"All-important" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seems not to be condescension merely on one side, and grateful respect for being noticed at all on the other, but a feeling of independence and mutual respect between individuals of the most different stations and classes. This may be accounted for from wealth not being so all-important as in our social state; its influence in society is less where the majority are merely occupied in living agreeably on what they have, without motive or desire ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... may be remarked, was a moveable feast, depending very much on the duties in hand and the arrival of the steamer. To get the fish ready and shipped for market is always regarded as his first and all-important duty by the deep-sea trawler, who, until it is performed, will not condescend to give attention to such secondary matters as food and repose. These are usually taken when opportunity serves. Pipes and recreation, in the form of games at cards, draughts, dominoes, and yarns, are also ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... all-important clause in the will is not carried out to the letter, the whole fortune goes to ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... we shall see the underlying idea of the gift to be the connection of opposites. Not too much can be said of this law, so all-important and significant in Froebel's system.[26] We should bear it constantly in mind, and bring it in connection with every new phase of our work. Froebel cannot be understood clearly unless this deep principle, which lies at the ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... objects to housekeeping; she calls it domestic slavery, and feels she was intended for higher things. What higher things she does not condescend to explain. One or two wives of my acquaintance have persuaded their husbands that these higher things are all-important. The home has been given up. In company with other strivers after higher things, they live now in dismal barracks differing but little from a glorified Bloomsbury lodging-house. But they call them "Mansions" or "Courts," ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... understand why they are unable to retain their rejected lovers. To me the explanation is plain. The average woman has nothing to give her lover, when he asks the all-important question, but a few tender, meaningless words to environ her yes or no. Of course, when the answer is yes, they both feed on the thought of marriage until its consummation. But if she is forced to say no, it leaves her barren ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... review of the whole of this extraordinary transaction, or series of transactions, it is impossible to avoid regarding the issue of the struggle as an all-important element in the case, and a test almost decisive of the correctness of conduct of the rival leaders. We may leave out of the question the action of the King in his communication to Lord Temple, which, although sanctioned by the great legal authority of Lord Thurlow, we are, for reasons already ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... Subordinating to the good of his people the natural disposition to found a dynasty, which in his case would have been so easy, he discards the claims of blood and calls to his place of leader the fittest man. Coming from a land where the rites of sepulture were regarded as all-important, and the preservation of the body after death was the passion of life; among a people who were even then carrying the remains of their great ancestor, Joseph, to rest with his fathers, he yet conquered the last natural yearning and withdrew from the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... gallant enemy, gave orders to have all Tordenskjold's belongings sent back to him, but he did not live to see the order carried out. He was found dead in the rifle-pits before Frederiksteen on December 11, 1718, shot through the head. It was Tordenskjold himself who brought the all-important news to King Frederik in the night of December 28,—they were not the days of telegraphs and fast steamers,—and when the King, who had been roused out of bed to receive him, could not trust his ears, ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... off in the battle array. Copies of the chart of Zeebrugge, the original that had been found on the converted U-boat at the time of her capture, had been given to every submarine skipper in the fleet. Each had his orders for this all-important night. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... that I had discovered mine. The key fitted it, but on opening there was nothing inside but a few paper collars and a flask of whisky. Tumbling the baggage right and left, in a few moments I espied my lost treasure, and in it the all-important document, all right; and now I will show it to you—on your honor, mind!" The inaugural was printed in a clear-sized type, and wherever Mr. Lincoln had thought that a paragraph would make an impression upon his audience, he had preceded it ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... enunciated from conventicle pulpits, and have no hesitation in saying that Anti-State Church Associations do not touch the root of political evils. Their usefulness is great, because they give currency to a sound principle, but that principle though important, is not all-important—though powerful, is not all-powerful. If universally adopted, it is questionable that any useful change of a lasting character would be worked in the economy ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... apparent in the conduct of the Presbyterian ministers during the whole course of the insurrections of 1745. The young nobleman appears to have imbibed, with this persuasion, a sincere conviction of those incontrovertible, and all-important truths of Christianity which, happily, the contentions of sect cannot nullify, nor the passions of mankind assail. "He always believed," such is his own declaration, "in the great truths of God's Being and Providence, and in a future state of rewards and punishments for virtue and vice." ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... circumstances which would have prejudiced his mind against us; yet it was urgent to tell him the truth and to shew herself entirely submissive to his will. I found myself placed in a strange position, and above all, I regretted having made the all-important application, precisely because it was certain to have too decisive a result. I longed to get out of the state of indecision in which I was, and I was surprised to see my young mistress less anxious than I was. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... penning his all-important letter in his room, Pluma was walking restlessly to and fro in her boudoir, conning over in her mind the ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... of mankind; and for you and for us the question of the quality of the individual citizen is supreme. Under other forms of government, under the rule of one man or of a very few men, the quality of the rulers is all-important. If, under such governments, the quality of the rulers is high enough, then the nation may for generations lead a brilliant career, and add substantially to the sum of world achievement, no matter how low the quality ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... attention to him. Serious and thoughtful, he walked up and down the room, while his heavenward-directed eye seemed to address a great and all-important question to the Being there ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... scientific attitude is even more recent and more difficult than in the physical sciences: it is natural to consider that human nature is either good or bad, and to suppose that the difference between good and bad, so all-important in practice, must be important in theory also. It is only during the last century that an ethically neutral psychology has grown up; and here too, ethical neutrality has been essential to ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... give especial heed to this all-important fact—that the well-being of man is directly proportional to the intensity of labor and the multiplicity of industries: so that the increase of wealth and the increase of labor are ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... 'men of the black robe'—so the saying goes. They represent the three principal elements necessary to the existence of society—conscience, property, and health. At one time the first, and at a later period the second, was all-important in the State. Our predecessors on this earth thought, perhaps not without reason, that the priest, who prescribed what men should think, ought to be paramount; so the priest was king, pontiff, and judge in one, for in those days belief and faith were everything. All this ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... So as to the all-important question of diet. "Of all the means of cure at our command," says Dr. Bennett, "a regulation of the quantity and quality of the diet is by far the most powerful." Dr. MacCormac would perhaps except the air we breathe, for he thinks that impure air, especially in ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Christianity, an error which cannot be explained away, and the mischievous consequences of which are obvious every day: I mean the unnatural distinction Christianity makes between man and the animal world to which he really belongs. It sets up man as all-important, and looks upon animals as merely things. Brahmanism and Buddhism, on the other hand, true to the facts, recognize in a positive way that man is related generally to the whole of nature, and specially and principally to animal nature; and in ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... the army, in relation to Fenianism. This they thought could be best accomplished through the instrumentality of a tried emissary of their own, as even from the Provincial Cabinet conflicting accounts were arriving constantly in relation to the all-important subject. In furtherance of this view, the Castle of Dublin was, of course, applied to, and a creature selected to do the work, who was not himself fully aware that his position was recognized by the imperial ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... years only one question has risen to the surface of politics which gravely affects the destinies of Ireland, but that one is of so vast and all-important a character that it cannot be evaded. The question I mean, of course, of Home Rule. Complicated as its issues are, embittered as the controversy it has awakened, dark still as are its destinies, its history as a piece of projected, ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... pages I will try to sift the evidence obtainable, with the impartiality of one trammeled by the support of no particular theory; always bearing in mind, however, one fact, all-important in a study where so much depends on nomenclature, namely, to give that shade of meaning and that amount of weight to any term which it possessed in the age in which it was used, carefully distinguishing this from its use in any earlier or later ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... and claims—all-important as they are for the definition of the range and character of the prophet's activity—we can decide only after a preliminary consideration of the few clear and admitted principles of Hebrew poetry, of their consequences, and of analogies to ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... high grade of velocity. Again, that the varying degrees of damage depend comparatively slightly on the position of the bone lesion, apart from actual encroachment on the canal, while the degree of velocity retained by the bullet at the moment of impact is all-important. In no other way are the divergent results to be explained which follow an apparently identical injury, in so far as extent, position, and external evidence of damage to the ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... things for the party were still lying on the bed. The sight of them struck a chill to her heart, for it made her realize how little one can tell what a day may bring; how evening may see changes undreamt of in the morning. The party which had seemed all-important when she woke that day had dwindled away into nothing, blotted out of sight by the happenings of the last few hours. Still, her chief feeling was one of great thankfulness that the doctor thought her uncle would get over this trouble; and that she had ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... through the residue of the kingdom seemed free from any serious obstacle. Accordingly, the Earl of Salisbury, one of the bravest and most experienced of the English generals, who had been trained under Henry V, marched to the attack of the all-important city; and, after reducing several places of inferior consequence in the neighborhood, appeared with his army before its walls on the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... things. My spiritual life was very latent, it is true; but it was sincere, so far as it went, and in this more favourable atmosphere, the buds are unfolding, and I am learning more and more of the love and wisdom which I always dimly saw and appreciated. It is the attitude of mind which is all-important, and my attitude, though critical, was never ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... time, it was evident that considerable difficulty would be experienced in discovering the men engaged in such traffic, and in making an arrangement with them, and it was all-important that no time should be lost, for there was no saying when the ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... The demerits you censure in English Judaism are all departures from the old way of living. Why should we not revive or strengthen that, rather than waste ourselves on impracticable novelties? And in your prognostications of the future of the Jews have you not forgotten the all-important factor of Palestine?" ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the once all-important matter of professional and worldly ambition seemed not worth troubling about. They even so vexed him that he had become profoundly indifferent as to Josephine. He saw her rarely. When they were alone he either talked neutral subjects or sat almost mute, ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... the poor children. The Squire and I have done all that lay in the power of mortals to avert the blow. But it has been God's will that we should not succeed. You can tell Molly by-and-by how it is that her dear father has got into such terrible money difficulties, but now the all-important thing for the children to know is this.... The Towers is sold, and we must all go away from the dear home we have loved so long. The Squire is terribly upset, and cannot bring himself to come back just at once, but I am returning ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... after this life's discipline, of "enjoying Him fully for ever." He labours for man, man on earth, because he loves God in heaven, and because he believes that God made man and redeemed man for an immortality to which time is only the short while all-important avenue. In the calmest and most normal Christian periods, accordingly, for the least perilous and heroic forms of faithful Christian service, it is vital to remember that attitude and action of the soul which we call faith. For faith is essential ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... have been free of a preoccupation little short of ludicrous in proportion to the face value of the cause. But he had leisure, too, to reflect that in reality the issue involved in that tiny episode concerned human existence to its depths—for, what was it but the simple, all-important question of human freedom? The simple, all-important issue of how far men and women should try to rule the lives of others instead of trying only to rule their own, and how far those others should allow their lives to be so ruled? This it was which ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... flag of Vice-Admiral Plampin, commanding at the Cape and St. Helena; and at that all-important islet, in July 1817 she relieved the flag-ship of Sir Pulteney Malcolm. Thus it befell that Charles Jenkin, coming too late for the epic of the French wars, played a small part in the dreary and disgraceful afterpiece of St. Helena. Life on the guard-ship was onerous and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Pompeius fought with distinction under Sulla in the Italian war. Far inferior to many of his peers in mental gifts, literary culture, and military talent, he outstripped them by his boundless activity, and by the perseverance with which he strove to possess everything and to become all-important. Above all, he threw himself into speculation. Purchases of estates during the revolution formed the foundation of his wealth; but he disdained no branch of gain; he carried on the business of building in the capital on a great ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... years for the girl, but each was happy now in the heavy summer air. A beetle scuttled out upon the gravel path and bored onwards, its six legs all working hard, butting up against stones, upsetting itself on ridges, but still gathering itself up and rushing onwards to some all-important appointment somewhere in the grass plot. A bat fluttered up from behind the beech-tree. A breath of night air sighed softly over the hillside with a little tinge of the chill sea spray in its coolness. Dolly Foster shivered, ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... has increased so enormously during recent years that the scenting of soaps has now become an art requiring very considerable skill, and a thorough knowledge of the products to be handled. Not only does the all-important question of odour come into consideration, but the action of the perfumes on the soap, and on each other, has also to be taken into account. Thus, many essential oils and synthetic perfumes cause the soap to darken rapidly on keeping, e.g., clove oil, cassia ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons
... modesty if I insist a little longer on so fruitful a topic as my own multifarious merits. It is altogether for your good. The better you think of me, the better men and women you will find yourselves. I shall say nothing of my all-important aid on washing-days, though on that account alone I might call myself the household god of a hundred families. Far be it from me, also, to hint, my respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces which you would present without my pains ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... led to reflect upon the various blessings connected with the establishment of public worship. "How many immortal souls are now gathering together to perform the all-important work of prayer and praise—to hear the word of God—to feed upon the bread of life! They are leaving their respective dwellings, and will soon be united together in the house of prayer. How beautifully does this represent the effect produced by the voice of the 'Good Shepherd,' ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... his own favorable or unfavorable comments. How did Dr. Royce treat it? He not only absolutely ignored it, not only said nothing whatever about it, but actually took pains to put the reader on a false scent at the start, by assuring him (without the least discussion of this all-important point) that my philosophical conclusions ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... France. 1423—1424.—The English nation was bent upon maintaining its supremacy in France. Bedford was a good warrior and an able statesman. In 1423 he prudently married the sister of Philip of Burgundy, hoping thereby to secure permanently the all-important fidelity of the Duke. His next step was to place difficulties in the way of the Scottish auxiliaries who poured into France to the help of Charles. Through his influence the captive James I. (see p. 295) was liberated and sent home to Scotland, on the understanding ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... repeat the same error in a worse form. The Despotisms imply the Communes as their predecessors. Each and all of them grew up and flourished on the soil of decadent or tired Republics. Though they are all-important at one period of Italian history—the period of the present work—they do but form an episode in the great epic of the nation. He who attempts a general history of Italy from the point of view of the despotisms, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... all these combined, a sort of chord of which the features will be but the component elements. It is the relation of the different parts to this chord, this impression of the personality of a head, that is the all-important thing in what is popularly called "catching the likeness." In drawing a portrait the mind must be centred on this, and all the individual parts drawn in relation to it. The moment the eye gets interested solely in some individual part and forgets the consideration ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... the question. And if it got neither, what then? How would it stand up under the strain? Would the tie that bound hold in defeat? Could the rest of the army live up to the Guard, for instance? Yes, that was the grave, the all-important question. ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... shame, I confess I did soon lose that little I learned, and that almost utterly.'[12] This fact will recur to the reader's recollection when he peruses Israel's Hope Encouraged, in which, speaking of the all-important doctrine of justification, he says—'It is with many that begin with this doctrine as it is with boys that go to the Latin school; they learn till they have learned the grounds of their grammar, and then ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... were afloat throughout our village during the succeeding week! "Who can this stranger-lady be? From whence has she come, and how long intend remaining here?" seemed to be the all-important queries of the day; and so gravely were they discussed, each varying supposition advanced or withdrawn as best suited the charity or credulity of the respective interrogators, that one would certainly have thought them questions of vital importance ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... Pure blood is the all-important factor in health. If the blood is not pure it can be made pure by the methods which I have suggested. Remember that this purity depends first upon pure food and functional strength, in order that a good quality of blood may be produced; and secondly, upon active elimination ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... Wood did, and who was entirely aware of our national unpreparedness, it was evident that the ordnance and quartermaster's bureaus could not meet, for some time to come, one-tenth of the demands that would be made upon them; and it was all-important to get in first with our demands. Thanks to his knowledge of the situation and promptness, we immediately put in our requisitions for the articles indispensable for the equipment of the regiment; and then, ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... difficulties; she was constant in her inquiries as to the progress of affairs, and listened anxiously to the many different prognostics as to the result. Miss Agnes remarked indeed, one day, when Mr. Ellsworth thought he had succeeded in obtaining an all-important clue, in tracing the previous career of Harry's opponent, that his sister seemed much elated—she sent an extremely amiable message to Hazlehurst in her brother's letter. It afterwards appeared, however, on farther inquiry, that this very point ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... great questions. Many of them are unintelligible rhapsodies; others rise almost to sublimity. They frequently contradict each other; the same writer sometimes contradicts himself. One prevailing characteristic is all-important; their doctrine is pantheism. The pantheism is sometimes not so much a coldly reasoned system as an aspiration, a yearning, a deep-felt need of something better than the mob of gods who came in the train of Indra, and the darker deities who were still crowding in. Even ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... is quite true that the life of a quiet scholar has little to do with history, except it may be the history of his own branch of study, which some people consider quite unimportant, while to others it seems all-important. This is as it ought to be, till the universal historian finds the right perspective, and assigns to each branch of study and activity its proper place in the panorama of the progress of mankind towards its ideals. Even a quiet scholar, ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... advertisement. The gravity of the situation banished the cloud of despondency that threatened to settle upon him, and also the doubts that presented themselves as to whether he possessed the requisite ability to produce what the bookseller required. The all-important question was, could he exist sufficiently long on eighteen-pence to complete a story? Sir Richard Phillips had told him to live on bread and ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... her shameless guilt. All her sighs and tears, professions of love and devotion, the fond tenacity of her embrace, the deep-seated earnestness and significance in her looks—all went for nothing in her failure to utter the one only, and all-important communication. ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... to Hetty was a triumph of skill and diplomacy, achieved after many attempts. He found it hard not to say too much, and quite as difficult not to say too little. He spent hours over this all-important missive. At last it was finished. He read and re-read it, searching for the slightest flaw: a fatal word or suggestion that might create in her mind the slightest doubt as to his sincerity. She was sure ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the future. The canal is the property of the United States, and we shall always retain control. In the event of war we shall rely with confidence upon our navy to protect our interests on the Pacific and in the Caribbean Sea, but even more may we rely upon the all-important fact that it could never be to the interest of any other nation sufficient in size to be at war with us to destroy this international waterway, which will become an important necessity to the commerce of each and all. No neutral ...
— The American Type of Isthmian Canal - Speech by Hon. John Fairfield Dryden in the Senate of the - United States, June 14, 1906 • John Fairfield Dryden
... variations are inherited. No one doubts that their mental faculties are of the utmost importance to animals in a state of nature. Therefore the conditions are favorable for their development through natural selection. The same conclusion may be extended to man; the intellect must have been all-important to him, even at a very remote period, as enabling him to invent and use language, to make weapons, tools, traps, etc., whereby, with the aid of his social habits, he long ago became the most ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... But the one all-important event of the occasion was the lacrosse game, for which it had been customary to select those two bands which could boast the greater number ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... 470 officers and men, and a band of 33 men. Only a few months before, the preceding budget had authorized an infantry force of about 800 officers and men and a battery of mountain artillery of 100 officers and men, in addition to the all-important band. In reality, however, only the membership of the band was certain; in time of war the rest of the military establishment was much larger, and in time of peace it comprised numerous phantom soldiers, whose salaries were nevertheless regularly collected ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... demanded, "to know what I am really thinking of at this very moment while I talk so calmly? Well, you will never know. And for the rest, you are at liberty to use your all-important documents as you may elect. I am John Charteris; whatever man begot my body, he is rotten bones to-day, and it is as such I value him. I was never anybody's son—or friend or brother or lover,—but just a pen that someone ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... prices. Aid cuts by Zambia's donors, arising out of concern for the November 1996 flawed election, will severely damage Zambia's economic prospects. Urged by the World Bank, Zambia has embarked on a privatization program which is to include the all-important copper industry. ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the general question: not only must the dramatist reckon with one all-important audience which is totally ignorant of the story he has to tell; he must also bear in mind that it is very easy to exaggerate the proportion of any given audience which will know his plot in advance, even when his play has been performed a ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... of a century ago, you and I must have been in something like the same state of mind on the main question, but you were able to see and work out the quo modo of the succession, the all-important thing, while I failed to grasp it. I send by this post a little controversial pamphlet of old date—Combe and Scott. If you will take the trouble to glance at the passages scored on the margin, you will see that, a quarter of a century ago, I was also one of the few who then doubted ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... value, for the experience afterward convinced him that Great Britain had had no part in bringing on the European war, and that Germany was solely responsible. It certainly should have put the Wilson Administration right on this all-important point, when the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... literature, and the view of the writer is itself a fact more important because less disputable than the others. Now this spirit in which a subject is regarded, important in all kinds of literary work, becomes all-important in works of fiction, meditation, or rhapsody; for there it not only colours but itself chooses the facts; not only modifies but shapes the work. And hence, over the far larger proportion of the field of literature, the health or disease of the writer's mind or momentary humour forms not ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ironed for Sunday and—well, mother certainly had been very non-committal the past few days—ever since that escapade with Bedelia, in fact—regarding her youngest daughter's hopes and fears for this all-important afternoon. And Patience had been wise enough not to press ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... upon it, Richard and I; he with a young lover's unrecking rashness, and I with an old campaigner's foresight to make me stubborn; and Ephraim Yeates and the Catawba drew aside and let us have it out. Dick argued angrily that time was the all-important item, and was not above taunting me bitterly, flinging the reproach of cold-blooded age in my face and swearing hotly that I knew not so much as the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... year 1812, however, "Greek met Greek," when, of a verity, came "the tug of war." The great change that came over the other navies of Europe, was merely a consequence of the revolutions, which drove experienced men into exile, and which, by rendering armies all-important even to the existence of the different states, threw nautical enterprises into the shade, and gave an engrossing direction to courage and talent, in another quarter. While France was struggling, first for independence, and next for the mastery of the continent, a marine ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that first discharge had been a burst of snap-shooting, and by moonlight it takes a rare man indeed to make an accurate snapshot. The first discharge left both Andrew and the horse untouched, and for the moment the wild hope of unexpected success was raised in his heart. And he had noted one all-important fact—the flashes, widely scattered as they were, did not extend across the exact course of his flight toward the trees. Therefore, none of the posse would have a point-blank shot at him. For those in the rear and on the sides the weaving course of the gelding, running like a deer and swerving ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... the "red ground," and myself placed, "in letters of gold, the" new "title" upon it—in proper relation to the decorative scheme of the whole design, of which it formed naturally an all-important feature. The date was that of the Society's Royal grant, and in commemoration of its new birth. With the offending Butterfly, it has now been effaced in one clean sweep of independence, while the lion, "not so badly drawn," ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... But the all-important words had not the expected effect. Madame Witte remained quietly standing, and looked first upon her own bare feet and then curiously at ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... dealt not with dates, but with events; and the spirit of the subsequent discourse was that of warning against misapprehension, and admonition to ceaseless vigilance. "Take heed that no man deceive you" was the first and all-important caution; for within the lives of most of those apostles, many blaspheming imposters would arise, each claiming to be the Messiah. The return of Christ to earth as Lord and Judge was more remote than any of the Twelve realized. Before that glorious ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... heavy dew began to fall upon the grass. Spreading their blankets under the mimosas, they lit their pipes, and with their saddles for pillows, began to discuss various matters—the past day's work, the price of fat cattle in Melbourne, the late drought in South Australia, and such other all-important subjects to ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... recitation that we have made the examination its counterpart. As teachers we are constantly admonishing our pupils to remember, as if that were the basic principle in the educational process. In reality we do not want them to remember—we want them to know; and the distinction is all-important. The child does not remember which is his right hand; he knows. He does not remember the face of his mother; he knows her. He does not remember which is the sun and which is the moon; he knows. He does not remember snow, and rain, and ice, and mud; ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... is his extra pawn on the Q side. To exchange the Kt for the B by 30. ... K-Q3; 31. R-B 7, Kt-K4; 32. RxKKtP, KtxB would take too much time where time is all-important. White would clear the K side in the meantime, push on his KRP, and ultimately give up his R for Black's remaining P, as soon as the latter runs into Queen, after which the three passed pawns win easily ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... shines no less here than in the world of tone. The musical energy flows entirely from the dramatic conditions, like the electrical current from the cups of the battery; and the rhythmical structure of the melos (tune) is simply the transfiguration of the poetical basis. The poetry, then, is all-important in the music-drama. Wagner has rejected the forms of blank verse and rhyme as utterly unsuited to the lofty purposes of music, and has gone to the metrical principle of all the Teutonic and Slavonic poetry. This rhythmic element of ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... the parlor was deserted, for the two younger girls played dressing maids and the two elder were absorbed in the all-important business of 'getting ready for the party'. Simple as the toilets were, there was a great deal of running up and down, laughing and talking, and at one time a strong smell of burned hair pervaded the house. Meg wanted a few curls about her face, and Jo undertook to pinch the papered locks ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... to pursue my journey after two days, my first walk on the following morning was to the police-office, to procure a passport and the all-important pass-warrant; my next to the custom-house, to take possession of a small chest, which I had delivered up five days before my departure, and which, as the expeditor affirmed, I should find ready for me on my arrival at Prague. {6} ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... slaked Solovieff's vengeance. Both Aleuts and Russians had learned the one all-important lesson—the Christian's doctrine of retribution, the scientist's law of equilibrium—that brute force met by brute force ends only in mutual destruction, in anarchy, in death. Thirty years later, Vancouver ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... best to treat him well, thereby relieving her father-in-law of a considerable anxiety. He had indeed feared lest she should resent the introduction of a man who might reasonably be supposed to have retained a certain coarseness of manner from his early surroundings, and he knew that her consent was all-important in such a case, since she was virtually the mistress of the house. But Corona regarded the matter in much the same light as the old gentleman himself, feeling that nothing of such a nature could possibly injure ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... thought that by its introduction they would make of Bencoolen a thriving settlement; but as it turned out they were greatly disappointed, for both pepper and camphor, which were the only commodities there for trade, greatly declined; and commerce, which was all-important to the East India Company, almost entirely disappeared after its establishment for some few years. It was a miserable place from all accounts, and was described by Captain James Lowe, in 1836, "as an expensive port, and of no use to any nation that ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... have been seeking the solution of this all-important problem. Even conservative old Adam Smith dreamed of the emancipation of the world from the multifarious ills of metallic money; but we still cling with slavish servility to the silver of Abraham ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... language is not all-important; it is the finding what signs or letters those figures stand for that will be the difficulty. Now let us have a look at the paper. There is the first ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... by his shiny black broadcloth coat and his snow-white hair. His daughter was always uneasy about these trips; but her father could not be dissuaded from them. To him they were his one hold on active life—the all-important events of the year. It would have broken his tender old heart to tell him that he could not go to collect his "interest." And so she set his necktie right, and ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... in the voice you would use to a rather spoilt child when obedience was all-important, using Arabic with a few French words ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... voice Pogosa began the all-important part of her tale: "The mine is on the head of the Wind River. Not far, but the way is very hard. Pogosa will not be able to lead you. From where we are you cross the valley to the mountain. You turn to your right and descend to a small lake lying under a bank of snow. This bank is ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... courts, with the fewest and rarest exceptions. The courts sit in judgment upon their lives and liberties, and dispose of their dearest earthly possessions. They are not entitled to life, liberty or property if the courts should decide they are not, and yet in this all-important tribunal they are denied all voice, except as parties and witnesses, and here and there a negro lawyer is permitted to appear. One vote on the grand jury might prevent an indictment, and save disgrace and the risk of public trial; while one vote on the petit jury might save a life ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... kinds, some sent from home to meet us, others recent purchases. The distribution over, one or two speeches were made, and mutual congratulations and good wishes were exchanged. Then the crew and servants retired to enjoy the, to them, all-important event of the day—dinner and dessert. After our own late dinner, we thought of those near and dear to us at home, and drank to the health ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... contrast this with the universal fashion among Helvetius's friends, of denouncing the greater portion of the past history of the race, we cannot but see that, crude as is the language of such a passage, it contains the all-important doctrine which Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot alike ignored, that the phenomena of the conduct of mankind, even in its most barbarous phases, are capable of an intelligible explanation, in terms of motive that shall be related to their intellectual ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... one, at any rate as far as Francesca was concerned, but at least it had brought her the information for which she had been seeking. Her role of looker-on from a tactful distance had necessarily left her much in the dark concerning the progress of the all-important wooing, but during the last few hours she had, on slender though significant evidence, exchanged her complacent expectancy for a conviction that something had gone wrong. She had spent the previous evening at her brother's house, and had naturally seen nothing of Comus in that uncongenial quarter; ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... beings, or sentient organisms. The latter class of feelings, or the ethico-theological class, have reference to the moral obligations that are believed to subsist between ourselves and the Deity, or other supernatural beings. Now, in order not to lose sight of this all-important distinction, I shall criticise Dr. Newman's rendering of the ordinary argument from Conscience in each of these two points of views separately. To begin, then, with the uncompounded ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... out quietly, slouching along with a carelessness not in keeping with his all-important mission. He was soon lost sight of in the undergrowth that covered many miles of territory in that section of the country, and that finally merged with a dense forest. The lad reasoned that the Germans would be found in this forest, as well as in the more open country, but somehow he must ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... system of thought. Exactly the same may be said of the new revelation. The exhibitions of a force which is beyond human experience and human guidance is but a method of calling attention. To repeat a simile which has been used elsewhere, it is the humble telephone bell which heralds the all-important message. In the case of Christ, the Sermon on the Mount was more than many miracles. In the case of this new development, the messages from beyond are more than any phenomena. A vulgar mind might make Christ's story seem vulgar, ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... divine! But are you sure that it will last forever? Is Carlos, then, so certain of himself As to despise the charms of boundless sway? A day will come—an all-important day— When this heroic mind—I warn you now— Will sink o'erwhelmed by too severe a test. Don Philip dies; and Carlos mounts the throne, The mightiest throne in Christendom. How vast The gulf that yawns betwixt mankind and him— A god to-day, who ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... wasted. But where people go wrong is in not observing the vital importance of proceeding gently when fusion does commence. For in the actual process of firing, when fusion is about to commence, it is indeed all-important to proceed gently; otherwise the work will "fry," and, in fact, it is in danger from a variety of causes. Make it, then, your practice to aim at twenty to twenty-five minutes, instead of ten or twelve, as the period during which the pigment is to be fired, and regulate the amount ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... will be for ever connected, he determined to devote one, or two, or three years to the continuous observations of one star, with the view of measuring carefully its parallactic ellipse. How was he to select the object on which so much labour was to be expended? It was all-important to choose a star which should prove sufficiently near to reward his efforts by exhibiting a measurable parallax. Yet he could have but little more than surmise and analogy as a guide. It occurred to him that the exceptional features of 61 Cygni afforded the necessary presumption, and he determined ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... Europe, where she could have the best of teachers, besides the advantage of traveling; and it was a very satisfactory picture he drew of the woman whom he should introduce into New York society as his wife, Mrs. Wilford Cameron. It is true that Katy had not yet said the all-important word, but she was going to say it, and when late that afternoon they came up from the walk he had asked her to take, she ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... inculcation of such a belief useful in all cases save their own. Nor is this a mere theory. On the contrary, it is a fair description of an existing state of things. We have the old disciplina arcani among us in as full force as in the primitive church, but with an all-important difference. The Christian fathers practised reserve for the sake of leading the acolyte the more surely to the fulness of truth. The modern economiser keeps back his opinions, or dissembles the grounds of them, for the sake of leaving his neighbours the more at their ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... the head boys, and were on the point of leaving it to enter on the work of active life, and make their way in the world. They had often of late discussed the important question—all-important, as it seemed to them—"How are we to make our way—to gain wealth, influence, our ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... of interests and opinions, so that on three matters—the extension of slavery, internal improvements, and tariff for protection—the North and the South were opposed to each other. In the West and the Middle States these questions were all-important, and by a union of the two sections under the leadership of Clay a new tariff was passed in 1824, and in the course of the next four years $2,300,000 ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... theological authority or to the claims of religious dogma; but they had discovered a purely human curiosity about this world and it absorbed their interest. They idolized pagan literature which abounded in poisonous germs; the secular side of education became all-important; religion and theology were kept in a separate compartment. Some speculative minds, which were sensitive to the contradiction, might seek to reconcile the old religion with new ideas; but the general tendency of thinkers in the Renaissance ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury
... power, the strange scene lending him inspiration. When he had concluded his sermon, as was the custom then, he invited those who were converted to come forward to the mourner's bench and pray and talk with him on the all-important subject. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... occasions take care to treat an oath with great solemnity, as a transaction to be very scrupulously watched, because involving great moral peril as well as liability to public disgrace and infamy. It lies especially in the way of the profession to give a high tone to public sentiment upon this all-important subject, the sacredness of an oath. It is always the wisest and best course, to have an interview with the client, and draw from him by questions, whether he knows the facts which you know he is required to state, so that you may judge whether, as ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... to this order. He issued a proclamation informing the inhabitants of the intention of the king towards them; omitting, however, that clause relating to their religion, a clause all-important to them. The document was printed at Boston in French, and sent to Mascarene to be distributed. Mascarene thought at the time that it produced a good effect. Shirley's instructions were clear; but in explanation of his omission he represented that such a promise might ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty
... with my good pen I'll open it," he joyously paraphrased. But toward what part of the world should he turn his face—to what market take his precious wares? That was the all-important question! How much his fortune ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... the passage through. An overland expedition was to be landed from the Bear as soon as practicable, at some point on the coast of Alaska, in Bering Sea, to be determined upon by Captain Tuttle. The problem of getting food to the imperiled people at the earliest time possible was the all-important consideration, for it was fully understood that the Bear could not, under the most favorable conditions of ice navigation in that region, reach their neighborhood before the following July or August. The utter lack of transportation of any kind in this far-off land suggested ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... over a wider span of water than ever was done before, and that ought to make him happy." After saying this in a tone of high authority, befitting his dignity as a fellow of his college, Harry Clavering went out, leaving his mother and sisters to discuss the subject, which to two of them was all-important. As to Mary, she had hopes of her own, vested in the clerical concerns of a ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... an action, then, signifies nothing: the action itself, its selection and construction, this is what is all-important. This the Greeks understood far more clearly than we do. The radical difference between their poetical theory and ours consists, as it appears to me, in this: that, with them, the poetical character of the action in itself, and the conduct of it, was the ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... the cross-country run, as well as many other victories and defeats, had pretty well instilled it in the Lakerim minds that team-play is an all-important factor of success. But the time came when there was no opportunity to use the hard-learned, easily forgot lesson of team-work, and it was each man for himself, and all for Lakerim ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes |
