"Precise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I here use these world-famous names without any implication as to their historical character, or their precise date, which are in themselves interesting subjects for discussion. I use them as best symbolizing the state of society which existed about the northern and eastern shores of the eastern Mediterranean, several centuries ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... that of "Olympe". How well the woman's body is in the dress! there is the bosom, the waist, the hips, the knees, and the white stockinged foot in the low shoe, coming from out the dress. The drawing about the hips and bosom undulates and floats, vague and yet precise, in a manner that recalls Harlem, and it is not until we turn to the face that we come upon ominous spaces unaccounted for, forms unexplained. The head is so charming that it seems a pity to press our examination further. But to understand ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... information," he said, in precise, business-like tones, "that Neri escaped from Gaeta two months since, and was aided and abetted in his escape by one Andrea Luziani, owner of the coasting brig 'Laura,' journeying for purposes of trade ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... enacted, that no person who should by arms, or otherwise assist the king for the time being, should ever afterwards, either by course of law or act of parliament, be attainted for such an instance of obedience. This statute might be exposed to some censure, as favorable to usurpers; were there any precise rule, which always, even during the most factious times, could determine the true successor, and render every one inexcusable who did not submit to him. But as the titles of princes are then the great subject of dispute, and each party pleads topics in its own favor, it seems but ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... of competent men, who examine competent witnesses and have the counsel of competent seamen,—many days of anxious investigation to arrive at the precise knowledge of the when, how, and wherefore of a wreck. We do not, therefore, pretend to be able to say whether it was the fault of the captain, the pilot, the man at the lead, the steersman, the look-out, or the weather, that ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... removed each, he probed the earth beneath it. And Bryce, who had instinctively realized what was happening, and knew that somebody else than himself was in possession of the secret of the scrap of paper, saw that it would be some time before they arrived at the precise spot indicated in the Latin directions. He quietly drew back and ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... successors except Empedocles followed his example. It has the very great inconvenience of making it necessary to use different words for the same thing to suit the exigencies of metre. And if there ever was an argument that demanded precise statement, it was that of Parmenides. As it is, his poem has the faults we should look for in a metrical version of Euclid. On the other hand, Parmenides is the first philosopher of whom we have sufficient remains ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... the Street would have called him Captain Ricks. Had he lacked these characteristics, but borne nevertheless even a remote resemblance to a retired mariner, his world would have hailed him as Old Cap Ricks; but since he was what he was—a dapper, precise, shrewd, lovable little old man with mild, paternal blue eyes, a keen sense of humor and a Henry Clay collar, which latter, together with a silk top hat, had distinguished him on 'Change for forty years—it was inevitable that along the Embarcadero and up California ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... weary you by further narrating what occurred at this official examination. Suffice it to say that, with one or two minor exceptions, Osborne and Allen followed the precise course of reasoning prophesied by Maitland, and, as for M. Godin, he courteously, but firmly, held his peace. The two officers did not, however, lean as strongly to the theory that death resulted from natural causes as Maitland had anticipated, ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... discussion chronological.] But matters begin to clear up when he begins at the beginning, and notes how one thing succeeded another. It may not be possible as yet to trace all the windings of the stream or to show at what precise points in its long course it was joined by such and such a tributary; yet much is known regarding the mighty river which every intelligent man will find it ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... in a region now covered by wide ocean, there begins one of those great and gradual upheavals by which new continents are formed. To be precise, let us say that in the South Pacific, midway between New Zealand and Patagonia, the sea-bottom has been little by little thrust up toward the surface, and is about to emerge. What will be the successive phenomena, geological and biological, which are likely ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... good, which is now infaisible; and now in the voice of the world shall do us both more hurt in the diminution of the reputation of our amity than it should do otherwise profit. Nevertheless, [if] ye cannot let his precise determination, [ye] can but lament and bewail your own chance to depart home in this sort; and that yet of the two inconvenients, it is to you more tolerable to return to us nothing done, than to be present at the interview ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... poem, Nosce Teipsum (mentioned by Wood in the previous extract), is said to have gained the author the favour of James I., even before he came to the crown. Wood gives the precise period of its composition, and, I think, with every appearance of truth, although it does not accord with the statement of modern biographers, that it was written at twenty-five years of age. (See Campbell's Essay on Poetry, &c., ed. 1848, p. 184.) The first edition ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851 • Various
... prose constantly your ear will come to know the harmony of language, and you will find that your taste will unerringly tell you what is good and what is bad in style, without your being able to explain even to yourself the precise quality that distinguishes the good from ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... in the days when the British public were intense believers in bear's grease as the producer of hair, and no one troubled himself or herself to investigate the precise configuration of the exhibited animal and compare it when hung up, decapitated, and shorn of its feet, with the ordinary well-fatted domestic pig, albeit the illusion was kept up by its being possible to see through the gratings outside the shop-window Ramball's black bear still "all alive-o," ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... Ransom, they had reached Willow Springs on Friday noon, purposing to camp there until the following dawn, but so alarming were the reports of the few fleeing settlers whom they met that the old colonel decided after an hour's rest to push on again. Without being trammelled by precise orders, the general tenor of his instructions was to march on down the Ska, and strike and punish any Indian war-parties he could find, and clear the valley as soon as possible. Major Chrome, with four troops, two of the Eleventh, his own, and two of the —th, Atherton's regiment, was ordered ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Pyrenees, when Lewis espoused the Spanish princess, he had renounced every title of succession to every part of the Spanish monarchy; and this renunciation had been couched in the most accurate and most precise terms that language could afford. But on the death of his father-in-law, he retracted his renunciation, and pretended that natural rights, depending on blood and succession, could not be annihilated by any extorted deed or contract. Philip ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... called a great orator, but he had grace, wit, imagination, and a beauty of style that appealed to the hearts and sympathies of his hearers. In the conduct of his business affairs, nobody could be more careful, more methodical, more precise. Indeed, we may take it for granted, without any biographical information on the subject, that in 1811 Solomon Southwick was on the road to the highest honours in the gift of ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... that you know her! for really, as you might have observed, I have no great claims on her indulgent notice. I was certainly very wild in England; but then young men, you know, Grey! and I did not leave a card, or call, before I went; and the English are very stiff and precise about those things; and the Trevors had been very kind to me. I think we had better take a little coffee now; and then, if you like, we will ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... sitting where you saw her the previous December—in the precise spot—courting the warmth of the fire, and it seemed, courting the sparks also, for they appeared as fond of her as formerly. The marvel was, how she had escaped spontaneous combustion; but there she was yet, and her clothes likewise. You might think that but a ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... disposed to pronounce it older than the latter end of the fifteenth century. If, however, it is still preserved at Copenhagen, some correspondent there will perhaps do us the favour to furnish us with a precise description of it, and with the various legends which are ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 56, November 23, 1850 • Various
... the fact of a thing being true in principle cannot give the right of suddenly enthroning it in practice. But his errors are all on the large and generous side. He is too apt to attribute to society the precise convictions and spirit he feels within himself, and so to expect impossibilities, by impossible means. But there is a power of reasoning in Mazzini, an unsullied moral purity, a chivalrous veracity and frankness, an utter abnegation of self, and a courage that has stood the severest trials, which ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... to part with; but the scarf was so old, I felt sure it must have come to my mother from a succession of chocolate or perhaps soap or sardine grandmammas, and I hadn't much sentiment about it. I had no precise idea what the lace ought to be worth, but I fancied Point d'Alencon must be valuable, and I thought I ought to get more than enough by selling it to buy the white ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... purpose to discuss all the propositions advanced in the Reflections, much less to reply to them. The book is like some temple, by whose structure and design we allow ourselves to be impressed, without being careful to measure the precise truth or fitness of the worship to which it was consecrated by its first founders. Just as the student of the Politics of Aristotle may well accept all the wisdom of it, without caring to protest at every turn against slavery as the basis of a society, so ...
— Burke • John Morley
... on the Fundamental Truths of Judaism," abundantly worthy of the perusal of all women, regardless of creed. This young woman displayed more courage, more enthusiasm, more wit, to be sure also more precise knowledge of Judaism, than thousands of men of our time, young and old, who fancy grandiloquent periods sufficient to solve the great religious ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... compared with the Capitalism that killed them, they were heroes and martyrs. He has done this with the most unusual power of conviction. The story, as he tells it, inevitably and irresistibly displaces all the vulgar, mean, purblind, spiteful versions. There is a precise realism and an unsmiling, measured, determined sincerity which gives a strange dignity to the work of one whose fixed practice and ungovernable impulse it is to kick conventional ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... to general results; and in the few genuine writings which are now extant it is easy to perceive that he has recourse to the simplest language, expresses himself in terms which, though short and pithy, are always precise and perspicuous, and is averse to the introduction of philosophical dogmas. Of the greater part of the writings collected under his name, on the contrary the general character is verboseness, prolixity and a great tendency to speculative opinions. For these reasons, as well as for others derived ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... industry, a devotee to system, and a very remarkably punctual, effective and straightforward writer. Her flight was never very high, but it was always progressive, and her regulation of her pen by the precise rules that govern presswork was entitled to distinct praise. She could always be trusted to keep within her topic and herself behind it, and she understood the art of putting things to her public in a way to discover to them their own ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... of May Mr. Tennyson submitted a motion for leave to introduce a bill to shorten the duration of parliaments. He reserved to himself the right, he said, of suggesting the precise period to which parliaments should extend, when the measure had gone into committee. The motion was seconded by Sir Edward Codrington, who expressed himself in favour of five years as being more likely to reconcile the different parties. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... is courtly now, this is sweete, this plaine, this is familiar, but by the Court of France, our peevish dames are so proud, so precise, so coy, so disdainfull, and so subtill, as the Pomonian Serpent, mort dieu the Puncke of ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... verse of the first chapter of Genesis presents a difficulty as to the precise meaning of the principal word, ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... the American Ethnological Society, which is the ablest paper of the age. The results of Mr. Gallatin's labors, and his reading of the ancient scrolls of Mexican picture writing, preserved in the folios of Lord Kingsborough, while they limit the amount of precise historical information in these unique records to very narrow grounds, yet denote a degree of system and exactitude, both in their chronology and astronomy, ...
— Incentives to the Study of the Ancient Period of American History • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... river. Mr. Gardiner, in his Case against Sir Walter Ralegh, published in the Fortnightly Review in 1867, assumes it was that pointed out to Keymis by Putijma in 1595, though, it must be remembered, Keymis heard of another from the Cacique in 1596. At any rate the precise topographical relation between it and the existing Spanish settlement of San Thome, or St. Thomas, was unknown to Ralegh. The town was no longer where it had stood in 1596 when Keymis heard of it. The old site had been deserted at some date which cannot be fixed. The common view has been ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... attended Evan Dhu during his perquisitions, was much struck with the ingenuity which he displayed in collecting information, and the precise and pointed conclusions which he drew from it. Evan Dhu, on his part, was obviously flattered with the attention of Waverley, the interest he seemed to take in his inquiries, and his curiosity about the customs ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... upon no inner line of sentries. Even as he wondered, he emerged from a copse into a field, and received the usual challenge—spoken this time in so quick, machine-like a manner, and accompanied by so prompt and precise a levelling of the musket, that he knew 'twas a British regular ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... instant may be known, and in determining the spot of fall of a projectile. In getting the time of flight of projectiles electricity is of value; by breaking a wire in circuit with a chronograph, the precise instant of start to within a thousandth of a second being automatically registered. Velocimeters are a familiar application of electricity somewhat analogous. In these, wires are cut by the projectile at different ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... though always friendly tone. April 9 he wrote: "Your despatches, complaining that you are not properly sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me very much. I suppose the whole force which has gone forward for you is with you by this time. And, if so, I think it is the precise time for you to strike a blow. By delay, the enemy will relatively gain upon you—that is, he will gain faster by fortifications and reinforcements than you can by reinforcements alone. And once more let me tell you, it is indispensable ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... The precise date of Borrow's leaving Norwich and betaking himself to London cannot be ascertained, but it is certain that he left his brother behind him in the old home. Mr. Birrell believes it to have been not later than 1828, and says "his only introduction appears ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... in the waiting-room and entered the study. A grave, precise, clean-shaven man was standing by the window. He turned as I entered. It was ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... Faith, Repentance and a Godly life, of the Nature and Use of Sacraments, and of the Condition of Man after this Life, the Commons had still demurred about the "competent understanding," and had begged the Assembly to be more precise and business-like (April 1). At length, some resolutions having been come to about the "competent understanding," and there being less difficulty in deciding who should come under the category of the scandalous, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... to a considerable extent, especially in works where the progress of an operation can be kept under close watch in this way, the product being periodically examined by more precise methods. The chief furnace-man, or "melter," in a steel plant, judges the course of the refining process by casting small test ingots from time to time, breaking them and examining the fracture. Cutlery manufacturers use the bend test ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... them, letters were sent to the governor of Pennsylvania, in which Celoron declared that he was greatly surprised to find Englishmen trespassing in the domain of France, and that his orders were precise, to leave no foreign traders within the limits of ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... hold like individuals to a like habitat are, as already indicated, identical demands as regards existence, and these demands are satisfied in their precise habitat to such an extent that the species can maintain itself here against rivals. Natural unmixed associations of forest trees are the result of struggles with other species. But there are differences as regards the ease with which a community can arise and establish itself. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... somewhat limit the "absolute" power of others, and might not in its turn be limited by them, he finds it an "absolute" impossibility to harmonise the various items of his programme whenever words no longer suffice, and it becomes necessary to replace them by more precise ideas. He "desires" the abolition of religion. But, "the State having fallen into decay," who is to abolish it? He "desires" the abolition of property, individually hereditary. But what is to be done if, ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff
... fascination uncontrollable. He envied the prim, precise creature who sat unbending, severe, and, even while keeping up a semblance of interest in the conversation, seemed to feel it a duty to display disapprobation of ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... Whiting has treated his landscape and animal kingdom with rare discretion. The music gave pleasure; it soothed by its quiet untortured beauty, its simplicity, its discretion. And in like manner, without receiving or desiring to receive any definite, precise impression, the finale interested because it was not a hackneyed form of brilliant talk. The finale is something more than clever, to use a hideous term that I heard applied to it. It is individual, and this praise ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... important foreign exchange earners. The government continues its efforts to reduce unemployment, to encourage direct foreign investment, and to privatize remaining state-owned enterprises. The economy contracted in 2002-03 mainly due to a decline in tourism. Growth should be positive in 2004, the precise level largely dependent on economic conditions in the ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... subject to some change, although in some instances the absence of all political feeling might render any such change unnecessary. On the Thursday he saw her majesty, when he made a verbal communication to such an effect. He would not enter into the precise nature of this communication, but simply read two letters which had subsequently passed: one, conveying her majesty's impressions, and the other his own. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... degree of what I have just recorded: but at Rose Hill, it was allowed, by every person, to surpass all that they had before felt, either there or in any other part of the world. Unluckily they had no thermometer to ascertain its precise height. It must, however, have been intense, from the effects it produced. An immense flight of bats driven before the wind, covered all the trees around the settlement, whence they every moment dropped dead or in a dying state, unable longer to endure the burning state of the atmosphere. Nor did ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... usual—just how many we can't determine, but the order of magnitude seems about right. It would depend on how much water each one of them drank, of course, and we haven't a chance of getting anything like a precise determination of that now." ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... in the Netherlands, and after his return had been made a captain in the Lifeguards, and a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. Vandyke has left portraits of the father and the son; the one a bald-headed, alert, precise-looking old warrior, with the cuirass and gauntlets of elder warfare; the other, the very model of a cavalier, tall, easy, and graceful, with a gentle reflecting face, and wearing the long lovelocks and deep point lace collar and cuffs ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a tall man, with the head and shoulders of an athlete, and a face of such precise and unusual beauty that one's instinct called out, "Here, then, God has planned ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... from your having on your glasses and I not. I endeavored to set it down in the precise place ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... within eight years. They are great builders here in Hiva-oa; I saw in my ride paepaes that no European dry-stone mason could have equalled, the black volcanic stones were laid so justly, the corners were so precise, the levels so true; but the retaining-wall of the new graveyard stood apart, and seemed to be a work of love. The sentiment of honour for the dead is therefore not extinct. And yet observe the consequence of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... these:—"On Tuesday se'n-night, Squire Brown of Bumpkin Hall was married to Miss Matilda Midas of Halifax, a handsome young lady with ten thousand pounds to her dowry"? We are much more florid nowadays, but by no means so precise. The leader-writer did not spread himself abroad a hundred years ago. Indeed, soon after the Leeds Mercury gave up discussing the amiable weakness that it attributed to ladies with well-turned ankles, it ceased ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... might have to mention the young lord's name in a legal document, would have entered it as 'William Herbert, commonly called Lord Herbert.' The appellation 'Mr.' was not used loosely then as now, but indicated a precise social grade. Thorpe's employment of the prefix 'Mr.' without qualification is in itself fatal to the pretension that any lord, whether by right or courtesy, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... that these words convey no very definite idea to most readers. The thing forbidden is not very sharply defined by the expression which our translators have employed, but the original term is very picturesque and precise. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... beg pardon, eggs—plain. Name's Mortimer—Stanislas 'Ratio, of that ilk. A Scotch exshpression." Here he pulled himself together again, and with an air of anxious lucidity laid a precise accent on every syllable. "The name, I flatter myself, should be a guarantee. No reveller, madam, I s'hure you; appearances against me, but no Bacchanal; still lesh—shtill less I should iggs—or, if you prefer ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... left here in New London, seeing his worldly means which were "all embarked in this enterprise" rapidly wasting away, without any influence to back him but the righteousness of his cause, with his very loyalty to the crown made an objection to him where one might have expected the precise opposite, he never bated one jot of effort—however it may have been as to heart and hope—but met difficulties, answered objections, dealt with obstacles with a brave patience that marks him as a veritable hero. [Footnote: A story was set ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... of the transactions of these railway committees; and you may judge for yourself how far the members are likely to understand the true circumstances of the case from evidence so singularly conflicting. Sometimes three or four days are wasted before they can even comprehend the precise position of the lines which they are required to consider, and, after all, these impressions must be of the haziest description. For my own part, I think the legislature has made a most palpable mistake in not intrusting such important functions to parties who possess competent ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... she fell on her knees, and spread out her hands to the moon. She could not in the least have told what was in her mind, but the action was in reality just a begging of the moon to be what she was—that precise incredible splendor hung in the far-off roof, that very glory essential to the being of poor girls born and bred in caverns. It was a resurrection—nay, a birth itself—to Nycteris. What the vast blue sky, studded ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... (the school being such an awkward place for callers, and because of her strong wish that her engagement to him should not be known, which it would infallibly be if he visited her often). Over these phrases the school-master pored. What precise shade of satisfaction was to be gathered from a woman's gratitude that the man who loved her had not been often to see her? The problem ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... was very good," said Tayoga in his grave, precise manner. "Few who have been in the forest as little as he could have done as much ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... time to see how much better the old things are than the new. A true Japanese artist never repeats himself, and consequently never makes an exact pair of anything. His designs agree generally, and his vases are more or less alike, without being a precise match. He throws in a spray of flowers, a bird, or a fan, as the fancy strikes him, and the same objects are therefore never placed in exactly the same relative position. Modern articles are made precisely alike, not ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... friends! Nice of you to drop in on me while in the neighborhood." His English was suave, precise. "Professor Norman Prescott, leader of the American Kinchinjunga expedition, I believe." He paused and lifted inquiring eyebrows to ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... which, with the latter, defines, as it were, intuitively, the exact location on the field, of a friend, and, with unerring certitude, calculates the degree of force that shall be needed to propel the ball, and the precise direction its flight shall take, in order to insure its reposing on the net of that friend. In the frequently recurring mlees, begotten of the struggle amongst a number of contestants for the possession of ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... Washington's immediate objective, and as he approached it his advance-guard met a French reconnoitring party under Jumonville, sent, it is alleged, by the commandant of Fort Duquesne to warn the Virginians off French soil. The precise purpose served by this handful of Frenchmen has never, however, been fully determined. Jumonville's movements are certainly hard to reconcile with the theory of a peaceful mission, and to Major Washington they certainly ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... Bonaparte, authorised him to have it published at the public expense, and made him many promises." Lanfrey, vol. i. pp. 201, says of this pamphlets "Common enough ideas, expressed in a style only remarkable for its 'Italianisms,' but becoming singularly firm and precise every time the author expresses his military views. Under an apparent roughness, we find in it a rare circumspection, leaving no hold on the writer, even ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... raised to build a suitable monument to his memory. Fortunately, Abijah Alexander, then ninety years of age, was still living, a worthy citizen, and long a member of Poplar Tent Church, who was present at the burial of his beloved pastor, and who could point out the precise spot of sepulture, near the centre of the old graveyard. The following is a copy of the inscription ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... Foanna, their robes once more cloaking them. Each held, point out, one of the rods. They moved slowly but with the precise gestures of those about a demanding and very important task as they traced each depression in the wall before them with the wand points. Down, up, around ... as their feet had moved in the dance pattern, so now their wands moved ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... your manor of Picht-hatch! go. You'll not bear a letter for me, you rogue!—you stand upon your honour!—Why, thou unconfinable baseness, it is as much as I can do to keep the terms of my honour precise. I, I, I myself sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand, and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge, and to lurch; and yet you, rogue, will ensconce your rags, your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... hearing there of the probable arrival of Baudin on the west coast of America, starts with the intention of crossing at Panama. He arrives at Carthagena, but was prevented by the advance of the season from crossing the Isthmus, and changed his determination from want of precise information respecting Baudin's locality. He determines to ascend the Magdalena River and visit Santa Fe de Bogota, where, for several months, he explores the construction of the mountains, and collects plants and animals; and, in connection with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... Whig in politics and a staunch supporter of a Whig ministry," but in all the various questions where politics and theology cross one another he took the free and comprehensive instead of the precise and exclusive views, and to impress them on others was one chief interest of ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... sixty-seventh of Herod the Great, and the thirty-fifth of his reign; the fourth before the beginning of the Christian era. The hours of the day, by Judean custom, begin with the sun, the first hour being the first after sunrise; so, to be precise; the market at the Joppa Gate during the first hour of the day stated was in full session, and very lively. The massive valves had been wide open since dawn. Business, always aggressive, had pushed through the arched entrance into a narrow lane and court, which, passing ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... on Wednesday, the 14th of October (continues the precise Antonio Agapida), that the good count de Cabra, according to arrangement, appeared at the gate of Cordova. Here he was met by the grand cardinal and the duke of Villahermosa, illegitimate brother of the king, together with many ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... uncertain—of such adventurers the names may be unknown. But it seems to me impossible to deny the fact of foreign settlements in Greece, in her remoter and more barbarous era, though we may dispute as to the precise amount of the influence they exercised, and the exact nature of the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of faith are, however, as we might expect, only a part of the phenomenon of the great place which the idea of faith holds in the Epistle. When we come to reflect upon it, the precise position of the Hebrew Christians was that of men seriously, even tremendously, tempted to walk by sight, not by faith. The Gospel called them to venture their all, for time and eternity, upon an invisible Person, an invisible order, a mediation carried on ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... had spent a fortnight or thereabouts in Heydon Hay, and had got her own small dwelling-place into precise order, she began to make a round of visits among the people she had known in her youth. She had met most of the survivors of that earlier day at the parish church on Sundays, and had had no occasion to find fault with the manner of her reception at their hands. If there was not precisely ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... of us could presume to measure the precise quality of odic force inherent in the grisly mystery that lay under our hand; the affair might range from the dignity of a cause celebre to the commonplace of a purely commercial transaction—the economical transportation of a medical college "subject." It was this very uncertainty that fascinated ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... have stated. She thoroughly loved Lady Massey, as, indeed, nobody could help doing; and for her sake, had there been no separate interest surrounding the young lord, it would have been most painful to her that through Lord Carbery's absence a periodic tedium should oppress her guest at that precise season of the day which traditionally dedicated itself to genial enjoyment. Glad, therefore, was she that an ally had come at last to Laxton, who might arm her purposes of hospitality with some powers of self-fulfilment. And yet, for a service of that nature, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... of more serious mind to go back with Monsignore and myself to the era of autochthonous Sicily, when the children of the Cyclops inhabited the land, and Demeter in her search for Proserpina wept on this hill, and Charybdis lay stretched out under these bluffs watching the sea. It is precise enough to say that Taormina began eighty years before the Trojan War. Very dimly, it must be acknowledged, the ancient Sicani are seen arriving and driven, like all doomed races, south and west out of the land, and in their place the Siculi flourish, and ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... seems of no consequence; yet this may be thought of the next, and the next, and so on, till there is a large portion of misery. In the same way one must think of happiness, of learning, of friendship. We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over. We must not divide objects of our attention into minute parts, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... Apicius for incompleteness and want of precise directions, without which the experiment in the hands of an inexperienced ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... must be repeated, is the exact and faithful representation of a man's spirit in poetry or prose. The precise value of that spirit does not matter for the moment. James Boswell, Dr. Johnson and Porteous, Bishop of Chester, investigated the matter with some acumen and some fruitfulness in one ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... they do not derive it from any representation raised in the mind of the things for which they stand. As compositions, they are not real essences, and hardly cause, I think, any real ideas. Nobody, I believe, immediately on hearing the sounds, virtue, liberty, or honor, conceives any precise notions of the particular modes of action and thinking, together with the mixed and simple ideas, and the several relations of them for which these words are substituted; neither has he any general idea compounded of them; for if he had, then some of those particular ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... organically and innately turned toward individuals of the same sex. The second is used more comprehensively of the general phenomena of sexual attraction between persons of the same sex, even if only of a slight and temporary character. It may be admitted that there is no precise warrant for any distinction of this kind between the two terms. The distinction in the phenomena is, however, still generally recognized; thus Iwan Bloch applies the term "homosexuality" to the congenital form, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... full speed to Winchester, and demanded the keys of the royal treasury, "as true heir," says Ordesic Vitalis, one of the best historians of Henry's reign, recording rather, it is probable, his own opinion than the words of the prince. Men's ideas were still so vague, not yet fixed and precise as later, on the subject of rightful heirship, that such a demand as Henry's—a clear usurpation according to the law as it was finally to be—could find some ground on which to justify itself; at least this, which his historian suggests ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... mightiest kingdom in Europe. An hour earlier or later, an accident by the way, a swollen torrent, a chance impediment of any kind that should delay me—and what a change might that produce in the whole destiny of the world. The dispatches I carried conveyed instructions the most precise and accurate—the places for combined action of the two armies—information as to the actual state of parties, and the condition of the native forces, was contained in them. All that could instruct the newly-come generals, or encourage them to decisive measures were there; and, yet, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... not convey the precise date, my dear, but no doubt it is true," said the gentleman unpoetically. At least, we may suppose so, as the lady ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... understand what is the precise meaning of the expression twamrite. Literally it means without thee. Whether however, the speaker means that all the princes will meet with destruction except thee or that they will be destroyed without thy being ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... countenance of an owl, and the bristles of a boar in lieu of a beard; his smile was sardonic, and his limbs played like those of a puppet moved by wires. I have forgotten his odious name, but the remembrance of his frightful precise countenance remains with me, though hardly can I recollect it without trembling; especially when I call to mind our meeting in the gallery, when he graciously advanced his filthy square cap as a sign for me to enter his apartment, which appeared more dismal in my apprehension than a dungeon. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... his pocket a thick letter, strongly sealed, and addressed in Jefferson's fine, precise hand. "I must be away from Richmond for a week or more, and the matter may be important. I can conceive no reason why, so that it be put directly into Mr. Rand's hand, one agent should be better than another. I'll confide it to ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... that I have not been able to recollect the precise words of a conversation so very diffuse, upon so many different subjects, and which lasted from eleven at night till past ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... from an inheritance of the softer sentiments, Miss Cather has learned that the ultimate interest of fiction inheres in character. It is a question whether she can ever reach the highest point of which she shows signs of being capable unless she makes up her mind that it is as important to find the precise form for the representation of a memorable character as it is to find the precise word for the expression of a memorable idea. At present she pleads that if she must sacrifice something she would rather it were form than reality. If she desires ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... the precise compass of that question. "That I can't exactly answer," she replied with ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... woman, whom passing years had browned, although leaving the fine strong features uncoarsened. She was dressed simply in black, and wore a small American bonnet. The figure had not lost the slimness of its youth, but the walk was stiff and precise. The carriage evinced a ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... Pack'd and precise, no Doubt. Yet surely those Are but the Qualities we ask of Prose, Was ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... afternoon, in a shady spot between Antioch and Seleucia, he was attacked by Sallust, at that time an officer of the Scutarii; and on various other occasions he was plotted against by many other persons, from whose treacherous designs he only escaped because the precise moment of his death had been determined at ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... Into what precise degree of mental confusion Mr. Jope had worked himself the Major could never afterwards determine; though he soon had every opportunity to think it out ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... which the fire called life cannot be sustained, and back from the tissues to the lungs carbonic acid, one of the products of that fire; and larger, yet marvelously small, bodies called leucocytes or white corpuscles, whose precise origin and use to this day, in spite of all the labor that has been spent upon their study, remain unknown. But that which makes the blood wonderful above all other fluids is its vitality. Our common expression, "life's blood," is no idle phrase. The blood is indeed the very throne ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... be paid a minute sum, and their employers were also expected to teach them the Christian religion. That was the plan. The way in which it worked was that, a body of native men being allotted to a Spanish settler for a period, say, of six or eight months—for the enactment was precise in putting a period to the term of slavery—the natives would be marched off, probably many days' journey from their homes and families, and set to work under a Spanish foreman. The work, as we have already seen, was infinitely harder than that to which they were accustomed; ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... useful invention. We could not do without them but unless we are very careful, they will play tricks with us. They are apt to make history too precise. For example, when I talk of the point-of-view of mediaeval man, I do not mean that on the 31st of December of the year 476, suddenly all the people of Europe said, "Ah, now the Roman Empire has come to an end and we are living in ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... our conversation," said a young man, whose precise face aspired to an austere and imposing air. "Up to this time, we can form only very vague conjectures as to the road that Lambernier took to escape. This, allow me to say, is more important than the notary's hare or ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... a most amiable woman; she fell at length into a rapid consumption, and at Bristol hot-wells she died. Gray's letter to Mr. Mason while at that place, is full of eloquence; upon which the latter observes, "I opened it almost at the precise moment when it would be necessarily most affecting. His epitaph on the monument he erected on this lady, in the Bristol cathedral, breathes such tender feeling and chaste simplicity, that it can need no ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... same moment a neat black-and-white parlourmaid brought in teapot, copper kettle, and a silver-covered dish containing hot pikelets; then departed. Clara was alone again; not the same Clara now, but a personage demure, prim, precise, frightfully upright of back—a sort of impregnable stronghold—without doubt ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... circle of "disciples" he was unapproachable. The instructions given me by Boris Stuermer were absolute and precise. The reason that I was always at the charlatan's right hand was because he could only write with difficulty, and was therefore unable to make any memoranda. His letters were the painful efforts of an unlettered mujik, as indeed ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... say, and I cannot say, under what precise form of organization it will be, but I trust and I believe—indeed, I am sure—that the Volunteers will become a permanent, an integral and characteristic part of the defensive forces of ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... is quite possible that Mrs. Sutgrove's conjecture is correct, and that even at that early age Mannering had learnt something about hypnotism from his native instructor, for I am very certain that of these semi-occult sciences, the East has much more precise knowledge than is realized by ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... flower. And obviously all historic common sense is against the idea that that dim Druid people, whoever they were, who dwelt in our land before it was lit up by Rome or loaded with varied invasions, were a precise facsimile of the commercial society of Birmingham or Brighton. But it is a part of the Puritan in Bernard Shaw, a part of the taut and high-strung quality of his mind, that he will never admit of any ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... to the House of Commons. That will be done when the body is chosen in such a way that its interests are necessarily coincident with those of the community at large. Hence there is of course no difficulty in deducing the actual demands of reformers. Without defining precise limits, he shows that representatives must be elected for brief periods, and that the right to a vote must at least be wide enough to prevent the electoral body from forming a class with 'sinister interests.' He makes some ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... great interests of the Navy, to the prosperity of which each would be impelled to devote himself by the strongest motives. Under such an arrangement every branch of this important service would assume a more simple and precise character, its efficiency would be increased, and scrupulous economy in the expenditure of public ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... a number of little jokes and stories; and he was making himself generally agreeable. The efflorescent Roberts was anxious to know—as anxious, that is, as a very devoted regard for his menu would permit—the precise position held by a certain High Churchman who was being harried and worried by the law courts at this time; but Mr. Jacomb, with great prudence, would have nothing to say on such subjects. He laughed the whole matter off. He preferred to tell anecdotes ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... your house through those of our confession, the fellow-believers of these whom you propose to protect with so much prudence and courage; and that, young man, is noble, nay, is truly great. I find in you—you who were described to me as a man of the world and not over-precise—for the first time that which I have sought in vain for many years and in many lands, among the pious and virtuous: the spirit of willing self-sacrifice to save an enemy of a different creed from pressing peril.—But you are young, Orion, and I am old. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was full of deliberation, and he carried a small brown paper parcel under his arm as if it were a sword of state. Maggie followed him up the steep and vulgarly carpeted staircase that branched into the various passages forming the upper part of the house. Willy's room was precise and grave, and there everything was held under lock and key. He put the brown paper parcel on the table; he took off his coat and laid it on the bed, heaving, at the same time, ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... admiring; but still he looked up. The knot of office-boys, crowding and skylarking across a couple of seats, stopped their shuffle and noise for a second, and one said, "My! ain't she stunning?" A young fellow, rather spruce in his own way also, with precise necktie, deep paper cuffs and dollar-store studs and initial sleeve-buttons, touched his hat with an air of taking credit to himself, as she glanced at him; and another, in a sober old gray suit, with only a black ribbon knotted under his linen collar, turned slightly the other way as she ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... peculiar and delicate charm to the quality of grave majesty which Alessio's works share with those of Piero della Francesca and others of Domenico Veneziano's following. They probably belong to the years 1460-1465. In the later of his preserved works, while there is no abatement of precise and laborious finish, we find beginning to prevail a certain harshness and commonness of type, and a lack of care for beauty in composition, the technical and scientific searcher seeming more and more to predominate ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various |
