"Intricate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... width. The roof was arched. We had no means of making a light, and so groped our way slowly into the ever-increasing darkness, Tars Tarkas keeping in touch with one wall while I felt along the other, while, to prevent our wandering into diverging branches and becoming separated or lost in some intricate and labyrinthine maze, we ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... study of mysteries, but a talent that was remarkable. So he gave up his law studies to become a detective. He rose rapidly in his new profession, giving all the strength of his splendid ability to the study of intricate and difficult cases, and became known among detectives, and dreaded among criminals, as "Payne, ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Lincoln's capacity for so great and so peculiar a task; though a gentleman of proven patriotism, ability, of a kindly, genial nature, and with record of valuable public service. Hampered by his lack of political finesse and intricate knowledge of state-craft, and in view of the conditions of that time, and the people with whom he had to deal, it was obvious from the outset that the result of the controversy could hardly be otherwise than ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... suddenly to the window, and with unseeing eyes stared at the busy harbor. By sight he knew the former home of the Rojas family. In his walks he had often passed before its yellow-pillared front and windows barred with intricate screens of wrought iron. Through the great gates that had hung before Miramar since it had been the palace of the Spanish Governor-General, and through which four horses could pass abreast, he had peered at the beautiful gardens. He had wondered at the moss-covered statues, ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... Imperial Conference was called in July, 1921, the acting Premier, the Hon. Mr. Meighen, repaired to London to gain some insight into the many intricate problems which came before the Council. On his return home he decided that the political situation demanded a general election. In this, no doubt, he was influenced by the rise of a Progressive Party, or as it is better known, the United ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... floating coppices; now they passed through narrow canals, from which it seemed as though they could never issue forth; now they sailed out on vast expanses of water, having the aspect of great tranquil lakes; then among islands again, through the intricate channels of an archipelago, amid enormous masses of vegetation. A profound silence reigned. For long stretches the shores and very vast and solitary waters produced the impression of an unknown stream, upon which this poor little ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... first, I believe there is little doubt, that that part of the cargo, which is condemned would be acquitted upon a rehearing, and proving, that it was the property of capitulants. The case of the brigantine is much more intricate, and carries strong marks with it of a fraudulent design to protect British property, contrary to the spirit of the capitulation. One of the Judges who condemned this vessel assures me, that there was strong proof, that ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... enjoys, not only in his own country, but through all Europe, a great reputation as a statesman, and has for a number of years been employed by his Court in the most intricate and delicate political transactions. In 1790 he was sent to Brabant to treat with the Belgian insurgents; but the States of Brabant refusing to receive him, he retired to Luxembourg, where he published a proclamation, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... now an almost daily visitor at the widow Kinloch's. What was the intricate business that required the constant attention of a legal adviser? The settlement of the estate, so far as the world knew, was an easy matter. The property consisted of the dwelling-house, a small tract of land near the village, a manufactory at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... he was following started sharply up a steep acclivity, and there was no other choice left to him but still to continue in it, as the trees were closing in blindly intricate tangles about him, and the brushwood was becoming so thick that he could not have possibly forced a passage through it. His footing grew more difficult, for now, instead of soft pine-needles and ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... mapped. Here the explorers had lingered a long time: and all over this planet's surface were found remnants of a vast and intricate civilization—from the canals that laced its surface, to great cities with mighty buildings still standing. But of life there was none. The atmosphere was too rare to support it; and the theory was that it had constantly thinned through thousands of years ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... be received, it will now be easy for us to determine the question first started, [FOOTNOTE: Sect. 1.] concerning the general principles of morals; and though we postponed the decision of that question, lest it should then involve us in intricate speculations, which are unfit for moral discourses, we may resume it at present, and examine how far either REASON or SENTIMENT enters into all decisions of ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... were inflicted with the burdens of life, there came into this great world, under the most ordinary and unpretending circumstances, a helpless little baby girl: a dear, chubby, little thing, who at that moment, if never afterwards in the long and intricate course of her mortal career, looked every jot as interesting and as promising of a possible extraordinary destiny as did the little being who, some years before that, opened her eyes for the first time upon the elegant surroundings of a chamber in Kensington ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... not too intricate, are of too extensive consideration for my present purpose, nor are they such as generally occur in common life; and though casuistical knowledge be useful in proper hands, yet it ought by no means to ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... customs, and the practice of lawyers and the decisions of judges continually raised new difficulties, to be met only by new edicts. It is a pleasing fact to record that jurisprudence became more just and enlightened as it became more intricate. The principles of equity were more regarded under the emperors than in the time of Cato. It is in the application of these principles that the laws of the Romans have obtained so high consideration. Their abuse consisted in the expense of litigation, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... looked to him for advice in all our needs. He knew the language of the wild beasts of the forest, he knew a way out of everything, and at home he was a most devoted father. Now, this splendid fellow, the sole reliance, in this vast and intricate maze, of Jerome and myself, succumbed before our eyes to one of the dangers of the merciless wilderness. He was beyond all hope. Nothing in our power could to any extent add to the prolongation of his life which slowly ebbed away. About four o'clock in the afternoon his respirations ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... you scarcely admired at any thing more in all your life, than that any worthy men especially, should be so difficultly persuaded to embrace this account of justifying faith, and should perplex and make intricate so very ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... yet—in all the thousands of intricate things that could go wrong on a spaceship, particularly a new one making its maiden voyage, had gone wrong. The officers were checking their catalogues and their various areas of watch meticulously—and not because their own lives were at stake. In spaceflight, your own ...
— A Place in the Sun • C.H. Thames
... hours in a ramble through the woods. They began Lass's education—which was planned to include more intricate tricks than a performing elephant and a troupe of circus dogs could hope to learn in a lifetime. They became sworn chums. Dick talked to Lass as if she were human. She amazed the enraptured boy by her cleverness and spirits. His initiation to ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... where he had escaped from the chrysalid state to one of action and freedom and real life. He had been happy in reaching India before his uncle's death, in applying his own clear understanding to the intricate entanglements of the affairs before him, in rescuing his uncle's commercial good name, and in securing thus for himself a foothold on the ladder of life, although that step had not occurred to him till thrust there by the pressure ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... Mrs. Ellsworthy, pardon me, but your husband is a man—what can a man know about the intricate workings which go on within the breast of a perverse girl? Plucky!—I call it wicked—I call it wanting in all decorum, in all right sense. Primrose Mainwaring has disappointed me deeply; she showed undue temper when I spoke to her here the ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... thoughts from his crime, and at the same time tried to reap its reward by studying the stolen recipe; but his attempt was not successful. The cramped letters, brown with age, on the brown parchment, danced before his eyes; and the quaint, intricate High German phraseology became more and more involved. He could make nothing of it at all. And the thought occurred to him that perhaps he never would be able to make anything of it—that, without losing any part of the penalty justly attendant upon his crime, the crime itself ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... theme, his ready Muse obey'd— Love, courtship, politics, religion, trade— Gifted alike to shine in every sphere, Nov'list, historian, poet, pamphleteer. In some blest interval of party-strife, He drew a striking sketch from private life, Whose moving scenes of intricate distress We try to-night in a dramatic dress: A real story of domestic woe, That asks no aid from music, verse, or show, But trusts to truth, to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... splitting up into half-a-dozen or more straggling branches that would lead to as many widely scattered regions. If he could mount to a point where he could enjoy a bird's-eye view of these and a hundred kindred trails, he would find an intricate criss-cross of streamlets and rivers of coffee forming a tangled pattern over the tropics and reaching out north and south to all civilized countries. This would be a picture of the coffee ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... dress and struggled with its many and intricate fastenings. Then she went to the guest room to stand before the full-length mirror there. Slowly she turned. Critically ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of cornel-tree bark. Here he was told the legend, which all the natives believed, that whoever untied that knot was destined to become lord of all the world. Most historians say that as the knot was tied with a strap whose ends could not be found, and was very complicated and intricate, Alexander, despairing of untying it, drew his sword and cut through the knot, thus making many ends appear. But Aristobulus tells us that he easily undid it by pulling out of the pole the pin to which the strap was fastened, and then ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... his eloquence by the friendly aids of literature;—not that kind of literature which treats professedly of the art of Speaking, of which there was then no regular system; but after he had studied under Anaxagoras the Naturalist, he easily transferred his capacity from abstruse and intricate speculations to forensic ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... support and purposes;—whereby one would imagine that for all things else they could but have had a nickel or so left. This is culture with a vengeance. There was, besides, wonderful skill in arts and crafts, intricate designing in jewelry-work;—and all this is not to be called by another name than the relics of a high civilization. But there was no political unity; or only a loose bond under the high kings at Tara, who had forever to be fighting to maintain their authority. There was racial, but not ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... and we started off together on foot, for it seemed that our destination was not far away. We walked swiftly through the crowded Mousky (once the fashionable part of Cairo, before the tide flowed to the modern Isma'iliya quarter), and after a few intricate turnings plunged into a still, twilight region. The streets through which we passed were so narrow, and the old houses so far overhung the path that the strip of sky at the top of the dark canyon was ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... a more intricate situation than most of the love-poems. It is the lament of a man, addressed to the woman at his side, whom he loves and by whom he is loved, over the imperfection and innocent inconstancy of his love. The two can never quite grow to ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... or so in turn with his piercing penetrative eyes, accompanying the look with a pitying contemptuous smile, the gaze and the smile implying that counsel for the opposite side may have flattered them into believing that their intelligences were fit to try such an intricate case, but they ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... very intricate subject, Captain Clavering, and one which I do not think I am quite disposed to discuss at present. After a year or two, perhaps I shall go into society again. Most ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... remarks it will be well to let the document speak for itself. It is of considerable length, and, as we have seen, of intricate construction. I shall therefore quote only those sections which bear directly upon the subject of our investigation; any reader desirous of fuller information can refer to Mr Mead's work, or to the original text ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... furtively about, noting the great glass knobs that held the lace curtains with heavy silk cords, the round mahogany table, with its china vase of "everlastings," the high, stiff-backed chairs all decked in elaborate antimacassars of intricate pattern. Then, in the furthest corner, shrouded in dark coverings she found what she was searching for. With a cry she sprang to it, touched its polished wood with gentle fingers, and lovingly felt for the keyboard. It was closed. Marcia pushed up the ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... for instance—it seemed as if there was no more to be said; but no, we found ourselves able to give a whole history of the molecules of which the substance consists; and when we had considered the molecule, we found a further beautiful and intricate order of atoms inside the molecule, as ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... lustily, so that all forward can hear, "By the mark seven," or "By the deep nine," according to the case, or whatever the number of fathoms may be. The lead-line is marked into lengths of six feet, called fathoms, by knots, or pieces of leather, or old sail-cloth. In narrow or intricate channels, it is sometimes needful to place a man in the chains on each side of the ship, as the depth will vary a fathom or more even in the breadth of the vessel, and it is of great consequence that the leadsmen give the depth correctly, as a ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... but the broken gate dangled between its posts, and the path to the house was marked by rose-bushes run wild and hanging their small pale blossoms above the crowding grasses. Slender pilasters and an intricate fan-light framed the opening where the door had hung; and the door itself lay rotting in the grass, with an old ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... line of anxious applicants was being disposed of by his trained assistants. To the advertising expert's offices had come that day but three cases difficult enough to be referred to the Ad-Visor himself. Two were rather intricate financial lures which Average Jones was able to dispose of by a mere "Don't." The third was a Spiritualist announcement behind which lurked a shrewd plot to entrap a senile millionaire into a marriage with the medium. These having been settled, the ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... mother, gave a hearty squeeze to some buxom girl, while the fire roared a heartier welcome still. Then was there a dance indeed—no soft swish of lace and muslin, but the active swing of linsey and simple homespun; no French fiddler's bows and scrapings, no intricate lancers, no languid waltz; but neat shuffling forward and back, with every note of the music beat; floor-thumping "cuttings of the pigeon's wing," and jolly jigs, two by two, and a great "swinging of corners," and "caging the bird," and "fust lady to the right CHEAT an' swing"; no flirting from ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... Cyprian acting the part of an honest man or of a base informer? The times were difficult: the relations of a Roman Senator to Emperor and King were, as I have striven to show, intricate and ill-defined; it was hard for even good men to know on which side preponderated the obligations of loyalty, of honour, and of patriotism. On the one hand Cyprian may have been a true and faithful servant of Theodoric, who had in his embassy at Constantinople discovered the threads ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... letter we have a striking illustration of Lincoln's intelligence and skill in the intricate details of political management, together with the high sense of honor and manliness which directed his action in such matters. Speaking of the influences of Menard ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... accidents. The mere suspicion of his inconstancy raises his wife's jealousy to a fever heat. To expose her rival she pretends to yield to the persuasions of her wooer, the Baron D'Espernay, but as a result of a very intricate intrigue both Alovisa and the Baron perish accidentally on the swords of ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... advancement of the welfare of mankind is a most intricate problem: all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject poverty for their children; for poverty is not only a great evil, but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in marriage. On ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... native disputes, and the Kafirs always take their grievance soberly to the nearest magistrate, who arbitrates to the best of his ability between the disputants. They are generally satisfied with his award, but if the case is an intricate one, or they consider that the question is not really solved, then they have the right of appeal, and it is this court of appeal which I have been attending lately. It is held in the newly-built office of the minister for native affairs—the prettiest and most respectable-looking public ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... strange and rambling old Hindoo hill-fort, high perched on a scarped crag, like Edinburgh Castle, and accessible only on one side, up a gigantic staircase, guarded on either hand by huge sculptured elephants cut in the living sandstone. Below clustered the town, an intricate mass of tangled alleys. I had never seen anything so picturesque or so dirty in my life; as for Elsie, she was divided between admiration for its beauty and terror at the big-whiskered ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... precedents, to examine facts, and to prepare briefs that would be unassailable from a technical standpoint. To Mr. Lansing this European conflict was the opportunity of a lifetime. He had spent thirty years studying the intricate problems that now became his daily companions. His mind revelled in such minute details as ultimate destination, the continuous voyage as applied to conditional contraband, the searching of cargoes upon the high seas, belligerent trading through ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... lies for the most part in straight lines, but in the earlier season it is highly complicated, for the little creatures are perpetually coupling and particularly at this season, so that of necessity as they roam together for the purpose they make the line intricate as described. ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... in this book, to embark upon a lengthy and highly technical dissertation on aerostatics, although it is an intricate science which must be thoroughly grasped by anyone who wishes to possess a full knowledge of airships and the various problems which occur in their design. Certain technical expressions and terms are, however, bound to ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... satisfied to realize in your inner consciousness that it is a pretty movement and well worth seeing. So exact is the execution that it arouses your wonder how the dancers ever manage to get so many intricate steps and rapid motions and pretty flings of their heels into a united and harmonious picture; all working in perfect unison, to a pleasing tempo, smiling the while and doing it all as a mere matter ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... the chaparral. Consider how it must be in a hill-slope overgrown with stout-twigged, partly evergreen shrubs, more than man high, and as thick as a hedge. Not all the canon's sifting of snow can fill the intricate spaces of the hill tangles. Here and there an overhanging rock, or a stiff arch of buckthorn, makes an opening to communicating rooms and runways ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... in the "sturdy" quality remaining through the subsequent building being imposed upon the old foundations. The side apses of the original triple eastern termination were converted into the present eastern transept; an operation, the result of which helps to produce an intricate outline already irregular through the projections of the porch of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher
... least, Brimfield held all but one of them. It was unfortunate that that one should have been the one who had the ball! Just what really happened was a matter of discussion for many days. It occurred so suddenly, with such an intricate mingling of backs and forwards, that Brimfield was unable then or later to fathom the play. Even from the side line, where Coach Robey and a dozen or more substitutes looked on intently, that play was puzzling. ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... but there is sufficient proof that he was a harsh and jealous husband; and he did not probably at this juncture regard as unpropitious on the whole, an event which enabled him to aspire to the hand of Elizabeth, though other and more intricate designs were at the same time hatching in his busy brain, to which his state of a widower seemed at first ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... 'I 'd take five hundred pounds for the lot, and be glad to get rid of them.' There were days when in a gentle, philosophical way he felt a positive sense of injury in thinking of the vases behind the big glass doors, and he would then go into intricate and complicated sums in arithmetic whereby he could tell what it cost him per annum to look at the contents of the cases and the old portraits in ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... clean and dull, like all Dutch towns. The fortifications are strong and well worth inspection. The most remarkable thing in the neighbourhood of Maastricht is the Montagne de St Pierre, which from having been much excavated for the purpose of procuring stone, forms a labyrinth of a most intricate nature. I advise every traveller to visit it, and if he has a classical imagination he may fancy himself in the ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... burdensome to the people, was justly classed among the most arduous of the duties which devolved on the new government. In discharging it, much aid was expected from the head of the treasury. This important, and at that time, intricate department, was assigned to ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... feet. The Turks had laboured hard in this mile and a half width of sand, right down to the sea, to protect their right flank. There was a point about 4000 yards due west from the edge of the West Town of Gaza which we called Sea Post. It was the western extremity of the enemy's exceedingly intricate system of defences. The beach was below the level of the Post. From Sea Post for about 1500 yards the Turkish front line ran to Rafa Redoubt. There were wired-in entrenchments with strong points here and there, and a series of communication ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... of all movement, we headed for Le Recul. Here the intricate patchwork of railway kept the observers busy, and six more trains were bagged. Then, as this was the farthest point east to be touched, we turned to the ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... joustings, marshal tournaments, and prove himself noble, generous, and magnificent, and above all a good Christian, and so doing he will fulfil the duties that are especially his; but let the knight-errant explore the corners of the earth and penetrate the most intricate labyrinths, at each step let him attempt impossibilities, on desolate heaths let him endure the burning rays of the midsummer sun, and the bitter inclemency of the winter winds and frosts; let no lions daunt him, no monsters terrify him, no dragons make him ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... sent a note to St. John's College stating that he was sure that the Bishop had come, for he knew every vessel that had ever come into Auckland harbour, and was sure this barque had never been there before; yet she had come in the night through all the intricate passages, and was rounding the heads without a pilot on board. He therefore concluded that the Bishop must be on board, as there was no other man that could have taken command of her at such a time, and ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hell, or even A sin turn in the wards of Heaven, (As ethics of the text-book go), So little men their own deeds know, Or through the intricate melee Guess whitherward draws the battle-sway; So little, if they know the deed, Discern what therefrom shall succeed. To wisest moralists 'tis but given To work rough border-law of Heaven, Within this narrow life of ours, These marches ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... difficulty of the task. The mechanisms which control human behavior are, as might be expected, tremendously complicated, and the problem of analyzing them into their elementary forms and reducing their varied manifestations to precise and lucid formulas is both intricate and perplexing. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... city with a beating heart, every spot was restored to my memory, and I threaded my way through the long vaulted bazaars and intricate streets without missing a single turn, until I found myself standing opposite both my father's shop and the well-known ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... pursue its inquiries and determine its results with the same experience, minute care and conscientious regard for the technical requirements of business that the railway companies observe. No government can possess the facilities for perfecting so vast and intricate an organization and at the same time render it responsive to the public good. The labor is too great and the responsibility too remote. It could not move with sufficient quickness to respond to the actual requirements of trade, and too many restrictions would necessarily govern its ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... you can put your ring on again," she said with a laugh of jovial significance; and Undine, echoing the laugh in a murmur of complacency, slipped on the fourth finger of her recovered hand a band of sapphires in an intricate setting. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... operation on their behalf till the 2nd of August. Before that date their forces were dispersed and their power of resistance broken by the Prussian generals Falckenstein and Manteuffel in a series of unimportant engagements and intricate manoeuvres. The City of Frankfort, against which Bismarck seems to have borne some personal hatred, was treated for a while by the conquerors with extraordinary and most impolitic harshness; in other respects the action of the Prussian Government towards these conquered States was not such as ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... in arithmetic soon came along. This was one of Dick's favorite studies, and, wholly forgetting his late experience, so it seemed, he covered himself with glory in his blackboard demonstration of an intricate problem in ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... portions of the excavations have been entirely closed up. In one section of the ground (that near Grinfield-street), where there was of late years a joiner's shop, the ground was completely undermined in galleries and passages, one over the other, constituting a subterranean labyrinth of the most intricate design. Near here also was a deep gulf, in the wall sides of which were two houses completely excavated out of the solid rock, each having four rooms ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... not themselves distinguish between the two. Their religious faith, their outlook into another life, though tinged by unhealthy terrorism, was a solid, energetic act of imagination; but when it had to deal with intricate tangles of mind and heart, it became credulity. That lurking unhealthiness spread from the centre, and soon overcame their judgment entirely. The bodeful glare of the witchcraft delusion makes this fearfully clear. Mr. Upham, in ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... untrodden region. The hills shot up jaggedly from the plain around him—the fissures were rude and steep—more like embrasures, blown out by sudden power from the solid rock. Where the forest appeared, it was dense and intricate—abounding in brush and underwood; where it was deficient, the blasted heath chosen by the witches in Macbeth would ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the hair, and let the skull alone. I regret to say that my experiments were an utter failure, notwithstanding the amount of science and skill brought to bear upon them. One idea lay at the basis of all my endeavors. Every combination, however elaborate or intricate, resolved into its simplest elements, consisted of a pair of rosettes laterally to keep the ears warm, a bag posteriorly to put the hair into, and some kind of a string somewhere to hold the machine together. Every possible shape into which lace or muslin or sheeting ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... some intricate sewing, and did not quite catch the first part of Marjorie's remark. But the last words sent ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... imaginable; its infinite cogged wheels turn endlessly upon each other; and perfectly it accomplishes its multifarious purposes; but smash one wheel and it all falls apart into muddle and ruin. The declaration of war was like thrusting a mailed fist into the intricate works of a clock. There was an end of the perfected ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... names are so identified with the early history of Hudson's Bay were Medard Chouart, called also Groseilliers, and Pierre Radisson. They had emigrated from France as young men in the middle years of the century, and settled at first in Three Rivers. After a somewhat intricate matrimonial experience, Radisson had established relations which afterwards stood them both in good stead, at the same time typifying the ambiguous nature of international relations in the far north. On the French side he was son-in-law ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... approaching the eastern shore of Ysabel Island, whose steep cliffs were covered with a lurid bank of cloud. If the shore was like those of the other islands of the group, it would be, he knew, a maze of bays, islets, barrier reefs, and intricate channels amid which, even in calm weather, a vessel would run a considerable risk of grounding, a risk that would be multiplied in a storm. Anxiously noting the weather signs, Underhill hoped that he might reach a safe ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... archduke, bound to pursue the policy of his House against France, whether it was to the interest of the Netherlands or not, and to oppose any local liberties which hampered his action. It is in this light that the intricate conflicts which arose between the archduke and the towns, more especially Ghent, must be viewed. The latter town rose against him, and even went as far as to re-enter into negotiations with France, far more to guard municipal liberties than from any ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... through the Louis-Fourteenth or Marlborough grand "Succession War," a special "Northern War" had burnt or smouldered on its own score; Swedes VERSUS Saxons, Russians and Danes, bickering in weary intricate contest, and keeping those Northern regions in smoke if not on fire. Charles XII., for the last five years (ever since Pultawa, and the summer of 1709), had lain obstinately dormant in Turkey; urging the Turks to destroy Czar Peter. Which they ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... out each morning to answer the cry of distress, to understand the intricate yet effective machinery of benevolent organizations, so that she could call for aid here and there, and have instant and intelligent cooeperation, to see broken lives mended, the friendless befriended, the tempted lifted up, the evil-doer set on safe paths, warmed and ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... this year between the British government and the state of Nepaul, respecting boundaries. Dispute was followed by hostility, and a force of 30,000 men was ordered by the governor-general, Lord Moira, to penetrate that mountainous and intricate country. Several gallant but unsuccessful attempts were made upon the fort of Kalunga, in one of which General Gillespie the commander, was slain. The fort, however, was finally evacuated by its garrison; but a series of warlike operations ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Peter suggested, as David led the way through the corridor and up the tiny stairs which led to the more intricate part of the establishment. "This is her room, didn't you say, David?" He paused on the threshold of a bedroom done in ivory white and yellow, with all its hangings of ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... Basques bears no resemblance to any of the Indo-European, nor indeed to any known tongue. It is so difficult, so intricate in construction, that only those who learn it in infancy can ever master it. It is said that, in Basque, "you spell Solomon, and pronounce it Nebuchadnezzar." Its antiquity is so great that one legend calls it the "language ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... sailors in the Navy never gambled she said that she was completely off the service, and that she thought it was high time that we learned to do something useful instead of singing sentimental songs and weaving ourselves into intricate figures. This remark forced us to it, and much against our wills we proceeded to show the old lady up at pool. She had been bluffing all along, and when it came to a showdown we found that she couldn't shoot for shucks. When the news spread around the ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... beautiful objects. They form a broad expanse of delicate parchment-like membrane drawn over an intricate network of veins. Though the body is bulky, it is yet light, and easily sustained by the wings. The long tail undoubtedly acts as a rudder to ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... very slender, but is so elastic and strong that it waves gracefully in the breeze and bends to the earth in the storm without breaking, and assumes an upright attitude again. It is made up of delicate cells and perfect and intricate channels, through which hidden currents of life throb and flow as mysteriously as the vital blood through the human frame. It is colored with an emerald tint of such beautiful hues that it has been the despair ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... from the secret opening, shouting as he ran, and making as much noise as possible. The berserk and his men followed. The instant he reached the extremity of the place Alric became as silent as a mouse, kicked off his shoes, and ran nimbly round by the intricate turnings of the inner wall, until he came to the foot of the dark natural staircase, which has been referred to at the beginning of our tale. Up this he bounded, and reached the open air above, while his pursuers were still knocking their shins and heads on the rocks ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... condition of being must finally assume is far indeed—far, perhaps, by ages and aeons—from becoming part of the general conception. Nowhere since the beginning has the gross problem of living ever so much as approached solution, much less the delicate and intricate one of living together: a propos of which your body corporate not only still produces criminals (as the body-natural fleas), but its very elementary organism cannot so much as catch a really athletic one as yet. Meanwhile you and I ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... for you, Zopyrus! I know of no words to describe the grace of those girls' movements, or how beautiful it was to see them first mingling in intricate confusion, then suddenly standing in faultless, unbroken lines, falling again into the same lovely tumult and passing once more into order, and all this with the greatest swiftness. Bright rays of light flashed from their whirling ranks all the time, for each dancer had a mirror fastened between ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... encountered them in their hourly progress, calling for constant vigilance and the maintenance of all their courage. Rivers, fordable in unfrequent places and overlooked by precipitous banks on either side, crowned most commonly by dense and intricate masses of forest, through which and without a guide, our little army was compelled to pass,—presented opportunities for frequent ambush and attack, in which, very inferior forces, if properly commanded, might, with little ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... I have nothing further to say, but to take my leave. I must only caution you not to enter my doors." As the passages were dark and intricate, it was necessary that Stanbury should shew Sir Marmaduke out, and this he did in silence. When they parted each of them lifted his hat, and not a word ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... winding, hurrying forward ever at the same rapid pace, they passed unconsciously along the intricate streets that led to the river side; and still the avenger tracked the victim, constant as the shadow to the substance; steady, vigilant, unwearied, as a bloodhound on a ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... new run. It was, you know, in truth ever so much more than he had dared to expect. The course of science is so tortuous and so slow; after the clear promises and before the practical realisation arrives there comes almost always year after year of intricate contrivance, and here—here was the Foods of the Gods arriving after less than a year of testing! It seemed too good—too good. That Hope Deferred which is the daily food of the scientific imagination was to be his no more! So ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... place to medicine; alchemy to chemistry; astrology to astronomy; and so forth. Everywhere the miraculous is progressively banished from the field of explanation by the advance of scientific discovery; and the places where it is left longest in occupation are those where the natural causes are most intricate or obscure, and thus present the greatest difficulty to the advancing explanations of science. Now, in our own day there are but very few of these strongholds of the miraculous left. Nearly the whole field of explanation is occupied by naturalism, so that no one ever thinks ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... to say so, I cannot help admiring the manner in which Tom has piloted his yacht through the Straits, for it would do credit, not only to any amateur, but to a professional seaman. He has never hesitated or been at a loss for a moment, however intricate the part or complicated the directions; but having thoroughly studied and mastered the subject beforehand, he has been able to go steadily on at full speed the whole way. It has, however, been very fatiguing work for him, as he hardly ever left ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... the sensational inventions, originated in female brains, belong—the sea-telescope devised by Mrs. Mather, an instrument for the purpose of examining the keel of a ship without requiring her being put into the dry-dock—and a complicated machine for manufacturing paper bags, a very intricate affair which many eminent mechanicians have made but unsuccessful efforts to contrive. Since then, Miss Maggie Knight, the inventress of the machine above mentioned, has found out another; namely for folding paper-bags. ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... days that intervened between her open confession of a passion for Lord Frederick and this proposed plan of separation, the most intricate incoherence appeared in the character of Miss Milner—and in order to evade a marriage with him, and conceal, at the same time, the shameful propensity which lurked in her breast, she was once even on the point of declaring a passion for ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... point at which endurance of oppression ceases to be a virtue, and rebellion can no longer be considered as a crime; but it is a dangerous and intricate problem, the solution of which had better not be attempted. It must, however, be acknowledged, that the seamen, on the occasion of the first mutiny, had just grounds of complaint, and that they did not proceed to acts of violence ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the world-renowned labyrinth, which was an immense building, full of intricate passages, intersecting each other in such a manner, that even Daedalus himself is said, upon one occasion, to have nearly lost his way in it; and it was in this building the king placed the Minotaur, a monster with ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... and detainees were merely lodged at the gate! Gentlemen,' said Mr. Micawber, 'when the shadow of that iron-work on the summit of the brick structure has been reflected on the gravel of the Parade, I have seen my children thread the mazes of the intricate pattern, avoiding the dark marks. I have been familiar with every stone in the place. If I betray weakness, you will know how to ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... unlocked this door, which opened out into a rocky cave, through which they passed to an intricate, winding, and rugged labyrinth, which finally led out into the open air, on the beach near which the boat ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... self-suppression. He was not satisfied with a general law of holiness: he felt impelled to holiness in detail, to a life in which the laws of bodily hygiene were obeyed as part of the same law of holiness that imposed ritual and moral purity. Much of the intricate system, of observance briefly summarised in this paragraph, a system which filled the Jew's life, is passing away. This is largely because Jews are surrendering their own original theory of life ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... drinks, getting hazier and hazier. I remember, somewhere, sitting in a circle with Japanese fishermen, Kanaka boat-steerers from our own vessels, and a young Danish sailor fresh from cowboying in the Argentine and with a penchant for native customs and ceremonials. And with due and proper and most intricate Japanese ceremonial we of the circle drank saki, pale, mild, and lukewarm, from ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... emperors, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, were the last princes who had any connection by blood [Footnote: And this was entirely by the female side. The family descent of the first six Csars is so intricate, that it is rarely understood accurately; so that it may be well to state it briefly. Augustus was grand nephew to Julius Csar, being the son of his sister's daughter. He was also, by adoption, the son of Julius. He himself had one child only, viz. the infamous Julia, who was brought him by his ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... lessened into banks, then into meadows studded with big elms and, on the city side, there were houses red and grey, as though the rocks had simply changed their shapes. The houses were clustered close to the water, they rose in terraces and trees mingled with their chimneys. Below there were intricate waterways, little bridges, warehouses and ships and, high up, the fairy bridge, delicate and poised, was like a barrier between that place of business and activity and this, where Henrietta stood with the trees, the cliffs, the swooping gulls. It was ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... to throng in on the assassin, and he brought forth long tales, intricate, incoherent, delivered with a chattering swiftness as from an old woman. "—great job out'n Orange. Boss keep yeh hustlin' though all time. I was there three days, and then I went an' ask 'im t' lend me a dollar. 'G-g-go ter the devil,' he ses, an' ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... have prostrated a cleverer and more calculating brain than Frank's—one of those wonderful minds which can see an intricate game of chess right forward, the player's own and his adversary's moves in attack or defence—to have calmly mapped out the proper course for the lad through the rocks, shoals, and quicksands which beset his path. As it happened, all his mental struggles proved to be in vain; for, ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... on our homeward route,— from Canstatt, where Katte was to "appear in disguise," had the furlough been got, one might have slipt away across the Hills. It is but eighty miles to Strasburg, through the Kniebiss Pass, where the Murg, the Kinzig, and the intricate winding mountain streams and valleys start Rhine-ward: a labyrinthic rock-and-forest country, where pursuit or tracking were impossible. Near by Strasburg is Count Rothenburg's Chateau; good Rothenburg, long Minister in Berlin,—who saw those PROFOSSEN, ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... Justice, in Lawyers, and in the course of the Law itself, as if it were an evil Rule. Because the Law which was a certain Rule was varied, according to the will of a covetous, envious or proud Judge. Therefore no marvel though the Kingly Laws be so intricate, and though few know which way the course of the Law goes, because the sentence lies many times in the breast of a Judge, and not in the letter of the Law. And so the good Laws made by an industrious Parliament are like good eggs laid by a silly goose, and as ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... parted, and the measured breath Was now heard there;—her dark and intricate eyes Orb within orb, deeper than sleep or death, Absorbed the glories of the burning skies, Which, mingling with her heart's deep ecstasies, 4265 Burst from her looks and gestures;—and a light Of liquid tenderness, like ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... with which he was wont to decorate my monthly reports to my grandfather. I can shut my eyes and see now that wonderful hyperbola in the C in Carvel, which, after travelling around the paper, ended in intricate curves and a flourish which surely must have ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... superintendent's guidance, we had to thread some intricate passages, and mount a staircase before we reached her apartment; it contained a good fire, and looked cheerful. Miss Temple told Helen Burns to be seated in a low arm-chair on one side of the hearth, and herself taking another, she called ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... in 1934. Most of his novels—distinguished by intricate plots and bright dialogue—had appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. His finest story is "Paso Por Aqui," published in the volume entitled Once in the Saddle (1927). Gene Rhodes, who has a canyon—on which he ranched—named for him ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... Pater's essay on Style describe Huxley's sentences? "The blithe, crisp sentence, decisive as a child's expression of its needs, may alternate with the long-contending, victoriously intricate sentence; the sentence, born with the integrity of a single word, relieving the sort of sentence in which, if you look closely, you can see contrivance, much adjustment, to bring a highly qualified matter into ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... accents ceased, and left me overwhelmed with dismay. I was fraught with the persuasion, that during every moment I remained here, my life was endangered; but I could not take a step without hazard of falling to the bottom of the precipice. The path, leading to the summit, was short, but rugged and intricate. Even star-light was excluded by the umbrage, and not the faintest gleam was afforded to guide my steps. What should I do? To depart or remain was equally and ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... way a real man looks at his work; but that man's wife would never have understood it if she hadn't been interested enough to watch his job. She saw him grow older and harder under that job; she saw him often haggard from the strain and sleepless because of a dozen intricate problems; but she never heard him complain and she never saw him any way but courageous and often boyishly gay when he'd got the best of some difficulty. And furthermore, she knew that if she had been the kind ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... just as gravitation was implied in many ascertained facts that men knew well enough long before they knew that it was implied in them. Thus far, then, the Church of Rome essentially is the spiritual sense of humanity, speaking to men through its proper and only possible organ. Its intricate machinery, such as its systems of representation, its methods of voting, the appointment of its speaker, and the legal formalities required in the recording of its decrees, are things accidental only; or if they are necessary, ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... the latter's rare critical ability regarding his own verse. Oriental languages were his special field, and a most astounding technical skill enabled him to reproduce in German the complex Oriental verse forms with their intricate rhyme schemes. Something of this technical skill is apparent in 45, the one well-nigh perfect poem of Rueckert. The third stanza is an adaptation from a children's rhyme. This the poet uses as the main motif at regular intervals, slightly ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... are so quick to mould And form aright the thin Aprilian line, The frail, fair lettering in green and gold!— What art has taught that intricate design, From which those later scriveners compose Such final, crowning rubrics ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... and twenty-five officers and five thousand six hundred and fourteen rank and file were killed or wounded, and a thousand prisoners lost. Twenty thousand of their men deserted, during their passage through the dark and intricate woods. ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... fingers must be trained in music before the soul of the musician can find its expression. Make good baskets first, simple in shape, strong in texture, suited to the purpose for which they are intended; unconsciously they will grow beautiful. The most intricate basket will fail in its purpose if the joinings are careless or flaws in workmanship permitted. If originality is within the weaver, it will find its expression, once the principles of weaving are second nature." (C. S. Coles.) ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd
... regular plan, but just as each man happened to find a convenient place for his work. Consequently they quickly rebuilt the city, for within a year it is said that both the city walls and the private houses were completed; but it was full of intricate, narrow lanes ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... an object deserving of particular admiration. It is next to that of Strasburg in height; being 432 feet of Vienna measurement. It may be said to begin to taper from the first stage or floor; and is distinguished for its open and sometimes intricate fretwork. About two-thirds of its height, just above the clock, and where the more slender part of the spire commences, there is a gallery or platform, to which the French quickly ascended, on their possession of Vienna, to reconnoiter ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... in its early application to any branch of study, should not be charged with intricate subjects. It should master well the rudiments, before investigating those matters which should follow ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... brooches—a bar and a circle—earrings, a ring, and a comb. Each piece was charming, set in filigree gold with seed-pearls, but perhaps of them all the comb was the best. It was a very large comb. There was one great amethyst in the center of the top; on either side was an intricate pattern of plums in small amethysts, and seed-pearl grapes, with leaves and stems of gold. Margaret in charge of the jewel-case was imposing. When they arrived in New York she confronted everybody whom she met with a stony stare, ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... against Rome. The first quarter century of Roman rule was in many ways the most complex in Israel's intricate history. There were three chief actors in the drama: (1) Rome, represented first by the leaders of the Republic and later by Pompey, Caesar, and their successors; (2) the popular Jewish party led by Aristobulus and his son Alexander, and Antigonus; and (3) ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... There was a singular peculiarity about Mr. Hardinge. No one could live less for the world generally; no one was less qualified to superintend extensive worldly interests, that required care, or thought; and no one would have been a more unsafe executor in matters that were intricate or involved: still, in the mere business of accounts, he was as methodical and exact, as the most faithful banker. Rigidly honest, and with a strict regard for the rights of others, living moreover on a mere pittance, for the greater ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... seat, Frank Norton's fingers were speeding through the intricate pattern of setting up the next jump. He and Louie were ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... in habit from the 'Resurrection Flower,' which never yields its seed unless expanded by moisture (if Dr. Deck's theory be correct), and is not nearly as intricate or beautiful in construction as the oriental relic. Indeed, to this day, the 'Resurrection Flower,' as one must call it for want of a better name, remains without a known rival in the botanical world. From time to time, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... dragged down Argyll. His condemnation was an infamous perversion of justice, but as Charles would not allow him to be captured in London, it is most improbable that he would have permitted the unjust capital sentence to be carried out. The escape was probably collusive, and the sole result of these intricate iniquities was to create for the Government an enemy who would have been dangerous if he had been trusted by the extreme Presbyterians. In England no less than in Scotland the supreme and odious injustice ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... has an almost marvelous right-arm and fingerboard control, which enables him to produce at will the finest and most subtle tonal nuances in all bowings. Then, too, he overcomes the most intricate mechanical problems with seemingly effortless ease. And his tone has well been called "golden." His own definition of tone is worth recording. He says it should be "In music what the heart suggests, and the ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... earth's rind, which have fitted it for the support of successive races of organic beings. May not the same causes have produced the beings themselves? The one process would seem to be not much more elaborate and intricate than the other. If the inherent qualities of matter have built up a solar system, they may have created, also, the first animalcule, the first fish, the first quadruped, and the first man. There has been a marked progress, in either case, from the chaotic, the rude, the imperfectly ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... said Mr. Lorry, at length, in his most considerate and most affectionate way, "I am a mere man of business, and unfit to cope with such intricate and difficult matters. I do not possess the kind of information necessary; I do not possess the kind of intelligence; I want guiding. There is no man in this world on whom I could so rely for right guidance, as on you. Tell me, how does this relapse ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... away hammer-and-tongs for two hours (for it was a very lengthy and intricate operation), exchanging no words except such as had ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... The moonlight before them was almost dazzling, and the air was warm. Beyond the stone parapet, far below, the tideless sea was silent and motionless under the moon. A crooked fig-tree, still leafless, though the little figs were already shaped on it, cast its intricate shadow upon the platform. Very far away, a boy was singing a slow minor chant in a high voice. The peace was almost disquieting—there was something intensely expectant in it, as though the night were in ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... the equivalent of some twenty thousand decasyllabic lines of poetry, that is to say more than there are in Milton's Paradise Lost, and that he has rendered faithfully the whole of this enormous mass in accordance with the intricate metrical scheme of the original, and in felicitous ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... next by the quality of the greatest part of the instruments they employ. Upon all these points, first upon the general, and then on the particular, this question will be considered with as much order as can be followed in a matter of itself as involved and intricate as ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was by no means the only difficulty which the Church of England had to confront in these troubled years. The definition of her relationship with State and nation, if at the moment it aroused less bitterness, was in the long run more intricate in its nature. That some sort of toleration was inevitable few, save a group of prejudiced irreconcilables, would have denied. But greater things were in the air, and there were still many who dreamed of a grand scheme ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... creatures that have many legs had spread their gauze wings easily on the air, as a man rests his elbows on a balcony and gave jubilant, ceremonial praises to the sun, or else they moved together on the air in wavering dances intricate and swift, or turned aside to avoid the onrush of some drop of water that a breeze had shaken from a jungle orchid, chilling the air and driving it before it, as it fell whirring in its rush to the earth; but all the while they sang triumphantly. "For the day is for us," they said, "whether ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... scene. The men seemed to dance in an inside ring, and the women in an outside ring, at a considerable distance from each other. Music was supplied by singing and clapping of hands. The order was perfect, and the figures highly intricate. But I have never been able to associate dancing with things lovely and of good report! After the dancing, all retired to the bush; and a kind of sham fight then followed on the public cleared ground. A host of painted savages rushed in and took possession with ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... kind, hampered by dreadful inheritances, doomed, from their helpless and reluctant birth, to be sinful here and lost hereafter, and then prescribes to them a hard and difficult path, beset by clamorous guides, pointing in a hundred different directions, bidding them find the intricate way to His Heart, or perish. The truth is the precise opposite. The divine voice says to every man: "Hampered and sore hindered as you are, you are yet My dearly beloved son and child; only turn to Me, only open your heart to Me, only struggle, however faintly, to be ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... moments more, and Jermin, forced to a compromise, followed after, in his torn frock and scarred face, looking for all the world as if he had just disentangled himself from some intricate piece of machinery. For about half an hour both remained in the cabin, where the mate's rough tones were heard high above the low, smooth voice of ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville |
