"Random" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... yourself two planets," I explained. "For better odds, pick a start and a destination. The man throws his switch and each little ball is kicked around its groove by a random number ...
— Fee of the Frontier • Horace Brown Fyfe
... hour came. (They were soldiers not of training but of character.) Quietly, with unflinching courage, our boys awaited the onslaught. Finally when the command to fire was given our friend selected his men—no random fire for him. One by one he saw his victims drop until he had accounted definitely for six. The next man was a towering Prussian Guard. A lightning debate flashed through his mind and stayed momentarily his trigger finger. Was a swift and merciful bullet ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... him expressly to confirm his view, but something in the entire tenor of what he reads that appears to harmonize with it. I doubt not the author of Man and his Dwelling-Place can hardly open the Bible at random without chancing upon some passage which he regards as confirmatory of his opinions. I am quite sure that to ordinary men his opinions will appear flally to conflict with the Bible's fundamental teaching. It has already been indicated in ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... the folly from my mind, and set myself resolutely to inspecting the books marshalled before me. Roving amongst them, I pulled out, entirely at random, a thin, worn duodecimo, that was thrust well back at a shelf end, as if it shrank from comparison with its prosperous and portly neighbours. Nothing but chance impelled me to the choice; and I don't know to this day what the ragged volume was about. It opened naturally at a marker that lay in it—a ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... almost in silence, and with an air of absence and abstraction which could not give Miss Bradwardine a favourable opinion of his talents for conversation. He answered at random one or two observations which she ventured to make upon ordinary topics; so that, feeling herself almost repulsed in her efforts at entertaining him, and secretly wondering that a scarlet coat should ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... that; but casting my eye over some half-torn leaves the other day, I could not resist an impulse to give some fragments of it to the public. To do this satisfactorily, I am obliged to twist this thread, so as to string together into a semblance of order my Oberon's "random pearls." ...
— Fragments From The Journal of a Solitary Man - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... or eight of the men snatched out pistols and fired at random into the woods. The cry of a panther, drawn out, long, full of ferocity and woe, plaintive on its last note, like the haunting lament of a woman, was their answer. He heard a gasp of fear from the men, but the leader, of stauncher stuff, cowed ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fear returned to my heart, and my newly discovered Utopia was no more. I do not know what chance word of the grown-up people or what random thought of mine did the mischief; but of a sudden I realised that for all my dreaming I was only separated by a measurable number of days from the horror of school. Already I was sick with fear, and in place of my dreams I distressed ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... point, though in the utter darkness it was not easy to direct our way with much precision. Raymond rode on one side and Henry on the other. We could hear each of them shouting that he had come upon a deep ravine. We steered at random between Scylla and Charybdis, and soon after became, as it seemed, inextricably involved with deep chasms all around us, while the darkness was such that we could not see a rod in any direction. We partially extricated ourselves by scrambling, cart and all, through a shallow ravine. We came next ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... fact the two instruments shade off into one another, so that the reading telescope or reading microscope of a laboratory (for reading thermometers, and small divisions generally) goes by either name at random. ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... less of a success this time. The noise of a great commotion in the hall below reached the quiet chamber. Chrissy, with his face twisted inquiringly first over one shoulder and then over the other, spooned at random. ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... sheep to their shepherd, or the members of a Chinese family to their uncle; and if there is an allegation which I would 'deny with both hands', it is this: that an insipid sameness is the chief characteristic of an anthology which offers—to name almost at random seven only out of forty (oh ominous academic number!)—the work of Messrs. Abercrombie, Davies, de la Mare, Graves, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... model. Thus it would appear that, for their essential elements, Euphuism and Arcadianism, though distinct, alike sought their models, direct or indirect, in the Spanish literature of the day. Almost any passage, chosen at random, will illustrate Sidney's style. Observe the balance of clauses in the following sentence from Kalander's speech, which ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... instantly ordered an advance; and our whole troop were soon in the centre of the village, busily employed with the pistol and sabre. The French, taken by surprise, made but a slight resistance, and, after a few random shots, ran to a neighbouring wood. But as I was looking round, to congratulate my friend on his success, I saw him, to my infinite alarm, reel in his saddle, and had only time to save him from falling ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... Longways, smiling grimly. "That's only his random way o' speaking. 'A was always such a man of underthoughts." (And reprovingly towards Christopher): "Don't ye be so over-familiar with a gentleman that ye know nothing of—and that's travelled a'most from ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... repeated that word, doubtless spoken by him at random: marriage, and Marianne was too discreet and shrewd to appear to have specially noticed it. She did not even allude to it. She waited patiently. With the lapse of time, she thought, Rosas would be ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... had been too presumptuous in thinking thus of Emmeline—if he were indeed nothing to her, why should he inflict this anguish on himself? Why need he tear himself from her? The night of Edward's return, while in one sense it caused him misery, by the random remark of Lord Louis, yet, by the agitation of Emmeline, the pang was softened, though he was strengthened in his resolve. Four days afterwards, the very evening of that day when Mr. Howard had alluded to his neglect of duties, before Herbert and his ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... all these things put together, nothing can be more evident than that, exclusive of revelation, man cannot be considered as a creature left by his Maker to act at random, and live at large up to the extent of his natural power, as passion, humour, wilfulness, happen to carry him, which is the condition brute creatures are in; but that from his make, constitution, or nature, he is in the strictest and most proper sense a law to himself. ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... random, and found it to be a volume of Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion." He pitched upon a sentence in which he counted that there were sixteen lines, and when he began to read it, it became to him utterly confused and unintelligible. So he put it back, and went to another portion ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... who had the reputation of understanding it. In the republics of ancient Greece, particularly in Athens, the ordinary courts of justice consisted of numerous, and therefore disorderly, bodies of people, who frequently decided almost at random, or as clamour, faction, and party-spirit, happened to determine. The ignominy of an unjust decision, when it was to be divided among five hundred, a thousand, or fifteen hundred people (for some of their ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... a certain part of the coast of Maine,—a little rocky island, heaped and tumbled together as if Dame Nature had shaken down a heap of stones at random from her apron, when she had finished making the larger islands which lie between it and the mainland. At one end, the shoreward end, there is a tiny cove, and a bit of silver-sand beach, with a green meadow beyond it, and a single great pine; but all the rest ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... fair man. He was at his ball. They pointed him out to me. He bowed at random right and left. He was not much amused, I will answer for it. He looked at us as if he were thinking, 'Who are all these people? What are they doing at my house?' We went to see Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival, her sister. And certainly it ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... random walk, I next paused in a low part of the woods, where the larger trees began to give place to a thick second-growth that covered an old Barkpeeling. I was standing by a large maple, when a small bird darted ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... little of La Bruyere, by far the greatest, broadest, strongest, of French character-writers, because his is not one of the houses of which you can judge by a brick or two taken at random. For those in whom the excitements of modern literature have not burnt up the faculty of sober meditation on social man, La Bruyere must always be one of the foremost names. Macaulay somewhere calls him thin. But Macaulay has less ethical ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... rosy smile. It now remains, Through various being's fair proportion'd scale, To trace the rising lustre of her charms, From their first twilight, shining forth at length To full meridian splendour. Of degree The least and lowliest, in the effusive warmth Of colours mingling with a random blaze, Doth Beauty dwell. Then higher in the line And variation of determined shape, 450 Where Truth's eternal measures mark the bound Of circle, cube, or sphere. The third ascent Unites this varied symmetry of parts With colour's bland allurement; as ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... pretence that shots had been fired at the troops, the latter entered ten or twelve houses, at random, and despatched with their bayonets every one they found. In all the houses on the boulevard, there are metal pipes by which the dirty water runs out into the gutter. The soldiers, with no idea why it was so, conceived ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... the two sides of the loop the gold was sifted through wash gravel and black sand, piled there by God only knew how many centuries of glacial drift and flood. But it was there. He had taken panfuls at random over the bar, and uniformly it gave up coarse gold. With a rocker he stood a fair chance of big money ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... most critical period of life, they are for a long time immured in a room, filled with an atmosphere vitiated by many breaths, and are constantly kept under some sort of responsibility in regard to mental effort. Their studies are pursued at random, often changed with changing schools, while book after book (heavily taxing the parent's purse) is conned awhile, and then supplanted by others. Teachers have usually so many pupils, and such a variety ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... northeastern districts of the Orange River Colony at the end of January, 1902, the experience of the last few months had shown that they must be conducted on new methods. Hitherto the typical "drive" had been a net or nets cast too often hastily and at random, the meshes of which were large, irregular, and easily cut. The new "drive" was a bar of steel pushed steadily forward by simultaneous action throughout its length, and with its ends resting ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... have outlived the age when a man wastes his vitality at random, know how great an influence may be exercised on more important events by apparently trivial incidents, and will not be surprised at the weight here given to the following minor fact. Next day Popinot had an attack of coryza, a complaint which is not dangerous, and generally known ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... man of affairs such as Elton was not to be taken too seriously. There was no vacancy in the office of Senator from his state, and none was likely to occur. At the present time, if one should occur, his party in the state legislature was in a minority. Hence prophecy was obviously a random proceeding. Nevertheless he was greatly pleased, for, after all, Elton would scarcely have made the speech had he not been genuinely well disposed. A senatorship was one of the great prizes of political life, and one of the noblest positions in the world. It would afford him a golden opportunity ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... antique furniture are arranged round the room, of which, he adds, master is proud indeed. Two plaster figures, standing in dingy niches, he tells us are wonders of the white man's genius. In his own random style he gives us an essay on the arts, adding a word here and there to remind us of master's exquisite taste, and anxiously waits our ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... few questions which I had put to him. All who have heard his statements may judge whether his account of facts be not marked with every note of accuracy. They will believe that his power of oratory DOES NOT betray him into random declamation. Under date of March 20th, 1852, ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... was in an unusually thoughtful mood that evening. He put salt in his coffee at supper, and poured vinegar over his pancakes. To many of Polly's questions he returned random answers. When he had gone to bed he ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... studied acquirement. He ever had in view the maxim—Ars est celare artem; but he did not always succeed, for he shows too evidently the art with which he concealed what first his art had effected. Looking carefully at these pictures, we see intention every where: there is no actual random work. We believe him to have finished much more than has been supposed; that there is, in reality, careful drawing and colouring, at least in many of his pictures, under that large and general scumbling and glazing, to which, for the sake of making a whole, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... let 'em know there's powder 'n shot round here," said the fiend. "If it hits any on 'em roamin' round, he won't know what hurt him;" and levelling his gun at random, with his drunken, unsteady hand he fired. The bullet whistled away harmlessly into the empty darkness. Hearkening a few moments, and hearing no cry, he hiccuped, "Mi-i-issed him that time," and went in ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... of men and women in all Protestant communities who think it a very neat thing to do good at random. They sow broadcast of cheap seed, content to reap nothing at all, and pleasantly disappointed if they find here and there a stalk of corn to reward their sowing. They do not prepare their ground, they do not cultivate it at all, but they sow, hoping that in some open place a ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... sheet of flame from the bursting shells, and huge clouds of dust, plowed up by the shrieking missiles, rose so as to obscure the heights. The rebels could only load, and thrust their guns above the earthworks, firing at random, for no man could raise his head without coming in the way of the fiery messengers of death, which filled the air. Still their fire, although at random, was annoying, and it was evident that the safest method was to cross men in boats, enough to drive the rebels from their pits, or capture ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... punishment endured by these regiments, chosen at random from the head of the list which shows the slaughter-roll of the Civil War. Yet the shattered remnants of each regiment preserved their organization, and many of the severest losses were incurred in the hour of triumph, and not of disaster. Thus, the 1st ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... he knew nothing, probably, of the prediction of a negro sorceress, who, while Marie Joseph was but a child, prophesied she should rise to a dignity greater than that of a queen, yet fall from it before her death.[10] This was one of those vague auguries, delivered at random by fools or impostors, which the caprice of fortune sometimes matches with a corresponding and conforming event. But without trusting to the African sibyl's prediction, Bonaparte may have formed his match under the auspices ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... R. Wells, editor of the Christian Endeavor World, wrote to twenty-five ministers of several different denominations, choosing their names at random among his subscribers in the equal suffrage States, and asking them whether equal suffrage was working well, fairly well or badly. One answered that it worked badly, three that it worked fairly well, and the twenty-one others were all positive and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... all about opera, characters, dramatic situation and everything else in the sheer delight of writing music. No one with an ounce of musical taste in his composition would wish the canon-quartet, the two trios or the two finales, to take a few instances at random, any shorter or less developed than they are, but one can imagine how Mozart would have smiled at the lack of dramatic ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... all civilized languages, however, except the Teutonic, and practically all uncivilized languages, begin their direct numeral combinations as soon as they have passed their number base, whatever that may be. To give an illustration, selected quite at random from among the barbarous tribes of Africa, the Ki-Swahili numeral scale ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... opinion; yet he advised the sacrifice of the annuities. Then she withdrew another package and, from it, she took a paper at random. It proved to be a three-per-cent annuity worth two thousand francs. Ludovic placed the package of bonds in his pocket. That afternoon, accompanied by his secretary, he sold the annuities to a stock-broker and realized ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... has often got them into. As to the charges of shopkeepers, that is the custom, and the haggling a ceremony you must submit to. It is for the purchaser or employer to offer a price and fix wages—the reverse of Europe—and if you ask the price they ask something fabulous at random. ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... need a confidential maid, Bunny, to help us in our business, and I don't want to take a third party in at random. If you had a wife I could trust her. You could stay married as long as we needed her, and then, following the Newport plan, you could get rid of her and marry me later—that is—er—provided I was willing to marry you at all, and I am not so sure that I shall not be some day, when ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... in this kind of Trade? Know you the Principles by which it prospers, And how to make it lucrative and safe? If not, you're like a Ship without a Rudder, That drives at random, and must ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... where another man might stop. Something about that flight of steps up to the shop, something about the quietude and quaintness of the restaurant, roused all the detective's rare romantic fancy and made him resolve to strike at random. He went up the steps, and sitting down at a table by the window, asked for a ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... field pieces had been loaded again, and they were discharged. Christy watched the effect, and he had the pleasure of seeing the whole troop on the wharf retire behind the great pile of bales of cotton. A random fire was kept up from this defence, but the soldiers were safe behind their impenetrable breastwork. Flint continued to ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... point, not only from the Iron Ram, but also from other ships that were now drawn close in against the Serpent's hull. For every viking or Dane or Swede who fell, there were ten ready to take his place. The clang of weapons was now at its highest. Spears and arrows flew in the midst, not aimed at random, but each at its own particular mark, and each carrying death ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... you think I would permit you to leave me thus at random, going, you know not where, without any preconceived plans? Oh my poor, poor child, to be thrown ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... somewhat upon the kind of truth,' I answered, with a random shot. 'I don't respect a man, for instance, for ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... visible, but that which was known to belong to her upper and lighter spars. In a few minutes afterwards, darkness covered the ocean; and the seamen of the royal cruiser were left to pursue their object, at random. ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... well as his declared resolve. And so, while the English captain with great politeness stated his terms—which were unconditional surrender and nothing less—the poor gentleman kept glancing over his shoulder and answering at random, "Yes, yes," or "Precisely—if you will allow me," or "Excuse me a moment, until my brother—" In short, he rambled so that Captain Muspratt could only suppose his wits unhinged. It was scarce credible that a sane man could receive such a message ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... so I could go in and tell Judy to bring out the iced tea and cakes. When I came from the kitchen I stepped into my room and took out one of Alfred's letters from the desk drawer and opened it at random, as you do the Bible when you want to decide things, and put my finger down on a line with my eyes shut This ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... said at random. What were they talking about? (The car was once more under way; fortunately their progress overhead would not be impeded by a ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... to taste the pleasures that she had almost forgotten, and revive under the influence of the theater and the roar of life. It was during one of these excursions, while Joan was lunching with Alice Palgrave, that she caught an arrow shot at random by that mischievous little devil Cupid, which landed plum in the middle of a heart that had been placid so long. In getting out of a taxicab she had slipped and fallen, was raised deferentially to her feet, and looked up to ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... arbitrarily, capriciously, mysteriously, without some gross and positive violation of social law, some wilful and therefore wicked departure from the known principles of science? Every random conjecture as to the causes of the prevailing distress implies an answer to the question, and it need not be repeated. It is more important to inquire what those violations and departures have been, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... the Captain rose up in his strength, and grappled with this jealous demon. He had let the little speeches, the random shots, pass unheeded until now; but on one particularly dismal morning, a bleak March morning, when the rain beat against the windows, and the deodoras and cypresses were lashed and tormented by the blusterous wind, ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... lists of bishops, commencing with the ministry of the apostles, and extending over the latter half of the first century, are little better than a mass of contradictions. The compilers seem to have set down, almost at random, the names of some distinguished men whom they found connected with the different churches, and thus the discrepancies are nearly as ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... I made an observation at random. 'You show, by your own conduct,' said I, 'that there are other things worth following besides dog-fighting. You practise rat-catching and badger- ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... to a very different scene—the pier and harbour of Ramsgate. The storm-fiend is abroad. Thick clouds of a dark leaden hue drive athwart a sky of dingy grey, ever varying their edges, and rolling out limbs and branches in random fashion, as if they were fleeing before the wind in abject terror. The wind, however, is chiefly in the sky as yet. Down below there are only fitful puffs now and then, telling of something else in store. The sea is black, with sufficient swell on it to cause a few crested ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... shoulder lies a quiver, filled With arrows dipped in honey, thrice distilled From all the roses brides have ever worn Since that first wedding out of Eden born. Beneath a cherub face and dimpled smile This youthful hunter hides a heart of guile; His arrows aimed at random fly in quest Of lodging-place within some blameless breast. But those he wounds die happily, and so Blame not young Cupid with his dart and bow: Thus has he warred and won since time began, Transporting into Heaven both maid ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... and he had been a brave one. He was not aware how far he was going on so short an acquaintance, but his temerity was not displeasing to the lady. She liked his manner of storming the citadel, and she did not realize that he merely spoke at random, as best he might. He was in his uniform a splendid and martial presentment of military youth, and indeed he was much the junior ...
— The Lost Guidon - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... aristocracy. The Misses Biddell and fat Miss Hassett-Bean (the lady of the marmoset) hinted that the cream of the yacht's social life had risen to our table, and told me, not only what to lecture about, but how to treat the rival cliques. My brain felt more and more like a blotting-pad. I answered at random and longed for the meal to end —until I remembered my lecture. Then I wished that dinner might go on indefinitely like the tea party of the Mad Hatter. All too soon the glory of a French menu flickered down to a dying spark of nuts and raisins, and hardly had I cracked my first almond ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... possession of Lichfield, and was viewing from a window St. Chad's cathedral, in which a party of the royalists had fortified themselves. He was cased in complete armor, but was shot through the eye by a random ball. Lord Broke was a zealous Puritan; and had formerly said, that he hoped to see with his eyes the ruin of all the cathedrals of England. It was a superstitious remark of the royalists, that he was killed on St. Chad's day ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... a minute, Jim. You've taken Jean's reaction to this last death, plus a random association with a cuckoo clock, and here you are with a perfectly wild hypothesis. You've always been rational and analytical, old man. Surely you can realize that a perfectly normal urge to rationalize Jean's conclusions is making you concur with ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Wesley Barefoot
... hay in the front yard, we now see fine, smoothly-cut lawns of refreshing greenness; and fences of pickets, wire, and rustic iron, have supplanted the ancient board fences. In place of the tall-growing Sunflower and Hollyhock that sprung up here and there at random, we now see beds of choice and beautiful flowers artistically arranged and carefully cultivated by ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... a deal of questioning, which the hapless youth tried to answer; but the fascination of the Kablunet was too much for him. He could do nothing but give random replies and stare; seeing which, Rooney suggested that the best way to revive him would be to give him ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... of his face undergoing any change, Selwyn carefully placed the letter on his file, and took from the envelope a number of American press clippings. Choosing them at random, he contented himself with reading ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... may be asked of me, "Well, why should not Mr. Kingsley take a course such as this? It was his original assertion that Dr. Newman was a professed liar, and a patron of lies; he spoke somewhat at random, granted; but now he has got up his references and he is proving, not perhaps the very thing which he said at first, but something very like it, and to say the least quite as bad. He is now only aiming to justify ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... modern Greece, every ruin is now a Paleo-castro or old castle for the vulgar peasant or herdsman, thus all our ruins of the West are Indian forts for the settlers of the Western states; and every traveller gazing at random at a few, exclaims that nothing is known about them, nor their builders. The more refined writers can be very sentimental on their veiled origin, but scarcely any one takes the trouble to compare them with others elsewhere, in or out of America, which would ...
— The Ancient Monuments of North and South America, 2nd ed. • C. S. Rafinesque
... value have already been found. We saw a few days ago a beautiful specimen of gold from the mine newly discovered on the American Fork. From all accounts the mine is immensely rich, and already we learn the gold from it collected at random and without any trouble has become an article of trade at the upper settlements. This precious metal abounds in this country. We have heard of several other newly discovered mines of gold, but as these reports are not yet authenticated we shall pass over them. However, it is well known that there ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... random o' course, but it looked as if he had hit somethin'. Frenchy was fair crazy. He pulled out his gun an' came chargin' down on us. Bill tried to get mine again, but I thought I'd better run it myself just then. I ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... did the boys get together than, as a usual thing, they divided into squads and chose sides; then a leading arrow was shot at random into the air. Before it fell to the ground a volley from the bows of the participants followed. Each player was quick to note the direction and speed of the leading arrow and he tried to send his own at the same speed and at an equal height, so that when it fell it would be closer ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... our "Bradstreet's" and at random selected the names of five hundred firms, scattered over the United States, rating not less than five hundred thousand dollars. The letters were addressed to the senior partner of each firm. Before the end of the year nearly two hundred ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... only act at random—he returned to the datcha. Great disorder reigned there. The guard had been doubled. The general's friends, summoned by Trebassof, surrounded the two poisoned sufferers and filled the house with their bustling ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... strangely transitional type (type A [0]), our sing and work and house and thousands of others would compare with the genuine radical-words of numerous other languages.[3] Such a radical-word, to take a random example, is the Nootka[4] word hamot "bone." Our English correspondent is only superficially comparable. Hamot means "bone" in a quite indefinite sense; to our English word clings the notion ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... followed his injunction for many evenings. I could make up a new "Thousand and One Nights," in my own way, out of these pictures, but the number might be too great, after all. The pictures I have here given have not been chosen at random, but follow in their proper order, just as they were described to me. Some great gifted painter, or some poet or musician, may make something more of them if he likes; what I have given here are only hasty sketches, hurriedly put upon the paper, with ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... for Remusat has Tosiyal "Veille." (Mel. As. I. 231.) Such an example of Polo's correctness both in the form and meaning of a Turki word is worthy of especial note, and shows how little he merits the wild and random treatment which has been often applied to the solution of like phrases in ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... made a very clever hit!" he said—"Quite a random shot, of course—which by mere coincidence went to its mark! It's quite true I have brought with me a curious piece of jewel-work which I always carry about wherever I go—and something moved me to- night to ask your opinion of its value, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... mind and conduct in Christendom to see how fetich-worship still lingers among people called Christians, whether the fetich be the image of a saint or the Virgin, or a verse of the Bible found at random and used much as is a penny-toss to decide minor actions. Or, to look farther south, what means the rabbit's foot carried in the pocket or the various articles of faith now hanging in the limbo between religion and folk-lore in various parts of ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... conversing with the Emperor Alexander, from whom he was only distant half a horse's length. It is likely, that they perceived from the place this brilliant staff, and fired on it at random. Moreau alone was struck; a cannon-ball broke his right knee, and passing through the horse's side, carried off the flesh of his left leg. The generous Alexander shed tears. Colonel Rapatel rushed towards Moreau, who uttered a long sigh, and then fainted. Returned to himself, he spoke ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... will, for much had to be done in a very short space of time. It was a case of excavating under extreme difficulties, for apart from the smoke and heat from the blazing huts bullets were dropping frequently and at random upon that part of the kraal still held by the hard-pressed ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... none the worse for it. An inch further to the right, or an inch lower or higher, and it would have been fatal. It was not one of the enemy who did you this service, for the ball went up from behind, and came out in front; it is evidently a random shot from ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... at random out of his annoyance to have failed in immediately disgusting the hermit of the responsibilities his return home might entail, here succeeded by chance in producing ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... allowance for Vasari's too notorious inaccuracies, deliberate misstatements, and random jumpings at conclusions, we have the right to accept him here as a first-rate authority. He was living at this time in close intimacy with Buonarroti, enjoyed his confidence, plumed himself upon their friendship, and had no reason to distort truth, which must have ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... east. Now all plans concerning Broadway were given up; also, he felt no anxiety about getting lost. For he went at random. ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... works of the greatest masters, and never feel the slightest disposition to turn them, if their backs were outermost, unless it might be for the sake of telling Sir Joshua that he had turned them.' Such a remark of Johnson's must not, however, be taken too strictly. He often spoke at random, often with exaggeration. 'There is in many minds a kind of vanity exerted to the disadvantage of themselves.' This reflection of his is the opening sentence to the number of the Idler (No. 45) in which he thus writes about portrait-painting:—'Genius ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... your friends because they would die to serve you; but have you never had friends who were your equals in education and intelligence?" He was speaking hastily, using random words to suggest that more could be had out of such a ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... Seloy, where he had made his head-quarters; and here, in this dim and smoky concave, nobles, officers, priests, gathered at his summons. There were fears and doubts and murmurings, but Menendez was desperate. Not the mad desperation that strikes wildly and at random, but the still red heat that melts and burns and seethes with a steady, unquenchable fierceness. "Comrades," he said, "the time has come to show our courage and our zeal. This is God's war, and we must not flinch. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... well, your reverence," replied the men, with bold, defiant glances; "only our leaders do not stand by us. Every one cannot fight alone and at random, but there must be some one at the lead to lead the whole movement. Since Andreas Hofer cannot be found, pray put yourself at our head, your reverence, ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... studies, a mass of ideas is presented. These ideas, isolated or with random connections, will be of little service to the pupils. They must be organized with reference to future use. This organization must come about through thinking over these ideas in helpful connections. The teacher knows best what these helpful connections are and must help the ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... "The random poppy of paradox grows too often in the golden cornfield of your conversation," Harry went ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... uses double quotes where the Bell (London) edition used single quotes. These are not individually noted; neither is variation between colons and semicolons, and random use of commas. Invisible punctuation at line-end has been ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... and picking up a pearl from the tray weighed it on Le Drieux's scales and then found a parallel to it on the list. This he did with several of the pearls, chosen at random, until one of Le Drieux's attorneys took the expert aside and whispered to him. Then Le Drieux's expression changed from chagrin to joy and coming forward ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... of hunting, which is the hunting of an army. The lane led through one of those lovely ravines of Picardy which travellers never know (for they only see the plains), and in a little while we thought it wise to strike up the steep bank from the valley on to the bare plateau above, but it was all at random and all guesswork, only we wisely thought that we were nearing the beginning of things, and that on the bare fields of the high flat we should have a greater horizon and a better chance of catching any indications ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... The mistress, alone, fell into a long weeping. When she had sobbed herself into quiet once more, she sought a volume of the Gospels, inserted her forefinger between the pages at random, and anxiously regarded the ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... Dale, flinging himself forward, had reached the man. Like a defiant challenge to their demand it must have seemed to the officers outside, that shot of Connie Myers at Jimmie Dale, for it was answered on the instant by another through the side window. And the shot, fired at random, the interior of the room hidden from the officers outside by the drawn shades, found its mark—and Connie Myers, a bullet in his brain, pitched forward, dead, upon ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Cousin Morris was so much annoyed when told that Katy had accepted an invitation to accompany Mrs. Woodhull and her party on a trip to Montreal and Lake George, taking Boston on her homeward route. Surely Katy's movements were nothing to him, unless—and the little, ambitious mother struck at random a few notes of the soft-toned piano as she thought how possible it was that the interest always manifested by the staid, quiet Morris Grant for her light-hearted Kate was more than a brotherly interest, such as he would naturally ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... moment—to keep both alive, to drive away ennui, to substitute a feverish and irritable state of excitement for listless indolence or even calm enjoyment. For this purpose he pitches on any subject at random without much thought or delicacy—he is only impatient to begin—and takes care to adorn and enrich it as he proceeds with "thoughts that breathe and words that burn." He composes (as he himself has said) whether he is in the bath, in his study, or on horseback—he writes as habitually ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... the Trees, Midsummer-manifold, each one, Voluminous, a labyrinth of life— What should such things of bulk and multitude Yield of their huge, unutterable selves, To the random importunity of Day, The blabbing journalist? Alert to snatch and publish hour by hour Their greenest hints, their leafiest privacies, How can he other than endure The ruminant irony that foists him off With broad-blown falsehoods, or ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... the faulty Rachel Racine Rainbow, the the colors of Rameau Random notes Raphael's picture of Moses, a fault in Ravignan Reaction Realism Reason a blind faculty an act of faith the attributes of Reber Reboul Recitative Reiterated interrogation Reiteration Respect, a sort of weakness Respiration suppressing the and silence three ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... bolt the gate opened and the soldiers rushed in, firing at random as they did so. Bathurst had stepped behind the gate as it opened, and as the soldiers ran up the yard he took Isobel's hand, and, passing through the gate, ran with her round the building until he reached the spot where Rabda was awaiting them. Half a minute ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... clubs, of teas, of golf and riding and kennels and cotillions and tours abroad and threw out hints of a yacht lying at Larchmont. He could see that she was vastly impressed by this vague talk, so he endorsed his pose by random insinuations concerning great wealth, and mentioned familiarly a few names that are handled reverently by the proletariat. It was Chandler's short little day, and he was wringing from it the best that could be had, as he saw it. And yet once or twice he ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... recommended to the Congress a fair and impartial random selection system for the draft. I submit it again tonight for your ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... more, senorito," the gipsy replied; "but commend yourself to God, and all will be well. Be assured I know nothing at all of what I have been saying. It is no wonder if I sometimes hit the mark, since I talk so much and always at random. I wish I could speak to such good purpose as to persuade you not to leave home, but remain quietly with your parents to comfort their old age; for I am no friend to these Flanders expeditions, especially for a youth ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... surprise to the average mind that almost any casual wild flower will reveal a floral mechanism often quite as astonishing as those of the orchids described in Darwin's volume. Let us glance, for instance, at the row of stamens below (Fig. 1), selected at random from different flowers, with one exception wild flowers. Almost everybody knows that the function of the stamen is the secretion of pollen. This function, however, has really no reference whatever ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... warps, how long a time each kind continues to warp, and how to fit one warp against another, so as to neutralize both. If two or more pieces of wood are to be glued together, it is never done at random; but they are so adjusted that one will tend to warp one way, and another another. Even the thin veneers upon the case act as a restraining force upon the baser wood which they cover, and in some parts of the instrument the veneer is double for the purpose of keeping both in order. An ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... to be in the Interest of a bad Poet, or a vicious Player; but this is a Surmise which has no Foundation: his Stroaks are always just, and his Admonitions seasonable; he does not deal about his Blows at Random, but always hits the right Nail upon the Head. [The [3]] inexpressible Force wherewith he lays them on, sufficiently shows the Evidence and Strength of his Conviction. His Zeal for a good Author is indeed outrageous, and breaks ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and had an opinion on the draught of the stove without my asking him, and I could see that he thought many of my arrangements not half knowing. I remember telling him that if I were only rich I'd offer him a salary to come and teach me how to live. Sometimes he gave a random sigh of which the essence might have been: "Give me even such a bare old-barrack as this, and I'd do something with it!" When I wanted to use him he came alone; which was an illustration of the superior courage of women. ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... strange retreat, As e'er was trod by outlaw's feet. The dell, upon the mountain's crest, Yawned like a gash on warrior's breast; Its trench had stayed full many a rock, Hurled by primeval earthquake shock From Benvenue's gray summit wild, And here, in random ruin piled, They frowned incumbent o'er the spot And formed the rugged sylvan "rot. The oak and birch with mingled shade At noontide there a twilight made, Unless when short and sudden shone Some straggling beam on cliff or stone, With such a glimpse as prophet's eye Gains ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... estro, and it will neither be so good as the two former, nor completed, unless I get a little more riscaldato in its behalf. I understand the outcry was beyond every thing.—Pretty cant for people who read Tom Jones, and Roderick Random, and the Bath Guide, and Ariosto, and Dryden, and Pope—to say nothing of Little's Poems! Of course I refer to the morality of these works, and not to any pretension of mine to compete with them in any thing but decency. I hope yours is the Paris edition, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... times comparatively close to the position. Knowing, however, that the sentries were out in front, the men for the most part slept quietly in spite of the noise and firing. As the Arabs could fire only at random but two men were hit during ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... went into the major's bedroom, and we followed him. He went up to the wall on which the major's weapons were hanging, and took down at random one of the pistols—of which there were several of different calibres. We were still in the dark as to what he meant to do. But, when he cocked the pistol and sprinkled powder in the pan, several ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... was seated by the fire as usual and Miss Skeat, who had been reading aloud until it grew too dark, was by her side warming her thin hands, which always looked cold, and bending forward towards the fire as she listened to Margaret's somewhat random remarks about the book in hand. Margaret had long since talked with Miss Skeat about her disturbed affairs, and concerning the prospect that was before her of being comparatively poor. And Miss Skeat, in her high-bred old-fashioned ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... one or two more questions rather at random, then suddenly came back to earth. "What are you doing here, anyway?" he demanded. "Seems to me this is a pretty easy way to ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... Having chosen at random, he had come to a spot where the companionship he hoped to find did not exist. The place languished after the war, slow to recover; the colony of resident English was scattered still; travellers preferred the coast of France with Mentone and Monte Carlo to enliven them. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... one question has been omitted in the formalities of this Court." He paused dramatically. He was only aiming a random shot; he would ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... say no more. He bowed me politely out, and I walked down the street, and realised that I was restless and wretched. I wandered at random for a while. trying to think what else I could do, for my own peace of mind, if not for Sylvia's welfare. I found myself inventing one worry after another. Dr. Overton had not said just when he was going, and suppose she were to need someone at once? Or suppose something were to happen ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... a wretch in Bedlam knows How to distinguish friends from foes; And though perhaps among the rout He wildly flings his filth about, He still has gratitude and sap'ence, To spare the folks that give him ha'pence; Nor in their eyes at random pisses, But turns aside, like mad Ulysses; While Traulus all his ordure scatters To foul the man he chiefly flatters. Whence comes ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... admiration of cannibals is agreeable. I let some of them try my shot-gun, and everyone wanted to attempt the feat, although they were all badly frightened. They held the gun at arm's length, turned their faces away and shot at random; it was clear that very few knew how to shoot, and that their Sniders could be of use only at short range. This is confirmed by the fact that all their murders ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... blaze, from dwellings bright within, Tinges the flowering summits of the grass; No sound of life is heard, no village din, Wings rustling overhead or steps that pass, While, on the breast of Earth at random thrown, I listen ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... face, and peered in through the ragged chink. Two legs in bright, wrinkled hose, and a pair of black shoes with thick white soles, blocked the view. For a long time they shifted, uneasy and tantalizing. He could hear only a hubbub of talk,—random phrases without meaning. The legs moved away, and left ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... instances (and they are merely random selections from many hundreds) show that a certain amount of prevision is undoubtedly possible to the Ego, and such cases would evidently be much more frequent if it were not for the exceeding density and lack of response in the lower vehicles of the majority of what we ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... followed after to see what was the matter, but quickly they shot an arrow in his back, which caused him to returne and barricade up the dores, whereupon the Salvages set fire to the house. But a boy, seizing a gun which he found loaded, discharged it at random. At the bare report the enemy fled and Mr. Hamor with the women and children escaped."[181] In a nearby house, a party of English under Mr. Hamor's brother, were caught by the Indians without arms, but they defended themselves successfully ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... square before the wall, at a point which no missile from the city could reach; then he heaped an immense amount of earth right upon the trees and above that threw on a great quantity of stones, not such as are suitable for building, but cut at random, and only calculated to raise the hill as quickly as possible to a great height. And he kept laying on long timbers in the midst of the earth and the stones, and made them serve to bind the structure together, in order that as it became high it ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... hoarse orders to the mule-drivers with descriptions in stateliest English, thrown out at random to the world at large, of the glories of the manlier north—of the plains, where a man might gallop while a horse could last, and of the mountains up beyond the plains. He sniffed at the fetid Bombay reek, ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... understand. Then he knelt in the snow beside him and was just barely able to see that he had a blond youth younger than himself. Shots came from the German line as he knelt there, but they were merely random bullets whistling through the snowy gloom. He was made of tenacious material, and the danger from the flying bullets merely confirmed him in his purpose. Moreover, he could not bear to return, and listen to those groans so near him. He grasped the ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... song—the harp,—what can they less than charm 200 These wantons? who the bread unpurchased eat Of one whose bones on yonder continent Lie mould'ring, drench'd by all the show'rs of heaven, Or roll at random in the billowy deep. Ah! could they see him once to his own isle Restored, both gold and raiment they would wish Far less, and nimbleness of foot instead. But He, alas! hath by a wretched fate, Past question perish'd, and what news soe'er We hear of his return, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... Enderby has probably already told you what he thinks of your methods" (this was a random shot, but the marksman observed with satisfaction that the captain winced), "it would be superfluous for ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... began to engage at the same time as the van, at four, but at a most improper distance, and our rear, being barely within random shot, did not fire while the signal for the line was flying. The London had the signal for close action flying, as well as the signal for the line ahead at half a cable was under her topsails, with the main topsail ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... saw the bishop slip the crucifix into his other hand, and open the book, apparently at random. His lean finger dropped upon the page; and he read aloud softly, ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... O prince, that Brahmana, raving like a lunatic, and repeatedly scolding Marutta with rude words, again accosted him thus, 'I am afflicted with a cerebral disorder, and, I always act according to the random caprices of my own mind. Why art thou bent upon having this sacrifice performed by a priest of such a singular disposition? My brother is able to officiate at sacrifices, and he has gone over to Vasava (Indra), and is engaged in performing his sacrifices, do thou therefore have thy sacrifice ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... I urged forward my horse, heading him almost at random; but I had not advanced a hundred paces, before the misery of uncertainty ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... flew, and yet scarcely knew which way to run. 'Bould sojer boys,' with nothing but their underclothes on, mounted their nags bareback, and fled 'over the hills and far away' towards Beverley, firing as they ran a few random shots. Before the infantry reached the town most of them had made good their escape, leaving behind, however, nearly all their baggage, a large number of horses, wagons, tents, and about eight hundred stand of arms, together ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... blank verse has a natural gait or movement of its own, which it falls into during its ordinary uninspired moods. Tennyson's blank verse, when it is not carefully guarded and varied, drops into a kind of fluent sing-song. Examples may be taken, almost at random, from the Idylls of the ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... expected the immediate advent of a generation with whom a humane and rational philosophy should displace, not merely the superstitions which had grown around the Christian dogma, but every root and fragment of theistic conception. A hope of this kind implied a singularly random idea, alike of the hold which Christianity had taken of the religious emotion in western Europe, and of the durableness of those conditions in human character, to which some belief in a deity with a greater ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... New Yorker, born just at the close of the Revolution, of a Scotch father and English mother. His youth was pleasantly idle, with a little random education, much theater-going, and plentiful rambles with a gun along the Hudson River. In 1804 he went abroad for his health, returned and helped to write the light social satire of the "Salmagundi Papers," and became, after the publication of the ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... ingots, black with age on the surface, but showing the dull red metallic lustre of gold when scraped with a knife. There must have been half a million pounds' worth of it, Jim guessed, in that one chest alone—and there were nine others! The two men then opened a second box, at random, and this chest contained all manner of gold and silver ornaments, of the most exquisitely delicate and intricate workmanship. Cups, necklaces, finger-rings, clasps, sword- hilts, and breast-plates, ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... common things that round us lie Some random truths he can impart The harvest of a quiet eye That broods and sleeps on ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... in these Cleve Countries, and now as probably as afterwards, that the light scene recorded in Laveaux's poor HISTORY, and in all the Anecdote-Books, transacted itself one day. Substance of the story is true; though the details of it go all at random,—somewhat to this effect:— ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to study the crossings of the Chattahoochee, and, when all is ready, to move quickly. As a beginning, I will keep the troops and wagons well back from the river, and only display to the enemy our picket-line, with a few field-batteries along at random. I have already shifted Schofield to a point in our left rear, whence he can in a single move reach the Chattahoochee at a point above the railroad-bridge, where there is a ford. At present the waters ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... only one case was damage done to property connected with the conduct of the war. The darkening of the city and the various protective measures required high flying, so that the dropping of bombs was more or less at random. The raid occurred in the early evening, and while hundreds of thousands of persons heard the bursting bombs and the guns, there was no panic, and the majority of the citizens took shelter as they had been warned officially. An investigation of the damage the next morning ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... which in these two opposite categories are convertible terms, is fast becoming and will shortly be the great absorbing question, not only of this country but of the whole civilized world. I speak not at random; I speak from long and diligent observation in Europe, and from comparison of the state of affairs in this country with the state of public ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... and they sat down, each waiting for the other to speak. Finally she put some random question about his travelling-companion, a slow shy meditative youth whom he had once or twice brought down to Givre. She reflected that it was natural he should have given this uncommunicative comrade the preference over his livelier acquaintances, and aloud she said: "I'm so glad Fred ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... toward them. Hastily unslinging his gun, Garth sent a shot at random through the darkness. They heard the bullet spring off a ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... all. Random remarks here and there, being pieced together gave Laura a vague impression of a man of fine presence, abort forty-three or forty-five years of age, with dark hair and eyes, and a slight limp in his walk—it was not stated which leg was defective. And this indistinct shadow represented her father. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... extract, to convey an adequate idea of the character of the editorial columns of a paper, where terse and concentrated irony and sarcasm alternate with eloquent appeal and diffuse commentary and labored argument. We can only offer at random the following passages from a long review of a speech of John C. Calhoun, in which that extraordinary man, whose giant intellect has been shut out of its appropriate field of exercise by the very slavery of which he is the champion, undertook to maintain, in reply to a Virginia senator, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... this "ladies' day" meeting had for its chief speaker a man who is an ardent believer in and supporter of no-license. For an hour he spoke on this subject, and spoke exceedingly well. When he had finished, there ensued that random play of question and answer that usually follows the presiding officer's, "We are now open to discussion." The chief speaker had devoted the best efforts of his mature life to bringing about no-license in his home city; the subject was ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken |
