"Imaginary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been said, but a light matter to those who talk with light exaggeration of the achievements of the literary artist; but if we exclude that one creative prodigy among men, who has peopled a whole gallery with imaginary beings more real than those of flesh and blood, we shall find that very few archetypal creations have sprung from any single hand. Now, My Uncle Toby is as much the archetype of guileless good nature, of affectionate simplicity, ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... comments of mock amazement crowded one upon another. "Jin ... go! He's got the wrong book—that's rag carpet. Don't look at it too long, Gord, it'll cross your eyes. That ain't a suit, it's a game." A gaunt hand solemnly shook out imaginary dice upon the counter, "It's my move and ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... uncomfortable. It need not have troubled itself; nobody would ever wish to sit there. It was such a big rocking-chair, and Mrs. Patton was proud of it; always generously urging her guests to enjoy its comfort, which was imaginary with her, as she was so short that she could hardly have climbed ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... is apparently imaginary; and a little below we find that it was close to Jinn land. China was very convenient for this purpose: the medieval-Moslems, who settled in considerable numbers at Canton and elsewhere, knew just enough ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... by it, a meeting of the chiefs is called. They assemble in one of their forts, and, after a discussion, decide either for an amicable adjustment, or for an exterminating war. Thus these misguided beings are continually destroying each other for some imaginary insult. ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... so able that Thomas Jefferson afterward spoke of him as "the Colossus of that debate." As Congress sat with closed doors and no report was made of the speech, we have no definite knowledge of its arguments. Fifty years afterwards, shortly after John Adams's death, Daniel Webster wrote an imaginary speech containing what in substance he might have said. The principal argument in opposition was made by John Dickinson, who thought that before the Americans finally committed themselves to a deadly struggle with Great Britain, they ought to establish some stronger ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... and a-sinking".[253] The Alfred (74) sent an officer aboard her, and the boats of three English ships saved about 333 of her crew. The "rest went down with her". The flatulent account of her end, given by Barrere in the convention, is largely imaginary. The crew of the Vengeur did not choose death rather than the surrender of their ship. Some of those whom the efforts of the British seamen failed to save, went down with a cry of Vive la republique! They had surrendered after a hard-fought fight, and they died as ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... is called being "faithful" to a friend, but there are many other kinds required. Passing over the more obvious of these, I would draw attention to the subtler form of untruth, involved in endowing your friend with imaginary ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... on tiptoe, glancing at Bracy as he passed, and then stooped down over a patch of glittering snow, scraping up a handful and straightening himself in the sunshine, as he amused himself by addressing an imaginary personage. ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... happened, kid, when somebody acted up in front of your dad?" From the air he secured an imaginary morsel between stubby thumb and forefinger and then blew the imaginary ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... Miss Bird entered Colorado, which she describes, as we have seen, in such a manner as to suggest that it rivals Dr. Richardson's imaginary "Hygeia" in all essential particulars. From Greeley she hastened to Fort Collins, with the grand masses of the Rocky Mountains facing her as she advanced. Still across the boundless sea-like prairie struck the indefatigable traveller, until she came to a sort ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... they were always ready to help others; and their conversation, though not distinguished by brilliant information, was often full of interest. In nearly every case boasting quitted them with their youth, and the bravest were always the most modest. Influenced by no imaginary points of honor, they estimated themselves at their real worth; and all fear of being suspected of cowardice was beneath them. With these brave soldiers, who often united to the greatest kindness of heart a mettle no less great, a flat contradiction ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... scrupled to supply unrecorded details or explanatory speeches in order to make the scene more vivid to my listeners. In two stories of George Fox's youth, as authentic records are scanty, I have even ventured to look through the eyes of imaginary spectators at 'The Shepherd of Pendle Hill' and 'The Angel of Beverley.' But the deeper I have dug down into the past, the less need there has been to fill in outlines; and the more possible it has been to keep ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... but the fault has not been entirely on one side, and only by mutual support and the recognition of their dependent interests can a satisfactory community life be maintained. The root of the whole trouble lies in the imaginary division of the community into town and country. With the realization that their common interests are essential and that their differences are due to lack of proper adjustment, many of these difficulties will be alleviated. It is my experience that in the most successful ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... imaginary hat toward the Grdznth. "Spike cracked it," he said. "Spike is a sort of Grdznth genius." He tossed the coffee cup over his shoulder and it ricochetted in graceful slow motion against the far wall. "Now why don't you ...
— PRoblem • Alan Edward Nourse
... which alertness, determination, and fearsomeness are vividly displayed. "0-o-m!" (The thrust of the spear.) "Ha-a-a-ha!" (The spear is given an excruciating and entangling half-turn.) And "Old Billy" exclaims, still holding the imaginary "Bidgero" at the spear's length: "That fella Bidgero can clear out! Finish 'em!" The spear has penetrated the unlucky and daring phantom, several of the barbs have become entangled in its vitals, the enemy is at "Old Billy's" mercy, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... her wants. She did everything he did, even taking mustard, and was very brave at quelling the tears that rose to the doll-like blue eyes. When Mr Beecham wiped his moustache, it was amusing to see her also wipe an imaginary one. ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... the presence-chamber have fallen away. Imaginary faces are crowding around him. He turns to these. He shows them human life as the poet's mirror reflects it: in its varied masquerade, in its mingled good and evil, in its steady advance; in the rainbow brightness of its obstructed lights; the deceptive gloom of its merely repeated ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... our people having landed a few bricks on shore, for building a furnace to refound the ship's bell; yet the alarm was so hot at court, that I was called to make answer, when I represented how absurd was this imaginary fear, how dishonourable for the king, and how unfit the place was for any such purpose to us, having neither water nor harbourage. The jealousy was however so very strongly imprinted in their minds, because I had formerly asked a river at Gogo for that purpose, that I could hardly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... could not admit of impulsion; for to do this I must have known that a celestial matter was the agent. But so far from knowing that there is any such matter, I have proved it to be merely imaginary. ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... the people is impoverished, while another, and very small part, has more than enough. The workers of our own race, at any rate, have enough common-sense to understand, at least when they are not hysterically excited, that imaginary wrongs are not a sufficient reason for great sacrifices. New Zealand's legislation has not created an ideal society, it is true; but for twenty years it has proceeded step by step in the direction of righting the wrongs of the past, and giving opportunity to that part of its people that ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... characters, he finds, are wanting in variety and nature. Its range of passion and humour is lamentably narrow. [Footnote: Ib. 542-4.] Its declamations "tire us with their length; so that, instead of grieving for their imaginary heroes, we are concerned for our own trouble, as we are in the tedious visits of bad company; we are in pain till they are gone". [Footnote: English Garner, iil 542.] The best tragedies of the French—Cinna ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... furnished a direct and trustworthy test of the advance thus far made in the practical establishment of the right of suffrage secured by the Constitution to the liberated race in the Southern States. All disturbing influences, real or imaginary, had been removed ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes
... me, which I felt bound to communicate to Moore. "My dear fellow," I said in a whisper, "is this quite sportsmanlike? You know you are after some treasure, real or imaginary, and, I put it to you as a candid friend, is not this just a little bit like poaching? Your ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... swiftly the two women sped northward, following the imaginary burglar, while the devoted Mrs. Allen ran breathless in the opposite direction for Si Pray and ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... For much imaginary work was there; Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind, That for Achilles' image stood his spear, Grip'd in an armed hand; himself, behind, Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind: A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head, Stood for the ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... write with both in mind. The hope of one will stir memories of the other. And who is there to dispute me? At least I know what a battle should be like, and I shall thrill my readers with imaginary combats." ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... know about him, Thomas! What are his faults?" he snapped, and settled back to squint at his imaginary stage again. ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... was a far more pretentious affair—a sort of army and navy seminary combined, where mystical mathematical problems were solved by the midshipmen, and great ships-of-the-line were navigated over imaginary shoals by unimaginable observations of the moon and the stars, and learned lectures were delivered upon great guns, small arms, and the curvilinear lines described by bombs in ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... of seeming trite, prosy, and common-place, it is right to remind the young generation who consider the purchase of a railway ticket gives them a right to grumble at a thousand imaginary defects and deficiencies in railway management, how great are the advantages in swiftness, economy, and safety, which they enjoy through the genius, enterprise, and stubborn perseverance of George Stephenson and his friends and ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... the other fellow, and will be likely to be here all the afternoon." I couldn't have stayed there if I would without being spotted, for the moment I got myself a little nearer to him he spied me, and began a pantomime of roping me in hand over fist with an imaginary cable. He would have known my face if I had tried to keep near enough to be safe in case of a sudden move, so I took the chance of keeping my appointment with you, getting up a different mug, ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... storm. (How he had set her mind at rest on that occasion he knew best.) It seemed this exquisite nature only needed the sunshine of his unspoken assurance to respond with delighted tenderness to his refined, his cultured advances. He was already beginning to write imaginary letters to his friends, on the theme of his engagement: semi-humourous academic effusions as to how he, who had so long remained immune, had succumbed at last to feminine charm; how he, the determined celibate—Wentworth always called himself a celibate—had been taken captive ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... Booksellers (1779-1781) which they improperly[229:1] called "Johnson's Poets" (improperly, because the poets were, with four exceptions, the choice not of the biographer but of the booksellers, anxious to retain their imaginary copyright), Marvell has no place. Mr. George Ellis, in his Specimens of the early English poets first published in 1803, printed from Marvell Daphne and Chloe (in part) and Young Love. When Mr. Bowles, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... the rant Miss Cameron expected, Josie gave poor Ophelia's mad scene, and gave it very well, having been trained by the college professor of elocution and done it many times. She was too young, of course, but the white gown, the loose hair, the real flowers she scattered over the imaginary grave, added to the illusion; and she sung the songs sweetly, dropped her pathetic curtsies, and vanished behind the curtain that divided the rooms with a backward look that surprised her critical auditor ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... is," said Bettina, thinking of the garrulous old monk who so evidently desired to earn his lira, "that people will add so much that is imaginary when there is enough that is true. It is a shame to so exaggerate stories of St. Francis's life as to make them seem ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... instinctive guidance, for the production of any tone demanded by the ear. This same ability is invoked in the mental imitation of tones. In one case the muscular contractions are actually performed; in the other the muscular adjustments are wholly or in part imaginary. ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... imaginary; and these are the proofs in question. The night after the murder" (all looked at each other as if a sudden inspiration struck them), "as I was going to the chapel from the lady Edith's apartments, I passed through a passage little used, but ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... sneaked it. At first he made excuses; he invented all sorts of lies—ten francs for a subscription, twenty francs fallen through a hole which he showed in his pocket, fifty francs disbursed in paying off imaginary debts. After a little, he no longer troubled himself to give any explanations. The money ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... great constellations of the zodiacal belt which forms the Earth's orbit and the Sun's shining pathway around the celestial universe have been considered as mere imaginary figures, or emblems, invented by an early, primitive people to distinguish the monthly progress of the Sun and mark out, in a convenient manner, the twelve great divisions, or spaces, of the solar year. To this end, IT IS THOUGHT, the various star groups, termed constellations, were fancifully ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... wonderful pomp; then, after having reveled in the sight of a hurricane over the plain where the whirling sands made red, dry mists and death-bearing clouds, he would welcome the night with joy, for then fell the healthful freshness of the stars, and he listened to imaginary music in the skies. Then solitude taught him to unroll the treasures of dreams. He passed whole hours in remembering mere nothings, and comparing his ...
— A Passion in the Desert • Honore de Balzac
... that he had been through hell and insisted that he would live forever now. Another was an artist, a landscape-painter, who had lost his eyesight. He was seeing beautiful landscapes, and the nurses had to strap him to his cot to keep him from struggling to his feet and trying to use an imaginary brush on imaginary canvases. He ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... In every instance of war, parents look to their children with terror as they grow up to the military age. The army is a national curse, and parental feelings are a perpetual source of affliction. If the great body of the people in Europe, instead of clamouring for imaginary rights, and talking nonsense about constitutions, which they have neither the skill to construct, nor would find worth the possession if they had them, would concentrate their claims in a demand for the habeas-corpus, and the abolition of the conscription, they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... leisure of this his first residence in London that Perez published, in the summer of 1594, his Relaciones, under the imaginary name of Raphael Peregrino; which, far from concealing the real author, in reality designated him by the allusion to his wandering life. This account of his adventures, composed with infinite art, was calculated to render his ungrateful and relentless persecutor still more odious, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... kinship, at last tear themselves free from their stem and float off, turn over, and thereafter live happily upon the bottom of the sea, roaming where they will, creeping slowly along and fulfilling the destiny of our imaginary daisy. ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... the girls, a tall, dark, graceful creature, but with the protruding lips, high cheekbones, and flat distended nose of the Malay, rose with contracted eyebrows, took her companion, forced her upon her knees, and then drawing an imaginary kris, she placed the point on the girl's shoulder, and struck the hilt with her right hand as if driving it perpendicularly down into ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... did glory in those two wisps of material! The fragment of envelope had come from a foreign land. What contained it once? joy or sorrow? Was the recipient worthy, or the gift true? And I went on with the imaginary story woven out of the shreds of fabric before me until it filled all my vision, when suddenly fancy was hushed to repose,—for, as sure as I sat there, living souls had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... haven't a ghost of an argument. I don't want to vote myself, you see, and I don't see how I am going to make other women want to. Just at present I have so many matters to bother about that I can't throw myself into an imaginary position. I'd break down and cry—I feel exactly like it—if I hadn't been this way before and managed to pull through by the skin of my teeth. You see, standing up before a crowd makes you feel so desperate and hemmed-in- ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... of the assembly, was opposed to this plan, on account of the pride and insupportable nature of the nobility; and said, that it would be folly to place themselves again under such inevitable tyranny for the sake of avoiding imaginary dangers from the plebeians. Rinaldo, finding his advice unfavorably received, vexed at his own misfortune and that of his party, imputed the whole to heaven itself, which had resolved upon it, rather than to human ignorance and ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... enunciated our strength has grown by leaps and bounds, although in that time the vast increase in our foreign trade and of travel abroad, modern transport, modern mails, the cables, and the wireless have brought us close to Europe and have made our isolation more and more imaginary, there has been until the outbreak of the present conflict small desire on our part to abrogate, or even amend, the old familiar tradition which has for so long given ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... rotated through one-eighth or tenth of a revolution every three minutes, or thereabouts. The general motion given to the grinding tool should be a series of circular sweeps of about one-fourth the diameter of the glass disc, and gradually carried round an imaginary circle drawn on the surface of the lens and concentric with it ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... Macaulay had written a historical novel. I am convinced that it would have been a great one. I do not know if he had the power of drawing an imaginary character, but he certainly had the gift of reconstructing a dead celebrity to a remarkable degree. Look at the simple half-paragraph in which he gives us Johnson and his atmosphere. Was ever a more definite picture ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... soothing game, I believe, in the world than this of holding imaginary triumphant discourse with your enemy. Yet (oddly) it brought me but cold comfort on this occasion, my wound being too recent and galling. The sky, so long clouded, was bright'ning now, and growing serener every minute: the hills were thick with fox- gloves, the vales white with hawthorn, smelling ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... some men has been put to so sore a trial. It is not very difficult for well-formed minds to abandon their interest, but the separation of fame and virtue is a harsh divorce. Liberty is in danger of being made unpopular to Englishmen. Contending for an imaginary power we begin to acquire the spirit of domination and to lose the relish of an honest equality. The principles of our forefathers become suspected to us, because we see them animating the present opposition of our children. ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... in either case vary as the method employed. Mrs. Gamp, the outcome of a single observation, is a type certainly, but exaggerated and "founded on fact" rather than true to life. "The Suburbanite" (see p. 24), though an equally imaginary portrait, is the real thing—the absolute personification of a type ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson
... every cause of further delay, whether real or imaginary, on the part of Congress to the admission to seats of loyal Senators and Representatives from the State of Tennessee, I have, notwithstanding the anomalous character of this proceeding, affixed my signature to the resolution. My approval, however, is not to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... golden age of Ireland, like the golden age of every other country, never had any real existence. It is like the good old-fashioned servant who from the time of Terence to our own has always lived in the imaginary past, but never in the real present. The belief in a recent golden age is, however, so prevalent in Ireland that I have thought it worth while to investigate the grounds on which it is based and the means by which it has been ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... has been absurdly derived from their imaginary settlement on the banks of the Leman Lake. [21] That fortunate district, from the lake to the Avenche, and Mount Jura, was occupied by the Burgundians. [22] The northern parts of Helvetia had indeed been subdued by the ferocious Alemanni, who destroyed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... route, passing to and from the river, that we had to wait hours for them to get out of our way. Often a drove would get frightened at a passing wagon, the report of a gun, the barking of a dog, or some imaginary enemy, and would start on a run which soon became a furious stampede, the hindermost following those before them, and in their blind fury crowding them forward with such irresistible force that the leaders ...
— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton
... condition in which the tip of the tongue is bound down to the floor of the mouth by an abnormally short and narrow frenum, or by folds of mucous membrane on each side of the frenum, so that the tongue cannot be protruded. Although this deformity is rare, it is common for parents to blame an imaginary tongue-tie when a child is slow in learning to speak, or when he speaks indistinctly or stammers, and the doctor is frequently requested to divide the frenum under such circumstances. In the vast majority of cases nothing is found to be wrong with the ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... that he should have the power to—but I tell you he's killing out all the good in me—a little bit every day. I can't even want to be good. Oh, how stupid to think you could see—that any one could see! Sometimes I do forget and laugh all at once. It's as grotesque and unreal as an imaginary monster I used to be afraid of—then I'm sick, for I remember we are bound together by the laws of God and man. Of course, you can't see, Aunt Bell—the fire hasn't eaten through yet—but I tell you it's burning inside ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... Hungary, thus disentangled on one side, and set free from the most formidable of her enemies, soon persuaded the Saxons to peace; took possession of Bavaria; drove the emperour, after all his imaginary conquests, to the shelter of a neutral town, where he was treated as a fugitive; and besieged the French in Prague, in the city which they ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... There is nothing imaginary in the fertility of the West. Personal observation has satisfied us that it much surpasses anything that exists in the Atlantic States, unless in exceptions, through the agency of great care and high manuring, or in instances of peculiar ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... night to escape assassination, LINCOLN arrived at Washington nine days before his inauguration. The outgoing President, at the opening of the session of Congress, had still kept as the majority of his advisors men engaged in treason; had declared that in case of even an "imaginary" apprehension of danger from notions of freedom among the slaves, "disunion would become inevitable." LINCOLN and others had questioned the opinion of Taney; such impugning he ascribed to the "factious temper of the times." The favorite doctrine of the majority of the Democratic ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... highly ridiculous in the mouth of this excellent actor."[42] In France Harlequin was improved into a wit, and even converted into a moralist; he is the graceful hero of Florian's charming compositions, which please even in the closet. "This imaginary being, invented by the Italians, and adopted by the French," says the ingenious Goldoni, "has the exclusive right of uniting naivete with finesse, and no one ever surpassed Florian in the delineation of this amphibious character. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... had without doubt made some impression upon a spirit not anticipated in an imaginary capacity of governor; but this one here, on the contrary, fortified himself in his resolution, & begged me to tell the French to embark themselves, without considering that my nephew had not time enough to go seek his clothes, ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... signature, as now; a signature better known, perhaps, than any other in the world, and one with which almost every human being who can write is perfectly familiar. Of course it will be understood that the quantities given above are altogether imaginary. It is impossible to remember the exact figures after so many years, but they are inserted to show the form the ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... was very proud of that wonderful hunting-knife of his. He even smiled to see the perceptible shudder with which Nellie surveyed him as he cut imaginary circles in the ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... determined, the history of the human heart traced thread by thread, and the history of society recorded in all its parts, we have the foundation. There will be no imaginary incidents in it; it will consist solely ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... plaint and protest. In politics we call this practice calamity-howling, whether in tornado-swept Kansas, blizzard-bitten Iowa or boss-ridden New York. in literature it is mere charlatanry, mere scagliola, made for sale. Hamlin Garland makes imaginary journeys over "Traveled Roads" to tell us of the utter and intolerable miseries of the Western farmers who live in sod houses. Raising dollar wheat is not so bad, even in a sod house. George Cable and Albion Tourges write sentimental lies about the Southern negroes. Those at all ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... vested with a reasonable soul, and that soul adorned with faculties and capacities adapted both to honour his Maker and be honoured by him; I say, to see it sunk and degenerated to a degree so more than stupid, as to prostrate itself to a frightful nothing, a mere imaginary object dressed up by themselves, and made terrible to themselves by their own contrivance, adorned only with clouts and rags; and that this should be the effect of mere ignorance, wrought up into ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... the rough coats and rougher banter of the shepherds. For though the poet raised the pastoral life of Sicily into the realms of ideal poetry, he was careful not to dissociate his version from reality, and he allowed no imaginary conceptions to overmaster his art. He depicted no age of innocence; his poetry reflects no philosophical illusion of primitive simplicity; he elaborated no imaginary cult of mystical worship. His art, however little it may ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... may be taken at 10 inches. The portion immediately subjacent is called the subsoil, and it has considerable agricultural importance, and requires a short notice. In many instances, soil and subsoil are separated by a purely imaginary line, and no striking difference can be observed either in their chemical or physical characters. In such cases it has been the practice with some persons not to limit the term soil to the upper portion, but to apply it to the whole depth, however great ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... the romantic scallops of a black wig, was giving the big scene from the third act. And though it sounded like a burlesque of that famous passage, and though she limped more than ever as she reeled to an imaginary shrine in the corner, and though the black wig was slightly askew by now, and the black velvet hung with bunchy awkwardness about her skinny little body, there was nothing of mirth in Sid Hahn's face as he gazed. He shrank ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... Chad administered his kick with fantastic force and sent an imaginary object flying. It was accordingly as if they were once more rid of the question and could come back to what really concerned him. "Of course I shall see ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... in the indulgence of his official powers. I would I knew which is the true statement of the case, and whether the once famed De Walton is become afraid of his enemies more than fits a knight, or makes imaginary doubts the pretext of tyrannizing over his friend. I cannot say it would make much difference to me, but I would rather have it that the man I once loved had turned a petty tyrant than a weak-spirited coward; and I would be content that he should study to vex me, rather ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... of worshiping the mastodon head; but I doubt if this can be said to be idol worship. Can and his family were probably monotheists. The masses of the people, however, may have placed the different natural phenomena under the direct supervision of special imaginary beings, prescribing to them the same duties that among the Catholics are prescribed, or rather attributed, to some of the saints; and may have tributed to them the sort of worship of dulia, tributed to the saints—even made images that they imagined to represent such or ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... sat around the tea-table, the two mothers and all the rest of them, looking gloomy enough; while over there in her bit of a brown house, in the village, sat Mrs. Lee in very much the same frame of mind, trying to relieve her feelings by smoothing imaginary wrinkles out of her boy's best clothes, and planning for him any number of bright red neckties, if he would only come back ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... in its landscapes, in its description of bogs and desolation, of dark forests in which lurk savages ready to spring out on those who are rash enough to wander within their confines. All the scenery in it which is not imaginary is Irish and ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... as if to chase an adversary; then they would swerve aside, the slaves on one side rowing, while those on the other backed, so as to make a rapid turn. Then she lay for a minute or two immovable, and then backed water, or turned to avoid the attack of an imaginary foe. Then for an hour she lay quiet, while the knights, divesting themselves of their mantles and armour, worked one of the guns on the poop, aiming at a floating barrel moored for the purpose a mile out at sea. At eleven o'clock they returned to the port. Bread and ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... circularly; in the digestion of his relations he is stoical, and sits regularly. He has an alphabetical table of all the chief commanders, generals, leaders, provincial towns, rivers, ports, creeks, with other fitting materials to furnish his imaginary building. Whisperings, mutterings, and bare suppositions are sufficient grounds for the authority of his relations. It is strange to see with what greediness this airy chameleon, being all lungs and wind, will swallow a receipt of news, as if it were physical; yea, with what frontless insinuation ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... district school, seemed dull work indeed to a boy who was longing to stand sword in hand on a blood-stained deck, in a gory uniform trimmed with skulls and cross-bones, and order his enemies to be thrown one by one into the sea. "The shark awaits your car-casses!" spouted the imaginary desperado with a vicious snap of his teeth; and when Aunt Greg interrupted by asking him to bring in an armful of kindling, he glared at her like the Red Rover himself. Poor Aunt Greg! how little she guessed what ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... . . . of looking out for people's foibles for her own amusement, or the entertainment of her hearers. . . . I do not suppose she ever in her life said a sharp thing.' We may be sure, therefore, that when she seems to imply that her mother's ailments were imaginary, or that Mrs. Knight's generosity to Edward was insignificant, or that Mrs. Knight herself was about to contract a second marriage, she is no more serious than when she describes herself as having taken too much wine, as a hardened flirt, or as a selfish housekeeper ordering only those ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... they will lean on the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us?" We are convinced that much of the work of the faithful and pungent preacher, who preaches with his eye fixed on the great white throne and the descending Judge, is to dislodge professors from their imaginary trust in a Saviour who does not save them, and probe deeply their hearts festering with sin, which have been hastily pronounced healed, "slightly healed." Many of us have incautiously said to awakened souls, "Only believe," before we ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... Clerks Pierrette A Study of Woman Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine The Seamy Side of History The Magic Skin A Second Home A Prince of Bohemia Letters of Two Brides The Muse of the Department The Imaginary Mistress The Middle Classes Cousin Betty The Country Parson In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: Another Study of Woman ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... which such an imaginary achievement raised his dreams, there was but one higher step, and his colossal egotism immediately mounted to occupy it. On August 9, just two weeks after his arrival ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... discussed. That to an American especially this peculiar beauty tells with great force we can readily believe, and Mrs. Van Rensselaer, whose paper on Salisbury has been quoted before in this book, expresses admirably the feeling, which, whether it be true or only imaginary, is no doubt the impression of such a place as the Close of Salisbury on many an educated visitor. "Salisbury," she writes, "is the very type and picture of the Church of the Prince of Peace. Nowhere ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... contrary, Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xii, 15): "When the same image that comes into the mind of a speaker presents itself to the mind of the sleeper, so that the latter is unable to distinguish the imaginary from the real union of bodies, the flesh is at once moved, with the result that usually follows such motions; and yet there is as little sin in this as there is in speaking and therefore thinking about such ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... ingenious ways. Looking back now I see that much of my terror was needless. They seldom ill-treated me in act; but knowing, I suppose, that the imagination is often very apprehensive in weakly bodies like mine, they took a delight in threatening me, conjuring up all manner of imaginary horrors, and so working on me that my sleep was disturbed by hideous nightmares. I told nobody of what I suffered, and when Mistress Pennyquick noticed that I was pale and heavy-eyed sometimes in the morning, she did but suppose ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... in his presence. When, however, Egmont had fallen from favor, and was already a prisoner, the Cardinal diligently exerted himself to place under the King's eye what he considered the most damning evidence of the Count's imaginary treason; a document with which the public prosecutor had not ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... there is an imaginary boundary line which lies over the battle line; and there is another which may be on your side or on the other side of the battle line. It is the location of the second line that tells who has the mastery of the air. A word of bare and impressive meaning this of mastery in war, which ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... she passed through sensitive phases of feeling that she mistook for remorse. Believing that she had defrauded her children of the tenderness that should have been theirs, she sought to redeem those imaginary wrongs; bestowing attentions and tender cares which made her precious to them; she longed to make her children live, as it were, within her heart; to shelter them beneath her feeble wings; to cherish them enough in the few remaining days to redeem ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... at the Bush Terminal at Brooklyn," explained Tom. "Look out there; don't get in the way of the ropes," and he pushed the crowd back from the imaginary ropes, and whistled a ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... listen to me. Girls are apt to imagine noble and enchanting and totally imaginary figures in their own minds; they have fanciful extravagant ideas about men, and sentiment, and life; and then they innocently endow somebody or other with all the perfections of their day-dreams, and put their trust in him. They fall in love with this imaginary creature in the man ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... an observation of epistemological nature. A geometrical-physical theory as such is incapable of being directly pictured, being merely a system of concepts. But these concepts serve the purpose of bringing a multiplicity of real or imaginary sensory experiences into connection in the mind. To "visualise" a theory, or bring it home to one's mind, therefore means to give a representation to that abundance of experiences for which the theory supplies ...
— Sidelights on Relativity • Albert Einstein
... Legion. At the far edge of the field was a fringe of stunted cedars, like an abatis, partly concealing the old barricade where, in the golden days of their youth, he had played with Shirley at storming the fort; and Shirley, in these fierce assaults, had usually tumbled over upon the imaginary enemy ahead ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization; and yet I wish to say there is an objection urged against free colored persons remaining in the country which is largely imaginary, if not ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... her. There in the temple of Art, where critical eyes were bent searchingly upon her, Nature triumphantly asserted itself, and she who wept passionately from the bitter realisation of her own accumulated wrongs, was wildly applauded as the queen of actresses, who so successfully simulated imaginary woes. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... centre of the church, on a rug surrounded by foreign consuls. Anton, dressed in his high-school uniform, with his grandfather's old sabre coming to his shoulder, used to act the part of the Governor with extraordinary subtlety and carry out a review of imaginary Cossacks. Often the children would gather round their mother or their old nurse ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... immense use to the humble classes, or those of limited means. There they might purchase, at an amazing reduction in price, excellent things, almost new, the actual depreciation in value being almost imaginary. On one side of the Temple, set apart for bedding, there were heaps of coverlets, sheets, mattresses, and pillows. Further on were carpets, curtains, and all sorts of kitchen utensils, besides ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... as the regions most threatened by the spirit of change. The forecast was not an accurate one. In each of these countries Government proved during the succeeding years to be much more than a match for its real or imaginary foes: it was in the Mediterranean States, which had excited comparatively little anxiety, that the first successful attack was made upon established power. Three movements arose successively in the three southern peninsulas, at the time when Metternich was enjoying ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Jimmie dismissed the taxi-cab and asked for a room adjoining an imaginary Senator Gates. When the clerk told him Senator Gates was not at that hotel, Jimmie excitedly demanded to be led to the telephone. He telephoned the office of the steamship line: and, in the name of ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... They entered this state of abstractedness unconsciously. To do so intentionally, you go by the law of indirectness. For instance, take sight; concentrate your vision and your whole attention upon some object, real or imaginary, until soon the sense of HEARING becomes dormant. A little practice will enable you to study, think or sleep, regardless ...
— The Silence • David V. Bush
... scandalous innuendos against, or imaginary conversations with, the fair, the brave, and the wise amongst the daughters and sons of America, I say, Read not at all; since herein, though something of mankind, there is little of any man, woman, or child, of the thousands ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... fire were not so full of colour as these early messages. They consisted of code letters. The clock code for signalling the results of artillery fire was first used in 1915 and afterwards generally throughout the war. The target was taken as the centre of a clock and imaginary lines were circumscribed around it at distances of 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 yards. These lines were lettered Y, Z, A, B, C, D, E, F, respectively. Twelve o'clock was always taken as true north from the target and the remaining hours accordingly. An observer ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... was as follows:—Taking an imaginary line drawn from the Areonal to Mars as the base line of an isosceles triangle, we were moving along the left side of the triangle, and Mars was moving in a slightly curved line along the right side. Our paths were ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... and, with a "let mamma know," to the butler, set to work to entertain her visitor. She would have had no difficulty in doing this under ordinary circumstances, as all that Mr. Smith wanted was a good listener. He was a somewhat heavy and garrulous old gentleman, with many imaginary, and a few real troubles, the constant contemplation of which served to occupy the whole of his own time, and as much of his friends' as he could get them to give him. But scarcely had he settled himself comfortably in an easy chair opposite to ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... been on the floor while the music was being performed, but disappeared shortly afterwards. He had his gun, and dodged from one chair to the next, and sighted his gun, and bounded away, as though attacking and running from an imaginary enemy. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... the leader, and the sound of the voices, the plod of the iron shoes, and the bell-like tinkle of the harness were all pleasant to hear. The whole thing seemed to her picturesque and interesting, like a small episode in the Old Testament, and imaginary words offered themselves as suitable to describe it. "Therefore that day her husband gathered all that was theirs, and set her behind his horses and they journeyed ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell |
