"Action" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man who watches how another man does it. He wanted to judge himself if the sacred orator was as good as his reputation. The firm and substantial eloquence of this former official, this statesman who was more than anything a man of action, immediately got control of the frivolous rhetorician. To be sure, he did not find in Ambrose's sermons the exhilaration or the verbal caress which had captivated him in those of Faustus the Manichean; but yet they had a persuasive grace which held him. Augustin heard the bishop with ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... co-operation, and the advantage of being open to counsel.[111] The basis of all practical wisdom being resignation to the inevitable, obedience to God is better than sacrifices destined to influence His action. What He does, is done for ever, and our efforts are powerless to alter it, or to induce Him to change it.[112] God is far off, unknowable, inaccessible, and man is here upon earth, and such prayers as we feel disposed to offer, had best be short and few; vows too, although to be carried ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... that the actors' dinner was set for several nights later, and that I was not invited or expected to this entertainment, which was given by Mr. Howard to my actor friend, but by concert of action between the playwright and the actor, the whole affair was turned into a dinner to me. Broadway was delighted at the joke, but did not have a better time ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... their favourite weapon, calumny. In a communication directed to us, they have had the audacity to accuse you of having attacked some property. Miserable wretches! No, the soldiers of the people are not robbers; the cause of liberty is very noble, and its defence will not be stained by a degrading action. This is the answer given to your calumniators by your chiefs, who are as much interested in your reputation as in their own. Soldiers of the people! let valour, as well as all other civic virtues, shine in your conduct, that you ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... take three of the enlisted men, Mr. Correy, and give us a brisk rear-guard action when we get into the main passage—if we do. Use the grenades if you have to, but throw them as fast as possible, or we'll have the roof coming ...
— The Death-Traps of FX-31 • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... made several attempts to explore North Virginia. Captain John Smith, already so famous in South Virginia, examined the coast from Penobscot to Cape Cod, drew a map of it, and called the country NEW ENGLAND. The company, stirred to action by his glowing accounts, obtained a new patent (1620) under the name of the Council for New England. This authorized them to make settlements and laws, and to carry on trade through a region reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and comprising over a million square miles. ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... found in fact to attract every other particle. The moon, for instance, attracts the earth also, but the controlling force is on the side of the much greater mass of the earth. This force of gravity or attraction of gravitation, as it is also called, is perfectly regular in its action. Its power depends first of all exactly upon the mass of the body which exerts it. The gravitational pull of the sun, for instance, reaches out to an enormous distance, controlling perhaps, in their courses, unseen planets circling far beyond the orbit ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... that direction. He passed the spot where the two men had been standing—they were still there, and seemed in no hurry to go to the rescue. One of them, Jerry noticed as he rushed by, shouting "Quick!" had just thrown his gun under his arm, but the action did not impress the boy at the time as ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... thanks fearfully," the young man said. "I don't know what I'd have done." He grabbed at the note. "I'll let you have it back to-morrow. Here's my card. Is your address on your card? I can't remember. Oh, by Jove, I've got it in my hand all the time." The gurgling laugh came into action again, freshened and strengthened by its rest. "Savoy Mansions, eh? I'll come round to-morrow. Thanks frightfully again, old chap. I don't know what ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... demands is one of its best recommendations. We value little that which costs us no trouble to maintain. If we had to keep the sun kindled up and going by private corporate action, or act of Congress, and to be taxed for the support of customs officers of solar heat, we should prize it more than we do. Not that I should like to look upon the sun as a job, and have the proper regulation of its temperature get into politics, where ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... as a last resort, I had taken action whereby in some critical moment I might be able to wield a power over Mrs. Falchion. I was playing a blind game, but it was the only card I held. I had heard from the lawyer in Montreal that Madras, under another ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Combined action amongst railway employees was not common then, not even in the wage-earning class, but Trade Unionism, scarcely yet legalised, was clamouring for recognition. Strikes sometimes occurred but were ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... Mrs. Power, rubbing one hand over another, her favourite action. "Come, Gwladys, don't cry—don't be silly; as your sister is here, she will stay with us a week or so. Can ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... populace, once seated to view a show of any kind, cannot be controlled, cannot even be swayed. No fame of any charioteer, beast-fighter or gladiator can win from them tolerance of the smallest error of judgment, defect of action, attempt at foul play or hint of fear: they boo anything of which they disapprove and not Jupiter himself could elicit from them applause of anything except exhibitions of courage, skill, artistry and quickness fine enough to rouse ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... treadmill as Mrs. Ellsworth's slave-companion. What the Portman Square experiences of the bride would have been if Knight had allowed the Annesley-Setons to begin by ruling it would be dangerous to say. But he had taken his stand; and without guessing that she owed her freedom of action to her husband's strength of will, she revelled in it with a joy so intense that it came close to pain. Sometimes, if he were within reach, she ran to find Knight, and hugged him almost fiercely, with a ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... perfection, of mechanical perfection as of others, you find that the horse is a beautiful creature, one of the most beautiful of all land animals. Look at the perfect balance of its form, and the rhythm and force of its action. The locomotive machinery is, as you are aware, resident in its slender fore and hind limbs; they are flexible and elastic levers, capable of being moved by very powerful muscles; and, in order to supply the engines which work these levers with the force which ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... obliged to give him over; and if he alone had suffered for it, the loss had been less. I could not satisfy myself, however, without venturing on shore once more, to try if I could learn anything of him or them; it was the third night after the action that I had a great mind to learn, if I could by any means, what mischief we had done, and how the game stood on the Indians' side. I was careful to do it in the dark, lest we should be attacked again: ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... see my feyther spit, I should say so! Vun young blood—a dock's son he vere too—vent an' 'ad a front tooth drawed a purpose, but I never 'eard as it done much good; bless you, to spit like my feyther you must be born to it!" (here Mottle-face paused to suit the action to the word). "And, mark you! over an' above all this, my feyther vere ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... because in those days artists modelled the corsetless life around them, so the Japanese artist does not draw well his lightly draped figures, cranes, and insects because these things strike him as beautiful, but because he is familiar with their every action. ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... from which duties are derived, and by proposing most efficacious reasons for an honest life, it bids us not only fly from wicked deeds, but rule the motions of the mind which are contrary to reason when it is not intended to reduce them to action. But to wish the Church in the discharge of its offices to be subject to the civil power is a great rashness, a great injustice. If this were done order would be disturbed, since things natural would ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... twenty-eight, or a knot more than the speed of the cruiser under forced draught. These hopes were nipped in the bud by the Tompion blowing away the Ponto's stern and putting both propellers out of action. ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... yourself are wrapped in a pleasant and unsuspicious security. You have so often seen the sun that you begin to think it is shining over everybody. You therefore give no longer that attention to the least action of your wife, which was impelled by your ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... action when my honor is satisfied," said Gotzkowsky, with proud contempt; and then, without honoring the worthy gentlemen with another look, he left the hall, and returned ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... answer to Rodaine's action came to him. It was simple now to see why the scar-faced man had put a good valuation on the mine during the court procedure and apparently helped Fairchild out in a difficulty. In fact, there were several reasons for it. In the first place, the tying up of the mine by placing it in ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... gorge with rock sides, it is possible to save masonry by building the dam in the form of an arch upstream, the resistance to the force of the water being then furnished by the abutment action of the rock sides, instead of by the weight of the dam, as in ordinary construction. For a dam ten feet high, the necessary thickness of the curved dam would probably not be more than twelve inches, while the ordinary gravity dam would be three ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... He sat in the coach facing Elena (Bersenyev had taken his seat on the box), and he said nothing; she too was silent. He thought that she was condemning his action; but she did not condemn him. She had been scared at the first minute; then the expression of his face had impressed her; afterwards she pondered on it all. It was not quite clear to her what the nature of her reflections was. The emotion she had felt during the day had passed away; that she realised; ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... in this city. All through the book explanation forestalls objection, while old friends find new information and new reasons for half-understood methods. Such are the accumulating exposition of the Hampton idea, and the description of circumstances and resources which condition all action, and determine the measure of progress. Those who know and love this wonderful place will be gratified at the stress laid on the 'Hampton spirit' of service as the explanation of its success, as well as the constant recognition of the spiritual ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... Unbound" may be reckoned the touch-stone of a man's capacity for understanding lyric poetry. The world in which the action is supposed to move, rings with spirit voices; and what these spirits sing, is melody more purged of mortal dross than any other poet's ear has caught, while listening to his own heart's song, or to the rhythms of the world. There are hymns in "Prometheus", ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... morning he had gone about his errands very calmly, playing the man of action, in a new philosophy learned overnight. But now he forgot to imitate his teacher, and darted in, so headlong that all the dogs came with ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... with one stone; for at the same time that they made their defence before the committee, they managed to present their cause to the attention of the public as well. Appearing before the committee to prevent hostile action on the part of the legislature against their movement, they skillfully turned the occasion into the most notable meeting for agitating the subject of slavery in the State ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... painstaking observation and anxious regard for truth can make them. Certain of the stories, of course, are true literally. Literal truth may be attained by stories which treat of a single incident, or of action so restricted as to lie within the scope of a single observation. When, on the other hand, a story follows the career of a wild creature of the wood or air or water through wide intervals of time and space, it is obvious that the truth of that story must be ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... let Mr. Gaston buy him; he can afford it. Do it, Mr. Gaston; it will be both a capital joke and a good action, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... by the spectroscope of the light emitted by certain elements at different temperatures may be reasonably interpreted by supposing that these elements are separated into simpler substances by the action on them of very large quantities of thermal energy. The spectrum of the light emitted by glowing iron heated by a Bunsen flame (say, at 1200 deg. C. about 2200 deg. F.) shows a few lines and flutings; when iron ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... you're not very encouraging, but I didn't expect you to be. I know my step-uncle, and I'm prepared for a stiff and extensive campaign. All I'm asking for is a detonator—something to start the action, you know, or something novel in the way of an explosive. Perhaps an adaptation of one of those grenades that the Chinese pirates throw when they want to drive their victims suffocating into the sea. I realize that there isn't much use engaging Uncle John with ordinary ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... cook of what he had done the previous night. At that point he came in, and on discovering me said, "You here again," his face purple with rage. His right foot at once became restless, he made a rush for me, but the cook with butcher-knife in hand prevented the action of said foot, and my troubles with that gentleman ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... weather-beaten, bearded faces. There was a grin on each, from the first, which was clear to its smallest wrinkle in the candle-light, to those which were vanishing and reappearing in the shadows behind. Billy seemed to be incapable of word or action. ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... Their action was utterly unauthorized. The two kingdoms were at peace. James the First, by the patents of 1606, had granted all North America, from the thirty-fourth to the forty-fifth degree of latitude, to the two companies of London and Plymouth,—Virginia ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... deep, deep into the woods—her head aching with overcharged thought, her heart lying wounded and cold in her bosom. Hour after hour she toiled on, wild with the pain of her new sorrow. It seemed to her that intense action could only bring rest. Thus, she clambered hill after hill, drew herself up the steep face of many a rock that, at another time, would have defied her efforts, and waded, knee-deep, in drifts of dead leaves that choked up the hollows. Sometimes she would stop suddenly, out ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... to be a very amenable policeman. He said he would take no action before he and the door-keeper had had time to talk it over next day. By the time that talk came the photographs had been developed, printed and translated. But the policeman did not wish to bore the door-keeper ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... shown some of my surprise at his action, for he turned suddenly to me, and asked: "Did you understand ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... was shot, to take all horses fit for service within that circuit, and to pursue and destroy bushwhackers.( 2) With the arrest of a few men and the taking of some horses, however, the incident closed so far as official action was concerned. ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... them, thinking not at all. His energies were expended in action. He sat as a part of the ruins, and the moon turned his shadow Westward from the South. Overhead, as she declined, long ripples of silver cloud were imperceptibly stealing toward her. They were the van ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... while both parties were preparing for an action, ambassadors from the Tarentines interposed, requiring both Samnites and Romans to desist from war; with menaces, that "if either refused to agree to a cessation of hostilities, they would join their arms with the other party against them." Papirius, on hearing ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... twice petitioned Congress to rescind its action, alleging, "it is the unanimous wish of the inhabitants of Pah-ute and Mohave Counties and indeed of all the constituents of your memorialists that the territory in question should remain with Arizona; for the convenient ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... facing each other, the brown-skinned fighting man wise in ringcraft and champion of a hundred fights, and the white-fleshed athlete, each alike clean and bright of eye, light-poised of foot, quivering for swift action, while the Old Un looks needfully from one to the other, watch in one ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... XI (Plot continued.) Reversal of the Situation, Recognition, and Tragic or disastrous Incident defined and explained. XII The 'quantitative parts' of Tragedy defined. XIII (Plot continued.) What constitutes Tragic Action. XIV (Plot continued.) The tragic emotions of pity and fear should spring out of the Plot itself. XV The element of Character in Tragedy. XVI (Plot continued.) Recognition: its various kinds, with examples. XVII Practical rules ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... appreciation of the new era of British influence by a recent vote, which is to the effect that on January 1, 1879, all instruction in the college shall be through the English language. The Arabic will only be taught as any other dead language. This remarkable action shows that British influence in Syria is hereafter to be more than simply diplomatic; it is to be an all-pervading and controlling power, affecting every interest of Society. Truly another Pentecostal day is drawing nigh—a day when ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... beneath A northern sky, but yet the Latin muse To me is a familiar voice; I love The blossoms of Parnassus, I believe The prophecies of singers. Not in vain The ecstasy boils in their flaming breast; Action is hallowed, being glorified Beforehand by the poets! Approach, my friend. In memory ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... Wilson. I have for many years regarded myself as an interested, but always a somewhat detached, outsider, believing that the democratic idea was real and safe and lifting, if we could ever get it put into action, contenting myself ever with such patches of it as time and accident and occasion now and then sewed on our gilded or tattered garments. But now it is come—the real thing; at any rate a man somewhat like us, whose thought and aim and dream are our thought and aim and dream. That's enormously ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... afford to lose anything now—as I suppose you know, Mr. Cleek. Things have changed sadly for me since that day Mr. Narkom introduced us at Ascot," she said, with just a shadow of seriousness in her eyes. "But as to what I think regarding your action toward that dreadful boy.... Oh, of course, if there is a chance of saving him from a career of crime, I think one owes him that as a duty. In the circumstances, the temptation was very great. It must be a horrible thing to be so ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... summer when everybody in town had this disease at once. Many chimneys were shaken down, and all the houses were so racked that the town had to be rebuilt. The chasm or gorge between Lover's Leap and the hill west of it is supposed by scientists to have been caused by glacial action. This ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... as if it were nothing, and myself, or rather an unintelligible chimera I annex to myself, as if it were entitled to my exclusive attention. I am unable to cope with you: what then? Can that circumstance dishonour me? No; I can only be dishonoured by perpetrating an unjust action. My honour is in my own keeping, beyond the reach of all mankind. Strike! I am passive. No injury that you can inflict, shall provoke me to expose you or myself to unnecessary evil. I refuse that; but I am not therefore pusillanimous: when I refuse any danger or suffering by which the ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... snub-nose, and small eyes, he stood, Following Antonia's motions here and there, With much suspicion in his attitude; For reputations he had little care; So that a suit or action were made good, Small pity had he for the young and fair, And ne'er believed in negatives, till these Were proved by ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the contents; but, as I guess By the stern brow and waspish action Which she did use as she was writing of it, It bears an angry tenor: pardon me, I am ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... meant it should be so, either. When I gave you my love, I did not surrender my individual life and right of action. All of my being which you can appropriate to yourself is yours; you can take no more. What I take from you, is your love and sympathy. I cannot exhaust or receive ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... fell the task of leading these opposing factions, radical and conservative, along a definite line of action looking to reunion had few qualifications for the task. Johnson was ill-educated, narrow, and vindictive and was positive that those who did not agree with him were dishonest. Himself a Southerner, picked up by the National ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... long, broken, and ridgy hills, that fell away towards the valley of the Mohawk. The departure of this detachment had greatly simplified the duty of the succeeding day, disencumbering its march of its baggage and wounded, and otherwise leaving him who had issued the order greater liberty of action. ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... beautiful—itself, like the others, an independent inward power—stands to each one of them in a relation different from that which they hold one to the other. The above and other faculties indirectly aid one the other, and to the complete man their united action is needed; but feeling for the beautiful directly aids each one, aids by stimulating it, by expanding, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... back door and eats one of your relatives, you certainly have grounds for action. But not if he joins the rest of his jolly tribe for a good roast of enemy. Don't you see the obvious point here—that human conduct can only be judged in relation to its environment? Conduct is relative. The cannibal in his society ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... a fine of ten thousand pounds. A large part of this sum he actually paid: for the rest he gave a bond. The Earl of Peterborough, who had been injuriously mentioned in Dangerfield's narrative, was encouraged, by the success of the criminal information, to bring a civil action, and to demand large damages. Williams was driven to extremity. At this juncture a way of escape presented itself. It was indeed a way which, to a man of strong principles or high spirit, would have been more dreadful than beggary, imprisonment, or death. He might sell ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I serve your honour, who has been so kind to me; and then, that I may escape my old master, who, if not an absolute incarnation of the devil, has, at least, as much of the demon about him, in will, word, and action; as ever polluted humanity. And yet let him take care of me. I fly him now, as heretofore; but if, like the Scottish wild cattle, I am vexed by frequent pursuit, I may turn on him in hate and desperation. [A remnant of the wild cattle ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... lastly, as to the long-prized principle, to our minds the very alphabet of Anti-Slavery action, the importance of encouraging the growth and consumption of Free produce rather than that raised by the sweat and blood of the bondman. Our convictions of the righteousness of this course are as strong as they ever were; but perhaps we hoped too much, relied too fondly on the conscientiousness ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Waldron would write. It was impossible to recall his face and not know that he was a man of action. He would not go away for six months and leave behind him only a memory to hold her thoughts to his. She wondered only ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... incidents Admiral Drury evacuated Macao and sailed for India, leaving the English merchants to extricate themselves as well as they could from the embarrassing situation in which his hasty and blundering action had placed them. If the officials at Canton had not been as anxious for their own selfish ends that the trade should go on as the foreign merchants themselves, there is no doubt that the views of the ultra school at Pekin, who wished all intercourse with foreigners ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... life; and now, uninjured, we were sailing gaily over the calm water, victors in the strife. Had it not been for the dead bodies of our foes remaining on the deck, we could scarcely have believed our senses. This action is considered one of the most gallant that has ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... and when they were brought he ordered them to be broken. The master seeing this was of course vexed but could no longer be angry over one cup, considering the great number of others that were ruined, and could not punish his servant for what Augustus had done; therefore reluctantly he took no action. That was the sort of person this Pollio was, who died. He left various bequests to many different persons and to Augustus a good share of his inheritance together with Pausilypum[7], a place between Neapolis and Puteoli, with instructions that some public work of great ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... Venetian measurements, but the whole oar space could scarcely have been so much, and with twenty-eight benches to a side there could not have been more than 4 feet gunnel-space to each bench. And as one of the objects of the grouping of the oars was to allow room between the benches for the action of cross-bowmen, &c., it is plain that the rowlock space for the three oars must have been very ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... been recently passed (23 Eliz., c. 2) which made anyone guilty of felony who should write, or set forth, seditious matter; and the Queen, as supreme head of the Church, regarded Brown's action as an interference with the Royal prerogative. Severe measures were adopted in order to restrain this new teaching. Two preachers, Elias Thacker and John Copping, who embraced and proclaimed these tenet, were tried at the Bury ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... the centre of the stage, or from economical reasons, the version of "G. Shakespeare's" meritorious tragedy which was placed before us was almost wholly monologue. Thinking about it now, I can scarcely recall any action on the part of the few other characters, whereas Amleto's millions of rapid words still rain uncomprehended on my ears, and I still see his myriad grimaces and gestures. It was like Hamlet very ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... Napoleon I. We should at one stroke secure the alliance of all the monarchies. They have never looked with favor on the experiment of a powerful republic over here, and it is almost certain they would befriend us for transforming this mighty infant state into an empire. However, that is for future action. Our agents abroad have sent us full reports ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... 'I shall have change of scene and change of place; change of people, change of manners, change of cares and hopes! Time will wear wings indeed! I can bear anything, so that I have swift action, Mary.' ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... had had his apparatus smashed by a shell early in the action, and worked his way back to get another. He succeeded in reaching the advanced line again, but another shell knocked out his second instrument. It was then only possible to keep in touch with the battalion headquarters by means of messengers, and ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... the fine weather continued, as did the lull in the action, the heavy German shells falling mostly near Pargnan, ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... square towards the enemy. The cavalry, taking different ways through the fields, missed the road, being deceived by the various shouts raised in several quarters. Some of them met with the enemy, and battles began in many places at once. The hottest part of the action was at the station where the king commanded; for the guard there was, in numbers both of horse and foot, almost a complete army; and, as they were posted on the middle road, the greatest number of the Romans fell in with them. The Macedonians had also the ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... for the event either way, I do not pretend to foresee what will happen. Penetration argues from reasonable probabilities; but chance and folly are apt to contradict calculation, and hitherto they seen) to have full scope for action. One hears of no genius on either side, nor do symptoms of any appear. There will perhaps: such times and tempests bring forth, at least bring out, great men. I do not take the Duke of Orleans or Mirabeau to be built du bois dont on les fait; no, nor Monsieur ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... was no use in twisting the vine the wrong way, and yielded to his will. Henry, imbosomed in classic shades, gathered the fruits of science and the flowers of literature, while his genius as an artist, though apparently dormant, waited the Ithuriel touch of opportunity to wake into life and action. ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... stranger's name—had come for the price of his silence. The next day, on the plea of an old debt that suddenly had to be met, Aram approached his prospective father-in-law for the loan of L300. This sum was readily placed at his disposal. Indeed, he was offered double the amount. His next action was to travel to London, where, with all the money at his command, he purchased an annuity for Houseman, falling back, for his own needs, upon the influence of Lord —— to secure for him a small state allowance which it was in that ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... subject deals with the general concepts of the science of physiology, the chemical and physical conditions which underlie and determine the action of the individual organs, and the integrative relationship of the parts ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... speech and no terms of agreement. There we are two stark, unknown beings, two utterly strange creatures, I would want to approach you, and you me. And there could be no obligation, because there is no standard for action there, because no understanding has been reaped from that plane. It is quite inhuman,—so there can be no calling to book, in any form whatsoever—because one is outside the pale of all that is accepted, and nothing known ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... have to take," MacMaine said evenly. "With this gun, you can shoot me down right here and try to escape alone. I've told you every detail of our course of action, and, with luck, you might make it alone." He held out his hand, with the weapon resting on ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... until he had examined every part of the invention, and Celestina trembled lest then and there his brain be stimulated to action and he make a bolt for home to complete without delay some sudden scheme the novelty had engendered. However, no such calamity occurred. He drank his tea with satisfaction and was presently borne off by Mr. Galbraith to inspect a recently purchased barometer. After he had ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... from the bottom to the top. The summit is six thousand feet above the sea, but only forty-five hundred feet above the lake. When we had walked half an hour, we were fairly into the swing and humor of the undertaking, so we cleared for action; that is to say, we got a boy whom we met to carry our alpenstocks and satchels and overcoats and things for us; that left us free for business. I suppose we must have stopped oftener to stretch out on the grass in the shade and take a bit of a smoke than this boy was used to, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... here and says I, 'they has him'! Perduce the maleyfactor till I trot him to the lock-up!" and with this the minion of the law rolled up his sleeves and prepared for action. ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... having refreshed, came hither to attack us. Sardar Khan advised our general to flee; but in four hours we drove them out of sight, in presence of thousands of the country people. After the razing of this castle, Sardar Khan reported this gallant action to the Great Mogul, who much admired it, as he thought none were like the Portuguese at sea. We returned to Swally on the 27th December, having only lost three men in action, and one had his arm shot off: while the Portuguese acknowledged to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... confidence in which he could venture to see the dawn of love, that she found herself suddenly as much compromised with the poet as she feared to be with the grand equerry. Canalis, feeling the necessity of prompt action, declared himself plainly. He uttered vows and protestations in which his poetry shone like a moon, invoked for the occasion, and illuminating his allusions to the beauty of his mistress and the charms of her evening dress. This ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... succeeded along the line in which we hope to succeed, whose success is measured as we hope to measure our own. Each leader of science and of intellectual life is in some degree the disciple of one who has planned and led before him. There is a heredity of intellect, a heredity of action, as subtle and as real as the heredity of the continuous germ-plasm. Ask the teacher who has helped mould your life, who in turn was his own master. In a very few generations you trace back your lineage to one of the great ...
— Life's Enthusiasms • David Starr Jordan
... Colonel Bouquet, at an intermediate rendezvous, to give them information respecting the frontiers, and arrange about the marching of his troops. His constant word to them was forward! forward! For the precious time for action was slipping away, and he feared their Indian allies, so important to their security while on the march, might, with their usual fickleness, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... that he was "invariably sober." And Jasmin said of himself, "I have learned that in moments of heat and emotion we are all eloquent and laconic, alike in speech and action—unconscious poets in fact; and I have also learned that it is possible for a muse to become all this willingly, and by ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... a day King consulted the proprietor, and asked him point blank, as a friend, what course he would pursue if he were under the necessity of having washing done in that region. The proprietor said that Mr. King's wants should be attended to at once. Another day passed without action, when the chambermaid was again applied to. "There's a lady just come in to the hall ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... fall upon Nathan with your argument, and establish it beyound cavil that he is a mere imitator with an appearance of genius. The concise grand style of the eighteenth century is lacking; you show that the author substitutes events for sentiments. Action and stir is not life; he gives you ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... to action with an enemy, and then I shall haul off to a respectful distance, Mr Alfred," replied Captain ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... mangled dead was bravely carried on the following day and before many hours the American genius for organization, order and action had met the demands of the overwhelming disaster. While the dead were still lying awaiting burial, plans were made to rebuild and resume again ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... that their States should vote for Mr. Allison when the convention came in in the afternoon. Depew, as I have said, was absent. But his three colleagues said there could be no doubt that he would agree to their action, and there would be no difficulty about New York. We thought it best as a matter of precaution, to meet again a half-hour before the coming in of the convention, to make sure the thing was to go through all ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... from the interior of a roadside restaurant he was in his place, ready to start. He did not offer to put them in the car, adjust their wraps, and close the door. If Miss Vanrenen liked to keep her promise, that was her affair, but no action on his part would hint of prior knowledge that she ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... himself into defying Marthy to her face, in another five minutes of complaining. But the cellar door closed upon him with a slam. Billy Louise was not interested in his opinion of Marthy; with her, opinions were valueless if not accompanied by action. ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... The hasty action tore the wretch's upper clothing nearly to the waist, and his body was seamed with dry black scars. There is only one weapon in the world that cuts in parallel lines, and it is neither the cane nor the cat. Dirkovitch saw the marks, and the pupils of his eyes dilated. ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... not possible that every portion of the ground layer should be precisely and entirely in contact with the rock; and he was well aware that where the contact was not perfect, so as to exclude the water therefrom, though the separation was only of the thickness of writing-paper, yet the action of a wave upon it edgewise would produce an equal effect towards lifting it upwards, as if it acted immediately upon so much area of the bottom as was not in close contact. To counteract therefore every tendency ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... credit that that girl had been an angel of light all the week, existing in a paradise which she had created for herself, and for him! And now, to defend an action utterly indefensible, she was employing a tone that might be compared to some fiendish instrumental ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... into no terms of accommodation; the challenge was accepted, Chalk Farm appointed as the place of meeting, and the time fixed for eight o'clock next morning. And thus, partly by his own warmth of temper, and partly by the falsehood of others, was Beauclerc urged on to the action he detested, to be the thing he hated. Duelling and duellists had, from the time he could think, been his abhorrence, and now he was to end his life, or to take the life of a fellow-creature perhaps, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... after Edward entered the city, his counselors and friends deemed that the time had come for action. Accordingly, they made arrangements for a grand review in a large open field. Their design was by this review to call together a great concourse of spectators. A vast assembly convened according to their expectations. ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... to prove an established principle in action. It was all in the course of duty, which is the way that all the officers and all the men look at their work. Only a few ships have had a chance to fight, and these are emblazoned on the public memory. But they did no better and no worse, probably, than the others ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... cables' length away could be discerned the twin periscopes and a portion of the conning-tower. The submarine was not forging ahead; it was simply stationary, except for a slight movement caused by the action of the waves. It certainly was not a British craft. It might be French. The odds were that it was German, since submarines belonging to the allied nations were not in the habit of keeping awash, unless in the presence of ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... prisoner, galvanized into action by this supreme horror. With one mighty effort he wrenched himself loose and turned upon Nate, fighting ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... of the drama. Before all things, I respected the characters, the lives of my personages; I wished them to express themselves independently of me, of themselves. I let them sing in me. I tried to listen to them and to interpret them faithfully. I wished—intended, in fact—that the action should never be arrested; that it should be continuous, uninterrupted. I wished to dispense with parasitic musical phrases. When listening to a work, the spectator is wont to experience two kinds of emotions which are quite distinct: the musical emotion, ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... rhythm of the flail, had a half-fearful fascination for the Raveloe boys, who would often leave off their nutting or birds'-nesting to peep in at the window of the stone cottage, counterbalancing a certain awe at the mysterious action of the loom, by a pleasant sense of scornful superiority, drawn from the mockery of its alternating noises, along with the bent, tread-mill attitude of the weaver. But sometimes it happened that Marner, pausing to adjust an irregularity in his thread, became aware of the ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... the sudden death of numbers of cattle in the vicinity of Dandenong, Victoria, was attributed to their having eaten a plant known as the wild parsnip. . . . Its action is so powerful that no remedial measures seem to ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... Ruth Morton, the American Beauty, stepped upon the screen, a compelling vision of loveliness. The audience followed eagerly her exciting adventures. Duvall himself, in spite of his preoccupation, found himself absorbed by the charm and action of the picture. In the opening scenes, Ruth appeared as a poor girl, trying to make her way in the great world of the theater. Her struggles, her sacrifices, her failures, were almost vividly portrayed. When at last, through her marvelous beauty, ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... and to impose his will—suaviter in modo as was his habit—on men who would brook such imposition from no one else. It was his moral balance they admired—that judgment which in all his long career of satiric criticism kept him practically free from any action for libel after he had taken his share in piloting the paper through its sea of early troubles. He was watchful and discriminating, both as regards the contents of the paper and the discussions at the board—where he would ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... killing many of the natives. On passing Gouroumo seven canoes came after us; which we likewise beat off. We lost one white man by sickness; we were reduced to eight hands; having each of us fifteen muskets, always in order and ready for action. Passed by a village (of which I have forgotten the name), the residence of King Gotoijege; after passing which we counted sixty canoes coming after us, which we repulsed, and killed a great number of men. Seeing so many men killed, and our superiority over ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... in every action, knowing that it was only an endorsement of his own thoughts that the full river meant in all probability a halt for days. There was the possibility of his being able to swim his horse across somewhere higher up or lower down; ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... the full force of this reproof; but disdaining to appear sensible to it, restrained his resentment. His wounded pride thus exasperated, and all the malignant passions of his nature thus called into action, he was prompted to that cruel surrender which he had never before seriously intended. The offence which Madame de Menon had unintentionally given his haughty spirit urged him to retaliate in punishment. He had, therefore, pleased himself with exciting a ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... replies, shrugging her shoulders, "once. And," she adds, making the bracelets jingle again, as with a tragedy queen's action of the right arm she sweeps away into space whole realms of Music Halls and comic singers, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... relatively to each other, that the reader (for I had then no thought of the stage) might be moved, and to a degree instructed, by lights penetrating somewhat into the depths of our nature. In this endeavour, I cannot think, upon a very late review, that I have failed. As to the scene and period of action, little more was required for my purpose than the absence of established law and government, so that the agents might be at liberty to act on their own impulses. Nevertheless, I do remember, that having a wish to colour the manners in some degree from local history more than my knowledge ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... while they thus so widely wander, While mystics dream and doctors ponder: And some, in dialectics firm, Seek virtue in a middle term; While thus they strive, in Heaven's defiance, To chain morality with science; The plain good man, whose action teach More virtue than a sect can preach Pursues his course, unsagely blest His tutor whispering in his breast; Nor could he act a purer part, Though he had Tully all by heart. And when he drops the tear on woe, He little ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... of the abbey of St. Wilfred the spectator may notice a cross-legged knight, whose feet rest upon a vanquished lion. His whole attitude is expressive of intense action; the muscles seem strained in the effort to draw his sword and demolish a Turk, while the face expresses all that ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... the Heights Receiving Towers twenty minutes ahead of time and there hung at ease till the Yokohama Intermediate Packet could pull out and give us our proper slip. It was curious to watch the action of the holding-down clips all along the frosty river front as the boats cleared or came to rest. A big Hamburger was leaving Pont Levis and her crew, unshipping the platform railings, began to sing "Elsinore"—the oldest of our chanteys. You know ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... a British barrister but he distinguished himself above all his fellows in the year he was called to the Bar. It is also noteworthy that the Lao Hsi-kai case does not figure in this summary, China taking the view that French action throughout was ultra vires, and ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... occurred and how. He recalled his conversation with his assailant, and shrewdly surmised that he would head for the Colorado river, after having first secured a supply of water at Chuckwalla Tanks. The Desert Rat's plan of action was quickly outlined. ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... liberal action of the British Admiralty, which faltered at no expense, and made trial of every improvement in machinery that gave assurance of good performance and promised in any way to increase the efficiency of the fleet, produced no less than fourteen distinct varieties of the screw engine. Among them all, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the 'shack' was the switch at which the Pacific and Atlantic Expresses—the trains going East and West—crossed. They were due almost at once. He was alone, time was short, and upon his action depended the safety of many lives. He could not go both ways at once with his warning; but down the western track beyond the switch he sped with explosive 'torpedoes,' or detonating signals. Then ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... most unexceptionable distinction which grammarians make between the participles, is, that the one points to the continuation of the action, passion, or state denoted by the verb; and the other, to the completion of it. Thus, the present participle signifies imperfect action, or action begun and not ended: as, 'I am writing a letter.' The past ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... unconscious of the blow that was soon to strike at the very heart of her life. Once in a while her brows would draw together abstractedly. She was thinking of John, and of the heartaches he was having over the action of the men at ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... to make but little impression upon him, however, for, following up a well-defined plan of action, he devoted himself wholly to the Spanish woman, and both amazed her and gratified her vanity by allowing her to learn that a man may be the silliest ass imaginable and yet quite understand how to flirt and to make love to a woman. ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... exertion of the powers confided to me. Where their danger was not imminent they have been borne with from sentiments of regard to his nation, from a sense of their friendship toward us, from a conviction that they would not suffer us to remain long exposed to the action of a person who has so little respected our mutual dispositions, and, I will add, from a reliance on the firmness of my fellow-citizens in their principles of peace and order. In the meantime I have respected and pursued the stipulations of our treaties according to what I judged their true sense, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... right to interfere, Dick," she said quietly, "and perhaps I should scarcely have listened to your story; but from what has been told me and my own eyes have seen, I thought Winnie's brother one who would scorn to do a cowardly, dishonourable action." ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... fable itself, 'tis in the English more adorned with episodes, and larger than in the Greek poets; consequently more diverting. For, if the action be but one, and that plain, without any counterturn of design or episode, i.e. underplot, how can it be so pleasing as the English, which have both underplot and a turned design, which keeps the audience in expectation of the catastrophe? ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... and nerves consist of two kinds of nervous matter—the gray, which is supposed to be the portion that originates and controls a nervous fluid which imparts power of action; and the white, which seems to conduct this fluid to every part of ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... correspondence; and in reading over these piles of letters, so full of originality, one could not but feel regret at the perversion of powers so remarkable,—powers which might have been developed by healthy action into means ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... either hand, then he did the "double roll" neatly, following which he executed a move that Gale had not witnessed for many years. He extended one of the guns, butt foremost, as if surrendering it, the action being free and open, save for the fact that his forefinger was crooked and thrust through the trigger-guard; then, with the slightest jerk of the wrist, the gun spun about, the handle jumped into his palm, and instantly there was a click as his thumb flipped the hammer. It was the old ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... been less than what is realized in the United States, where the farmers obtain it at lesser prices. Nor has my government imposed any restrictions, duties, or determinate value on the exportation of guano, although it might and could do so with perfect propriety; because such action would have militated to the detriment of its own interests as the proprietor of the article. Its object has been to send it to those markets where it was in demand; because, as it had not yet become an object of decided and positive interest to the consuming world, and there being no ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... on a couch grasping his son's hand, hurriedly explained his action when he had dashed into the flood, for he had caught sight of Drinkwater for a moment, and seen that he was in peril of his life, but it was only to nearly lose his own, for he had been caught between two heavy beams sailing with the rapid current, and ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... my own will, and as little that of such a friend. 'Tis not in the power of all the eloquence in the world, to dispossess me of the certainty I have of the intentions and resolutions of my friend; nay, no one action of his, what face soever it might bear, could be presented to me, of which I could not presently, and at first sight, find out the moving cause. Our souls had drawn so unanimously together, they had considered each other with so ardent an affection, and with the like affection ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... state of things with you, good-bye for me to your honours and altar-steam and fat of victims; I shall be off to Hades. There, if I show my bow ready for action, the ghosts of the monsters I have slain ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... wilderness, jungle; involution, raveling, entanglement; coil &c. (convolution) 248; sleave[obs3], tangled skein, knot, Gordian knot, wheels within wheels; kink, gnarl, knarl[obs3]; webwork[obs3]. [complexity if a task or action] difficulty &c. 704. V. complexify[obs3], complicate. Adj. gnarled, knarled[obs3]. complex, complexed; intricate, complicated, perplexed, involved, raveled, entangled, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... said Darby decidedly; and suiting the action to the word, he took the basket from his sister's hand, placed it carefully on the roadside, and, with a deep breath of satisfaction, dropped on the soft grass beside it, just where the path branched off the highway ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... He had finished his supper and was watching and scrutinizing all who came in. His face brightened as he saw the goose-girl; he would have known that head anywhere, whether he saw the face or not. He wanted to go to her at once, but knew this action would not be wise. ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... Studies of the Reflex Function in its higher sphere, I should frighten away all but the professors and the learned ladies. If I should proclaim that they were protests against the scholastic tendency to shift the total responsibility of all human action from the Infinite to the finite, I might alarm the jealousy of the cabinet-keepers of our doctrinal museums. By saying nothing about it, the large majority of those whom my book reaches, not being preface-readers, will never ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... fire. Then comes the "Electrophorus," an electrical instrument suggested by Volta, which was thought at the time a grand invention for the purpose of getting light (Fig. 6 A). The nuisance about this instrument was that it proved somewhat capricious in its action, and altogether declined to work in damp foggy weather. I do not know whether I shall be successful in lighting a gas-jet with the electrophorus, but I will try. I excite this plate of resin with a cat-skin ...
— The Story of a Tinder-box • Charles Meymott Tidy
... sometimes authorized to place noncommissioned officers in arrest in quarters and privates in confinement in the guardhouse, assuming such action to be by order of the captain, to whom he at once reports the facts. However, with regard to the confinement of soldiers by noncommissioned officers, attention is invited to the Army Regulations ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... did not wish the spirit to cause me to jump up and clap my hands that way, for these impulses were not in my carnal heart, so, for fear I should be compelled to do so, I held my dress down tight to the seat on each side, to prevent such action. The negroes are great readers of character; despise stingy people or those who were afraid of them. These colored friends taught me the fear of God. The first time I ever attended church, I rode behind on horseback, ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... principle, for example, that "whatsoever is not of faith is sin," which the apostle Paul announces in connection with the question of using or abstaining from particular kinds of food, may be applied to the settlement of cases of conscience arising in widely different relations and spheres of action. The preacher's power lies very much in the ability of unfolding to the understanding and applying to the conscience the general principles involved in the passage of Scripture which ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... down the day. Lo, to the palace I direct thy way; Where, in high state, the nobles of the land Attend my royal sire, a radiant band But hear, though wisdom in thy soul presides, Speaks from thy tongue, and every action guides; Advance at distance, while I pass the plain Where o'er the furrows waves the golden grain; Alone I reascend—With airy mounds A strength of wall the guarded city bounds; The jutting land two ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... improved these stories by elimination of all coarseness, cruelty, and everything that might frighten children. They are new; more beautiful and striking in both text and picture than any children's books heretofore published. Each book is filled with pictures of action and fun in brilliant colors. The twelve ...
— Denslow's Three Bears • W.W. Denslow
... creatures, it would be found of as bad consequence to eradicate all natural affections as to be entirely governed by them. This would almost sink us to the condition of brutes; and that would leave us without a sufficient principle of action. Reason alone, whatever any one may wish, is not in reality a sufficient motive of virtue in such a creature as man; but this reason joined with those affections which God has impressed upon his heart, and when these are allowed scope to exercise ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... if we are dealing with the conviction of an enthusiast that he rose aloft or even with the conviction of his disciples, that they, being in an ecstasy, saw him do so. There is no reason to doubt the subjective reality of well-authenticated visions and as motives and stimuli to action they may have real objective importance. Miracles of healing are not dissimilar. A man's mind can affect his body, either directly through his conviction that certain physical changes are about to take place or indirectly as conveying the influence of some powerful external mind which ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... the reason why they do not mention their sisters or their mothers—except when two confidential friends are together, in a tree, or by themselves in the meadows. But, as sure as ever a boy is full of action—if he tops the rest at play—holds his tongue, or helps others generously—or shows a manly spirit without being proud of it, the whole school is his friend. You have done well, so far, by growing more and more sociable; but you will ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... shadows of departed humanity, "strengthless shades" who live on the gloomy plains of asphodel, feeding upon dear memories, and incapable of keen emotions or any real mental or physical progress or action. Only a few great sinners like Tantalus, doomed to eternal torture, or favored being like Menelaus, predestined to the "Blessed Isles," are ordained to any real immortality. As the centuries advanced, and the possibilities of this terrestrial ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... said for the use of a distinctive dress in the holy offices of the Church. It is in accordance with ancient usage; it marks the action of the Minister as not personal, but official; it secures dignity and uniformity, and it is also, like the dress of the priests in the old Jewish Church, ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... pinched his arm, sending a thrill through him, and as it were setting the whole of his human machine in action. ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... finish before the end of November. I am writing it not without pleasure, though I swear fearfully at the conventions of the stage. It's a comedy, there are three women's parts, six men's, four acts, landscapes (view over a lake); a great deal of conversation about literature, little action, tons of love. [Footnote: "The Seagull."] I read of Ozerova's failure and was sorry, for nothing is more painful than failing.... I have read of the success of the "Powers of Darkness" in your theatre.... When I was at Tolstoy's in ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... was noticed by Richard in his rides and walks. She passed him rather obviously and often. She was very handsome; a bold beauty, with shining black hair, red lips, and eyes not afraid of men. The hair was brushed from her temples, leaving one of those fine reckless outlines which the action of driving, and the pace, admirably set off. She took his fancy. He liked the air of petulant gallantry about her, and mused upon the picture, rare to him, of a glorious dashing woman. He thought, too, she looked at him. He was not at the time inclined to be vain, or he might have been ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... colonies to crush the trade and the system in its infancy: they preferred to enrich themselves on its profits. It was the plain duty of a Revolution based upon "Liberty" to take steps toward the abolition of slavery: it preferred promises to straightforward action. It was the plain duty of the Constitutional Convention, in founding a new nation, to compromise with a threatening social evil only in case its settlement would thereby be postponed to a more favorable time: this was not the case in ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Nabley," he said, eagerly, "tell me all. How is Harvey? What does he say of the boys? What is he doing? Has he any plan of action decided?" ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... her hand to any species of labour, her hurried action, the disorder of her hair, which is scarcely subjected by a little comb, and her propensity to irritation, show how little she loves toil, and her disgust for any ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... bullock at hand with a stroke of the blade. Gerard bought one and practised with it. Denys quietly filed and ground his bolt sharp, whistling the whilst; and when they entered a gloomy wood, he would unsling his crossbow and carry it ready for action; but not so much like a traveller fearing an attack, as a sportsman watchful not to miss a ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... The fairest action of our human life Is scorning to revenge an injury: For who forgives without a further strife His adversary's heart to him doth tie: And 'tis a firmer conquest truly said To win the heart, ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... slept most of the time in his clothes, though he rarely slept. He haunted the deck at night, a great, burly, robust ghost, black with the sunburn of thirty years of sea and hairy as an orang-utan. He, in turn, was haunted by one thought of action, a sailing direction for the Horn: Whatever you do, make westing! make westing! It was an obsession. He thought of nothing else, except, at times, to blaspheme God for sending such ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... Frechette to the French concours, viz., that when France was in the throes of agony, the voice of French Canada spoke out its loud attachment to the cause of the ancient mother country. In such action was the forgotten daughter restored to its sorrowing mother. The hon. gentleman then in language of forcible eloquence referred to the pleasure shown by English-Canadians at the success of Mr. Frechette, and concluded a highly ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... widely different; and I never was less sorry for any action of my life. I like the bill the better on account of the events of all kinds that followed it. It relieved the real sufferers; it strengthened the state; and, by the disorders that ensued, we had clear evidence that there ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... answered Tiahuana. "I, the high priest of the remnant of the ancient Peruvian race, now and for many long years established in the city of the Sun which, unknown to any but ourselves, lies hidden far away among the mountains. You demand an explanation of what you have termed my unwarrantable action in taking possession of your august person. It is a just and reasonable demand, Lord; moreover, it is necessary that you should have it. Therefore, let my Lord deign to listen to what to him may seem a wild and incredible story, but which is ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... proposal, his attempt to supply a need that has oppressed him for many years, a need that he has not only found in his own schemes of conduct, but that he has observed in the thought of numberless people about him, rendering their action fragmentary, wasteful in the gross, and ineffective in the net result, the need for some general principle, some leading idea, some standard, sufficiently comprehensive to be of real guiding value in social and political matters, in many doubtful issues ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells |
