"Active" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his company was neither swift nor unobtrusive. McGuffog had a genius for tripping over obstacles, and Sir Archie was for ever proffering his aid to Saskia, who was in a position to give rather than to receive, being far the most active of the party. Once Dougal had to take the gamekeeper's head and force it down, a performance which would have led to an immediate assault but for Sir Archie's presence. Nor did the latter escape. "Will ye stop heedin' the lassie, and attend to your own job," the Chieftain growled. ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... general good to recede from his mind, and gave himself up wholly to furthering the schemes and interested views of his own party. By this means, he was enabled to maintain his position. But what a sacrifice for an honourable, high-minded man! A few years in the State legislature, where he was an active member, prepared him for going up higher. He was, accordingly, nominated for Congress, and elected, but by the same means that had accomplished all of his previous elections. And he went there under the mistaken idea that he was becoming ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... lower, Aloft behold our stately Toron {21} tower, Flapping the skies with its embroider'd rim. Away we journey, hale in mind and limb; Our cars of state are creaking in the rear, Whilst in the front the active guides appear. ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... all the pent-up affection of his bruised soul to this little daughter, and as the years went on they grew very dear to each other. But an active-minded, strong-hearted, able-bodied man cannot take a babe as the sole companion of his existence. Probably Geoffrey would have found this out in time, and might have drifted into some mode of life more or less undesirable, had not an accident occurred to ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... persons stirring in the next chamber, he turned round to the wall, and hid his curiosity under his pillow until it fell asleep. Of course he could not help remarking that the priest's journeys were constant, and understanding by a hundred signs that some active though secret business employed him: what this was may pretty well be guessed by what soon ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the leaden missile intended as a pellet of death in his right side, has recovered. He is spared for many more years of active service for ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... art of Greece and the Mediterranean basin, and established many points of contact on the one hand with ancient Egyptian and Phoenician art, and on the other, with the art of historic Greece. They have proved the existence of an active and flourishing commerce between Egypt and the Mediterranean shores and Aegean islands more than 2000 B.C., and of a flourishing material civilization in those islands and on the mainland of Greece, borrowing ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... of several counties, signifies DEAF; to dun, then, perhaps may mean to deafen with importunate demands: some derive it from the word DONNEZ, which signifies GIVE. But the true original meaning of the word, owes its birth to one Joe Dun, a famous bailiff of the town of Lincoln, so extremely active, and so dexterous in his business, that it became a proverb, when a man refused to pay, Why do not you DUN him? that is, Why do not you set Dun to attest him? Hence it became a cant word, and is now as old as since the days of Henry VII. Dun was also the general name for the hangman, before ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... exclaimed the doctor cheerfully, when we once more resumed the march, "how do you like being on active service? A pleasant change, isn't it, from being ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... joy in Venice found other means of expressing itself. One was an active and disinterested appeal to the gondoliers to be a little less modern in their costume. He approached this subject through the guide with every gondolier in turn, and the smiling impassiveness with which his suggestions were received still causes him wonder and disgust. "I ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... ardour of life which animated himself. All his fictions are as deeply coloured as dreams. From the highest of the aristocracy to the lowest of the mob, all the actors in his Human Comedy are keener after living, more active and cunning in their struggles, more staunch in endurance of misfortune, more ravenous in enjoyment, more angelic in devotion, than the comedy of the real world shows them to us. In a word, every one in Balzac, down to the very scullions, ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... castle, Francis, who early in his reign had sought to model his life after the chivalrous romances, inaugurated a splendid and pompous tournament. Some time before, the pursuivants had proclaimed the event and distributed to the knights who were to take active part the shields of arms of the four juges-diseurs, or umpires of the field. On this gala occasion the scaffolds and stands surrounding the arena were bedecked in silks of bright colors; against ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Mr. Bancroft, "still acknowledged the fixedness of the divine decrees, and the resistless certainty from all eternity of election and of reprobation, there were not wanting, even among the clergy, some who had modified the sternness of the ancient doctrine by making the self-direction of the active powers of man with freedom of inquiry and private judgment the central idea of ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... arrives which acts as a spark to smouldering flames. He had indulged in lazy day-dreams in which Elma played the part of heroine; had thoroughly enjoyed her society when fate placed her in his way, without, however, exerting himself to take any active steps to secure additional meetings. This afternoon as he walked across the meadow with his friend, he would have indignantly denied the accusation that he was in love, but the historic moment was at hand. A cry for help rang in his ears; above the hedge he caught a glimpse of ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... celebrated literary academy, and the Library the most noted collection of books in the world. Dwelling in this atmosphere of culture and research, the Hebrew mind rapidly expanded and began to take its part as an active force in civilization. It acquired the love of knowledge in a wider sense than it had recognized before, and assimilated the teachings of Hellas in all their variety. Within a hundred years of their settlement Hebrew or Aramaic had become to ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... ambition for a seat in Parliament had been the very seamark of his utmost sail. How different his life had been from what his early ideas would have constructed it! And now—was it all over? Had his active career closed? Was he never again to have his chance in Gloria—in Gloria which he had almost begun to love as a bride? Or was he failing in his devotion to his South American Dulcinea del Toboso? Was the love of a mortal woman coming ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... for the benefit of his country. He was disgraced by violent passions, his cruelty was sanguinary, and his tastes were brutal; but his passions did not destroy his judgment, nor his appetites make him luxurious. He was incessantly active and vigilant, his prejudices were few, and his views tolerant and enlightened. He was only cruel when his authority was impeached. His best portraiture is in his acts. He found a country semi-barbarous, convulsed by disorders, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... the half-fabled land of India, where he believed great success and vast riches were to be secured by an ambitious young man, who had knowledge of military affairs, and the taste for leadership. At last he was ordered away on active service; first to suppress what was known as the "Two-cent Rebellion" in Lyons, and after that to the town of Douay ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... immediate neighbourhood receives the Trebel and the Tollense), 72 m. W.N.W. of Stettin, on the Berlin-Stralsund railway. Pop. (1905) 12,541. It has manufactures of textiles, besides breweries, distilleries and tanneries, and an active ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... times, during those three years, and some harder work than catching cunners at the foot of Anchor Street, or setting out crocuses in Mr. Bil-kins's back garden. He had seen battles and shipwreck, and death in many guises; but they had taught him nothing, as the sequel will show. With his active career in the navy we shall not trouble ourselves; we take him up at a date a little prior to the close ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... friends of ours, Brigham Young's harem contains twenty or thirty wives. They said that some of them had grown old and gone out of active service, but were comfortably housed and cared for in the henery—or the Lion House, as it is strangely named. Along with each wife were her children—fifty altogether. The house was perfectly quiet and orderly, when the children were still. They all took ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to snare us into strange forgetfulness. Unless we count what we have given away, we are very apt to exaggerate our bounty. We often think we have given when we have only listened to appeals; the mere audience has been mistaken for active beneficence. The remedy for all this is occasionally to count our benevolences and see how we stand in a balance-sheet which we could present ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... was past for me, and he felt all right, his active mind began at once on the reconstruction of what ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... and Luis Ponce de Leon sought it vainly among the Bahamas, then crossed to Florida and kept up the search among the pine barrens, the moss-bearded cypresses, the snaky swamps, and alligator infested rivers. The Indians, strong, active, healthy with their simple, outdoor life, their ignorance of wine and European diseases, seemed so favored that the Spaniards believed they must have bathed in the magic fountain and drank its ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... Goethe was so quiet and so uniform after the year 1775, when he may first be said to have entered into active life, by taking service with the Duke of Weimar, that a biographer will find hardly any event to notice, except two journeys to Italy, and one campaign in 1792, until he draws near the close of his long career. It cannot interest an English reader to see the dates of his successive ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... Miss Thomson. Of course we are not exactly in the same position, we being proprietors, while she is only a farmer; but she is a most excellent and estimable woman in her way, though she is a bit of a character. She is now growing old, and not so active as ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... gods as you Brahmins say, protect him. I think evil will come to us if we harm him. And can we? Did he not lie down with the hooded death itself, a cobra, young, active, full ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... are exceptional in so far, that it is possible with them, for a short time at least, to preserve active solutions, in which with an excess of basic methylene blue, enough eosin is dissolved for both to come into play. A drawback however of such mixtures is, that in them precipitates are very easily produced, which render the preparation quite useless. This danger is particularly great in ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... leaped from its scabbard; but, before any one could take a step forward, the Princess seized the Absolute Fool by his long and flowing locks, and put spurs to her horse. The young man yelled with pain, and shouted to her to let go; but she held firmly to his hair, and as he was extraordinarily active and fleet of foot, he kept pace with the galloping horse. A great crowd of people started in pursuit, but as none of them were mounted, ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... embryo of some vertebrate animal, he cannot now tell whether it be that of a mammal, bird, or reptile. The vermiform larvae of moths, flies, beetles, &c., resemble each other much more closely than do the mature insects; but in the case of larvae, the embryos are active, and have been adapted for special lines of life. A trace of the law of embryonic resemblance, sometimes lasts till a rather late age: thus birds of the same genus, and of closely allied genera, often resemble each other in their first and second plumage; ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... settlement in such a situation, yet Crozat was allowed to take peaceable possession, without any complaints from the Proprietors, or opposition from the British government. From this period a new competitor for the affection and interest of Indian nations arose, more active and enterprising than the Spaniards, whose motions the Carolineans had good reason to watch with a jealous ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... South America to North America and Europe; illicit cultivation and consumption of cannabis; government has an active manual cannabis eradication program; corruption is a major concern; substantial money-laundering activity; Colombian narcotics traffickers favor Jamaica for ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... be, it was with the utmost difficulty that cousin Jenny and I could keep him to his tackle. He begins to be timid, suspicious, and untractable, and I fear Jenny will soon bend her brows on him in vain. I know not what to advise—the lad who carries this is a good lad—active for his friend—and I have pledged my honour he shall have no personal ill-usage. Pledged my honour, remark these words, and remember I can be rugged and dangerous as well, as my neighbours. But I have not ensured ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... standing in the shadow, gazing down at her with the strange, moody look so unlike the active alarm which would have filled the mind of most men, and she did not ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... past—the venerable gateway, the old St. Mary's Hall, with its protruding gable fronting on the street, coming down to us from the fourteenth century, and many other quaint brick and half-timbered and strongly-constructed houses that link the dim past with the active present. Its three spires surmount St. Michael's, Trinity, and Christ churches, and while all are fine, the first is the best, being regarded as one of the most beautiful spires in England. The ancient stone pulpit of Trinity Church, constructed in the form of a balcony of open stone-work, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... sir," she began, with a patronizing air, "I have long since given up active business of any kind. What I have come to you to do, I have undertaken, for the sake of my dear nephew, whom I love more than I could love a son of my own.—Now, the Head of the Police—to whom the ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... domestic proceedings, it seems to fall, somehow or other, into Jennie's hands, through the intensity and liveliness of her domesticity of nature. Little Jennie is so bright and wide-awake, and with so many active plans and fancies touching anything in the housekeeping world, that, though the youngest sister, and second party in this affair, a stranger, hearkening to the daily discussions, might listen a half-hour ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... pollen; it is important to shake our pollen into dry paper boxes. If we try to preserve the pollen in glass or in metal, it is attacked by various mould fungi and is rapidly destroyed. We have to remember that pollen consists of live cells which have quite as active a place in the organic world as a red squirrel, and the pollen grains need to breathe quite as much as a red squirrel needs to breathe. Therefore they must not be placed in glass or metal or tightly sealed. Further, the pollen grains need to be kept ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... Objection against this Manner of treating them. Zeal for Religion is of so active a Nature, that it seldom knows where to rest; for which reason I am afraid, after having discharged our Atheists, we might possibly think of shooting off our Sectaries; and, as one does not foresee ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... on and Philemon failed to come at the appointed time. Some blamed the poet for the delay, more defended him. But when they had sat there for quite an unreasonable length of time and still Philemon did not make his appearance, some of the more active members of the audience were sent to fetch him. They found him lying in his bed—dead. He had just breathed his last, and lay there upon the couch stiff and stark in the attitude of one plunged in meditation. His fingers still ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... of Antioch, an old confessor and a man of eloquence, who enjoyed a great and lasting popularity in the city. He was one of the foremost enemies of Arianism at Nicaea, and had since waged an active literary war with the Arianizing clique in Syria. In one respect they found him a specially dangerous enemy, for he saw clearly the important consequences of the Arian denial of the Lord's true human soul. Eustathius was therefore deposed (on obscure ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... would seem that the angel's act of understanding is his substance. For the angel is both higher and simpler than the active intellect of a soul. But the substance of the active intellect is its own action; as is evident from Aristotle (De Anima iii) and from his Commentator [*Averroes, A.D. 1126-1198]. Therefore much more is the angel's substance his action—that ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... lay the table for supper, as they usually dined in the middle of the day. Dorothy's feet were more active then, and Archie preferred an early dinner. Everything was in readiness at last; the bread and the butter and the jam, with cold chicken and ham, and the kettle singing on the hearth; the curtains drawn and the bright fire making ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... of the different houses he had gone to, and who had been the fortunate individuals to receive the muffins that had already disappeared from his tray. It was an idle hour in the nursery from four to five, and if the gathering dusk kept the active eyes still, the fertile brains were brought into requisition. Telling stories was a constant delight, and the wonderful adventures that befell the muffins on their daily rounds kept the little gathering quiet and ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre
... the active life of these insects lasts hardly a month; when we remember that this period of activity is disturbed by dark, rainy or very windy days, during which all work is suspended; when lastly we ascertain, as I have done ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... incidents of his own narrative. "How good it is, even as it is!—but if he would have done his best for us, what might he not have done!" This, I think, is what we feel when we read The Virginians. The author's mind has in one way been active enough,—and powerful, as it always is; but he has been unable to fix it to an intended purpose, and has gone on from day to day furthering the difficulty he has intended to master, till the book, under the stress of circumstances,—demands ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... to persuade them to adopt his views. He has made me write a long letter to her to engage her to remain. An odd thing enough for an utter stranger to write on subjects of the utmost delicacy to his friend's mistress—but it seems destined that I am always to have some active part in every body's affairs whom I approach. I have set down, in tame Italian, the strongest reasons I can think of against the Swiss emigration. To tell you the truth, I should be very glad to accept as my fee his establishment ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... traits of individuality are ingeniously marked. The Doctor and Ursule are less firmly and informingly delineated. As usual, when Balzac shows us the figure of a virtuous girl in an ordinary domestic circle, he represents her with passive rather than active qualities. She has no strong likes or dislikes, no particular mental bias, and possesses but small attractiveness. In fact, the novelist seems at a loss to imagine. In the case of Ursule, we see that she cultivates flowers, but we do not feel ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... and exhibit an original observation and a terse style of record; Henrietta Elizabeth, later Countess Granville; and a son, who succeeded to the Dukedom. About the latter's birth was some mystery; insinuation was active. The Duchess had little liking for domestic life, so normal neglect of child may have been construed into an unnatural dislike. Her son never married. Through the stress of the home infelicity, her beauty waned; but her bearing ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... supported by a detachment of the Coldstream Guards. The conspirators were on the point of starting for Grosvenor-square, when on a sudden the police entered the room in which they were assembled, and called upon them to surrender. Smithers, an active police-officer, rushed forward to secure the ringleader; but he was pierced through with the desperado's sword, and fell. The lights were now extinguished, and the conflict became general, while some of the gang endeavoured ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... he appears to have been longer in a Galician chateau than elsewhere, must have fallen under his notice, namely, that in Galicia, the Polish priest was the most decided opponent to any insurrection. How, then, could the active Polish women-patriots be instruments of the action condemned by the apologists of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... decorative cassone panels, portraiture, and purely lyrical "Fantasiestuecke," corresponding somewhat with the modern "Landscape with Figures." Truly an astonishing range! Giorgione, as we have seen, could not have been more than eighteen years in active practice, yet in that short time he gained successes in all these various fields. His many-sidedness shows him to have been a man of wide sympathies, whilst the astonishing rapidity of his development testifies to the precocity of his talent. His versatility and ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... traffic; no hansoms clattered over the cobbles, and it was still too early for the milk carts. He worked on steadily and conscientiously, only stopping now and again to change a book, or to sip some of the poisonous stuff that kept him awake and made his brain so active, and on these occasions Field's breathing was always distinctly audible in the room. Outside, the storm continued to howl, but inside the house all was stillness. The shade of the reading lamp threw all the light upon the littered table, leaving ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... little difficulty with our Doctor; but the Bishop had abstained from violent assertion, and they had, on the whole, been friends. There was, however, on the Bishop's part, something of a feeling that the Doctor was the bigger man; and it was probable that, without active malignity, he would take advantage of any chance which might lower the Doctor a little, and bring him more within episcopal power. In some degree he begrudged the Doctor ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... itself on our minds; especially as Thoba-sing had coolly suggested to the Amlah the dispatching of Campbell, as the shortest way of getting out of the scrape! We were also ignorant whether any steps were being taken at Dorjiling for our release, which we felt satisfied must follow any active measures against these bullying cowards, though they themselves frequently warned us that we should be thrown into the Teesta ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... turmoil. Let these prefects therefore be two in number, in order that, if one of them suffers any bodily harm, you may still not lack a person to guard you: and let them be appointed from those who have been on many campaigns and have been active also in many other capacities. Let them have command both of the Pretorians and of all the remaining soldiers in Italy with such absolute power that they may put to death such of them as do wrong, except in the case of the centurions and any others who ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... he took her out of them, with not much done in the way of purchases. Dolly enjoyed everything during the first week or two. She would have enjoyed it hugely, only that the lurking care about her father was always present to her mind. She was not at rest. Mr. Copley seemed well and cheery; active and hearty as usual; yet Dolly detected something hollow in the cheer and something forced in the activity. She thought him restless and uneasy, in spite of ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... through the bushes, and then over the wall came an active figure, at the sight of which Sam was almost ready to dive out of sight, for, of all possible boys, who should it be but Ben, the last person in the world whom he would like to have see him ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... grander spectacle still, of which the English Channel was the scene for the ten days which followed, during which the enormous naval structures of the armada, as they slowly made their way along, were followed, and fired upon, and harassed by the smaller, and lighter, and more active vessels of their English foes. The unwieldy monsters pressed on, surrounded and worried by their nimbler enemies like hawks driven by kingfishers through the sky. Day after day this most extraordinary contest, half ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... they are considered to be doing their duty. If any officer is rejected on this vote, he is tried in the lawcourt, and if he is found guilty the people decide what punishment or fine shall be inflicted on him; but if he is acquitted he resumes his office. The Generals have full power, when on active service, to arrest any one for insubordination, or to cashier him publicly, or to inflict a fine; ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle
... the flower-head not yet protruded, was selected for observation. A long and very thin glass filament was cemented horizontally to the stem close above the second joint, 3 inches above the ground. This joint was subsequently proved to be in an active condition, as its lower side swelled much through the action of apogeotropism (in the manner described by De Vries) after the haulm had been fastened down for 24 h. in a horizontal position. ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... will be thought requisite to print the town for a year or so, it is my humble opinion, and the opinion of much wiser people, that if he were active, zealous and likewise courageous, the blessings resulting from his labours would be incalculable. It would be by no means a difficult thing to make excursions into Tartary and to form friendships amongst the Tartar hordes, and I am far from certain ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... persons that so much admire, and dote upon it, are to be justified; no man doubts of these matters; the question is, how and by what means beauty produceth this effect? By sight: the eye betrays the soul, and is both active and passive in this business; it wounds and is wounded, is an especial cause and instrument, both in the subject and in the object. [4888]"As tears, it begins in the eyes, descends to the breast;" it conveys these beauteous rays, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... through the business of the day, quite forgetting, to any practical purpose, that all business has snares in it, and therefore needs caution. Let us ask ourselves this question, "How often do we think of Satan in the course of the day as our great tempter?" Yet surely he does not cease to be active because we do not think of him; and surely, too, his powers and devices were revealed to us by Almighty God for the very purpose, that being not ignorant of them, we might watch against them. Who among us will not confess, that many is the time ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... you to look into the Museum of the Societe d'Anthropologie of Paris, and to put yourself in communication with M. Paul Broca, one of its most active members, who has lately been organising a scheme of general anthropological instructions. But don't have anything to do with the quacks who are at the head of the "Anthropological Society" over here. If they catch scent of what you ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... to harangue and to be listened to with deference. His companion was small and spare in form, pale of visage, and soft and silken and almost whispering in speech. "He had a humble and lowly way," says Agapida, "evermore bowing the head, as became one of his calling." Yet he was one of the most active, zealous, and effective brothers of the convent, and when he raised his small black eye from the earth there was a keen glance out of the corner which showed that, though harmless as a dove, he was nevertheless as wise ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... the Abolitionists contributed that made them the chief creators of the Republican party, as it was their working and fighting ability. They had undergone a thorough training. For nearly twenty years they had been in the field in active service. For the whole of that time they had been exposed to pro-slavery mobbing and almost every kind of persecution. They had to conquer every foot of ground they occupied. They had done an immense amount of invaluable preparatory work. To deny to such people a ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... doctor; "of course, the sooner the better; but it has struck me perhaps it might be well to mention the matter to Miss Panney before the Dranes actually leave Mrs. Brinkly. You know she was very active in procuring that ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... Scottish islesman, and related to the Earl of Antrim, to whose patronage he owed the command assigned him in the Irish troops. In many respects he merited this distinction. He was brave to intrepidity, and almost to insensibility; very strong and active in person, completely master of his weapons, and always ready to show the example in the extremity of danger. To counterbalance these good qualities, it must be recorded, that he was inexperienced in military tactics, and of a jealous and presumptuous ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... to a great extent, idle. The fishing commences about 1st May, and it finishes in the end of August. Then they have to gather in their summer crops; and during the winter season, and the early part of the spring, they have very little to do; while a person of an active turn of mind does not like to remain idle for such a length of time. They want to be doing something, and they will engage to any one who has work ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... allowed to grow up in weeds and grass, the colonel knows nothing of it. The pigs and the loafers—leaner pigs and lazier loafers—still sleep in the shade, when the pound keeper and the constable are not active. The limpid water of the creek still murmurs down the slope and ripples over the stone foundation of what was to have been the new dam, while the birds have nested for some years in the vines that soon overgrew the unfinished ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the "common sense" philosophy, by which term is meant the beliefs common to rational beings as such. In 1785 he pub. his Essay on the Intellectual Powers, which was followed in 1788 by that On the Active Powers. R., who, though below the middle size, was strong and fond of exercise, maintained his bodily and mental vigour until his death at 86. His writings, distinguished by logical rigour of method and clearness of style, exercised ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... length upon little personal matters. It may not interest you to know when I had a pork-chop—though, as you now realise, on active service a pork-chop is extremely important—but it interested my mother. She liked to know whether I was having good and sufficient food, and warm things on my chest and feet, because, after all, there was a time when I ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... crossed the boudoir, recollecting as she did so how often he had come thither without a summons. But she resigned herself. Had she not seen him grow pale, and start up under the stinging barbs of irony? Then Mme de Langeais felt the horror of the woman's appointed lot; a man's is the active part, a woman must wait passively when she loves. If a woman goes beyond her beloved, she makes a mistake which few men can forgive; almost every man would feel that a woman lowers herself by this piece of angelic flattery. But Armand's was a great nature; he surely must be one of the very ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... Europe, after having vanquished the great Napoleon, abandoned him to his most cruel enemies, they conducted him towards his grave by the most prolonged and barbarous torments, the continuation of his agony urged him even to demand more active executioners; he seemed forgotten, and without hope of aid; but Marie Louise remained to him, and he was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... that is, it does not indicate any action passing from the subject to the object. Now this exactly describes the Spirit in its Eternity. We cannot conceive of It except as always BEING; but the distribution of world-systems both in time and space shows that it is not always cosmically active. In itself, apart from manifestation, it is Pure Beingness, if I may coin such a word; and it is for this reason that the Divine Name announced to Moses was "I AM." But the fact that Creation exists, shows that from this Substantive Pure Being there flows out a Verb Active, ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... to report at the end of July. All over Europe the demand for wheat was active. Grain handlers were not only buying freely, but were contracting for future delivery. In August came the first demands for American wheat, scattered and sporadic at first, then later, a little, a very little ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... been active in organising a form of opposition to the authority of the Chamberlain and the Master of the Revels, which, although it seemed of a trifling kind, had yet its importance. For it turned upon the question of fees. The holders of the patents considered themselves sole ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... though the government of China had become no government at all from the moment that extraterritoriality destroyed the theory of Imperial inviolability and infallibility, the miracle of turning state negativism into an active governing element continued to work after a fashion because of the disguise ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... his way-faring: accordingly he told her all he knew and how he had advised the journey. Thereupon she bewailed the loss of Abu al-Hasan and said to the jeweller, "Know, O such an one,[FN209] that men's souls are active in their lusts and that men are still men; and that deeds are not done without words nor is end ever reached without endeavour. Rest is won only by work."—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... as though recalling stage life, in which he had taken some active part, before he continued with a ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... ultimately return; so much so that, we have become conscious, that, the food we eat is valuable or otherwise as a life sustainer, in proportion to the amount of life it contains. We are so complex in our organization that, we require a great variety of the different elements to sustain all the active functions and powers within us. Man, being a microcosm, or a miniature universe, must sustain that universe, by taking into the system the various elements, which combine to make up the Infinite ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... ruddy, active man, with fine hair, that retained its strength and brownness to the last, but he had a courageous spirit and a remarkably intelligent mind. He was a man of the finest culture, and was often, and never vainly, consulted by his son Robert concerning the more ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... simile in Chapman's verse begets another, with little regard for logical sequence. The "shadowes" with which sin frightens us are first compared to the imaginary creatures into which fancy shapes the clouds; then sin itself (relegated from an active to a passive part) is likened not to a pure creation of the fancy, but to an exaggerated picture of a real monster displayed by "policy," i. e. the craft which seeks to ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... remains active," said Heywood, thoughtfully. "That dingy little procession, do you know, it's quite theatrical? The Cross and the Dragon. ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... troops appeared under the walls of Antwerp. They consisted of twenty-three companies of infantry and fourteen of cavalry, amounting to five thousand foot and twelve hundred horse. They were nearly all Walloons, soldiers who had already seen much active service, but unfortunately of a race warlike and fiery indeed, but upon whose steadiness not much more dependence could be placed at that day than in the age of Civilis. Champagny, brother of Granvelle, was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of the face opposite him and the stoop of the shoulders, Manuel read a need for an active antidote against the corrosive ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... interested in the active proceedings of Surgeon Sawyer, who was now threading a needle to sew up the overlapping of the stump, the young gentlemen had not scrupled to turn away their attention ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... brother. "Laying aside philosophic subtleties, you must get elected on to the town council, and little by little we will get you on to the local Board, and then to be an alderman. And as time goes on —you are a clever man and well-educated—you will be noticed in Petersburg and asked to go there—active men on the provincial assemblies and town councils are all the fashion there now—and before you are fifty you'll be a privy councillor, and have a ribbon across ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Halcombe's disposal," he replied. "Where any interests of hers are concerned, I represent my partner personally, as well as professionally. It was his request that I should do so, when he ceased to take an active part in business." ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... substances incapable of physiological use are foreign, such as particles of worn out tissue, the waste products of digestion, etc., and their presence in the animal economy inimical to the general welfare, the depurating organs are called into active play to expel the offending substances; and the increased physiological activity, and (in the case of actual lesion) the increased flow of blood to the parts, for the purpose of repair, cause a rise in temperature, commonly known as fever, which is one of the most frequent ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... going to find myself hanging over a sheer void, thousands of feet deep. I expected to find below me a precipitous cliff seamed and scarred with innumerable irregularities and projections, by means of which an ordinarily active man might easily make his way down; but, man alive, this precipice is sheer, from top to bottom like the wall of a house, without a single projection, so far as I could see, big enough for a fly to settle upon. It was awful ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... drew near came the reviews and various movements that indicate the approach of active operations. Some changes were made in the brigade. It now consisted of the fragments of three Pennsylvania regiments, the One Hundred and Ninetieth, One Hundred and Ninety-first, and One Hundred and Fifty-seventh; two ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... and fortune, to an active and restless life, in two months after my return I again left my native country, and took shipping in the Downs, on the 20th day of June, 1702, in the Adventure, Captain John Nicholas, a Cornishman, commander, bound ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... to be lying in a peaceful siesta for centuries unbroken, was an unusual survival from the buried yesterdays of history. It was hard to believe, for instance, that the Governor's Palace, a long one-story adobe structure stretching across one entire side of the plaza, had been the active seat of so much turbulent and tragic history, that for more than three hundred years it had been occupied continuously by Spanish, Mexican, Indian, and American governors. Its walls had echoed the noise of many a bloody siege and ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... filled with wonder and delight to see the book of many coloured flies, and all the intricacies of preparing the rod and bait. Angel and I were equipped with proper rods baited with greenish May-flies, and The Seraph got a willow wand and line at the end of which dangled an active grasshopper. ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... he determined to get under weigh in pursuance of his orders, pick up the corporal, if he could find him, and then proceed to Portsmouth, which was the port of his destination. Smallbones attended his master, and was so unusually active, that the suspicious Mr Vanslyperken immediately decided that he had a finger in the business; but he took no notice, resolving in his own mind that Smallbones should some day or another be adrift himself, as the corporal was, but with this difference, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... could not in any circumstances be entirely happy. Work was so exciting with the imagination on fire, that it kept him awake at night; idleness was still more fatal in its effects. And so, after a few years of relative calm, in 1839 we find his active brain struggling to create a true picture of Oliver Cromwell and to expound the meaning of ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... before its time, affords evidence as to the conception I had formed of the whole question. I regarded it as a Spanish and not as a German one, even though I was delighted at seeing the German name of Hohenzollern active in representing monarchy in Spain, and did not fail to calculate all the possible consequences from the point of view of our interests—a duty which is incumbent on a foreign minister when anything of similar importance occurs in another State. My immediate thought was ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... year after her sister, was a peevish, froward, ill-conditioned creature as ever was, ugly as the devil, lean, haggard, pale, with saucer eyes, a sharp nose, and hunched backed; but active, sprightly, and diligent about her affairs. Her ill complexion was occasioned by her bad diet, which was coffee** morning, noon, and night. She never rested quietly a-bed, but used to disturb the whole family with ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... "Look at them. Anyone ud know your fairy footstep a mile off. How do you ever get near enough to anyone to arrest them?" He skipped off the landing-stage, whispered as he passed Johnson, "Courage, promptitude, and dispatch. That's the place," and was off again, the active leader ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... as, after settling himself into his slippers, he detained Blanche's hand in his own—"you see, my dear, every house has its Camarina. Man, who is a lazy animal, is quite content to let it alone; but woman, being the more active, bustling, curious creature, is always for giving it ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... had returned from Elba. Europe was in a blaze of excitement. The Allies were preparing to resist the Man of Destiny. We were ordered from Gibraltar home, and were soon again en route for Brussels. I did not regret that I was to be placed in active service. I was ambitious, and longed for an opportunity to distinguish myself. My garrison life in Gibraltar had been monotonous and dull. I had killed five men in duel, and had an affair with the colonel of ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... please. I certainly was very smart and active for my age, and soon became a great favourite on board, especially with the lady passengers, because I was such a little fellow. We arrived safely at Bombay, where our passengers went on shore, and in three weeks ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... serene thinker when the hour had struck for violent and heroic action. Emerson had hitherto been a Free Soiler; he had opposed the extension of slavery; and he favoured its compulsory extinction, with compensation on the plan of our own policy in the West Indies. He had never joined the active Abolitionists, nor did he see 'that there was any particular thing for him to do in it then.' 'Though I sometimes accept a popular call, and preach on Temperance or the Abolition of Slavery, I am sure to feel, before I have done with it, what an intrusion ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... particularly active in this patriotic reprobation. Clerambault's appeal for reconciliation and pardon had no more violent opponents—and it was the same everywhere. The tyranny of public opinion is an engine of oppression, invented by the modern State, ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... to Bordeaux, made two or three expeditions, in which Eustace volunteered to join, and gained some favourable, though slight, notice from the old Knight. Fulk Clarenham, too, having received from the Prince the government of Perigord, was seldom at court, and no active enemy appeared to be ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the two extremes of life in our new far Eastern provinces: the one is active, progressive, and cosmopolitan; the other, inactive, decadent, and narrow; but, whether one enjoys the first or endures the second, there comes to him after leaving a longing to lounge again in tropic airs and listen to the lullaby of the winds ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... tossing the coin through the air; but Pete was not active enough to seize it, and it fell amongst the herbage, and had to be searched for. ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... born January 1, 1705; died February 10, 1787. He graduated at Harvard in 1721, and soon became pastor of the First Church in Boston. He was an equally active opponent of Whitefield and of Episcopacy. He was an ardent and romantic patriot, yet so plain in his ways and views that he wished Paradise Lost might be turned into prose that he might ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... Melbourne would advise your Majesty to accede to that suggestion; but Lord Melbourne would counsel your Majesty to be very unwilling to suffer the Government to be formed by Sir Robert Peel, without the active assistance in office ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... of the Crimean War. Meanwhile, under the influence of Sir Moses Montefiore, and more especially of his jealousy of M. Cremieux, the Jewish Board of Deputies had plucked up a measure of courage, and had begun to take a more active interest in the larger political questions which involved the future of their foreign co-religionists. In the international discussions of the question of religious liberty which preceded the outbreak of war, the Powers only concerned themselves ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf
... essentially simple creature, and Castanier was marked out by nature as a victim to the wiles of mothers with grown-up daughters left too long on their hands. It was at Nancy, during one of those brief intervals of repose when the Imperial armies were not on active service abroad, that Castanier was so unlucky as to pay some attention to a young lady with whom he danced at a ridotto, the provincial name for the entertainments often given by the military to the townsfolk, or vice versa, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... military condition of the belligerents. I am, therefore, induced to address you in this form the inquiry whether, to stop the further effusion of blood and devastation of property, you are willing to make a temporary suspension of active operations, and to communicate to Lieutenant-General Grant, commanding the armies of the United States, the request that he will take like action in regard to other armies, the object being to permit the civil authorities to enter into the ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... moment came when the boat must leave. Suddenly Henri knew that he could not allow her to cross to England alone. The last few days had brought many stories of submarine attacks. Here, so far north, the Germans were particularly active. They had for a long time lurked in waiting for this British Admiralty boat, with its valuable cargo, its officers and the government ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... with Lord Marchmont. He bade me tell you he has a great respect for you, and will call on you to-morrow at one o'clock, and communicate all he knows about Pope.'—Here I paused, in full expectation that he would be pleased with this intelligence, would praise my active merit, and would be alert to embrace such an offer from a nobleman. But whether I had shewn an over-exultation, which provoked his spleen; or whether he was seized with a suspicion that I had obtruded him on Lord Marchmont, and humbled him too much; or whether there was any thing ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... bloodily to the King, that Batten had a mind to betray them to-day, and that the napkin was a signal; "but, by God," says he, "if things go ill, the first thing I will do is to shoot him." He discoursed largely and bravely to me concerning the different sorts of valours, the active and passive valour. For the latter, he brought as an instance General Blake, who, in the defending of Taunton and Lime for the Parliament, did through his sober sort of valour defend it the most opiniastrement ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... seeks the distant, out-of-the-way quarters of the vast city, where the ghastly but comforting confusion of the common grave will protect him. Already the aspect of the boulevards has changed greatly. The crowd has become compact, more active and engrossed, the houses smaller and covered with business signs. When he has passed Portes Saint-Martin and Saint-Denis, through which the swarming overflow of the faubourgs streams at all hours of the day, the provincial character of the city becomes accentuated. The ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... gleaned relative to the preservation of health, and how few ever think of putting into practice what they do get! When physiologists say that pure air, much exercise, comfortable and airy dress, frequent bathing, sufficient sleep, a plain, simple diet, and regular habits, with a peaceful and active mind, are essential to health, how many young women heed the instruction? Now of what avail will a good character be without health to apply its forces to the work of life? Of what avail is a good boiler and a high pressure of steam to the engineer if his engine is all out of order, so that it has ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... and comprised the eminent legal firm known throughout Lincoln's Inn Fields, New Court, the Temple, Broad Street, and Great George Street, as 'Powells.' It is not easy, whatever may be said to the contrary, to reconcile the exigencies of the modern solicitor's profession with the exigencies of active Wesleyan Methodism; but Mr. George Powell succeeded in the difficult attempt, and his fame was, perhaps, due mainly to this success. All Wesleyan solicitors in large practice achieve renown, whether they desire it or not; Wesleyans cannot help talking about them, as one talks ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... Berry led a very active life. When she came to France she was in the habit of rising late. But her husband, who believed the days to be shorter for princes than for other men, showed that he disliked this, and after that the Princess would not remain in bed after six o'clock, winter or summer. As soon ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... part are made of split cane, twisted into a sort of wicker-work, and plastered over with mud. Here we remained three days, and were each day presented with a bullock from the schoolmaster; we were likewise well entertained by the townspeople, who appear to be very active and industrious. They make very good soap, by boiling ground nuts in water, and then adding a ley of wood ashes. They likewise manufacture excellent iron: which they carry to Bondou to barter for salt. A party of the townspeople had lately returned from a trading expedition of this kind, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... less fully illuminated quarters, towards the main building of the hotel. From the improvised ball-room within chords struck on the piano and answering tuning of strings invited to the renewal of united and active festivity. In the face of consequently impending interruption he ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... piano-player, which responds like a cycle to pedal and brake. For the records of the phonograph and of the electric piano, once they are made, are made. Thereafter they are as insensible to influence as the laws of the Medes and Persians. They do not admit the audience to an active, influential part in the performance. But such a part in the performance is exactly what the true listener demands as his democratic right. And rather than be balked of it, he turns to the less sophisticated mechanism of the piano-player. This, ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... women had broadened. She read them more easily now than when she was a girl—had suffered, perhaps, by trusting them too much. This had sharpened the tip end of her tongue to so fine a point that when it became active—and once in a while it did—it could rip a sham reputation up the back as easily as a keen blade loosens ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... part of the war, mention must be made of another American hero, James Lawrence, who was born in Burlington, N.J., in 1781 and was active in the war with Tripoli. He was commander of the Hornet when she captured the Peacock in an engagement which lasted only fifteen minutes, with the loss of one American killed and two wounded. He was given the command of ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... fast, but Silver Spot outstripped the others. His fur grew long and thick and glossy, his brush magnificent. His trim, pointed ears allowed nothing to escape his active brain. The family, when grown, soon separated, but Silver Spot, much to the satisfaction of the Hermit, remained near the home den. Occasionally Pal, in his private explorations into the edge of the forest, would take up the trail of the fox. At such a time it would have been difficult ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... of ten years, Joe Morgan no longer owned a share in the mill. The whole property was in the hands of Slade. People did not much wonder at this; for while Slade was always to be found at the mill, industrious, active, and attentive to customers, Morgan was rarely seen on the premises. You would oftener find him in the woods, with a gun over his shoulder, or sitting by a trout brook, or lounging at the tavern. And yet everybody liked Joe, for he was companionable, ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur |
