"Unacquainted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time is very well employed; and so it is, though as yet only in the outlines, and first ROUTINE of business. They are previously necessary to be known; they smooth the way for parts and dexterity. Business requires no conjuration nor supernatural talents, as people unacquainted with it are apt to think. Method, diligence, and discretion, will carry a man, of good strong common sense, much higher than the finest parts, without them, can do. 'Par negotiis, neque supra', is the ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... thoughtful, to the first Ptolemy, inquiring if there were not some less difficult path to the mysteries. But the Greek Geometry was in no wise confined to the elements. Before Euclid, Plato is said to have written over the entrance to his garden,—"Let no one enter, who is unacquainted with geometry,"—and had himself unveiled the geometrical analysis, exhibiting the whole strength and weakness of the instrument, and applying it successfully in the discussion of the properties of the Conic Sections. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... Richelieu: I have often laughed at it. However, you may pass over the unlucky pranks of your infancy, your genealogy, name and quality of your ancestors, for that is a subject with which you must be utterly unacquainted." ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... impossible to get a place—the fair had just commenced, and the inn was full to the roof. We must needs hunt another, and then another, and yet another, with like fate at each. It grew quite dark, the rain increased, and we were unacquainted with the city. I grew desperate, and at last, when we had stopped at the eighth inn in vain, I told the people we must have lodgings, for it was impossible we should walk around in the rain all night. Some of the guests ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... set in with a storm, and a drizzling rain was falling when, at ten o'clock, I started on this ride through a section of country with which I was entirely unacquainted. I traveled through the darkness a distance of about thirty-five miles, and at daylight I rode into a secluded spot at the head of a ravine where stood a bunch of ash trees, and there I concluded to remain till night; for I considered it a dangerous undertaking to cross the wide prairies in ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... conditions of humanity, disease, and decay, and death abound on every side, it is surprising that the word "immortality" obtained a place in systems of philosophy, the authors of which must be supposed to have been unacquainted with divine revelation. It is not surprising that in the absence of such aid the belief of immortality should not have been firmly held, or that by some philosophers it should have been expressly disavowed. Even in the Canonical Scriptures, the words "immortal" ...
— An Essay on the Scriptural Doctrine of Immortality • James Challis
... is ill, and I wish to obtain some one to supply her place-but I suppose you are unacquainted ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... A person unacquainted with Keith's nature could never have guessed what a sacrifice this entertainment was to him. He was an egoist, a solitary, in his pleasures; he used to contend that no garden on earth, however spacious, was ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... seized his bag and hammock, and rushed out of the house to conceal his emotion. When they reached the depot, they found that the draft to which they belonged numbered nearly two hundred men, some of whom were old sailors, while others, like themselves, were entirely unacquainted with the life they ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... clients thereof, in case they should judge it proper to have any person present for their interest at opening the repositories of the deceased. Mr. Glossin perceived at once that the letter-writer was unacquainted with the breach which had taken place between him and his late patron. The estate of the deceased lady should by rights as he well knew, descend to Lucy Bertram, but it was a thousand to one that the caprice of the old lady might have altered its destination. After ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... it would have been better for me to remain altogether unacquainted with Mexican conditions than to share Jones's distorted view of affairs in that interesting republic. But Jones insists on taking the innocent blank spaces in my knowledge of the world and filling them up with the most ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... has generally a large cheval glass and a piano, with a white lady to wait, who is always decked out in flounces and furbelows, and usually good-looking. All you have got to do on embarking or on disembarking is to see personally to your luggage; for leaving it to a servant unacquainted with the country will not do. At Kingston, matters are pretty well arranged, and the carters are not so very impudent, and so ready to push you over the wharf; but at Toronto they are very so so, and want regulating by the police; and ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... significance of these symbols, and we are given to understand that "a few of the more spiritual of the Christian sects made war upon them and all their ephemeral substitutes, such as Maypoles, holy-trees, real crosses, etc." It is declared also that, as "later" Christians were unacquainted with the significance of these emblems, "they adopted them as their own, employing them as the mystic signs of ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... in making them tender towards others on the same subject. Virgil, who was a great master of the human mind, makes the queen of Carthage say to Aeneas, "Haud ignara mali, miseris succurere disco," or, "not unacquainted with misfortunes myself, I learn to succour the unfortunate." So one would hope that the Quakers, of all other people, ought to know how wrong it is to be angry ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... of dismissal, it was suddenly notified to me, by the urchins who sat nearest to me, that I must get up and ring the bell. Now, as this was the first time that I had been at the school, I was totally unacquainted with the process, which I had never seen, and, indeed, had never heard of till that moment. I therefore sat still, not imagining it possible that any such duty could be required of me. But now, with not a little confusion, I perceived that the eyes of all the boys in the school ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... towns and country are separated in so many of the most important duties of life. They are permitted to come together only for sport and nonsense. Their study and work are separate. Hence the good influence which they ought to have upon each other is in a great measure lost. They are unacquainted with each other. They know not each other's natures. They have but little interest in each other's business and duties. They meet only to cajole and deceive each other. They wear masks in each other's presence. For this ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... body—the eye, the ear, the larynx, and the heart—are noticed in appropriate places. The eye is compared with the camera, the larynx with a reed pipe, the heart with a pump, while the ear fitly opens the chapter on acoustics. The reader who is unacquainted with physiology will thus be enabled to appreciate the better these marvellous devices, far more marvellous, by reason of their absolutely automatic action, than any creation of ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... and committed to the Goal of this City: These People lighting of our young Warriours, as they were hunting, made some Proposals about the purchasing of Land from them, and our young Men being indiscreet, and unacquainted with publick Business, were foolish enough to hearken to them, and to receive five Duffil Strowds for two Plantations on the River Cohongoronto. A Conestogoe Indian, and a French Indian, and some others that ...
— The Treaty Held with the Indians of the Six Nations at Philadelphia, in July 1742 • Various
... half a mile, spouting forth cataracts of lava that have overwhelmed towns and villages in their career, and shaking the earth with subterraneous thunders, that, at the distance of more than a hundred leagues, sounded like the reports of artillery!14 Alvarado's followers, unacquainted with the cause of the phenomenon, as they wandered over tracts buried in snow,—the sight of which was strange to them,—in an atmosphere laden with ashes, became bewildered by this confusion of ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... afraid, Angelica! if a dozen bears come, I will kill them rather than they shall hurt you." "Oh, you silly creature!" says she; "you are very good, but you are not very wise." When they looked at the flowers, Giglio was utterly unacquainted with botany, and had never heard of Linnaeus. When the butterflies passed, Giglio knew nothing about them, being as ignorant of entomology as I am of algebra. So you see, Angelica, though she liked Giglio pretty well, despised him on account of his ignorance. I think she probably valued ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that he did both in sickness, if thou art sick, and in any other circumstances; for never to desert philosophy in any events that may befall us, nor to hold trifling talk either with an ignorant man or with one unacquainted with nature, is a principle of all schools of philosophy; but to be intent only on that which thou art now doing and on the instrument by which thou ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... brought in soon after to serve as a subject race found among the Indians one of their means of escape. That a larger number of the Negroes did not take refuge among the Indians was due to the ignorance of the blacks as to the geographic situation. Not knowing anything about the country and unacquainted with the language of the white man or that of the Indians, most Negroes dared not venture very far from the plantations on which they lived. Statistics show, however, that in spite of this impediment ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... according to which prosecution was forbidden to Christians, even had the case held less scandal to the community. But the members were bound to take other measures for finding out the truth, and they resolved on praying and drawing lots. This resolution can be a ground of surprise only to those who are unacquainted with that obscure religious life which has gone on in the alleys of our towns. Silas knelt with his brethren, relying on his own innocence being certified by immediate divine interference, but feeling that there was sorrow and mourning behind ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... do not employ him"—and truly foreigners in China seem to carry out the first half to an almost absurd degree, placing the most unbounded confidence in natives with whose antecedents they are almost always unacquainted, and whose very names in nine cases out of ten they actually do not know! And what is the result of all this? A few cash extra charged as commission on anything purchased at shop or market, and a steady ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... yards in diameter, shutting down about one, beyond which nothing is visible save in faint line or dark projection; the ghost of a church spire or the eidolon of a chimney-pot. He who can extract pleasurable emotions from the alembic of such a day has a trick of alchemy with which I am wholly unacquainted. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... they took up their abode in the Gypsyry near the Shepherd's Bush. Shuri went about dukkering and hokking, but not with the spirit of former times, for she was not quite so young as she had been, and her jaw, which was never properly cured, pained her much. Ryley went about tinkering, but he was unacquainted with London and its neighbourhood, and did not get much to do. An old Gypsy-man, who was driving about a little cart filled with skewers, saw him standing in a state of perplexity at a place where ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... our constant intercourse with India, there are few among us who are unacquainted with the word ayah. Some who live in London or its neighbourhood may perhaps have occasionally met with one of these sable guardian spirits, conducting one or more pale, precocious-looking little children to their British friends; or they may even have fallen in with a group of the tribe in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... a way that invited March to say friendly things of his family, which appeared to give the old man first an undue pleasure and then a final distrust. At moments he turned, with an effect of finding relief in it, to his son and spoke to him across March of matters which he was unacquainted with; he did not seem aware that this was rude, but the young man must have felt it so; he always brought the conversation back, and once at some cost to himself when his father ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... bald and disjointed chat Evan went on, illustrating the existing state of the Highlands, more perhaps to the amusement of Waverley than that of our readers. At length, after having marched over bank and brae, moss and heather, Edward, though not unacquainted with the Scottish liberality in computing distance, began to think that Evan's five miles were nearly doubled. His observation on the large measure which the Scottish allowed of their land, in comparison to the computation of their money, was readily ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... in General Grant as President of the United States—this short, slouchy, taciturn, unostentatious man who was more at ease with men who talked horses than with men who talked government or literature; this President who was unacquainted with either the theory or the practice of politics, who consulted nobody in choosing his cabinet or writing his inaugural address, who had scarcely visited a state capital except to capture it and had been elected to the executive chair in times that were to try men's souls. An indolent man, ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... been changed by persuasion and interference, when I was under the roof of my parents. These assertions and inferences are wholly destitute of foundation. When I arrived at Kirkby Mallory, my parents were unacquainted with the existence of any causes likely to destroy my prospects of happiness; and when I communicated to them the opinion which had been formed concerning Lord Byron's state of mind, they were most anxious to promote his restoration by every means in their power. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... your right or left, or whose spirit is winging its flight from the body over which you are walking. The soldier does not seem to feel pangs of sorrow when arms clash the loudest; he does not see danger and suffering and ghastly sights until all is over and quiet restored. Those who are unacquainted with the mental condition of the soldier in time of battle, wonder and ask why it is that those whom he knows so intimately are wounded and many times killed by his side without knowing the nature of their wounds or the circumstances of their ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... own country—especially the big things in it. In nine cases out of ten, when he is speaking of those big things, he is conscientiously truthful; but not seldom it happens that what may be a mere commonplace to the American seems incredible to the English listener unacquainted with the United States and unable to give the facts as narrated their due ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... is also plainly connected with Friendship, and therefore is not the same as Unity of Opinion, because this might exist even between people unacquainted with ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... of unattainable posts, Peter Plymley chooses, to illustrate his theme, the offices of Sheriff and Deputy-Sheriff in Ireland. No one he says, who is unacquainted with that country, can conceive the obstacles to justice which exclusion from these offices entails. The lives, liberties, and properties of the Roman Catholic population are at the mercy of the Juries, and the Juries ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... Their communication with these wretches, who disgraced the term civilized, corrupted their morals, and did not improve their knowledge, taught them wants, without teaching them how to supply them, except by theft. When the missionaries latterly came in contact with Esquimaux, who were previously unacquainted, or but little acquainted, with white men, they found them comparatively mild and honest. On a voyage of observation, they landed at Nachrack, and they report, "We found," say they, "the people here, differing much in their manners from the people at Saeglak. Their behaviour ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... ancestors, without giving any offence, had always made use of, in the face of the court and of the whole nation. Courtney soon after received the title of earl of Devonshire; and though educated in such close confinement that he was altogether unacquainted with the world, he soon acquired all the accomplishments of a courtier and a gentleman, and made a considerable figure during the few years which he lived after he recovered his liberty.[**] Besides performing ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... of my story as I thought was convenient, bringing it at last to my being reduced to great poverty, and representing myself as fallen into some company that led me to relieve my distresses by way that I had been utterly unacquainted with, and that they making an attempt at a tradesman's house, I was seized upon for having been but just at the door, the maid-servant pulling me in; that I neither had broke any lock nor taken anything away, and that notwithstanding ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... "likeness." The true lineaments were there and I would have recognised it for a representation of my little friend at the first glance, wherever I might have seen it. In short, it was precisely one of those works of art which have no artistic value whatever for any one who is unacquainted with, or uninterested in, the subject represented; but knowing and loving little Charlie as I did, I confess that I used to contemplate Jackson's piece of workmanship with an admiration and enthusiasm which the contents of Italian gallaries have ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... not bring you good news, madam," he said; "but Jem Device has been arrested this morning, and as the fellow is greatly exasperated against me, he threatens to betray your retreat to the officers; and though he is, probably, unacquainted with it notwithstanding his boasting, still he may cause search to be made, and, therefore, I think you had better be removed to ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... interview for me," she replied, with her wonted rapidity of play upon the fingers. "He led the jailer to believe that I was a German, and totally unacquainted with the Italian tongue. Thus not a word was addressed to me; and gold has opened the door which separated me from you. The same means ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... is any one action or relation of my life which is, and always has been, profoundly serious, it is my relation to Mr. Lewes. It is, however, natural enough that you should mistake me in many ways, for not only are you unacquainted with Mr. Lewes's real character, and the course of his actions, but also it is several years since you and I were much together, and it is possible that the modifications my mind has undergone may be quite in the opposite direction of what you imagine. No ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... a room, not unacquainted with the black ladder under various tenants; but as neat, at present, as such a room could be. A few books and writings were on an old bureau in a corner, the furniture was decent and sufficient, and, though the atmosphere was tainted, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... of Mr. Whistler? His portrait of Miss Alexander is certainly one of the strangest and most eccentric specimens of Portraiture we ever saw. If we were unacquainted with his singular theories of Art, we should imagine he had merely made a sketch and left it, before the colours were dry, in a room where chimney-sweeps were at work.... Nobody who sets any value upon the roses and lilies that adorn the cheeks of our blooming girls can ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... appeal in Germany is traceable. The idea of the hobby-horse is new to the reviewer and his explanation of it implies that he presumed Sterne's use of the term would be equally novel to the readers of the periodical. His compliment to the translation indicates further that he was unacquainted with the review ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... good-humouredly, to comply, glanced around the spacious room—only to realise that he, too, was unacquainted with the possibly ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... manner in which "turning out" of a hammock is accomplished, which hammock, a person unacquainted with such kind of sleeping accommodations, would never dream contained a live man, until one or the other of the aforementioned limbs was protruded. In a few minutes the wheel was relieved, and the crew were clustering around the galley with their tin pots, joking, and ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... collections are very interesting in themselves, but both, like his "Discoveries" (1907), are more interesting as commentary on his powers. Mr. Yeats has used many notes to explain obscure allusions in his poems, though the most obscure he, perhaps with premeditation, fails to explain. Yet the reader unacquainted with his use of symbols will find much interpretation in these essays, especially those in "Ideas ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... the long journey when I released them, fifteen at least had returned: two within the first hour, three in the course of the evening and the rest next morning. They had returned in spite of having the wind against them and—a graver difficulty still—in spite of being unacquainted with the locality to which I had transported them. There is, in fact, no doubt that they were setting eyes for the first time on those osier-beds of the Aygues which I had selected as the starting-point. Never would they have travelled so far afield of their own accord, ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... you a particularly important question," said the Coroner. "Are there poisons, the nature of which you are unacquainted with?" ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... Master, very slowly. "And so this is the advantage of a foreign land! These gentlemen are unacquainted with our story, I perceive. They do not know that I am the true Lord Durrisdeer; they do not know you are my younger brother, sitting in my place under a sworn family compact; they do not know (or they would not be seen with you in familiar ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a fair example of the style of error which a reader unacquainted with the history of the changes our language has undergone may fall into. Ignorance of changes in customs and morals may ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... curious because it offers among the Kanekas an example of a belief current in Breton folk-lore. The story is vouched for by Mr. J. J. Atkinson, late of Noumea, New Caledonia. Mr. Atkinson, we have reason to believe, was unacquainted with the Breton parallel. To him one day a Kaneka of his acquaintance paid a visit, and seemed loth to go away. He took leave, returned, and took leave again, till Mr. Atkinson asked him the reason of his behaviour. He then explained that he was about to die, and would never see his ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... duties in the counting-house, after this little incident, one day, at the close of business-hours, he demanded from me the remnants of this history with which he might be unacquainted. When I paused, he took up the story and finished it with ease, and—and poetical justice, I may say, Mr. Raleigh. Susanne was the sister of Mrs. Laudersdale's father, though far younger than he. She met a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... did not find; and that, as generally happens to those who are wise beyond what is written, he denied the existence of a property, with the use of which, could it have been discovered, he was wholly unacquainted. He served the emperor so long as it was consistent with his interests to do so, and he deserted him when he saw that there was more peril in fidelity than in apostasy. The Restoration was, in a great measure, the work of his hands, though he hated Louis XVIII. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... thou doest in the service of God? I say, how look the best of these, the most warm and spiritual of these, since not one of them can be performed, but they do catch the stain of sin, as coming from thee? or art thou through the ignorance that is in thee as [one] unacquainted with these things? ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... wanted to relieve their heads of that annoying and useless weight before they came aboard, but the unexpected springing up of the wind prevented the carrying out of their wishes, and they did not imagine that it mattered where they began what they had decided to do, because they were unacquainted with either the omens or the law of seafaring men." "But why should they shave themselves like suppliants?" demanded Lycas, "unless, of course, they expected to arouse more sympathy as bald-pates. What's the use of seeking information through a third person, anyway? You ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... am unacquainted with your name, for I have just heard it mentioned, and I shall be glad to hear that you can give me the assurance that the young man has not been carried away," ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... future history; but surely those relating to his own country will always lie most open to him. This is much my way of thinking with regard to myself. Though the Life of Christina is a pleasing and a most uncommon subject, yet, totally unacquainted as I am with Sweden and its language, how could I flatter myself with saying any thing new of her? And when original letters and authentic papers shall hereafter appear, may not they contradict half one should relate ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... in what relates to the Copepoda in particular, the facts have already been placed in the proper light by the representation of their most recent investigator, and must appear to any one whose eyes are open, as important evidence in favour of the Darwinian theory.* (* I am still unacquainted with Claus' latest and larger work, but no doubt the same ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... unpretending little volume were printed; and none of these seem to have found their way into Italy, though it is possible that they had a certain circulation in Germany. At any rate there is reason to suppose that Leibnitz was not unacquainted with the poems, while Herder, in the Renaissance of German literature, published free translations from a few of ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... man knelt in the parlor and raised his voice in prayer—a clear, considerate, judicial, sincere prayer, such as age and long authority gave him the right to address to heaven. He was not unacquainted with sorrow himself; his children had given him much concern, and even anguish, and in Calvin was his last hope. A thread of wicked commonplace ran through them all; his sterling nature in their composition was lost like a grain of gold in a mass of alloy. They had nothing ideal, ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... many savans and literati, of intolerance towards those whose pursuits had disqualified them for any particular sympathy with his own. His style of conversation was popular in the highest degree, and unscholastic; so much so, that any stranger who should have studied his works, and been unacquainted with his person, would have found it difficult to believe, that in this delightful companion he saw the profound author of ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... hold property, were chosen from the neighbourhood, and as "jurors" were sworn to state truly what they knew about the question in dispute, and the matter was decided according to their witness or "recognition." If those who were summoned were unacquainted with the facts, they were dismissed and others called; if they knew the facts but differed in their statement, others were added to their number, till twelve at least were found whose testimony agreed together. These inquests on oath had been used by the Conqueror for fiscal purposes in the ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... men whether they were willing to serve was never gone through, many of them did so unwillingly; and it must be remembered that they were all savages in the strictest sense of the word, entirely unacquainted with civilisation, and with no knowledge of the English language. The majority of them were natives of the Congo and of Great and Little Popo, two towns on the western frontier of Dahomey; and it may be here remarked that the negroes of these districts ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... had not been very deaf, she must have heard, when she last went to the door, the breathing of two persons close behind it: and if those two persons had been unacquainted with her infirmity, they must probably have chosen that moment either for presenting themselves or taking to flight. But, knowing with whom they had to deal, they remained quite still, and now, not only appeared unobserved ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... obscured in ancient times by the conception of sacrifice as a gift, a tribute, or a propitiation. But these ideas, though they bulk largely in modern minds unacquainted with the recent researches of specialists in comparative religion, were, in fact, of later growth. They are accretions which, by a very natural and intelligible process, have overlain the oldest and really fundamental ideas which lie at the root and ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... with the subsequent working details, for she was of opinion that in the pursuit of comfort (not entirely to their credit was it said) men were far more anxiously concerned than were women, and they flew to their bourne with an instinct for short cuts wherewith women were totally unacquainted. ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... To those unacquainted with the results of geological investigation the history of the mountains as deciphered in the rocks ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... as privates. Was there ever greater patriotism and unselfishness and less ostentation shown as in the example of these men! It was but natural that men selected almost at random, and in many instances unacquainted with a majority of the men at enlistment unusual to military life, or the requirements of an officer in actual service, could possibly be as acceptable as those chosen after a year of service, and in close compact ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... much more credible than subsequent biographers have been willing to admit. According to Mainwaring, Handel became almost an intimate friend of the Prince; they often discussed music together, and the Prince lamented that Handel was unacquainted with the music and musical life of Italy. "Handel confessed that he could see nothing in Italian music which answered the high character His Highness had given it. On the contrary, he thought it so very indifferent, that the singers, he said, must be angels to ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... amongst them was Jocelyn Mounchensey, who, having dismounted and fastened his horse to the branch, was leaning against the large trunk of the tree, contemplating the magnificent structure we have attempted to describe. Unacquainted as yet with its internal splendours, he had no difficulty in comprehending them from what he beheld from without. The entrance gates were open, and a wide archway beyond leading to the great quadrangle, gave him a view of its beautiful marble fountain in the midst, ornamented with exquisite statues ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... Poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there; Spenser imitated the Italian writers; Milton improved on them: but this school expired soon after the Restoration, and a new ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... 'are our churches. I had forgotten how entirely unacquainted you were with this part of the country, or I should have ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... opinion was, that the unhappy President had ventured upon that part of the sands near Leith where the incoming tide usually encloses, with great rapidity, large sand-banks, and often overwhelms helpless strangers who are unacquainted with the manner in which the tide there flows. Numbers of people had exerted themselves in searching all the surrounding parts, and some had traversed the whole coast from Musselburgh to Cramond, in the expectation of finding ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... severe, that after having printed it, he was afraid to publish it. I went quite as far as I prudently could. I accused him, as you admit, of unscrupulous oppression, of ignorance of the feelings of the people, of being an idle administrator, of being unacquainted with business himself, and not employing those who understand it, of being impatient of contradiction, of refusing advice and punishing censure—in short, I have praised nothing but his foreign policy—and I have mentioned two ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... indicates that two and one are three, That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep: And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times, Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst; At other times-good Lord! I'd rather be Quite unacquainted with the A, B, C, Than write such hopeless rubbish ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... I perceived that he was unacquainted with the war, and I therefore determined to play with him a little before I ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... not myself enjoyed its benefits, and my knowledge of Greek and Latin authors is derived almost wholly from translations. But I am firmly persuaded that the Greeks fully deserve all the admiration that is bestowed upon them, and that it is a very great and serious loss to be unacquainted with their writings. It is not by attacking them, but by drawing attention to neglected excellences in science, that I wish to conduct ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... left behind them; but these had their own injuries to redress, and they followed in their husbands' wake carrying bags of stones. The men, who were of various denominations, were armed with sticks, blunderbusses, anything they could snatch up at a moment's notice; and some of them were not unacquainted with fighting. Dire silence prevailed among the men, but the women shouted as they ran, and the curious army moved forward to the drone and squall of drum and pipe. The enemy was sighted on the level land of Cabbylatch, and here, while the intending combatants glared at each other, a well-known ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... 28 we sighted land. It was only a barren rocky knoll, and according to our determination of the position it would be the island called Bligh's Cap, which lies a few miles north of Kerguelen Island; but as the weather was not very clear, and we were unacquainted with the channels, we preferred to lie-to for the night before approaching any nearer. Early next morning the weather cleared, and we got accurate bearings. A course was laid for Royal Sound, where we supposed the whaling-station to be situated. We were going well in the fresh ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... partners, a reef or lode can be disposed of only to men with means sufficient to develop it. Even in this delicate matter, in which he had had keen wits against him, Vane had held his own; but there was one side of life with which he was practically unacquainted. ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... o'clock on Sunday, the 18th of June, the battle began. Napoleon, unconscious of the gathering of the Prussians on his right, and unacquainted with the obstinacy of English troops, believed the victory already thrown into his hands by Wellington's hardihood. His plan was to burst through the left of the English line near La Haye Sainte, and thus to drive ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... AUTHORITY. Another abuse related to operations performed merely to demonstrate physiological phenomena already verified and established. Again, the number of animals vivisected was shamefully high. Persons unacquainted with physiological laboratories could form no idea of the lavish way in which animals were made to suffer days and weeks of anguish and acute pain. If the people knew of these sufferings, they would insist ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... with the real state of our colonies in America. Provincial affairs have only of late years been made the objects of public notice and attention. There are yet many, both in Great Britain and America, who are unacquainted with the state of some of these settlements, and with their usefulness and importance to a commercial nation. The southern provinces in particular have been hitherto neglected, insomuch that no writer has savoured the world with any tolerable account of them. Therefore it is hoped, that ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... is unacquainted with the Santa Scala, or Holy Stairs, at Rome? They were brought from Jerusalem along with the true cross, by the Empress Helen, and were taken from the house which, according to popular tradition, was inhabited by Pontius Pilate. They are said to be ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... gave a delightful little dance in the hall in honor of the officers and their wives who are to go, and the officers who have come. We all wore our most becoming gowns, and anyone unacquainted with army life on the frontier would have been surprised to see what handsome dresses can be brought forth, even at this far-away post, when occasion demands. There are two very pretty girls from the East visiting in the garrison, and several of the wives of officers are young and ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... "You are unacquainted with our Tuscan bombardiers, Signorina," answered the magistrate, with a bland smile, and an exulting gesture. "It is well for Europe that the grand duchy is so small, since such troops might prove even more troublesome than ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... fifty unwashed blackguards were roaring with all the force of their lungs, "Ah-h-h—Go home, you rope-dancer!" Not slow to see the moaning of the words, the unabashed lawyer, who in his life had been a dramatic actor, replied with his accustomed readiness and effrontery. A young man unacquainted with mobs would have descanted indignantly and with many theatrical flourishes on the dignity and usefulness of the player's vocation; an ordinary demagogue would have frankly admitted the discourteous ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... not unacquainted with the ingenious methods of Scotland Yard," was the reply. "I can see Merrington working it out with a scale map of London to help him. He is convinced that Nepcote is still in London without a penny in his pockets. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... be few among your subscribers who are unacquainted with the sweet lyric effusion of Herrick "to the Virgins, to make much ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... the Lord so abundantly to bless the former parts of my Narrative to the comfort, encouragement, strengthening, and instruction of those who are young and weak in the faith, and to those unacquainted with the simplicity of the truth, that I consider myself to be the servant of such; and I feel that responsibility is laid upon me, to do what further I can, in this way, to serve them. And this, I confess, ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... more economical for the amateur to purchase a first-class boat at Barnegat, Manahawken, or West Creek, in Ocean County, New Jersey, along the Tuckerton Railroad, than to have a workman elsewhere, and one unacquainted with this peculiar model, experiment upon its construction at the purchaser's ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... winds blew the sands of the desert over the surface, studded with leaves, so as to hide the water; and the traveller might walk upon it and sink to his death. The same ancient writer says that an army with which Artaxerxes, King of Persia, intended to invade Egypt, being unacquainted with this treacherous lake, got into it, and ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... that I was intensely unacquainted with her type. Here was the same smile—as far as I could see, exactly the same smile. There are fine shades in smiles as in laughs, as in tones of voice. I seemed ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... a hot summer night; and the air of Field Lane and Saffron Hill was not improved by such weather, nor were the people in those streets very sober or honest company. Being unacquainted with the exact locality of the school, I was fain to make some inquiries about it. These were very jocosely received in general; but everybody knew where it was, and gave the right direction to it. The prevailing idea among the loungers (the greater part ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... be told that in every book destined to survive its author, there are here and there gleams of nature that belong to all time; but the body of the work is after the fashion of the age that produced it; and he who is unacquainted with the thought of that age, will always judge amiss. In England, we are still in the bonds of the last century, and it is surprising what an amount of affectation mingles with criticism even of the highest pretensions. It is no wonder, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... you have entirely forgotten, towards the end of the notice, that the "Newcome Independent," as becomes its name, is a journal of Liberty and Progress. The very proper remarks on Lord Spencer's portrait elsewhere show that you are not unacquainted with our politics; but, at the close (expressing, I fear, your true sentiments), you glide into language which makes me shudder, and which, if printed in the "Independent," would spell ruin. Send it, ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... Mongol doctors are not, it would seem, quite unacquainted with the properties of galvanism. It is said that they are in the habit of prescribing the loadstone ore, reduced to powder, as efficacious when applied to sores, and one man hard of hearing had been recommended by a lama to put ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... Bickersteth refused to be Solicitor-General because the offer was made to him by the Lord Chancellor, and not by the Prime Minister. At that time he was personally unacquainted with Lord Melbourne, but he consented to call on him at Lord Melbourne's request, and the offer was repeated, but not accepted. The real reason of his refusal was his profound distrust of Lord Brougham, which amounted ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... none of his usual bravery. Instinct probably told him the power of his antagonist. Instead of rushing forward as he would probably have done even had a jaguar appeared, he kept crouching down by my side. Unacquainted with the habits of the boa, I could not tell whether it might not spring upon us. I knelt down on the tree and lifted my rifle; I did not, however, wish to fire till it was near enough to receive the full charge in its body. Again it advanced along the boughs. It was within five yards ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston |
