"Present moment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it is scarcely perceptible to the ear or eye—he could describe it to no one—it is a mere feather-touch, yet it seems to have changed his whole being, to have merged an uneasy yearning into a delicious consciousness of everything but the present moment." (Adam Bede, ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... into her own bedroom, which, from the Aubusson carpet to the Dresden and ormolu appliques, might have arrived in a bonbon box direct from the avenue de l'Opera in Paris. At the present moment two steamer trunks stood gaping in the middle of the floor, tissue paper was scattered about on various chairs, the dressing-table was bare of silver, and a traveling bag displayed a row of gold bottle and brush tops. Nina threw her packages on a couch already littered with empty boxes, ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... shining. 'Tis hard to keep the what from breaking through this pretty painting of the how. The core will come to the surface. Strong will and keen perception overpower old manners and create new; and the thought of the present moment has a greater value than all the past. In persons of character, we do not remark manners, because of their instantaneousness. We are surprised by the thing done, out of all power to watch the way of it. Yet nothing is more charming than to recognize the great style ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... English rule, the Past Def. (or Preterite) should be used to narrate events which happened in the past, in a period of time which does not include the present moment as— ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... not resolutely set yourself against Lord Vargrave's claim; do not persuade yourself that you must be unhappy in a union with him. Compose your mind, think seriously upon the choice before you, refuse all decision at the present moment; wait until the appointed time arrives, or, at least, more nearly approaches. Meanwhile, I understand that Lord Vargrave is to be a frequent visitor at Mrs. Merton's; there you will see him with others, his character will show itself. Study his ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book I • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... which dominates your countenance at the present moment," counselled the Skeptic gently, "or you will be quietly led away from the scene as dangerous to ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... say, and I would if I was led a Martha to the Stakes for it,' Mrs Gamp remarked below stairs, in a whisper, 'that she don't look much like a merry one at this present moment of time.' ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... over the bed. It was impossible for even his hopefulness to avoid the fact that Lasham was delirious. It was a strong factor in the case—one that would certainly justify his going over to Falloner's with the news. For the present moment, however, this aberration was to be accepted cheerfully and humored after Daddy's own fashion. "Of course—the letter, the letter," he said convincingly; "that's what the boys hev bin ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... the evening mail," the Chief said shortly, "a berth has been reserved for you, and I myself will see you into the train. Do not complain of us, Mr. Kennedy. I can assure you that there are many cities more agreeable than Warsaw at the present moment." ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... fortunately; she only suspected, and waited for the day when Emma Jane would pour out her confidences, as she always did, and always would until the end of time. At the present moment she was busily employed in thinking about her own affairs. A shabby composition book with mottled board covers lay open on the table before her, and sometimes she wrote in it with feverish haste and absorption, and sometimes she rested her chin in the cup ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of attempting such a thing, Miss Starbrow. But it would be useless to say much more; whatever line I take to-night only makes matters worse for me. But allow me to say one thing before bidding you good-night. The annoyance you feel at the present moment will not last. You have too much generosity, too much intellect, to allow it to rest long in your bosom; and deeply as I feel this rebuff, I am not going to be so weak as to let it darken and spoil my whole life. No, my hope is too strong and too reasonable ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... said, perhaps a couple of yards distant from her friends, and their backs, at the present moment, were more than half turned to her. It would be just possible for me to speak to her, without being observed by them, if I were both extraordinarily cautious and lucky. At any moment Wildred, who had perhaps gone to rectify ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... England has produced, owing to the effects of this class of admirers of art, two admirable, and five hundred very clever, portrait painters. How many ARTISTS? Let the reader count upon his five fingers, and see if, living at the present moment, he ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... House must bring this matter to an issue, he would beg their attention to a particular point. He entreated them to look further than the present moment, and to ask themselves if they had fortified their minds sufficiently to bear the consequences which might arise from the abolition of the Slave Trade, supposing they should decide upon it. When they abandoned it, other foreign powers might take it up, and clandestinely ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... during the last five years in which he has had an account with us he has caused us considerable trouble with regard to his payments. At the present moment he owes us $240 for purchases made approximately six months ago, to recover which amount we have instructed our ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... The present moment is in a sense the wrong time to say this. We no longer live in an age when down-trodden laborers meet by candlelight with the ban of the law upon their meeting. These are the days when "labor" is triumphant, ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... useful in relieving an emotional situation, "is a seafaring phrase. It means throwing overboard a part or the whole of a cargo in order to save the ship. As far as I can see that is the question which is up to you and your best friend at the present moment. Are you prepared to jettison the claim on a big fortune for the sake of making ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... it!" he echoed surprisedly. "There's no question of me affording it. Why don't you talk sense? You'll be earning the same good salary after we're spliced as you're earning at the present moment." ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... received our fathers and blessed them with the privileges of citizenship. Let us not mind the minor chord of sorrow and persecution. Let us rather take the major chord of glory and of honor, and from the days of scholarship and of freedom to the present moment of a world's national power, let us chant the hymns of glory and ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... himself less strange to him there, than he would in many a German town. But in no degree of life is the difference more remarkable than among unmarried but marriageable young women. It is not my purpose at the present moment to attribute a superiority in this matter to either nationality. Each has its own charm, its own excellence, its own Heaven-given grace, whereby men are led up to purer thoughts and sweet desires; and each may possibly have its own defect. I will not here describe the excellence or defect of either; ...
— The House of Heine Brothers, in Munich • Anthony Trollope
... you write them?" she asked at one time. "I always do! Realistic, you know, and saves time. At this present moment—" she drew back from the table, screwing up one eye, and holding aloft her pen in truly ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... and furiously. His pulses throbbed, his blood coursed on, and his face went hot and cold with emotion. Had he been fondly persuading himself, during the past months, that she was forgotten? Truly the present moment rudely undeceived him. ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. He could not concur in a blind and servile address, which approved, and endeavoured to sanctify, the monstrous measures that had heaped disgrace upon us, and had brought ruin to our very doors. The present moment, he said, was a perilous and tremendous period, and therefore not a time for adulation. His lordship then pointed out the degrading situation to which this country was reduced, in being obliged to acknowledge as enemies those whom we had denominated rebels; and in seeing them ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Chickerel, sitting in a patriarchal chair, conversed pleasantly with his guest, being well acquainted with him through other members of the family. They talked of Julian's residence at different Italian towns with his sister; of Faith, who was at the present moment staying with some old friends in Melchester: and, as was inevitable, the discourse hovered over and settled upon Ethelberta, the prime ruler of the courses of them all, with little ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... this auspicious moment. I may say it is the proudest moment of my life to be able to stand on this mantelpiece and look down on you all, to feel myself enrolled a member of such an august corps. I may say I feel myself elevated at this present moment, but as, gentlemen, there is no saying, in the precarious situation I am now placed, how long I may be in a position to contemplate the elegance of his majesty and court, I hasten to propose that his majesty's health ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... present moment, County Councils are trying to push rural education and to awaken the intelligence of country children by interesting them in their surroundings. It is, therefore, a favourable opportunity to offer these pages as a concrete suggestion in model lessons and object lessons, showing exactly what ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell
... dropped her chin in her grime-smeared hand, staring speculatively at the other. The man sat there, apparently a self-confessed crook and criminal, but, also, he sat there as the man to whom she owed the fact that at the present moment she was not behind prison bars. He proclaimed himself in the same breath both a thief and a gentleman, as far as she could make out. They were characteristics which, until now, she had never associated together; but now, curiously enough, they did not seem so utterly at variance. Of ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... leaves such a rich spiritual content largely behind itself; and when this happens, it becomes a matter of the greatest difficulty to recover it. And even when it is recovered, something of infinite value has been for ever lost. The present moment of the soul has to live on itself; and such a life remains alien to depths of reality which have been plumbed by the great personalities of history in the past. It is a want of conviction in truth and reality that makes ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... Ned, gazing about him with an expression of intense disgust; "I got here after dark; that's how it comes about that I never realized until the present moment what a paradise this place is. Valley City! I can't see more ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... may actually have been destroyed nearly one thousand years ago. Other stars are only one hundred light-years removed from us in space; others only a few years; others only a few hours. But the principle is just the same in all cases, namely, that we see the stars not as they are at the present moment, but as they were when the light left them, perhaps many years ago. Thus, as you see, we may actually perceive events ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... at least a score of persons living in Toronto at the present moment who remember that queer old house on Duchess street. Not that there was anything specially remarkable about the house itself, which indeed, in its best days, presented an aspect of rather snug respectability. ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... they need no further thought. In point of fact, the patriotism of the Jews for the lands in which they live has been demonstrated on so many occasions that only blind ignorance or wilful misrepresentation can call it into question. At the present moment, in all the armies that are at the front, our brethren are doing service even beyond ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... justified; by adopting the point of view of a Providence who arranges results, or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall find it possible to obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what is most agreeable to us in the present moment. And it was in this way that Philip justified his subtle efforts to overcome Maggie's true prompting against a concealment that would introduce doubleness into her own mind, and might cause new misery to those who had ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... and piercingly lustrous, retreating chin, and retreating narrow forehead. In that face, with its intense eyes, there was the possibility of rare charm and fascination, and beauty of a very unusual kind; but at the present moment, as she looked carelessly and almost sullenly at her visitor, there was ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... she could think of nothing else; she had always fancied she should like two children, a boy and a girl, and the idea of having a daughter haunted her. But since Rosalie had been sent away, she had lived quite apart from her husband, and at the present moment it seemed utterly impossible to renew their former relations. Julien's affections were centered elsewhere; she knew that; and, on her side, the mere thought of having to submit to his caresses again, made ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... to say that, if the provisions of these Articles had been carried out fully and generously, there might have been at the present moment a strong and united ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... and treated with barbarous inhumanity by a notorious bruiser named the Times. The unfortunate gentleman lies to the present moment speechless from the injuries ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... But the sources of our information were not always reliable; some doubts were thrown upon our records by jealous persons outside the Society; and as it is the special business of the Committee on Doubtful and Fabulous Tales to look into such matters, the Committee is here before you at the present moment in the interest of truth. No member of our Society has ever seen Captain Lingo, and the jealous persons I have mentioned pretend that no such person has ever existed. The chief mission of our Committee is to vindicate our records by a sight of Captain ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... man, I now shoved this whole problem clear out of my mind till its appointed day and hour should come, in order that I might turn all my attention to the circumstances of the present moment, and be alert and ready to make the most out of them that could be made. One thing at a time, is my motto—and just play that thing for all it is worth, even if it's only two pair and a jack. I made up my mind to two things: if it was still the nineteenth century and I was among ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of nations with regard to blockaded ports, privateering, ships and men and goods contraband of war, and all those semi-nautical, semi-military rules and axioms which it is necessary that all attorneys-general and such like should, at the present moment, have at their fingers' end. But it must be evident to the most ignorant in those matters, among which large crowd I certainly include myself, that it was essentially necessary that Lord John Russell should at that time declare ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... present moment, when the high cost of living is a subject which engages the attention of the economist, politician, and householder, as it did that of Diocletian and his contemporaries, the curious reader will wish ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... wandered from their proper habitation; and that the vehicle in which they were inclosed would fly with unabating rapidity for ten thousand years, when it would burst of its own accord, and the devils would recover their liberty and faculties, as at the present moment. He had no sooner finished this relation than the music ceased, and they all disappeared, leaving me in a state of mind bordering on the confines ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... those qualities belong. One day, perhaps, we may come to forget the distant horizon, with full knowledge of the situation, to be content with "what is here and now"; and herein is the essence of classical feeling. But by us of the present moment, certainly—by us for whom the Greek spirit, with its engaging naturalness, simple, chastened, debonair, tryphes, habrotetos, khlides, khariton, himerou, pothou pater, is itself the Sangrail of an endless pilgrimage, Coleridge, with his passion for the absolute, for something ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... of what human nature is capable, and those who are studying the human mind are perhaps the greatest of all pioneers at the present moment. Some of you have trusted me, and by your trust have enabled me to help other people. Others of you, perhaps, have yourselves become or will become students of psychology. You will advance a little further in a science which is as yet only making its ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... the evil Melchard came sudden insight into the man's purpose at the foot of the Bull's Neck, and his probable action at the present moment. ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... distantly spied was correct, Miss Middleton would have been caught in the storm midway to her destination. By his guess at her character (knowledge of it, he would have said), he judged that no storm would daunt her on a predetermined expedition. He deduced in consequence that she was at the present moment flying to her friend, the charming ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of idolaters in barbarous India and China,—it was respecting the whole world lying in wickedness, that St. Paul remarked: "The invisible things of God, even his eternal power and Godhead, are clearly seen from the creation of the world down to the present moment, being understood by the things that are made; so that ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... the paper," answered Harlan, miserably; "it's the typewriter." Up to the present moment, sustained by a false, but none the less determined pride, he had refrained from taking his wife into his confidence regarding his finances. With characteristic masculine short-sightedness, he had failed to perceive that every moment of delay ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... now through the parlor window, her eyes were burning, her face reminded him of a delicate flame, and her whole being appeared concentrated into the present moment. In its vivid life it seemed one of the most remarkable faces he ever saw; but the thought occurred again and again—"If the features of Ida Mayhew could be lighted up like that I'd give years of my lifetime to be able to paint ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... published a list of the manufacturers of electric machines and requisites in Italy, and by way of introduction set down the following patriotic remarks: "This list is addressed to those who at the present moment feel it to be their duty to uphold and encourage the production and development of materials for electricity. Importation from abroad, which we favoured when Italian industry was still in an embryonic stage, degenerated especially in consequence of the action ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Quebec, and in order to pave the way for an immediate occupation and settlement of the country. Thus a plan for the establishment of an English colonial empire on the banks of the St. Lawrence had been deliberately formed, and down to the present moment offered every prospect of a brilliant success. But a cloud had now swept along the horizon and suddenly obscured the last ray of hope. The proceeds of their two years of incessant labor, and the large sums which they had risked in the enterprise, had vanished ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... must. Who do you think is in the prison at this present moment?—Fontenoy. He came with the others some ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... the middle; it opens upon a hall, at the further side of which one may perceive, through the open door of another room, a goodly collection of well-bound and learned-looking volumes—the vicar's library. At the present moment these tomes of wisdom are inaccessible, as the library door is blocked up with unsightly mounds of earth, sewer-pipes, and certain workmen's implements. The fact is, the vicarage has been greatly disturbed of late, owing to a defect in ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy
... airs, vying with one another in the most obvious, and consequently the most ridiculous manner, so as to expose themselves before the very men they would attract: chattering, tittering, and flirting; full of the present moment, never reflecting upon the future; quite satisfied if they got a partner at a hall, without ever thinking of a partner for life! I have often asked myself, what is to become of such girls when they grow old or ugly, or when the public eye ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... that earlier mistaken observations and incorrect inference at the present moment—substitutions and similar mistakes—may easily mislead. As a corroborative fact, then, the judgment of a voice would have great value; but as a means in itself it is a thing too little studied and far ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... went on, "you may discover enough to make Mr. Turl see his way clear to tellin' what he knows about Davenport. Him an' Davenport may 'a' been in some scheme together. They may 'a' been friends, or they may 'a' been foes. He may be in Davenport's confidence at the present moment; or he may 'a' had a hand in gettin' rid o' Davenport. Or then again, whatever was between 'em mayn't 'a' had anything to do with the disappearance; an' Turl mayn't want to own up to knowin' Davenport, for fear o' bein' ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... must remember that while these principles cannot be otherwise than true, every individual has behind him, at any present moment, two great forces—the past of his ancestors and the past of his own life. Let us be sensible, even while we insist upon truths which are among the most beautiful in the world. The past means much to ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock
... demonstrably true, before you can hope to carry his doctrines to their ultimate issue; and whether the particular form in which he has put them before us may be such as is finally destined to survive or not is more, I venture to think, than anybody is capable at this present moment of saying. But this one thing is perfectly certain—that it is only by pursuing his methods, by that wonderful single-mindedness, devotion to truth, readiness to sacrifice all things for the advance of definite ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... persuasion to involve them in some mischief. (For when a man, sweet in words, holding bad sentiments, persuades the multitude, it is a great evil to the city. But as many as always advise good things with understanding, although not at the present moment, eventually are of service to the state: but the intelligent leader ought to look to this, for the case is the same with the man who speaks words, and the man who approves them.) Who said, that they ought to kill Orestes and thee by stoning. But Tyndarus ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... walked uptown to his lodgings Jarvis faced the fact that up to this present moment he had been on the wrong track. He had tried to pull from the top. That was all right, if only he also tried to push from the bottom. The world needed idealists, but not the old brand, blind to the actual, teaching out of ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... high a distinction, Master Kerneguy said, for a poor page to be permitted to try a passage of arms with a knight so renowned as Sir Henry Lee, and he hoped to enjoy so great an honour before he left Woodstock; but at the present moment his lameness continued to give him so much pain, that he should shame ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... disappointment for the Imperial Government, to whom it has demonstrated the limits of the national wealth. Russia has made the mistake of making a display of her strength before having finished her military reorganization. That strength will not be formidable for several years: at the present moment it lacks the railway lines necessary for its deployment. As to France, M. Charles Humbert has revealed her deficiency in guns of large calibre, but apparently it is this arm that will decide the fate of battles. For the rest, England, which during the last two years Germany has been ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... a chill place indeed for Slocum Price. But Mahaffy, keen and anxious, with doubt in every glass he drained, a lurking devil to grin at him above the rim, could see only the end of their brief hour of welcome. This made the present moment ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... and that it had died out with the form of Fetishism which fostered it. It has simply disappeared like the crocodile from the Lower Nile. Finally, to conclude this rapidly outlined sketch, all at the present moment happily share the same fate; they are being robbed of their last mysteries; the veil of Isis is fast yielding ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... to the present moment nothing had touched that little heart, and the reply had been the same to all "No! ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... has for the world at large is this, that were our political and social and moral devices only as well contrived to their ends as a linotype machine, an antiseptic operating plant, or an electric tram-car, there need now at the present moment be no appreciable toil in the world, and only the smallest fraction of the pain, the fear, and the anxiety that now makes human life so doubtful in its value. There is more than enough for everyone alive. Science stands, a too competent servant, ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... the only one I do think of at the present moment is my mother," said Florence. "When I think of her it gives me agony. But, Bertha, I cannot ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... searching morning light she appeared to be quite old. Wrinkles showed themselves on her plump face and weary lines appeared round her mouth. Also, she was absent-minded while the lovers chattered, and, when spoken to, would return to the present moment with a start. As the widow was now well off as regards money, and as her scheme to marry Braddock was well on the way to success—for Lucy had duly reported the Professor's attitude—it was difficult to understand why Mrs. Jasher should look so worried. ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... of method as I suggest will, I submit, not only provide us with a critical solution capable of general acceptance, but it will also enable us to utilize, and appreciate at their due value, the result of researches which at the present moment appear to be mutually destructive the one of the other. Thus, while the purely Folk-lore interpretation of the Grail and Lance excludes the Christian origin, and the theory of the exclusively Christian ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... of money at this present moment; or of position, or anything else, except indeed one another? Lorna told me, with the sweetest smile, that if I were minded to take her at all, I must take her without anything; inasmuch as she meant, upon coming ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... always occupy a foremost place in the history of the Party to which I am proud to belong, and I hope it will occupy no insignificant place in the history of the country. Of that house the noble Lord who has just resigned his office is no unworthy member. There are, Sir, at the present moment but few Members who can recollect the time when he assumed the duties of his office; but I am glad that his resignation has been deferred long enough to enable a number of new Members of this House to add their testimony to that of us who are better acquainted with him, as to ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... or two absolute necessities which I shall have to get by hook or by crook, or stay in bed until the next allowance is due. Well; something will turn up, I suppose! It's always the darkest the hour before the dawn, and, financially speaking, it's pitch black at the present moment. Let's pretend Uncle Bernard suddenly appeared upon the scene, and presented us each ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... she has not seen the Chateaugay since we put out the lights," said the captain. "At the present moment we must be off Absecum; but we cannot see the light. She is far ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... my ugliness as at the present moment. When I compare myself to you, I feel a very great pity for myself, poor unhappy monster that I am! Tell me, I must look to you like a beast. You, you are a ray of sunshine, a drop of dew, the song of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... said at last, "for all these compliments, but really I am ignorant why I am particularly deserving of them at the present moment." ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... flower to flower and gathering honey, may, if you are a bee, fail to interest you, and necessitate an act of will; while butterflies, charmed by the continual surprises, satisfied by the immediate joys, of the present moment, flitted irresponsibly, capriciously, whithersoever a bright colour beckoned, and gave no thought to the moments that had not yet come. Everywhere there was business, rumour, action; but everywhere, none the less, there was the ineffable peace of early morning, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... was not a man who readily allowed himself to be disturbed by life's little surprises, but at the present moment he could not help feeling slightly dazed. He recognized Sally now as the French girl who had attracted his cousin Lancelot's notice on the beach. At least he had assumed that she was French, and it was startling to be addressed ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... speaks of 'the knowledge of the liberal arts, which the Greeks call {Greek: enkyklopadeian}'{59}, Culverwell wrote {Greek: me:tropolis} and {Greek: ophthalmia}, Preston, {Greek: phainomena}—Sylvester ascribes to Baxter, not 'pathos', but {Greek: pathos}{60}. {Greek: E:thos} is a word at the present moment preparing for a like passage from Greek characters to English, and certainly before long will be acknowledged as an English word{61}. The only cause which has hindered this for some time past is the misgiving whether it will not be read '{)e}thos,' and not ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... by a greenhouse which he built along a wall with a southern exposure,—not that he loved flowers, but he meant to attack through horticulture the public notice he wanted to excite. At the present moment he had all but attained his end. Elected vice-president of some sort of floral society presided over by the Duc de Vissembourg, brother of the Prince de Chiavari, youngest son of the late Marechal Vernon, he adorned his coat with the ribbon of the Legion of honor ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... words have rankled with him. He threw them at me again and again. He wouldn't take the King's commission; he wouldn't take my hand even. What's to be done with a fellow like that? He'll end on a yardarm for all his luck. And the quixotic fool is running into danger at the present moment ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... of your glory, shall be taken from your sides, and no mark of military distinction left but your wants, infirmities, and scars? If you have sense enough to discover and spirit to oppose tyranny, whatever garb it may assume, awake to your situation. If the present moment be lost, your threats hereafter will be as empty as your entreaties now. Appeal from the justice to the fears of government, and suspect the man who ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... contended, no doubt, upon our part that these private reports were none other than those which every Government receives from its military attaches, but it must be admitted that their discovery at the present moment is most inopportune for those who wish to persuade the Free State that they can rely upon the assertions of Great Britain that no design was made upon their independence. If at this moment the portfolios of a German Staff Officer were to fall into ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... health; had a good forehead, and a clear hazel eye, not overlarge or prominent, but full of light; a firm mouth, with a curious smile; a sun-burned complexion; and a habit when perplexed of pinching his upper lip between his finger and thumb, which at the present moment he was unconsciously indulging. He was the son of a small farmer—in what part of Scotland is of little consequence—and his companion for the moment was the daughter of ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... from some concern in his old companion's fortunes, translated itself by a very human process to Hooker's consciousness as a piece of rank affectation. HE would have been exalted and exultant in Clarence's place, consequently any other exhibition was only "airs." Nevertheless, at the present moment Clarence ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... they border has therefore been in two ways intensified. In the first place, just in proportion as Germany has become an industrial State, the field work has been intrusted to immigrant Slavs, some of whom come only for the season and return, but a very large number of them—estimated at the present moment at close to a million—have substantially settled within the borders of the German Empire. That is to say, there is a constant injection of 1-1/2 per cent. of Slavic blood into the ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... Nevertheless, in spite of their ignorance about the real nature of water, men of science do not invent an "aqueous principle" or "aquosity" with the notion of "explaining" water. And I have yet to hear of any duly trained and qualified biologist who is prepared at the present moment to maintain the existence of a "vital principle," or of a force to be called "vitality," supposed to be something different in character and quality from the recognised physical forces, and having its existence alongside, ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... it, if, instead of confining our thoughts to the present moment, we let them embrace ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... once so interested and sympathetic as this one. Forgetful of his hunger and the waiting breakfast beside him, he at once began the relating of his adventures, from the time of first meeting with the dear old lady down to the present moment. It was a long story and was so frequently interrupted by questions that its ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... told us a most extraordinary story. The lady who sold this marquisate had retired two years previously to the island of Martinique, where she, at the present moment, owned the residence of Constant d'Aubigne, the same house where the new Marquise de Maintenon had spent her childhood with her parents, so that while one of these ladies had quitted the Chateau de Maintenon ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... the delightful fifteenth century until you see in the text-book in large print, like the flashes of harbour lights after a bad Channel crossing, RAPHAEL, MICHAEL ANGELO, DA VINCI. But when you come to the seventeenth century, Guido Reni, the Carracci, and other painters (for the present moment out of fashion), painters whose work fetches little at Christie's, the art critic and historian begin to snivel about decay; not only of Italian art, but of the Italian peninsula; and their sobs will hardly ever allow them to get as far as Longhi, Piazetta, and Tiepolo, those ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... moon formed queer fantastic pictures, like frost upon a window pane. In solemn review passed the days,—from that awful night when she had left her father dead upon the floor in the house nearby to the present moment. She glanced at the windows. They looked back at her ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... your Lordship, the highest authority, is intitled to the utmost deference:—but it is not an inference from any acknowledged premises, nor established by the intervention of any corroborating argument. The very existence of this intrinsic unsoundness, is "down to the present moment" unproved, and all that can be inferred in this state of the question, is ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam
... to inform you that your ward, John Jeffreys, left Bolsover secretly last night, and has not up to the present moment returned. If he has returned to you, you will probably have learned by this time the circumstances which led him to take the step he has. (Here Mr Frampton briefly repeated the story of the football accident.) The patient still ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... to see what I'm after at the present moment," said Cruttendon, putting a canvas before Jacob. "There. That's it. That's more like it. That's ..." he squirmed his thumb in a circle round ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... stoutness. He had dragged on a pair of white kid gloves, and was enjoying himself so much that the perspiration was streaming down his face and falling in big drops on to his partner's shoulder. But that was quite immaterial to Mrs. Tiralla at the present moment, and she did not mind either if it were butcher or baker or post office clerk with whom she was dancing, as long as she could dance. But not with Mr. Tiralla, she would not have liked to dance with him. As their eyes met, ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... of world scope—the concentration of wealth in a very few countries. At the present moment the wealth of the world ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... States. Of course among us our feelings would be all against Jackson; but among the poorer class of whites, who have been tremendously excited by the speeches, both in the North and here, the cry of Abolitionist at the present moment is like a red rag to a bull. However, I understand now ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... acquired in the ten centuries which preceded the Renaissance, that we are at all able to estimate the expansive force which was then generated. Science, rescued from the hands of astrology, geomancy, alchemy, began her real life with the Renaissance. Since then, as far as to the present moment, she has never ceased to grow. Progressive and durable, science may be called the first-born of the spirit of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of the Notables to the present moment, has been perhaps the most interesting interval ever known in this country. The propositions of the government, approved by the Notables, were precious to the nation, and have been in an honest course of execution, some of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... when Jack informed us softly, that during the progress of our last narrative, Mr. Weller's Watch had adjourned its sittings from the kitchen, and regularly met outside our door, where he had no doubt that august body would be found at the present moment. As this was for the convenience of listening to our stories, he submitted that they might be suffered to come in, and ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... slept. The following morning, as soon as it was light, we went to fish in a river near the town, but encountered the same good fortune of which we had hitherto made no complaint, considering that the mere sport of angling for salmon had brought us to Scandinavia; and up to the present moment we had not seen the scaly snout of a single fish. We murmured not; but could not resist the doubt, that the existence of salmon in Northern Europe was a reality; nor could we conceal from ourselves the absurd light in which ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... this statement, and for that reason I have projected a city that shall show the lowest mortality. I need not say that no such city exists, and you must pardon me for drawing upon your imaginations as I describe it. Depicting nothing whatever but what is at this present moment easily possible, I shall strive to bring into ready and agreeable view a community not abundantly favoured by natural resources, which, under the direction of the scientific knowledge acquired in the past two generations, has attained a vitality not perfectly natural, but approaching ...
— Hygeia, a City of Health • Benjamin Ward Richardson |
