"Acute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not suffering like himself, bruised and strained, with sharp twinges rending his damaged foot; his limbs cramped, and sensible of the acute misery of the cold, and the full horror of their position; but as long as he could shake even an unconscious murmur from his brother, it seemed like happiness compared with the utter desolation after the last whisper had died away, and he was left intolerably ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... semicircular arch divided by three small ones. Pointing both the superior and inferior arches, and adding to the grace of the larger one by striking another arch above it with a more removed center, and placing the voussoirs at an acute angle to the curve, we have the truly noble form of domestic Gothic, which—more or less enriched by moldings and adorned by penetration, more or less open of the space between the including and inferior arches—was immediately adopted ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... admit that I am interested. A wife is sauce to any story." He looked placidly round the company. He alone held the key to the puzzle, and since he was now become the centre of attraction he was inclined to play with his less acute brethren. With a wave of the hand he stilled the requests for an explanation, and ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... to find some comfort there, but there was none. Ethel's discomfiture and bewilderment had passed and she was putting an unusually acute mind on the situation. She understood perfectly that it looked to Miss Gertrude as if Dr. Watkins had made so sure that she returned his affection that he had gone about talking of it to strangers even before he had told her of his ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... of his acute agitation—laughed out at the "us" (he had already laughed at the charge of puerility), and Mrs. Rooth went on: "Going away? Ah then I must have one too!" She held out both her hands, and Sherringham, stepping ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... discouraged as that," he remarked. "And, with the situation in Europe growing more acute every day, I am afraid some of those foreigners will take desperate ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... that such a problem had become acute in Kalidasa's time, when the old simplicity of Hindu life had broken up. The Hindu kings, forgetful of their duties, had become self-seeking epicureans, and India was being repeatedly devastated by the Scythians. What answer, then, does the poem give to the question ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... a moment he felt mortally sick, as if from a pang of acute physical pain. Distrust from an old friend is always a hard thing to bear. And so, for a moment or ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... rubble, and he could see that the face of the precipice was rooted here in a slope that led down steeply to another wall. The ledge was like a roof pitched at an extremely acute angle. He had to get down on hands and knees to keep from sliding to the edge of the second precipice. At every movement he started small avalanches of stone and dirt. He crept forward with the utmost caution, dragging the rifle ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... wins, Scattering second; Cox also ran: slogan: "He Kept Us Out of McAdoo." Manhattan Island, from whence the rest of the country derives its panics, its jazz tremblors and its girl shows, develops a severe sinking sensation in the pit of its financial stomach, accompanied by acute darting pains at the juncture of Broad and Wall. This is the way Thomas Carlyle used to start off a new chapter, and I like it. It denotes erudition. Ziegfeld builds a new Follies show around twelve ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... in Sweden is brought to the attention of Richards, in the clauses just cited, in connection with what I have said in this article, page 16. Cotton Mather was in possession of a book on this subject. "It comes to speak English," he says, "by the acute pen of the excellent and renowned Dr. Horneck." Who so likely as Mather to have brought the case to the notice of Phips, pp. 14. It was urged upon Richards at about the same time that it was upon Phips; and as an argument in favor of "extirpating" witches, by the action of a ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... sufficiently nourished to preserve their efficiency. It is a gross libel to say that the Communists, or even the leading People's Commissaries, live luxurious lives according to our standards; but it is a fact that they are not exposed, like their subjects, to acute hunger and the weakening of energy that accompanies it. No tone can blame them for this, since the work of government must be carried on; but it is one of the ways in which class distinctions have reappeared ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... were, know and feel how other women are regarded by men, and how also men are regarded by other women, is equally strong, and equally incomprehensible. A glance, a word, a motion, suffices: by some such acute exercise of her feminine senses the signora was aware that Mr Arabin loved Eleanor Bold; and therefore, by a further exercise of her peculiar feminine propensities, it was quite natural for her to entrap Mr ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... first to discuss the laws of money intelligently,(10) but a number of acute Englishmen enriched the literature of the subject,(11) and it may be said that any modern study of political economy received its first definite ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... Dr. Jameson received a Reuter's telegram showing that the situation at Johannesburg had become acute. At the same time reliable information was received that the Boers in the Zeerust and Lichtenburg districts were assembling, and had been summoned to march ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... now very little fear of being overtaken; indeed, the Indians would probably have lost my trail in the streams I had crossed, while the rocky nature of the ground would scarcely bear marks sufficient for even their acute eyes to discover. I knew that as yet I could not be abreast of Winnemak's camp, and, indeed, that across the mountains it would probably take me two or three days to reach it. Still I felt that it would be prudent, in case the ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... cautiously approached the bushes, on which his looks were still fastened, as by a charm. Some of the leaves which were exposed to the sun had drooped a little, and this slight departure from the usual natural laws had caught the quick eyes of the Indian; for so practised and acute do the senses of the savage become, more especially when he is on the war-path, that trifles apparently of the most insignificant sort often prove to be clues to lead him ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... door, after securing the handle, she found the carriage full of a pale twilight. The train was stealing into the gorge, following the caravan of camels which she had seen disappearing. She paid no more attention to her companion, and her feeling of acute irritation against him died away for the moment. The towering cliffs cast mighty shadows, the darkness deepened, the train, quickening its speed, seemed straining forward into the arms of night. There was a chill in the air. Domini drank it into her lungs again, and again was startled, ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... labour he had become known in certain quarters far from Elmville as a master of the principles of the law. Twice he had gone to Washington and argued cases before the highest tribunal with such acute logic and learning that the silken gowns on the bench had rustled from the force of it. His income from his practice had grown until he was able to support his father, in the old family mansion (which neither of them would have thought of abandoning, rickety as it ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... idle brag when he told the Crompton chaplain that he would put up with injustice from no man (if he could help it), and would repay his wrong-doer sevenfold (if he got the chance). His sense of right was very acute and sensitive, especially as respected himself. All his passions were strong. Much of this might probably be said of any young gentleman of position accustomed to have his own way: lads of spirit (who can afford it) ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... bidder;—a flourishing fellow, with a hammer in his hand, shining away in character of auctioneer;—the crowds which fill the courts of judicature, when any cause of consequence is to be tried;—the clamorous voices, keen observations, poignant sarcasms, and acute contentions carried on by the advocates, who seem more awake, or in their own phrase svelti than all the rest:—all these things take up so much time, that twenty-four hours do not suffice for the business and diversions ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... America, she relates numberless instances of kindness on the part of the family alluded to; instances of kindness without which the missionary family would have been put to considerable inconvenience and perhaps acute suffering. In 1842 Mr. Shuck removed to Hong Kong. The providence of God clearly indicated this as the path of duty; and though the separation with pleasant acquaintances at Macao was trying, the step was ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... the immediate present, Madeline became conscious that she was quivering and almost breathless. Her skin felt tight and cold. There was a weight on her chest; her mouth was dry, and she had a strange tendency to swallow. Her listening faculty seemed most acute. Dull sounds came from parts of the house remote from her. In the intervals of silence between these sounds she heard the squeaking and rustling of mice in the hay. A mouse ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... Laureate's true laurels. Had he left nothing else, the "rare arch-poet" would have held, by virtue of these alone, the elevated rank which his contemporaries, and our own, freely assign him. Lamb, whose appreciation of the old dramatists was extremely acute, remarks,—"A thousand beautiful passages from his 'New Inn,' and from those numerous court masques and entertainments which he was in the daily habit of furnishing, might be adduced to show the poetical fancy and elegance ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... describes two encounters with leopards, one of which was nearly attended with fatal consequences: "On the 17th," says he, "I was attacked with acute rheumatic fever, which kept me to my bed, and gave me excruciating pain. Whilst I lay in this helpless state, Mr. Orpen and Present, who had gone up the river to shoot sea cows, fell in with an immense male leopard, which the latter wounded very baldly. They then sent natives to camp, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... through the long parlours my eyes had the first greeting of her, before my voice or arms. Upon this evening, as upon others, I entered by the parlour door, and came—more quickly than usual—toward the library. I was in a great hurry; one of the acute attacks of the chronic condition which besets the busy doctor. As I crossed the length of the thick carpet, the rooms shook beneath my tread; I burst into, rather than entered, the library,—not seeing her, I think, or not pausing to see her, in the accustomed manner. When ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... and good, and, in the case of most men, probably would have succeeded. Yet in Morris's instance from the commencement it was a failure. She had begun by making his story and ideas, absurd enough on the face of them, an object of somewhat acute sarcasm, if not of ridicule. This was a mistake, since thereby she caused him to suppress every outward evidence of them; to lock them away in the most secret recesses of his heart. If the lid of a ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... carelessly. If you will look at facts, what you will find is this:- -that all sins and bad habits fill the soul with evil humours, just as a fever or any other severe disease fills the body; and that, as in the case of a fever, those evil humours remain after the acute disease is past, and are but too apt to break out again, to cause relapses, to torment the poor patient, perhaps to leave his character crippled and disfigured all his life—certainly to require long and often severe treatment by the heavenly physician, Christ, the ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the Carvels', and, being told that the party were in Stamboul, had gone straight to the Jew's shop, in the hope of finding them there. He was introduced to the professor by Paul, with a word of explanation. Marchetto's face fell as he saw the adjutant, who had a terribly acute knowledge of the value of things. Balsamides was asked to give his opinion. He ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... had moved, their acute ears had caught the sound of his footsteps. They rose, still holding what they were eating in their hands, and, grasping their stone spears, moved in three separate ways toward the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... The violation of Rule 3, which guards against defining a thing by itself, is technically known as 'circulus in definiendo,' or defining in a circle. This rule is often apparently violated, without being really so. Thus Euclid defines an acute-angled triangle as one which has three acute angles. This seems a glaring violation of the rule, but is perfectly correct in its context; for it has already been explained what is meant by the terms 'triangle' ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... the subject of acute discussion between the Allies at the Rome Conference, and were carried in face of strong opposition from France, marked another victory of moderation over consistency. That they lessened the alarm of the Greek people may be doubted; but the Greek people had by this time found that if it ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... have so long been devoted to the Franco-Russian Alliance, have followed with acute distress the intrigues of Bismarck in Bulgaria (intrigues of which the Nouvelle Revue revealed one proof in the letters of Prince Ferdinand of Coburg to the Countess of Flanders). I have known that William, in spite of his actual dislike for the proceedings ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... he was largely aided in writing it by his father. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1788. I cannot tell why my father's mind did not appear to me fitted for advancing science, for he was fond of theorising, and was incomparably the most acute observer whom I ever knew. But his powers in this direction were exercised almost wholly in the practice of medicine and in the observation of human character. He intuitively recognised the disposition or character, and even read the ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... our visitors, but we were by no means left in solitude; for the Lyra's anchorage was completely crowded with native boats. The motive of all this attention on the part of the Chinese was not merely pure admiration of Jean; the fact is, the acute Chinese, skilled especially in hog's flesh, saw very well that our pet pig was not long for this world, and knowing that if she died a natural death, we should no more think of eating her than one of our own crew; and ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... Now the acute ears of the dogs had heard the hoofbeats of the horses in the still night, and they continued to emit a chorus of barks. At last their noise awoke Judge LeMonde, who was dreaming that twenty lawyers were all pleading a case at once. Thinking ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... with certain features of the grasshoppers and cockroaches, and the bugs. The body of the flea (Fig. 98, greatly magnified; a, antennae; b, maxillae, and their palpi, c; d, mandibles; the latter, with the labium, which is not shown in the figure, forming the acute beak) is much compressed, and there are minute wing-pads, instead of wings, present in ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... writers, in a slavish dread of interfering with the more immediate office of the divine, hold out slender inducements to virtuous action, which can never give us strength to stem the torrent of passion; but holding with the acute Owen Feltham[8], "that, as true religion cannot be without morality, no more can morality, that is right, be without religion," Johnson ever directs our attention, not to the world's smile or frown, but to the discharge of the duty which Providence assigns ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... of Singleton, the highway was crossed by the railway, and, in one of the acute angles which the intersection made, the little house stood. On the side of the house, most distant from the crossing, were two bridges (one on the railway and the other on the high road), both so high and so strong ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... as St. Anthony's Fire and Rose, a febrile disease, manifesting itself in acute inflammation of the skin, which becomes vividly scarlet and ultimately peels; confined chiefly to the head; ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... I do shrink from encountering an undefined period of bodily and mental imbecility; of being helpless, useless, a burden. I have been so distressed to see all this come upon our bishop, Dr. Terrot; the once clear, acute, sharp, and ready man. Oh, it is to my mind the most terrible affliction of our poor nature. I have known lately an unusual number of such cases before me, and I hope I am not unreasonably apprehensive as to what may come. I hope your family all are well, and that you are fully up to your ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... fabric which is hard to digest. The same principle is illustrated by fat-soaked fried foods. Under the cover of the fat, thorough-going bacterial decomposition of the proteins may be accomplished with the final release of highly poisonous products. Attacks of acute indigestion resulting from this cause are much ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... it'd be better to wait a little while and see how things turn out with them in the long run, you know, before we commit ourselves by going to call upon them? One swallow, you see, doesn't make a summer, does it, dear, ever?' Whence the acute and intelligent reader will doubtless conclude that Mrs. Herbert Le Breton was a very prudent sensible young woman, and that perhaps even Herbert himself had met at last with his fitting Nemesis. For what worse purgatory could his bitterest foe wish for a selfishly prudent and ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... on. Jude was thrown into such acute sorrow that he almost felt he would try to get the man to accede. But it could do no good, and might make her still worse; and he saw that it was imperative to get her home at once. So he coaxed her, and whispered ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... see Dr. Phillips tomorrow morning, and get something to set you to rights. I am glad you are joining us here, for the sake of his advice. I like him so very much, and I think him clever—perhaps not naturally so acute as Dr. Vivian, but he has had a large practice so long, and so little wedded to routine, and so willing to accept of any new light that can be thrown on medicine, that his greater experience more than counterbalances ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... Mondes, and in the New York Tribune. Of an article in the former publication, the first thirty-three pages form an able survey of the history of Hayti since its independence, and of the rule of Emperor Soulouque. Nowhere is there, in the same compass, more of authentic information and acute remark ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... their example. William preferred the Whigs, because they sympathized with his wars; but the country sometimes preferred the Tories, because it hated William's Dutchmen and taxation. On William's death in 1702 the danger from Louis XIV was considered so acute that a ministry was formed from all parties in order to secure the united support of parliament; but gradually, in Anne's reign, the Tories who wanted to make peace left the ministry, until in 1708 it became purely Whig. In ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... secrets of the principal families of England. On one occasion my father was in treaty for a piece of land at the back of Gad's Hill, and it was proposed that there should be an interview with the owner, a farmer, a very acute man of business, and a very hard nut to crack. It was arranged that the interview with him should be at Gad's Hill, and the solicitor came down for the purpose. My father and Ouvry were sitting over their wine when the old man was announced. ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... rapid tramping was heard, interrupted at frequent intervals by a dull sound, like that of a bag of bones which rebounded on a stone against which one wished to break it. Acute moans, and bursts of infernal laughter, accompanied each of these blows. Then there was a death-rattle of agony. Then nothing could be heard but the furious trampling; nothing but the heavy and rebounding blows, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... instructions at first hand from the great Machlin himself, was in the eighties an open question in Dinwiddie. The choice was probably given him to learn or starve; and aided by the keen understanding and the acute sense of property he had inherited from his Scotch-Irish parentage, he had doubtless decided that to learn was, after all, the easier way. Saving he had always been, and yet with such strange and sudden starts of generosity that he had been known to seek out distant obscure ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... his age, and, counting the ten years of the regency, in the 60th year of his reign. Over the last nine years of his reign a dark and mysterious veil had been drawn. In the periods of the deepest national solicitude his mind had felt no interest; and in the hour of the most acute domestic feeling his eye had not been wet with the tears of affection. All was dark within and without, for both reason and sight had departed from him. It does not appear, indeed, that any temporary return of reason allowed him to comprehend and rejoice at the issue of the momentous struggle in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... difficult to excel the great mind, the acute genius, and the universal learning of Herbert Spencer, who has been termed the modern Aristotle by a learned writer; and this is high praise when we remember how much knowledge is necessary in our times, and in the present conditions of science, before any one can be deemed ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... your own purpose in softening national animosities, are excellent; also all he says of American egotism and nationality. But I should be as ready to forgive vanity in a nation as in an individual, and to make it turn to good account. I have always remarked that little and envious minds are the most acute in detecting vanity in others, and the most intolerant of it. Having nothing to be proud or vain of, they cannot endure that others should enjoy a ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... specimens no two can be found exactly alike, but every one of them will be of some shade of ash or brown or ochre, such as are found among dead, dry, or decaying leaves. The apex of the upper wings is produced into an acute point, a very common form in the leaves of tropical shrubs and trees, and the lower wings are also produced into a short narrow tail. Between these two points runs a dark curved line exactly representing the midrib of a leaf, ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... his poor best for a while, his mother in truth getting through most of his work as well as her own, while Dora, who had the weakness for doctoring inherent in all good, women, stuffed him with cod-liver oil and 'strengthening mixtures.' Then symptoms of acute hip-disease showed themselves, and the lad was admitted to the big Infirmary in Piccadilly. There he had lain for some six or eight weeks now, toiling no more, fretting no more, living on his mother's and Dora's visits, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to superior reason, I have often wondered they could be influenced by such a prejudice. Is a black horse thought to be inferior to a white one in speed, in strength, or courage? Is a white cow thought to give more milk, or a white dog to have a more acute scent in pursuing the game? On the contrary, I have generally found, in almost every country, that a pale colour in animals is considered as a mark of weakness and inferiority. Why then should a certain race of men imagine themselves superior to the rest, for the very circumstance ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... the magnetizer should give the painful power, when she ceases to be the mirror of the world, of being conscious as a woman of what she has seen as a somnambulist. Passion raises the nervous tension of a woman to the ecstatic pitch at which presentiment is as acute as the insight of a clairvoyant. A wife knows she is betrayed; she will not let herself say so, she doubts still—she loves so much! She gives the lie to the outcry of her own Pythian power. This paroxysm of love deserves a special ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... to the Providence which had arranged so equable a quid pro quo. Prather was manifestly out for copy, despite his constant disavowals of what he termed an envious slander hatched by Philistine minds. Reed Opdyke's sense of humour was still sufficiently acute to assure him that there was every possibility that, at some more or less remote period, he would find a full-length portrait of himself in Prather's pages, a portrait all the more easily recognizable by reason of the disguises which would draw attention ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... bad qualities of the men of his peculiar class. A narrow and conceited selfishness lay at the root of the larger portion of this man's faults. As a physical being, he was a perfect labour-saving machine, himself; bringing all the resources of a naturally quick and acute mind to bear on this one end, never doing anything that required a particle more than the exertion and strength that were absolutely necessary to effect his object. He rowed the skiff in which the captain and his ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... painted from a model. Instead of getting a man or woman to sit for him in the pose he required, he would go out into the meadows and look at the men and women at their actual daily occupations; and so keen and acute was his power of observation, and so retentive was his inner eye, that he could then recall almost every detail of action or manner as clearly as if he had the original present in his studio before him. As a rule, such a practice is not to be recommended to any ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... to be overheard, but my hearing is unusually acute, and I could not help catching ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... methods. Moreover, the impression obtained that the war would soon be over.[807] McClellan was in command, and the people had not yet learned that "our chicken was no eagle, after all," as Lowell expressed it.[808] Controversy over the interference with slavery also became less acute. John Cochrane, now commanding a regiment at the front, declared, in a speech to his soldiers, that slaves of the enemy, being elements of strength, ought to be captured as much as muskets or cannon, and that whenever he could ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... pea-soup, that is pea-water, for the pease and the soup, all but about a gallon or two, were taken for the ship's company, and the coppers filled up with water, and brought down to us in a strap-tub. And Sir, I might have defied any person on earth, possessing the most acute olfactory powers and the most refined taste to decide, either by one or the other or both of these senses, whether it was pease and water, slush and ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... acute that Norma was inwardly surprised, and a little impressed. She sat down at one end of the clean little kitchen table, and rested her face in her hands, and looked ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... the half-opened door, the three ladies and d'Artagnon. At that crucial moment Etienne, whose sense of hearing was acute, heard in the cardinal's library poor Gabrielle's voice, singing, to let her ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... capacities, were the embodiment of God's creative power; as if, having said, "Let there be light," he need do nothing else, but allow it to carry forward the creative processes to the end of time. It was Newton, one of the earliest and most acute investigators in this study of light, who said, "I seem to have wandered on the shore of Truth's great ocean, and to have gathered a few pebbles more beautiful than common; but the vast ocean itself rolls before me ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... expected, that Charteris had continued their military education during his absence. General Desdichado was still maintaining a judicious seclusion, owing to a fresh attack of illness, it seemed, and Charteris remarked on the curious character of the ailment, which invariably became acute when there was a question of the General's coming in contact ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... apt to be. From the voices, Mr. Dillwyn's attention was drawn to what the voices said. And here he found, most unexpectedly, a great deal to interest him. Those rough voices spoke words of genuine intelligence; they expressed earnest interest; and they showed the speakers to be acute, thoughtful, not uninformed, quick to catch what was presented to them, often cunning to deal with it. Mr. Dillwyn was in danger of smiling, more than once. And Lois met them, if not with the skill of a practised logician, with the quick wit of a woman's ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... if they live still, let them come and take Thy slave in my despite, drink from thy cup, Speak in my place. Thou diest while I survive? Say rather that my fate is deadlier still, In this, that every day my sense of joy 310 Grows more acute, my soul (intensified By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen; While every day my hairs fall more and more, My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase— The horror quickening still from year ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... text suggests conduct, and not verbal worship. You and I, in our adherence to a simpler, less ornate and aesthetic form of devotion than prevails in the great Episcopal churches, are by no means free from the danger which, in a more acute form, besets them, of substituting participation in external acts of worship for daily righteousness of life Laborare est orare—to work is to pray. That is true with explanations, commentaries, and limitations. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... the distinctive pattern of wall-paper with which the rest of the cabinet was covered. Immediately that the doors were closed, the performer drew these false sides outward, so that they met the centre post of the doors at an acute angle. The true side walls were thereby exposed, and, of course, they were papered to correspond with the rest of the interior. Their reflection was doubled in the mirrors, making it appear to the observer that the ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... while others crossed the Red Sea to Abyssinia. Physically, the Arabs are an attractive people, with well-shaped, muscular figures, handsome, bronzed faces, brilliant, black eyes, and all the organs of sense exquisitely acute. Simple and abstemious in their habits, they lead healthy lives and often reach an ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... good fellow, and even went so far as to exhibit a quantity of money which he stated was twenty-five thousand dollars. The only result of this offer was to lead Jesse to redouble his precautions, for he argued that the situation must indeed be acute when such an offer could be deemed worth while. Thereafter it was obvious that the revelry of Dodge and his companions was on the increase. Accordingly Jesse added ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... tasteless, it means that these filaments do not vibrate. These vibrations are of two kinds. They may move faster or slower, or they may move in a peculiar way. A sharp acute taste means that the vibrations are very rapid; a ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... one of those tricks of nature which make us half acquiesce in the belief that our personality is an illusion, that we are but cosmic automata, the power of love had been granted to him again. Yet for all that—very fortunately, seeing that the crisis was more acute than he was aware—he did not fancy that his way lay plain before him. He began to perceive that the cementing of a close union between a man and woman, two beings with so abundant a capacity for misunderstanding each other, is a complex ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... late-comer had vanished. Only he was left; he again was the outsider. And now, as he stood there in the deserted square, which, a moment before, had been so animated, he had a sudden sinking of the heart: he was seized by that acute sense of desolation that lies in wait for one, caught by nightfall, alone in a strange city. It stirs up a wild longing, not so much for any particular spot on earth, as for some familiar hand or voice, to take the edge off an ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... both dietary diseases, handicapped the colony throughout the century, and probably had acute manifestations during the Starving Time of 1609-10. The colonists during the early years at Jamestown often boiled their limited rations in a common kettle, thus destroying what little valuable vitamin content the food may have had; eggs, vegetables, and fruits which ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... being the first naval officer who heard, understood, and dared to act upon the suggestions of Ericsson, as to the application of the propeller to ships of war. At the first glance, he saw the important bearings of the invention; and his acute judgment enabled him at once to predict that it was destined to work a revolution in naval warfare. After making a single trip in the experimental steamboat, from London Bridge to Greenwich, he ordered the inventor to build for him forthwith two iron boats for the United ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... bore his sufferings with serenity, and, far from needing any comfort his friends could give him, himself administered consolation to the noblemen around his bed. His sufferings were acute. Amboise Pare, the famous surgeon of the king, himself a Huguenot, was called in; but the instruments at hand were dull, and it was not until the third attempt that he could satisfactorily amputate the wounded finger. "My friends," said Coligny to Merlin, his minister, and to other friends, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... sacred crowd. Failing that, she had found Ralph himself, and had not expected to find him; had talked with him about Nita, and had quarreled a bit with him, perhaps, over his love-sodden behavior. And the crisis had become so acute that Polly had arbitrarily called upon Clive Hammond and then had forced Ralph ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... Robin listened with acute interest. Why did not Wixton mention Innocent? Did he know she was not a Jocelyn? He waited, ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... have wondered that a man considered so acute as myself should have been deluded into embarrassments like mine, and not a few have declared, in short meter, that 'Barnum was a fool.' I can only reply that I never made pretensions to the sharpness of a pawnbroker, and I hope I shall never so entirely lose confidence in human nature as to ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... jealousy came in Hermione, acute, fierce, and travelling—like a needle being moved steadily, point downwards, through a network of ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... to myself, that there are those that are my enemies as well as his, and by name my Lord Brouncker who hath said some odd speeches against me. So that he advises me to stand on my guard; which I shall do, and unless my too-much addiction to pleasure undo me, will be acute ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... oe and ae in words such as "moestus" is in the original. Accents are variously acute ', grave ' or circumflex ^, with no apparent difference in meaning. Some do not ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... and started again, and more than half of my journey was accomplished, ere at length I picked up the Gazette, and opened it with the false calm of a drunkard who has sworn that he will not wet his lips before a certain hour. For, well knowing from experience that I should suffer acute ennui in the train, I had, when buying the Gazette at Euston, taken oath that I would not even glance at it till after Rugby; it is always the final hour of these railway journeys that is ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... his own motives he had determined to offer himself to Mrs. Goddard, and he had accordingly done so in his own straightforward manner. It had seemed a very important action in his life, a very solemn step, but he was not prepared for the acute sense of disappointment which he felt when Mrs. Goddard first said it was impossible for her to accept him, still less had he anticipated the extraordinary story which she had told him, in explanation of her refusal. His ideas were completely upset. That Mrs. ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... of animosities. The very next day after Peregrine's arrival, some sharp repartees passed between them in presence of the ladies, before whom each endeavoured to assert his own superiority. In these contests our hero never failed of obtaining the victory, because his genius was more acute, and his talents better cultivated, than those of his antagonist, who therefore took umbrage at his success, became jealous of his reputation, and began to treat him with marks of scorn ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... as the work of these men was, the foundation of fact on which they reared it became evidently more and more insecure. For as far back as the seventeenth century acute theologians had begun to discern difficulties more serious than any that had before confronted them. More and more it was seen that the number of different species was far greater than the world had hitherto imagined. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Rise of acute disorder in 1868. Mikado resumes "reconstructed" South. government ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... Johnny and his acute vision had become a bye-word in that part of the country and his friends had made it a practice to stop him and gravely discuss spirit manifestations of all kinds. He had thrashed Wood Wright and been thrashed by Sandy Lucas ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... inadvertently left open. The least check would have thrown them down the hatchway, and probably killed one, or both, but they leaped over it without difficulty. They differ in intellectual vigour; the perceptions of one are more acute than those of the other, and there is a corresponding coincidence in moral qualities. He who appears most intelligent is somewhat irritable in temper, while ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various
... overboard when out of sight of land, and when this was made public the mob literally tore him limb from limb. So it does not pay to monkey with the Sultan's pets in the home of their nativity. Although no one would suspect it, they have a high order of intelligence and an acute instinct for local government. By some unwritten law they divide the town into districts with sharply defined boundaries invisible to the human eye, yet plainly apparent to the animal. If an intruder crosses this line he is sorry for it before he reaches his ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... through the army reform. Others thought as he did. Who so fitted to come to the help of the Crown as this man who, ten years before, had shewn such ability in Parliamentary debate? And whenever the crisis became more acute, all the Quidnuncs of Berlin shook their heads and said, "Now we shall have a Bismarck Ministry, and that will be a coup d'etat and ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... Old Bachelor be more nearly examined, it will be found to be one of those comedies which may be made by a mind vigorous and acute, and furnished with comick characters by the perusal of other poets, without much actual commerce with mankind. The dialogue is one constant reciprocation of conceits, or clash of wit, in which nothing flows necessarily from the occasion, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... justice, however acute her sense of exile might be, she had not obtruded her woes upon her schoolfellows, and had conducted her weeping in secret. If sounds of distress filtered through the door, it was only when matters seemed particularly ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... village and sat down under a mulberry tree. The Queen stalked him. She made her approach in a most approved fashion, creeping through some low bushes with the utmost caution. She was even careful to advance against the wind in case Stephanos should have an unusually acute sense of smell. Phillips and Kalliope watched her from a hiding-place near the village. When she got within twenty yards of the old man, he rose to his feet, laid his hand on his heart and bowed to the Queen with dignified courtesy. If he felt any surprise at seeing ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... have already mentioned, their opening of the "intensified submarine campaign" had been planned weeks before. This question had now become acute, and I received the two following Foreign Office ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... was difficult with her bound hands to sit upright, and saw a dark shadow approaching her. That dark shadow she knew to be the figure of a man. An Indian would not be approaching in such a manner, and she looked again, startled into a sudden acute attention, and into a belief that the incredible, the impossible, was about to happen. A voice came from the figure, and its quality was that of the white voice, not ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in a book, and hearing it from lips pallid with the meaning of the words they uttered, and a heart which was about to prove its sincerity by voluntary pangs more hard than death. Frank Wentworth listened to his brother with a great deal of agreement in what he said, and again with an acute perception of mistakes on Gerald's part, and vehement impulses of contradiction, to which, at the same time, it was impossible to give utterance; for there was something very solemn in the account he was giving of himself, as he stood with his face half turned to the ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... medical care is given, rarely results in sepsis. Therapeutic abortion, done with all the safeguards of modern surgical practice, is associated with very little acute sepsis. ...
— Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Various Aspects of the Problem of Abortion in New Zealand • David G. McMillan
... and armament to be purchased at a valuation, and a force of Italian Arab irregulars to be transferred to the Egyptian service. Sir H. Kitchener then returned to the Nile, where the situation had suddenly become acute. During November Colonel Parsons, the 16th Egyptian Battalion, and a few native gunners marched from Suakin, and on the 20th of December arrived at Kassala. The Italian irregulars—henceforth to be known as the Arab battalion—were at once despatched to the attack of the small Dervish posts ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... air intensified this impression of suspended life. The days were dumb enough; but at night the hush became acute. In the quarter I inhabit, always deserted in summer, the shuttered streets were mute as catacombs, and the faintest pin-prick of noise seemed to tear a rent in a black pall of silence. I could hear the tired tap of a lame ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... breeze crept through the fir avenue, bearing with it a muffled booming sound which was sufficient to raise the curtain of distance—never truly opaque for such as he—and to display to that acute inner vision a reeking battlefield. Before his shuddering soul defiled men maimed, blind, bleeding from ghastly hurts; men long dead. Women he saw in lowly hovels, weeping over cots fashioned from rough boxes; women, dry-eyed, mutely tragic, surrounded by softness, luxury and ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... sir," said Roundjacket, in a tone of acute agony; "it is more than I can bear. See here, sir, again: 'High Jove! great father!' is changed into 'By Jove, I'd rather!' and so on. Sir, it is more than humanity can bear; I feel that I shall sink ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... young matron, qualified the squire's behavior as "Quite abominable!" but she declared that she would not vex herself if she were Miss Fairfax—"No, indeed!" Bessie tried hard not. She tried to be dignified, but her disappointment was too acute, and her grandfather's usage of her too humiliating, to be borne with her ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... motion are communicated from one part of the body to the other, though he confuses the affections with the organs. Hearing is a blow which passes through the ear and ends in the region of the liver, being transmitted by means of the air, the brain, and the blood to the soul. The swifter sound is acute, the sound which moves slowly is grave. A great body of sound is loud, the opposite is low. Discord is produced by the swifter and slower motions of two sounds, and is converted into harmony when the swifter motions begin to pause and are ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... is at the edge of comparatively still water. At the bottom of the falls the river turns an acute angle and flows to the west. At the landing it turns with equal abruptness, and ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... of the storm was bewildering. In the last hour or so the entire aspect of things had altered, and Magda was conscious of a freakish sense of the unreality of it all. With the ridiculous inconsequence of thought that so often accompanies moments of acute anxiety she reflected that Noah probably experienced a somewhat similar astonishment when he woke up one morning to find that ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... was came of the mentality which denies the existence of a power on the ground that it is not perfect. Command of the sea never has been and never can be absolute. French privateers had never been more active nor British losses at sea more acute than after Trafalgar, when no French Navy ventured out of port; and the destruction of every German Dreadnought would not have affected by one iota the ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... the slip from tune to twang! Sweets bitter grow, as aye they did; For e'en the Roman poet sang "Surgit amari aliquid." Our pigmy worries turn us grey; And sorrows fierce are less acute; Our hearts are riddled every day With Rifts ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... instead a man slightly below her in social position, but with firmness and decision of character and genuine skill in—what? Ironmongery? No, literature. All through the book I found myself wondering whether a mind so finely tempered as Katharine's, a perception so acute, was really fitted for anything so commonplace as, after all, love is. And I longed for the authoress, who explained every mood so amazingly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... these, perhaps, were hardly to be expected. Other nations have been called thin-skinned, but the citizens of the Union have, apparently, no skins at all; they wince if a breeze blows over them, unless it be tempered with adulation. It was not, therefore, very surprising that the acute and forcible observations of a traveler they knew would be listened to should be received testily. The extraordinary features of the business were, first, the excess of the rage into which they lashed themselves; and, secondly, the puerility of the inventions by which they ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain |
