could you ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... happiness. The passions of men are influenced to so fearful an extent, large masses are so embittered against each other, that I dread the consequences.... Age is, perhaps, unreasonably timid. Certain it is that I now dread consequences that I once thought imaginary. I feel disposed to take refuge under some less turbulent and less dangerous mode of choosing the Chief Magistrate." Then follows the suggestion that the people of the United States elect a body of persons equal in number to one-third of the Senate and that the President be chosen ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... my mind running on the end of de Barral, on the irresistible pressure of imaginary griefs, crushing conscience, scruples, prudence, under their ever-expanding volume; on the sombre and venomous irony in the obsession which had ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... These imaginary terrors gave way to real ones soon enough. The execution of Louis was followed by the declaration of war between France and England and the complete demoralization of the French people, especially of the Parisians. The feeling against England grew daily more ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... you know that I did not expect you to accept my offer, which, after all, was merely imaginary. Now, can you not see that what you fear is men's opinions rather than danger? You are not intimidated at the prospect ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... chicks will bring I can buy a new dress to wear instead of the ragged one I have on." At this moment she looked down at herself, trying to think how she would look in her new dress; but as she did so the pail of milk slipped from her head and dashed upon the ground. Thus all her imaginary schemes perished ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... without any romantic appeals in their behalf, by concealing the truth, or by warping the truth until it becomes falsehood. In the following pages he has depicted the Gypsies as he has found them, neither aggravating their crimes nor gilding them with imaginary virtues. He has not expatiated on 'their gratitude towards good people, who treat them kindly and take an interest in their welfare'; for he believes that of all beings in the world they are the least susceptible of such a feeling. Nor has he ever done them injustice by attributing to them ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... and, by a heavy bribe, consisting of a kettle, an axe, and a knife, he succeeded in enlisting the services of one of the Indians as a guide. That the terror of the Far North professed by these Indians, or at any rate the terror of going there in strange company, was not wholly imaginary was made plain from the conduct of the guide. When the time came to depart he showed every sign of anxiety and fear: he sought in vain to induce his friends to take his place: finding that he must go, ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... live in a mysterious land of weird dreams, in that impenetrable cloud of dementia where all that they have witnessed in their previous life, all they have loved, is reproduced for them in an imaginary existence, outside of all laws that govern the things of this life ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... afterwards circulated as to how a bleeding calf's head, wrapped in a napkin, was thrown out of the window, while the merrymakers within drank all kinds of confusion to the Stuart race. According to the narrative of one who was in the tavern, the calf's head business was wholly imaginary. Nor was the date of the dinner a matter of prearrangement. It seems that the start of the commotion was occasioned by some of the company inside observing that some boys outside had made a bonfire, which, in their hilarity, they were anxious to emulate. ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... of noble and affectionate praises and appreciations of our old boastful big Standard-Bearer, now gone silent forever, his real and imaginary battles all fought, his work done, his life honorably ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... In California's imaginary Hall of Fame, Bret Harte must be accorded a prominent, if not first place. His short stories and dialect poems published fifty years ago made California well known the world over and gave it a romantic interest conceded no other community. He saw the picturesque and he made the world ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... strong tower' and 'the strong city'; the man lifted up above danger on the battlements of the one, and the man fancying himself to be high above it (and only fancying himself) in the imaginary ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... years of this period some rays of improvement shone out. To end the reign of Owen's misleading types and imaginary archetypes, there arose a wielder of two potent words, "morphology" and "biology," the sciences of form and of life, who showed that differences of adult form grew out of likeness and simplicity in the young; and that the life of plants and animals was one science, their study ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... who dally with the cold substance of that monstrous water-lily that Reason has planted in the hearts of our cities; I beg of you, if by some chance this obscure book falls into your hands, do not smile with noble disdain, do not shrug your shoulders; do not be too sure that I complain of an imaginary evil; do not be too sure that human reason is the most beautiful of faculties, that there is nothing real here below but quotations on the Bourse, gambling in the salon, wine on the table, a healthy body, indifference toward ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... The student of modern heraldry would not regard this as a dragon at all, but merely a gryphon or griffin. A recent writer on heraldry has complained that, "in spite of frequent corrections, this creature is persistently confused in the popular mind with the dragon, which is even more purely imaginary."[176] But the investigator of the early history of these wonder-beasts is compelled, even at the risk of incurring the herald's censure, to regard the gryphon as one of the earliest known tentative efforts at dragon-making. But though the fish, the falcon or eagle, ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... which every Scot is saturated, and the result was neither peace nor charity. Personally the lad was kindly and good-natured, intellectually he had become arrogant, intolerant, acrid, flinging out at old-fashioned views, giving quite unnecessary challenges, arguing with imaginary antagonists. It has ever seemed to me, although I suppose that history is against me, that if it be laid on any one to advocate a new view that will startle people, he ought of all men to be conciliatory and persuasive; but Carmichael was, at least in this time of fermentation, ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... I give you to wit by all the law's pains and penalties that no man stand in my way, unless he thinks he has lived long enough. For the man that does stand in my way shall stand on his head. (squares off and delivers lusty blows at imaginary passers-by) ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... of longitude sailed there is four minutes' difference of clock-time," Scott proceeded. "You know that a chronometer is a timepiece so nicely constructed and cared for, that it practically keeps perfect time. Meridians are imaginary great circles, and we are always on one of them. With our sextants we find when the centre of the sun is on the celestial meridian corresponding to the terrestrial one; and at that instant it is noon where we are. Then we know what time it is. We compare the time thus obtained with that indicated ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... off. He stood there for a moment, feeling depressed and betrayed. Automatically he reached down and flicked imaginary dust from his blue sleeve with its narrow solitary gold band. Ten minutes later the Gypsy's ...
— No Moving Parts • Murray F. Yaco
... be mentioned before passing to the consideration of our illustrations is that every one of the thought-forms here given is drawn from life. They are not imaginary forms, prepared as some dreamer thinks that they ought to appear; they are representations of forms actually observed as thrown off by ordinary men and women, and either reproduced with all possible care and fidelity by those who have seen them, or with the help of ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... with prayers for the death of an old Fellow of College who disliked their movement, or as they certainly do when patriots are telling how short a time the prayers took to the killing of him. I have seen a crowd, when certain Dublin papers had wrought themselves into an imaginary loyalty, so possessed by what seemed the very genius of satiric fantasy, that one all but looked to find some feathered heel among the cobble stones. Part of the delight of crowd or individual is always that somebody will be angry, somebody take the sport for gloomy earnest. ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... were bestowed upon him. As the boy became convalescent Ilbrahim contrived games suitable to his situation or amused him by a faculty which he had perhaps breathed in with the air of his barbaric birthplace. It was that of reciting imaginary adventures on the spur of the moment, and apparently in inexhaustible succession. His tales were, of course, monstrous, disjointed and without aim, but they were curious on account of a vein of human tenderness which ran through them all and was like a sweet familiar face encountered ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... having got rid of an imaginary speck of rust that had troubled his soul, replaced the bolt, and was putting away the oil rag, when there was a sharp stifled gasp, followed by a slithering fall, and Captain Dashwood lay in a heap ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... married himself, found no difficulty in getting his brother, Comte Guillaume, a poor officer of the marine troops, to accept the post of husband. In the marriage-contract, signed on 23d July, 1768, she was described as "the daughter of Anne Becu and of an imaginary first husband, Sieur Jean Jacques Gomard de Vaubernier," and three years were taken off her age. The marriage-contract was so drawn as to leave Madame du Barry entirely free from all control by her husband. The marriage was solemnised ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... or rather Madame Strahlberg, had leaped over an imaginary barrier and came dancing toward the company, shaking her large sleeves and settling her little snake-like head in her large quilled collar, dragging after her the Hungarian, who seemed not very willing. ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... according to the real amount of weight they and their errand have? OR, English to have their ears torn off; and imperious French-Spanish Bourbons, grounding on extinct Pope's-meridians, GLOIRE and other imaginary bases, to take command?" The incalculable Yankee Nations, shall they be in effect YANGKEE ("English" with a difference), or FRANGCEE ("French" with a difference)? A Question not to be closed by Diplomatic putty, try as ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... causing some confusion and disorder. But, in addition to these natural drawbacks, the new order of things had to contend with certain national elements in the population, which, feeling themselves injured in their real or imaginary interests, were bent on mischief, hoping to be able to rob the nation, in the midst of the ensuing troubles, of the great political prize she had won. Certain circles of the court and classes of the people strove equally hard to surround with difficulties ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... third man, remembering that he was a philosopher, concluded that he was wasting his imaginary time in hearing this ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... of things about nine o'clock this evening, for one real attempt to enter the house, invariably gives rise to a thousand imaginary attacks and ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... Haldane; quite so," chuckled Spokeshave, as pleased as Punch at the imaginary compliment. "I do believe I could teach Irving a thing or two if I had the ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... difficult to stay the hand in making extracts, but a few must suffice. In one the First Consul is styled "the new Moses," and there is a list of his Ten Commandments; in another there is a Catechism as to who is Buonaparte, with not very flattering answers. In others there are sketches of the imaginary entry of Napoleon with graphic scenes of pillage, &c., and again adaptations of ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... intended to make, but the very language in which he meant to offer them. As he formed sentences, almost for the first time, his courage and his fancy alike warmed: his sanguine spirit sympathised with the nobility of the imaginary scene, and inspirited the ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... directed to me, yet I take myself to be only an imaginary person; for, although I conjecture I had formerly one from you, yet I never answered it otherwise than in print; neither was I at a loss to know the reasons why so many people of this kingdom were transporting themselves to America. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... man at least has understood him, Walter Pater. Readers of his Imaginary Portraits need not be reminded of A Prince of Court Painters, that imaginative reconstruction of an almost obscure personality. "His words as he spoke of them [the paintings of Rubens] seemed full ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... judge of the goodness of a lens? A country gentleman, like myself, may purchase a lens from an eminent house, with an assurance that it is everything that can be desired (and I am not putting an imaginary case), and may succeed in getting beautiful images upon his focussing-glass, but very unsatisfactory pictures; and it may not be until he has almost abandoned photography, in despair at his own want of skill, that he ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... suitable governments? These institutions existed at the adoption of the Constitution, but the obstacles which they interposed were overcome by that spirit of compromise which is now invoked. In a conflict of opinions or of interests, real or imaginary, between different sections of our country, neither can justly demand all which it might desire to obtain. Each, in the true spirit of our institutions, should concede something ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk
... occurred to me, which I felt bound to communicate to Moore. "My dear fellow," I said in a whisper, "is this quite sportsmanlike? You know you are after some treasure, real or imaginary, and, I put it to you as a candid friend, is not this just a little bit like poaching? ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... communication lines, and the difficulty of cutting in on them from any point except immediately adjacent to the sender or receiver, is strikingly apparent when it is realized that every square inch of an imaginary plane bisecting the unlocated beam would have to be explored with a receiving battery in order to locate the ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... were in no way remarkable, but harmless enough, even including an unfortunate mad woman, whose mania it was to recount unceasingly the ill-treatment to which she had been exposed. At times, her indignation against her imaginary tormentors knew no bounds; at others, she would grow touchingly plaintive on the subject of her wrongs. That she was a nuisance, I am fain to confess; but the treatment she experienced at the hands ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... an air, and a grace, she came with a sort of a courtesy, and a smart bump, and a shock against the stately Miss Rebecca; and whisking round with a little scream and a look of terrified innocence, and with her fingers to her heart, to suppress an imaginary palpitation, dropped a low ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experiments upon themselves. "As to an imaginary cry," said I, "do but listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so low, and to the wild harp it makes of ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... know about him, Thomas! What are his faults?" he snapped, and settled back to squint at his imaginary stage again. ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... the avenue Victor Hugo. Tchernoff walking along in dogged silence as though the vision of this imaginary procession had overwhelmed him. Suddenly he continued aloud the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... make glistening glazed tiles. Some of these show scenes from the lives of favorite Spanish heroes, real and imaginary. There are some Toledo tiles that will tell you about Don Quixote of La Mancha, a hero invented 350 ...
— Getting to know Spain • Dee Day
... than those who think the Indians oppressed by subjection to the laws of the States, will unite in attempting to open the eyes of those children of the forest to their true condition, and by a speedy removal to relieve them from all the evils, real or imaginary, present or prospective, with which they may be supposed to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... struggle. Tom paced back and forth, and although he was a proud boy, he sobbed aloud. Tiger whined, licked Tom's face, rushed off into dark corners, and barked savagely at some imaginary enemy, and then came back, and putting his paws on his young master's knees, wagged ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... man keen to observe, assimilate, and express his impressions in a few simple truths. His conception was localized with his own people and time (he never built up the imaginary or followed Italy), and yet into types taken from the streets and shops of Amsterdam he infused the very largest humanity through his inherent sympathy with man. Dramatic, even tragic, he was; yet this was not so apparent in vehement action as in passionate expression. He had ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... I mean," I said, "isn't—he's purely imaginary, but if he had any real existence he wouldn't belong to your church. He'd ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... television show he'd produced, laid in space on an imaginary voyage. The script-writer had had one of the characters say that no constellation would be visible at a hundred light-years from the solar system. It would be rather like a canary trying to locate the window he'd escaped from, from a block away, ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... stiffens up and glares across the table at an imaginary line of doughboys I could guess that ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... manner, if any one should take the trouble to observe, one by one, the characters he has painted, we should be still more confirmed in the above opinion. For instance, Conrad, that magnificent type of the corsair, that energetic compound of an Albanese warrior and a naval officer, far from being an imaginary character, was entirely drawn from nature and real history. All who have travelled in the Levant, and especially at that period, must have met with personages whose appearance distinctly ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... dazzled the eyes of those who had affected to speak of him as a meteorous exhalation, owing its lustre to chance, and destitute of the inherent qualities which constitute true greatness. To a general revolt and disaffection, arising from some actual and many imaginary grievances, succeeded an universal conviction of delusion, disappointment, disgust, and contrition. All parties but that which had the King in their keeping were ready to unite in efforts to save him from those who meant to make his corse a step to his hereditary dignity; and this, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... diary the daily life of my love, an uneventful life, without hope or future before it, but eager and radiant. Marie Fauville was extolled in it as a goddess. Kneeling down to write, I sang litanies of her beauty, and I also used to invent, as a poor compensation, wholly imaginary scenes, in which she said all the things which she might have said but did not, and promised me all the happiness which we ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... Intrigues, cards—cards, intrigues. Now and then, perchance, you may meet with a kind, hospitable family, but such a case is very rare; you much oftener find a ludicrous affectation to imitate the manners of an imaginary high life. There are no public amusements in a government town. During winter a series of balls are announced to take place at the Assembly-rooms; however from an absurd primness, these balls are little frequented, because no one wants to be the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... high eulogiums on himself—"the most valorous adventurer!"—but it is not himself that he has before him, but the idol of his imagination, the imaginary being whom he is acting. And this, that it is entirely a third person, excuses his heart from the otherwise inevitable charge of selfish vanity; and so by madness itself he preserves our esteem, and renders those actions natural by ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... velocities the square-root becomes imaginary. From this we conclude that in the theory of relativity the velocity c plays the part of a limiting velocity, which can neither be reached nor exceeded ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... Mr. Lee, who has brought all these facts to light, seems to share Defoe's ingenuous astonishment at this "strange instance of ungrateful violence," and conjectures that it must have proceeded from imaginary wrong of a very grievous nature, such as a suspicion that Defoe had instigated the Government to prosecute him. It is perhaps as well that it should have fallen to so loyal an admirer to exhume Defoe's secret services and public protestations; the record might otherwise have ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto |
