"Imagine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to hear their distant protests when one reads of Christ and the Magdalen, or of Christ eating with publicans and sinners. The clergy of our own days play the part of the New Testament Pharisees with the utmost exactness and complete unconsciousness. One cannot imagine a modern ecclesiastic conversing with a Magdalen in terms of ordinary civility, unless she was in a very high social position indeed, or blending with disreputable characters without a dramatic sense of condescension and much explanatory by-play. ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... by what it leaves you to guess and wonder about as by what it tells you. It has not the sweetness, the softness of melancholy, of the theater at Arles; but it is more extraordinary, and one can imagine only tremendous tragedies ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... all who appreciate the advantages of a natural classification of plants—for which Jussieu was indebted to him—was the son of a gentleman, who after firmly attaching himself to the Stuarts, left Scotland and entered the service of the Archbishop of Aix. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, and, I imagine, almost all biographical dictionaries and similar works, contain notices of him. His devoted life has deserved ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... faces and costumes, and an endless variety of objects, which you could reduce to complete and well drawn forms. And these appear on such walls confusedly, like the sound of bells in whose jangle you may find any name or word you choose to imagine. ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... we are glad to say that she has not adopted the common chromo-lithographic method of those popular North British novelists who have never yet fully realised the difference between colour and colours, and who imagine that by emptying a paint box over every page they can bring before us the magic of mist and mountain, the wonder of sea or glen. Mrs. Perks has a grace and delicacy of touch that is quite charming, and she can deal with nature without either botanising ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... "Just imagine," Dick continued, "if we could publish a few of these dear little things every time the Nilghai subsidises a man who can write, to give the public an honest ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... brother Perses had by corrupting some great men ([Greek text which cannot be reproduced], great bribe-eaters he calls them) gotten from him the half of his estate. It is no matter, says he, they have not done me so much prejudice as they imagine. ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... intolerable! How can I report this affair? I can't suggest commendation, or a promotion, or—anything! I don't even know how to refer to you! I am going to ask you, Mr. Kenmore, to put through a request that your status be clarified. I would imagine that your status would mean a rank—hm—about equivalent to a lieutenant ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... Ned began to imagine he was in a boiler factory, of which Mr. De Vere was the foreman. The latter seemed to be hammering on a big steel safe, and soon, in Ned's ears there echoed the noise of the blows. Then the boy's ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... conversations. He said he had proposed the same thing to Hamilton, who expressed his readiness, and he thought our coalition would secure the general acquiescence of the public. I told him my concurrence was of much less importance than he seemed to imagine; that I kept myself aloof from all cabal and correspondence on the subject with the government, and saw and spoke with as few as I could. That as to a coalition with Mr. Hamilton, if by that was meant that either was to sacrifice ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... her. It could have been nothing short of intuition which gave her this suggestion. They had been riding on the surface of a gigantic ice-floe. It was, perhaps, twenty miles wide by a hundred long. There was no sense of motion. So silent was its sweep, one might imagine oneself to be upon land; yet, as she crept quickly out of her sleeping-bag, she saw at once that the motion of the floe was arrested and off to the right she read the reason. A narrow stretch of rocky shore there cast back the first rays ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... They were beaten with clubs, buffeted on the face with gauntlets made of several pieces of leather, and at length condemned to lose their heads. The bishop was beheaded on the same day, the 26th of May, 1747. The Chinese superstitiously imagine, that the soul of one that is put to death seizes the first person it meets, and therefore all the spectators run away as soon as they see the stroke of death given; but none of them did so at the death of this blessed martyr. On the contrary, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... more "whithersoevers" among us, we should not hear of ministers' being kept out of the work through lack of support or a lack of funds to carry on the Lord's work. Think of a stingy "whithersoever"! Can you imagine such a combination? Yet many professed followers fail in their duty ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... consists in struggling, slapping, rolling, jumping, kicking, shouting, laughing, and quarrelling! Two fine boys are very clever in harnessing paper carts to the backs of beetles with gummed traces, so that eight of them draw a load of rice up an inclined plane. You can imagine what the fate of such a load and team would be at home among a number of snatching hands. Here a number of infants watch the performance with motionless interest, and never need the adjuration, "Don't touch." In most of the houses there are bamboo cages for "the shrill-voiced ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... position. This apparent motion is due to the finite velocity of light, and the progressive motion of the observer with the earth, as it performs its yearly course about the sun. It may be familiarized by the following illustrations. Alexis Claude Clairaut gave this figure: Imagine rain to be falling vertically, and a person carrying a thin perpendicular tube to be standing on the ground. If the bearer be stationary, rain-drops will traverse the tube without touching its sides; if, however, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the earliest naturalist of distinction in the United States; there are also the fossil remains and the animals described by Harlan, by Godman, and by Hayes, and the fossils described by Conrad and Morton. Dr. Morton's unique collection of human skulls is also to be found in Philadelphia. Imagine a series of six hundred skulls, mostly Indian, of all the tribes who now inhabit or formerly inhabited America. Nothing like it exists elsewhere. This collection alone is worth a journey to America. Dr. Morton has had the kindness to give me a copy ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... devotes himself to the welfare of the Christian community. He sets an example, to us ministers in particular, of how to effect the good of the people. But we do not rightly heed his example. We imagine it sufficient to hear the Gospel and be able to discourse about it; we stop at the mere knowledge of it; we never avail ourselves of the Gospel's power in the struggles of life. Unquestionably, the trouble is, we ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... letter. The terribly sudden and awful calamity that has overtaken us has paralysed my mind, and I can hardly think straight. One thing that stands out before me, wiping out almost every other thought, is that our dear Betty is no more. You cannot imagine it, I know, for though I saw her in her coffin, so sweet and lovely, but oh! so still, I cannot get myself to believe it. The circumstances concerning her death, too, were awfully sad, so sad that it simply goes beyond any words I have to describe them. I will try to be coherent; but, though I shall ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... to him his memory wholly failed, and in sheer confusion he could answer nothing, so overawed was he by the presence of the distinguished visitors. Accordingly, he alone of all the candidates was dismissed as unfit to enter the seminary. Imagine how hard a blow this must have been to Jean. All his work of the preceding eight years appeared to have ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... all around the brig, and found lots of water at the stern, but not so much forward. We were stuck fast on something, but nobody could imagine what it was. However, we were not sinking any deeper, and that was a comfort; and the captain he believed that if we had had boats we could row to St. Thomas; but we didn't have any boats, so we had to make the best of it. He put up a flag of distress, and waited till some ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... when I was not supposed to be in hearing, one of the officers said to another, "Ma foi, elle est jolie—elle a besoin de deux ans, et elle sera parfaite." So childish and innocent was I at that time, that I could not imagine what they meant. ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... to forget, Quinnox, that such a marriage is utterly impossible," said the Prince coldly, "Do you imagine ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... alternate night—that is, if he keeps the first watch of the night, 8 to 12 p.m., his resting hours are from 12 to 4. At 4 he has to rise again and scrub decks, whereas if he is in his hammock from 8 to 12, then he keeps the middle watch, returning to his rest at 4. Let us imagine the ship at sea. It is midnight. The bell is struck. Immediately is heard a deep bass voice to and fro the lower deck— "All the starboard watch! Heave out! heave out! heave out! Show a leg! show a leg! All the starboard Watch! Show a leg!" which means ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... evident horror of their intended victims, confined in the same cages, was distinctly mentioned. The gratification of mere curiosity does not justify the infliction of such torture on the lower animals. Surely the sight of a stuffed boa-constrictor ought to content a reasonable curiosity. Imagine what would be felt if a child were subjected to such a fate, or what could be answered if the present victims could tell their agonies as well as feel them! Byron speaks of the barbarians who, in the wantonness ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... Preceptors, who imagine that it is necessary to put on very grave faces, and to use much learned apparatus in teaching the art of reasoning, are not nearly so likely to succeed as those who have the happy art of encouraging children to lay open their minds freely, and who can make every pleasing trifle an exercise ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... Penryn, and then by midnight, to the narrowest of all towns, Falmouth. I longed to get back to my darlings, and resolved to see them by next morning, so booked an outside (no room inside, as before) for an immediate start. Now, you can readily imagine that I was by no means hot, and though the night of Thursday last was rather mild, still it was midwinter: accordingly I conceived and executed a marvellous calorificating plan, which even the mail-coachman had never heard of. ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... It is true the fond assurances of Denas had somewhat pacified his suspicions, but he was not altogether satisfied. When Denas declared that Roland had not made love to her, John felt certain that the girl was in some measure deceiving him—perhaps deceiving herself; for he could not imagine her to be guilty of a deliberate lie. Alas! lying is the vital air of secret love, and a girl must needs lie who hides from her parents the object and the course of her affections. Still, when he thought of her arms around his neck, of her cheek against his cheek, of her assertion that "Denas ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... one terrible truth had been forced by slow degrees upon Felix's mind; whatever else Korong meant, it implied at least some fearful doom in store, sooner or later, for the persons who bore it. How awful that doom might be, he could hardly imagine; but he must devote himself henceforth to the task of discovering what its nature was, and, if possible, of ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... pretend to make an exact calculation; perhaps, it may be something less, and perhaps, a great deal more. The annual revenue arising from all the private estates of Scotland cannot fall short of a million sterling; and, I should imagine, their trade will amount to as much more. — I know the linen manufacture alone returns near half a million, exclusive of the home-consumption of that article. — If, therefore, North-Britain pays a ballance of a million annually to England, I insist upon it, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... relations, but she found no words in which to say it. I began to question her; she answered that she missed her absent mother. It seemed to me that she was not telling the truth. I sought to console her by maintaining silence in regard to her parents. I did not imagine that she felt herself simply overwhelmed, and that her parents had nothing to do with her sorrow. She did not listen to me, and I accused her of caprice. I began to laugh at her gently. She dried her tears, and began to reproach me, in hard and wounding ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... Athens, if any one regard without uneasiness the might and dominion of Philip, and imagine that it threatens no danger to the state, or that all his preparations are not against you, I marvel, and would entreat you every one to hear briefly from me the reasons why I am led to form a contrary expectation, and why I deem Philip an enemy; that, if I ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... out-voice the deep-mouth'd sea, Which like a mighty whiffler 'fore the King Seems to prepare his way. So let him land, And solemnly see him set on to London. So swift a pace hath thought that even now You may imagine him upon Blackheath, Where that his lords desire him to have borne His bruised helmet and his bended sword Before him through the city. He forbids it, Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride; Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent Quite from himself ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... so large that it is impossible to imagine it; the place was immensely large; and it was inhabited by people rich, not with richness like ours, but with richness like that of the Crassi and the others of those old days.... And such merchandise! Diamonds, rubies, pearls ... and besides all that, the horse trade. That alone produced ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... do here all alone?" she asked in French. She never used a word of Marquesan to me. I replied that I was trying to imagine myself there fifty years earlier, when the meddlesome white sang very low in the concert of ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... cried Lester, accepting the offer. "I imagine Mark doesn't have much variety in his diet, and we'll see that to-night at least the old man has a ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... asked you to come here just to be talking over politics in general, as you may imagine, Mr. Gilgan. I want to put a particular problem before you. Do you happen to know either Mr. ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... am worn out, but amply repaid for my exertions by a broken cocoon and the puzzling skin of a wretched grub. Young people who make a hobby of natural history, would you like to discover whether the sacred fire flows in your veins? Imagine yourselves returning from such an expedition. You are carrying on your shoulder the peasant's heavy spade; your loins are stiff with the laborious digging which you have just finished in a crouching position; the heat of an August afternoon ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... seemed to be gaps in her memory and also in her conscience. She was ignorant, knowing nothing either of literature or of the usages of society. Her salon was the landing of her flat and her acquaintances were the neighbours who happened to live next door to her. It is easy to imagine what she thought of the aristocrats who visited her mother-in-law. She was amusing when she joked and made parodies on the women she styled "the old Countesses." She had a great deal of natural wit, a liveliness ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... was not very long, as you can imagine, until the Keeper of the Key observed the shepherd boy loitering about the mansion. When he heard him calling past the house to imaginary flocks a scowl came upon his face. "Ah-ha!" he said, "another conspiracy! Last time it ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... repressed the rumour. So that we are to note by this example the force of counterfeit holinesse and feigned harmelesnesse in hypocrits, —— qui pelle sub agni Vipereum celant virus morsq; luporum; Et stolidos ficta virtutis imagine fallunt. ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (6 of 12) - Richard the First • Raphael Holinshed
... Phys. i. And therefore dimensive quantity itself is a particular principle of individuation in forms of this kind, namely, inasmuch as forms numerically distinct are in different parts of the matter. Hence also dimensive quantity has of itself a kind of individuation, so that we can imagine several lines of the same species, differing in position, which is included in the notion of this quantity; for it belongs to dimension for it to be "quantity having position" (Aristotle, Categor. iv), and therefore dimensive ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... principally led to the selection of two islands in the Mediterranean, not generally supposed to possess any particular attractions for the tourist, as the object for an autumn's expedition with the companion of former rambles. At any rate, we should break fresh ground; and I imagine the hope of shooting moufflons was no small inducement to my friend, who had succeeded in the wild sport of hunting reindeer on the high Fjelds of Norway. If, too, his comrade should fail in climbing to the vast solitudes in which the bounding moufflon ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... physical endurance, but, especially in the city, tries our moral character. It is the winter months that ruin, morally, and forever, many of our young men. We sit in the house on a winter's night, and hear the storm raging on the outside, and imagine the helpless crafts driven on the coast; but if our ears were only good enough, we could, on any winter night, hear the crash of ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... untiring presence of sun and wind and sea. They typified, even if they were not, as I sometimes fancied, the actual incentive to the fierce, restless life of the city. I could not think of San Francisco without the trade winds; I could not imagine its strange, incongruous, multigenerous procession marching to any other music. They were always there in my youthful recollections; they were there in my more youthful dreams of the past as the mysterious vientes generales that blew the ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... made in my way a good thing of it. Don't imagine I'm whining about it. It's one's own fault ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... be hard to imagine a more gloomy occupation than that of Ben Ripley while engaged with this duty. The solemn murmur of the vast woods around him, the world of darkness in which he slowly paced to and fro, the memory of the sad scenes he had seen in the lovely Wyoming ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... prophecy against one whose name began with a G, appears to have been composed in aid of the operation of this law. The author takes great pains to impress his readers with the futility as well as wickedness of such predictions, and concludes with the remark, that no one ought to imagine the foolish and malicious inventors ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... smuggling sweets would have lost him many a half-holiday had not his services been required at outside-left in the hockey eleven. With some difficulty he managed to pass into Eton, and three years later—with, one would imagine, still more difficulty—managed to get superannuated. At Cambridge he went down-hill rapidly. He would think nothing of smoking a cigar in academical costume, and on at least one occasion he drove a dogcart on Sunday. ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... off goods, cattle, and a number of captives. The force I had made requisition for was obtained; but not the right men, or at least the officers I should have chosen to command it. A troop of light cavalry was sent me—Lancers. You may imagine my chagrin, not to say disgust, when I saw Captain Gil Uraga at its head. Marching into the town of Albuquerque, ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... come to Prince Ali's and the Princess Nouronnihar's wedding any more than his brother Houssain, but did not renounce the world as he had done. But, as he could not imagine what had become of his arrow, he stole away from his attendants and resolved to search after it, that he might not have anything to reproach himself with. With this intent he went to the place where ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... had practised self-discipline, and her thoughts and actions were not yet to correspond. To recover her self-esteem she tried to imagine that she was in her ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... undoubtedly made at a sacrifice to Champlain, and he had to suffer many humiliations and privations thereby. We cannot imagine that he found any pleasure in going to war with a lot of savages, or in fighting against a ferocious band, with whom neither he nor his people had any quarrel. It is certain that Champlain did not encourage them in their wars, and he was careful not to put any weapons into their hands. The same ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... the lake had grown to a passion, and she could scarcely bear to be out of it for an hour. Imagine then her consternation, when, diving with the prince one night, a sudden suspicion seized her that the lake was not so deep as it used to be. The prince could not imagine what had happened. She shot to the surface, and, without a word, swam at full speed towards the higher ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... in our latitude, we rarely have the accumulated layers of several successive snow-storms preserved one above another. We can, therefore, hardly imagine with what distinctness the sequence of such beds is marked in the upper Alpine regions. The first cause of this distinction between the layers is the quality of the snow when it falls, then the immediate changes it undergoes after its deposit, then the falling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... a whole, we can hardly imagine a comedy politically more tame than was that of Rome in the sixth century.(22) The oldest Roman comic writer of note, Gnaeus Naevius, alone forms a remarkable exception. Although he did not write exactly original Roman comedies, the few fragments of his, which we possess, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... grant it even if Pepeeta comes. The knife has gone too deep! His heart is broken, and his mind, I think, is deranged. And more than this, he will not live until Pepeeta comes unless she hastens on the wings of the wind. He is dying, Corson, dying. You cannot imagine how he has withered away since you saw him. It is like watching a candle flicker in its socket. You must abandon ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... feared, the man concerning whose actual personality he had felt so many doubts. What if things should go wrong to-night, if the whole dramatic story should be handed over for the glory and wonder of the halfpenny press! He could fancy their headlines, imagine even their trenchant paragraphs. It was skating on the thinnest of ice—and for what? His fingers gripped the damp window-sill. He raised himself a little higher. His eyes fell upon his watch—still a minute or two to twelve. Slowly he ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I shouldn't particularly like his lordship to imagine that I went in the hope of paying my respects to him, and having the reward of ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... Anthony," she wrote, "and explain this terrible thing, for I know well that you could not do what has been told us of you. But tell us what has happened, that we may know what to think. Poor Lady Maxwell is in the distress you may imagine; not knowing what will come to Mr. James. She will come to London, I think, this week. Write at once now, my Anthony, and tell ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... fancy, in some of his more enthusiastic and energetic moments, that you see his inmost soul in his face. At times, indeed very often, he so unnaturally distorts his features, as to give to his countenance a very unpleasant expression. On such occasions, you would imagine that he was suddenly seized with some violent paroxysms of pain. He is one of the most ungraceful speakers I have ever heard address a public assemblage of persons. In addition to the awkwardness of his general manner, he 'makes ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... education on the broad scale, and not that of the petty academies, as they call themselves, which are starting up in every neighborhood, and where one or two men, possessing Latin, and sometimes Greek, a knowledge of the globes, and the first six books of Euclid, imagine and communicate this as the sum of science. They commit their pupils to the theatre of the world, with just taste enough of learning to be alienated from industrious pursuits, and not enough to do service in the ranks of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... he spent many of his evenings with her, somewhat to the loss of position in his classes at the parish school. They were, indeed, much attached to each other; and, peculiarly constituted as Elsie was, one may imagine what kind of heavenly messenger a companion stronger than herself must have been to her. In fact, if she could have framed the undefinable need of her childlike nature into an articulate prayer, it would have been—"Give me some one to love me stronger than I." Any love ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... it not. My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. The swallow over my window should interweave that thread or straw he carries in his bill into my web also. We pass for what we are. Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... you are! Here we are with only a few minutes to talk; not more than ten—that's official from the doctor; and you're talking foolishness. If I were extremely sensitive I might imagine that my face was ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... profusion to eat and drink-jam, ginger-beer, cake! So rumour had it; and to unsophisticated Paul rumour was gospel truth. With all these unexperienced joys before him, what cared he for the blankety little blanks who gibed at him? If you imagine that little Paul Kegworthy formulated his thoughts as would the angel choir-boy in the pictures, you are mistaken. The baby language of Bludston would petrify the foc'sle of a tramp, steamer. The North of England is justly proud of ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... all O'Grady's heroes that they are the spiritual progeny of Cuculain. From Red Hugh down to the boys who have such enchanting adventures in "Lost on Du Corrig" and "The Chain of Gold" they have all a natural and hardy purity of mind, a beautiful simplicity of character, and one can imagine them all in an hour of need, being faithful to any trust like the darling of the Red Branch. These shining lads never grew up amid books. They are as much children of nature as the Lucy of Wordsworth's poetry. It might be said of them as the poet of ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... caught your eyes, didn't they, my dear?" Mrs. Mortimer resumed. "And brought you in through my gate and right up to me. And that's the very reason they were planted with the vegetables—to catch eyes. You can't imagine how many eyes they have caught, nor how many owners of eyes they have lured inside my gate. This is a good road, and is a very popular short country drive for townsfolk. Oh, no; I've never had any luck with automobiles. They can't see anything ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... case must be based on the inferences of common sense and experience of the world, for neither of such persons is a witness to be trusted. Weakness and inconsistency are visible indeed in all Cicero's letters; but who can imagine Caesar or Crassus writing such letters at all? The perfect unreserve which gives them their charm and their value for us is also the highest possible testimony to the ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... generally be very much cut down, usually to irregular, rounded slopes of smooth rock. The vertical portions were unbroken by cracks or crevices or ledges, being extensive flat surfaces, beautifully stained by iron, till one could imagine all manner of tapestry effects. Along the river there were large patches of alluvial soil which might easily be irrigated, though it is probable that at certain periods they would be rapidly cut to ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... men caught up by express trains and deposited, by the aid of cabmen and porters, in a few hours in the sheltered courts of Oxford and Cambridge, we must imagine a party of boys, of fourteen or fifteen years old, trudging on foot twenty miles a day for five days across bleak country, sleeping at rough inns, and on their arrival searching for an attic in some bleak tenement in a noisy street. Here they were to live almost entirely on the baskets of home produce ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... father to come and upset his wife like this? It was a shock, after all these years! He ought to have known; he ought to have given them warning; but when did a Forsyte ever imagine that his conduct could upset anybody! And in his thoughts he did old ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... fashionable style. The young men among the slaves wear white trousers, black stocks, broad-brimmed hats, and carry walking-sticks; and from the bowings, curtseying and greetings in the highway one might almost imagine one's self to be at Hayti and think that the coloured people had got possession of the town and held sway, while the whites were living among them by sufferance."[46] Olmsted in his turn found the holiday dress of the ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... he said, as he tied the bundle of letters together. "At your time of life you should not imagine that every one's head is full of philandering nonsense. Mr. Brand has something else to think of; besides, he has been in the midland counties ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... went down. My senses began to clear, and I noted that there was never a miss. Every time that the rifle went off a nigger dropped. I sat down on deck beside the winch and looked up. Perched in the crosstrees was Saxtorph. How he had managed it I can't imagine, for he had carried up with him two Winchesters and I don't know how many bandoliers of ammunition; and he was now doing the one only thing in this world that he ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... what now I saw, Imagine (and retain the image firm, As mountain rock, the whilst he hears me speak), Of stars fifteen, from midst the ethereal host Selected, that, with lively ray serene, O'ercome the massiest air: thereto imagine The wain, that, in the bosom of our sky, Spins ever on its axle night and day, With the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... with a white beard, tinted spectacles, and overcoat somewhat the worse for wear. He hailed me on the road yesterday and asked for a match. I imagine he must live ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... to think it's real," said Miriam. "What they'll do without me at 'ome I can't imagine. When ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... to get her, my dear boy; she is not your kind at all—nay, now, let me say it, since I have kept it unsaid so long and patiently. Do you imagine she could ever understand an unselfish life, or even one that tried to be unselfish? She makes an excellent Madame 'Thanase. 'Thanase is a good, vigorous, faithful, gentle animal, that knows how to graze ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... tell you a great deal about it," he went on; "but it might be aside from the point. Still—" he pondered a moment, studying her. "Still, imagine to yourself how such a malady sits upon a man like Regnault. It is a fetter upon the most sluggish; for him, with all his vivacity of temperament, his ardor, his quickness, it is a rack upon which he is stretched. You do not know the studio he has now, Senora! ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... still morning air, as though for a general conflagration, and the unfortunate traveller rushes frantically from his bed to inquire if there is any hope of safety from the flames which he imagines, from the noise made, must threaten the whole town. Imagine, O reader! in thy native town, every square with its church, every church with its tower, or maybe two or three of them, and in each particular tower a half-dozen large bells, no two of which sound alike; place the bell-ropes ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... there is no more impressive scene on earth than the solitary extent of the Campagna of Rome under evening light. Let the reader imagine himself for a moment withdrawn from the sounds and motion of the living world, and sent forth alone into this wild and wasted plain. The earth yields and crumbles beneath his foot, tread he never so lightly, for its substance is white, ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... unhappy, however faulty, would ever willingly have exchanged identities with any one else. People desired to be rid of definite afflictions, definite faults; they desired and envied particular qualities, particular advantages that others possessed, but he could not imagine that any one in the world would exchange any one else's identity for his own; one would like perhaps to be in another's place, and this was generally accompanied by a feeling that one would be able to make a much better thing of another's sources of happiness and enjoyment, than the ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... most appropriate to it—the dramatic Alexandrine verse. The stuff out of which it is woven, made up, not of the images of sense, but of the processes of thought, is, in fact, simply argument. One can understand how verse created from such material might be vigorous and impressive; it is difficult to imagine how it could also be passionate—until one has read Corneille. Then one realizes afresh the compelling power of genius. His tragic personages, standing forth without mystery, without 'atmosphere', without local colour, but simply in the clear white light of reason, rivet our attention, ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... the slightest similarity between the Fourteen Points and the Peace of Versailles and St. Germain, but it is forgotten now that Wilson no longer had the power to enforce his will against the three others. We do not know what occurred behind those closed doors, but we can imagine it, and Wilson probably fought weeks and months for his programme. He could have broken off proceedings and left! He certainly could have done so, but would the chaos have been any less; would it have ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... regarded with the utmost resentment the determination of the war to come to Leesville, in spite of all his labours to keep it out. Take the most preposterous thing you could imagine—the most idiotic thing on the face of the earth—take German spies! When Jimmie heard people talking about German spies, he laughed in their faces, he told them they were a bunch of fools, they belonged in the nursery; for Jimmie classed ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... much troubled about my books, but cannot, imagine where they should be. Up, to the setting my closet to rights, and Sir W. Coventry takes me at it, which did not displease me. He and I to discourse about our accounts, and the bringing them to the Parliament, and with much content to see him rely so well on my part. He and I ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... taken my coffee, some one knocked at my door. I open, and lo, a policeman in shabby uniform, makes inquiry about Khalid. What have I done, I thought, to deserve this visit? And before I had time to imagine the worst, he delivers a card from the Deputy to Syria of the Union and Progress Society of Salonique. I am desired in this to come at my earliest convenience to the Club to meet this gentleman. ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... sawed off, a little iron bedstead with hard mattress, one pillow, a wooden table, and a wooden chair with one leg shorter than the others which might be used as an improvised rocker. His bed was so thick with bugs the room was filled with their odor. He was so innocent of such things he couldn't imagine what distressed him so at night—insisting that he had contracted some ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... always talk aviation, however. In the course of dinner almost any subject may be touched upon, and with our cosmopolitan crowd one can readily imagine the scope of the conversation. A Burton Holmes lecture is weak and watery compared to the travel stories we listen to. Were O. Henry alive, he could find material for a hundred new yarns, and William James numerous pointers for another work on psychology, while De Quincey might multiply ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... the advice of my new friends, I finally wrote to my father and mother, confessing everything to them, imploring their forgiveness for the grief and shame I had brought upon them, and asking their counsel and wishes regarding my future. Imagine my joy and gratitude when, three weeks later, they walked in upon me and took me at once to their hearts, ignoring all the past, as far as any censure or condemnation were concerned, and began to plan to make my future as peaceful and happy as ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Austria and have stinted the army. The army and Great Serbia was the cry. They were all for Russia. As for the wretched Draga, the ladies told me that she had received them at some function or another with powder all over her face. Imagine having to kiss the hand of such a fallen woman! (Fashions have changed now, or England would be a female slaughterhouse.) All the officers killed in her defence were stated to have been her paramours. ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... plain people than those few words of Maximilian written before his ill-fated expedition to Mexico. Speaking of the Palace at Caserta, near Naples, he wrote, "The monumental stairway is worthy of Majesty. What can be finer than to imagine the sovereign placed at its head, resplendent in the midst of these marble pillars,—to fancy this monarch, like a God, graciously permitting the approach of human beings. The crowd surges upward. The King vouchsafes a gracious glance, but from a very lofty elevation. All powerful, imperial, he ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... that same city, she would have hardly a stone on which to lay her head and where she would seek a futile refuge in the chimney-piece—mysterious hiding-place—of the house of the Demoiselles Duguigny? At Blaye could she imagine that the citadel, hung with white flags, whose cannon were fired in her honor, would so soon become her prison? Poor Princess! She had taken seriously the protestations of devotion and fidelity addressed to her everywhere. They asked her to ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... worked himself up over the rail and sat out on the shelf that held the bucket of drinking-water and its gourd—"do you imagine she didn't know, when we were talking about that book, that she was arguing against the union of Ned Ferry and Charlotte Oliver? Didn't she do it bravely! Richard, my friend, she couldn't have done ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... making a hero out of any one of them. She was a sweet-tempered creature; her mental snobbishness was not a pose, but perfectly inevitable; she had a great many friends. As she had a quick wit and the historic imagination, you can imagine—remembering her bringing up—that she was an entertaining person when she entered upon middle age: when, that is, she was proceeding from the earlier to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... no greater than in any other retail shops. This is really eating your cake in order to keep it; the more you spend the richer you will be; indeed it sets at defiance the whole of Franklin's code of proverbs, and proves "Poor Richard" a silly fellow. Imagine Jones lecturing his wife on her economy, and reproaching her for a spirit of saving, "My dear, if you had bought this camel's hair shawl thirty years ago, it would now be a source of income to us; if you had not been so close we should now be wealthy." ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... picture of the two ladies, he exults in, here, there, and everywhere. In his little guide to the Accademia, published in 1877, he roundly calls Carpaccio's "Presentation of the Virgin" the "best picture" in the gallery. In one of the letters written from Venice in Fors Clavigera—and these were, I imagine, subjected to less critical examination by their author before they saw the light than any of his writings—is the following summary, which it may be interesting to read here. "This, then, is the truth which Carpaccio knows, and would teach: That the world is divided into ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... learning some other languages under different circumstances, was their advancement; but when the circumstances under which they commenced and prosecuted the task of learning the language of the Barman nation are considered, we should imagine that almost any ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... with many a volume at his feet, he was occupied wholly with a study of the convolutions of the brain; and thus absorbed, as his manner was, he scarcely noticed the advance of his friend the learned physician. Their greeting was soon over as you may imagine, for the sage is at all times chary of time and speech. So having put aside mere trifles of conversation, they reasoned upon man and his mind, and next fell to ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... staircase, covered with painted canvas. No one whose inexperience is less than mine can imagine to himself the impressions made upon me by surrounding objects. The height to which this stair ascended, its dimensions, and its ornaments, appeared to me a combination of all that was ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... thousands of instances year by year in our large cities, and no hand is stretched forth to succor and no arm to save. Under the very eyes of the courts and the churches things worse than we have described—worse than the reader can imagine—are done every day. The foul dens into which crime goes freely, and into which innocence is betrayed, are known to the police, and the evil work that is done is ever before them. From one victim to another their keepers pass unquestioned, and ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... movements of the fingers, and to get a great masterpiece so that you can have supreme control over it at all times and under all conditions demands a far greater effort than the ordinary non-professional music lover can imagine. ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... they were intelligent, religious, and most conscientious in the discharge of their duties to their children. In the summer months Michael was sent out to herd cattle; and one loves to imagine the young poet wrapt in his plaid, under a whin-bush, while the storm was blowing,—or gazing at the rainbow from the summit of a fence,—or admiring at Lochleven and its old ruined castle,—or weaving around the form of some little maiden, herding in a neighbouring field ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan |
