"Attain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... considerable. The captain, Don Hernan Escalante, was a refined, highly-educated man. His knowledge on most matters was extensive, if not profound; he spoke several languages, and among them English, with a fluency few Spaniards attain. Few Spaniards indeed of that day were equally accomplished. His first lieutenant, Pedro Alvarez, was every inch a seaman, and like many seamen despised all who were not so. Again the captain stopped ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... repeated very often of late years by Altruists; but, while the doctrine is accepted both by Agnostics and Christians as perfect, there has been little done to show men how to practically realize it. But I have ever noted that in this Pilgrim's Progress of our life, those are most likely to attain to the Celestial City, and all its golden glories, who, like CHRISTIAN, start from the lowliest beginnings; and as the learning our letters leads to reading the greatest books, so the simplest method of directing the attention and the most mechanical means of developing Will, ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon As yet the early-rising Sun Has not attain'd his noon. Stay, stay, Until the hasting day Has run But to the even-song; And, having pray'd together, we Will go ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... realizing that he who wishes to surely attain his revenge must wait, dissimulate, prepare an opportunity, ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... salary of a working woman in office or store was not sufficient to allow them more than a trifle above necessary living expenses, and they could see themselves old, wrinkled and grey before they could hope to attain their ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... in your course of practice you are first required to attain the power of drawing lines accurately and delicately, so in the course of theory, or grammar, I wish you first to learn the principles of linear design, exemplified by the schools which (Sec. 137) you will find characterized as the ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... thank thee. Go. [Exit Ursula. Why was the banishment of tyrant fate Annulled by vigorous will? and why should I, For whom the jaws of death unhinged themselves, Escape from shipwreck, war, and pestilence, And here attain my journey's end at last, But that such evil deaths were much too mild To gratify the fury that pursues me! I was reserved for this last ignominy As in despite of human purposes; Robbed of mine honor where most I placed my trust And reap this pain where ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... cannot be considered a fair test of the enduring and vivacious properties of human thought, because such books so seldom really touch upon their ostensible subject, and have, therefore, so little business to be written at all. So long as an unlettered soul can attain to saving grace there would seem to be no deadly error in holding theological libraries to be accumulations of, for the most ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... handwriting, when he was probably not more than eight or nine years old." During this period, too, there came into his possession the "Young Man's Companion," an English vade-mecum of then enormous popularity, written "in a plain and easy stile," the title states, "that a young Man may attain the same, without a Tutor." It would be easier to say what this little book did not teach than to catalogue what it did. How to read, write, and figure is but the introduction to the larger part of the work, which taught one to write letters, wills, deeds, ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... ideal beauty which controlled every sense! Oh, imagination, how tyrannical is thy sway—how exclusive thy power—how insatiable thy thirst! Surrounded by living beauty, I was insensible to its influence; for, with all the perfection that reality can attain on earth, there was ever to be found some deficiency, either physical or moral, that defaced the symmetry and destroyed the loveliness of the whole; but, no sooner didst thou, with magic wand, conjure up one of thy embodiments, than my heart became a sea ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... unsympathetic, it was to avoid the great scandal of the age,—a still greater evil. To the monk was denied even the blessing of the marriage ties. Celibacy became a fundamental law of monachism. It was not to cement a spiritual despotism that Basil forbade marriage, but to attain a greater sanctity,—for a monk was consecrated to what was supposed to be the higher life. This law of celibacy was abused, and gradually was extended to all the clergy, secular as well as regular, but not till the clergy were all subordinated to the rule of an absolute Pope. It is the fate ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... his manner, however, for he is a live wire in the fullest American sense. Every time I talked with him I went away with a new wonder at his stock of world information. Men of the Jadot type never climb to the heights they attain without a reason. In his case it is first and foremost an accurate knowledge of every undertaking. He never goes into a project without first knowing all about it—a helpful rule, by the way, that the average person may well observe in ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... of Life-Essence is not another's—it is our own. It does not require deep studies, hard labours, weary journeyings to attain it; it is not the monopoly of this teacher or that writer, whose lectures we must attend or whose books we must read to get it. It is the innermost of ourselves, and a little common-sense thought as to how anything comes to be anything will soon convince us that the great ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... dry-farming must be done away with. The year of drouth must be expected every year. Only as certainty of crop yield is assured will dry-farming rise to a respected place by the side of other branches of agriculture. To attain such certainty and respect clean summer fallowing every second, third, or fourth year, according to the average rainfall, is probably indispensable; and future investigations, long enough continued, will doubtless confirm this prediction. Undoubtedly, a rotation of ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe
... of the conception should entice us to receive it on insufficient evidence. The fact that some plants in certain adverse circumstances tend to degenerate, and in certain favourable circumstances to attain a higher type, is well known in natural history; but it seems questionable whether these changes ever take place to such an extent, and in such a uniform method, as must be assumed if we take darnel for degenerated wheat. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... province. Hence, Master Olivier, consider this said once for all. Our expenditure increases every year. The thing displease us. How, pasque-Dieu! when in '79 it did not exceed six and thirty thousand livres, did it attain in '80, forty-three thousand six hundred and nineteen livres? I have the figures in my head. In '81, sixty-six thousand six hundred and eighty livres, and this year, by the faith of my body, it will reach eighty thousand livres! Doubled in ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... an unfriendly attitude toward the United States. There is nothing in the note to suggest that a policy such as the American newspapers seem to expect from Germany would be doomed to failure. The American people, we are told, are determined to attain their ends, but they welcome every prospect of attaining ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... you deny it?—men attain high places by means which the law would construe as criminal, were they not intelligent ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... the end of his elective term, President Roosevelt let it be known that he favored as his successor, William Howard Taft, of Ohio, his Secretary of War. To attain this end he used every shred of his powerful influence. When the Republican convention assembled, Mr. Taft easily won the nomination. Though the party platform was conservative in tone, he gave it a progressive tinge by expressing his personal belief in the popular election of United States Senators, ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... can only express by the contradictory phrase of innate experience. We copy one of the shorter poems, written when the author was only fourteen. There is a little dimness in the filling up, but the grace and symmetry of the outline are such as few poets ever attain. There is a ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... thirty-six pounds, stripped. This morning I weighed exactly one hundred and ninety-seven, including amalgam fillings and the rights of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. One hundred and eighty-five pounds is my ultimate aim. Howsoever, I may keep right on when I attain that figure and justify the title of this book by taking a full one third off. In either event, though, I shall know exactly where I am going and I'm on my way. And I feel bully and I'm happy ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... it than any other word in the dictionary: but, when the battle is over, and crowned with victory, he finds himself elevated for awhile into the regions of absolute bliss! It had ever been the summit of my ambition to attain a post at the head of a storming party:—my wish had now been accomplished, and gloriously ended; and I do think that, after all was over, and our men laid asleep on the ramparts, that I strutted about as important a personage, in my own opinion, as ever trod ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... coldly thrown out, especially as distance, shortness of leave of absence, and so forth, furnished a ready apology. But latterly the burden of Mr. Richard Waverley's paternal epistles consisted in certain mysterious hints of greatness and influence which he was speedily to attain, and which would ensure his son's obtaining the most rapid promotion, should he remain in the military service. Sir Everard's letters were of a different tenor. They were short; for the good Baronet was none of your illimitable correspondents, whose manuscript overflows the ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... thou followest on to ask. This being with me as I declare, O king, My works, in all these varicolored kinds, 160 So done by me, accepted so by men— Thou askest, if (my soul thus in men's hearts) I must not be accounted to attain The very crown and proper end of life? Inquiring thence how, now life closeth up, 165 I face death with success in my right hand: Whether I fear death less than dost thyself The fortunate of men? "For" (writest thou) "Thou leavest much behind, while I leave naught. Thy life stays ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... cried, looking up with a joyful and exultant expression of countenance. "Katherine writes that she has signed a deed settling twenty thousand on Cis and Charlie, the income of which is to be paid to me until they attain the age of twenty-one, for their maintenance, education, and so forth; after which any sum necessary for their establishment in life can be raised or taken from their capital, the whole coming into ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... her grief began to subside; in spite of herself, the reflection that her misery was only in her own fancy, would sometimes force itself on her mind. She could not avoid seeing, that her little hostess enjoyed as perfect a state of happiness as is possible to attain in this world; that she was free from anxious cares, undisturbed by restless passions, and mistress of all things that could be of any use to make life easy or agreeable. The oftener this reflection presented itself to her thoughts, the more strength it gained; and, at last, she ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... her guilt was not expiated; she should shortly learn by what prayers and exercises she might attain once more to perfect purity before the Gods, of whom he purposed to enquire ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... parliamentary law and in ability to administer that law it may be claimed justly that General Banks had no rival in his generation. As a speaker he approached the rank of an orator, if he did not attain to it. His presence was stately and attractive, his voice was agreeable, far reaching and commanding, and his control of an audience was absolute, for the time being. That his auditors may at times have differed from his conclusions ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... should have taken you to knightly deeds and virtuous living, and ye have done the contrary, for ye have lived mischievously many winters; and Sir Galahad is a maid and sinner never, and that is the cause he shall achieve where he goeth that ye nor none such shall not attain, nor none in your fellowship, for ye have used the most untruest life that ever I heard knight live. For certes had ye not been so wicked as ye are, never had the seven brethren been slain by you and your ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... cheerful, with the cheerfulness which comes of taking life in twenty-four-hour doses only, and of looking not too far ahead and backward not at all. Plenty of persons live after that fashion and thereby attain middle life with smooth foreheads and cheeks unlined by thought; and Ford was therefore not much different from his fellows. Never before had he found himself with anything worse than bodily bruises to sour life for him after a tumultuous night or ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... voices, but He who does not let a sparrow fall to the ground uncared for, will give His angels charge concerning them who are so much more precious, and they shall be borne up on outstretched wings, lest they be dashed on the pavement below. Thus preserved, they shall all attain at last to their guerdon. Nothing can come between Christ's servant and his crown. The tender providence of the Father, whose mercy is over all His works, makes sure of that. The river of the confessor's life may plunge ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... belles-lettres scholar. Tell him that the ladies admire him, that his mother doats on him, and that his friends esteem him—and—keeping back the wished-for eulogy of literary excellence—you tell him of nothing which he cares for. In truth he might attain some portion of intellectual reputation, if he would throw aside his ridiculous habits. He must, as soon as the evening shades prevail, burn wax tapers—he must always have an Argand lamp lighted up before him, to throw a picturesque ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... looking too soft in the bright sunlight to have darts of death. All the shell-bursts seemed to be in a breadth of twenty or thirty yards. How could guns firing at a range of from two to five thousand yards attain such accuracy! ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... their land should not be entered upon for the purpose of railway surveying, and surveyors who knew that the schemes of their companies would be frustrated unless the surveys were made and the plans deposited by the 30th of November. To attain this end, force, fraud, and bribery were freely made use of. The 30th of November, 1845, fell on a Sunday; but it was no Sunday at the office near the Board of Trade. Vehicles were driving up during the whole of the day, with agents and clerks bringing plans and sections. In ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... of faith from God, and others do not receive it, proceeds from God's eternal election.... According to His just judgment He leaves the non-elect to their own wickedness and obduracy." (Schaff 3, 582.) "The elect, in due time, though in various degrees and in different measures, attain the assurance of this eternal and unchangeable election, not by inquisitively prying into the secret and deep things of God, but by observing in themselves, with a spiritual joy and holy pleasure, the infallible fruits of election pointed ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... little inflation as possible, and he now and then touches a point of naturalness—the high-water mark of balladry, to which modern poets, with their affected unaffectedness and elaborate simplicity, attain only with the greatest pains and labor. Such a triumph of Mercantini's is this poem which I am about to give. It celebrates the daring and self-sacrifice of three hundred brave young patriots, led by Carlo Pisacane, who landed on the coast of Naples in 1857, for the purpose of exciting ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... been made during this reign in English art and art-criticism, and more particularly in the extension of real artistic education to classes of the community who could hardly attain it before, though it was perhaps more essential to them than to the wealthy and leisurely who had previously monopolised it. The multiplication of Schools of Design over the country, intended to promote the tasteful efficiency of those engaged in textile manufactures and ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... first have invented—"the luxury of woe." Poets certainly have found their most constant themes in suffering. When the late Edgar Poe, who prided himself on reducing literature to an art, sat down to write a poem which should attain the height of popularity, he said sorrow must be its theme, and wrote "The Raven." Tragedy will always have a deeper hold upon the public than comedy; it appeals to deeper principles, stirs more powerful emotions, imparts ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... listened as it were, to the midnight silence,—realising that he as Chief of the Revolutionary Committee, was no longer a chief but a servant!—and that the power he sought— that power which he had endeavoured to attain in order that he might make of Lotys, as he had said, 'a queen among women!' was only to be won through,—the King! The King knew all his secret plans and his aims,—he held the clue to the whole network of his Revolutionary organisation,—and the only chance he now had of ever ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... peculiar advantages. It is not desired that the inclinations and feelings shall get the mastery of the mind, certainly not the disorderly and momentary desires. Higher desires, indeed, should properly influence the will, as the desire of the approval of conscience, the desire to attain excellence, to gain strength and mastery, to serve others, etc. But the importance of awakening interest as a basis of will cultivation is found in the favorable mental state induced by interest as a preliminary to will action along the best lines. Interest is not an impetuous force like the ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... the gracious manner in which she tucked me up, I took a short cut to the information which I had failed to attain through Mr. Joseph. ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... work. Even a century later, Linnaeus in his great work, The System of Nature, dismissed as "abominable" the exact study of the female genitals, although he admitted the scientific interest of such investigations. And if men of science have found it difficult to attain an objective vision of women we cannot be surprised that medieval and still more ancient conceptions have often been subtly mingled with the views of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... be prominent in the one which at present foolishly imagines it constitutes the upper stratum. Rot! And Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, with nothing but a tarnished name and a large bank account to recommend her, now wishes to break into that clique and attain social leadership, does she? ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... million pounds of beef on foot to be delivered at Fort Buford. My client is a sub-contractor under that award. There are times, your honor, when it becomes necessary to resort to questionable means to attain an end. This is one of them. Within a week after my client had given bonds for the fulfillment of his contract, he made the discovery that he was dealing with a double-faced set of scoundrels. From that day until the present moment, secret-service ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... that his nervous excitement renders him unsteady, he has no business ever to tackle dangerous game alone. If, on the other hand, he discovers that IDENTICALLY THE SAME nervous excitement happens to steady his front sight to rocklike rigidity-a rigidity he could not possibly attain in normal conditions-then he will probably keep ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... a harmless fraud by those he teaches. The man who preaches, whether officially in the pulpit or unofficially in the class-room or study, a high standard of conduct, and is unsuccessful in his own efforts to attain it, depreciates for all the value of religion. Patience and industry and long-suffering and charitableness are virtues that bear the hall mark of Christianity, but they are virtues in which the best men fail continually, are conscious ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... anapta in sound, closely similar in meaning. Dak a-na-pta is prep. a Icel a on, na prefix converting root to verb, and pta separate; cf I E pat fall, also open (Lat pateo). I E an-apta is an negative prefix, and apta participle of ap attain. My father compared Dak chepa fat with Lat adeps. I have since found Min idip fat almost identical with Lat stem adipi. I E and Lat d and p are nearly always d and p in Min; but it is extremely doubtful ...
— The Dakotan Languages, and Their Relations to Other Languages • Andrew Woods Williamson
... attain, and strive, When all we gain is but an empty dream?— Better, unto my thinking, doth it seem To end it all ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... Helen with the savoir faire of social experience. Each felt and was stung by a realization of the other's points of advantage. Dorothy saw a perfection of well-groomed poise, such as she could hardly hope to attain, and Helen was impressed with her rival's ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... modesty, taken in connection with the remark in another part of the essay to the effect that this style "had much to recommend it, especially as it presented considerable facilities to those who wished at as little exertion or trouble as possible to attain for themselves a certain degree of literary reputation." To complete the comparison, however, we need an observation found in one of Scott's reviews, on the spurious ballad poetry, full of false sentiment, sometimes written in the eighteenth century. "It ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... into bit-maps and the text into small formatted chunks. All this information can then be imported into HyperCard and run on a mid-range Macintosh, which is what Perseus users have. This fact has made it possible for Perseus to attain wide use fairly rapidly. Without those archival forms the HyperCard version being demonstrated could not be made easily, and the project could not have the potential to move to other forms and machines and software as they appear, none ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly
... view of things. Artemus Ward, Josh Billings, and Mark Twain, and the Rev. P. V. Nasby, and one or two others of less note, are a kind of personages which no other society has produced, and could in no other society attain equal celebrity. In fact, when one examines the total annual production of jokes in the United States, one who knows nothing of the past history of the comic-paper question can hardly avoid the conclusion that such periodicals would run serious risk of being overwhelmed ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... Buerger's poems, which had inflamed party strife and embittered the last years of Buerger himself; but even Schiller admits that Buerger is as much superior to all his rivals as he is inferior to the ideal he should have striven to attain. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... or obscure command that one must mutter at a system to attain a desired result. Not used of passwords or other explicit security features. Especially used of tricks that are so poorly documented they must be learned from a {wizard}. "This compiler normally locates initialized data in the data segment, but if you {mutter} the right incantation ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... tacitly admitted that a white American soldier will not present arms to any number of rows of buttons, if he can by any ingenuity evade it; and to shoulder arms on passing an officer is something to which only Ethiopia or the regular army can attain. Grant, if you please, (though I do not grant,) that these are merely points of foolish punctilio. But there are many things which are more than punctilio, though they may be less than fighting. The efficiency of a body of troops depends, after all, not so much on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... time I learnt. My over-eagerness in the pursuit of it had brought a weakness on my eyes, that made it necessary to leave it off; and all the advantage I got was the improvement of my hand. I see, by hers, that practice will make her a ready writer: she may attain it by serving you for a secretary, when your health or affairs make it troublesome to you to write yourself; and custom will make it an agreeable amusement to her. She cannot have too many for that station of life which will probably be her fate. The ultimate end of your education was to make you ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Henry, mindless of his fame; 275 The artful god prolong'd the am'rous trance, And in her hero rul'd the fate of France. No sameness there the varied bliss destroy'd, No languor chill'd, no forward pleasure cloy'd; Each wish attain'd, another wish inspires; 280 Each new enjoyment led to new desires: Such vary'd ways to please, love taught d'Etree, Nor time nor habit stole one charm away. The god with anger blushing as he view'd ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... though their souls. Others obey some family pride (which in our days, and to our shame, decreases steadily); these devote themselves to the welfare of a brother, or to orphan nephews; they are mothers while remaining virgins. Such old maids attain to the highest heroism of their sex by consecrating all feminine feelings to the help of sorrow. They idealize womanhood by renouncing the rewards of woman's destiny, accepting its pains. They live surrounded by the splendour of their devotion, and men respectfully bow the head before ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... Fram, especially intended to resist the pressure of the ice. Hitherto it had been the chief aim of Arctic explorations to avoid besetment, and to try and creep round the land shores. Dr. Nansen was convinced that he could best attain his ends by boldly disregarding these canons and trusting to the drift of the ice to carry him near to the Pole. He reckoned that the drift would take some three years, and provisioned the Fram for five. The results of his venturous ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... man possessing great advantages, not only in personal attractions, but as the possessor of an ample fortune. His father had been dead many years and his mother resided in the neighbourhood of London. No sooner, however, did Arthur attain his majority, and find himself in such a favoured position, than he gave way to those excesses which are generally somewhat lightly styled, youthful indiscretions. His mother had done all that lay in her to prevail upon ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... the animal cells, by mutual co-operation, express their latent powers in formation of the complete organism, so does the individual, by co-operative effort with other individuals, attain his ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... Points of Rest: Do we stop our Motion, and sit down satisfied in the Settlement we have gain'd? or are we not removing the Boundary, and marking out new Points of Rest, to which we press forward with the like Eagerness, and which cease to be such as fast as we attain them? Our Case is like that of a Traveller upon the Alps, who should fancy that the Top of the next Hill must end his Journey, because it terminates his Prospect; but he no sooner arrives as it, than he sees new Ground and other Hills beyond it, and continues ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... now work for themselves. They can obtain this precious metal by merely scratching the earth, and, although the collection of each individual may be small, the aggregate quantity thus obtained will be far from inconsiderable. As the aborigines attain comparative wealth, they will acquire a taste for the minor comforts of life. The consumption of European manufactures will be increased to an incalculable degree, and the effect upon the general commerce of the world will be sensibly perceived. It is for the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... habit more difficult to attain, and few so necessary to possess, as perfect good-breeding. It is equally inconsistent with a stiff formality, an impertinent forwardness, and an awkward bashfulness. True Christian education would seem to include it; and yet unfortunately, ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... ways," he told him, "of preserving; one was by sugar, the other by salt. 'Now,' says he, 'as the sweet way, Bozzy, you are but little likely to attain, I would have you plunge into vinegar, and get fairly pickled at once.' And such has been the plan of Mr. Michael Angelo Taylor. With the sweet he had, indeed, little chance, so he soused into the other, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... credulity, her vanity, her admirable dialect ('as I'm a person!'), but serve to make the tragedy the more pitiable. Either, therefore, our appreciation of satiric comedy is defective, or Congreve made a mistake. To regard this poor old soul as mere comedy is to attain to an almost satanic height of contempt: the comedy is more than grim, it is savagely cruel. To be pitiless, on the other hand, is a satirist's virtue. On the whole, we may reasonably say that the tragedy is not too keen in itself, but that it is too obviously indicated. Witwoud ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... shallow to them, trivial and inconsiderable. And so they were unaccustomed, painfully uncouth in the simplest social intercourse, suffering, and yet insolent in their superiority. Then beneath was the yearning for the soul-intimacy to which they could not attain because they were too dumb, and every approach to close connection was blocked by their clumsy contempt of other people. They wanted genuine intimacy, but they could not get even normally near to anyone, because they scorned to take the ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... justice of his present quarrel, (considerations most necessary for every prince who had to encounter enemies abroad,) deemed that the proper time had arrived for the accomplishment of his purpose. But, to attain this great and honourable object, three things, he said, were wanted; namely, wise and faithful counsel from his vassals, strong and true support from his people, and a copious subsidy from his subjects; ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... are unfavourable to his suit, but if he will take my advice he will be able to overcome their objections and to win the damsel. Another I see who has come to Paris with the intention of enlisting in the service of our good duke, and who, I foresee, will attain rank and honour and become a distinguished soldier if he does but act prudently at the critical moment, while if he takes a wrong turn misfortune and death will befall him. I see a youth of gentle blood who will become ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... subordination to the community, early religion was an efficient school; to the higher morality, the law of which is found written in the heart, and which aims at rendering higher services than those of custom, it did not attain. The worship of the higher nature-powers, the heavenly powers of light and kindness, tending as it did to transcend the limits of place and of nationality, was destined powerfully to foster a more ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... number of its secondary churches, as well as its ecclesiastical, civil, and military establishments in general. In spite of all this, the city has never ranked as of supreme importance as a European city; nor did it ever attain the rank in Gallic times, that the events which have been woven around it would seem to augur. To-day it is a truly characteristic, large, provincial town of little or no importance to the outside world. Self-sufficient as to its own importance, and the events around ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... is the devil's way, when he fails to defeat by affliction and trouble, to try the heart with endurance. He makes the ordeal unbearably hard and long to patience, even apparently without end. His scheme is to accomplish by unceasing persistence what he cannot attain by the severity and multitude of his temptations; he aims to wear out one's patience and to discourage his hope of conquering. To meet these conditions there is necessary, in addition to patience, longsuffering, which holds out firmly and steadfastly in suffering, with the determination: "Indeed, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... was it so unlike? He, too, was aiming at an art as clean and hard and powerful as Nicky's, as naked of all blazonry and decoration, an art which would attain its objective by the simplest, most perfect adjustment of means ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... final resurrection of all the remaining dead; when those who have been saved, but did not attain to the First resurrection, will be raised to life: and those who have rejected the Saviour will come forth for judgment. This resurrection does not take place until the close of the millennial ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... the exhibition has become a necessity, and it would be impossible for our artists to live or to attain a reputation without it. The giving of medals and prizes and the purchase of works of art by the state may be of more doubtful utility, though such efforts at the encouragement of art probably do ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... only child was born. In another twelvemonth, Jerome was again a widower. A small sum of money which had belonged to the dead woman, Jerome, at her wish, put out at interest for their boy, if he should attain manhood. The child's name was Piers; for Jerome happened at that time to be studying old Langland's "Vision," with delight in the brave singer, who so long ago cried for social justice—one of the few in Christendom who held by the ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... tremendous judgment to be inflicted by the third and last woe? This question requires a solution. It demands it; and he who succeeds in the application of history to solve this apparent enigma in the Apocalypse, will be able to attain to a satisfactory, a certain, understanding of much that is yet to most readers as if the "sealed book" were to this day in the "right hand of Him that sitteth on the throne." Let us humbly attempt to solve ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... the ascent is very gradual. The mountain begins to leave the plain in slopes scarcely perceptible, measuring from two to three degrees. These are continued by easy gradations mile after mile all the way to the truncated, crumbling summit, where they attain a steepness of twenty to twenty-five degrees. The grand simplicity of these lines is partially interrupted on the north subordinate cone that rises from the side of the main cone about three thousand feet from the summit. This side cone, past which your ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... right, and Combeferre its natural right. The first attached himself to Robespierre; the second confined himself to Condorcet. Combeferre lived the life of all the rest of the world more than did Enjolras. If it had been granted to these two young men to attain to history, the one would have been the just, the other the wise man. Enjolras was the more virile, Combeferre the more humane. Homo and vir, that was the exact effect of their different shades. Combeferre was as gentle as Enjolras was severe, through natural whiteness. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the true end and felicity of man lay in the enjoyment of the favor of God. This was to be attained through righteousness; only the righteous could God be at peace with and favor with His love. To attain righteousness must, therefore, be the chief end ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... controversy has most violently raged. For poetry and eloquence do not depend on correct reasoning. They depend principally on vivacity of imagination, and "vivacity of imagination does not require a long course of experiments, or a great multitude of rules, to attain all the perfection of which it is capable." Such perfection might be attained in a few centuries. If the ancients did achieve perfection in imaginative literature, it follows that they cannot be surpassed; but we have no ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... years have upon it, and the more difficult becomes the task of the enterprising workman who seeks to simulate the wrinkles time would leave. In the case of cities, the task is practically hopeless. There is only one way for a city to attain the beauty and the haunting charm of age, and that is to wait patiently until time has finished his slow work. It is hard to wait, and a new city is a crude and painful thing. One can easily imagine the older cities looking scornfully or pityingly down upon it, themselves secure in the grim ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... him," Louis said slowly, "a secret which will produce a great fortune. There are others who think that they have a right to share in it. It is those others who are his enemies. It is those others who hope to attain by force what they could gain by ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... right, my dear," agreed Mrs. Blake. "Strong men, if unhampered, have a chance to fight their way up out of the social pit. But women and girls, even when they escape the—the worst down there, can hardly hope ever to attain—And of course those that fall!—Our dual code of morality is hideously unjust to our sex, yet it still is the code ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... revenged itself in the corresponding incident, it was a laborious and difficult task even to gain a knowledge of a man's religious obligations, and the priests who were skilled in the law of divine things and pointed out its requirements—the -Pontifices- —could not fail to attain an extraordinary influence. The upright man fulfilled the requirements of sacred ritual with the same mercantile punctuality with which he met his earthly obligations, and at times did more than was due, if the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... may be sold and forthwith converted into Money and Annuities purchased thereout for the lives of my dear Wife Mary and my daughters Harriet and Sophia and what proportions my said Executor shall please to reserve to my sons William and Allen shall be paid them severally as they shall attain the age of twenty and three And as for my Shares in the Register or Universal Register Office I give ten thereof to my aforesaid Wife seven to my Daughter Harriet and three to my daughter Sophia my Wife to be put in immediate possession of her shares and my Daughters ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... was of no party, but of all parties which in their turn served his ideal of the Revolution. In this his power consisted, for parties paused but he never did. He placed this ideal as an end to reach in every revolutionary movement, and advanced towards it with those who sought to attain it; then, this goal reached, he placed it still further off, and again marched forward with other men, continually advancing without ever deviating, ever pausing, ever retreating. The Revolution, decimated in its progress, must one day or other inevitably arrive at a last stage, and he desired ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... chaffer of burning charcoal by its side. With a feeling of exultation, I sat down to complete my experiment. The cords were fixed to my arms, so that, when I fell from my seat unconscious, the door and window would open, and restore animation by the access of vital air. I would thus attain my object, without exposing myself, or becoming the subject of public remark, which at all times was most hateful to me. I watched every mutation of feeling. For the first few minutes, I felt no change, except that the room became warmer and more ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... to God, and to others. We are never really happy till we cease to expect happiness from the things of this world. As soon as we begin to be satisfied with God, and find that to think of God, to love him, to trust in him, to serve him, is happiness enough, we attain to solid peace; and then, turning and following the sun, all desirable pleasure pursues us and solicits us, like our shadows, the more eagerly and steadily the more that we flee from them, and the less that we turn ourselves to ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... lover distraught, absorbed in his passion and pain; Thy lover, the tears of whose eyes run down on his body like rain. One hand to his heart ever pressed, whilst the other the Merciful One Imploreth, so He of His grace may grant him his hope to attain. O thou, that beholdest a youth for passion that's perished, thine eye And thy hand are the cause of his death and yet might ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... visible result follows, he wisely gives up staring and wishing, and apparently resolves to attain his ends by action. Felling a small tree, about as thick as his thigh, with an iron hatchet he cuts off it a length of about six feet. Into one end of this he drives a sharp-pointed hard-wood spike, several ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... public worship composed the whole Word of God. From that day it became his constant study and delight. A severe illness, brought on by hard study, gave him time for meditation. He felt a strong desire to become a monk, under the belief that by so doing he should attain to holiness. All this time living with the excellent Cotta family, nothing could be more exemplary and orderly than his life. Though animated and lively and delighting in music, he had, from his boyhood, been serious-minded and earnest in the extreme, and at no period ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... painting; while in its organic development and arrangement of parts, its complicated structure, in the individualism of characters, and the sharply defined personalities of its dramatic realm,—it struggles to attain the fixed ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... when his own life, or that of some other, seemed to flow, as a current flows, either towards or away from some end, planned or unplanned by his own mind. At one time he may plan and struggle, and, in spite of all his efforts, the current sweeps him away from the object he strives to attain—as though he were a mere feather floating upon its stream; at another, the tide bears him onward as a boat is borne by the rapids, towards a thing he had not dreamed of, nor even vaguely wished to reach. ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "more capital" that a greater or less quantity of wealth abstained from is employed for a longer or shorter time; or, in other words, that laborers and capitalists undergo more or less sacrifice in exertion and abstinence, respectively, to attain a given result. This is the contribution to cost of production made by Mr. Cairnes, and briefly defined as follows: "In the case of labor, the cost of producing a given commodity will be represented by the number of average laborers employed in its production—regard ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... north some three hundred miles we come to Amoy, the first important seaport in the adjacent province of Fukien. The aspect of the country has undergone a change. Hills attain the altitude of mountains, and the alluvial plains, so conspicuous about Canton, become ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... as if he were an offender; but, after an undaunted manner, gave an account of what he had done; for he spake thus to Caesar: That he had the greatest friendship for Antony, and did every thing he could that he might attain the government; that he was not indeed in the army with him, because the Arabians had diverted him; but that he had sent him both money and corn, which was but too little in comparison of what he ought to have done for him; "for if a man owns himself to be another's friend, and ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... But it seemed that she required no teaching. An opportunity given of looking on while one was embroidering, crocheting, or making tatting, and the process was her own. Native tact imparted to her at once the skill which others attain only by long practice. As for her fine sewing, it was exquisite; and in looking at it, one half regretted the advent of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... rule that I thus propound? Nay, I know not myself. To me it seems helpful and requisite; nor could I give reasons other than spring from the feelings alone. Such reasons, however, at times should by no means be treated too lightly. If I should ever attain a summit whence this law seemed useless to me, I would listen to the secret instinct bidding me not linger, but climb on still higher, till its usefulness should once again be clearly apparent ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... He was yet a young man; with the start he had secured for himself, and with the exceptional faculties, the faculties of self-confidence and "push" that he knew himself to possess, there was no telling to what position he might attain. He knew that it was only a question of time—of a short time even—when he would be the practical head of the great firm. Everything he turned his hand to was a success. His row of houses in the Mission ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... I fancy we can attain our end in a simpler way. I can't say for certain, because it all depends—well, it all depends upon a factor which is completely outside our control. But I have great hopes—in fact, the betting is exactly two to one—that if you will come with us to-night I shall be able to help you ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the gray—who stood snorting and panting, up to his knees in snow and rubbish, but without offering to stir—to draw my second pistol, and to give Isegrin—as the Germans call him—the coup de grace, before he could attain the friendly shelter of the dingle, to which with all due speed he was retreating. By this time all our comrades had assembled. Loud was the glee—boisterous the applause, which fell especially to me, who had performed with ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... found to result from the alliance of Doctors Don Alvaro de Mesa, and Don Antonio Rodriguez, for neither more nor less justice can be secured than they choose, and they are even disturbing the government and good order which ought to prevail. Even if I should not attain and enjoy the benefit of this improvement, I beseech your Majesty that, if more auditors are to be sent, they may be persons of tried experience in Audiencia duties—to whom it would be well to give senior rank therein, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... and get yourself pointed at—laughed at! Again sounded the refrain of the hired bard of dress. "It is cut to give the wearer the appearance of perfect physical development. And the effect so produced so improves his form that he unconsciously strives to attain the appearance which the garment gives him; he expands his chest, draws in ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... deeds." He prophetically indicated at that time what subsequently became an exquisite reality. "Only a good deed can help here," he writes after the completion of "Lohengrin." "A gifted and inspired man must with good fortune attain to power and influence who can elevate his inmost convictions to the dignity of law. For it is possible after all, if chance will have it so that a king will permit a competent man to have his way as well as an incompetent one. The public can ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... knowledge and application of the laws which govern man's physical environment. Machinery, factories, and automatic reapers are, after all, only instruments for man's welfare. If man is ever to attain the happiness and rationality of which philosophers and reformers have continually been dreaming, there must also be an understanding of the laws which govern man himself, laws quite as constant as those ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... operations is derived from food, like any other self-propelled and fuel-fed mechanism; but mechanism is usually controlled by an attendant. The question is whether our will or mind or life can direct our body's energy along certain channels to attain desired ends, or whether—as in a motor-car with an automaton driver—the end and aim of all activity is wholly determined by mechanical causes. And a further question concerns the mode whereby vital control, if any, ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... creation of the character of Sir Roger de Coverley will live for ever. While his work in verse is never more than second-rate, his writings in prose are always first-rate. Dr Johnson said of his prose: "Whoever wishes to attain an English style— familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious,— must give his days and nights to the study of Addison." Lord Lytton also remarks: "His style has that nameless urbanity in which we ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... made motion, without which it was impossible that it should speak. Many books they read, but yet could not find out any hope of what they sought, that at the last they concluded to raise a spirit and to know of him that which they could not attain by their own studies. ...
— The Fourth Dimensional Reaches of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition • Cora Lenore Williams
... and Aristotle, he did not, apparently, take very seriously the contention that that government alone is good "which seeks to attain the permanent interests of the governed by evolving the character of its citizens." To put the matter brutally, politics, despite the lofty sentiments on the transparencies in torchlight processions, had only to do with the belly, not ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... she had! Her stride just fitted the stage, her carriage of neck and head was such as great artists have worked years to attain—and she was unconscious of it. Her eyes looked sky-blue under the blonde wig, and the blonde tints were lovely, if not so fascinatingly surprising as ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... whole, I can see no reason why I should not encourage young men to enter the service of schoolcraft. I cannot say to them that they will attain to great wealth, but I can safely promise them that, if they give to the work of preparation the same attention and time that they would give to their education and training for medicine or law or engineering, ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... pattern of his own,—which was entirely new and nearly useless,—he had designed a new style of belt with a powerful rope having a hook attached to it, with which he proposed, and actually managed, to clamber up and down difficult places, and thus attain points of vantage for sketching. Several times had he been rescued by guides from positions of extreme peril, but his daring and altogether unteachable spirit had thrown him again and again into new conditions of danger. He was armed with his formidable belt and rope on the ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne |
