"Notion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could tear my hair to hear you talk! Honour's a fine imaginary notion, That draws in raw and inexperienced men To real mischiefs, while ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... not in high favor with her brother that night. He said it was outrageous she should not have been there to receive Mrs. Prescott. When Katie demurred that she would have been less outrageous had she had the slightest notion Mrs. Prescott would be there to be received, it developed that Wayne was further irritated because he had come to take Ann out for a boat ride—and Katie had gone in the boat—heaven only knew where! Then when Katie sought to demolish that irritation with ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... like the man that, in spite of dreads not to be concealed from himself, he should be seized as he sped with a notion of the grotesque figure he must present, carrying that improper burden. He must even laugh when he thought of his, austere punctilious maternal aunt, the Baronne de Chenier, and fancied her horror and disgust could she behold her nephew disgracing ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... notion the general impression of this centre of the city's life was not one of strenuous business activity. It was a continuous interest in small things, a people ever willing to be amused at trifles, refusing to consider serious matters—good-natured, allowing themselves to be ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... there have been others since, but they don't deceive George Catcott, who is always thinking of him, having the notion that there never was a poet like him since Shakespeare. He is making a mistake now in rushing into politics in the Middlesex Journal. He sends Catcott the papers. What will Lord Hillsborough or the Lord Mayor care for all his violent reproaches ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... Dr. Young, of Edinburgh, seems to have had a very just Notion of this Disorder, and of the proper Method of treating it; for, in his Treatise on Opium, sect. vii. he says, "I am convinced from Experience, that most of the Dysenteries I have hitherto met with, might have been cured by purging mildly, but constantly; and at ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... "I have had some notion of trying for a hospital again. It doesn't take much to live. And I don't believe in a doctor's making money. If it isn't the hospital—well, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... that the length of the line of each company would be measured to the point at which it joined rails with the other. This was hardly the case; but an arrangement was come to after the completion of the work which has given this notion the strength of a tradition. The greater part of the Union Pacific route was over comparatively even ground, and it was not until the Salt Lake region was being approached that any serious constructive difficulties presented themselves. ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... him. I've got a notion in the back o' my head that he's beginning to see again. He'd kill us in a holy minute if he dared. Only his blindness keeps him from it. What do you say? Shall we ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... lecturing for an absolute thinker in the former case, so, by similar reasoning, are my ideas now lecturing for me, that is, accomplishing unwittingly a result which I approve and adopt. But, when this passing lecture is over, there is nothing in the bare notion that ideas have been its agents that would seem to guarantee that my present purposes in lecturing will be prolonged. I may have ulterior developments in view; but there is no certainty that my ideas as such will wish to, or be able to, ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... the glaciers during the frosts of winter. This fact would have a direct bearing upon the theory which referred the melting and movement of the glaciers chiefly to their lower surface, explaining them by the central heat of the earth as their main cause. Satisfied as he was of the fallacy of this notion, Agassiz still wished to have the evidence of the glacier itself. The journey was, of course, a difficult one at such a season, but the weather was beautiful, and they accomplished it in safety, though not without much suffering. ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... General George H. Thomas was taken from Buell, to command the right. McClernand's and Lew Wallace's divisions were styled the reserve, to be commanded by McClernand. General Grant was substantially left out, and was named "second in command," according to some French notion, with no clear, well-defined command or authority. He still retained his old staff, composed of Rawlins, adjutant-general; Riggin, Lagow, and Hilyer, aides; and he had a small company of the Fourth Illinois Cavalry as an escort. For more than a month ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... happened to have been a sickly summer among the wealthy people, and large bills had come in—the next thing was to spend them. Chautauqua was a silly place to do it in, to be sure; that was Dr. Mitchell's idea, and the family laughed together over Eurie's last wild notion; but for all that they good-naturedly prepared to let her carry it out. Just how full of fun and mischief and actual wildness Eurie was, a two-weeks sojourn at Chautauqua will be likely to develop; for before that conversation at ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... she confidently began: "when that dried-up little heathen, Matteo, who tried to run the Neapolitan Grand Opera Company with stage money, got us this far on a tour that is a disgrace to the profession, he had a sudden notion that he needed ocean air; so he took what few little dollars were in the treasury and hopped right on into ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... and, I am sorry to say, groundless, notion has obtained currency, among almost all writers upon the Indian character, that he is distinguished for his eloquence. But the same authors tell us, that his language, the vehicle of the supposed eloquence, can express only material ideas.[14] Now, if we knew no more of his character than this, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... but this man had impressed upon all in the vessel some singular notion of his being more than he should be—more than a mere mortal, and not one endeavoured to interfere with him; the captain was a stout and dare-devil a fellow as you would well met with, yet he seemed ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Some notion of the relative position of bones, joints, fat, tough and tender muscles, is the first requisite to good carving. All agree that skill in carving may be acquired by practice; and so it may. Any one can divide a joint if he ...
— Carving and Serving • Mrs. D. A. Lincoln
... will be considered as a whole later, it would be waste of time to say very much more of this first manifesto of his. It need only be observed that he might have been already, as he often was later, besought to give some little notion of what "the grand style" was; that, true and sound as is much of the Preface, it is not a little exposed to the damaging retort, "Yes: this is your doxy, and she seems fair to you, no doubt; but so does ours seem fair to us." Moreover, ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... He had some notion of that kind, too, but he didn't name any particular place. I think I'll try the City of London. They've four there, and of course the chance of getting in would ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... time you had called me by my Christian name. I don't suppose you've the remotest notion how splendid it sounds when you say it. There is something poetical, ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... engaged in drawing the outline of his face and the general form of his features. I accordingly worked on doggedly for more than an hour—then left off to point my chalks again, and to give my sitter a few minutes' rest. Thus far the likeness had not suffered through Mr. Faulkner's unfortunate notion of the right way of sitting for his portrait; but the time of difficulty, as I well knew, was to come. It was impossible for me to think of putting any expression into the drawing unless I could contrive some means, when he resumed his chair, of making ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... was a poet, for if I was, I guess I'd be livin' in a garret on no dollars a week instead of runnin' a great contractin' and transportation business which is doin' pretty well, thank you; but, honest, now, the notion takes me sometimes to yell poetry of the red-hot-hail-glorious-land kind when I think of New York City as ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt
... the position of those in authority and to declare what he would do in any given circumstances. Now, unless the interlocutor adopts the same method and declares what he would do, conversation is apt to become one-sided. Aristide, having no notion of a policy should he find himself exercising the functions of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, cheerfully tried to change the ground ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... which is unaccompanied with any alleviating circumstances. A letter from the count de St. Julian to his Matilda has just been conveyed to my hands. It is filled with the most affecting and tender complaints of her silence that can possibly be imagined. He has too exalted a notion of the fair charmer to attribute this to lightness and inconstancy. His inventive fancy conjures up a thousand horrid phantoms, and surrounds the mistress of his soul with I know not what imaginary calamities. But that passage of the whole epistle that overwhelms ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... fret!' says master,—and I thought he looked kind o' ashamed,—'I haven't sold him yet I've a notion to turn him out to grass a while, and see what that'll do for him,' So the next day he put me in ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... our agriculture, our army has become composed of starving slum dwellers who, according to the German notion are better at shouting than at fighting. German generals have pointed out that in the South African war our regular and auxiliary troops often raised the white flag and surrendered, without necessity, sometimes to a few Boers, and they may do the same to a German ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... not his heart, and a very good choice he made. Mrs. Mervale was an excellent young woman,—bustling, managing, economical, but affectionate and good. She had a will of her own, but was no shrew. She had a great notion of the rights of a wife, and a strong perception of the qualities that insure comfort. She would never have forgiven her husband, had she found him guilty of the most passing fancy for another; but, in return, she had the most admirable sense of propriety ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... house-servants' style; and in a weak voice, speaking through her nose, asked for some tea. To the great vexation of Anton, who had put on knitted white gloves for the purpose, tea was not handed to the grand lady visitor by him, but by Lavretsky's hired valet, who in the old man's words, had not a notion of what was proper. To make up for this, Anton resumed his rights at dinner: he took up a firm position behind Marya Dmitrievna's chair; and he would not surrender his post to any one. The appearance of guests after so long an interval at Vassilyevskoe fluttered and delighted the old man. It was ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... into the hands of the ambassadors of the king who claimed them." It is quite certain that Henry IV. would never have let his hands be thus tied by a treaty so contrary to his general policy of alliance with Protestant powers, such as England and the United Provinces; he had no notion of servile subjection to his own policy, but he would have taken good care not to abandon it; he was of those, who, under delicate circumstances, remain faithful to their ideas and promises without systematic obstinacy and with a due regard for the varying interests ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... The Daemon of Socrates has been the subject of much discussion among learned men. The notion, once generally received, that his daimon was "a familiar genius," is now regarded as an exploded error. "Nowhere does Socrates, in Plato or Xenophon, speak of a genius or demon, but always of a doemoniac something (to daimonion, or daimonin ti), ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... as a full genus. This is because of the conviction that the superficial resemblance between the two groups is accidental parallelism, in no way indicative of affinity. In fact the two groups, if my notion of their relationship is correct, had different ancestors, Tamias being an offshoot of the ground-squirrels of the subgenus Ictidomys of Allen, and Eutamias of the subgenus ...
— Genera and Subgenera of Chipmunks • John A. White
... for the statue, the committee wrote out to her at Rome as one who would naturally feel an interest in getting something fit and economical for them. She accepted the trust with zeal and pleasure; but she overruled their simple notion of an American volunteer at rest, with his hands folded on the muzzle of his gun, as intolerably hackneyed and commonplace. Her conscience, she said, would not let her add another recruit to the regiment of stone soldiers standing about in that posture on the tops of pedestals ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... such after ten years' service in the office, as managing clerk: he was about thirty, particularly well dressed, slight, active, and with a face like a terrier—so hard, sharp, and wiry!) Of Mr. Gammon himself, I have already given the reader a slight notion. He appeared altogether a different style of person from both his partners. He was of most gentlemanly person and bearing—and at once acute, cautious, and insinuating—with a certain something about the eye, which had from the first made Titmouse feel ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... count a thing as known only when it is stamped on their mind. The doctrine is only a new reading of the old maxim, non multa sed multum, but it is as much needed now as ever it was. Still more appropriate to the present day was Mr. Carlyle's protest against the notion that a University is the place where a man is to be fitted for the special work of a profession. A University, as he puts it, teaches a man how to read, or, as we may say more generally, how to learn. It is not ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... rank of life than Jeanie's, would have had something forward and improper in its character. But the simplicity of her rural habits was unacquainted with these punctilious ideas of decorum, and no notion, therefore, of impropriety crossed her imagination, as, setting out upon a long journey, she went to bid adieu to an ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... saith, That granting the incestuous Corinthian to be excommunicated, "the decree was Paul's and not the Corinthians'," and that it no way appertained to them under the notion of a church. This is Saravia's answer to Beza, de Tripl. Epist. Genere, p. 42, 43, yea, the Papists' answer to Protestant writers, by which they would hold up the authority and sole jurisdiction of the prelates, as the apostles' ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... I wouldn't give up all notion of a lark. A sailor with money,—and I don't believe there ever was an able-bodied seaman with more money than I had,—who doesn't lark, at least to some degree, has no right to call himself a whole-souled mariner; so I made up my mind to have ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... exact definition of government, because we all have a notion of what it is, we notice that only certain animals are government-forming. Among these may be mentioned the ant, the bee, and man. The fox, the bear, and the lion represent the other class. If we should make two lists, including ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... either proceeding along the coast to the southwards, or put back, according as the wind changed, or the caravels might happen to steer. They could not conceive how human beings could travel more in one night than they were able to perform themselves in three days; by which they were confirmed in the notion of the ships being spirits. All this was certified to me by many of the Azanhaji who were slaves in Portugal, as well as by the Portuguese mariners who had frequented the coast ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... Massenger, and Richard Beasley. They were drawn, hanged, and quartered at Tyburn, and two of their heads fixed upon London Bridge ("The London Gazette," No. 259). See "The Tryals of such persons as under the notion of London Apprentices were tumultuously assembled in Moore Fields, under colour of pulling down bawdy-houses," 4to., London, 1668. "It is to be observed," says "The London Gazette," "to the just vindication of the City, that ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... a name. Rome was the symbol, as it was the safeguard of unity. Without it, Italy would remain a conglomeration of provinces, a union, not a unit—not the great nation which Cavour had laboured to create. Even as prime minister of little Piedmont, he had spurned a parochial policy. He had no notion of a humble, semi-neutralised Italy, which should have no voice in the world. Cavour lacked the sense of poetry, of art; he hated fads, and he did not believe in the perfectibility of the human species, ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... thankfulness of awakening from the hellish nightmare of the Terror, Mr. Verity's facile imagination tended to run to another extreme. With all the seriousness of which he was capable he canvassed the notion of a definite retirement from the world. Public movements, political and social experiments ceased to attract him. His appetite for helping to make the wheels of history go round had been satisfied ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... them alone. If we could free ourselves of the notion that we must huddle them together, or that we must carry them to some strange land,—in short, that they have no rights of home and fireside,—we should find that we had a much smaller problem to deal with. Keep ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... importance. There is an abiding peril, forever crouching at the door of ancient organizations, that they shall seek refuge from the difficulties of thought in the opportunities of action. They need to be continually reminded that reforms begin in the same place where abuses do, namely, in the notion of things; that only just ideas can, in the long run, purify conduct; that clear thinking is the source of all high and sustained feeling. I wish that we might essay the philosopher-theologian's task. ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... the later animals appear to be easier snared or slain than the earlier; moreover, the accounts of conflicts between men and animals grow by repetition and are gilded by imagination as memory grows dim; and for these and other reasons the notion grows up that the ancient animals were stronger, swifter, slier, statelier, deadlier than their modern representatives, and the hierarchy of petty gods is exalted into an omnipotent thearchy. Eventually, in the most highly developed zootheistic systems, the leading beast-god ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... their differences, they had taken arms against a common peril. Like cattle when a dog comes into the field, they stood head to head and shoulder to shoulder, prepared to run upon and trample the invader to death. They had come, too, no doubt, to get some notion of what sort of presents they would ultimately be expected to give; for though the question of wedding gifts was usually graduated in this way: 'What are you givin'? Nicholas is givin' spoons!'—so very much depended ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... examined the object which had so astonished Tom. "That is neither the head nor tail of the big sea serpent, but a shoal of turtles, which having come from the Bay of Honduras, are bound for the Cayman Islands, where they are going to lay their eggs?" he said, laughing heartily at Tom's notion. ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... a proper notion of what he was up against. Next day he knew less than the day before. He was ready to swear the whole outfit, by all the saints in the chapel, that there hadn't been ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... it?" asked Frank, a little amused at the horror with which his friend heard of the notion of staying in school after ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... doctors said they never saw anything so odd of the kind; they were not properly shingles, but herpes miliaris, and twenty other hard names. I can never be sick like other people, but always something out of the common way; and as for your notion of its coming without pain, it neither came, nor stayed, nor went without pain, and the most pain I ever bore in my life. Medemeris(2) is retired in the country, with the beast her husband, long ago. I thank the Bishop ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... feeling of interest. When I have said that he inherited a very large fortune, amassed during his father's time, by speculations of a very daring, very fortunate, but not always very honorable kind, and that he bought this old house with the notion of raising his social position, by making himself a member of our landed aristocracy in these parts, I have told you as much about him, I suspect, as you would care to hear. He was a thoroughly commonplace man, with no great virtues and no great ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... he had the notion of entering into the business of newspaper management. His object was not to secure literary reputation, but to direct and influence public opinion. Early in 1887 he wrote to his friend ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... during the autumn session of 1882, to take down the statistics of attendance in the House for several days running. His figures were detailed to the House, in one of his speeches, and were exactly what we were prepared for. They completely "pounded and pulverised" the notion, that listening to the debates is the way that members have their minds made up for ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... realised the idea of buying his son out; and John himself, who had all the world and all his life before him, and was terribly conscious of the obligations which he owed to his friend Davis, had got into his head a notion that he would prefer to face his fortune with a sum of ready money, than to wait in absolute poverty for the reversion of the family estate. He had his own ideas, and in furtherance of them he had made certain inquiries. There was gold being found at this moment among the mountains of New ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... I cherished the notion that the charge was too preposterous to be believed, I was abundantly undeceived. To jail I went, and there served out my time to the uttermost limit allowed by the law. But in this connection I must touch on a matter which caused me ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... POSTSCRIPT.—The notion of inevitable hostility between a constitutional Monarchy and a Republic has been fostered by American writers in whom one would have expected greater clearness of perception. We find Lowell, for ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... the interval that elapsed before the nearest could arrive, nor distinct notion of any part of that long sunny afternoon while he sat by his Nina in the death-chamber. Once he got up to stop the ticking of a clock on the chimney-piece, moving mechanically with stealthy footfall across ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... present trial in particular, one may well feel puzzled to decide which of these deities presided over its conduct. A Greek or Roman would have said, Neither,—but a greater than either,—Fate; and we might almost adopt the old heathen notion, as we watch the downward course of the doomed gentleman from this point, and note how invariably every attempt to ward off destruction is defeated, as if by the persevering malice of some superior power. We shall soon see the most popular ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... a tragedy! On the 1st of August last, I told the horrid tale to my emancipated people in Berbice. Here it is, as extracted from the Essex (United States) Transcript. Read it, if you please; and then you will have a notion of the feelings with which I contemplated a city rendered infamous ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... to the task of the hour; all my interest is in our generous and admirable army, and my sole concern is to take part, however modestly, in the work of the nation. True, a thousand memories and reflections crowd my mind; the notion of pausing to express them in writing had not occurred to me, but it would be ungracious in me to decline your kind invitation. Please omit from the ideas I throw on paper whatever seems to you to ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... said Bart, "but it is not mine. It was the Beaver's notion. Those dismounted Indians are coming right in, ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... sight of Joan's railed cot standing empty in the night nursery, but Joyce was tired and had scarcely begun to be touched by it before she was asleep. She had a notion that during the night Mother came in more than once, and she had a vague dream, too, all about Joan and wood-ladies, of which she could not remember much when she woke up. Joan was always dressed first in the morning, ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... be back directly. But he had never returned. That evening Hiliare and his wife, observing Gilles de Sill and Roger de Briqueville returning to the castle, ran to them and asked what had become of the apprentice. They replied that they had no notion of where he was, as they had been absent hunting, but that it was possible he might have been sent to Tiffauges, another castle of ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... meagre and uninviting. He will come away with a conviction, already indorsed by the more respectable portion of the American community, that their government is the most corrupt under the sun; but he will not, with them, lay the flattering notion to his soul, that the people of whom such men are the chosen representatives and guides, are likely to contribute much to the aggregate of human ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... and there was even a suspicion that he, with his fantastic science and antiquated empiricism, had been at the bottom of the scheme of poisoning, which was so strangely intertwined with Septimius's notion, in which he went so nearly crazed, of a drink of immortality. It was observable, however, that the doctor—such a humbug in scientific matters, that he had perhaps bewildered himself—seemed to have a sort of faith in the efficacy of the recipe which had so strangely ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I imagine faulty, does more peculiarly concern the Sex, but is yet chiefly practic'd in regard of Those of it who are of Quality, and that is, the insinuating into them such a Notion of Honour as if the praise of Men ought to be the Supreme Object of their Desires, and the great Motive with them to Vertue: A Term which when apply'd to Women, is rarely design'd, by some People, to signifie any thing but the single Vertue of Chastity; ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... not in any manner dependent and servile, either on persons, or opinions, or possessions. Beyond this fact of truth and real force, the word denotes good-nature or benevolence: manhood first, and then gentleness. The popular notion certainly adds a condition of ease and fortune; but that is a natural result of personal force and love, that they should possess and dispense the goods of the world. In times of violence, every eminent person ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... aout late nights, 'n' lurkin' raoun' jest 'z ef he wuz spyin' somebody; 'n' somehaow I caan't help mistrustin' them Portagee-lookin' fellahs. I caa'n't keep the run o' this chap all the time; but I've a notion that old black woman daown't the mansion-haouse knows 'z much abaout ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... three inches; it is of slender shape, and in its sitting posture is observed to hold up the two fore-legs slightly bent, as if in an attitude of prayer, whence its name; for this reason vulgar superstition has held it as a sacred insect; and a popular notion has often prevailed, that a child, or a traveller having lost its way, would be safely directed, by observing the quarter to which the animal pointed, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... inexhaustible topic. Good-looking boy, if he cut his hair and shaved his moustache off. She saw Gaga look anxiously and wonderingly across at her, with a kind of hunger; and she was shaken by a mischievous notion. She had never done such a thing before, but she put her foot forward so that it touched one of his, and smiled right into Gaga's chocolate eyes. The slow red crept up under his skin, and they had no need to talk. Sally was laughing ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... her tastes or little fads, how was I to guess her notion of happy days? Then again, I didn't have to. All that's clear is that Pyramid had wanted us to do some good turn for this old goat, to sort of even up for that spill of years gone by, and we'd done our best. Whether the money was to be used wise ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... come out in de yard wid all de stuff dey wuz totin' off. Marse Frank wuz still settin' on de po'ch [HW correction: porch] floor wid his han's tied an' couldn' do nothin'. 'Bout dat time I seed de bee gums in de side yard. Dey wuz a whole line of gums. Little as I wuz I had a notion. I run an' got me a long stick an' tu'ned over every one of dem gums. Den I stirred dem bees up wid dat stick 'twell [HW correction: 'till] dey wuz so mad I could smell de pizen. An' bees! you ain't never seed de like of bees. Dey wuz swarmin' all over de place. Dey sailed into dem Yankees like ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... when I walked up the shore there was something funny. I had a notion I was followed all the way. Couldn't shake it. Half a dozen times I turned short and ran into the bush to look. Couldn't see nothing. Just the same I was sure. No noise, you understand, just pad, pad on the ground that stopped ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... ground for arguing that, if men of that kidney were genuinely intelligent, they would never succeed at their gross an driveling concerns—that their very capacity to master and retain such balderdash as constitutes their stock in trade is proof of their inferior mentality. The notion is certainly supported by the familiar incompetency of first rate men for what are called practical concerns. One could not think of Aristotle or Beethoven multiplying 3,472,701 by 99,999 without making a mistake, nor could one think of him remembering the range of ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... equally certain, that plain men who set themselves to deduce from Scripture the figure of the planet we inhabit had as little doubt, until corrected by the geographer, that the earth was a great plane,—not a sphere; that plain men who set themselves to acquire from Scripture some notion of the planetary motions had no doubt, in the same way, until corrected by the astronomer, that it was the earth that rested, and the sun that moved round it; and that plain men who have sought to determine from Scripture the age of the earth have had no ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... ago, about 1845, this very spot was covered with dark forests, wild as left by the hand of Nature. Nowell and I agreed that we should be perfectly ready to turn coffee planters, and settle down here for the remainder of our lives. Mr Fordyce laughed at our notion. ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... in tone, is the "Lucky Mistake." It is without the grossness characteristic of Mrs. Behn's works, and gives quite a pretty account of the loves of a young French nobleman and an unusually modest young woman named Atlante. Mrs. Behn's notion of love is contained in the opening lines of the "Fair Jilt," the most licentious of her tales. "As Love is the most noble and divine Passion of the Soul, so it is that to which we may justly attribute all the real Satisfactions of Life; ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... in the morning we reached Hannibal, Missouri, where my boyhood was spent. I had had a glimpse of it fifteen years ago, and another glimpse six years earlier, but both were so brief that they hardly counted. The only notion of the town that remained in my mind was the memory of it as I had known it when I first quitted it twenty-nine years ago. That picture of it was still as clear and vivid to me as a photograph. I stepped ashore with the feeling of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... visualize our social system more clearly perhaps than most of us see it, if he would know why so many of our love poems are addressed to the woman we have not yet met. When we begin to sympathize with him in his efforts to grasp the meaning of our literature, we are at last awakened ourselves to some notion of what our civilization means, and as Hearn guides us through the discipline, we realize an exotic quality in things which formerly we took ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... in thinking that most of them have little more notion on the matter than that God has forbidden "bad language," and wishes them to pray that everybody may be respectful ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... rather than on the dark and silent water. But now she never wearied of rowing round and round its water margin, and looking down into its unsounded depths. It was believed that Welbury Lake was unfathomable; but this notion probably had its foundation in the limited facilities in that region for ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... which Burke had already been nominated as the first member by Pitt. But here Pitt was resolute. Francis was flagrantly hostile to Hastings, hostile with a personal as well as a public hatred, and Pitt could not tolerate the notion that he should find a place upon the Committee of Impeachment. Burke protested, and the {281} very protest was characteristic of Burke's high-mindedness. For to Burke the whole business was a purely public business, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... was just started, but it didn't last long. The crowd got the same notion at the same time, and it just melted. Me and Dutchy ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... course of experimental philosophy with Abbe Nolot is over, I would have you apply to Abbe Sallier, for a master to give you a general notion of astronomy and geometry; of both of which you may know as much, as I desire you should, in six months' time. I only desire that you should have a clear notion of the present planetary system, and the history of all the former systems. Fontenelle's ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Mary Lawrie, but have no artist who will take the trouble to learn my thoughts and to reproduce them. Consequently I fear that no true idea of the young lady can be conveyed to the reader; and that I must leave him to entertain such a notion of her carriage and demeanour as must come to him at the end from the reading of the ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... quietly and at ease. Nothing but virtue, joined to a love perfectly disengaged from the senses, could have produced such effects. Vice never inspires anything like this; it is too much enslaved to the body. This was my cruel uncle's notion; he measured my virtue by the frailty of my sex, and thought it was the man and not the person I loved. But he has been guilty to no purpose. I love you more than ever, and so revenge myself on him. I will still love you with all the tenderness of my soul ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Robertson, is not a ballad because a ballad deals either with real or with supernatural people, and the hero of the poem cannot be brought under either category. For, 'were he of human flesh, his madcap notion of scaling a mountain with the purpose of getting to the sky would be simply drivelling lunacy,' to say nothing of the fact that the peak in question is much frequented by tourists, while, on the other hand, 'it would be absurd to suppose him a spirit . . . ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... to accept the fact. I want to be first always: and I ought to be. It's easy enough for you to talk, because you haven't a notion how nice Theo is! When you've married a man like that, and buried yourself in a howling wilderness because of him, he ought to belong more to you than to his sacred Frontier Force! But Theo seems to be the private property of ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... to other spirited young men of his kind. He did not much mind about taking the bad news to Godfrey, for he had to offer him at the same time the resource of Marner's money; and if Godfrey kicked, as he always did, at the notion of making a fresh debt, from which he himself got the smallest share of advantage, why, he wouldn't kick long: Dunstan felt sure he could worry Godfrey into anything. The idea of Marner's money kept growing in vividness, now the want of it had become immediate; the prospect of having to ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... the alphabet, which is admitted to be a useful means of communicating our ideas) by saying that Elsa was falling in love with Varvilliers; my own state of mind would deserve analysis, but for a haunting notion that no states of mind are worth such trouble. Let us leave it; there it was. It was impossible to say which of us would miss Varvilliers more. He had become necessary to both of us. The conclusion drawn by the way of this world ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... them, for in a voice that betrayed no anger at the slur DeBar said: "Ever since my mother taught me the first prayer, Phil. I've killed three men and I've helped to hang three others, and still I believe in a God, and I've halt a notion He believes a little bit in me, in spite of the laws made down ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... "Sharp eyes and a quick wit. This business demands it. That was a sharp notion you had, doing a run-through on Grimswitch. Never ...
— The Success Machine • Henry Slesar
... reasoning by which he convinced himself is hard to follow; for the only road to Carignan on that side runs through Bazeilles. Perhaps we ought to say that he did not reason, but was haunted by one fixed notion; and the history of war from the time of the Roman Varro down to the age of the Austrian Mack and the French de Wimpffen shows that men whose brains work in grooves and take no account of what is on the right hand and the left, are not fit to command ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... along this line; but you take my advice and stick to the corn belt land. Above all, don't begin to use phosphates or any sort of commercial fertilizer; they'll ruin any land in a few years; that's my opinion. But then, every man has a right to his own opinion. and perhaps you have a different notion. Eh?" ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... had been withdrawn from Britain or from Parthia, but would feel it as fundamentally natural that they should have been there, as in Sicily or Southern Gaul. I would not assert that the aged Francis Joseph imagines that he is Emperor of Scotland or of Denmark; but I should guess that he retains some notion that if he did rule both the Scots and the Danes, it would not be more incongruous than his ruling both the Hungarians and the Poles. This cosmopolitanism of Austria has in it a kind of shadow of responsibility for Christendom. ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... the tables; an itch to try them—one's self as well; a notion that the losers were playing wrong. In fine, a bit of a whirl of a medley of atoms; I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... arising from corporeal causes (chorea naturalis). This last case, according to a strange notion of his own he explained by maintaining that in certain vessels which are susceptible of an internal pruriency, and thence produced laughter, the blood is set into commotion in consequence of an alteration in the vital spirits, whereby are occasioned involuntary fits of intoxicating ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... than your whole estate would sell for. Those that begin with nothing, too, they tell me, are the most apt to succeed; and, if we go off with our clothes only, we shall begin with nothing, too. Success may be said to be certain. I like the notion of beginning with nothing, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... little remark," Ivan replied at once. "European Liberals in general, and even our liberal dilettanti, often mix up the final results of socialism with those of Christianity. This wild notion is, of course, a characteristic feature. But it's not only Liberals and dilettanti who mix up socialism and Christianity, but, in many cases, it appears, the police—the foreign police, of course—do the same. Your Paris anecdote is rather to ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... he had a good, stout constitution, an active manner, and a solid, substantial air, which was composed in part of his fine clothes, his clean linen, his jewels, and, above all, his own sense of his importance. Drouet immediately conceived a notion of him as being some one worth knowing, and was glad not only to meet him, but to visit the Adams Street bar thereafter whenever he wanted a drink or ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... naturally framed on the old model of marriage; in that matter, Herminia said, he was still in the gall of bitterness, and the bond of iniquity. He took it for granted that of course they must dwell under one roof with one another. But that simple ancestral notion, derived from man's lordship in his own house, was wholly adverse to Herminia's views of the reasonable and natural. She had debated these problems at full in her own mind for years, and had arrived ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... strange to M. Arouet Senior, were in vogue then; wicked Regent d'Orleans having succeeded sublime Louis XIV., and set strange fashions to the Quality. Not likely to profit this fool Francois, thought M. Arouet Senior; and was much confirmed in his notion, when a rhymed Lampoon against the Government having come out (LES J'AI VU, as they call it ["I have seen (J'AI VU)" this ignominy occur, "I have seen" that other,—to the amount of a dozen or two;—"and am not yet twenty." Copy of it, and guess as to authorship, in OEuvres de Voltaire, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... poets, of the true minstrel breed, similar to those whom Bishop Percy ascribes to England in the olden time, but about the reality of whom, as a professional body, Ritson has shown some cause to doubt. Of the Italian Jongleurs, Petrarch gives us a humble notion. "They are a class," he says, "who have little wit, but a great deal of memory, and still more impudence. Having nothing of their own to recite, they snatch at what they can get from others, and go about to the courts of princes to declaim ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... John. "We are not going to travel day and night, my dear, for as soon as we get away from this frozen country we can take our time and journey by short stages. My notion is that we will have more fun on the way than we ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... very little ingenuity, might have placed Mr. Burke at the head of a company of comedians. This last notion I did not speak, however; but enough was understood, and Mr. Windham looked straight away from me, without answering; nevertheless, his profile, which he left me, showed much more disposition to laugh than to be ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... did not plant the notion of theft in Gottlieb's mind in this bald fashion; for the devil is a most considerate person, and ever shows a courteous disposition to spare the feelings of those whom he would lead into sin. No: the temptation that he suggested was ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... rarely been allowed to ride any but short distances alone. If Dad and Jim were not available, it was an understood thing that Billy must act as her escort. Certainly she had never been in the dark alone, and so far from home. She was not afraid—she would have laughed at the very notion. Still, it was a little queer. She knew she would be glad when she was out of ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... he caught a glimpse of Soapy. The latter had the same notion that was in Sanderson's mind, for he was leaning over his pony's mane, riding hard to get out of the path ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... fire from his nostrils without burning himself, he had taken the whole Bowles campaign too much to heart, and was bleeding from the strokes which he had given as much as the wounds he had received. His mind was deeply impressed with the notion, that he had suffered defeat on some, if not on many points, and there being no stout-hearted literary lion within reach of his grocery store, to cheer his spirits and console him in his affliction, he began to feel sick and weary. All entreaties of his friends to come ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... to give a short outline of General Lee's life, and to describe him as I saw him in the autumn of 1862, when at the head of proud and victorious troops he smiled at the notion of defeat by any army that could be sent against him. I desire to make known to the reader not only the renowned soldier, whom I believe to have been the greatest of his age, but to give some insight into the character of one whom I have always considered ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... want ye to give me a notion of how you're gwine to work," he said, as the youth brought his compass and set it up on its tripod at the foot of the tree. "For, otherwise, how am I to be sure of my corner, when you ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... these, weak consciences have been mightily pestered; yea, thousands deluded and destroyed. This was the way whereby the enemy attempted to overthrow the church of Christ of old; as, namely, those in Galatia and at Corinth, &c. (2 Cor 11:3,4,13,14). I say, by the feigned notion that the law was the gospel, the Galatians were removed from the gospel of Christ; and Satan, by appropriating to himself and his ministers the names and titles of the ministers of the Lord Jesus, prevailed with many at Corinth to forsake ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of desperate laugh, as if the notion of so much misery and such various mutilation were too grotesque not to be amusing. "Well, what can you do?" he went on. "If you don't strike, the men think you're afraid of them; and so you have to begin hard and go on hard. I ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... "MY notion of a wife at forty," said Jerrold, "is, that a man should be able to change her, like ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... upon some groundless rumor, took up the notion that the commanders on the other side would come over; and accordingly, upon their first approach, they saluted them with the friendly title of fellow-soldiers. But the others returned the compliment with anger and disdainful words; which not only disheartened those that ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... inscription (C. iii. 3228) of the reign of Gallienus, which mentions milites vexill. leg. Germanicar. et Britannicin. cum auxiliis earum. Presumably it is either earlier than the Gallic Empire of 258-73, or falls between that and the revolt of Carausius in 287. The notion of O. Fiebiger (De classium Italicarum historia, in Leipziger Studien, xv. 304) that it belongs to the Aremoric revolts of the fifth century is, I think, wrong. Such an expedition from Britain at ...
— The Romanization of Roman Britain • F. Haverfield
... equally successful. His comedies were received with great applause, and still hold possession of the stage. Like his Satires, they were intended to expose fashionable vice and folly. They are twenty-five in number. The names of several will give some notion of their general character—The Babbling Barber; Always Busy and Doing Nothing; The Treacherous ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... another sort of machines of war, by land or by sea, shall not be adjudged contraband, neither by the letter nor according to any pretended interpretation whatever, ought they, or can they be comprehended under the notion of effects prohibited or contraband; so that all effects and merchandises, which are not expressly before mentioned, may, without any exception and in perfect liberty, be transported by the citizens and subjects of both allies from and to places belonging to the enemy of the other, excepting ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... to-night we said we'd have one jolly good caper for the last. Now, did we say so, or did we not? (pause) You won't speak to me? Well, I dare-say I deserve it, and I'm awfully sorry, but you know if I'd had the slightest notion she'd turn up to-day, I'd never have dressed up like ...
— Oh! Susannah! - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Mark Ambient
... the religious circle, come only with one notion, and only for one purpose—to find the way to Christ. When I see people critical about sermons, and critical about tones of voice, and critical about sermonic delivery, they make me think of a man in prison. He is condemned to ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... the dinner itself, there was no patchwork about that. Brown himself had supplied the essentials, trusting that the most of his guests could have no notion whatever of the excessively high cost of turkeys that season, or of the price of the especial quality of butter and eggs which he handed over to Mrs. Kelcey to be used in the preparation of the dishes which he and she had decided upon. That lady, however, had had some compunctions as she saw the ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... I took a notion I was grown. So I got under the house right under Marster's dinin' room an' thar I stayed for three months. Nobody but the cook knowed whar I was. They was a hole cut in the floor so ever' day she lifted the lid an' give me something to eat. Ever' day I sneaked out an' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration |
