"Moot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... escaped unhurt, and the police and the guards chiefly expended their vigour on the spectators of the original disturbance. Whether this had been secretly engineered by the authorities for one of the purposes I previously indicated, must always remain a moot point. In any case it did not incline the Parisians to vote for the Government candidates. Every deputy returned for the city on that occasion was an opponent of the Empire, and in later years I was told by an ex-Court official that when Napoleon became acquainted ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... must be remembered that in just so far as cold inhibits the growth of the invading germ, so in just the same degree does it adversely influence the functions of the tissues that are to fight against it. To our minds the question thus set up must always remain more or less a moot-point, and while we fully agree that cold undoubtedly checks the growth of septic material, we just as fully believe that warmth serves to place the healthy surrounding structures in a far better condition to maintain a vigorous phagocytosis against it. We thus continue ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... places of the country; rebellious to all labour, and pettily thievish, like the English gipsies; rustically ignorant, but with a touch of wood-lore and the dexterity of the savage. Whence they came is a moot point. At the time of the war, they poured north in crowds to escape the conscription; lived during summer on fruits, wild animals, and petty theft; and at the approach of winter, when these supplies failed, built great fires in the forest, ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... brothers Duerer studied and helped to support himself by his art at Colmar and at Basle. Various wood-blocks executed by him at the latter place are preserved there. Whether he also visited Venice now or not is a moot point. Here or elsewhere, at any rate, he came under the influence of the Bellini, of Mantegna, and more particularly of Jacopo dei Barbari—the painter and engraver to whom he owed the incentive to study the proportions of the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... the Noblesse and Clergy united? Shall the States-General, when once assembled, vote and deliberate, in one body, or in three separate bodies; 'vote by head, or vote by class,'—ordre as they call it? These are the moot-points now filling all France with jargon, logic and eleutheromania. To terminate which, Necker bethinks him, Might not a second Convocation of the Notables be fittest? Such second Convocation ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... general, classical comedy was pure comedy—the prose comedy of manners—and classical tragedy admitted no comic intermixture. Whether tragedy should be in rhyme, after the French manner, or in blank verse, after the precedent of the old English stage, was a moot point. Dryden at first argued for rhyme and used it in his "heroic plays"; and it is significant that he defended its use on the ground that it would act as a check upon the poet's fancy. But afterward he grew "weary ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... and the sight sent his heart plunging against his side like an inward sledge-hammer. Would one pulse in her heart stir ever so faintly at sight of him? Just as he asked himself the question, and was stepping forward to moot her, feeling very like the country swain in love—"hot and dry like, with a pain in his side like"—he suddenly stopped. Another figure came forth from the shadow of an opposite house, and softly pronounced her name. It was a short figure—a woman's figure. He could not ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... or Asia in his backyard, nor a lifetime of leisure for research, for special learning, on the moot questions of church-scholarship. Progress consists in each man's doing his best to advance the interests of the kingdom of God in his own special sphere. From others he must take something for granted. The ear of the Church ought always to be open to the sayings of the specialist. A Church should ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... would resolve society into chaos, and leave you without the slightest guarantee for life, liberty, or property. It is time, that, in their majesty, the people of the United States should make known to the world that this Government, in its dignity and power, is something more than a moot court, and that the citizen who makes war upon it is a traitor, not only in theory but in fact, and should have meted out to him a traitor's doom. The country wants no bloody sacrifice, but it must and will have peace, cost what ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... own prophecies is a moot point. It is said that he bought the lease of a house, which expired about twenty-five years after his date for the day ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... abject slave and a young lady who is getting fairly tamed, though at times she still rebels. Both of these young women exercise authority over me all day long until the ownership of my own soul has become a moot question. When my leg is properly spliced again I shall take that freak Susie to New York and exhibit her as the greatest natural curiosity I have been able ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... Bones, "you may think she mesmerized me. On the other hand, it is quite possible that she acted under my influence. It's a moot point, sir ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... of the Negro has been a moot question for a generation past. But even to-day what do we find the general reliance of the American mind in determinating this question? Almost universally the resort is to material agencies! The ordinary, and sometimes ...
— Civilization the Primal Need of the Race - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Paper No. 3 • Alexander Crummell
... degree of illegitimacy," added Marindin, "is to be born into a family already containing the full number it is licensed for. This happens particularly in rich families, introductions into which are naturally most sought after. It is still a moot point whether the birth should be legitimatised on the death of one ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... man of sin, Sir Philip de Lymbury, lifted up his heel against the Abbey of St. Alban's, and actually laid hands upon Brother John Moot, the cellarer; and on Monday, being market day at Luton in Beds, did actually clap the said cellarer in the pillory and kept him there, exposed to the jeers and contempt of the rude populace, who, we may be sure, were in ecstasies at this precursor ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... reveals the artistic skill and taste of our forefathers, and recalls the wonders of old-time. It will be our endeavour to tell of the old country houses that Time has spared, the cottages that grace the village green, the stern grey walls that still guard some few of our towns, the old moot halls and public buildings. We shall see the old-time farmers and rustics gathering together at fair and market, their games and sports and merry-makings, and whatever relics of old English life have been left for an artist and scribe of the twentieth ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... poore Pedler, by name Iohn Law, being in the Castle about the Moot-hall, attending to be called, not well able to goe or stand, being led thether by his poore sonne Abraham Law: My Lord Gerrard[R3a] moued the Court to call the poore Pedler, who was there readie, and had attended all the Assizes, to giue euidence ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... drama, 'The Satire of the Three Estates'—Monarch, namely, Barons, and Clergy. It is made up in nearly three equal parts of ingenuity, wit, and grossness. It is a drama, and was acted several times—first, in 1535, at Cupar-Fife, on a large green mound called Moot-hill; then, in 1539, in an open park near Linlithgow, by the express desire of the king, who with all the ladies of the Court attended the representation; then in the amphitheatre of St Johnston in Perth; and in 1554, at Edinburgh, in the village of Greenside, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... That is the picture unconsciously forming in many minds. There is more or less feeling that money given to the church is taken from the family and impoverishes it to that degree, that time given to the church is grudgingly spared from the pleasures of the home, that it is always a moot question which of the two institutions shall win ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... Ulster, save those of Nova Scotia, who display, instead of it, the saltire of that province. The precedency of baronets of Nova Scotia and of Ireland in relation to those of England was left undetermined by the Acts of Union, and appears to be still a moot point with heralds. The premier baronet of England is Sir Hickman Bacon, whose ancestor was the first to receive the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... done; and think that I have said quite enough for the spuriousness of the Annals never to be hereafter argued as a moot point, but accepted as an established fact. I need not go into further consideration; because further consideration cannot give more weight to what has been put forward. I, therefore, pause, assured that with only these few facts and observations placed before him, the reader has come to the ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... times to the later nineteenth century, the utmost importance attaches to Anglo-Saxon arrangements respecting local government and administration. The smallest governmental unit was the township, comprising normally a village surrounded by arable lands, meadows, and woodland. The town-moot was a primary assembly of the freemen of the village, by which, under the presidency of a reeve, the affairs of the township were administered. A variation of the township was the burgh, or borough, whose population was apt to be larger and whose political independence was greater; but its ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... have life and wit; and yesterday, upon Charlotte's raving against me upon a related enterprise, I told her, that I had had in debate several times, whether she were or were not too near of kin to me: and that it was once a moot point with me, whether I could not love her dearly for a month or so: and perhaps it was well for her, that another pretty little puss started up, and diverted me, just as I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... again been adopted in this volume, for the same reasons that obtained in the writing of "In the Twinkling of an Eye." The use of the fictional style for the presentment of sacred subjects is ever a moot-point with some people. Yet, every parable, allegory, etc., (not excepting Bunyan's Master-piece) is fictional form. So that the moot-point really becomes one of degree and not of principle—if Bunyan, Milton, and Dante, be allowed to be right. ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... called them moots. Why they called them a silly name like that, when "conferences" would have done just as well, one can't imagine; but they had their notions and stuck to them. They would have called Parliament a moot; in fact they did. They called it a moot of wise ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... these were the working members of these Parliaments, which were in general merely courts of justice for civil and criminal causes. The nobles only attended on occasions of unusual interest. Moreover, a law or edict of the King became valid on being registered by a Parliament. It was a moot question whether the Parliament had the power to baffle the King by refusing to register an edict, and Henry IV. had avoided a refusal from the Parliament of Paris, by getting his edict of toleration for the Huguenots ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that the so-called "caffetannic acid" is the "harmful" substance in coffee, and that it is concentrated in the outer layers of the coffee beans. If these be his precepts, the question of their correctness and of the efficiency of his process becomes a moot one. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... manoeuvred against his wife to send him downstairs at the lady's heels. The fellow was a perfect riddle, hard to read as the zebra lines on the skin of a wild jackass—if Providence intended any meaning when she traced them! and it's a moot point: as it is whether some of our poets have meaning and are not composers of zebra. 'No one knows but them above!' he said aloud, apparently to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... have submitted this brain-wave, says that the first job to employ Snaggs on will be calling on the Bank Manager to arrange about the overdraft which neither of us has so far had the courage to moot. But that, I am afraid, would inspire him with foolish doubts as to the stability of his princely salary. Perhaps it will be best if, before actually engaging Snaggs, I convert myself into a limited company, "for the purpose of acquiring and enlarging the business and goodwill of the private ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... process of japanning be more simple and produces a less durable, a less costly coating than the Japanese method, yet its practice is not so injurious to the health. Indeed, it is a moot point in how far the Japanese themselves now utilize their classical process, as the coat of natural japan on all the articles exhibited at the recent Vienna exhibition as being coated with the natural lacquer, when recovered after six months' immersion in sea water through the sinking ...
— Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition - For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and - Galvanizing • William N. Brown
... Fences are always a moot question to the gardener, for if she has a pleasant neighbour, she does not like to raise an aggressive barrier or perhaps cut off the view, yet to a certain extent I like being walled in at least on two sides. A total lack of boundaries is too impersonal,—the ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... oak was cut down at the close of the last century, or was preserved, carefully fenced in and labeled, in an utterly leafless and shattered state, to our generation, is a moot point. Certain it is that the most ardent Shakespearean must abandon the hope of securing for a bookmark to his Merry Wives of Windsor one of the leaves that rustled, while "Windsor bell struck twelve," over the head of fat Jack. He has the satisfaction, however, of looking ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... was old enough to be told anything like this that I began to feel that the moor was in secret my companion and friend, that it was not only the moot to me, but something else. It was like a thing alive—a huge giant lying spread out in the sun warming itself, or covering itself with thick, white mist which sometimes writhed and twisted itself into wraiths. First I noticed and liked it some day, perhaps, when it was purple and yellow ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Mr. E.A. Freeman, however, puts it more truthfully in saying: "The circumstances of New England called the primitive assembly (that is, the Homeric agora, Athenian ekklesia, Roman comitia, Swiss landesgemeinde, English folk-moot) again into being, when in the older England it was well-nigh forgotten. What in Switzerland was a survival was in New ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... you'll want your tonsils out now, won't you?" The question of a tonsilectomy had been a moot one for years. Nancy had always been anxious to have them out, having been told that it was merely a case of "snip, snip, and a day on ice cream." Henry, who regarded tonsilectomy skeptically as a fad, and who knew, ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... the Ojibways that there were occasionally bad ones among them, "but the good council of the wise sachems and the mark of disgrace put upon unruly persons had a very desirable influence."[199] The extreme form of punishment in the power of the folk-moot of the Tuschinen is to be excluded from the public feasts, and to be made a spectator while stoned in effigy and cursed.[200] Sending a man to Coventry is in vogue among the Fejir Beduins: one who kills a friend ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... matters on which men hold warring opinions. We have not even raised the question of laid or wove paper, nor of the intermixture of different series or sizes of types. In short, every phase of the subject bristles with moot points, the settlement of one of which in a given way may determine the settlement of a ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... however, would not agree to giving up the shirts; loudly declaring that they belonged to the skin; and after some discussion on this moot point, his claim was allowed; and our adventurers were spared the shame of entering the ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... poem, he knew that the mastership or pupilship of Fra Lippo to Masaccio (called 'Guidi' in the poem), and vice versa, was a moot point; but in making Fra Lippi the master, he followed the best authority he had access to, the last edition of Vasari, as he stated in a Letter to the 'Pall Mall' at the time, in answer to M. Etienne {a writer in the 'Revue des deux Mondes'.} Since then, he finds that the latest enquirer into the ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... foreign affairs, as he is often said to be, but is influenced and guided, certainly of late years, both by the Federal Council and by public opinion, the power of which latter has greatly augmented in recent times. Whether the Reichstag really represents public opinion in the Empire is a moot-point in Germany itself. It can hardly be denied that it does so, at least in financial matters, since with regard to them it has all the powers, or almost all, possessed by the English House of Commons in this respect. Where its powers fail, it is said, is in ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... radical change in the international status of Egypt and Ireland, and much else, had these innovations been compatible with his own special object. But they were not. He was apparently minded to test the matter by announcing his resolve to moot the problem of the freedom of the seas, but when admonished by the British government that it would not even brook its mention, he at once gave it up and, presumably drawing the obvious inference from this downright refusal, applied it to the Irish, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... information given by a chart with which they had been furnished. [**] This "open passage" can hardly refer to anything else than Torres Strait. But in that case it is clear that Jansz. cannot have solved the problem, but must have left it a moot point. At all events he sailed past the strait, through which a few months after him Luiz Vaez de Torres ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... character of his listeners, and laid his theories regarding the interchange of mammalian life between America and Asia during the early Pleistocene period, before Meeteetse Ed, Old Man Rulison, Tubbs, and others, in the same language in which he would have argued moot questions with colleagues engaged in similar research. The language of learning was as natural to McArthur as the vernacular of the West was to Tubbs, and in moments of excitement he lapsed into it as a foreigner does into his ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... an' was sorry eneuch by this time 'at I had broucht her up the stair—an' says she, layin' her han' upo' my airm wi' a clap, as gien her an' me was to be freen's upo' sic a gran' foondation o' dirt as that!—says she, makin' a laich toot moot o' 't,—'He's Lord Lossie's!' says she, an' maks a face 'at micht hae turnt a cat sick—only by guid luck I had nae feelin's. 'An' nae suner's my leddy deid nor her man follows her!' says she. 'An' what do ye mak ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... in the presence of the edible frog of the Continent at Foulmire, on the edge of the Cambridge Fans. It is a moot point still with some, whether he was not put there by man. It is a still stronger argument against his being indigenous, that he is never mentioned as an article of food by the mediaeval monks, who would have known—Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, as many of them were- ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... three-fold relation in which Overbeck and his works stand to nature, to historic precedent, and lastly, to inward consciousness or individual character. We have seen that the notion prevalent in Rome, that the living model was wholly discarded, is inaccurate; bearing on this moot point may be here told an anecdote. It is related how one morning, when the artist was engaged on the Tasso frescoes, in the Villa Massimo, he had need of the life for a muscular arm, and so sallied forth into the neighbouring Piazza of the Lateran and made appeal to some men who were ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... transport was a serious problem. Every morning one of our lorries started for our seaport soon after nine, carrying the hospital mailbag and as many messages as a village carrier. The life of the driver was far more exciting than his occupation would suggest, and it was always a moot point whether or not he would succeed in getting back the same night. The road was of the usual Belgian type, with a paved causeway in the middle just capable of allowing two motors to pass, and on each side was a morass, flanked on the right by a canal and on the left ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... difficult, I fancy, to guess what has attracted him to them. Nearly all of them, we have seen, are on the borderland between folk-tale and romance. It is tales such as these that Mr. Morris wishes to see told in tapestry on the walls of the Moot-Hall of the Hammersmith of Nowhere. It was by tales such as these that he first won a hearing from all lovers of English literature. The story of Jason is but a Greek setting of a folk-tale known ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... boxes, labelled in English "metallic rolled cartridges, centre-primed," when she had to get away, as the daylight began to play the informer. She dropped down towards Bayonne, and appears to have reached a point some four miles from the French shore (the exact distance is a moot question), where she laid to and allowed her furnaces to cool The men were "dead tired out" after their night's work, and the captain considered that he was within the protection of French waters. But there is a very ancient proverb about a pitcher and a veil, and ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... other people had whispered, in the long intervals of the organ. She had removed him from the church before the collection for the Red Cross, and when they had eaten a sort of dinner she had borne him away to the Russian dancers in the Moot Hall. ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... witness who has no personal knowledge of the facts is bound to attend on a subpoena is a moot point. It would be safer for him to do so, and to explain to the judge before taking the oath that his memory has not been sufficiently 'refreshed.' The solicitor, if he desires his evidence, will probably see that ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... Will mechanically pushed down his spectacles and dipped a pen in ink, slewing the register round for the guest's signature. He says he knew at a glance that The Mysterious Stranger was no travelling man, but this is a moot point, Tracey's memory being minutely accurate and at variance ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... school requires the teachings of St. Thomas, "the Angelical Doctor," to be maintained. But St. Thomas opposed the belief and doctrine of the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin Mary. In Solana's day the dogma of the immaculate conception had not yet been defined by the Church; it then was a moot question. But in that day the belief in and teaching of the immaculate conception was common, though not (as said) of duty—Dominicans only, one may say, holding to the contrary. The pupils, then, of Santo Tomas had to swear to uphold what was not common belief, although it was ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... inventis addere,'" laughed Andre. "They are merely settling the moot point as to who is the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... so long a time the privilege of the monastery. And these exceptions, with a hint of some foul murder committed at the castle, reached the nobles roundabout and stirred up a general demur. Beside, it was whispered in the shire-moot that the woman about to be espoused by him was a rank Papist and had already placed popish pictures about the Chapel that was contiguous to the castle. This was all that possibly could be said against her, as she was known to be most gracious ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... Sir Henry Storks was the officer chosen, and as soon as his commission was formally received by him, he was to execute a warrant under which he deputed all powers to Mr. Gladstone until his arrival. Whether Mr. Gladstone was lord high commissioner when he came to propose his reform is a moot point. So intricate was the puzzle that the under-secretary addressed a letter to Mr. Gladstone by his name and not by the style of his official dignity, because he could not be at all sure what that official dignity really was. ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... warrabee. Brass Cheejackko, or Toong. Bread Quashee. Bread-basket, or tray Quashee boong. Breadth Habba. Break, to, a stick Ooyoong[30]. ————— a tea-cup Wy'oong. Breakers Namee. Breast Moonee. Breathe, to It'chee shoong[31]. Bridge Hashee[32]. Bring here Moot'chee coo. Bring fire here Feetootee coo. Brinjal (an Indian vegetable) Nasibbee. Broke Ootee, Chirreetee. Brother Weekee. Bucket Tagoo. Bull Woo Ooshee. Burn, to Yaddee, or A'kka. Butterfly Habaroo. Button Hogannee, or kannee. ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... to the road, and walked on and on, following the way his eyes led him. And he journeyed for ten days and ten nights, until at length he came to a great city; and as he was entering the gates, he saw a crowd of people assembled, holding a moot; for their Tsar was dead, and they did not know whom to choose to rule over them. Then they agreed that whoever first passed through the city gates should ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... an impatient thing for me to hear Betsy working out the afternoon with perpetual chatter and challenge of prices, combating now as a lodger all those points which as a landlady she never would allow even to be moot questions. If any applicant in European Square had dared so much as hint at any of all the requirements which she now expected gratis, she would simply have whisked her duster, and said that the lodgings for such people must be looked for down the alley. However, Mrs. Busk, our ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... proper, as distinct from the brownie and such goblins, is of average mortal height, and this would seem to be the case in Brittany. Whether the gorics and courils of Brittany, who seem sufficiently small, are fairies or otherwise is a moot point. They seem to be more of the field spirit type, and are perhaps classed more correctly with the gnome race; we thus deal with them in our chapter on sprites and demons. It would seem, too, as if there might be ground for the belief that the normal-sized ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... evidence to convict her; but the populace cried out, in universal frenzy, that she was guilty, that she should die; and that the barbarians, when they heard of the punishment inflicted on their secret adherent, would retire in dismay from Rome. This also was a moot point of argument, on which I vainly endeavoured to decide; but the Senate and the people were wiser than I; and Serena was condemned to be strangled to-morrow by the public executioner. She was a woman of good report before this time, and is the adopted mother of the Emperor. It is ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... a moot point whether Tom-all-Alone's be uglier by day or by night, but on the argument that the more that is seen of it the more shocking it must be, and that no part of it left to the imagination is at all likely to be made so bad as the reality, day ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... these suspiciously cheap luxuries. There were points also connected with the process of their elaboration which had given me an undefinable uneasiness in the refreshment rooms of a hundred railway stations. I was determined to settle these moot points once for all. So I entered the establishment with an eye of as keen a speculation as an exciseman's searching a building for illicit distillery, and I came out of it a more charitable and contented man. ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... imported a crank from Pittsburg and put him in as local editor, over the heads of the city staff. His name was McCrasky, christened Angus or Archie, I forget which, at this period of time. In fact, his Christian name was always a moot point; some of the reporters saying it was Angus and others Archie, no one having the courage to ask him. Anyhow, he signed himself A. McCrasky. He was a good man, which was rather an oddity on the staff, and puzzled the reporters ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... just as you cross over into Raincy property, rose the three tall trees of the Gibbet Ring. Once the Raincys had jurisdiction to hang men and drown women, and it was on this "moot-hill" that they dispensed their feudal laws as seemed to them good. There was something grim about the place even now, and as Julian approached, the High Stile stood up against the last flare of red in the evening sky not yet blotted out by the mist, gaunt ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... opened the show in a field by the market-town, which stood in a hollow among the moors. The grass sloped to a river that sparkled in the sun and then vanished in the alders' shade. Across the stream, old oak and ash trees rolled up the side of the Moot Hill, and round the latter gray walls and roofs showed among the leaves. A spire and a square, ivy-covered tower rose above the faint blue haze of smoke. A few white clouds floated in the sky and their cool shadows crept slowly ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... is a moot point whether even Dick Vaughan's voice would have served to penetrate the cloud of fury in which Jan moved. He became very terrible in his wrath. One saw less of the bloodhound and more, far more, of his sire, of royal ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... institution in Biggleswick which deserves mention. On the south of the common, near the station, stood a red-brick building called the Moot Hall, which was a kind of church for the very undevout population. Undevout in the ordinary sense, I mean, for I had already counted twenty-seven varieties of religious conviction, including three Buddhists, a Celestial Hierarch, five Latter-day Saints, and about ten varieties ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... has been found too limited to allow of more than an occasional reference to the opinions of modern scholars. Such being the object of the explanations, the reader will not be surprised at the absence of critical and lengthened discussions on many of those moot points of Mythology and early history which have occupied, with no very positive result, the attention of Niebuhr, Lobeck, Mueller, Buttmann, and many other scholars ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... cur'ouser," he said, at length. "I've knowed the time, boys, when sech an incident as this, on the briny deep, would have fairly keeled me over, an made me moot, an riz every har o' my head; but look at me now. Do I tremble? do I shake? Here, feel ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... namely, the Cathach Psalter, now in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. Whether the essential and peculiar features of this ornamentation are purely indigenous, as Professor Westwood contends, or whether they are of Gallo-Roman origin, as Fleury argues, is a moot point, calling for complicated discussion which would ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... genuineness of the Prologues of these plays has long been a moot question. The tendency of the more recent investigators has been to hold that all were, at least in part, written by ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... life that doesn't hurt anybody; except art Parasitically clinging on to the effortless close of a life Private possession underlay everything worth having Purpose of marriage was children, not mere sinful happiness Question so moot that it was not mooted Quiet tenacity with which he had converted a mediocre talent Spoiled their rods, spared their children Take himself seriously, yet never bore others Tarred with cynicism, realism, and immorality ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger
... Moot courts alone will not make skilful lawyers; the manikin is but an indifferent teacher of anatomy; and we may safely say that no statesman was ever made so by books, schools, and street discussions, without actual experience ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... which might be trusted to bring out all these doubtful points, had been delayed in anticipation of Mr. Fairbrother's return. His testimony could not but prove valuable, if not in fixing the criminal, at least in settling the moot point as to whether the stone, which the estranged wife had carried away with her on leaving the house, had been the genuine one returned to him from Tiffany's or the well-known imitation now in the hands of the police. He had been located ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... follows: "If Baptism is regeneration, why, then, does not every one who has been baptized in infancy walk with God from his Baptism? Why does not every one lead a pious life? Evidently, such is not the case!" "As a matter of fact, for a hundred years the Lutheran Church has abandoned the moot question of the body of Christ, etc., and has left it to the consciences of its members to decide what they must believe according to Holy Writ. This we may do without deviating from the faith of our Church, since at our ordination, especially ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... hemisphere), cross the equinoctial line, and reveal to the knowledge of civilized man the great river, afterwards called the Amazon, and the country of Brazil. The fleet in which Vespucci took passage left Spain in the month of May, 1499, that commanded by Pinzon left in December; and it is still a moot question whether the first or the second was the first to arrive on the coast of Brazil. But Pinzon sailed beyond Vespucci on that voyage, though he was to be surpassed, the next year, in the generous rivalry that existed for making ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... full-page reproduction of a photograph showing a jibber-jawed June bride in full regalia, Miss Manvers was moved enviously to paraphrase an epigram of moot origin: "There, but for the grace of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... question such as I have referred to, upon which the public is divided. But the matters referred to in that correspondence are insignificant compared with the taking in public an active part on either side of such moot questions as I have referred to. The conclusion that Mr. Smith's usefulness was gone, does not depend on the truth or untruth of them; it was therefore not necessary or proper to discuss them further with Mr. Smith upon the theory that they were material ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... with the ceremony was regarded as the most sacred attestation of the engagement entered into between the newly-elected king or chief and his people. It was placed in some conspicuous position, upon the top of a "moot-hill," or the open-air place of assembly. Upon it was usually carved an impression of a human foot; and into this impression, during the ceremony of inauguration, the king or chief placed his own right foot, in token that he was installed by right into the possessions of his ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... policy of our arming slaves is in my opinion a moot point, unless the enemy set the example. For, should we begin to form battalions of them, I have not the smallest doubt, if the war is to be prosecuted, of their following us in it, and justifying the measure upon our own ground. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... allowed—and of course there was no knowing what effect the resistance of Dublin might have on the country—it may be a moot point whether it might not have been advisable to separate the two questions of the sentence of death and the actual executions, and one can well imagine the conciliatory effect of a Royal Act of Clemency ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... of a difference of opinion among scholars, Elijah was usually questioned as to how the moot point was interpreted in the heavenly academy. (79) Once, when the scholars were not unanimous in their views as to Esther's intentions when she invited Haman to her banquets with the king, Elijah, asked by Rabba bar Abbahu ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... sufficiently perplexing question of casuistry, both as touches the punctilios of national honour and as regards an equitable division between rival Powers in respect of the material means of mastery. So in private life it may become a moot question—in point of equity—whether the craving of a kleptomaniac may not on occasion rise to such an intolerable pitch of avidity as to justify him in seizing whatever valuables he can safely lay hands on, to ease ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... impertinent", save that the poet had chosen in that way to "convey his matter" — told, or "taught," so much more directly and simply by word of mouth. It is impossible to pronounce positively on the subject; the question whether Chaucer saw Petrarch in 1373 must remain a moot-point, so long as we have only our present information; but fancy loves to dwell on the thought of the two poets conversing under the vines at Arqua; and we find in the history and the writings of Chaucer nothing ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... yet it has been taken for Tarracino and Taranto. I have a project to joyn Sicily to my lands on the continent, that when I have a mind to go into Africa, I may sail by my own coasts. But prithee Agamemnon tell me what moot-point was it you argued to day; for tho' I plead no causes my self, yet I have had a share of letters in my time; and that you may not think me sick of them now, have three libraries, the one Greek, the other two Latin; therefore as you love me tell me what was the state of the question:" "The ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... in full view of khaki's warning, 'No admittance!' We passed Zwartkop, crossed Dwarsvlei, and had to turn back to the right through Hartleyskloof, as we came across a camp of the enemy. We then entered the Moot district, dreaded for its terrible horse-sickness, and in the beginning of March we arrived at Tafelkop, to the ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... to the student as regards the ensemble of violin and piano will be recalled by all who have enjoyed the 'Sonata Recitals' he has given together with Mrs. Mannes. And as an interpreting solo artist his views regarding the moot question of gut versus wire ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... —The moot point is did he forget it, J. J. O'Molloy said quietly, turning a horseshoe paperweight. Saving princes is a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... much did he pay? Through what collections has it passed? What are the names of the figures portrayed? What are their histories? What the style and cut of their coats, breeches, and beards? How much will it fetch at Christie's? All these are questions to moot; and mooted they will be, by the hour. But in expert conclaves who has ever heard more than a perfunctory and silly comment on the aesthetic ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... which is throughout shorter than that in L.U., and the lost opening of L.U. may have been fuller. The author of the Glenn Masain version kept nearer to the old story, adding, however, more modern touches. Where the new character of Bricriu comes from is a moot point; I incline to the belief that the idea of Bricriu as a mere buffoon is a later development. But in neither version is the story, as we have it, a pre-Christian one. The original pre-Christian idea of Flidais was, as in the ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... settled before I go," Benjulia proceeded. "Here are some papers, which I have received from your lawyer, Mr. Moot. They relate to a slander, which ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... wuss than that." And then he called her a bad name. She got up, nivver said a wadd, but walked straight out of the front door. They din't take much notiz at fust, but when she din't come back, they got scared, and looked for her all about; and at last they found her in the moot, at the bottom of ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... "Alas, for me and woe worth the day for thee, O Caretaker of my capital and Councillor of my kingdom! Where shall I find one like unto thee, O Haykar? Harrow now for me, O Haykar, Oh Saviour of my secret and Manifester of my moot-points, where now shall I fare to find thee? Woe is me for sake of thee whom I slew and destroyed at the word of a silly boy! To him indeed who could bring Haykar before me or who could give me the glad tidings of Haykar being on life, I would give the half of my good; ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... looks, his wealth, his taste, his reputation, invested him with a certain sun-like quality; but his age, the recession of his locks, and the advancement of his waist were beginning to dim his lustre, so that whether he was moth or candle was becoming a moot point. It was moot to me, watching him and Miss Sabine Monroy at Charleston throughout the month of March. The casual observer would have said that she was "playing him up," as a young poet of my acquaintance puts it; but I was not casual. For me Vaness had the attraction of a theorem, and I was ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... This attempt to discuss moot points upon the stage—to turn as it were the theatre into a debating society—will certainly not succeed. Audiences—especially Haymarket ones—have a taste for being amused rather than reasoned with; besides, those on that side of the question ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... would be because they expected him to make for the Garth. They were, however, in front, where he would sooner have them than behind, and he set off down the valley for Hexham. He found the old Border town, clustering round the tall dark mass of the abbey, strangely picturesque; the ancient Moot Hall and market square invited his interest, but he shrank from wandering about the streets in the dark. Now he had Graham's checks, he must be careful; moreover his knapsack and leggings made him conspicuous, and he went to a big ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... that make Metelill look so charming, and full of merry adventures at breakfast. We all meet in the great room at the hotel for a substantial meal at half-past one, and again (most of us at least) at eight; but it is a moot point which of these meals we call dinner. Very merry both of them are; Martyn and Horace Druce are like boys together, and the girls scream with laughter, rather too much so sometimes. Charley is very noisy, and so is Meg Druce, when not overpowered ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that if one well-established rule has been overthrown, another, believed to be quite as wrong and perhaps not so well fortified by time and subsequent cases, may share the same fate. Shall counsel risk advising his client not to prosecute his claim or defence, when another bolder than he, may moot the point and conduct another cause resting upon the same question to a successful termination? The very foundations of confidence and security are shaken. The law becomes a lottery, in which every man feels disposed to try his chance. ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... public, but the better part has been chosen of giving English readers this manual precisely as it appeared in French. And surely one would rather read what M. Langlois, an experienced teacher and a tried scholar, thought on a moot point, than be presented with the views of some English 'adaptor' who had read his book, as to what he would have said had he been an Englishman lecturing to English students. That the present translator has taken much pains to faithfully report his authors, I know (though I have ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... moot question as to whether a curl can be more alluring when it glows beneath the fiery kisses of the sun, or shines demurely in the tender radiance of the moon. As Bellew looked at it now,—that same small curl that nodded and beckoned to him ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... offer a bounty on murder? Whoever analyzes the Mosaic system—the condition of the people for whom it was made—their inexperience in government—ignorance of judicial proceedings—laws of evidence, &c., will find a moot court in session, trying law points—setting definitions, or laying down rules of evidence, in almost every chapter. Numbers xxxv. 10-22; Deuteronomy xi. 11, and xix. 4-6; Leviticus xxiv. 19-22; Exodus, xxi. 18, 19, are a few, out of many cases stated, with ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... he might solace himself by a view of the street and the courthouse park. Further, the deputy ministered to Mr. Johnson's hurts with water and court-plaster, and a beefsteak applied to a bruised and swollen eye. He volunteered his good offices as a witness in the moot matter of intoxication and in all ways gave him ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... which, when he was playing the game of cat upon a certain Sunday, the voice came to his soul with its tremendous question, "Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven or have thy sins and go to hell?" There stood the Moot Hall as it stands to-day, in which, during his worldly days, he had danced with the rest of the villagers and gained his personal knowledge of Vanity Fair. There, as he tells us expressly, is the wicket gate, the rough old oak and iron gate ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... tall and tolerably robust fellow, found the feat considerably more difficult than he could have supposed. We swayed from side to side of the school-room, now backwards, now forwards, and for a full minute it seemed to be rather a moot point on which side the victory was to incline. At length, however, I was tripped over a form; and as the master had to deal with me, not as master usually deals with pupil, but as one combatant deals with another, whom he has to ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... have had more written about them than the bustard, much is unsettled with regard to its economy. A moot point, which will most likely always remain undecided, is whether the British race was migratory or not, though that such is the habit of the species in most parts of the European continent is beyond dispute. Equally uncertain ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... King Orry remembered the Church. He found it on the island at his coming, left it where he found it, and gave it a voice in the government. He established a Tynwald Court, equivalent to the Icelandic All Moot, where Church and State sat together. Then he appointed two law-men, called Deemsters, one for the north and the other for the south. These were equivalent to his Icelandic Loegsoegumadur, speaker of the law and judge of all offences. Finally, he caused to be built an artificial Mount of Laws, similar ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... moot the question whether Fleda should not join Marion at her convent. But his wife looked very grave and said that she was too tender and delicate a little thing to be trusted to the hands of strangers; Hugh pleaded, and argued that she might share all his lessons; and Fleda's own face pleaded ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... position to me, struck me as a man of great clearness of vision, middle-sized, straight as a dart, with an eagle face grained and coloured like an old walnut. The whole of the staff work is, as experts assure me, moot ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... detached cottages standing in gardens gay with the homely flowers John Bunyan knew and loved, leads to the village green, fringed with churchyard elms, in the middle of which is the pedestal or stump of the market-cross, and at the upper end of the old "Moot Hall," a quaint brick and timber building, with a projecting upper storey, a good example of the domestic architecture of the fifteenth century, originally, perhaps, the Guesten- Hall of the adjacent nunnery, and afterwards the Court House of the ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... proved to have been evolved, evolution seems to me a noble and beautiful and true theory. But a careful search has not shown me a single instance in which such proof as would stand the first shot of a boy lawyer in a moot court, has been brought forward in support of an actual case of ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... latter treatise will not be attributed by any one, who has traced the development of Roman literature in its connection, to an author of the age of the Hannibalic war; and even Latin annals from that age appear problematical, although it must remain a moot question whether there has been a confusion of the earlier with a later annalist, Quintus Fabius Maximus Servilianus (consul in 612), or whether there existed an old Latin edition of the Greek Annals of Fabius as well as ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... and I will try. There are some preliminaries to settle. first: the uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish. In his System of Nature, A. D. , Linnaeus declares, I hereby separate the whales from the fish. But of my own knowledge, I know that down to the year , sharks and shad, alewives and herring, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... lottery venders, the braying of donkeys, the whoops of the cabmen, and the blaring of the little motor cars with big horns, combine to render Caracuna the noisiest capital in the world. Through the saddle-colored hordes on the moot ground of the narrow sidewalks moves an occasional Anglo-Saxon resident, browned and sallowed, on his way to the government concession that he manages; a less occasional Anglo-Saxoness, browned and ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... blinde entencioun! How ofte falleth al theffect contraire Of surquidrye and foul presumpcioun; For caught is proud, and caught is debonaire. This Troilus is clomben on the staire, 215 And litel weneth that he moot descenden. But al-day falleth ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... the old days, when there were Kings, to have two ceremonies—one carried out by the official head of the national Church, the Greek Church; the other by the people in a ritual adopted by themselves, on much the same basis as the Germanic Folk-Moot. The Blue Mountains is a nation of strangely loyal tendencies. What was a thousand years ago is to be to-day—so far, of course, as is possible under ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... the early English Witenagemot, it was simply an assembly of the chiefs, and, though crowds sometimes attended, all but the great men were the merest spectators. Doubtless the folk-moot of the tribe was democratic, for all free men attended it, and the English were a nation of freeholders, and the slaves were few—except in the west—and might become free men.[1] The shire-moot, too, with its delegates from ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... the sea, which submerged a former site of Aldeburgh. The church of St Peter and St Paul is Perpendicular, largely restored, and contains a monument to the poet George Crabbe, born here on the 24th of December 1754. A small picturesque Moot Hall of the 16th century is used for corporation meetings. Slaughden Quay on the Alde admits small vessels, and fishing is carried on. Aldeburgh is governed by a mayor, 4 ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... made is refined at other works in Scotland, a not inconsiderable quantity is sent to the Welsh refiners, while some of it is sent to the Continent. Of the remaining works, 16 refine the crude oil only. There are altogether 3804 retorts in operation, both vertical and horizontal. It is a moot point, which is now engaging the attention of those in the trade, whether vertical or horizontal retorts are the best suited for the purposes in view. At Mr. Young's works, which are the largest and most important in Scotland, nothing but vertical retorts are ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... criminal trial, but there was no doubt whatever of the existence of a trial of some kind; neither did there exist any doubt as to the importance of this, the first case the prosecuting attorney had ever tried, outside of moot courts. It was the first speech he had ever made in public, barring college "orations," carefully memorized, and an occasional Fourth of July speech, which might have been better for more memorizing. ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... write the philosophy of chairs. One may retain convictions in furniture which is palpably vertebrate; lapped in billowing upholstery it is a moot question; and like many a caller's before him, Shelby's brain tissue became a jelly of flattered complacency. It sufficed merely to simmer in a sense of equality with the silver-haired gentleman at the ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... fearless and upright leader, and a good orator, he did much for the moulding of a united Canada. He is also famed as a writer of French lyrics, which were published in 1875, two years after his death. Whether the stamps ever got beyond the proposal stage is a moot point but at any rate a list of chosen subjects was ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... lawyer thought he did not know—that Five Oaks was held by the lawyers to be possibly without those unfortunate limitations which affected all the rest of the estate. It was only a moot-point; but the doubt had led Mr. Jos. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... classic example of Fabius Cunctator will inevitably occur to the mind. That general deliberately measured the endurance of Rome against that of Hannibals's isolated army, because it seemed to him that the latter was more likely to suffer from a long campaign in a strange country. But it is quite a moot question whether his tactics would have proved successful in the long run. Their reversal it is true, led to Cannae; but this only establishes a negative presumption in ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... a moot point whether burglary is to be considered as a sport, a trade, or an art. For a trade, the technique is scarcely rigid enough, and its claims to be considered an art are vitiated by the mercenary element that qualifies its triumphs. On the whole it seems to be most ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... control, will undoubtedly fail to meet the case. The multiplication of irresponsible boards must be stopped, and to what extent anything, save economies in expenditure, can be effected without far larger changes remains a moot point. Of one thing, at any rate, one may be certain—the present Liberal Government when in Opposition joined forces with the Irish members in driving home the tremendous admissions of the Royal Commissioners, and it is impossible ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... the town, with the right to elect its magistrates. "The old reeve or bailiff was supplanted by mayor and aldermen, and the practice of sending the reeve and four men as the representatives of the township to the shire-moot widened into the practice of sending four discreet men as representatives of the county to confer with the king in his great council touching the affairs of the kingdom." "In 1376," says Taylor, "the Commons, intent ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... thought, material for thought; food for the mind, mental pabulum. subject, subject matter; matter, theme, [Grk], topic, what it is about, thesis, text, business, affair, matter in hand, argument; motion, resolution; head, chapter; case, point; proposition, theorem; field of inquiry; moot point, problem &c. (question) 461. V. float in the mind , pass in the mind &c. 451. Adj. thought of; uppermost in the mind; in petto. Adv. under consideration; in question, in the mind; on foot, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... finished in one night! My partner undertook the first canto: I the second: and which ever had done first, was to set about the third. Almost thirty years have passed by; yet at this moment I cannot without something more than a smile moot the question which of the two things was the more impracticable, for a mind so eminently original to compose another man's thoughts and fancies, or for a taste so austerely pure and simple to imitate the Death of Abel? Methinks I see his grand and noble countenance as at the moment when having despatched ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... corner of the library while he is holding his moot court; infusing into the dignity of his manner a marked suavity of disposition which never forsook him; or he is perpetrating some appropriate legal joke to his audience, who never played upon his ease or ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... spiders are affected by the weather and serve as barometers.—It shall always be a moot point whether the Doctor really believed in cobwebs, or was ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... say that it does not lie so much in hostile critics or feeble health, as in a careless habit of writing, and a peevish vanity which causes him to shut his eyes to his faults. The question of original capacity I will not moot; one may think very highly of the honorable baronet's talent, without rating it quite so high as he seems ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... It was a moot question amongst the departmental lawyers as to whether John Lexman was not guilty of a technical and punishable offence for prison breaking, but this possibility did not keep T. X. awake at nights. The circumstances ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... claims to be; or the subconsciousness of the medium; or whether it is a sort of compound consciousness, made up of the collected minds of those forming the circle at the time; or whether some other interpretation is open to us—this is all a moot question, which is referred to here, merely to draw attention to ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... to state facts, rather than to moot theories, I leave this debatable ground to others, and here close a narrative, compiled with much care, of this interesting and instructive case. I was the rather disposed to examine it critically and report it in detail, because it seems ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... night, that we midden vind her, Inzide a woak wi' a hollow moot, An' drough a hole near the groun' behind her, I pok'd a stick in, an' catch'd her voot; An' out she scream'd, O, An' jump'd, an' seem'd, O, A-most to vlee to the ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... the oven. But the hedgehog cannot be cooked until he is caught, and his capture should not be attempted without strong gloves. Those recently invented by Lord THANET are far the best for the purpose. It is a moot point among culinary artists whether the hedgehog should be served en casserole or in coquilles; but these are negligible details when you are steeped in the glamour of pale gold from a warm November sun, and mild air currents lag over the level leagues where the water is but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... approved methods of cultivation are followed, hence the old system of sowing seed by hand is discarded, and seed-planting machines are now coming into general use. The distance apart which the seeds (about five or six in one hole) should be set, is still a moot question, but it is generally admitted to be unsafe to plant at greater distances than 12 inches. When sown, a light covering is put over, and in a few days—about twelve generally—the tiny plants make their appearance. Two or three days after, ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... England, and all who had the care and superintendence of christianity, that they should all come to London at Michaelmas, and there should speak of all God's rights. When they came thither, then began the moot on Monday, and continued without intermission to the Friday. When it all came forth, then was it all found to be about archdeacons' wives, and about priests' wives; that they should forgo them by St. Andrew's mass; and he who would not do that, should forgo his church, and his house, and his home, ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... reforms were passed, and above all a machinery set up to carry on the good work. In providing for a catechism, for authoritative editions of the Vulgate, breviary and other standard works, in regulating moot points, in striking at lax discipline, the council did a lasting service to Catholicism and perhaps to the world. Not the least of the practical reforms was the provision for the opening of seminaries to train the diocesan clergy. The ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... old, and courtly Dames, Kings, Emperors, Popes. Next under these should stand The hands of famous Lawyers—a grave band— Who in their Courts of Law or Equity Have best upheld Freedom and Property. These should moot cases in your book, and vie To show their reading and their Sergeantry. But I have none of these; nor can I send The notes by Bullen to her Tyrant penn'd In her authentic hand; nor in soft hours Lines writ by Rosamund in Clifford's bowers. ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... The old moot question which of the two Catechisms appeared first was decided when Buchwald discovered the Stephan Roth letters, which show that the Small Catechism appeared in chart form in January and March, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... policy of our arming slaves, is, in my opinion a moot point, unless the enemy set the example. For, should we begin to form battallions of them, I have not the smallest doubt, if the war is to be prosecuted, of their following us in it, and justifying the measure upon our own ground. The contest then must be, who can arm fastest. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... you or me to what has been said by others, and will be said in every age in support of the conflicting opinions on government: and that wisdom and duty dictate an humble resignation to the verdict of our future peers. I doing this myself, I shall certainly not suffer moot questions to affect the sentiments of sincere friendship and respect, consecrated to you by so long a course of time, and of which I ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... unraveled it to mamma, and, as she kept nothing from Vincent, the Atterburys had that sort of interest in Kate that intimate spectators always show in love affairs, where there are no clashing interests involved. It was a moot question, however, between the three, when, after weeks of observation, Mrs. Atterbury declared that Jack was not in love with Miss Boone. "He can't be," she declared. "He doesn't seek her alone; he doesn't make up to her in the evening. Half the time ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... forgot to offer a word of encouragement to the humble seeker after good. Upon the Sabbath in question Mrs. Talbot returned from church, and seated herself at the dinner table with a countenance of moot woeful solemnity. Her husband at length enquired, how she had enjoyed the sermon. "O!" replied she, "he is a preacher after my own heart, and his sermon explained all my views clearly." "Indeed," replied Mr. Talbot, ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... dolour. Message I bare to king Marsiliun; By my cunning I held myself secure. To that fighter Rollant my challenge threw, To Oliver, and all their comrades too; Charles heard that, and his noble baruns. Vengeance I gat, but there's no treason proved." Answered the Franks: "Now go we to the moot. ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... called Hrunting, an ancient heritage. Steel was the blade itself, tempered with poison-twigs, Hardened with battle-blood: never in fight it failed Any who wielded it, when he would wage a strife In the dire battlefield, folk-moot of enemies." ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... all, it did not—our recognition of these revolted provinces as independent nations. Backed by the powerful Austrian minister, Metternich, and by the Holy Alliance, France, having aided Ferdinand to suppress at home the liberal rebellion of 1820-23, began to moot plans for subduing the new Spanish-American States. Great Britain opposed this, out of motives partly commercial, partly philanthropic, partly relating to international law, yet was unwilling so early to recognize ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... of a comparatively "lucid interval," I sallied out, wrapped up in my plaid, to examine the serpentine beds in the neighborhood, which produce what is so extensively known as the Portsoy marble. The beds or veins of this substance,—for it is still a moot point whether they occur here as mere insulated masses of contemporary origin with the primary formations which surround them, or as Plutonic dykes injected into fissures at a later period,—are of very considerable extent, one of them ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... Jimmy Macleod cram a cross-grained "waler" over an awkward fence, and squeeze the last ounce out of the brute in the run home on the flat. The Tirhoot ladies are in all respects charming; and it must remain a moot point with the discriminating observer whether they are more delightful in the genial home-circles of which they are the centres and ornaments, or in the more exciting stir and whirl of the ballroom. After every gathering hecatombs of slain male victims mournfully ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes |
