"Relative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... insufferably irritating phenomenon. It is a singular fact, that the people I have in view invariably combine extreme ugliness with spitefulness and self-conceit. Such a person will make particular inquiries of you as to some near relative of your own,—and will add, with a malicious and horribly ugly expression of face, that she is glad to hear how very much improved your relative now is. She will repeat the sentence several times, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... Apaecides would take a lesson from your wisdom. But I desire to confer with you relative to him and to other matters: you can admit me into one ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... Thug, who was apprehended, turned approver, to save his own life, and gave the following evidence relative to the practices of his fraternity: — "We embarked at Rajmahul. The travellers sat on one side of the boat, and the Thugs on the other; while we three (himself and two "stranglers,") were placed in the stern, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... the grounds of their dispute, and to cultivate their friendship by treaties and presents. They first sought to persuade the Indians to join them against Great Britain, but having failed in that, they endeavoured to persuade the Indians that the quarrel was by no means relative to them, and that therefore they should take part with ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... justice to the themes she gave us, not having the books from which she took them at command, and betrayed an ignorance which excited her utmost contempt, on "The Scenery of Singapore," "The Habits of the Hottentots," and "The Relative Merits of Homer ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... were, and who presides over the evolution of Universes from the Prakriti, and who plays the part of the Demiurge of the old Grecian and Gnostic philosophies. The Vedantists admit the existence (relative) of Prakriti, or Universal Energy, but hold that it is not eternal, or real-in-itself, but is practically identical with Maya, and may be regarded as a form of the Creative Energy of the Absolute, Brahman. This Maya (which while strictly speaking ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... increased good feeling between the English-speaking peoples, and every complimentary allusion to England was received with great applause." At the same time my correspondent adds: "Your division of the American sentiment into three classes is exactly right; also your sense of the relative importance of these ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... relation to the subject; but that this relation necessarily requires the joint action of both, by which alone we can acquire the only knowledge of which we are capable, and which is supposed to be purely phenomenal, relative, and subjective. It is true that we are capable of forming certain grand ideas, such as that of God, the universe, and the soul; but these are the pure products of Reason, the mere personifications of our own modes ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... on "the new hypothesis that the Nebuchadnezzar of Scripture is the Cyrus of Greek History," and second, that "David, the Jew, a favourite of this prince, wrote all those oracles scattered in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel relative to his enterprises, for the particularisation of which they afford ample materials." Writing of his analysis, in the "Critical Review," of Paulus' Commentary on the New Testament, he blames the ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... permits a front to be extended in a manner unsuspected before this war; they permit the prompt consolidation of a large system that is easy to hold" (Marshal Foch). "The modern rifle and machine gun add tenfold to the relative power of the Defence as against the Attack. It has thus become a practical operation to place the heaviest artillery in position close behind the infantry fighting line, not only owing to the mobility afforded by motor traction but also because the old ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... settled the relative place in English letters of Kipling and Henley, might I be allowed humbly to ask what in the name of all that is good has that to do with the question ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... on for some time without producing any material effect on the relative situation of the contending powers. On a fine autumnal afternoon Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool whence he usually watched all the concerns of his little literary realm. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... her as his daughter. The cauzee, however, had not long left home, when the brother, instigated by passion, made love to his sister-in-law, which she rejected with scorn; being, however, unwilling to expose so near a relative to her husband, she endeavoured to divert him from his purpose by argument on the heinousness of his intended crime, but in vain. The abominable wretch, instead of repenting, a gain and again offered his love, and at last threatened, if she would not accept his ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... in explanation of my happening to have these wafers about me, that they still continued to be used in China, and I generally carried half a dozen or more about me in a stiff envelope. Now came the crisis of my destiny! If the relative position of the wafers remained for an hour unchanged, there was no hope for poor John Whopper. With my watch—which, by the way, I had protected against the disturbance of the magnetic currents by a compensation balance—in my ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... Catholic Church, its relative position to the Protestants remains the same as before. But it has no longer the power to persecute. The Gallican Church has been replaced by the Ultramontane Church, but its impulses are no kindlier, though it has ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... honey and gleaners of pollen-dust, it would be well to consult other Hymenoptera, Wasps who devote themselves to the chase and pile their cells one after the other, in a row, showing the relative age of the cocoons. The brambles house several of these: Solenius vagus, who stores up Flies; Psen atratus, who provides her grubs with a heap of Plant-lice; Trypoxylon figulus, who ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... a report of the Secretary of War, relative to the appointment of two brigadier-generals of militia in the territory of the United States south of the Ohio, and I nominate John Sevier to be brigadier-general of the militia of Washington district and James Robertson to be brigadier-general ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson
... stored themselves up in the consciousness to remain lastingly relative to certain moments and places: a whiff of whiskey and tobacco that exhaled from the door of the smoking-room; the odor of oil and steam rising from the open skylights over the engine- room; the scent of stale bread about the doors ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... upon the matter constantly in her thoughts, she discussed her husband's flight with this friend, and elicited an opinion that the behavior of Trefusis was scandalous and wicked. Henrietta could not bear this, and sought shelter with a relative. The same ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... handwriting, and on the next leaf there is a remarkable list of twenty-six names, including his own. It is the only list of the kind known in England, and a careful examination of all the sources of information relative to the Chester men shows that nearly all of them were Accepted Masons. Later on we come to the Natural History of Staffordshire, by Dr. Plott, 1686, in which, though in an unfriendly manner, we are told many things about Craft usages and regulations of that ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... to their agency Katherina owed her elevation to the throne of France. Nobody knows this better than I, for my ancestor Filippo Strozzi was her friend and relative, and their correspondence now is in the archives of the family, at Venice. I am indebted to the letters of Katherina for much of my ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Anatomists have compared the relative bulk of the brain in different animals, and the result is not a little interesting. In man the weight of the brain amounts on the average to 1-30th part of the body. In the Newfoundland dog it does not amount to 1-60th ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... invited them to Constantinople; and while the one instructed the rising generation in the schools of eloquence, the other filled the capital and provinces with more lasting monuments of his art. In a trifling dispute relative to the walls or windows of their contiguous houses, he had been vanquished by the eloquence of his neighbor Zeno; but the orator was defeated in his turn by the master of mechanics, whose malicious, though harmless, stratagems are darkly represented by the ignorance of Agathias. In a lower room, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... of the general symptoms are severe paroxysmal headache, optic neuritis, with choked disc and limitation of the field for blue, amounting sometimes to blue-blindness (Cushing). The relative degree of neuritis in the two eyes is a reliable guide to the side on which the tumour is situated (Horsley). The symptoms are seldom absent, and are common to all forms of tumour, wherever situated. Vomiting, which is without relation to the taking of food and is usually unattended ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... writing brief notices of Cremonese worthies. The MS. is dated 1720, and includes a most interesting account of the patronage enjoyed by Antonio Stradivari, together with several items of information of more or less worth, relative to the famous Violin-maker. In passing, it may be mentioned that Don Desiderio Arisi was intimate with Stradivari, and gained his knowledge of the facts he recorded from the artist himself. The second-named MSS., from ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... much that is fascinating can be given but a passing glance: for greater detail larger works must be consulted. Nevertheless it is well to try and view in perspective events as they occurred, in order to obtain some idea of their relative importance. ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... to army orders, owned a dog. It was a nondescript pup, with a cross eye, and also a kink in his tail. It was coloured a sort of battleship grey with two or three splashes of brown on the flanks, and his nearest blood relative was probably a French poodle—though his ancestry was a subject of prolonged and sometimes heated debate between Toban and his mates. A Tommy who had scornfully described him as "A 'ell of a lookin' dawg" had been promptly felled by a blow from ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... high-risk urban areas to receive grants under this section based on procedures under this subsection. (2) Initial assessment.— (A) In general.—For each fiscal year, the Administrator shall conduct an initial assessment of the relative threat, vulnerability, and consequences from acts of terrorism faced by each eligible metropolitan area, including consideration of— (i) the factors set forth in subparagraphs (A) through (H) and (K) of section 2007(a)(1); and (ii) information and materials submitted ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives
... is commonly introduced by the relative qui; e.g., Deus, qui corda fidelium sancti ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... there, when we heard the report, expected to see a vast hole where the grass had been. I'm sure I did. When it was clear this hadnt happened, I continued to stare hard, thinking, since my highschool physics was so hazy, I had somehow reversed the relative speed of sight and sound and we had heard the noise ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... should ascertain whether the priest is in a state of grace every time he celebrates; and since their salvation would then, depend upon that, they would be committing a sin if they did not examine the relative morality of different priests and ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... of my life the entire bent of my inclinations had been towards microscopic investigations. When I was not more than ten years old, a distant relative of our family, hoping to astonish my inexperience, constructed a simple microscope for me, by drilling in a disk of copper a small hole, in which a drop of pure water was sustained by capillary attraction. This very primitive ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... riches. Under every portico, speakers were pouring forth harangues whose ignorance was only matched by their coarseness and surpassed by their reckless malevolence. Once he bade his bearers set him down, near where one Quintus Baebius Herennius, a plebeian tribune and a relative of Varro's, was holding forth to a ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... letter to Gregory which has come down to us; it may or may not have been the first which Catherine wrote him. That she had had relations with him earlier seems fairly certain. As early as 1372 we find her writing to Gerard du Puy, a relative of the Pope and Papal Legate in Tuscany. This letter is evidently a reply, and contains passages which she apparently expected du Puy to share with Gregory. Perhaps Gregory had made approaches to her ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... a half ago an attempt, in a condensed form, was made, to give the various opinions entertained of demons at an early date of the christian era; and it was not until a much later period of Christianity, that a more decided doctrine relative to their origin and nature was established. These tenets involved certain very knotty points respecting the fall of those angels, who, for disobedience, had forfeited their high abode in Heaven. The gnostics of early christian times, in imitation of a classification of the different orders ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... this change, and particularly (as we have attempted to show in a separate dissertation) motives of high political economy, suggested by the relative conditions of land and agriculture in Thrace and Asia Minor, by comparison with decaying Italy; but a paramount motive, we are satisfied, and the earliest motive, was the incurable Pagan bigotry of Rome. Paganism ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... for his family. Stung at last into active resistance, his wife had him arrested for non-support. While the man awaited trial, the Charity Organization Society removed his family, found work for the wife where she could keep three of her children, placed one with a relative, and two others temporarily in institutions. When he was released, he had no family to attract charitable aid, and was thrown, for the first time in many years, entirely ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... desist from his purpose: they also gave Gigliuozzo Saullo to understand that he were best to pay no sort of heed to Pietro's words, for that, if he so did, they would never acknowledge him as friend or relative. Thus to see himself debarred of the one way by which he deemed he might attain to his desire, Pietro was ready to die for grief, and, all his kinsfolk notwithstanding, he would have married Gigliuozzo's daughter, had but the father consented. Wherefore at length he ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... establishing a connection between phenomena that do not depend on each other at all. The act of exposing to the light for an instant a sensitive plate in a camera, then immersing it, according to given recipes, in appropriate liquids, and of making {185} the picture of a relative or friend appear thereon, is a magical operation, but based on real actions and reactions, instead of on arbitrarily assumed sympathies and antipathies. Magic, therefore, was a science groping in the dark, and later became "a bastard sister of ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... years old, judging by the growth of the trees; having subsequently seen some of Leichhardt's camps on the Burdekin, Mackenzie and Barcoo Rivers, a great similarity was observed in regard to the manner of building the hut and its relative position with regard to the fire and water supply, and the position in regard to the great features of the country was exactly where a party going westward would first receive a check from the waterless tableland between the Roper and Victoria ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... order to ascertain more distinctly the effect of the neighbourhood of land on the oscillations of the barometer, as generally observed, over so immense a surface of water in the one case, and the phaenomena of the equatorial depression in the other: the same remarks relative to the latter subject, which we offered under the head of South Atlantic, will equally apply in the present instance. The configuration of the western shores of North America renders it difficult to determine the precise boundary where the three-hourly series should commence; ...
— The Hurricane Guide - Being An Attempt To Connect The Rotary Gale Or Revolving - Storm With Atmospheric Waves. • William Radcliff Birt
... the adjectives, but the superlative relative of adverbs is formed with lo mas, and lo ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... wishing he was back in Peru arguing with hesitant South Americans over the relative values of American and Soviet complex commodities—and then ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... done, Bob had time to talk with George and Mr. Hillman relative to the interview that had been ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... will act together to shorten hours and raise wages we can put people back to work. No employer will suffer, because the relative level of competitive cost will advance by the same amount for all. But if any considerable group should lag or shirk, this great opportunity will pass us by and we will go into another desperate winter. This must ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... beside the great masters of affairs you will find that they have as many ideas as have these captains of business. My young friend, it is simply because they have not courage and constancy. Long ago I catalogued the qualities that make up character, in relative importance, as follows: ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... you can, what he means (in the closing of this argument,) by saying, "For all the LAW is FULFILLED in one word, even this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." v: 14. Surely he is quoting the Saviour's words in Matt. xxii: 39, relative to the commandment of the Lord our God. To his son Timothy he says: "Now the end of the commandment is charity," (love) meaning of course the last part of the ten commandments. In vi: 2, he says: "Bear ye one anothers burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ." Does this differ ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, from the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the Commandment • Joseph Bates
... your opinion, has the present war demonstrated regarding the relative advantages of airplanes and Zeppelin airships?" ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... the following year, 1524, relative to the Reichstag of that year, Luther proclaims that the judgment of God already awaits "the drunken and mad princes." He quotes the phrase: "Deposuit potentes de sede" (Luke i. 52), and adds "that is your case, dear lords, even now when ye see it not!" After an admonition ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... the peculiar permissions of "good form" is that which allows a man to delegate the distribution of his visiting-cards to a near female relative, whenever it becomes impracticable for him to attend to the matter personally. Only the women of his own household, or a relative with whom he habitually pays visits, can thus represent ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... wanted now was perhaps a commonsense female relative to stiffen her mind against fancies and give her a clear-sighted view of the world, but she had none. Philip Berknowles was the last of his race, the few distant connections he had in Ireland lived away in the south and ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... celebrations, this vast plain is surrounded with Gobelins tapestry, statues, and triumphal arches. After contemplating these objects of public curiosity, we returned to Mons. S—— to dinner, where we met a large party of very pleasant people. Amongst them I was pleased with meeting a near relative of an able and upright minister of the republic, to whose unwearied labours the world is not a little indebted for the enjoyments ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... Udine on the 5th of August. I was still on duty at Versa, but the conversation in the R.A.M.C. Mess bored me, particularly at meals; it was all sputum and latrines, gas gangrene and the relative seniority of the doctors one to another. There was nothing to keep me at Versa, for my gunner fatigue party did not in truth need any supervision. So I determined to go to Udine. I started, walking, about 10 a.m. It was not too hot. I walked about three miles and then picked ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... ladies' oyster supper for charitable purposes, &c., also comprising some mysterious sub rosa transactions known only to myself and a select few, new songs and dances, and the Greensboro Poker Club. Having picked up a few points myself relative to this latter amusement, I feel competent to give a lucid, glittering portrait of the scenes presented under its auspices. But if the former drama has reached you safely, I will refrain from burdening you any more with the labors of ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... better known by its chorus: "Say, brothers, will you meet us?" and turned by the soldiers into the grand "John Brown's body's moldering in the grave, but his soul is marching on," was paraphrased by Julia Ward Howe into a "battle hymn." And Holmes wrote "To Canaan," relative to the first levy. And to top these, the Southerners had a parody on the "Old John Brown," also ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... shocking impact is desirable. Each of our party had a .475 Jeffery, which we found to be entirely satisfactory, and which served us as well as though we had used the more expensive Holland and Holland's .450. I do not presume to know much about the relative merits of rifles, but after an experience of four and a half months with the Jeffery's .475, I feel justified in saying that this type would meet all requirements reliably. These rifles cost ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... been a hard matter for him living all alone to have made a livelihood, so he sold two of his heifers to obtain an outfit, and leaving the remainder as well as his cottage in charge of a relative of his father's, he started off to the nearest seaport. He had no difficulty in finding a ship, for he was as likely a lad as a captain could wish to ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... carry Nietzsche's point against all those who are opposed to the other conditions, to the conditions which would have saved Rome, which have maintained the strength of the Jewish race, and which are strictly maintained by every breeder of animals throughout the world. Darwin in his remarks relative to the degeneration of CULTIVATED types of animals through the action of promiscuous breeding, brings Gobineau support from the ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... of her; she had few companions, and her sisters were mere children. All the time the younger girl was talking, she was silently revolving a plan. It so happened this Cecil was in rather independent circumstances for a young lady, maternal relative having left her a legacy at twelve years old which, by the time she was twenty-one, would bring in a ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... did it not give rise to, and what ever-enduring admiration of the tasteful, the distinguished, the indescribably good effect which it produced, especially when seen from one side! Gabriele, to be sure, would have made sundry little objections relative to the connexion of the leaves, but Louise would not allow that there was any weight in them: "The border," said ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... the proposed end, the promised reward, of virtue, is infinitely superior to that of love? No one disputes it, but that is not the question—we are only discussing the relative aid they both afford in the endurance of affliction. Judge of that by the practical effect: are there not multitudes who abandon a life of strict virtue? how few give up the pursuits ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... I never thought of instituting a comparison between their relative value. The Lady Hasselton, no disparagement to her merits, is but one woman; but a French valet who knows his metier arms one for conquest over a thousand;" and I turned ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... man had neither father nor mother, and that his nearest relative was an old aunt who had supplied the money for his college tuition—at least, such money as he had not been able to earn himself. Nelson Haley, however, desired to be self-supporting, and he felt that he had accepted all the assistance ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... recognise that he had at least tried to do his duty. There is a touch of pathos in the harassed statesman's reply to a letter of congratulation which reached him on the threshold of the new year from a near relative, and it is worthy of quotation, since it reveals the attitude of the man on far greater questions than those with which he was beset at the moment: 'I cannot say that the new year is a happy one to me. Political troubles are too thick for my weak sight to penetrate them, ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... work would have been called by the Romans annales rather than historiae. The method has its advantages, one of which is, or should be, that the reader knows just how far he has progressed; he can compare the relative significance of events happening at the same time in widely separated lands: he is, as it were, living in the past, and receives from week to week or month to month reports of the world's doings in all quarters. On the other hand, this plan lacks dramatic ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... school. In this manner are proselytes obtained, and mingled with the offspring of such Protestants as may avail themselves of the institution. And how are they taught? A catechism is put into their hands, consisting of, I believe, forty-five pages, in which are three questions relative to the Protestant religion; one of these queries is, "Where was the Protestant religion before Luther?" Answer: "In the Gospel." The remaining forty-four pages and a half regard the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... relativity, has deduced the same conclusions: space and time do not exist in nature by themselves, as empty space and empty time, but their existence is only due to things and events as they occur in nature. They are relative in the relation between us and the events of nature, so much so that they are not fixed and invariable in their properties, but depend upon the observer and the ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... Jermyn keeping?" he asked. "Is that cough of his better?" This made me feel that probably the man knew Mr. Jermyn. "Yes," I said. "He's got no cough, now." "He'd a bad one last time he was here," the man answered. For a while he kept silent. He seemed to me to be puzzling out the relative heights of our masts. Suddenly he turned to me, with a very natural air. "How's Mr. Scott's business going?" he asked. "You know, eh? You know what I mean?" I was taken off my guard. I'm afraid I hesitated, though I knew that the man's sharp eyes noted every little change on my ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... her total importation of butter, and our cheese export to Great Britain is only about one eighth of her total importation of cheese. Our cheese has lost its hold on the English market because of its relative deterioration of quality, and its export is not more than a half or a third of what it once was. Much of our butter also is not suited to the English taste. But both our cheese and our butter are now improving in quality. Our great competitor in the cheese export trade is Canada. Canada's ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... saw me speak to the dog and ask him to do various things, such as fetching and carrying; tumbling, walking on his hind-legs, &c. &c. But even this argument did not suffice to overcome the covetousness of some tribes, and I was then obliged to assure them confidentially that he was a relative of the Sun, and therefore if I parted with him he would bring all manner of most dreadful curses down upon his new owner or owners. Whenever we went rambling I had to keep Bruno as near me as possible, because we sometimes came ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... to her grief, who seemed to be slowly dying of some unknown complaint, ended by seriously alarming Madame Raquin. She had, now, no one in the whole world but her niece, and she prayed the Almighty every night to preserve her this relative to close her eyes. A little egotism was mingled with this final love of her old age. She felt herself affected in the slight consolations that still assisted her to live, when it crossed her mind that she might die alone in the damp shop in the arcade. From that time, she never took ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... successive efforts of painting to arrive at the supreme refinement of such a work as the Sodoma the Campo Santo hard by offers a most interesting memorial. It presents a long, blank marble wall to the relative profaneness of the Cathedral close, but within it is a perfect treasure-house of art. This quadrangular defence surrounds an open court where weeds and wild roses are tangled together and a sunny stillness seems to rest consentingly, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... original utterance. While much louder and more continuous, it lacks the sweetness of our bird's notes; indeed, it resembles in quality of tone the voice of our phoebe, or his beautiful relative, the great-crested flycatcher. The Westerner has a great deal to say for himself. On alighting, he announces the fact by a single note, which is a habit also of our phoebe; he sings the sun up in the morning, ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... my good fellows? What can I do for you? Will you sit down?' The spokesman of the pair, the shorter of the two, declined to sit, and explained the object of the call thus: he had had a talk about the relative height of Mr. Lincoln and his companion, and had asserted his belief that they were of exactly the same height. He had come in to verify his judgment. Mr. Lincoln smiled, went and got his cane, and, placing the end of it ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... Besides his reputation as a musician, Jean-Christophe's strength and bold ways made an impression on Otto, and Jean-Christophe was sensible of Otto's elegance and distinguished manners—everything in this world is relative—and of his ease of manner—that ease of manner which he looked and ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... in the cabinet, a recognition of ability probably never accorded to any other man before or since. He finally accepted the office of Secretary of State. Our relation with England demanded prompt attention. The differences existing between the two nations relative to the Northern boundary could not be disregarded, and Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton brought about a treaty which was equally honorable and advantageous to the countries. He was also able later to contribute much toward the settlement of the Oregon boundary question through private channels of ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... true, for he drank himself to death. Ten years ago his wife was left a widow, with scanty means and a couple of growing boys. She paid her husband's debts as best she could, and came to establish herself here, where by the death of a charitable relative she had inherited an old-fashioned ruinous house. Roderick, our friend, was her pride and joy, but Stephen, the elder, was her comfort and support. I remember him, later; he was an ugly, sturdy, practical lad, very different from his brother, and in his ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... catastrophes are now almost eliminated from geological, or at least palaeontological speculation; and it is admitted, on all hands, that the seeming breaks in the chain of being are not absolute, but only relative to our imperfect knowledge; that species have replaced species, not in assemblages, but one by one; and that, if it were possible to have all the phenomena of the past presented to us, the convenient epochs and formations of the geologist, though having a certain distinctness, would ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... were few. He admitted possessing three books which he read and re-read in rotation: "Peter Simple," "Alice in Wonderland," and a more recent discovery, Owen Wister's "Virginian." A widowed mother in a Yorkshire dower house was the only relative he was ever heard to refer to, and for her benefit every Sunday afternoon he sat down for an hour, as he had since schooldays, and wrote a boyish, detailed chronicle of his doings during the ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... condition of things.'' Parenthetically, we agree that "such and such a condition of things'' may alter with every instant and we declare ourselves ready to study the matter anew if the conditions change. We demand material, but relative truth. ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... Collection has particular importance because of its immediate geographic source. Bahia de Los Angeles lies in that part of Baja California most accessible to the Mexican mainland (map 1). Not only is there a relative physical closeness, but the Gulf islands form here a series of "stepping stones" from Bahia de Los Angeles across to Tiburon Island, home of the Seri, and thence to the adjacent ...
— A Burial Cave in Baja California - The Palmer Collection, 1887 • William C. Massey
... and affected. Happy, on the contrary, for what am I in want of! The world calls me beautiful. It is something to be well received. I like a favorable reception; it expands the countenance, and those around me do not then appear so ugly. I possess a share of wit, and a certain relative sensibility, which enables me to draw from life in general, for the support of mine, all I meet with that is good, like the monkey who cracks the nut to get at its contents. I am rich, for you have one of the first fortunes in France. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... fame in the following months; for the ladies of her suite were liberal of favors. Jousts, masquerades, street-brawls, and duels were of frequent occurrence beneath her windows—Spaniards and Italians disputing the honor of those light amours. On November 3 came Andrea Doria with his relative, the Cardinal Girolamo of that name. About the same time, Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggi, Bishop of Bologna, returned from his legation to England, where (as students of our history are well aware) he had been engaged upon the question ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... some very extraordinary customs respecting deceased persons. When one of them died, it was necessary that all his relations should see him and examine the body in order to ascertain that he died a natural death. They acted so rigidly on this principle, that if one relative remained who had not seen the body all the others could not convince that one that the death was natural. In such a case the absent relative considered himself as bound in honor to consider all the other relatives as having been accessories to the death of ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... unlike what is popularly denominated a swell. His coarse features were disfigured with unhealthy blotches, and his outward appearance was hardly such as to recommend him. But to him alone the cold heart of the housekeeper was warm. He was her sister's son and her nearest relative. Her savings were destined for him, and in her attachment she was not conscious of his disagreeable characteristics. She had occasionally given him a five-dollar bill to eke out what he termed his miserable pay, and now whenever he called he didn't spare hints that he was out ...
— The Cash Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... comparison between them from the point of view of their respective ends is an absolute one, since an end is sought for its own sake; whereas the comparison arising from their respective works is a relative one, since works are not done for their own sake but for the sake of ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... the tired woman, the strange foreign face, the tramp of horses' feet. And opium merely magnified these simple elements, rendered them grand and beautiful without giving them any forced connection or relative meaning. We recognize the traces of our own transfigured experience, but we are relieved from the necessity of accepting it as having an inner meaning. De Quincey's singular hold on our affection seems, therefore, to be his ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... to meet with any catalogue of its monastic library, and the only hints I can obtain relative to their books are such as may be gathered from the recorded donations of its learned prelates and monks. In the year 1077, Gundulph, a Norman bishop, who is justly celebrated for his architectural talents, ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... kept in mind is the psychological object in their use. The scientists tell us, and we can partly take their word for it, that people learn about 75 percent of what they know through their sight, 13 percent through their hearing, and 12 percent through their other senses. But this is a relative and qualitative, rather than an absolute, truth. It has to be so. Otherwise, book study, which employs sight exclusively, would be the only efficient method of teaching, and oral instruction, which depends primarily on sound impact, would be ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... Forest-hill no home for them now, but the smaller tenement and grounds at Wheatley in the same county seem to have been equally unavailable. There is documentary proof, at least, that immediately after Mr. Powell's death, in the same month of January 1646-7, his relative Sir Edward Powell, Bart., took formal possession of that property in consequence of his legal title to it from non-payment of the sum of L300 which he had advanced to Mr. Powell, on that security, five years before (see Vol. II. p. 497). [Footnote: Document, dated Aug. ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... there are four things to be aimed at. First, and most important, it must be good. Now any speech or action that manifests moral purpose of any kind will be expressive of character: the character will be good if the purpose is good. This rule is relative to each class. Even a woman may be good, and also a slave; though the woman may be said to be an inferior being, and the slave quite worthless. The second thing to aim at is propriety. There is a type of manly valour; but valour in a woman, or unscrupulous cleverness, is ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... sight to see the Gunning twins wandering down The Lane hand in hand when their maternal relative had gone out washing for the day and taken the door-key with her. "Thim lads is big enough to take care of thimsilves," she would remark, though "the lads" were not yet capable of coherent speech. No doubt they wandered into some neighbor's at meal-time and received a willingly-given potato ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... from the Secretary of State, relative to the claim of Mr. Rudolph Lobsiger, a Swiss citizen, against the United States, and recommend that provision be made by law for referring the matter to the Court of Claims ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... I was sure of it," began "Uncle." (He was a distant relative of the Rostovs', a man of small means, and their neighbor.) "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist it and it's a good thing you're going. That's it! Come on!" (This was "Uncle's" favorite expression.) "Take the covert ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... such matters to establish any measure of comparison. No analysis will enable us to say how much pedestrian capacity may be fairly regarded as equivalent to a small capacity for soaring above the solid earth, and therefore the question as to the relative value of Macaulay's work and that of some men of loftier aims and less perfect execution must be left to individual taste. We can only say that it is something so to have written the history of many national heroes as to make their faded glories ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... Mrs. Wyeth, being under many obligations, pecuniary and otherwise, to her wealthy Chicago relative, would need only a hint from him to give Mary-'Gusta the care and attention of a parent, a very particular, Boston first-family parent. But, unlike his present wife, he was not in the habit of referring to his charities, so he kept this information ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... north-west corner of the Piazza della Signoria a fine broad street, the Via Calzaioli, leads to the Piazza del Duomo; from the eastern corner the street called the Borgo de' Greci leads into the Piazza Santa Croce. It is of great importance to understand the relative position of these three squares. The chief feature of the Piazza della Signoria is the Palazzo Vecchio, afine specimen of the Florentine castles of the Middle Ages (page 274). On either side of the main entrance are the terminal statues of Baucis and Philemon, by Bandinelli, and in front the ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... maintain his business position. There is always an inter-relationship among the rich in business and private life, and he gives such entertainments as are necessary to the members of New York's exclusive set, simply to make certain his relative position with ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... to the "Tchin," or Russian social hierarchy. There are fourteen grades in the Tchin assigning relative rank and precedence to the members of the various departments of the State, civil, military, naval, court, scientific and educational. The military and naval grades from the 14th up to the 7th confer personal nobility ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... seventh heaven. "The description is that of Captain Kinsolving, of General Greene's army, one of our ancestors," she said, in a voice that trembled with pride and relief. "I really think I must apologize for our ghostly relative, Mrs. Bellmore. I am afraid he must have ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry |
