"Solidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... controversy with Nonconformists. If this notion were adopted only by mediaeval monks and modern Romanists, I would reckon it unworthy of notice; but it is received and uttered again as genuine at this day by grave and learned Protestant theologians of Germany, and notwithstanding the solidity and good sense which characterize his "Notes" generally, is formally reproduced in its boldest form by ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... on the shelf or lies on the table, a curious rectangular block; and such it is in its origin, being derived from the Roman codex, which was a block of wood split into thin layers. When closed, therefore, the book must have the seeming solidity of a block; but open it and a totally new character appears. It is now a bundle of thin leaves, and its beauty no longer consists in its solidity and squareness, but in the opposite qualities of easy and complete opening, and flowing curves. This inner contradiction, so far from ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... produced by nature; for nature has an even greater facility and truth than art. Long labour is expended over all the portraits wrought by the hand of man, yet they never attain to such truth as is revealed by a mirror. Clay is lacking in life, marble in colour, painting in solidity, and all three in motion, which is the most convincing element in a likeness: whereas in a mirror the reflection of the image is marvellous, for it is not only like its original, but moves and follows every nod of the man to whom it belongs; its ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... those with which I before and since have regarded her sex. Her gentleness, her docility, her pleasure in the studies which I pointed out to her, attached my affections more than became my age though that was not then much advancedor the solidity of my character. But I need not remind your lordship of the various modes in which you indulged your gaiety at the expense of an awkward and retired student, embarrassed by the expression of feelings so new to him, and I have no doubt that ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... of my experience and the solidity of my judgment—this would tempt me to think your mamma a very foolish person, and to advise you to disobey her; but I do not, Little Missis, for ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... and I to part till we had spent an hour in talking over this amiable family, with whom he could not help being much delighted, though he observed they were very deficient in the bon ton, there was too much solidity in all they said, they would trifle with trifles indeed, but had not the art of treating more weighty subjects with the same lightness, which gave them an air of rusticity; and he did not doubt, but on a more intimate acquaintance we should find their manners much rusticated, and their heads ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... arranged these boys so that their slender limbs intertwine in graceful patterns, making a decorative background to fill in the picture. The lightness and delicacy of the design heighten the effect of solidity in the figures of the foreground, giving them the prominence of ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... magazine of old clothes, old furniture, china, umbrellas, guns, fishing-rods, dirty fiddles, and split flutes. Entering the right-hand room, which had originally been that of an independent house, he was in an ordinary photographer's and print-collector's depository, to which a certain artistic solidity was imparted by a few oil paintings in the background. Charlotte made for the latter department, and when she was inside Mr. Ray appeared in person from the lumber-shop adjoining, which, despite its manginess, contributed by far the greater share ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... gaiters, and a diminutive round frock, while each doorpost was appropriately garnished with a model of a coal-sack. The two eating-house keepers exhibited joints of a magnitude, and puddings of a solidity, which coalheavers alone could appreciate; and the fruit-pie maker displayed on his well-scrubbed window-board large white compositions of flour and dripping, ornamented with pink stains, giving rich promise of the fruit within, which made ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Owny's cars and men were sent for this purpose; but when they came to take the haystack to pieces, the solidity of its centre rather astonished them—and instead of the cars going back loaded, two had their journey for nothing, and went home empty. Previously to his men leaving the widow's field, they spoke to her on the subject, ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... you feel anxious about the solidity of the British connection, till the twelfth of the month, when everybody is wearing an orange streamer in his coat and the Orangemen (every man in town) walk in the big procession. Allegiance! Well, ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... founded on smallness, a pyramid standing on a point. Or, to vary the metaphor, the new mercantile oligarchy might be symbolized even in the externals of its great sister, the mercantile oligarchy of Venice. The solidity was all in the superstructure; the fluctuation had been all in the foundations. The great temple of Chatham and Warren Hastings was reared in its origins on things as unstable as water and as fugitive as ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... The inhabitants write it Kambayat. The ancient city is 3 miles from the existing Cambay, and is now overgrown with jungle. It is spoken of as a flourishing place by Mas'udi, who visited it in A.D. 915. Ibn Batuta speaks of it also as a very fine city, remarkable for the elegance and solidity of its mosques, and houses built by wealthy foreign merchants. Cambeth is mentioned by Polo's contemporary Marino Sanudo, as one of the two chief Ocean Ports of India; and in the 15th century Conti calls it 14 miles in circuit. It was still in high prosperity in the early part of ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... clear night, with a young moon, and the stars set deep in blue so dark that the sky gave an impression of solidity. The air was full of scents and of a soft balminess, with the faint nip of an early May in the ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... Koenigsberg, the founder of the Critical Philosophy, more than any other work, at once invigorated and disciplined my understanding. The originality, the depth, and the compression of the thoughts; the novelty and subtlety, yet solidity and importance of the distinctions; the adamantine chain of the logic; and I will venture to add—(paradox as it will appear to those who have taken their notion of Immanuel Kant from Reviewers and Frenchmen)—the clearness ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... attacked every door he could put his hands on; and gradually he lost his respect for decency and the conventions proper to Halls, knocking loudly and more loudly. He banged. Nothing but sheer solidity stopped his sturdy hands from going through the panels. He so far forgot himself as to shake the doors ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... already about to undo the fastenings of the gate, in order to enter within the 'dock.' March had no other motive in landing than a senseless bravado, and having shaken the door in a manner to put its solidity to the proof, he joined Hutter in the canoe and began to aid him in opening the gate. The reader will remember that this mode of entrance was rendered necessary by the manner in which the owner of this singular residence habitually secured it, whenever it was left empty; more ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... mother, and for the next twelve years, 1828-1840, the two lived together, chiefly in Paris. There, as a child, he had been a nine days' wonder, but the solidity of his reputation was now destined to go hand in hand with his stormy and interrupted mental and moral development. Such a plant could not come to maturity all at once. No drawing-room or concert-room ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... moderation and in measured language. They said that they had tried to support Mr. Grayson; they had given him every chance; they had always been ready with advice; they had sought to instil in him a full sense of his responsibility, and to impart to his mind the breadth and solidity so necessary in a Presidential nominee; they were strong in party loyalty, and they hesitated long before taking such a momentous step; but they knew that in every great crisis brave men who would not hesitate at great risk to lead must be found; therefore they stepped into ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... a dialectician as Douglas found this compact structure of history and argument a serious matter. Its simple solidity was not so susceptible to treatment by the perverting process as had been the figurative and prophetic utterance about the "house divided against itself." Neither could he find a chink between the facts and the inferences. One aspect of the speech, however, could not be passed over. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... ware is very handsome, and its ornamentation is strikingly artistic in its simplicity. See, for instance, Plate V., e. D, f, and g represent pottery from Casas Grandes, distinguished by a certain solidity and a ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... former clothing), a pair of soldier's trousers which by Karataev's advice he tied with string round the ankles for warmth, and a peasant coat and cap. Physically he had changed much during this time. He no longer seemed stout, though he still had the appearance of solidity and strength hereditary in his family. A beard and mustache covered the lower part of his face, and a tangle of hair, infested with lice, curled round his head like a cap. The look of his eyes was resolute, calm, and animatedly alert, as never before. The former slackness which had ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... which seemed too small to carry the weight of his academic distinctions, preceded him by a few seconds, and then he entered himself—so large, so pompous, and so dignified that he was the very embodiment of self-possession and solidity. And yet his first action, when the door had closed behind him, was to stagger against the table, whence he slipped down upon the floor, and there was that majestic figure prostrate and insensible ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... spark of the stubborn courage which bore Cortez and his paladins through the hosts of Montezuma might have made of that stately city a second Saragossa. It was eminently defensible. The churches, the convents, the public buildings, constructed with that solidity which is peculiarly Spanish, formed each of them a fortress. The broad streets, crossing each other at right angles, rendered concentration at any threatened point an easy matter, and beyond the walls were broad ditches and ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... in the picture—the small area occupied by the Madonna and Child—and by the subordination of the free play of other elements. The contrast between the broad base and the apex gives a feeling of solidity, of repose; and it seems not unreasonable to suppose that the tendency to rest the eyes above the center of the picture directly induces the associated mood of reverence or worship. Thus the pyramidal form serves two ends; primarily that of giving unity; and secondarily, ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... drama which consists in the intimate union of poetry and the stage." Following in the footsteps of Schiller in his Intrigue and Love and of Hebbel in his Maria Magdalena, he has not attained, it is true, the massive solidity of the latter, nor has he breathed into his drama that lofty spirit of social challenge that wings the former. On close inspection, the construction of Ludwig's drama shows undeniable flaws of motivation. The playwright has allowed ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... and less valuable, as the medium in which they were paid was less valuable; it was not possible that the small part of society which may be called the sober and reasoning part, should not be so struck with the sudden fortunes and extravagant enthusiasm which prevailed, as not to doubt of the solidity of a system, unphilosophical in itself, and which, after all, had to depend on the profits of a commercial company, the good faith of the regent, and the skill of Law; it was impossible, on these and other accounts, but that gold and silver should be at last preferred to paper notes, of ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... distance, with the sun playing on it and the sea gulls swooping about its top, it seemed something slender and ethereal. It was only when one was close at hand that its real strength and solidity could be appreciated. ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... diameter of the earth, we get the diameter of the circle, or orbit, in which the moon moves around the earth. In other words the diameter of this orbit is about 480,000 miles. Now could the sun be brought in contact with this orbit, and had the latter solidity to mark its circumference, it would be found that this circumference would include but a little more than half the surface of one side of the sun, the diameter of which orb is calculated to be 882,000 miles! The sun is one million three hundred and eighty-four ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... they want better things. The cheap article, I will admit, ministers to a certain grade of intellect; but if the man grows, there will come a time when, instead of a great many cheap and shoddy things, he will want a few good things. He will want things that symbol solidity, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... band by this time had regained their usual solidity. The leader seemed immensely relieved. He had evidently expected the next apparition to be a bluecoat with ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... building, although different in design. The place assigned this exhibit in the Palace of Agriculture covered a space 35 by 45 feet 6 inches, with aisles on three sides. The facade fronted on the three aisles and in its architectural lines presented a solidity characteristic of the State's exhibits. Cane stalk and corn in red colors were used to form the base of the facade, being put on in transverse sections, which gave at a distance as well as by close inspection a very pleasing effect. ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... chiefly by parcel post to friends. The butter, although it commanded rather a better price than ordinary quality, was considered not only by them but by the villagers more economical, as owing to its solidity and freedom from butter milk, it would keep good indefinitely, and "went ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... two forefeet over the edge of the descent and clung to solidity and sanity with her ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... The high-spirited and gifted youth, scarcely more than a boy in years, whom he had sent to the Capital with no small misgivings, must have led a far less lawless life than might have been expected; of this the ruddy tinge in his sunburnt cheeks was ample guarantee, the vigorous solidity of his muscles, and the thick waves of his hair, which was artificially curled and fell in a fringe, as was then the fashion, over his high brow, giving him a certain resemblance to the portraits of Antinous, the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... excellent mathematician, geometrician, and musician; he was equally skilful in painting and sculpture; and in poetry few of his time could equal him. In short, such were his talents, and such the solidity of his judgment, that though but sixteen years of age, he was considered equal in wisdom to a ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... head and shoulders maintained their normal connection during the last minute of my drive, I leave naturalists to explain. Fortunately, the children had struck on their heads, and the Lawrence- Burton skull is a marvel of solidity. I set them on their feet, promised them all the candy they could eat for a week, and hurried them to the other side of the depot. Budge rushed at Tom, exclaiming, "See ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of this artist, which will be apparent to any one acquainted with his work, is the weakness of his outline, and the singular absence of solidity, stability, and even of vitality in his figures. There is no lack of powerful situations in Frank Smedley's novel of "Lewis Arundel," but Browne's illustrations are characterised by an utter absence of vitality, while shadow usurps the place ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... which doubtless once suffused the whole, has, alas! disappeared under cruel restorations, and flatness of tone has inevitably resulted, but we may still admire the play of light on horizontal surfaces, and the chiaroscuro giving solidity and relief ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... and dignified expression. It was thus, he thought, that diplomatists ought to play. It was thus, in all probability, that he used to play with some influential dignitary at St. Petersburg, whom he wished to impress with a favorable idea of his solidity and perspicacity. "One hundred and one, hundred and two, heart, hundred and three," said the measured tones of his voice, and Lavretsky could not tell which it expressed—dislike ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... only accepted arrangement for sporting purposes, and much attention is necessary in its construction, as the greatest strength should be combined with lightness. There ought to be no doors, as they weaken the solidity of the whole. The weight of a good roomy howdah should not exceed two hundredweight, or at the outside 230 pounds. It must be remembered that the howdah is not adapted for travelling, as there is a disagreeable ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... waiting-maid and her cabinet of rarities were her boasts, and equally shewn to every visitor: for besides the beauty of her figure, and the genteel air of her person, the dear girl had a surprising memory, a solidity of judgment above her years, and a docility so unequalled, that she took all parts of learning which her lady, as fond of instructing her as she of improving by instruction, crowded upon her; insomuch that she had masters to teach her to dance, sing, and play on the spinnet, whom ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... even if the Hebrew writer had any mistaken or confused notions in his own mind, that would not afford any just ground against revelation itself. But I would point out that many of the expressions which may be quoted to show the idea of solidity, are clearly poetical. And if we go to the poetic or semi-poetic aspect of things, may I not ask whether there is not a certain sense in which the earth-envelope may be said to be solid? The air has a considerable density, its uniform and inexorable ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... action in voting for the bill and his own in signing it on the ground that "the interests of the country, the interests of the party" required the sacrifice of the accomplishment of certain things in the revision of the tariff which had been hoped for, "in order to maintain party solidity," which he believed to be much more important than the reduction of rates in one or two schedules of ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... Europe and America, China appears the most stationary of nations. She has moved less in centuries than western peoples have in decades. The restless Anglo-Saxon is alternately irritated and awed by this massive solidity, not to say stolidity. There is, after all, something impressive about it, the impressiveness of a mighty glacier which moves, indeed, but so slowly and majestically that the duration of an ordinary nation's life appears insignificant as compared ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... was a busy man. He investigated the Montana's wound, first of all. He found her flooded forward—her nose anchored into the sand with a rock-of-ages solidity. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... hotly. She felt the smarting pain of a file drawn over the skin. The table was very old; for generations it had been a family treasure. As a child she had loved its polished surface and revered its massive solidity. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... it is the only form thus far spoken of wherein the tapering surfaces rise directly from the tower-cornice, without mutilating the tower or violating the pure outlines of the spire. The heavenward aspiration, as it were, ascends without effort from the solidity of the tower. It seems to typify a certain fitness and adaptability to heavenly things even in the gross and earthly nature of man. One cannot fail to admire its unaffected dignity, its harmonious balance, its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... the ground, while the two ends of it rested upon the end walls. The walls themselves were constructed of thick mud plaster, overlaying a foundation of laced willow branches. The whole construction was of unusual solidity, and the smoke-blackened thatch yielded two holes, Indian fashion, through which the ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... Whigs was more universal and more violent in its effects, it must be allowed, on the other, that the advantages gained by the Tories were, on account of their alliance with the crown, more durable and decisive. There is a superior solidity ever belonging to the power of the crown, as compared with that of any body of men or party, or even with either of the other branches of the legislature. A party has influence, but, properly speaking, ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... that he could guard the interval between those two rivers and their courses, which the ice would speedily efface. He placed no reliance on a sea of snow six feet deep, with which winter would speedily cover those parts, but to which it would also give solidity: the whole then would be one wide road for the enemy to reach him, to penetrate into the intervals between his wooden cantonments, scattered over a frontier of two hundred leagues, and to ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... in solid crude color with a medium that hardened like stone, and to leave them months and even years to dry before finishing them with the glazing colors, which worked in his hands like magic over such a well-hardened surface. By this method of working he was able to secure solidity of appearance, richness of color, unity of effect, and atmospheric repose and tenderness enveloping all objects in the picture. Many of his unfinished works are left in the first stage of this process, showing precisely how far he relied on the use of solid color; and by comparing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... of a firm, condensed texture, especially at the lower part, where their solidity was nearly equal to that of a healthy liver. They ...
— Cases of Organic Diseases of the Heart • John Collins Warren
... Hungary, and all that that meant in the Balkans, from the Teutonic alliance. Even without the loss of Cracow, that of the rest of Galicia was serious enough; her oil-wells were the main sources of the German supply of petroleum, and her Slav population, once assured of the solidity of Russian success, would throw off its allegiance to the Hapsburgs and entice the Czecho-Slovaks on its borders to do the same. These prospects were not visionary in September 1914. Jaroslav fell on the 23rd and Przemysl was invested. Russian cavalry rode ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... She became somebody in his eyes. He discovered many merits in her. He perceived she was remarkably well-informed for a woman, and prodigiously so for a French woman. She understood half a word—knew a great deal—and guessed at the remainder. She had, in short, that blending of grace and solidity which gives to the conversation of a woman of cultivated mind an incomparable charm. Habituated from infancy to her mental superiority as to her pretty face, she carried the one as unconsciously as the other. She devoted herself to the care of his household as if she had no idea ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... presents no such complete panorama of phases of social life in England as it does of those in Italy, perhaps, because there is a poise and solidity about the English character which does not lend itself to so great a variety of mood as one may find in the peculiarly artistic temperament of the Italians, especially those of the Renaissance period. Even such irregular proceedings as murders have their philosophical ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... refined argumentation, and glowing imagery; and been forced to acknowledge, that all delights were meagre and contemptible, compared with those connected with the audience and sight of you. I have contemplated your principles, and been astonished at the solidity of their foundation, and the perfection of their structure. I have traced you to your home. I have viewed you in relation to your servants, to your family, to your neighbours, and to the world. I have seen by what skilful arrangements you facilitate ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... seals which he resigned were given to the Duke of Richmond. When he resigned he declared that he had no fault to find with his colleague's, except that they wanted strength, and that his opinion was, Mr. Pitt alone could give vigour and solidity to any administration in the present state of affairs. Under him, his grace said, he was "willing to serve in any capacity, not merely as a general officer, but as a pioneer: under him he would take up a spade or a mattock." Such was the situation in which the ministers found themselves at ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of the mode in which the Gauls constructed their walls of earth, stone, and logs,[684] and it resembles the ruins of Gallic fortifications which have been discovered in France, though it is said to surpass them in the strength and solidity of its structure. No similar walls appear to be known in Britain. A great part of this interesting prehistoric fortress was barbarously destroyed in the early part of the nineteenth century, much of it being ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... and good-breeding which the exquisite polish of his compositions would lead us to expect. He was always cheerful and animated, often, indeed, boisterous in his mirth; entered with spirit into convivial society; contributed largely to its enjoyments by solidity of information, and the naivete and originality of his character; talked often without premeditation, and laughed loudly ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... we have received also the support of the Apostle's aid, which assuredly does not cease from its operation; and the strength of the foundation, on which the whole lofty building of the Church is reared, is not weakened by the weight of the temple that rests upon it. For the solidity of that faith which was praised in the chief of the Apostles is perpetual; and, as that remains which Peter believed in Christ, so that remains which Christ instituted in Peter. For when, as has been read in the Gospel ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... by Bessas, and the siege of Petra was recommenced. The strength of the place had been considerably increased since the former attack upon it. A new wall of great height and solidity had been built upon a framework of wood in the place which Dagisthaeus had so nearly breached; the Roman mines had been filled up with gravel; arms, offensive and defensive, had been collected ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... display of ingenuity, for the most part, is and always has been it. I must here offer you an opinion of my own, which, if you think well of me, you will pardon, though you should disbelieve its solidity. My opinion then is, that truth is not reasonably the main and ultimate object of philosophy; but that philosophy should seek truth merely as the means of acquiring and of propagating happiness. Truths are simple; wisdom, which is formed by their apposition ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... his last round of the church. He had not noticed, that at the moment when he was closing the doors, the archdeacon had passed close to him and betrayed some displeasure on seeing him bolting and barring with care the enormous iron locks which gave to their large leaves the solidity of a wall. Dom Claude's air was even more preoccupied than usual. Moreover, since the nocturnal adventure in the cell, he had constantly abused Quasimodo, but in vain did he ill treat, and even beat him occasionally, nothing disturbed the submission, patience, the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... her Swedish ally to transport supplies to the British army in the Peninsula without infringing the duties of neutrality towards the United States. As to his opinion in the case of "The Venus," Chancellor Kent declared that there was "no doubt of its superior solidity and justice;" and it must be admitted that his opinion in the case of the "Commercen," rested on strong logical grounds, since the United States and the allies of Great Britain in the war on the Continent never ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... visions of youth! I could not banish them from my mind. I knew them to be crude; but believed that deliberation would bestow upon them solidity and shape. Meanwhile I imparted ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... which another is impelled, to assert that it is rarer in great bodies than in small ones; it must be further asserted that this fluid is rarer or denser in the same body, whether small or great, according as the body to which that is impelled is itself small or great. But whatever may be the solidity of this objection, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... much capacity, built, like the Grange, by the monks of the convent, which had been the germ of the cathedral, and showing the grand old monastic style in the solidity of its stone barns and storehouses, all arranged around a court, whereof the dwelling-house occupied one side, the lawn behind it with fine old trees, and sloping down to the water, which was full ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... instance, so accurately the reflection of the father, that an acquaintance with either of the two Pedgifts was almost equivalent to an acquaintance with both. Add some little height and size to the figure of Pedgift Junior, give more breadth and boldness to his humor, and some additional solidity and composure to his confidence in himself, and the presence and character of Pedgift Senior stood, for all general purposes, revealed ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... everyone was like her. On the whole the ladies from Bross profited rather than lost by the new frame they stepped into in the house of Dr Drummond, of Elgin, Ontario. Their special virtues, of dignity and solidity and frugality, stood out saliently against the ease and unconstraint about them; in the profusion of the table it was little less than edifying to hear Mrs Kilbannon, invited to preserves, say, "Thank ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... course of classical learning at the grammar school and college, taught philosophy in the university of St. Andrews, where for several years he gave abundant proof that he was an able scholar. His temper was very steady and composed; he could reason upon the most subtle points with great solidity, and when every one else was warm his temper was never ruffled. At any time when indecent heats or wranglings happened to fall in when reasoning, it was his ordinary custom to say, "Enough of this, let us go to some other subject; we are warm, and can dispute no longer ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... of this cane were exceedingly thick, giving it great stiffness, and solidity to resist storms of wind. It proved to be hardly so juicy as ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... is also brought before us in this prayer—"Stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness." The Apostle prays that they may be steadfast, not weak and vacillating. The great need was for solidity and steadfastness, as it is in the present day, for it is only when the heart is established by grace and in holiness that it can in any true sense serve God. This emphasis on a fixed or stablished heart is brought before us several times in Holy Scripture ...
— The Prayers of St. Paul • W. H. Griffith Thomas
... that question to the common consciousness of our race. If all men do not believe in a permanent reality—a substance which is external to themselves, a substance which offers resistance to their muscular effort, and which produces in them the sensations of solidity, extension, resistance, etc.—they believe nothing and know nothing at all about ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... term, although, owing to the incorporation of the steadying hollow "mattress" (as it is called by its inventor), the strength of the suspension system, and the substantial character of the car, it conveys an impression of great solidity. The thinnest rope, both manilla and steel, in the suspension system is as thick as a man's finger, while the car, measuring 30 feet in length by 6 feet in width, carried out in wood, is a striking example of the maximum of strength with the minimum of weight, ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... blessed with good, sound sense. Call him." They took my advice, called Dr. Jordan, and I found him at the university. My three weeks' stay interested me more and more. Evening after evening I walked through the cloisters of the great quadrangle, admiring the solidity, beauty, and admirable arrangement of the buildings, and enjoying their lovely surroundings and the whole charm ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... me. My friends, I know, expect that I shall see yet again. They think it necessary to the existence of divine truth, that he who once had possession of it should never finally lose it. I admit the solidity of this reasoning in every case but my own. And why not in my own? For causes which to them it appears madness to allege, but which rest upon my mind with a weight of immovable conviction. If I am recoverable, why am I thus?—why crippled ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... little eminence in the principal valley of a brook, (which I had been following nearly from its outlet,) when suddenly the mountains, of which I had lost sight for a time, rose up before me in sublime strength, no longer of translucent purple, but revealing, under the direct light, their rugged solidity. On my right, in the foreground, were lofty black cliffs, made darker by being seen lying in their own shadow. On my left, green hills, in varying forms, stretched almost an interminable distance, varying also in their color and depth of shade. At the foot of the cliffs, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... remaining for the sake of her unpaid wages. She was a young girl, and pretty for one of her sisterhood, who perpetuate, as a rule, the hard and strenuous lineaments and forms held to hard labor, until they have attained a squat solidity of ungraceful muscle. This little Hungarian Marie was still not overdeveloped muscularly, although one saw her hands with a certain shock after her little, smiling face, which still smiled, despite her wrongs. Nothing could exceed the sweetness of ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... nature to act as a spring. And this is easy to conceive as regards water and other transparent liquids, they being composed of detached particles. But it may seem more difficult as regards glass and other transparent and hard bodies, because their solidity does not seem to permit them to receive movement except in their whole mass at the same time. This, however, is not necessary because this solidity is not such as it appears to us, it being probable rather that ...
— Treatise on Light • Christiaan Huygens
... exquisite than the other—the ancient halls of the corporations of Brussels, among which that of the brewers shows supreme by reason of the luxury of its carvings and the care wherewith its beauty and solidity have been maintained throughout the centuries. In one of the simplest houses of the square Victor Hugo first took refuge after the great catastrophe of the coup d'etat. It bore the number 27. A tobacco-shop occupied the ground floor. The poet's parlor was furnished in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... communities with the same fixed but free organisation, with the same canon and the same conception of the essence of Christianity, pre-eminent for the strictness of their morals and their joy in martyrdom.[401] The Catholic Church was then only in process of growth, and it was long ere it reached the solidity won by the Marcionite church through the activity of one man, who was animated by a faith so strong that he was able to oppose his conception of Christianity to all others as the only right one, and who did not shrink from making selections from tradition instead of explaining it away. He was ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... to infer the great extent and solidity of the public resources from the prosperous state of the finances, notwithstanding the unexampled embarrassments which have attended commerce. When you reflect on the conspicuous examples of patriotism and liberality which have been exhibited by our mercantile fellow citizens, and how great a proportion ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... effect an entrance. They contented themselves with strolling around it once again, admiring its shingles that were weather-beaten to a silvery gray, enthusing over the quaintly-gabled windows of its upper story, calling each other's attention to its palpable solidity of structure. ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... now arrived at the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. "Extension, Figure, Solidity, Gravity, Motion, and Rest" are the attributes of an external substance which is the cause of sensations. But the same epistemological principle readily reduces these also to dependence on mind, for, like the secondary qualities, their content is given ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... with its markings of magenta, red, and blue. These palm-leaf designs extend over the entire rug, which is of enormous size. The border is in harmony with the field, and in coloring has the same deep, rich hues. The texture is firm and the rug is very heavy and imposing, with an air of solidity and strength. The illustration shows a section of this rug, giving a clear ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... with difficulty from the claws of the Covenanters, now mantled, some with ale, some with mead, and some with generous wine of various qualities and descriptions. The appetites of the guests were in correspondence to the magnificence and solidity of the preparation—no piddling—no boy's-play, but that steady and persevering exercise of the jaws which is best learned by early morning hours, and by occasional ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... out of the car at Abingdon Square he tottered, in his slow, old way, to a neat structure which combined modern jauntiness with old-time solidity, and which was labelled simply: "Office of the Van Riper Estate," and there he told the smilingly indulgent clerk that he thought he would "take it in cash, this time," and, taking ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... "My corps is as solid as a rock—a great rock. I will strike the blow, and win, if the other troops gather the fruits of victory." How confident the old "War Horse," as General Lee called him, was in the solidity and courage of his troops. Little did he know when he made the assertion that so soon his seventeen thousand men were to be pitted against the whole army of the Potomac. Still, no battle was ever considered ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... think they're solid everywhere," she laughed. "It's only a question of degree; solidity here means a ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... is a view of vast extent over the Netherlands. The cathedral of Aix is a large Gothic structure, but many of its decorations are trifling, and inconsistent with the solidity of its massy columns of marble and granite. Its doors are of bronze highly wrought, but full ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... and ability. From time to time, as the business went on, he wrote to his father in good spirits, saying that he had excellent hopes they should succeed, notwithstanding the unfortunate loss of the deed; that the more he considered the case, the more clearly the justice of their cause and the solidity of their right appeared. Alas! Alfred showed himself to be but a young lawyer, in depending so much upon right and justice, while a point of law was against him. It is unnecessary, and would be equally tedious ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... Parents. Wants of Children.—In the human brain, intelligence and sentiment are intimately connected with one another, and from their combination arise volitions, which in their turn, react more or less strongly on cerebral activity, according to their solidity and duration. It is thus a great mistake to think that we can treat separately, by the aid of theoretical dogmas, the three great domains of the human mind—intelligence, sentiment and will. It is a fundamental error to imagine that the intelligence can be educated only ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... planned a whole, inevitable disaster overtakes the man who would behave as though it were a thing of shreds and fragments. Now this law of what we may call the Divine unity is equally valid in the purely intellectual order. That, likewise, refuses to admit schisms and divisions to break in on the solidity of its unbroken ranks. An attempt to view life and its problems exclusively from our own standpoint, is to fail to grasp truth; our shadow gets projected over the surface, and the light is partially concealed, if not wholly confused. No better illustration of this fact, I believe, ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... charming,—far more charming than the nave, as the beautiful woman is more charming than the elderly man. One need not quarrel about styles of beauty, as long as the man and woman are evidently satisfied and love and admire each other still, with all the solidity of faith to hold them up; but, at least, one cannot help seeing, as one looks from the older to the younger style, that whatever the woman's sixteenth- century charm may be, it is not the man's eleventh-century ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... and perseverance of Mr. McAdam, not only the road in question, but nearly all the roads of Great Britain have been made, within the last five-and-twenty years, to resemble in appearance, but really to exceed in solidity and strength, the roads one formerly saw in the grounds of private gentlemen. These roads are almost flat, and when they have been properly constructed, the wheel rolls over them as if passing along a bed of iron. Apart from the levels, which, of ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of the footpath was the stile, between two fields; no frail and temporary structure, but betokening the permanence of this rustic way; the ancient solidity of the stone steps, worn into cavities by the hobnailed shoes that had pressed upon them: here not only the climbing foot had passed for ages, but here had sat the maiden with her milk-pail, the rustic on his way afield or homeward; here had been lover meetings, cheerful chance chats, song as ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... there seemed nothing at all strange in this extraordinary experience; he was by no means excited, remained merely if deeply interested. And he could detect in his physical sensations no trace of that qualmish dread he always experienced in high places: the sense he had of security, of solidity, was and ever remained wholly ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... thus early, a certain solidity was apparent in Scott's studies. "To the romances and poetry which I chiefly delighted in," he writes, "I had always added the study of history, especially as connected with military events." He interested himself, for example, in the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... boast. He only makes some additions to the doctrine of Democritus, altering very little, and that in such a way that he seems to me to make those points worse which he endeavours to correct. He believes that atoms, as he calls them, that is to say bodies which by reason of their solidity are indivisible, are borne about in an interminable vacuum, destitute of any highest, or lowest, or middle, or furthest, or nearest boundary, in such a manner that by their concourse they cohere together; by which cohesion everything which exists and which is seen is formed. ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... self came less to the front with her than usual? It was that now first she was face to face with reality. Until this moment her life had been an affair of unrealities. Her selfishness had thinned, as it were vaporized, every reality that approached her. Solidity is not enough to teach some natures reality; they must hurt themselves against the solid ere they realize its solidity. Small reality, small positivity of existence has water to a dreaming soul, half consciously gazing through half ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... of the shore, retreating again and ever returning to the assault, covering the obstacles thrown in the way of their progress with thin sheets of licking tongues at least. And if such a high crest wave had suddenly been frozen into solidity, its outline would have mimicked to perfection many a one of the snow shapes that ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... antiques a bit dilapidated; a missing detail serving as a hallmark to calm doubts; others insist upon completeness to the eye and solidity for use; while the connoisseur, with unlimited means, recognises nothing less than signed sofas and chairs, and other objets d'art. To repeat:—be always on the lookout, remembering that it is the man who knows the points of a good dog, horse ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... a solidity about a stone house, stone porch and stone wall in every part of Ireland; a strength that makes one think how easily a house could be turned into a ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... The Treasury, unimportant in the world's affairs before 1861, suddenly became one of the greatest dealers in credit. Its debt of $2,808,000,000, outstanding in October, 1865, affected the interests and solidity of international finance, and indicated, as well, resources of which even boastful Americans had been unaware in 1861. One item in the debt, however, was a menace to the security of the whole, which was but little stronger than its ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... a vestibule or hall. The roof had been recently painted a brilliant red at the expense of the Variag's officers. On the inside, the church has an antiquated appearance, but presents such an air of solidity as if inviting the earthquakes to ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... advantages are reaped from a select society of both sexes. The rough angles and asperities of male manners are imperceptibly filed, and gradually worn smooth, by the polishing of female conversation, and the refining of female taste; while the ideas of women acquire strength and solidity, by their associating with sensible, intelligent, and ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... this encounter, where each man had singled out his own foe as though it were a tournament, very many lances were broken, especially those of the Italian knights; for their lances were hollowed so as to be less heavy, and in consequence had less solidity. Those who were thus disarmed at once seized their swords. As they were far more numerous than the French, the king saw them suddenly outflanking his right wing and apparently prepared to surround it; at the same moment loud cries ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... original fluidity of the mass, in times long antecedent to the first introduction of living beings into the planet; but the geologist must be content to regard the earliest monuments which it is his task to interpret, as belonging to a period when the crust had already acquired great solidity and thickness, probably as great as it now possesses, and when volcanic rocks, not essentially differing from those now produced, were formed from time to time, the intensity of volcanic heat being neither greater nor less ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... out of both their lives, had been reinstated in another form. Gloria insisted that any one invited to the gray house must be "good," which, in the case of a girl, meant that she must be either simple and reproachless or, if otherwise, must possess a certain solidity and strength. Always intensely sceptical of her sex, her judgments were now concerned with the question of whether women were or were not clean. By uncleanliness she meant a variety of things, a lack of pride, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... (by virtue of the different angles from which each of his eyes gaze at it) and thus sees a trifle more of the background than would otherwise be the case. And this—these two viewpoints blended in his brain—gives him his perception of "depth," of "solidity"—the difference between a real scene of three dimensions and a painted scene on a canvas of two dimensions with only the artist's skill in perspective to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... that the Princess Palatine was a person of large intelligence, who was able to hold her own with men of the greatest capacity. De Retz and Bossuet tell us so. Some letters of the Palatine, however, are extant in which, whilst there is no lack of solidity, refinement, and ingenuity of thought, it will be seen that they often abound with errors, obscure phraseology, and not unfrequently outrageously violate even the commonest rules of orthography. It must not, however, by any means be inferred from this that the Palatine had not a mind of the first ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... petticoat were now called in, and ordered to produce what they had to say against the popular cry which was raised against it. They answered the objections with great strength and solidity of argument, and expatiated in very florid harangues, which they did not fail to set off and furbelow, if I may be allowed the metaphor, with many periodical sentences and turns of oratory. The chief arguments ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... the Free Library and the Town Hall attract attention. The latter is nearly on the site of the old free schools, which were built by Sir John Vanbrugh with all the solidity characteristic of his style; and Leigh Hunt opined, if suffered to remain, they would probably outlast the whole of Kensington. However, no such misfortune occurred, and the only relics of them remaining ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... carefully examined, and it was found that over the whole of that immense area an excessively fine chalky mud is being deposited; and this deposit is entirely made up of animals whose hard parts are deposited in this part of the ocean, and are doubtless gradually acquiring solidity and becoming metamorphosed into a chalky limestone. Thus, you see, it is quite possible in this way to preserve unmistakable records of animal and vegetable life. Whenever the sea-bottom, by some of those undulations of the earth's crust that I have ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... (inward sulphur) exactly expresses the spiritual state of the regenerate man according to mystical theology. There is no reason, other than their belief in analogy, why the alchemists should have held such views concerning the metals. "Salt," the principle of solidity and resistance to fire, corresponding to the body in man, plays a comparatively unimportant part in alchemical theory, as does its ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... The solidity of those women was something amazing. Terry soon found that it was useless, tore himself loose for a moment, pulled his revolver, and fired upward. As they caught at it, he fired ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... the strongest made, as indicated by its weight, which is almost a couple of pounds. To ensure this unusual strength it is necessary that its sides should be of equal thickness and the bottom of a uniform solidity throughout, in order that no particular expansion may ensue from sudden changes of temperature. The neck must, moreover, be perfectly round and widen gradually towards the shoulder. In addition—and this is of the utmost consequence—the inside ought to be perfectly smooth, as a rough interior ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... the town, I perceived it to be a fortress of vast extent; but as it is commanded from the heights from which I was descending, it appeared to want strength if approached from the south. The ramparts were built with great solidity, but rusty, old, dismounted cannon, obliterated embrasures, and palisades rotten from exposure to the weather, showed that to stand a siege it must undergo a considerable repair. The aspect of the place did not improve as we rumbled ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... rebel belligerents was concerted with France—France, so beloved in America, on which she had conferred the greatest benefits that one people ever conferred on another; France, which stands foremost on the continent of Europe for the solidity of her culture, as well as for the bravery and generous impulses of her sons; France, which for centuries had been moving steadily in her own way towards intellectual and political freedom. The policy regarding further colonization of America by ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... easiest comprehended. The Symphonic Variations are the greatest of all, greater than the Concerto or the Fantasie in C. These almost persuade one that their author is a fit companion for Beethoven and Chopin. There is invention, workmanship, and a solidity that never for a moment clashes with the tide of romantic passion surging beneath. Here he strikes fire ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... afforded by the return of our boats to bring them down to Vancouver. This gentleman, as well as the Messrs. Applegate, and others of the emigrants whom I saw, possessed intelligence and character, with the moral and intellectual stamina, as well as the enterprise, which give solidity and respectability to the foundation ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... of the body, was apparent in him in his very childhood, as he was with much difficulty incited to them, and always used them with great moderation; though in other things he was extremely eager and vehement, and in his love of glory, and the pursuit of it, he showed a solidity of high spirit and magnanimity far above his age. For he neither sought nor valued it upon every occasion, as his father Philip did, (who affected to show his eloquence almost to a degree of pedantry, and took care to have the victories of his racing chariots at the Olympic games engraved on his ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... equal effort. To use a familiar phrase, there will not be time for the whole resistance of the national fabric to come into play; the blow will fall on the organized military fleet, and if that yield, the solidity of the rest of the structure will avail nothing. To a certain extent this is true; but then it has always been true, though to a less extent formerly than now. Granted the meeting of two fleets which ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... When they had surrounded him, he spoke a few words. With shovels and axes they set energetically to work at his direction, packing a wall of snow and wood from the ground up over the axles of the wheels all around the wagons so as to give greater solidity to the whole and to prevent the cold wind ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... not some Boswell of a friend who could have recorded his wise sayings and valuable criticism of men and things. He was more of an idealist than Doctor Johnson, and at the same time like Doctor Johnson in personal solidity, his English aplomb of character. They were both men of sterling quality. He was in all things especially human. His sympathies equalled the breadth of his mind. There was scarcely a subject in which he did not take an interest, and was not ready to converse ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... when he laid the corner-stones of two habitations; one on the Peak, which was his private property, standing on his estate; and the other on the Reef, which was strictly intended to be a Government, or Colony House. The first was of brick, and the last of stone, and of great solidity, being intended as a sort of fortress. The private dwelling was only a story and a half high, but large on the ground for that region, measuring sixty feet square. The. government building was much larger, measuring ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... interests that radiated from it and were dependent upon it—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, that contributed to its solidity and success—the many investments, industrial, political, benevolent, reformatory, ecclesiastical, that had made the name of Weightman well known and potent in city, church, and state, demanded much ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke
... all sense of motion disappeared. The boat shrugged uneasily with the movement of the oars, the rowlocks made of loops of twisted osier creaked, but one could not perceive that one was going forwards. The hills lost their solidity, becoming mere holes in the grey blue of the sky, a bright planet made a light smudge on the ruffled water in which the stars could not reflect. As we crept forwards into the river and the mountains ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... not know of the niche behind the pillar, and there were pilasters all along, built into the wall. The construction of the high, springing vault that covered the whole throne room required them for its solidity, and only the one under the centre of the arch was built as a detached pillar, in order to give access to the gallery. Seen from either end of the passage, it looked exactly like the rest, and few persons would have noticed that it differed from ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... witches had celebrated one of their infernal dances upon his head while asleep in bed: and one of them, in accordance with this conjecture, acknowledged that the devil had sent her with a sledge-hammer to drive a nail into the temples of the obnoxious clergyman. The solidity of his skull saved him; and the only result was, as stated, a severe ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... a science of society. This object is to show the sciences as branches from a single trunk,—is to give to science the ensemble or spirit of generality hitherto confined to philosophy, and to give to philosophy the rigour and solidity of science. Comte's special object is a study of social physics, a science that before his advent was still to be formed; his second object is a review of the methods and leading generalities of all the positive sciences already ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... rival Tyrian purple; printing and binding by hand books that surpass the best of the Aldine, and Elzevirs; carving in old oak; hammering brass; forging locks, irons, and candlesticks; becoming artists in burned wood and leather; seeking old effects of simplicity and solidity in furniture and decoration, as well as architecture, stained glass, and to some extent in dress and manners; and all this toil and moil was ad majorem gloriam hominis [To the greater glory of man] in a new socialistic state, where the artist, and even the artisan, should ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... production of a keen and kindly observer of men and manners, and they display a subtle analysis of character, as well as a breadth of observation, which are remarkable. With much of occasional force, these Essays have sufficient solidity to make a book; and while they recall the wit of Montaigne and the playfulness of Addison, they are animated by a better moral tone, and cover a ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... still holding out the slate, with her innocent gesture of invitation and gentle look of apology, for the eldest girl to write on. The varying expressions of the three; the difference in their positions, the charming contrast between their light, graceful figures and the bulky strength and grand solidity of form in the noble Newfoundland dog who stood among them; the lustrous background of lawn and flowers and trees, seen through the open window; the sparkling purity of the sunshine which fell brightly over one part of the group; the transparency of the warm shadows that lay so caressingly, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... into laughter. It was still echoing through the house when she entered her room. As it died away it seemed to sound hollow and veiled, when the texture of sunny, transparent solidity in his laugh was ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... objective, except in the ambiguous sense of a sort of permanent illusion. But as soon as the complex vision, in its totality, contemplates the situation, the thing takes on a very different aspect. The pure reason may be as sceptical as it pleases about the static solidity of what is popularly called "matter." It may use the term energy, or movement, or ether, or force, or electricity, or any other name to describe that permanent sensation of outward reality which our ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... had some sound notions as a critic, and thus became the object of Pope's fear and therefore of his resentment. Dennis speaks of him as his "departed friend, whom I infinitely esteemed when living for the solidity of his thought, for the spring and the warmth and the beautiful turn of it; for the power and variety and fulness of his harmony; for the purity, the perspicuity, the energy of his expression; and, whenever these great qualities are required, for the pomp ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... it would cause the evaporation of some of the spirit. A pump to empty the hogsheads, and covered pipes to conduct the liquor into the still, is what has been found to answer that purpose. A good distilling apparatus is undoubtedly the most important part of a distillery. It must unite solidity, perfection in its joints, economy of fuel, rapidity of distillation, to the faculty of concentrating the spirit. Such are the ends I have proposed to myself ...
— The Art of Making Whiskey • Anthony Boucherie
... contemplated the building of the Pont des Arts we had a long conversation on the subject. I observed that it would be much better to build the bridge of stone. "The first object of monuments of this kind," said I, "is public utility. They require solidity of appearance, and their principal merit is duration. I cannot conceive, General, why, in a country where there is abundance of fine stone of every quality, the use of iron should be preferred."—"Write," said Bonaparte, "to Fontaine and Percier, the architects, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... always the air of a man seriously intent on producing practical results. There are no false motions. Every swaying of the preacher's weapon is a blow, and every blow is a hit. There is hardly another example in homiletic literature of such compactness, such solidity, such logical consecutiveness, such cogency, such freedom from surplusage. Tare and tret are excluded. Every thing counts. You meet with two or three adjectives, and you at first naturally assume, that, after the usual manner of homilists, Bourdaloue has thrown these in without ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... and Mr. John Gilbert, a well-known dramatic couple, who were extremely agreeable and genial, the husband abounding in droll reminiscences of the stage; a merry little German musician named Kreutzer, son of the great composer; and a young Englishwoman with a younger brother. I rather doubted the "solidity" of this young lady. By-and-bye it was developed that the captain was in love with her. Out of this, I have heard, came a dreadful tragedy; for the love drove him mad, the insanity developing itself on the return voyage. The captain had to be imprisoned in his own state-room, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... scarlet tulips, was far more attractive. Moving homeward, we floated under a lovely old bridge, whose three rose-toned arches date from the sixteenth century—the age of the Great Moguls. The extreme solidity of its piers contrasts strongly with the exceedingly sketchy (and sketchable) bridges manufactured ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... suppress their powers of elocution to escape being set to work. But the hypothesis was entirely imaginary; David Gellatley was in good earnest the half-crazed simpleton which he appeared, and was incapable of any constant and steady exertion. He had just so much solidity as kept on the windy side of insanity, so much wild wit as saved him from the imputation of idiocy, some dexterity in field-sports (in which we have known as great fools excel), great kindness and humanity in the treatment of ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... of aerial speculation, which courts no test of real life and practice, is described by the ancients under the term umbraticus, or seeking the cool shade, and shrinking from the heat. Thus, an umbraticus doctor is one who has no practical solidity in his teaching. The fatigue and hardship of real life, in short, is represented by the ancients under the uniform image of heat, and by the moderns under that of cold.] was stormy, and by the violence of the wind all the torches of his escort were blown out, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey |
