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Purely   Listen
adverb
Purely  adv.  
1.
In a pure manner (in any sense of the adjective).
2.
Nicely; prettily. (Archaic)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Purely" Quotes from Famous Books



... disaster in the loss of two gallant regiments, one of which had only ten days earlier gained for itself proud distinction by being first to crown the heights of Talana, near Dundee, where British infantry proved worthy of its most glorious traditions. As a purely defensive measure, if nothing more, the fight of yesterday was forced upon us. Like some other operations in this brief but eventful campaign, it came too late, but, whether timely or not, a battle was inevitable unless we meant to sit down tamely ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse

... this essay, it interested them both. There was nothing which gave the least reason to suspect insanity on the part of the writer, whoever he or she might be. There were references to suicide, it is true, but they were of a purely speculative nature, and did not look to any practical purpose in that direction. Besides, if the stranger were the author of the paper, he certainly would not choose a sheet of water like Cedar Lake to perform the last offices for him, in case ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... captain was entirely alone on one side of the argument. The others were all against her. Yet she won her point. She continued to insist that her wonderful find was purely an accident. How could she ever have unearthed a box, lost from a sunken ship, that had probably been buried for centuries, if Captain Jules Fontaine had not listened to her pleadings and taken her on the wonderful diving trip with him? Though she had actually struck the first blow on the piece ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers

... stirrup, he rode down the line at a gait that tested the horsemanship of his followers, was the admiration of the men. In his honest and independent looking countenance they read, or thought they could, character too purely republican to allow of invidious distinctions between men, who, in their country's hour of need, had left civil pursuits at heavy sacrifices, and those who served simply because the service was to them the business of life. With hearts that ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... it; they do it because they are accustomed to do it, and they feel that it is expected of them. Religion is as much a part of their dissipation as evening dress is of ours, and just as much a purely conventional part; and I want to teach them to dissociate the two ideas ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... Annapolis is as it is, I do not know, but in my own purely imaginary picture of what happened, I see the architect's plans for a heroic display of Jones's tomb knocked on the head by some "practical man," some worthy dunce in the Navy Department, whom I can imagine as protesting: "But no! We ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... to love, purely and unselfishly," he muttered. "Such love as mine seems to carry its own conviction of right with it—an inner consciousness that seems so strong and certain as to be beyond argument—beyond everything; and yet if God's Word is against it I ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... new Lochinvar come out of the West!" she laughed. "Oh, Kenneth, how can you be so foolish? It is absolutely indecent of you. I like Mr. Steell, and I think he likes me, but our friendship is purely platonic. I never give him a thought, ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow

... Sherman's lines. The fates, however, decreed otherwise. Their scheme was rendered abortive by the simple fact, that upon that particular morning, the line was not extended at all. Why it was not, is purely a matter of conjecture. Possibly, "the morning being unusually cold and raw," the guard did not care to leave their own snug tents along the line of the encampment, with no greater inducement than that of increasing the comfort of their Yankee prisoners, ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... of increase before each of the following adverbs: purely, fairly, sweetly, earnestly, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... him, marvelling at the look on his face. His emotion was purely one of anger, mounting anger that a man was dead? "The man who rings the bells told me that he thought it must be a sheepman from Las Palmas. He went to see. . . . I didn't wait. ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... begun against Louis XIV in the seventeenth century, only ended with the fall of Napoleon at Waterloo. La Hogue in 1692, Quebec in 1759, and Trafalgar in 1805 were three of the great deciding crises. La Hogue and Trafalgar were purely naval; while Quebec was the result of a joint expedition in which the naval forces far exceeded the military. The general effect of this whole Second Hundred {57} Years' War was to confirm the British command of the sea ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood

... that Jan will not be elected purely on account of the hatred against us. They say that he does not know the country, and does not understand its needs. But before all we must not allow such people as Jozwowicz to become important in the country. ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,

... ought to go to nothing but Wesleyan school treats, and paint the sunlight in the hair of the Wesleyan babies. He ought to read nothing but very eloquent theological sermons by old-fashioned Presbyterian divines. Here the lack of all possible moral sympathy would prove that his interest was purely verbal or pictorial, as it is; in all the books he reads and writes he clings to the skirts of his own morality and his own immorality. The champion of l'art pour l'art is always denouncing Ruskin ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... is treated in a manner to interest not only students of religious history and movements, but those viewing it from a purely artistic standpoint. The work contains twenty fine half-tone engravings made from authorized photographs of the original ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll

... Romanesque—was carried by inferior workmen into distant provinces; and still ruder imitations of this patois were executed by the barbarous nations on the skirts of the empire. But these barbarous nations were in the strength of their youth; and while, in the center of Europe, a refined and purely descended art was sinking into graceful formalism, on its confines a barbarous and borrowed art was organizing itself into strength and consistency. The reader must therefore consider the history of the work of the period as broadly divided into two great heads; the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... patients, can I make an exception as to a patient who, far from being a paying patient, may more fitly be described as a borrowing patient? No. I say No. Mr Dubedat: your moral character is nothing to me. I look at you from a purely scientific point of view. To me you are simply a field of battle in which an invading army of tubercle bacilli struggles with a patriotic force of phagocytes. Having made a promise to your wife, which my principles will not allow ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw

... analysis is purely tentative, and I offer it only on the chance that it may suggest some line of inquiry which may lead to results of value to the student of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... ceremony, but if not, the medicine man paints him with the sacred symbols. In any case a fervent prayer is offered by the medicine man for the sick person's recovery. The medicine man administers no remedies; the ceremony is purely religious. Being a priest of the Sun, it is thought that god will be more likely to listen to him than he ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... finally gave it up and began to think about that which had been uppermost in my mind for the five days past. The thing baffled me; the object of my quest had eluded my every effort to grasp it. The experience of the five days was new, but it contained nothing but that which could be accounted for by purely natural causes. I reviewed the whole period to see if I had left out any essential part of the formula. Was it possible that my skepticism had been well founded, that there was nothing in the so-called "Christian ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober

... were waving their hats wildly, and even the Doctor's enemies roared applause at this unexpected defiance. Once more a few sentences were inaudible, but they could hear him say: "To my friends—I myself should always prefer weapons purely intellectual, and to these an evolved humanity will certainly confine itself. But our own most precious truth is the fundamental force of matter and heredity. My books are successful; my theories are unrefuted; but I suffer in politics from a prejudice almost physical in the French. ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... was himself he was a very decent fellow, and it was a contemptible trick thus to cheat him. It would have been less ignoble to sell herself outright to a man she detested— for the transaction would then have been one of dollars and cents, purely, a sacrifice prompted by necessity, so she reasoned— whereas to impose upon the weakness of one she rather liked was ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... purely reproductive imagination with great eagerness and success. The works on the different image-groups—visual, auditory, tactile, motor—are known to everyone, and form a collection of inquiries solidly based on subjective and objective observation, on pathological facts and laboratory experiments. ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... uniformly well. Of course, as the gift of his fellow- villagers, he prized me highly, but by no means consigned me to the stately repose of a purely ornamental treasure. I lay nightly beside his elbow on the table, and counted for him the hours as they sped from night to morning. I lay beneath his pillow at night, and helped him to rise betimes. I insured his punctual attendance at lectures, and drove him home from his scanty walks in the fresh ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... over an unpleasant, and perhaps dangerous, condition which existing remedies did not fully meet. It was equivalent to disposing of the Presidency by a game of chance,—for the composition of the proposed commission was, politically, purely a matter of chance. ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch

... "My argument is purely in the abstract, Mr. Siward. I am asking you whether the death men deal is more justifiable than ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... grass for weeks, and was slightly wetted several times a day; but not too wet, else it would mildew. In all, over forty bleaching operations were employed upon "light linens." Sometimes they were "soured" in buttermilk to make them purely white. Thus at least sixteen months had passed since the flaxseed had been sown, in which, truly, the spinster had not eaten the bread of idleness. In the winter months the fine, white, strong linen was made into "board cloths" or tablecloths, sheets, pillow-biers, aprons, ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... watched till finished, when they should be taken off to preserve the purity of the combs. Every day the bees are allowed to run over them, renders them darker. Consequently, when our bees are a long time filling a box, it is not as purely ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby

... and the whole house shivered and shook; but the young girl, absorbed in her sadness, thought only of her father. After hearing what Aubert told her, the malady of Master Zacharius took fantastic proportions in her mind; and it seemed to her as if his existence, so dear to her, having become purely mechanical, no longer moved on ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... wrathfully. Then he controlled himself with an almost visible effort and half turned in his saddle. "Will you permit me to give you a bit of purely disinterested advice? Don't go in for the financial game on your own; you are bound to lose. In your proper sphere you are invincible, but it is a social one. When you pit yourself against men in a contest for financial supremacy ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... "From a purely scientific point of view they would probably prove equally interesting," answered the professor. "But, taking the other circumstances into consideration, I am inclined to record my vote in ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... cannot drop into conversation more easily than by here venturing upon the expression of a purely personal feeling—his own enjoyment in the weaving of the unsubstantial webs of improbable adventure that fill the preceding pages. With an ironic satisfaction was it that a writer who is not unaccustomed to be ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews

... appeared to have forgotten even that she had been indirectly responsible for her father's death. She had nearly forgotten it herself; when she happened to think of it she felt no shame, no remorse, seeing the death as purely accidental, and not altogether unfortunate. On two points only was the town inquisitive: as to her husband, and as to the precise figure at which she had sold the pension. The town knew that she was probably not a widow, for she had been obliged ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... Phoebus—"some of the greatest. Semitism gave them subjects, but the Renaissance gave them Aryan art, and it gave that art to a purely Aryan race. But Semitism rallied in the shape of the Reformation, and swept all away. When Leo the Tenth was pope, popery was pagan; popery is now ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... and craftily laying hold of a portion of their monopoly, concocted a scheme to reinstate themselves in public favour. Without a doubt, many of the physicians who countenanced this scheme gave it their support from purely charitable motives; but it cannot be questioned that, as a body, the dispensarians were only actuated in their humanitarian exertions by a desire to lower the apothecaries and raise themselves in the eyes of the world. In 1687 the physicians, at a college meeting, voted "that ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... Italian side of the Alps. The struggle henceforth was limited to France and the house of Savoy, but little by France succeeded in pushing back the house of Savoy across the Alps, thus forcing it to become a purely Italian power. One turning-point in the rivalry was the treaty of Utrecht (1713), by which France gave up to Savoy the districts (all forming part of the Dauphine, and lying on the Italian slope of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... in this case it can be shown that there were extenuating circumstances. We can make a showing of facts to demonstrate that the killing of Carter Anson was purely accidental." ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks

... peace of one who rejoices in a firm sense of his acceptance with God. But reduce faith to its simplicity, take it in the obvious and uncompounded sense which you attach to the mere act of believing, regard it as purely giving credit to God's testimony, when he sets forth Christ as a propitiation for our sin, and invites one and all in the world to cast upon Him the burden of their reliance, and then see how, by immediate transition, one might enter into peace, and become a confiding, tranquillized, ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles

... not-living into the living, and thus makes all nature an unbroken sequence and a continuous whole? That this is a great question, a question involving large issues, will be seen by all who have familiarized themselves with the thought and fact of our times. But we must treat it purely as a question of science; it is not a question of how life first appeared upon the earth, it is only a question of whether there is any natural force now at work building not-living matter into living forms. Nor have we to determine whether or not, in the indefinite past, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various

... pardoned, that she receives of the Lord's hand double for all her sins." The comfort must, accordingly, form the fundamental character of the second part. But since, for the people of God, there does not exist any purely external salvation; since, for them, salvation is indissolubly connected with repentance,—exhortation must necessarily go hand ill hand with the announcement of salvation. This second feature and element ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... of a National Assembly or Assemblee des Deputes Populaires (111 seats; members are elected by popular vote to serve five-year terms) and the purely consultative Chamber of Representations or Chambre des Representants (178 seats; members are appointed ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... up to about a hundred years ago, it was thought that meteors were purely terrestrial phenomena which had their origin in the upper regions of the air. It, however, began to be noticed that at certain periods of the year these moving objects appeared to come from definite areas of the sky. ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... the orthodox party in France, England, and all the Netherlands, the anger of the French princes and all those of the old Huguenot party who had been foolish enough to act with the princes in their purely selfish schemes against the, government, and the overflowing hatred of King James, whose darling schemes of Spanish marriages and a Spanish alliance had been foiled by the Advocate's masterly policy ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... of all religious observances, and was practiced purely as a ceremonial, and never for pleasure or recreation. Both men and women took part, the men executing a peculiar shuffling step which involved a great deal of stamping upon the ground with their bare feet, and the ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark

... my son-in-law. As my daughter loves him, I am willing to permit the marriage, but now that I have learned the emeralds are lost, I shall not consent until Sir Frank buys the mummy from you, Professor. It is only right that my daughter's hand should redeem her regal forefather from purely scientific surroundings and that she should take the mummy back to be buried in Lima. At the same time, sir, I must say that I am the rightful owner of the dead, and that you should surrender the mummy to ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... state. Where, on the other hand, corporations are distinctly interstate in character, such reform would require either a careful cordination of the tax laws of the several states, or a corporation tax which should be purely Federal in character. ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... Blanche of Castile during the minority of St. Louis. After the precedents set by the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, the barons took the matter into their own hands. Their work of selection was not an easy one. Randolph of Chester was by far the most powerful of the royalist lords, but his turbulence and purely personal policy, not less than his excessive possessions and inordinate palatine jurisdictions, made him unsuitable for the regency. Yet had he raised any sort of claim, it would have been hardly possible to resist his pretensions.[1] Luckily, Randolph stood aside, and his ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... or district, or in the whole country; and this might be obtained by compelling, on the part of the owner or cultivator, an actual return of his crop; but it is of little use to found such returns on estimates purely conjectural. ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... of the monks possesses any property of his own, even of a purely transitory kind, such as a bed or a suit of clothes. They have all in common, and they have not that nicety or necessity of privacy which would compel an Englishman to claim the right to wear the ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... distinction exists between them. They are both of functional origin, pursue exactly the same occupation, and relate the same story about themselves, and no good reason therefore exists for considering them as separate castes. Nilgar or Nirali is a purely occupational term applied to Chhipas or Rangaris who work in indigo (nil); while Bhaosar is another name for the Rangaris in the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... again, nearer, more strongly and purely in the night. 'We are waiting for you to come in!' She varied a little the phrase from the Jewel Song. 'To come in!' The long sustained notes seemed to become a beautiful warning, and ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... at least seem and be called Christians. And, to say truly, we do not despise the Church of these men (howsoever it be ordered by them now-a-days), partly for the name's sake itself, and partly for that the Gospel of Jesus Christ hath once been therein truly and purely set forth. Neither had we departed therefrom, but of very necessity, and much against our wills. But I put case, an idol be set up in the Church of God, and the same desolation, which Christ prophesied to come, stood openly in the holy place. What if some thief or pirate invade ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel

... says Bunny. "In Paris I got to know a chap by the name of Dick Langdon; English, you know, and a younger son. His uncle's a Sir Something or Other. Dick was going the pace. He'd annexed some funds that he'd found lying around loose. Purely a family affair; no prosecution. A nice youth, Langdon. We ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... strongholds of parliamentary corruption. The proceedings against Hastings were, in the first instance, regarded as a sequel to the struggle over Fox's East India Bill. That these considerations were present in Burke's thought there is no doubt, but they were purely secondary. It was India itself that stood above all else in his imagination. It had filled his mind and absorbed his time while Pitt was still an undergraduate at Cambridge, and Burke was looking forward to match his plan of economic reform with a greater plan ...
— Burke • John Morley

... he has been in the habit of seeing them. In this case, the articles of furniture in the room are grouped, and not classified; and are remembered together, not on account of their nature and uses, but purely on account of their position, and their relative arrangement in the room. Most of our readers perhaps, will remember the strange feelings produced in their minds during some period of their childhood, when in the house of their ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... we have seen, was gradually obtained by the English from the hands of the Venetians and other foreign powers. The trade we are next to notice was purely of English origin and growth;—we allude to the trade between England and Russia, which began about the middle of the sixteenth century. The discovery of Archangel took place, as we have already related, in 1553. Chanceller, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... ocean mail facilities commensurate with our national ability and the demands of our commerce; and that we to-day are largely dependent on, and tributary to our greatest commercial rival, Great Britain, for the postal facilities, which should be purely national, American, and under ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey

... ground, the hand being still held prone as before. In nodding assent they differ from us by lifting up the chin instead of bringing it down as we do. This lifting up the chin looks natural after a short usage therewith, and is perhaps purely conventional, not natural, as the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... element until they ran together with such rhythm that it could not be seen where one left off and another began. He was the very opposite of Michael Angelo. The art of the latter was an expression of individual power and was purely subjective. Raphael's art was largely a unity of objective beauties, with the personal element as much in abeyance as was ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke

... their color, and their stratification; and the streams themselves, utterly incredible as it may appear, had so little in common with those of other climates, that we were scrupulous of tasting them, and, indeed, had difficulty in bringing ourselves to believe that their qualities were purely those of nature. At a small brook which crossed our path (the first we had reached) Too-wit and his attendants halted to drink. On account of the singular character of the water, we refused to taste ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... useful and interesting. The best authorities have been consulted and freely drawn upon, but with the object in view of writing a book at once thus useful and interesting, no attempt has been made to deal with the subject in a strictly architectural, or a purely scientific manner. ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath

... the history of the aborigines of other countries has shown, the absurdity of expecting that any men, "as free as Nature first made man," will condescend to leave their woods, and come under all the restraints imposed by civilisation, purely from choice, unless they can do so on terms of the most perfect equality. Surely it behoves the nation so active in the suppression of slavery to consider betimes, in taking up new countries, how the aboriginal races can ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... company of archers have their colours, and perform their exercise with the bow and arrow, in shooting at a mark; this is the national guard (militia) of the country. This military establishment, under a purely monastic system, seemed ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... the temperature and other conditions. A putrefactive fermentation is thus set up which softens the gummy substance holding the fibres together. The process is known as "retting," and after it is completed the fibres are easily isolated from each other. A purely mechanical process now easily separates the valuable fibres from the wood fibres. The whole process is a typical fermentation. A disagreeable odour arises from the fermenting flax, and the liquid after the fermentation ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn

... "cut" or driven with any real brilliancy of style when there is a likelihood of its abruptly "shooting" or bumping. No; if we would leave as little as possible to chance, our grounds cannot be too good. Even from a purely selfish point of view, apart from the welfare of our side, the pleasure derived from a good "innings" on a first-rate cricket ground is as great as that bestowed by ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... imputations thrown by the Chevalier Johnstone on the Prince's courage. But some part at least of that gentleman's tale is purely romantic. It would not, for instance, be supposed that at the time he is favouring us with the highly wrought account of his amour with the adorable Peggie, the Chevalier Johnstone was a married man, whose grandchild is now ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... soul, whether good predominate in it or evil, is purely dependent on that soul's thoughts ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... them spoke. Then he sat down and thanked her, simply, for what she had just told him. But to his own shame and grief he had nothing more to say. He had heard many a confession, and from many a guiltier woman's lips, but none so piteous, because none so purely spontaneous, as this. And to all he had given ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... Ephesus. Here again, then, we can trace back to Greek influence reaching Western Europe in the twelfth century through the medium of the Crusades. But the tale finds no echo among the folk, so far as I am aware, and is thus purely and ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris

... and date the formation of this leading idea. At first, it is simply a classic reminiscence, as with his contemporaries; but suddenly it takes a turn and has an environment in his mind which is lacking in theirs, and which prevents the idea from remaining a purely literary phrase. From the beginning he speaks of Rome in the fashion of a Rienzi. (Proclamation of May 20, 1796.) "We are the friends of every people, and especially of the Brutuses, the Scipios, and of the great men whom we have chosen as models. To re-establish the Capitol, to place ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Richmond. It was only Cleave's patient insistence that had procured them at last. Some of the companies were not uniformed at all. So enormous was the press of business upon the authorities, so limited was the power of an almost purely agricultural, non-manufacturing world suddenly to clothe alike these thousands of volunteers, suddenly to arm them with something better than a fowling-piece or a Revolutionary flintlock, that the wonder is, not that they did so badly, but that they did so well. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... wuz now three classes uv society, the hereditary nobility, the untitled officials, and the people; the latter, black and white, wuz all serfs, and all attached to the soil. Biznis wuz all done by foreigners, the policy uv the government bein to make the native born people purely agricultural peasantry. The nobility, desirin to make it easy for em, giv em one sixth uv the produx uv the soil, reservin the ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby

... not yet wholly superseded the ambition and the vanity of the carnal man within him, he must be well satisfied with the results of his venture in publishing the "Origin of Species." Overflowing the narrow bounds of purely scientific circles, the "species question" divides with Italy and the Volunteers the attention of general society. Everybody has read Mr. Darwin's book, or, at least, has given an opinion upon its merits or demerits; pietists, whether lay or ecclesiastic, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley

... conquest of England, in the 11th century, made a break in the natural growth of the English language and literature. The old English or Anglo-Saxon had been a purely Germanic speech, with a complicated grammar and a full set of inflections. For three hundred years following the battle of Hastings this native tongue was driven from the king's court and the courts of law, from parliament, school, and university. During all this time there were two languages ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... philosopher of Clazomenae, in Ionia, removed to Athens and took philosophy along with him, i. e. transplanted it there, but being banished thence for impiety to the gods, settled in Lampsacus, was the first to assign to the nous, conceived of "as a purely immaterial principle, a formative power in the origin and organisation ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... "From a purely physical cause, friends," said Paganel, "and one that you will easily understand. In this country where the air is dry and rain seldom falls, and the ground is parched, the trees have no need of wind or sun. Moisture lacking, sap is lacking also. Hence ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... that bosom stirred with a tender recollection of long ago, as this almost forgotten dish was mentioned, a dish so purely English, that she had never once heard it mentioned in ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... to be regulated by the legislative acts of the power owning the colony; that the British Government therefore declines negotiating concerning it, and that as the United States did not forthwith accept purely and simply the terms offered by the act of Parliament of July, 1825, Great Britain would not now admit the vessels of the United States even upon the terms on which she has opened them to the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams

... unexpectedly found themselves, and had indeed managed so exceedingly well that Captain Blyth found himself at a discount; and, whilst heartily welcomed by them, was fully conscious that, save in the matter of purely physical help and companionship, his presence was in no wise an acquisition to them. Hence the little fit of pique, the outcome of which had been a resolve to show these two resourceful men that he, plain, unpretending seamen though he was, knew a thing or ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... they were humble disciples of Jesus, and were desirous of receiving this ordinance purely out of regard to his command, and their own spiritual welfare; we felt that we were all equally exposed to danger, and needed a spirit of mutual candor and forbearance, and sympathy; we were convinced; ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... woman, a woman with the charm of genius and of exalted character, a Christian, a saint, but a mystic—it was Madame Guyon. Madame Guyon taught that it was possible to love God for himself alone, purely and disinterestedly. Fenelon received the doctrine, and Madame Guyon was patronized by Madame de Maintenon. Bossuet scented heresy. He was too much a "natural man" to understand Madame Guyon. The king ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... a case like this, any resemblance between my opinions and the statements I may make is purely due to conscious considerations of policy," Rand told him. "I don't want Farnsworth or Mick McKenna going around bitching this operation up for me. If they feel justified in eliminating Gresham on the strength of that phone call, I'm satisfied, ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... Gunn. This was an impulsive, outspoken, loving woman, without a trace of any thing masculine about her, unless it were a certain something in the quality of her frankness, which was masculine rather than feminine; it was more purely objective than women's frankness is wont to be: this Dr. Eben thought out later; at present, he only thought: "Poor girl! I've got to hurt ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous

... his variety of excellence, not often pathetick; and had so little sensibility of the power of effusions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others. Simplicity gave him no pleasure; and, for the first part of his life, he looked on Otway with contempt, though, at last, indeed very late, he confessed that in his play "there was nature, which is the ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... joining them; but strong in the faith that they were but a few steps away from her, she had thrown the reins of restraint upon the necks of her wild horses of imagination, and had been borne away by them to fields where Brooke's fancy was hardly likely to carry him—fields of purely imaginative joy and ideal beauty, in which he had no mental share. It was rest and refreshment to her to do this, after the growing perplexity of the last few days. Absorbed in her enjoyment of the lucent air, the golden and violet and ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... for the telephone and called an ambulance. But it was purely perfunctory. Dr. Leslie himself was the only official who could ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... influence, other than what is purely artistic, upon a reader is towards establishing a connection between the known order of things in which we live and move and that larger order of which it is a part. He plays upon the will, summoning it from ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... which the magnitude would be acknowledged even by those who have never known poverty and therefore make light of it. Hunger brings an absorption in the question of food, which, to most people, makes life almost purely animal. The general shortage makes people fierce, and reacts upon the political atmosphere. The necessity of inculcating Communism produces a hot-house condition, where every breath of fresh air must be excluded: ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell

... said he, "and leave me in peace. I thank you for what you would have done, thank you for trying to bring Madeleine," he paused a moment. How purely he had loved her—and twice, twice she had failed him. "Yet, I do not blame her," he went on as if to himself; "I did not deserve to see her, and it has made all the rest easy. Remember," again addressing the woman whom hopelessness seemed for a moment to have benumbed, "that if you would yet ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... days of north wind and failure, it occurred to me that my boatman might know the local folklore—the fairy tales and traditions. As a rule, tradition is a purely professional part of a guide's stock-in- trade, but the angler who had my barque in his charge proved to be a fresh fountain of legend. His own county is not Argyleshire, but Inverness, and we did not deal much in local myth. True, he told me why Loch Awe ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang

... the Chevalier, whose face was without any sign of welcome or displeasure. "Monsieur," the vicomte began, "it is very embarrassing—Patience, Monsieur de Saumaise!" for Victor had laid his hand upon his sword; "my errand is purely pacific. It is very embarrassing, then, to approach a man so deeply in trouble as yourself. I know not what madness seized you to-night. I am not here to offer you sympathy; sympathy is cheap consolation. I am here ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... office of castellan was next in dignity to that of wojewoda; except for some very slight military duties the post was purely titular, but it was prized because it entitled the holder to a seat ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... the manner in which things link together. Setting forth on a purely selfish financial enterprise, behold Mademoiselle Chocardelle suddenly brought to the point of wielding an immense electoral influence! And observe also that her influence is of a nature to compensate for all the witty pin-pricks of ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... creeds unlike, and some without a creed: Here, too, fierce friends of liberty he saw, Who own'd no prince and who obey no law; There were reformers of each different sort, Foes to the laws, the priesthood, and the court; Some on their favourite plans alone intent, Some purely angry and malevolent: The rash were proud to blame their country's laws; The vain, to seem supporters of a cause; One call'd for change, that he would dread to see; Another sigh'd for Gallic liberty! And numbers joining with the forward ...
— Tales • George Crabbe

... felt that even if the basics of natural law in operation here were purely nonsense laws, he would be able to penetrate to a rational manipulation and control of things. Perhaps he might even set up the pattern operating, and join it in some ...
— Unthinkable • Roger Phillips Graham

... Romulus and Numa is more doubtful and their actions less probable than his. The character of Capac, in regard to its reality, stands on a parallel with that of the Lycurgus of Plutarch and the Cyrus of Xenophon; not purely historical nor purely fabulous, but presented to us as a compendium of those talents and labors which might possibly be crowded into the capacity of one mind, and be achieved in one life, but which more probably belong ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... aim has been to produce a book that is practical,— practical from the student's standpoint, and practical from the teacher's standpoint. The study of Argumentation has often been criticized for being purely academic, or for being a mere stepping- stone to the study of law. It has even been said that courses in Argumentation and Debate have been introduced into American colleges and universities for no other purpose than to give the intellectual student the opportunity, so long ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... Tio-King with the greatest seriousness. "The first is to take only just so much nourishment as to enable you to perform the purely spiritual functions." ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne

... trusty observers, I have the testimony that the young women are pure in large numbers, and are rapidly increasing in an intense desire and determination to preserve themselves chaste and pure from the lustful approaches of the sinner, and that the number of legally and lovingly married families, purely preserved in the domestic and social virtues among husbands and wives, sons and daughters, is so far beyond the days of slavery that a comparison would ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... from the beginning were not especially his problems. It may have been due to the nature of the commissions he received that, after the "Hiawatha" of his student days, he modelled no nude except the "Diana" of the tower—a purely decorative figure, designed for distant effect, in which structural modelling would have been out of place because invisible. But it was not accident that in such draped figures as the "Amor-Caritas" (Pl. 24) or the caryatids of ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox

... as a volume of much social interest and entertainment. The sketches comprise "Country Life" generally—some of them are just sufficiently touched with romance to give them additional zest; while others are purely practical, and relate to the farmer's pursuit. We regard it as a valuable book, and are sorry our limits will not admit of bestowing upon it such a notice ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... "Purely to avoid comment. Every one knows I have been calling upon her, and that report of our engagement got about considerably; it would set people talking if she snubbed me. That is the only reason I came to this dance. Believe me, ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... firmly believes them to be mythical. Mr. Nicholls, during the six years that he lived alone at the parsonage with his father-in-law, never heard one single word from Mr. Bronte—who was by no means disposed to reticence—about these stories, and is also of opinion that they are purely legendary. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... that ever has been, is, or ever will be, and for full and complete biographies of every American statesman since the time of George Washington and long before, the Encyclopaedia would be hard to beat. Owing to our shortage of matches we have been driven to use it for purposes other than the purely literary ones though; and one genius having discovered that the paper, used for its pages had been impregnated with saltpetre, we can now thoroughly recommend it ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... science and practice, at that period, is curiously illustrated in this paper. It is plain that the distemper of James Carr was purely in the realm of the sensibilities and fancy; and "doctor Crosbe" is not wholly to blame because his "visek" did not "work." A good smart nightmare, with a feeling that he had given a thorough basting to the spectre, in the form of a cat, of the supposed author of his woful ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... disasters in war with the Iroquois at this place. I will here relate an incident which happened to the Ottawas at about this time, and which was the origin of their belief that the deity of the place was unfavorable to them. It may be considered as purely fictitious, but every Ottawa and Chippewa to this day believes it to have ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird

... that has come to this doubly fatal ending," says Santa Fe, shaking his head sorrowful, "related to cock-tails. In what I am persuaded was a purely jesting spirit, Brother Green cast aspersions upon Brother Michael's skill as a drink-mixer. The injustice of his remarks, even in jest, aroused Brother Michael's hot Celtic nature and led to a retort, harshly personal, that excited Brother Green's ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier

... though rendered in such strange society, burst purely from his natural feelings of religious duty, and had its usual effect in composing the spirits which had been long harassed by so rapid a succession of calamities. The sincere and earnest approach of the Christian to the throne of the Almighty teaches the best lesson of patience under affliction; ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... well known that Ireland is the most learned country on the face of the earth—is, and has been. The schoolmaster has been abroad there for hundreds, almost thousands, of years, and nowhere else in the world to-day is the king's English spoken so purely as in the cities and towns ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... movement he had heard or seen somewhere before. The Count, however, reflected that all women possessed certain points of resemblance in voice and bearing; he, therefore, passed the present coincidences over as purely accidental, ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg

... of your beauty and charms; and now, far from repenting, I beg of you to accept it, and to be assured that I will love you as long as I live. I dare flatter myself you will not refuse this favour, but be ready to acknowledge that a king, who quitted his dominions purely on your account, deserves some acknowledgment. Permit me then, beauteous princess! to have the honour to present you to the king my uncle; and the king your father shall no sooner have consented to our marriage, than King Saleh will leave him sovereign ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.

... the Territories, and, inferentially, that the Constitution carried with it the right to hold slaves there, even against the will of their people. The point was not before the court, and the opinion of Chief Justice Taney was therefore purely extra-judicial. It was simply a political harangue in defense of slavery. It created a profound impression throughout the free States, and became a powerful weapon in the hands of Republicans. It was against the whole current of adjudications ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... JERRY. Purely, Miss Crissy, I'm stout and hearty, and you look as pretty and as rosy as a field of pinks on a ...
— She Would Be a Soldier - The Plains of Chippewa • Mordecai Manuel Noah

... the trumpeters. The word milites is indeed wanting in the text of Cortius, but appears to have been omitted by him merely to favor his own notion as to the absence of soldiers, for he left it out, as Kritzius says, summa libidine, ne uno quidem codice assentiente, "purely of his own will, and without the authority of a single manuscript." Taking a fair view of the passage, we seem necessarily led to believe that the centurions were attended by a portion, if not the whole, of their companies. See the ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... have been suggested, based on the purely physical properties of soap solutions. Most of these are probably, at any rate in part, correct, and there can be little doubt that the ultimate solution of the problem lies in this direction, and that the detergent action of soap will be found to depend on many of these properties, together ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons

... there is a grace and influence belonging to such a custom, but it is not of that I am speaking but of the pleasing sensation of order and accomplishment which attaches to a day one has opened by Mass; a purely temporal, and, for all I know, what the monks back at the ironworks would have called a carnal feeling, but a source of continual comfort to me. Let them go their way ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... my friend; trifles don't hinder us when we have an object in view; and as we were going up with purely pacific intentions, merely to inquire why your colonel had carried off two of our countrymen, it was not pleasant to find ourselves fired at by you and your people, though you might have thought it good fun. We have made you pay pretty ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... which still remain purely Egyptian, the people would never practise such an excess of affability and good manners, which have been learnt, beyond all ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... It is a purely feminine ruse to apply a test to love—both her own and that of her lover—to prove it true. A man would as soon as think of applying a match to a powder ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain

... to learn to recognise the truth, I'm afraid. For the final time I tell you that I am David Amber, a citizen of the United States of America, travelling in India on purely personal business." ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... purely professional engagement, my friend. If McGraw should show up here this morning it is my business to ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... hundred ewes have thus been killed in a night at a single station. I need hardly add that the sheep-farmer naturally resents this irregular proceeding, so opposed to all ideals of good grazing, and that the days of the kea are now numbered in New Zealand. But from the purely psychological point of view the case is an interesting one, as being the best recorded instance of the growth of a new and complex instinct actually under ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... your wife, I ought to endeavour to do so and make the best of it—merely as a charity. But I believe that feeling is a mistake: your discontent is constitutional, and would go on just the same whether I accepted you or no. My refusal of you is purely an imaginary grievance.' ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... a purely family name, Carrie was delighted, and began by giving a long history of the Lupins. I ventured to say that I thought William a nice simple name, and reminded him he was christened after his Uncle William, who was much respected in the City. Willie, in a manner ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith

... and cauterize at the same time, excrescences and growths that could not be easily reached by other means than a tube and a small loop of platinum wire. A little incandescent lamp with a bulb no bigger than a pea is used to light up and explore cavities, and this advance alone, purely mechanical and outside of medical science, is of immense importance in the saving of life and the ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele

... bafflings and failures to compensate some brilliant successes,—such a crushing of the mass of men beneath, the feet of a few, and these, too, often the least worthy,—such a small drop of honey to each cup of gall, and, in many cases, so mingled that it is never one moment in life purely tasted,—above all, so little achieved for Humanity as a whole, such tides of war and pestilence intervening to blot out the traces of each triumph,—that no wonder if the strongest soul sometimes pauses aghast; no ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... better life? Do you believe in the actual immortality of your soul, and do you realise what it means? You do? You are quite sure? Then, do you live as one convinced of it? Are you quite indifferent to the riches and purely material advantages of this world?—are you as happy in poverty as in wealth, and are you independent of social esteem? Are you bent on the very highest and most unselfish ideals of life and conduct? I do not say you are not; I merely ask if you ARE. If your answer ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... Mr. Nephew, I much regret that you think so lightly of the estate which was won by the valour of your ancestors, but I am quite unable to help you. I also am in want of cash. I also squander it on follies, but on follies of purely home growth. I have a whole mob of comrades, heydukes and ne'er-do-weels, at my heels, and anything over and above what I spend on them, I scatter among the bumpkins who till my fields, or, if a foolish whim seize me, I build me a bridge from one hill to another. But I certainly ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... the Latin word Superstitio. Cicero says that the superstitious element consists in "a certain empty dread of the gods"—a purely physical affection, if you will remember ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... and heard the building hum of power. An odd sort of vibration that his mind told him was purely emotional, seemed to be permeating ...
— Second Sight • Basil Eugene Wells

... child, strong and joyous, was scarcely two years old, he fell from a ledge off the cliff where he had climbed to play, and both his legs were broken. Strange to say he survived the accident in that time when the law of the survival of the fittest was almost invariable in its sternest and most purely physical demonstration. The mother love of Lightfoot warded off the last pitiless blow of nature, although the child, a hopeless cripple, never after walked. The name Little Mok was naturally given him, and before long the child had won the heart, as well ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... wounded by imputations to which I will not give a name, having demonstrated their purely gratuitous character, still does not wish to retreat absolutely from a determination already taken in a spirit of good faith and justice. How great soever may be the difficulties caused by the provocation which President Jackson has given, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... Pisaro to continue the journey alone. Isillia, Erminia's woman, has already admitted Philander to her mistress' chamber, when the lovers are surprised by the arrival of Alcippus on the scene. The prince is concealed, although the meeting had been purely innocent, but he is betrayed owing to the fact of his inadvertently leaving his hat and sword upon a table. He departs unmolested, but once he is gone Alcippus, beside himself with blind fury, strangles Erminia with an embroidered garter—Pisaro, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... Drake for South American discovery; and might probably have been king of poor Poland, if the queen had not been too selfish or wise to spare him. The whole of his literary productions was the work of his spare hours. Spenser himself, who was, except Shakspere, the most purely a literary man of them all, was at one time Secretary to the Lord Deputy of Ireland, and, later in life, Sheriff of Cork. Nor is the remark true only of the writers of Elizabeth's period, or of ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... starting the saw at the edge of the board, was a physical recollection of the former manner of doing certain things. It was so in the handling of the gun, and the adroit manner in which he stalked the savages, all go to show that certain things which are associated with purely physical acts are just as aptly done now as when ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay

... vain[5119] where to place it; its existence is purely chimerical. I see only clouds, obscurities, difficulties. The civil government condemns a criminal to death; the priest gives him ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... thought Sir G. Murray had said much more than he intended, purely from want of habit of speaking; still he had ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)

... of arms! as welcome as to one That would be rid of such an enemy. But that's no welcome. Understand more clear, What's past and what's to come is strew'd with husks And formless ruin of oblivion; But in this extant moment, faith and troth, Strain'd purely from all hollow bias-drawing, Bids thee with most divine integrity, From heart of very ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]

... you are. We have not yet found the weapon; and after all, Morley, the evidence is purely circumstantial. We do not know for certain that Miss Denham is the ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume



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