"Intelligible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... close survey, emerged certain things that seemed linked together in an intelligible sequence of cause and effect. There was still mystery, for subconscious investigation ever involves this background of shadow. Question and Wonder watched him. But the ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... miraculous properties from holy Paul's body for the nonce: but this is an inferior question, and the matter was temporary; the superior case is proved, and besides the rule omne majus continet in se minus there are differences quite intelligible between the cases, whereabout our time would be less profitably employed than in passing on and leaving them unquestioned. Suffice it to say, that "God worked those special miracles," and not the unconscious ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to write his memoirs, not only would that volume help the historian to follow the immediate causes of the war to one intelligible origin, but it would also afford the people of England an opportunity of seeing the conspicuous difference between a statesman of the old school and a politician ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... Destouches, 'read the extract from Le bulletin des Lois, published last week.' Pierre did so with a ringing emphasis, which would have rendered it intelligible to a child; and the unhappy debtor fully comprehended that his paper-money was comparatively worthless! It is needless to dwell upon the fury manifested by Delessert, the cool obduracy of the notary, or the cynical comments of the clerk. Enough to say, that M. Destouches departed without his money, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... long-desired saviours of the country from the British yoke. Of course he had to employ the accursed English language, it being the only one that he understood besides his own mother tongue; and Prince Tchajawadse had to translate his words into Russian in order that they should be intelligible ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... how Americans live in hotels; there are several families in this, and if my letter is not very intelligible you must forgive me, as I am writing in the grand corridor to try and catch the slight draughts of air blowing through, at the same time that half a dozen children are playing ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... mind, which may have rendered the manner of our acquiring the knowledge of figure less intelligible, may have arisen from the common opinion of the perceiving faculty residing in the head; whereas our daily experience shews, that our perception (which consists of an idea, and of the pleasure or pain it occasions) exists principally ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... of these primers is to convey information in such a manner as to make it both intelligible and interesting to very young pupils, and so to discipline their minds as to incline them to more systematic after-studies. The woodcuts which illustrate them embellish and explain the ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... training for complicated vocational activities performed in some degree at least by most women. Where women are so situated that they do not actually perform them, they need, for properly supervising others and for making intelligible and appreciative use of the labors of others, a considerable ...
— What the Schools Teach and Might Teach • John Franklin Bobbitt
... that a man need sacrifice his effect upon the ordinary man by satisfying the connoisseur. No one, for example, will deny that a ship by Mr. Joseph Conrad is as beautiful and intelligible as one by Stevenson; but neither would it be safe to foretell that Mr. Conrad's, the more accurate, will seem the more like life in fifty years' time. Borrow is never technical. If he quotes Gypsy it is not for the sake of the colour effect on those who read Gypsy as they run. ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... Indiana had made to her own history, though conveyed in broken and hardly intelligible language, had awakened feelings of deep interest for her in the breasts of her faithful friends. Many months after this she related to her wondering auditors the fearful story of the massacre of her kindred, which I will now relate, as I have raised ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... here and there could have been intelligible, but their effect upon the pleasant gentleman was instantaneous. He broke into a torrent of foreign exclamations and verbosity, showing his teeth and gesticulating ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... converted to it, or could defend it against other philosophers without in the least becoming untrue to their philosophical convictions. That the lower classes among Jews and Greeks followed the new teaching, is much more intelligible, even without wishing to lay too much stress on the evidential value of the miracles at that time. The great majority were accustomed to miracles; what was almost entirely lacking was practical religion. The Greek thinkers had created ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... the English, eh?" cried Humbert, in French, but with a gesture that seemed at once intelligible. A dry nod of the head gave assent to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... to understand what was said to him, and make intelligible answers, Lewis visited him twice. The English exiles observed that the Most Christian King was to the last considerate and kind in the very slightest matters which concerned his unfortunate guest. He would not allow his coach to enter the court of Saint Germains, lest the noise ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... assemblage of phenomena which is termed the object. When we have asserted that as often as the object is present, and our organs in their normal state, the sensation takes place, we have stated all that we know about the matter. There is no need, after assigning a certain and intelligible cause, to suppose an occult cause besides, for the purpose of enabling the real cause to produce its effect. If I am asked, why does the presence of the object cause this sensation in me, I can not tell: I can only say that such is my nature, and the nature ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... that some of the names are not quite intelligible, especially of the clubs; he speaks of Watts—perhaps he is right, but in my time Watiers was the Dandy Club, of which (though no dandy) I was a member, at the time too of its greatest glory, when Brummell and Mildmay, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... their principles. They represented, as the author says, with the candour of the poet, the two poles of the truth; the two sides of the inarticulate, subterranean, fatal contention of the year of the Terror. Their arguments with one another make the situation more intelligible to the historic student, as they make the characters of the speakers more transparent for the purposes of ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... which he preached last Sunday, Mr. Hodder, for the first time in my life, made Christianity intelligible to me. I want him to know it. And there are other men and women in that congregation who feel as I do. Gentlemen, there is nothing I would not give to have had Christianity put before me in that simple ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... figures and writing relating to this work. These papers justified the subsequent verdict of the Coroner's jury that Hunter committed suicide in a fit of temporary insanity, for they were covered with a lot of meaningless scribbling, the words wrongly spelt and having no intelligible connection with each other. There was one sum that he had evidently tried repeatedly to do correctly, but which came wrong in a different way every time. The fact that he had the razor in his possession seemed to point to his having premeditated the act, but this was accounted for at ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... which Democrats and Jacobins[94] should love to resort for entertainment, and in which they should find themselves so much at home, as invariably to select the spot for their abiding habitation; where dialogue, and song, and the intelligible language of gesticulation, should be used to convey ideas and sentiments, not perhaps palpably treasonable, or directly falling within the strict precision of any legal limits, but yet palpably contrary to the spirit of monarchical government; which, further, the highest ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... ladies tell us that such and such a person 'has met with a disappointment,' we all understand what is meant. The phrase, though it is conventionally intelligible enough, involves a fallacy: it seems to teach that the disappointment of the youthful heart in the matter of that which in its day is no doubt the most powerful of all the affections, is by emphasis the greatest disappointment which a human being can ever know. ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... for us who live in an equable political climate to realise the atmosphere of Dr. Price's Old Jewry sermon. The lapse of a century indeed has made him a more intelligible figure than he could have seemed to the generation which immediately followed him. He was temperate in his rationalism and thrifty in his philanthropy. He tended to Unitarianism in his theology, but was a sturdy defender of Free Will. He had written a widely-read apology for the Colonial ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... Phoenicians worshipped in, like our temples of Fleachta, in Meath, was sacred to the moon. The word 'Rimmon' has by no means been understood by the different commentators; and yet by recurring to the Irish (a branch of the Phoenicians) it becomes very intelligible; for Re is Irish for the moon, and Muadh signifies an image; and the compound word Reamham signifies prognosticating by the appearances of the moon. It appears by the life of our great St. Columba, ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... cipher of the B. S. S. was as readily intelligible to both as if the messages had been couched in open ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... yes; Miss Noel's. Her 'usband was killed—poor lamb!" And they felt rewarded. They had been sure there was some mistake. The relief of hearing that word "'usband" was intense. One of these hasty war marriages, of which the dear Vicar had not approved, and so it had been kept dark. Quite intelligible, but so sad! Enough misgiving however remained in their minds, to prevent their going to condole with the dear Vicar; but not enough to prevent their roundly contradicting the rumours and gossip already coming to their ears. And then one day, when their ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... atrocity, which derives no countenance from the view theoretically maintained by the United States, at the outset of the Civil War, of the illegality of commissions granted by the Southern Confederation. His recommendation that our ports should be "closed" to privateers is not very intelligible. Privateers would, of course, be placed under the restrictions which were imposed in 1870, in accordance with Lord Granville's instructions, even on the men-of-war of belligerents. They would be forbidden to bring in prizes, to stay more than twenty-four hours, to leave within twenty-four ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... sounds and word-elements, not because they were a means of communication, but because the need of exercising my vocal organs was imperative. There was, however, one word the meaning of which I still remembered, water. I pronounced it "wa-wa." Even this became less and less intelligible until the time when Miss Sullivan began to teach me. I stopped using it only after I had learned to spell the ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... just before dinner, and found a motley throng of bearded warriors assembled in front of the house, they were trying to make themselves intelligible in the English language to some of the constables, and when the latter respectfully saluted Maria, raised their hands to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... by two slaves; the one bearing a fan and the other a small carpet and a cushion—black women from the southern parts of Syria, towards Egypt, who would not understand the high Persian she would be likely to speak with Zoroaster, though her own Hebrew tongue was intelligible to them. When she reached a quiet spot, where one of the walks ended suddenly in a little circle among the rose-trees, far down from the palace, she had her carpet spread, and her cushion was placed upon it, and ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... unspeakable but intelligible and practicable meaning of the world conveyed to man, the immortal pupil, in every object of sense. To this one end of Discipline, all parts ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... minute, and relieved her of her burden. It was a type, a sign, of all the coming relief which his presence would bring. The brother and sister arranged the table together, saying little, but their hands touching, and their eyes speaking the natural language of expression, so intelligible to those of the same blood. The fire had gone out; and Margaret applied herself to light it, for the evenings had begun to be chilly; and yet it was desirable to make all noises as distant as possible from Mrs. ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... detail covered, may be a possibility only of the future. But it is a matter for surprise that twenty years after the beginning of the Rebellion, and when a whole generation has grown up needing such knowledge, there is no authority which is at the same time of the highest rank, intelligible and trustworthy, and to which a reader can turn for any general view of the field—for a strong, vivid, concise by truly proportioned story ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... Criticism has pulled about the Bible without restraint or scruple. We are all of us steeped in its daring assumptions and shrewd objections. Have its leaders yet given us an account which it is reasonable to receive, clear, intelligible, self-consistent and consistent with all the facts, of what this mysterious ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... to be regarded not as an independent thing, but as a political instrument; and it is only by taking this point of view that we can avoid finding ourselves in opposition to all military history. This is the only means of unlocking the great book and making it intelligible. Secondly, this view shows us how Wars must differ in character according to the nature of the motives and circumstances from ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... know," he replied, "that I can represent It to you in a way that you would admit to be intelligible. I don't profess to have had what ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... hunting and fishing. So ignorant were they, even of the existence of bread, that when the first missionaries, who translated into their language the Lord's prayer, came to the petition, "Give us this day our daily bread," to make it intelligible to them, they had to translate it, "Give us this day something to ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... designate a married woman who was in love with anybody but her husband. Consequently, they were the very last people whom any gossip of this sort could ever reach, or to whose ears it could have been made intelligible. ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... people, too, understand better what is meant by a quantity of a particular commodity, than by a quantity of labour. The one is a plain palpable object; the other an abstract notion, which though it can be made sufficiently intelligible, is not altogether so ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... confused and rambling account of the circumstances of the wreck, but it was sufficiently intelligible to make the captain acquainted with the ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... person, Affectionswerth, (affection-value) a value which influences its value in exchange only when the individual who holds it in high esteem is not himself the possessor of the goods. An instance of this latter is a piece of paper covered with notes, intelligible only ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... chiaroscuro sketch; nevertheless, if you do not dash or rush at your work, nor do it lazily, you may always get enough form to be satisfactory. An extra quarter of an hour, distributed in quietness over the course of the whole study, may just make the difference between a quite intelligible drawing, and a slovenly and obscure one. If you determine well beforehand what outline each piece of color is to have, and, when it is on the paper, guide it without nervousness, as far as you can, into the form required; and then, after it is dry, consider thoroughly what ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... words seemed to fall round him with the distracting clatter of stunning hail. He caught the meaning here and there, and straightway would lose himself in a tremendous effort to shape out some intelligible theory of events. There was a boat. A boat. A big boat that could take him to sea if necessary. That much was clear. She brought it. Why did Almayer lie to her so? Was it a plan to decoy him into some ambush? Better that than hopeless ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... adult mind takes in working out a neat problem in geometry, the pleasure a musician finds in following the involutions of a fugue, are of the same type of satisfaction as the liking of children for cumulative stories. Complexity and mass, arrived at by stages perfectly intelligible in themselves, mounting steadily from a starting-point of simplicity; then the same complexity and mass resolving itself as it were miraculously back into simplicity, this is an intellectual joy. It does ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... can dispute. Like the sun, it had both light and agility; it knew no rest but in motion, no quiet but in activity. It did not so properly apprehend, as irradiate the object; not so much find, as make things intelligible. It did not arbitrate upon the several reports of sense, and all the varieties of imagination, like a drowsy judge, not only hearing, but also directing their verdict. In sum, it was vegete, quick, and ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... He entered, I suspect, into some explanations at this point, but as he dropped his voice I am unable to say what they were. His language, when I did hear it, was confused and ungrammatical. It seemed, however, to be quite intelligible enough to persuade Miss Milroy that her father had been acting under a mistaken impression of the circumstances. At least, I infer this; for, when I next heard the conversation, the young lady was driven back to her second ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... description there is a large number of words which such a child would not understand if they stood alone, but the whole description would be perfectly intelligible. The reason is, the subject is simple; the facts are such as a very little child would be interested in; and the connection of each new word, in almost every instance, explains its meaning. That is the way by which children ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... assumed, and probably rightly, that v. 88 is intended as a contemporary utterance of the Three calling upon themselves; nevertheless it is quite intelligible as the expression of a later writer summoning them, with the rest of creation, to praise their Maker. And, assuming this verse to be contemporary with the rest, this latter idea would of course mark the hymn as not really issuing from the mouths ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... cool, interested. If there was any mystery in his tales, it was in the object, not in the author's breast; he makes no confessions either direct or indirect,—he describes the thing he sees. He maintained that his tales were perfectly intelligible, and he meant this to apply not only to style but to theme. It is best to cite his own testimony. His personal temper is indicated in the fragmentary phrase in the "Note-Books;" "not that I have any love of mystery, but because I abhor it," he writes; and again in the oft-quoted passage, ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... suspect something; perhaps some word in her son's letter touched a secret spot far back in her memory, and renewed a dim, if not very intelligible, pain. She answered his question at length, in the style of the popular French romances of that day. She had much to say of dew and roses, turtledoves and ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... of year for planting them. This message had been unluckily misunderstood. Grant gave his answer to his wife; she to a Welsh servant-girl, who did not perfectly comprehend her mistress' broad Scotch; and she in her turn could not make herself intelligible to Mrs. Oakly, who hated the Welsh accent, and whose attention, when the servant-girl delivered the message, was principally engrossed by the management of her own horse. The horse, on which Mrs. Oakly rode this day being ill-broken, would not stand still ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... one occasion 20s. received by way of fine from one Edmond Nockals for selling a pot of beer "wanting in measure, contrary to the law," and another sovereign from William Howlyns for a like offence. This is right and intelligible enough; but on another occasion in the same year each of these men, who presumably were ale-house keepers, had to pay 30s.—a substantial sum considering the then value of money—for the same offence and ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... inconsiderable progress. Almost deprived of a tutor, he had advanced in classical acquirement more than during the whole of his preceding years of scholarship, while his handwriting began to become intelligible, he could read French with comparative facility, and had turned over many a volume in ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... looked at her mother, smiled and gurgled something which was intelligible to mother-ears, and the wife's hand slipped into the husband's, and the baby ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... In intelligible and vulgar language, that means: "I do not know where is the true nor the false; I am ignorant of what constitutes general good or evil; I give myself no trouble about it. The only law which I consent to recognize, is the immediate effect of each measure ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... as you must have heard Wordsworth point out, a language of pure, intelligible English, which was spoken in Chaucer's time, and is spoken in ours; equally understood then and now; and of which the Bible is the written and permanent standard, as it has undoubtedly been the great ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... Writers on theology, or education, or any other important topic, do the same—probably to a far greater extent, in many instances, than I have yet done. I repeat no idea for the sake of repeating it. Not a word is inserted but what seems to me necessary, in order that I may be intelligible. Moreover, like the preacher of truth on many other subjects, it is not so much my object to produce something new in every paragraph, as to explain, illustrate, and enforce what is ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... part an easy and pleasant one. I know not if it be worth while to mention that the hills and glens on which my charge pastured at this period formed a portion of what in ancient times was termed the Forest of Rankleburn. The names of places in the district, though there were no other more intelligible traditions, might serve to shew that it is a range of country to which both kings and nobles had resorted. If from morning to night I was away far from the homes of living men, I was not so in regard to those ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... acquainted with the moral attributes of the Deity. In strict philosophical language we ought perhaps to say, that this high purpose is accomplished by a combined operation of conscience and reason; but, however this may be, the process appeals clear and intelligible in its nature, and fully adapted to the end now assigned to it. From a simple exercise of mind, directed to the great phenomena of nature, we acquire the knowledge of a First Cause,—a being of infinite power and infinite wisdom; and this conclusion ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... Jem wandered up and down the narrow precincts of Ben Sturgis's house. In the little bedroom where Mrs. Sturgis alternately tended Mary, and wept over the violence of her illness, he listened to her ravings; each sentence of which had its own peculiar meaning and reference, intelligible to his mind, till her words rose to the wild pitch of agony, that no one could alleviate, and he could bear it no longer, and stole, sick and miserable, downstairs, where Ben Sturgis thought it his ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... of S. Philip the Apostle from the church of the Panachrantos to Western Europe. The document authorising that act was signed by the dean of the church and by the treasurer of S. Sophia.[199] The intervention of the latter official becomes more intelligible when we know that the monastery of the Panachrantos stood near S. Sophia, and not, as Paspates maintains, at Phenere Isa Mesjedi. Again, the Patriarch Veccus took refuge on two occasions in the monastery of the Panachrantos, once in 1279 and again in 1282. He could do ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... they were awakened by the shouts of a mob, who had just entered the village fresh from the destruction of a neighbouring castle. The nun and Victoire listened; but in the midst of the horrid yells of joy no human voice, no intelligible word could be distinguished; they looked through a chink in the window-shutter and they saw the street below filled with a crowd of men, whose countenances were by turns illuminated by the glare of the torches ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... perception of Truth and Justice, which rests contented in itself and will make no effort to confirm itself or to organize through existing knowledge." The essay then proceeds—I am forced to admit, with overmuch conviction—with the statement that women can only "grow accurate and intelligible by the thorough study of at least one branch of physical science, for only with eyes thus accustomed to the search for truth can she detect all self-deceit and fancy in herself and learn to express herself without ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... her horse to a canter, and the exclamations ended, leaving Patrick to shuffle them together and read the riddle they presented, and toss them to the wind, that they might be blown back on him by the powers of air in an intelligible form. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the rest, time, place, state, since they are easily intelligible, I say no more about them than was said at the beginning, that in the category of state are included such states as 'shod', 'armed', in that of place 'in the Lyceum' and so on, as ...
— The Categories • Aristotle
... near in meaning to our imagination. But the philosopher differs from the artist in this: he aims not only at the contemplation of truth, but at the ordering of truths, he seeks to make of the whole universe an intelligible structure. Further, he is not driven by the gadfly of creation, he is not forced to cast his images into visible or audible shape. He is remoter from the push of life. Still, the philosopher, like the artist, lives in a world of his own, with a spell of its own ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... daily orders of Adjutant and Inspector-Gen. Cooper. These, when "by command of the Secretary of War," are intelligible to any one, but not many are by his command. When simply "by order," they are promulgated by order of the President, without even consulting the Secretary; and they often annul the Secretary's orders. They are edicts, ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... justice, that Garibaldi appeals in his address to the English people from his prison,—an appeal which seems utterly ludicrous, if you think of it as addressed to the historic John Bull, but which is perfectly intelligible and appropriate, if you remember that Sir Philip Sidney was an Englishman as well as George IV., and that John Stuart Mill is no less English than Lord Palmerston or Russell. It is with that spirit that American civilization is truly harmonious. But there is the other, merely trading, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... canvas with the expedition of scene-painters, had classes, lectures, receptions, and exhibitions, made models of each other, and rendered their walls hideous with bad likenesses of all their friends. Their conversation ceased to be intelligible to the uninitiated, and they prattled prettily of "chiaro oscuro, French sauce, refraction of the angle of the eye, seventh spinus process, depth and juiciness of color, tender touch, and a good tone." Even in dress the ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... was plain, from her whole conduct and behaviour, that she had not so good an opinion of herself, however deserved; since, whenever she was urged to give her sentiments on any subject, although all she thought fit to say was clear an intelligible, yet she seemed in haste to have done speaking. Her reason for it, I know, was twofold; that she might not lose the benefit of other people's sentiments, by engrossing the conversation; and lest, as ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... very small degree. Afterwards they spoke with me by means of ideas still less discrete, so that hardly any interval was perceived: in my perception it was like the meaning of words with those who attend only to the sense abstractedly from the expressions. This speech was more intelligible to me than the former, and it was also fuller. Like the other, it inflowed into the face, but the influx was more continuous according to the character of the speech; it did not, however, like the ...
— Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There • Emanuel Swedenborg
... on either side of the performer, and the drumming was performed with both hands by tapping with the fingers. By peculiar variations of the drumming, known only to the initiated, the performer could drum out whatever he wished to express in such a way, it is alleged, as to be intelligible to initiated listeners without uttering a single syllable with ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... through Europe for several weeks, and had finally reached London, wrote enthusiastically of his pleasure at being able to read the street signs. All summer he had felt restricted and hampered, but when he reached a country where the street signs were intelligible, he gained his freedom. Had he been as familiar with Italian, German, and French as he is with English, life would have been for him far more nearly complete during that summer and therefore much more agreeable and fertile. There is no more exhilarating experience than to be able to ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... their appearance. Two of them could speak no English, and the third, who acted as the leader of the party, first of all addressed me in French. Finding I did not understand him, he used very broken, but fairly intelligible, English. What he wanted was to be taken at once to his Excellency, Mehemet Ali Pasha. I said that his Excellency was dining and that perhaps he had better call in the morning, but he replied that his business was very urgent, and he could not wait. He made me understand ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... what a potent effect a firearm had upon the aged shaman. His mask fell off and his knowledge of the English language was magically refreshed. He began a perfectly intelligible protest against the promiscuous display of loaded weapons, particularly in crowded localities. He was a peaceful man, the head of a peaceful people, and violence of any sort was contrary to his and their code. "This was no way in which to ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... said—these things were so. He had escaped, owing chiefly to his isolation from the world, that vast expansion of Ritschlian ideas that during the last century had been responsible for the desertion by so many of any intelligible creed. For others this had been the supreme struggle—the difficulty of decision between the facts that words were not things, and yet that the things they represented were in themselves objective. But to this man, ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... consolation, at least, that she was of her own sex. But Miss de Haldimar was willing to attribute more generous motives to the Indian; and fortified in her first impression, she signified by signs, that seemed to be perfectly intelligible to her companion, she appreciated her friendly intentions, and ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... changed for 'such persons,' as it now stands, upon the suggestion of one of the Deputies from Connecticut. The sole reason assigned for changing it was, that it would be better not to stain the Constitutional code with such a term, since it could be avoided by the introduction of other equally intelligible words, as had been done in the former part of the same instrument, where the same sense was conveyed by the circuitous expression of 'three fifths of all other persons.' Mr. Dayton said that at that time he was far from believing, and that indeed ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... a disinfectant. I should, however, say in justice to our literary men, that they have not altogether succumbed to the demand for cachinnations. A school, which first drew breath before the Great Skirmish began, has perfected itself, till now we have whole tomes where hardly a sentence would be intelligible to any save the initiate; this enables them to defy the Watch Committees, with other Philistines. We have writers who mysteriously preach the realisation of self by never considering anybody else; ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... have a claim to that honour. But whence is it that the historian of Alfred, Asser, as well as William of Malmesbury, have mentioned the different translations of this prince, without having noticed that of Aesop?[29] Is it credible that an Anglo-Saxon version of the ninth century would have been intelligible to Mary, who had only learned the English of the thirteenth? Had not the lapse of time, and the descents of the Danes and Normans in the eleventh century, contributed, in the first place, to alter the Anglo-Saxon? and afterwards, during ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... period, to make a pause, and to take a survey of the state of the kingdom with regard to government, manners, finances, arms, trade, learning. Where a just notion is not formed of these particulars, history can be little instructive, and often will not be intelligible. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... humble origin. Such a descent was not credible. It was, indeed, suggested that Mr. Razumov was the son of an Archpriest's pretty daughter—which, of course, would put a different complexion on the matter. This theory also rendered intelligible the protection of the distinguished nobleman. All this, however, had never been investigated maliciously or otherwise. No one knew or cared who the nobleman in question was. Razumov received a modest but very sufficient allowance from the hands ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... Athos did not draw back. "Sire," he said, "I have already begged your majesty's forgiveness; but there are certain particulars in that conversation which are only intelligible from the denouement." ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that in fact was what the trust people had advised—that she should see their lawyers. But Adelle shrewdly concluded that it would be useless to see the Washington Trust Company's lawyers, who would doubtless tell her again in less intelligible language precisely what the trust officers had said. And she knew of no other lawyers in the city whom she might consult independently. Besides, she thought it better to see her cousin before going to the lawyers, feeling that ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... aptitude of a man's mind to recur to the passages of his own life, will, I know, tempt me to say something of myself;—nor, without doing so, should I know how to throw my matter into any recognised and intelligible form. That I, or any man, should tell everything of himself, I hold to be impossible. Who could endure to own the doing of a mean thing? Who is there that has done none? But this I protest:—that nothing that I say shall be untrue. I will ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... respects, a most injurious effect upon the condition of the nation, and led to enactments of a very extraordinary character, which I must submit in detail, inasmuch as I prefer giving the ipsissima verba of the statute-book to any statement of my own. To make the laws intelligible, I would remind you that the successful efforts of the nobles had, during the three centuries of Plantagenet rule, nearly obliterated the LIBERI HOMINES (whose rights the Norman conqueror had sedulously guarded), ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... glance at the engraving or touch of the paper, so the experienced physician, by his great familiarity with disease, becomes equally skilled in detecting the nature and extent of a chronic malady, from a written description of its symptoms. To aid the patient in giving a clear and intelligible history of his case we send, when requested, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... to such poems as have an intelligible aim and shape, many a stray idea and transitory emotion found imperfect and abrupt expression, and then again lost themselves in silence. As he never wandered without a book and without implements of writing, I find many such, in his manuscript books, ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... to minds prepared to question and disbelieve, may seem cold and terrorless, became far different when told by those blanched lips, with all that truth of suffering which convinces and appalls. Much, indeed, he concealed, much he involuntarily softened; but he revealed enough to make his tale intelligible and distinct to his pale and trembling listener. "At daybreak," he said, "I left that unhallowed and abhorred abode. I had one hope still,—I would seek Mejnour through the world. I would force him to lay ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... note. This clause is not intelligible to the transcriber. The character '1' or 'I' appears in the text. Some ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... traces, and to find the quail or the fox for you,—tell me how the cat chills the bird it would spring upon,—how the serpent fascinates its victim with a flash of its glittering eye. Our 'dumb beasts' yet have a language of their own, unguessed of us, yet perfectly intelligible to them,—how? We call this, Instinct. Eh, bien, Monsieur! what is Instinct, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... were in vain—as the light and heat of the sun are said to be useless to those who are in the opaque depths and bowels of the earth—having located itself in those sacred lights, that is having shown forth the Divine Beauty through two intelligible species the which bound his intellect through the reasoning of Truth and warmed his affections through the reasoning of Goodness; while the material and sensitive desires became superseded, which aforetime used, as it were, to triumph, remaining intact, ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... meant for the ears to which they were addressed. If to readers remote from the facts and the feeling of the hour they perhaps strike a note of scarcely intelligible emotion yet our story cannot spare them. To us who heard them they were an expressive summary of many thoughts, and fears, and hopes of that time, which our narrative cannot give expression to otherwise than ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... to bring the water into one's mouth at the sight of those sweet fruits of love, without counting the other things that he raised, carved, and caressed with the chisels, smoothed down with his file, and fashioned in a manner that would make their use intelligible to the mind of a greenhorn, and stain his verdure in a single day. The ladies would criticise these beauties, and all of them were smitten with the youthful Cappara. And the youthful Cappara would eye them up and down, swearing that the day one of them gave him her ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... We thought she had been shot, for that was intelligible and involved no impossibilities. But Drs. Heath and Webster, under the eye of the Challoners' own physician, have made an examination of the wound—an official one, thorough and quite final so far as they are concerned, and they declare that no ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... passed by the Senate on June 2, and although delay now ensued because of the conflict over the discrimination issue, the bill became law by the President's approval on July 4. This prompt conclusion in spite of closely-balanced factions becomes more intelligible when it is observed that the rules of the Senate then provided that, "in case of a debate becoming tedious, four Senators may call for the question." Brief as was the period of consideration as compared with the ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... getting all this into any intelligible form of words; getting it down at all was difficult. For the last hour she had been sitting there, starting and trembling at each rustle of the paper. Mr. Gunning could not settle down to reading now. He turned his paper over and over again in the vain search for distraction; ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... recommend Cowley's first piece, which ought to be inscribed, To my Muse, for want of which the second couplet is without reference. When the title is added, there will still remain a defect; for every piece ought to contain, in itself, whatever is necessary to make it intelligible. Pope has some epitaphs without names; which are, therefore, epitaphs to be let, occupied, indeed, for the present, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... the beak "can scarcely be considered a very perfectly-formed instrument for the end to which it is applied." The great bulk of the beak, as shewn by its breadth, depth, as well as length, is not intelligible on the view, that it serves merely as an organ of prehension. Mr. Belt believes ('The Naturalist in Nicaragua,' p. 197) that the principal use of the beak is as a defence against enemies, especially to the female whilst nesting in a hole in a tree.) The naked skin, also, at the base of ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... the careful attention of those who desire to make themselves perfectly intelligible to all, irrespective of nationality, is the correct use of prepositions. In English the same preposition is often employed to express many diverse ideas, and it therefore becomes desirable to consider this when translating ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 3 • Various
... beyond him, and that the understanding of them depended on a more advanced knowledge of Jesns himself; for, while words reveal the speaker, they must yet lie in the light of something already known of the speaker to be themselves intelligible. Between the mind and the understanding of certain hard utterances, therefore, there must of necessity lie a gradation of easier steps. And here Polwarth was tempted to give him a far more important, because more immediately practical hint, but refrained, from the dread of weakening, by ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... wealthy looking Albanians sitting round and being respectable. The archbishop spoke no French nor German, only Italian. But Jan, with the help of a lot of old musical terms, and an imperfectly forgotten Spanish, managed to convey to him some intelligible compliments and sentences. We got out at last, and his eminence accompanied us to the top of the stairs and gave us the difficult problem of bowing backwards as we went down. This visit was necessary, ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... and still less a scientist but as a simple observer I like to take note of all that is worthy of notice and that is possible for me to transmit in an intelligible form. ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... causes, the starting-point of an infinite series of effects. Language and thought, government and manners, transform themselves by imperceptible degrees; with the result that every age is an age of transition, not fully intelligible unless regarded as the child of a past and the parent of a future. Even so the species of the animal and vegetable kingdoms shade off one into another until, if we only observe the marginal cases, we are inclined to doubt whether the species is more than ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... Euphrates, from a period about 2200 B.C. down to 330 B.C., are so intimately connected one with another, and so dependent one upon the other, that it is almost impossible to attempt an accurate discrimination between the Babylonian, or ancient Chaldaean, the Assyrian and the Persian. A more intelligible idea of the architecture of this long period will be gained by regarding the three styles as modifications and developments of one original style, than by endeavouring to separate them.[4] Their sequence can, however, be accurately determined. ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... listening to the everlasting assault upon the Gods by the Titans, sons of strife. And if you are very patient you may witness Zeus, the lightning-gatherer, pierce the black clouds and rend the sky, illuminating hill and vale with the fierce light which makes even the battle of Troy intelligible. ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... to leave the Lodge when we were getting it to our mind; but we 'll have a jolly little home somewhere, and I 'll get a chance of earning something. Dancing now—I think that I might be able to teach some girls how to waltz. Then my French is really intelligible, and most colloquial; besides revolver shooting. Dad, we are on our way to a fortune, and at the worst you 'll have your curry and cheroots, and I 'll have a well-fitting ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... manly figure of the Senator with a tender admiration in her eye, which she could not repress, and which was so intelligible to the Senator that he blushed more violently than ever, and looked helplessly ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... was to sign his name I always went out of the room, and left Gascoigne to guide his hand. More helpless still his mind than his body. If his own or England's salvation had depended upon it, he could not, when in the least hurried, have uttered a distinct order, have dictated an intelligible letter; or, in time of need, have recollected the name of any one of his officers, or even his own name—quite imbecile and embruted. But, peace to his ashes—or rather to his dregs—and may there never ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth |
