"Vital" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was her dark, vital self. Outside the college, the outer darkness, Skrebensky was waiting. On the edge of the night, he was attentive. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... smile often accompanies what is called "the white voice." This is a voice production where a head resonance alone is employed, without sufficient of the apoggio or enough of the mouth resonance to give the tone a vital quality. This "white voice" should be thoroughly understood and is one of the many shades of tone a singer can use at times, just as the impressionist uses various unusual colors to produce ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... Some of his male slaves grew pale and languid as if their lives were being sucked away. The people whispered that the knight commander was using their blood for magic drinks. Don Priamo wished to renew his youth; he was eager to reanimate his body with vital fires. The Grand Inquisitor of Majorca hinted at the possibility of paying a visit, with familiars and alguazils, to the apartments of the knight commander, but the latter who was a cousin of the Inquisitor, ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... not last very long, it being of vital importance for the Jews to separate their cause from that of the new-comers. The responsibility for the persecutions which took place in the first century must be attributed to them, not to the Romans, whose tolerance in religious matters had become almost a state rule. The first attempt, made ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... machine was logical enough if you understood it, but beyond noting that it bore striking resemblance to the vital organs of a clock, I cannot ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... power to answer. The vital spirit, which we call the soul, is given by God, to direct us to do that which is right; and, from childhood to the grave, is our faithful friend. My daughter, whose lifeless remains you are now contemplating, was in all her ways actuated by this ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... possible, of course the best treatment for fever would be that which lessened the production of heat. Fortunately, we have some drugs—notably, quinine and alcohol—which do exert a decided influence upon the vital chemical movements, but, unfortunately, their power is limited. As we are therefore often unable to control heat-production, the best we can do is to abstract the caloric from the body whenever it becomes so excessive as to threaten serious results. To do this, all that is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... Dam is the vital centre of Amsterdam. All the tramways meet here, and some of the busiest streets, and here too are situated the Nieuwe Kerk and the palace. In the middle of the Dam stands a monument to those who fell in the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... remembrance of Guida Landresse de Landresse, and what touched Philip d'Avranche he had come to associate with her. Of the true relations between Guida and Philip he knew nothing, but from that last day in Jersey he did know that Philip had roused in her emotions, perhaps less vital than love but ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of mine favored toleration and dwelt upon the absurdity of distinctions between Christians on account of beliefs which individuals or communities have happened to inherit. Nothing like an attack upon Christianity itself, or upon anything vital to it, did I ever make; indeed, my inclinations were not in that direction: my greatest desire was to set men and women at thinking, for I felt sure that if they would really think, in the light of human history, they would more and more dwell on what ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... by the people; a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution, where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... which I have illustrated for you. It is true that he has a certain rapidity, which somebody calls "shiftiness," of resolution and of performance, which gets him out of his scrapes as rapidly as he gets in. But there is a good deal of vital power lost in getting in and getting out, which might be spent to better purpose,—for pure enjoyment, or for helping other people ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... of work it performs, and probably its temper. As three-fourths of the weight of the food of a laboring man are expended in merely keeping him alive, it is obvious that the withholding of the remaining fourth would render him incapable of working. An amount of food which adequately maintains the vital and mechanical powers of three men, serves merely to keep four alive. It is the same with the horse, the ox, and every other animal useful to man: each makes use of a certain amount of food, for its own purposes; all that is consumed beyond that is applied for the benefit of its owner. ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... of man. Is the ideal of the man-as-he-should-be to be found, for us, in the "common man," or in the highest product of our culture? That is a most vital question for any society. It includes the question whether the society has a discord in itself as to its own ideal of the type of men it wants to produce. In the upper strata of the masses, amongst the educated, industrious, sober-minded people of good ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... a question of vital importance—the delivery of these despatches—and every moment lost means more than you can imagine. Come, sir, your position is at stake. You command this cutter: do something to ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... of his understanding and sharing her mood, "that the Pagans said man was made to stand upright so that he might raise his face to heaven and his eyes to the stars. Somehow, it seems those old Pagans had a finer conception of many vital truths than some of us have in ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... these studies, a considerable field has been opened up for biological research, but in this, which is not our subject, I shall notice one point only. It has been proved that vital germs—bacteria, for example—may be kept for seven days at -190 deg.C. without their vitality being modified. Phosphorescent organisms cease, it is true, to shine at the temperature of liquid air, but this fact is simply due to the oxidations ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... breathing Tony and, looking into her happy eyes, known how little, how very little, he was in her thoughts. She liked him to be near her, he knew, just as she liked her roses to be fragrant, but neither the roses nor himself was a vital necessity to her. She could do very well without either. That was the ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... letter, Alice's hands fell on the table; she burst into tears. But work was more vital than tears; and, taking up her pen, she continued her story—penny journal fiction of true love and unending happiness in the end. A month later she received ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... with artful hand, Mortals to please and to deride; And, when death breaks thy vital band, Thou shalt put ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... voice under perfect control: "I can well understand your feeling in the matter, Miss Sinclair, and I have nothing of reproach. I do think you are making a mistake. With Vil Holland knowing what he does of your father's operations, time may be a vital factor in the success of your undertaking. Let me caution you again against carrying ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... them nothing but the deadliest enmity to Christianity. 'The Church of Christ is abhorrent in its plan and spirit from the systems of proud philosophers.' 'Moral philosophy and metaphysics have ever been dangerous to religion. They have been found to militate against the vital truths of Christianity and corrupt the gospel in our times, as much as the cultivation of the more ancient philosophy corrupted it in early ages.' The minister of Christ is warned against 'deep researches into philosophy of any kind,' and much more to the ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... appreciation of the joke which he had unwittingly perpetrated, for it must be explained that he thought susan-cide the proper form of the word expressing a voluntary severing of the vital cord. ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... still proceeding, when Gomez Arias, who considered every moment he lost of vital importance in the arrangement of his plans, resolved at once to ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... ancient teachers, the ripest outcome of whose speculations and discussions is embodied in the Vedanta-sutras, disagreed among themselves on points of vital importance is sufficiently proved by the three passages quoted. The one quoted last is specially significant as showing that recognised authorities—deemed worthy of being quoted in the Sutras—denied that doctrine on which the whole system of /S/a@nkara hinges, viz. the doctrine of ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... teems with spirited scenes and stirring adventures, and the boy who reads it attentively will acquire a sound knowledge on subjects that are of vital importance to our ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... once, twice, asked him a vital question about his belief in God. Then he had been warmly alive. He had held his wife close in his arms, and nothing else had mattered. But now—but now—he was very far from warmth and life. He was dying in loneliness. He was perishing ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... progress from spiritual chaos to spiritual order— for to order the play must be said to lead, and progress is implied in its onward movement, if there be anything at all in our growing modern conviction that any vital faith is better than none at all. One of the currents in question refers to the means rather than the end, to the road rather than the goal. It brings us back to those uncanny soul-adventures by which Strindberg himself won his way to the "full, rock-firm Certitude" of ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... Caddagat. I think that evening dress is one of the prettiest and most idiotic customs extant. What can be more foolish than to endanger one's health by exposing at night the chest and arms—two of the most vital spots of the body—which have been covered all day? On the other hand, what can be more beautiful than a soft white bosom rising and falling amid a dainty nest of silk and lace? Every woman looks more soft and feminine in a decollete gown. ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... his address by declaring the need of college spirit in college life. He defined it as the vital thing, the heart of a great educational institution, and he went on to speak of its dangers, its fluctuations. Then he made direct reference to athletics in its relation to both college spirit ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... any preacher put in so vital a contrast to this despairing defiance with which pride challenges sorrow, the joyous victory which a trusting love wins over it by submitting to it, as John Greenleaf Whittier has done in "The ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... sensibility, represses the activity of the circulation, detracts from the sum of the animal heat, and thereby diminishes stimulation. In the cessation of excitement and sensibility that ensues, the whole vital actions are moderated, existing irritation is soothed; and in the same manner as sleep recruits the wasted powers, so does cold restore and invigorate the nerves when overstimulated, and in fact promotes the tone and vigour of the whole body; when again ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... further happens. But if you should be sent for again, I think it is your duty to make further observations with a view, if necessary, to informing the police. It may be, for instance, of vital importance to identify the house, and it is your duty to secure the means ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... then farther and farther up the sides, until a solid bell-shaped structure resulted. This arrangement which makes insect fertilization a more certain process because none of the pollen is lost through apertures, and because the visitor must enter the flower only at the vital point where the stigmas come in contact with his pollen-laden body, has given to all the flowers that have attained to it, ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... and even pathetic, rather than contemptible, that he should humbly wish to learn of her the small refinements he had missed in the past—that mysterious past which mattered less and less to Annesley as the present became dear and vital. ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... different from the old doctrine of equivocal or spontaneous generation; it is wholly unsupported by any modern experiments or observation, and therefore affords us no aid whatever in speculating on the commencement of vital phenomena on the earth. ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... not propose, however, to speak in detail of the Italians' military service. Suffice it to say that they have proved themselves excellent fighters who combine the rare qualities of dash and endurance. I wish to speak of the vital contribution Italy has made from the beginning of the War to the Great Cause—the cause ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... be there, I caught sight of a dark hairy form. It was a brown bear, which in another minute would in all likelihood have been examining our property with no delicate fingers. I hesitated to fire, for I was sure that I should be unable to hit any vital part; and as even a brown bear, if wounded, will turn furiously on his pursuers, before I could have reloaded the beast might have been upon me. In another instant Bruin had plunged in among the thick underwood, and was concealed from view; but I heard him making ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... at best, attend all classes by a total revolution of labor throughout whole States. It is hoped that the already deeply afflicted people of those States may be somewhat more ready to give up the cause of their affliction, if, to this extent, this vital matter be left to themselves; while no power of the National Executive to prevent an abuse ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... watch your arms overnight in order to understand it. Look at the nice setting of the mortises; mark how the cover fits; how smooth is the working of that spring drawer. Observe that this bit of carving, which seemed mere ornament, is really a vital part of the mechanism. Note, moreover, how balanced and symmetrical the whole design is, with what economy and foresight every part is fashioned. It is not only an ingenious structure, it is a handsome bit of furniture, and will ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... examined for other wounds, and found to be shot through the body, behind the ribs, where no vital organ had been touched. This shot had given it a momentary paralysis, which had caused it to drop so flat upon the ground. The Indians' idea was that it recovered itself while they were all around it, and so it cunningly lay still, hoping to get away when they left, but Mr ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... athaleb, which was bearing me away forever from Almah. I could not endure that thought, and still less could I endure the thought that she should believe me false. It was therefore in a wild passion of rage and despair that I levelled my rifle, taking aim as well as I could at what seemed a vital part under the wing. The motion of the wing rendered this difficult, however, and I hesitated a moment, so as to make sure. All this time Layelah stood looking at me with a smile on her rosy lips and a merry twinkle in her eyes—evidently regarding my words as empty threats and my act as a vain ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... books, which I am now beginning to understand were records of sober fact instead of extravagant fiction, as we both thought them to be. We must certainly polish up our recollection of what we read, for it is not at all difficult to imagine circumstances in which the knowledge may be of vital import to us. By the way, Mafuta, tell those fellows that they are dismissed, and that all we shall require of them to-morrow, in addition to the oxen, ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... the tape, the first of his race to do it. And if it had not been for this wave of loneliness; this parching, astringent wind of sorrow that seemed to dry up the oil of his joints, evaporate the simple liquor of his thought, put out the vital sparkle in his eye; and now, latest act of dispossession, to milk his old veins of their warmth—if it had not been for this influence and prescience, Old Dalton might have run hardily quite a good little way ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the tone of the Old Testament throughout, for you will always find braided together in the closest vital unity the representation of these two aspects of the divine nature; and if ever we hear set forth a more than ordinarily magnificent conception of His power and majesty be sure that, if you look, you will find side by side with it a more than ordinarily tender representation of His gentleness and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... action of the 16th September, the 2nd Brigade had been unable to move. Transport—the life and soul of an army—is an even more vital factor here than in less undeveloped countries. The mobility of a brigade depends entirely on its pack animals. On the 14th many mules were killed. On the 16th the field hospitals were filled with wounded. It now became impossible for the camp to move, because the wounded could ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... and patience; and expressed himself as if he desired nothing more than to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, in that case esteeming death as gain, and life only a tedious delaying of felicity expected; and finding his vital strength decay, having settled his mind and affairs, as well as the shortness of his time and the violence of his disease would admit, with a constant and Christian patience, he resigned his soul into the hands of his most merciful Redeemer, following ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... was not only at the mercy of the employer, but every other starving workman. On the other hand, so few workmen ever informed themselves concerning the employer's perplexities and dangers, they had no broad and vital interest in the business until they all became leagued together, as in co-operation. Then they shared one another's burdens and prosperity. It was not the one great fortune, but the many comfortable incomes. It was the fruit of the noblest thought and the truest philanthropy. As a producer it ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... and expelled by my own people!" His voice died away in a loud sob. With his head pressed against the wall he sobbed in great anguish. It was enough to hear one of these sobs, which shook his whole frame, to guess that he had been wounded in the most vital part ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... merged to form the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They were joined in 1972 by Ra's al Khaymah. The UAE's per capita GDP is on par with those of leading West European nations. Its generosity with oil revenues and its moderate foreign policy stance have allowed the UAE to play a vital role in the ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... pumping engine which came into practical use was dated 1698. The real introduction of steam as a factor in man's daily work was effected later on, partly by Savery himself and partly by Newcomen, and above all by James Watt. The expiration of Watt's vital patent occurred in 1800, and he himself then retired from the active supervision of his engineering business, having virtually finished his great life's work on the last year of the century which he had marked for all time by the efforts ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... to discuss it all with her, she begins to yawn; and her yawning drives me nearly mad, when I am talking on a matter of vital interest. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... needs and requirements of a mainly agricultural population, i.e., of a people that depend upon the fruits of the earth for their subsistence, and to whom the regular and ordered sequence of the processes of Nature was a vital necessity. ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... indoors, come home; your fading fire Mend first and vital candle in close heart's vault: You there are master, do your own desire; What hinders? Are you beam-blind, yet to a fault In a neighbour deft-handed? Are you that liar And cast ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... Into the chronicle of a deedful day, Sir Aylmer half forgot his lazy smile Of patron 'Good! my lady's kinsman! good!' My lady with her fingers interlock'd, And rotatory thumbs on silken knees, Call'd all her vital spirits into each ear To listen: unawares they flitted off, Busying themselves about the flowerage That stood from our a stiff brocade in which, The meteor of a splendid season, she, Once with this kinsman, ah so long ago, Stept thro' the stately minuet ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... can be truly said to be susceptible to the infection of small-pox, nor to that of any other zymotic disease. Vigorous health confers immunity from disease-producing agents as nothing else can. It is usually after the vital functions have become impaired by the effects of vaccination or some other injurious cause that individuals become susceptible to ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... It finds the clay in the hands of an intelligent potter, and sees it whirl in the process of formation into a vessel. It is not in any sense necessarily atheistic, any more than it is to affirm that a tree grows by vital processes in the sun and dew, instead of being arbitrarily and instantly created. The conclusion reached depends on the spirit of the observer. Newton could say, "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... not friends or relatives settled in America, or have not formed pleasant acquaintanceships with Americans on this side. But there are innumerable families in America who, even if they be of British descent, have lost all vital recollection of the fact; who (as the tide of emigration has not yet turned eastwards) have no friends or relatives settled in England; and who, in their American homes, are far more apt to come in contact ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... is to be homeless, there is no other race—black, white, red, or yellow—that has not remained at least a majority of the population in some area of its own. There is none, therefore, more in need of a land of liberty, none to whose future it is more vital that America should preserve that spirit of William Penn which President Wilson has so nobly characterised. And there is assuredly none which has more valuable elements to contribute to the ethnic and psychical amalgam of the people ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... the greatest and most vital question of all. To a man may be given gifts many and acceptable; he may have received grace for grace; he may have known deep and wonderful experiences of heavenly things, and yet it may not be the will of God that ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... that America meant to keep out of the war at all costs, or were merely careless of consequences so long as the immediate end was attained, is now immaterial. From the welter of Teutonic misdeeds and lies arises the vital, the soul-inspiring spectacle of a union of all ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... between sheepmen an' cattlemen. But a war of honest ranchers against rustlers maskin' as sheep-raisers! ... Mind you, I don't belittle the trouble between sheepmen an' cattlemen in Arizona. It's real an' it's vital an' it's serious. It 'll take law an' order to straighten out the grazin' question. Some day the government will keep sheep off of cattle ranges.... So get things right in your mind, my son. You can trust your dad to tell the absolute truth. In this fight that ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... hours, as long as his life was in danger, I never left his bedside. Towards sunset, as usual in such cases, the delirium incidental to the fever came on. It lasted more or less through the night; and then intermitted, at that terrible time in the early morning—from two o'clock to five—when the vital energies even of the healthiest of us are at their lowest. It is then that Death gathers in his human harvest most abundantly. It was then that Death and I fought our fight over the bed, which should have the man who lay on it. I never hesitated ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... has any such capacities as we have just outlined. How to acquire this vital factor is suggested in its very analysis: Live with your subject until you are convinced ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... the immortality of love! for when all other means of salvation failed, a spark of this vital fire softened the man's iron will until a woman's hand could bend it. He let me take from him the key, let me draw him gently away and lead him to the solitude which now was the most healing balm I could bestow. ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... revelation in a human life. The resemblances between the religions of Gautama and of Jesus, are purely superficial. They appear to the outward man. The inward man cannot, even from Darien peaks of observation or in his scrutiny de profundis, discover any vital or historical connection between the two faiths, Christianity and Buddhism. In his theology the Christian says God is all; but the Buddhist says All is god. Buddhism says destroy the passions: Christianity says control them. The Buddhist's watchword is Nirvana. ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... young Richardson said to his father, when they returned, that he hoped to be preserved from such diversion as had been that day the lot of Pope. From this time, finding his diseases more oppressive, and his vital powers gradually declining, he no longer strained his faculties with any original composition, nor proposed any other employment for his remaining life than the revisal and correction of his former works, in which he received ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... acquaintances stopped him on his way down-street to ask about the murder; and all day long somebody was dropping in to pester him on the same subject. He told them with a dull, abstracted air all the fresh details he knew, but felt all the time as if he cheated each auditor of the vital part of the matter, in that he ...
— Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... I went to Tangier, for many reasons. In the first place, I was permitted to circulate many copies of God's Word both among the Jews and the Christians, by the latter of whom it was particularly wanted, their ignorance of the most vital points of religion being truly horrible. In the second place, I acquired a vast stock of information concerning Africa and the state of its interior. One of my principal Associates was a black slave whose country was only three days' journey from ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... exclaimed: 'I was married once myself'—we were able to detach him from his classification and regard him for a moment as an unique being, a soul, however insignificant, with a history of its own, once for all. It is these moments which we prize, and which alone are revealing. For any vital truth is incapable of being applied to another case: the essential is unique. Perhaps that is why it is so neglected: because it is useless. What we learned about that Spaniard is incapable of being applied to any other Spaniard, or even recalled in words. With the decline ...
— Eeldrop and Appleplex • T.S. Eliot
... unfrequented, and free from Noise and Disturbance! When she has laid her Eggs in such a Manner that she can cover them, what Care does she take in turning them frequently, that all Parts may partake of the vital Warmth? When she leaves them, to provide for her necessary Sustenance, how punctually does she return before they have time to cool, and become incapable of producing an Animal? In the Summer you see ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... souls. The safest course was obviously to remain neutral and take no part in the matter; but his own safety was the last consideration likely to move him. Was it his duty to remain silent? That was the vital question. Could he do any good by speaking? Long and earnestly did he pray for guidance and, without a thought of the consequences to himself, ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... was commonplace, and I related various experiences in a desultory fashion. Those that were mildly amusing were most appreciated. But gradually we drifted towards more vital issues and then the long and futile argument began. The weapons of sarcasm and denunciation were denied to me by the laws of politeness and etiquette. I beat in vain against the solid walls of obstinate prejudice and superficiality. His statements were uttered with dogmatic ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... condemned by that rascal Nero, at the last gasp of his life, when the greater part of his blood was already spent through the veins of his arms, which he had caused his physician to open to make him die, and when the cold had seized upon all his extremities, and began to approach his vital parts, the last thing he had in his memory was some of the verses of his Battle of Phaysalia, which he recited, dying with them in his mouth. What was this, but taking a tender and paternal leave of his children, in imitation of the valedictions ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... that we all, indeed I think it likely that we do not all, take it home to our thoughts with sufficient seriousness that this mysterious growth in the thing sown implies a mysterious vital power or force which is inherent ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... as down, yet irresistible, suppressed the great art of healing, vital chronometry, the wrongs of inventors, the collusions of medicine, the Mad Ox, and all but drawing-room topics, at the very first symptom, and only just allowed the doctor to be the life ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... average, for four hundred hours per annum, we may take it as certain that, at the present prices of regenerator burners, they are a bad investment for use in ordinary work. We must not forget that the distance of the burner from the work is a vital point of the cost question; and, for all except large spaces, requiring general illumination, a common cheap burner on a swivel joint has yet to meet with a competitor. Do not think I am old-fashioned or prejudiced in this ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... her dazzling admirer was as sudden as it proved to be lasting. There was a strange charm in the very contrast between his rattling audacity and the bashful formalities of the swains who had hitherto wooed her as if she frightened them. Even his good looks fascinated her less than that vital energy and power about the lawless brute, which to her seemed the elements of heroic character, though but the attributes of riotous spirits, magnificent formation, flattered vanity, and imperious egotism. She was a bird gazing spell-bound ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... companions and contemporaries of Him whose life and lessons are therein recorded. The Reviewer professes to have satisfied his own mind by an affirmative conclusion on this point. But regarding the question as the very turning-point, the paramount and vital element of the existing issue between faith and unbelief, and not finding it to be dealt with in this volume, the Reviewer considers that it is evaded. It might be urged in reply, that this question ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... regained his old eagerness for life after her loss. He lived for years, practised law once more with distinction and success on Nassau Street, even made a second marriage very late in life, but I think some vivid, vital, romantic part of him, something of ambition and fire and adventure, was lost at sea with his ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... nature, that may logically be called instincts (their roots lying in the ancient social groups and their struggle to exist) but not a function that governs the law of reproduction, as appetite governs the law of renewing the vital necessities of ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... confined to the very few on whom nature has bestowed a sufficient degree of perfection of the sense which is to measure it;—the candour to make a fair report of it, is still more uncommon; and the kindness to encourage it cannot often be expected from those whose most vital interest it is to prevent the developement of that by which their own importance, perhaps their only means of existence, may be for ever eclipsed: so, as Pope ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... the fabled philosopher's stone came into being, and the beginnings of fortunes which would pass the hundred million mark and place tradesmen's daughters upon Oriental thrones grew from this new force. Within fifty years it has become as vital to industry ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman
... of friendship. Among your enemies you may depend upon it there are some of the worst kind of men. I cannot help entertaining a violent suspicion that they are the enemies of their country. I am sure that they cannot at present do a more vital injury to the great cause of America than by raising the popular jealousy and clamour against its earliest, most able, and persevering friends. This they are endeavouring to do not only with regard to you ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... the war, stood him in as good stead in matters of civil government. He propitiated Nemesis and gave no just provocation to any party to risk its popularity by attacking him. While he was President the mantle of his great fame was ample enough to cover the deep and vital divisions which were appearing even in his own Cabinet, and were soon to convulse the nation in a dispute for the inheritance ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... local grievances. The rapacity of one squire; the impracticability of another; the indignation of the rector whose glebe was threatened; the culpable indifference of the Stockbridge townspeople, who could not be brought to see that their most vital interests hinged upon a junction with the Great East Anglian line; the spite of the local newspaper; and the unheard-of difficulties attending the Common question,—were each and all laid before me with a circumstantiality that possessed ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... the echoes resound with her roaring: the young lions from the cave answered her with hideous cries, which would have filled the most warlike soul with terror. In the meantime the conqueror secured his victory by piercing the animal in the vital parts, till at length she sank under the vigour of his arm. He ran immediately to kill the whelps, and drew them out of the cave. After this feat of valour, he looked in the plain for a tree, the fruit of which might afford him nourishment, and a stream in which he ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... Secretary for an organization of the militia upon a uniform basis is a subject of vital importance to the future safety of the country, arid is commended to the serious attention ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... it is an episode of an episode,—that of the Californian gold-fever. The story of the Argonauts is only one story, after all, and these tales of Harte's are but so many facets of the same gem. They are not, however, like chapters in a romance; there is no such vital connection between them as develops a cumulative force. We are no more impressed after reading half a dozen of them than after the first; they are variations of the same theme. They discover to us no new truth about ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... presence also gave much encouragement to the loyalists, who now joined Burgoyne in such numbers as to persuade him that a majority of the inhabitants were for the king. The information they gave, proved of vital consequence in determining Burgoyne's operations ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... soul, all these late-born, strange, appreciative powers, he ministered to an appetite which seemed unquenchable. It was dusk when he came out, his cheeks burning, his eyes bright. He carried a new music, a whole world of new joys with him, but his most vital sensation was one of glowing and passionate sympathy. They were splendid, these heroes who had seen the truth and had struggled to give life to it with pencil or brush or chisel, that others, too, might see and understand. If only one could do one's ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... would like to urge you, from the practical point of view, to drop any such foolishness. The vital thing, and nothing else counts, is what Dewey said and did when he at last met Aguinaldo. That, that, that, is the thing, all ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... I only half believed her. Such an amateur way of keeping watch and ward in such a vital area seemed hardly credible, but I learned afterwards that in those early days of the war that was one of the things which actually happened. Another fact also made me doubtful. On the night I landed I had met ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... There is the difficulty in a distant correspondence. It is perhaps easy for me to enter into and understand your interests; I own it is difficult for you; but you must just wade through them for friendship's sake, and try to find tolerable what is vital for your friend. I cannot forbear challenging you to it, as to intellectual lists. It is the proof of intelligence, the proof of not being a barbarian, to be able to enter into something outside of oneself, something that does not touch one's next ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was that Mrs. Muir's eyes followed Robin more than they followed Donal. Their clear deeps yearned over her. Such a glowing vital little thing! No wonder! No wonder! And as she grew older she would be more vivid and compelling with every year. And Donal was of her kind. His strength, his beauty, his fearless happiness-claiming temperament. How could ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Dominance, it is an absolutely necessary and vital condition to be able to defeat, disarm, or neutralize an adversary's military power. We still must maintain the capacity for the physical and forceful occupation of territory should there prove to be ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... chosen with such certainty in the time of power the positions it can hold strongly in its decadence. It is impossible to move without stumbling against her. She knows of old that man as long as he is healthy, in the plenitude of his vital strength, is by instinct irreligious. When he lives comfortable the so-called eternal life concerns him very little. He only believes in God and fears Him in the hour of supreme cowardice, when death opens before him the bottomless pit of nothingness, and his pride ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... desired, and, like other things which fulfill their function, it died with the need that created it. No one now writes political poetry in Italy; no one writes poetry at all with so much power as to make himself felt in men's vital hopes and fears. Carducci seems an agnostic flowering of the old romantic stalk; and for the rest, the Italians write realistic novels, as the French do, the Russians, the Spaniards—as every people do who have ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... who is all-pervading. To him who is unvanquished! To him who is always of blue locks, to him who is armed with the trident, to him who is of celestial vision! To him who is Hotri, to him who protects all, to him who is of three eyes, to him who is disease, to him whose vital seed fell on fire! To him who is inconceivable, to him who is the lord of Amvika, to him who is adored by all the gods! To him who hath the bull for his mark, to him who is bold, to him who is of matted lock, to him who is a Brahmacharin! To him who standeth ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... to Banneker to find that he had not seen the actress for nearly two months. Certainly he had not specially missed her, yet it was keenly pleasurable to be brought into contact again with that restless, vital, outgiving personality. She looked tired and a little dispirited and—for she was of that rare type in which weariness does not dim, but rather qualifies and differentiates its beauty—quite as lovely as he had ever seen her. The query which gave him his clue to her special ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... while the fertilizing Nile afforded inland communication, Egypt became the most prosperous and civilized country of the earth. Egypt was not only created by the Nile, but the very existence of its inhabitants depended upon the annual inundation of that river: thus all that related to the Nile was of vital importance to the people; it was the hand ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... Harding glanced behind. Their camping place had vanished, they were out in an open waste, and he knew that he had started on the last march he was capable of making. Where it would lead him he could not tell, though the answer to the question was of vital importance. ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... though to do them justice it was no more their fault than the fault of any other party. In a democracy such as ours was the Government of the day must more or less reflect the ideas and temperament of the nation in all vital matters, and the British nation in those days could not have been persuaded of the urgent need for military apprenticeship or of the deadly nature of its danger. It was willing now and then to be half-frightened and to have half-measures, or, one might better say, ...
— When William Came • Saki
... ranks, carry down the important political education which they are the means of conferring to a much lower grade in society. The mental discipline being thus a more important feature in local concerns than in the general affairs of the state, while there are not such vital interests dependent on the quality of the administration, a greater weight may be given to the former consideration, and the latter admits much more frequently of being postponed to it than in matters of general legislation and the conduct ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... leave off. I suppose that that's what's meant by the myth of Eve springing from Adam's side. It was to be noticed even then, in the prehistoric, in the age that formed the great legends. Adam was asleep, when Eve as a vital force leaped away from him. If it wasn't for Eve's vitality the human race would still be in ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... grimly in my sentry-box guarding a power station and a sausage factory. The latter is considered to be a likely point of attack on the part of the Huns. Should it be destroyed, a vital source of food supply for our army (they would reason) ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... reasons, immediately to drive out the Dutch from the island of Hermosa, if there is any possibility and power therefor, uniting the forces of Filipinas, if necessary, with those of Macan—to whom the question is so vital, both because of the said reason of the commerce (which is of prime importance), and because the island of Hermosa lies in the path of the voyage from Macan to Japon; and also, I do not deny, because ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... States government was, therefore, faced with a dilemma. If they let Ch'ien go to the International Conferences, there was the chance that he would be forced, in some way, to divulge secrets that were vital to the national defense of the United States. On the other hand, if they forbade him to go, the Communist governments would suspect that Ch'ien knew something important, and they would check back on his previous work and ...
— What The Left Hand Was Doing • Gordon Randall Garrett
... indeed. I was free, but not at large. The amazing adaptability of the human mind had reconciled me in a few suffering hours to this confined space. Verily do I believe that the overcoming of this subtle anodyne demanded the expenditure of more vital force than the sum of all the long-sustained automatic exertion by which I had won ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... it exists and is horrible, but seeing it afar off . . . so far off that it arouses no real emotion. The explosion of the shells were accompanying their destructive brutality with a ferocious mockery, grotesquely disfiguring the human body. He saw wounded objects just beginning to recover their vital force who were but rough skeletons of men, frightful caricatures, human rags, saved from the tomb by the audacities of science—trunks with heads which were dragged along on wheeled platforms; fragments of skulls ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... But all this is caused by changes in the nutrition of the plant, in its absorptions and transpirations, in the quantity of heat and light, of air and moisture, which it habitually receives; and, lastly, by the superiority which certain of its vital movements may assert over the others. There may arise between individuals of the same species, of which some are placed in favourable, others amid unfavourable, conditions, a difference which by ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... was an old young man who had given up his life to entomology; his collection of butterflies was more vital to him than any living issue; the Bartletts regarded him as a mild order of lunatic, whose madness might have taken a more dangerous form than making up long ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... Atlantic or the Pacific, and made profitable to the producer by exportation to foreign lands. He tried to interest me in such commercial and economic questions, so that, as he said, I need not like most women remain in entire ignorance regarding the vital interests of the world. Although I was still stolid and indifferent in manner, I listened attentively to his instructions and appreciated the service he ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... put to her this vital question, was severe, and almost justified the little burst of sobs which came forth as a prelude to Lizzie's answer. "I did not know what I was doing. I don't know what you expect from me. You had been persecuting me ever since Sir Florian's death about the diamonds, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... is pictured a clergyman in touch with society people, stage favorites, simple village folk, powerful financiers and others, each presenting vital problems to this man "in holy orders"—problems that we are now struggling with ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... different story there would have been to tell had someone had that thought only half an hour earlier! But it is often so. The most trivial miscalculation, the most insignificant mistake, seemingly, may prove to be of the most vital importance. Dick went to the telephone. It was one of the old-fashioned sort, still in almost universal use in the rural parts of England, that require the use of a bell to call the central office. Dick turned the crank, then took down the receiver. ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston |
