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Average   /ˈævərɪdʒ/  /ˈævrədʒ/  /ˈævrɪdʒ/   Listen
Average

adjective
1.
Approximating the statistical norm or average or expected value.  Synonym: mean.  "Of average height for his age" , "The mean annual rainfall"
2.
Lacking special distinction, rank, or status; commonly encountered.  Synonym: ordinary.  "The ordinary (or common) man in the street"
3.
Lacking exceptional quality or ability.  Synonyms: fair, mediocre, middling.  "Only a fair performance of the sonata" , "In fair health" , "The caliber of the students has gone from mediocre to above average" , "The performance was middling at best"
4.
Around the middle of a scale of evaluation.  Synonyms: intermediate, medium.  "Intermediate capacity" , "Medium bombers"
5.
Relating to or constituting the most frequent value in a distribution.  Synonym: modal.
6.
Relating to or constituting the middle value of an ordered set of values (or the average of the middle two in a set with an even number of values).  Synonym: median.  "The median income for the year was $15,000"



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"Average" Quotes from Famous Books



... Water River passing through the valley, described above, evidently rises not far to the eastward. The height, computed by the same mode as that of the Echiamamis{50}, by allowing a foot for each mile of distance, and six feet on an average, for each fall and rapid, is two thousand four hundred and sixty-seven feet above the level of the sea, admitting it to be nine hundred feet above the Clear Water River. The country, in a line between it and the mouth of Mackenzie's River, is a continual descent, although to the ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... be the future means of preserving these premature births. Several successful cases have been noticed, and by means of an incubator Tarnier succeeded in raising infants which at the age of six months were above the average. A full description of the incubator may be found. The modified Auvard incubator is easily made; the accompanying illustrations (Figs. 5, 6, and 7) explain its mechanism. Several improved incubators have ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... Latin for how many hands high the horse is?" sais I. "Well, on an average, say fifteen, perhaps oftener less than more. It's the old Norman horse of two centuries ago, a compound of the Flemish stock and the Barb, introduced into the Low Countries by the Spaniards. Havin' been transported ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... the spinning wheel. On moonlight nights Gathered for cozy confidences, About the hearthfire, or in the dark, We'd tell each other what the people say, The gossip of the town, the scandals, Discuss the fashions and the last election. I surely would rise above the average— I would be an artist needlewoman, Broidering on silk and velvet The flowers of the field, And other patterns, copied from models, So rich in color as to make them seem nature— Petals, trees, blossoms, plants, and pots, And castles, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... Fielding's contemporaries, seem to have agreed that they had found men less just and more generous than they could have imagined. People begin by judging the world from themselves, and it is therefore natural that two men of great intellectual power should have expected from their fellows a more than average adherence to settled principles. Thus Johnson and Burke discovered that reason, upon which justice depends, has less influence than a young reasoner is apt to fancy. On the other hand, they discovered that the blind instincts by which the mass is necessarily guided are not so bad as they are ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... difficulties of this most difficult enterprise. How boys who could scarcely be got to behave quietly under the strictest schoolmasters could ever be brought to obey the rebuke of their equal and schoolfellow: how a heterogeneous pack of average schoolboys could organise themselves into a self-governing republic, these were problems of real and stupendous difficulty. The fines of a penny and of twopence, which were instituted at the first meeting, were found hopelessly incompetent to cope with the bursts ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... may marry. But her husband in most cases can't make enough money to support a family. To keep an average family of five, just going, on food alone, costs $370 a year. Some farm hands get only $100. An average unskilled worker obtains $260 a year. An organized unskilled worker receives $367, and an organized skilled worker, $539. Therefore, if a girl marries, she has not only to bear ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell

... knew the use of shoe nor razor; and as a gentleman entered his chair or his chariot, to be carried to his evening rout, or the play, the flambeaux of the footmen would light up such a set of wild gibbering Milesian faces as would frighten a genteel person of average nerves. I was luckily endowed with strong ones; besides, had ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... years of life may still be allotted to me, but in ten years I shall have attained the average length of human life; you shall then be thirty-five years of age; and since a capital doubles itself in ten years, my wealth shall have attained the enormous sum of four ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue

... day was Sunday. I went to church alone, and with my usual average of calm. But I heard some one say to his neighbour, that there was a great battle going forward - with what promise nobody knew. The words sent me home with a sort of half breath. I avoided Mrs. Sandford, took no dinner; and in the afternoon feverishly crept out to church again. The air seemed ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... Duplessis Mornay, then governor of that city. A glance at any map of France will show the course of the journey taken by the travellers, which, after very hard work and great fatigue, had thus brought them from Dieppe to Saumur in about as much time as is now consumed by an average voyage from Europe to America. In their whole journey from Holland to Saumur, inclusive of the waiting upon the wind and other enforced delays, more than two months had been consumed. Twenty-four hours would suffice ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... rich." Each had a dream of some day cutting a rich vein or finding a nugget of extraordinary size which should compress into one day the profits of a year or two of ordinary success. But such lucky finds were not numerous. As in ordinary life, the large prizes are rare, and average success is the rule. But the general hope was kept ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... victims of their own sophism, and while they thought themselves crowned with enlightenment, it was naught but the Phrygian caps of their prejudices toward the material state?" I asked, with more than the average dose of irony and feeling, both for ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn

... family on March First, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-seven, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was barely twenty years of age; Washington was forty-seven, and the average age of the family, omitting its head, was twenty-five. All had been selected on account of superior intelligence and a record of dashing courage. When Hamilton took his place at the board, he was the youngest member, save one. In point of literary talent, he stood among the very foremost ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... never seems to occur to any one of you that every household has its different demands and regulations. The market fluctuates, the size of a family changes—fixed laws are impossible! No. Lizzie is no worse than lots of others, better than the average. I shall hold ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris

... obesity to good account. In exchanging food for beads it is usual to purchase a certain quantity of food, which shall be paid for by a belt of beads that will go round the waist. The women of Karague being on an average twice as large round the waist as those of other districts, food practically rises a hundred per cent, in price. Notwithstanding their fatness their features retain much beauty, the face being oval and the eyes fine and intelligent. The higher ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... documents relating to Mr. Penfold's property in my hands, and, as I was of course before well aware, my late client died worth a very considerable property in addition to his large estates in this country. For the last twenty years his income has exceeded his expenditure by an average of three thousand a year, and as the surpluses have been judiciously invested, and as the prices of all funds and stocks now stand vastly higher than they did during the course of the long war, their total value ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... must happen some day if life continues thrusting towards higher and higher organization as it has hitherto done. As most of our English professional men are to Australian bushmen, so, we must suppose, will the average man of some future day be to Julius Caesar. Let any man of middle age, pondering this prospect consider what has happened within a single generation to the articles of faith his father regarded as eternal nay, to the very scepticisms and blasphemies of his youth (Bishop Colenso's criticism ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw

... Rue Saint Lazare. It was impossible to believe that the owner of such a face, in which a look of stupidity was mingled with one of perpetual astonishment, could possess superior talent, or even an average amount of intelligence. With his retreating forehead, and his immense ears, his odious turned-up nose, tiny eyes, and coarse, thick lips, M. Tabaret seemed an excellent type of the ignorant, pennywise, petty rentier class. Whenever he took ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... see any thing to be done," Skinner said, after various possible changes in the team had been discussed; "it is not play we want, it is weight. The Greenites must average at least a stone and a half heavier than we do. I have nothing to say against the playing. We simply cannot stand against them; we go down like nine-pins. No, I suppose we shall lose every match this season. But I don't see any use in ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... harvest. They have at all times held aloft the banner of liberty, thus impregnating the social vitality of the Nation. But very few have succeeding in preserving their European education and culture while at the same time assimilating themselves with American life. It is difficult for the average man to form an adequate conception what strength, energy, and perseverance are necessary to absorb the unfamiliar language, habits, and customs of a new country, without the ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... to learn the violin at the age of three, in which he was a year or two ahead of the average virtuoso, and he made great progress. By and by he heard Spohr, and after that his diligence increased, for he practised, during seven months, not less than fourteen hours a day. Even Paganini used to sink exhausted after ten hours' practice. In 1820, we are told, he went ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee

... The average man is, I am sure, quite ignorant of the effect which extreme exhaustion has on the brain. As the weary hours drag by, it seems as if a deadness, a sort of paralysis, creeps up the limbs, upwards towards the head. The ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"

... may spend his vacation with less dignity and quiet than a bank clerk. But after a year of hard work with coarse fare he must have some relaxation. He takes what he finds. The cattle-towns cater to his worst passions. He is as noisy in his spending as a college boy, and, on the average, just as good natured and eager to have ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller

... a kuemmel—yes, I will have a kuemmel!" And he filled our glasses, and tossed off his own at a single gulp, smacking his lips after it, for the average Russian dearly loves his national decoction of ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... Peterborough conquered continents in a summer; we do more—we contrive both to conquer and lose them in a shorter season. If the "great Lord's" 'Cincinnatian' progress in agriculture be no speedier than the proportional average of time in Pope's couplet, it will, according to the farmer's proverb, be "ploughing ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... man learned very speedily how high his uncle stood in the city, for the last polite inquiry of each visitor was whether the Senator had called to welcome his nephew. In the narrow world of the Endicotts the average mind had not strength enough to conceive of a personality which embraced in itself a prize-fighter and a state senator. The terms were contradictory. True, Nero had been actor and gladiator, and the inference was just that an American might ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... depends entirely upon the impression it makes upon him. Undoubtedly the country child is in a better position to receive instruction, but whether this instruction tends to refine his feelings and elevate his heart depends altogether upon how it is given. Probably the average country boy has no more spiritual conception of the matter than the average city boy, though he may have a more wholesome and, so to speak, utilitarian thought of it. His interest at least reaches out to results, for the successful multiplication of the stock ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley

... but not much more acute than with the average European—and infinitely inferior to that of the natives of Asia and Africa. They suffered considerably from the most terrible of blood complaints, general among them, also from leprosy and ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... follow the daily ritual of Islam; many keep up some convenient portion, such as the religious aspect of an evening bath after the day's work; but most of the peasantry have little or no religious observances. Perhaps the average of mankind does not differ very greatly, in various countries, in its extent of religious observance: and most likely the ancient Egyptian varied in ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie

... printed Tagalog verse-form seeks to elaborate and extend the tale, suggests that the simpler form is the older, and that the anonymous author of the romance added to the oral material for mere purposes of length. As it is, the poem is very short compared with the other popular metrical stories, which average well over 2000 lines. The localization of the events in Spain ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... it wanted. To his narrow mind there was no great difference between a lot of rope-dancers and a company of players, or, if there should be, the advantage was quite in favour of the former. We see the same commercial spirit to-day, when the average manager rents his house for one week to an Irving or a Mansfield, and perhaps turns it over, the following Monday night, to the tender mercies of performing dogs and cats. 'Tis all grist that comes to his mill, and what cares he whether that grist ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... he exclaimed, "I like you—I always have liked you. And you've got a hundred times the ability of the average clergyman. Why in the world did you have to go and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... pretty good rough estimate I reckon there are at least from 15,000 to 20,000 Gipsies in the United Kingdom. Apart from London, if I may take ten of the Midland counties as a fair average, there are close upon 3,000 Gipsy families living in tents and vans in the by-lanes, and attending fairs, shows, &c.; and providing there are only man, wife, and four children connected with each charmless, cheerless, wretched abodes called domiciles, this would show ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... everything else—than those known to your civilization. Let me assure you that such cases as these, far from being miracles and prodigies, are perfectly normal when once the principle is understood, as we of Yaque understand it. It is the average intelligence among your people which is abnormal, inasmuch as it is unable to perform these functions which it was so clearly ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... and some women, who pass their lives without knowing what it is to be or to have been in love. They not improbably marry,—the men do, at least,—and make good average husbands. Their wives are useful to them, and they learn to feel that a woman, being a wife, is entitled to all the respect, protection, and honour which a man can give, or procure for her. Such men, no doubt, often live honest lives, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... reduced them to a single one, which seemed to him doubtful. Another series of 961 experiments gives 72 cases, for which he offers an explanation other than mediate association. On the other hand, Aschaffenburg admits them to the extent of four per cent.; the association-time is longer than for average associations (Psychologische Arbeiten, I and II). Consult especially Scripture, The New Psychology, chapter xiii, with experiments in support ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... but preferred not meeting her look. I cannot tell how dreadful this was to Dolly. She had been always accustomed, until lately, to respect her father and to see him respected; to look at him as holding his place among men with much more than the average of influence and power; he was apt to do what he wished to do, and also to make other men do it. He was recognised as a leader in all parties and plans in which he took any share; Mr. Copley's word was quoted and Mr. Copley's lead was followed; and as is the case with all ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... be composed of two lines of rails with a space between them of six feet, but at particular points two additional lines will be required as turns-out to facilitate the passage of the locomotive engines and carriages. If we assume the average rate of travelling on the railway to be 20 miles an hour, (which is about the mark,) that 1,200 persons pass along it in a day, and 120 are conveyed in each train of carriages, then only ten trains of carriages ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various

... the name of tail—wagged as I spoke, and he attempted to lick my fingers, but I prevented this by patting his head. I have an unconquerable aversion to licking. Perhaps having received more than an average allowance, in another sense, at school, may account for my dislike to it—even ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne

... is aware of the plebeian original of St. George; or supposes that there were once alive in the world, with sharp teeth and claws, real, and very ugly, flying dragons. On the other hand, few persons traced any moral or symbolical meaning in the story, and the average Greek was as far from imagining any interpretation like that I have just given you, as an average Englishman is from seeing is St. George the Red Cross Knight of Spenser, or in the Dragon the Spirit of Infidelity. ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... the great charm of it. The language of the eyes is cultivated to a marvellous degree; as we say of dogs, they quite talk with their eyes. Even when you do not chance to meet an exceptional beauty, still the plainer women are not plain like the plain women in other places. The average is higher among them, and they are not so irredeemably uninteresting. The flash of an eye, the shape of a shoulder, the colour of the hair—something or other pleases. Women without a single good feature are often good-looking in New Seville ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... right on Horace when he was alive, but when done in bronze they invariably present a droopy not to say dropsical appearance; and the kind of bone-handled umbrella that Daniel Webster habitually carried has never yet been successfully worked out in marble. When you contemplate the average statue of Lincoln—and most of them, as you may have noticed, are very average—you do not see there the majesty and the grandeur and the abiding sorrow of the man and the tragedy of his life. At least I know I do not see those things. I see a pair of massive square-toed ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... Directors of the French Government learned that the young general they had placed in command of the Army of Italy was made of very different material from the average general who obeyed their orders. Napoleon treated them haughtily, and made demands rather than requests from them. He had already exceeded his powers many times and had treated with the rulers and the commanders ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... well that I pursued it with more or less diligence. I should say that about twice a week on an average a bundle of books came to the house "with the compliments" of either Judge Trask or Colonel Flail or Mr. Bisland. You can understand that I could not hope to play the Trask deception exclusively and successfully. I invented Colonel Flail and Mr. Bisland, and I contrived to render them quite as liberal ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field

... The average German-Bohemian was, in July 1914, anxious that Austria should go to war. These people calculated that if Austria proved successful it would be advantageous to themselves, while if she were defeated they would merge themselves in ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... And what do you say to Walsham and Hexall, and all the rest of them? (At the suggestion of the Average Man, they abandon ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 18, 1893 • Various

... Prognosis.—The average case of horsepox runs a course of dejection, loss of appetite, and more or less fever for about four days, followed by a rapid convalescence, and leaves the animal as well and as sound as before. If the ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... replied Mathews; "but that big fellow will make a general average among our tea canisters, I expect, when we do come to the scratch. There go the flags, sir," continued Mathews, repeating the number to Captain Drawlock, who had the signal-book in ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... more than thirty thousand readers a week. We send to ten line regiments and five cavalry regiments—each regiment consists of, let us say, eight hundred. We send to every club in London, and each club has on an average a thousand members. Why, sir,' exclaimed Tomlinson, turning angrily on the jeweller, 'I might have said that we had a hundred thousand readers and I should have still been under the mark!' The jeweller paid for his advertisement and ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... Lack of shame occurs in the best and in the worst men through different causes, as stated in the Article. In the average men it is found, in so far as they have a certain love of good, and yet are ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... that massed itself above his forehead in a shiny curl, and was supplemented by a waving auburn mustache. His scrupulous dress, in the fashion of the foppish clerk, gave an air of distinction to the circle on the steps. Most of this circle were so average as scarcely to make an impression at first sight,—a few young women who earned their livelihood in business offices, a few decayed, middle-aged bachelors, a group of widows whose incomes fitted the rates of the Keystone, and several families that had given up the struggle with maids-of-all-work. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... or had possessed a very accurate and retentive memory, or were of a remarkably active and energetic character, the trial would not be conclusive; but in all these natural gifts I am rather below than above par; what I could do, could assuredly be done by any boy or girl of average capacity and healthy physical constitution: and if I have accomplished anything, I owe it, among other fortunate circumstances, to the fact that through the early training bestowed on me by my father, I started, I may fairly ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill

... in the car a mere average man, undistinguished but by a lack of especial distinction, sober of habit, economical of gesture, dressed in a simple lounge suit such as anybody might wear, beneath a rough and ready-made motorcoat. When the car stopped he had stood up in his place beside the chauffeur ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... obstacle. Not that it was worse than, nor indeed nearly as bad as, that of many an established member of the inner circle; but the test for an outsider seeking admittance is naturally made more severe. Delavan Eyre, for example, an average sinner for one of his opportunities and standing, had certainly no better a general repute, and latterly a much more dubious one than Marrineal. But Eyre ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... ships, specie, nor produce on hand,—I say under these considerations it is improbable, if not impossible, consistent with the interest of individuals, that bills drawn on Europe for the sum of four millions sterling should be under three for one on an average. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... even to sing. Pinkerton and I, after an average Sunday, had five hundred dollars to divide. Nay, and the picnics were the means, although indirectly, of bringing me a singular windfall. This was at the end of the season, after the "Grand Farewell Fancy Dress Gala." Many of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... example, a column, one mile in breadth, which is far below the average size, and suppose the birds to pass over us, without interruption, for three hours, at the rate we have mentioned, of one mile in a minute. This will give us a line one hundred and eighty miles long by one ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen

... "You're an average idiot, aren't you?" said I. "Oh, yes; I've been squatting in the wet by that infernal river, too. You ought to get three months, ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope

... because it is difficult of digestion, and secondly because with it, in dried peas and beans, are found a pungent oil and a bitter substance, which give them their peculiar strong flavor, both of which are quite irritating to the average person's digestion. So distressing and disturbing are these flavoring substances to the civilized stomach, that, after thousands of attempts to use them more largely, it has been found that a full meal of beans once or twice a week is all that the comfort and ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... but poorlyish, and feel myself writing a dull letter; poorlyish from Company, not generally, for I never was better, nor took more walks, 14 miles a day on an average, with a sporting dog—Dash—you would not know the plain Poet, any more than he doth recognize James Naylor trick'd out au deserpoy (how do you spell it.) En Passant, J'aime entendre da mon bon homme sur surveillance ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... higher speed. Two miles in the 24 hours, however, coincides most remarkably with the rate at which the Jeannette drifted during the last months of her voyage, from January 1 to June 12, 1881. In this time she drifted at an average rate of a little over 2 miles in the 24 hours. If, however, the average speed of the whole of the Jeannette's drifting be taken, it will be found to be only 1 ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... the charter of the East India Company was prolonged for the further term of five years, on conditions similar to those in the last agreement. The company was to continue to pay L400,000 per annum, and to continue to export British goods, at an average of equal value with those sent to India during the last five years. The company, however, was now allowed to increase its dividend to twelve and a half per cent., provided it did not in any one year put on more than one per cent. If any decrease of dividend was found to be necessary, then the sum ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... of the advantages of a war, that navigation is not equal to what it was in time of peace, is what hitherto has never been heard of. No war ever bore that test but the war which he so bitterly laments. One may lay it down as a maxim, that an average estimate of an object in a steady course of rising or of falling, must in its nature be an unfair one; more particularly if the cause of the rise or fall be visible, and its continuance in any degree probable. Average estimates are never just but when the object fluctuates, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... it is impossible, nevertheless, to change it, this question I have heard, and I continue to hear, on all sides. I have described my own sufferings, my own gropings, and my own solution of this question. I am the same kind of a man as everybody else; and if I am in any wise distinguished from the average man of our circle, it is chiefly in this respect, that I, more than the average man, have served and winked at the false doctrine of our world; I have received more approbation from men professing the prevailing doctrine: and therefore, more than others, ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... late Dec., E. Eng., and the like, specimens of which I was tracking down in the west, I hit upon him by accident; hearing in an old village rumours concerning a strange man in a cart who neither carried samples nor pushed the brewing interest by other means than average personal consumption — tales already beginning to be distorted into material for the myth of the future. I found him friendly as ever, equally ready to spin his yarns. As the evening wore on, I ventured upon an allusion to past times and Holly ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame

... the operations of the Post-Office Department during the year. The revenues of the past year, from the loyal States alone, exceeded the maximum annual receipts from all the States previous to the rebellion in the sum of $6,038,091; and the annual average increase of revenue during the last four years, compared with the revenues of the four years immediately preceding the rebellion, was $3,533,845. The revenues of the last fiscal year amounted to $14,556,158 ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... (on average), and driest continent; during summer, more solar radiation reaches the surface at the South Pole than is received at the Equator in ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... average intelligence to devote himself to the study of anatomy or of the penal code or, inversely, tell him whose brain is more highly developed than his muscles to dig the earth, instead of observing with the microscope. They will each prefer the labor for which they feel ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri

... an educated class, goes by the name of Art. But the mass of men have neither time nor aptitude for the invention of invisible or abstract beauty. For the mass of men the idea of artistic creation can only be expressed by an idea unpopular in present discussions—the idea of property. The average man cannot cut clay into the shape of a man; but he can cut earth into the shape of a garden; and though he arranges it with red geraniums and blue potatoes in alternate straight lines, he is still an artist; because he has chosen. The ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... of swinging long ladders into fruit-flaunting trees, of sunshiny days and fluttering leaves, of golden branches plundered, and boxes filled from sagging sacks. There is no more ideal occupation. I revelled in it. The others were Mexicans; I was "El Gringo." But on an average I only made fifty cents a day. On one day, when the fruit was unusually large, I made ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... that of Moral Sciences, but the other), going outside of its province one day, listened to a paper in which it was proposed to calculate tables of value for all kinds of merchandise upon the basis of the average product per man and per day's labor in each branch of industry. "Le Journal des Economistes" (August, 1845) immediately made this communication, intrusive in its eyes, the text of a protest against the plan of tariff which was its object, and the occasion ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... court of the Church? Does it consist of the Bishops assembled in General Council? No; because this is not an ordinary but an extraordinary tribunal which meets, on an average, only ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... in a given section are easily recognizable, there are in every water fishes which, on account of their small size, rarity, retiring habits, or close similarity to other fishes, are unknown to the average boy. These latter fishes often afford the most interesting subjects for study; and in all parts of the country it is possible for energetic observers and collectors to add to the list of fishes already recorded from ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... that the colyumist is likely to make is that all minds are very much the same. The doctors tell us that all patent medicines are built on a stock formula—a sedative, a purge, and a bitter. If you are to make steady column-topers out of your readers, your daily dose must, as far as possible, average up to that same prescription. If you employ the purge all the time, or the sedative, or the acid, your clients will soon ask for something with ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... in the matter was neither more nor less noble than are the average feelings of well-meaning people towards such enterprise. He would have been glad to find an excellent excuse to think no more of this mission—very glad indeed to have a more attractive opening for work set before him; but, on the other ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... in response to this very premature excitation, can manifest themselves only in awkwardness, crudeness, and grotesque features,—in short, their individuality is reproved and rejected by the teacher in favour of an unoriginal decent average. On the other hand, uniform mediocrity gets peevish praise; for, as a rule, it is just the class of work likely to ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche

... a period of indifference and lack of knowledge. It steadily grows and develops with them from their early youth. And so by the time they enter the university, at an age somewhat older than that of our average freshman, their Jewish consciousness is mature and fixed. They are able to judge whether they can work for or against Zionism, for to them Zionism is the only vital question in present-day Judaism, a question which they are willing to face squarely and once for ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... the principles that I have put to you may explain to you why this Theosophical Society, so weak, is yet so strong—weak in its numbers, weak in the qualifications of its members, not numbering amongst its adherents the most learned and the most mighty of the earth, made up of very mediocre, average people, not the great leaders of the civilisation of the day; but in them all, else would they not be members of the Theosophical Society, is the dawning aspiration after a nobler condition, and some willingness to sacrifice themselves in order that the coming of that condition may be quickened ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant

... himself fiercely into his work. It was all very well for the first hour or so, but as ten o'clock grew near he began to find a curious difficulty in keeping his attention fixed upon those calculations. The matter of average rentals, percentage upon capital—things which but yesterday he had found fascinating—seemed suddenly irksome. He could fix his attention upon nothing. At last he pushed his papers away, put on his hat and coat, ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... State monopoly in France, the high price in that country makes smuggling common, and there is a good deal of contraband trading carried on in a quiet way on the frontiers of West Flanders. The average wage paid for field labour is from 1 franc 50 centimes to 2 francs a day for married men—that is to say, from about 1s. 3d. to 1s. 8d. of English money. Bachelors generally receive 1 franc (10d.) a day and their food. The working ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond

... information, and his spiritual advice was not clearly enough expressed to enable man to apply it to modern conditions. Jesus neglected to instruct people how to live. His knowledge of the world was less than that of the average American citizen. ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd

... all worked in the honourable trade, so we know the regular prices from our own personal experience. Taking the bad work with the good work we might earn 11s. a week upon an average. Sometimes we do earn as much as 15s.; but, to do this, we are obliged to take part of our work home to our wives and daughters. We are not always fully employed. We are nearly half our time idle. Hence, our earnings are, upon an average ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... impossibility of pre-adapting its mechanism to the exigences of every case, works to unforseen and undesired ends—sometimes even to absurd ones. And, with thinkers of a certain phase of modern thought, it has been a favourite taunt against the average British mind, that it rather delights in the contemplation of such abnormal workings of the great automatic law in which it has created. Some manifest mistake or error has occurred. The man supposed to be murdered walks into court; but it is a minute too late; the verdict has been given—the sentence ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... lost teeth and the consequent alveolar absorption, and for a reduction proportional to that shown in the rest of the skull, the difference in average weight in fifty European and fourteen Australian male jaws at the College of Surgeons turned out to be less than a fifth of an ounce, or about 5 per cent. This slight reduction may be much more than accounted for by such causes as disuse in the individual, ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball

... am a bad player, I have not the high spirits or the conversational skill which each should contribute to the social game. And in almost any sport the incompetent confer a benefit by standing out: at least, that is the opinion which I hear the average player express. If I lived in the backwoods where any guest is welcome, it might be my duty to act differently. But my ways are cast in places where there is no need for social press-gangs, and the highways and hedges are left unsearched. ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... watch, with the sun. The movement very soon acquires its full ordinary velocity. From seven observations made during August on shoots proceeding from a plant which had been cut down, and on another plant during April, the average rate during hot weather and during the day is 2 hrs. 8 m. for each revolution; and none of the revolutions varied much from this rate. The revolving movement continues as long as the plant continues to ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin

... rose to a height of perhaps sixteen feet. Twelve feet was about the average height. From what the boys could see as they moved along, the cave extended for some ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... "An average of eight hundred in less than seven years!" exclaimed Pierre de l'Hospital, with a cry of pain: "Ah! ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould

... concur in that most commonplace fallacy of criticism, the belief that not more than one genius is vouchsafed to any one period of an art, though this opinion can be justified, of course, by a very exclusive definition of the word genius. To the average mind, for instance, the whole literary achievement of the Elizabethan era is condensed into the name of Shakespeare. Contemporary with him, however, there were, of course, thirty or forty writers whose best works the scholar would be most unwilling ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes

... a compression of the frontal bone in infancy. The hair, although worn long and flowing down the back, was decidedly wavy, and not coarse; the color was a ruddy brown. The eyes of these Indians were bold, cruel, crafty, yet in many instances the coloring was so light as to be startling; the average stature was greater than that of those other Indians that I knew. In short, they impressed me as being all that was claimed, a distinct race, with characteristics more nearly allied to the Ethiopian and the Mongolian than to the surrounding red races. ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... upon fallible human judgment. A man believes thus and so, not necessarily because it is so, but because his head is built on a particular pattern or has had a peculiar class of phenomena filtered through it. The average human head, like an egg, or a crock of clabber, absorbs the flavor of its surroundings. It is chiefly a question of environment whether we grow up Democrats or Republicans, Protestants or Catholics, Mormons or religious mugwumps. As a man's faith is inherited, or formed ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... so many rainbows. Yet, apart from their coats of many colors, these young men were smartly dressed, and it was plain that they carried with them considerable of an estimate of their own importance. Their average age appeared to ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock

... specially beset religious men—men who are, or fancy themselves, superior to their fellow-men, more favoured by God, and with nobler powers, and grander work to do, than the common average of mankind. But specially, I say, they beset those who are, or fancy themselves, the children of God. And, therefore, I humbly suppose our Lord had to endure and to conquer these very temptations because He was ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... the cement. It is then dried by steam, after which it is conveyed into another tank, left to cool, and then placed in bags ready for shipment, as copper cement. The building in which the liquor is treated is the mill part of the property, from which they send out 42 tons monthly of an average of 85 per cent, of copper cement, this being the average ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various

... shilling saved, a dainty earned, all these are wells of pleasure springing afresh for the successful poor; and it is not from these but from the villa-dweller that we hear complaints of the unworthiness of life. Much, then, as the average of the proletariat would gain in this new state of life, they would also lose a certain something, which would not be missed in the beginning, but would be missed progressively and progressively lamented. Soon there would be a looking back: there would be tales of the old world humming ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... convenient to keep these two classes of considerations separate; and in discussing the law of wages, to proceed in the first instance as if there were no other kind of labor than common unskilled labor, of the average degree ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... about two or three hundred books, and it was well patronized. We asked for more books and a reading room, to which I shall refer again. Our battalion had recruited to its full strength, viz., the full complement of officers and 800 rank and file. The average age in the regiment was twenty, physique all that could be desired, and with careful and progressive training, we hoped to be amongst the finest regiments in H.M. service. Having no gymnasium, the only means of training was the usual drill. The sport season opened with spring, ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle

... sixty to a hundred pages, and the size of the page lithographed is rather less than the average, the amount of the whole seems very great, if we remember that it was all written in about fifteen months. So much for the quantity; the quality strikes me as of singular merit for a girl of thirteen or fourteen. Both as a specimen of her prose style at ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... just descended reappeared. He also looked fagged, but after a short rest prepared again to descend. He had been under water about ninety seconds. Few divers can remain longer. The average time is one minute and a half, sometimes two minutes. It is said that these men are short-lived, and we can well believe it, for their work, although performed only during a short period of each year, is in violent opposition to the ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne

... have increased the average number of syllables in the line to better adapt it to ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... quite satisfied, I have been realizing how much run down I am, so that it has seemed quite possible that Plattsburg life might be too strenuous for me. But a good look at my companions has made it clear that I can stand up with the average of them. A fair number of them, to be sure, are brown and seasoned by the summer. But quite as many are pale and stooped from desk work, or pasty from good living. If I fall out, I shall have plenty ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... passage on the following day, where he hoped to get such calm weather that it would admit of your giving him a fresh supply of water, he allowed our party to give the horses a good drink. On that occasion they drank each, on an average, nine gallons. Towards evening of the same day the breeze freshened into a gale, and about ten at night, when the Firefly was head-reaching under close-reefed sails, we had the misfortune to lose sight of H.M.C.S. Victoria, ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough

... air-raid rendered her definitely inimical. Formerly Marthe had been more than average nervous in air-raids, but she had grown used to them and now defied them. As she kept all windows closed on principle she heard less of raids than some people. G.J. did not explain the circumstances. He simply asked ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... all be acquainted in a sparsely settled community covering a ten-mile radius, and there may be less acquaintance in a small community with a dense population. Secondly, the great majority of the people in the average rural community are dependent upon agriculture for their income, either directly or once-removed. These two facts make possible common interests and a social control through public opinion which is not possible in larger ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... suggested then that the water-clock should be employed for estimating the pulse frequency. His idea was that the amount of water which flowed while a hundred beats of the pulse were counted, should be weighed, and this weight compared with that of the average weight of water which flowed while a hundred beats of the normal pulse of a number of individuals of the same age and constitution were ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... of course it's true. Thousands of people do. The average number of letters posted without addresses is ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... was publicly expelled—too mere a child for that honour—but he was taken or sent away; educated with great care under the first masters at home. When he was of age to enter the University, old Grayle was dead. Louis was sent by his guardians to Cambridge, with acquirements far exceeding the average of young men, and with unlimited command of money. My father was at the same college, and described him again,—haughty, quarrelsome, reckless, handsome, aspiring, brave. Does that kind of creature interest you, my dears?" (appealing to ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the material side, is sadly wanting on the other, and still lacks much to make it morally acceptable or satisfactory. And we have some truths concerning that Fool's Paradise, the glorification of the "average man." Every citizen of the world must wish full success to the "Independents" (in politics) who sit at the feet of so wise ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... leaves a reddish mark, it is regarded as a satisfactory proof of its purity; otherwise, there is more or less alloy. The trader is obliged to depend upon the judgment and integrity of a native in his employ, who is skilful in trying gold. The average profit, acquired by the foreign traders in their dealings with the natives, is not less than a hundred per cent. on the principal articles, and much more on the smaller ones. No inconsiderable portion ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... threateningly in the face. And we well remember now what pain these petty jealousies gave to the sensitive nature of our departed friend. But these gradually subsided, until there was hardly an antislavery editor of average discernment who did not come to see that a national organ like the Era, by legitimating discussion and keeping up the heat and blaze of a vigorous agitation, at the nation's very centre, against that nation's own giant crime, would prove a benefit, in the end, to all colaborers worthy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... that in the next half-year a comparatively larger number of suicides will take place so that the number for the whole year will become approximately equal. Suppose we say: "There were in the months of January, February, March, April, May and June an average of x cases. Because we have observed the average to happen six times, we conclude that it will not happen in the other months but that instead, xy cases will occur in those months, since otherwise the average annual ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... on the Colonization Society," by Mr. Carey, 1833, "That for the last forty years the black race has increased more rapidly than the white race in the State of South Carolina; and that if we take the average population of the five States of the South into which slaves were first introduced, viz., Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia, we shall find that from 1790 to 1830 the whites have augmented in the proportion of 80 to ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... clergyman was of a good average height, but he looked taller from a certain distinction of figure. When he raised his hat at the captain's greeting he showed a forehead like an arched wall, and a large, close-cropped head. He had a well-formed nose, a powerful chin, and full lips—all very strong ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... the average experience of Miss Freer's party, he would only have been attacked on about two days. The last day his tormentor left—doubtless to avoid a journey with Father H. and subsequent recognition. How these sounds are produced is easily understood. If the doctrine of a very light ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris

... superiority. Either he is smart in business, has health and physique to withstand the extremes of climate to which he may be subjected, is clever and has gained his appointment in competitive examination, or he may have all these qualities combined; anyhow, he is a picked man, above the average all round, and as such has ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... were stained in many colors in the most hideous manner. In his scalp lock was fastened a number of eagle feathers, and of course he wore two or three necklaces of beads and wampum. There was nothing unusual about the pony he was riding, except that it was larger and in better condition than the average Indian horse, but the one he was leading—undoubtedly his war horse—was a most beautiful animal, one of the most beautiful ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... and physical condition, on one occasion in comparison with another, yet when we consider large groups of men, we know that individual peculiarities, permanent and temporary, balance each other in great measure; that the average condition of a group of men is less changeable than that of one man, and that the degree of permanency of condition increases with the number of men in the group. From this we may reasonably conclude that, if we know the character of a man—or a group of ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... expect too much," replied Rooney, with a laugh, as he sat down to devote himself to the bear-steak which Nunaga had placed before him. "I am but an average sort of sailor, and can't boast of very much education, though I have a smattering; but we have men in my country who do seem to know 'most everything—wise men they are. We call them philosophers; you call 'em angekoks. Here, ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... average for a person with a bit of psi training either in telepathy or in esper; it matched mine fairly well, excepting that part about things that were none of my business. She meant thoughts and not things. I had always had a hard time differentiating between things that were none of my ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... the old girls would miss him, if he was anywhere else. They say he still takes an interest in food. He might last on, you know. Don't we get anything for the old Forsytes? Ten of them—average age eighty-eight—I worked it out. That ought to be ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... wife's eye turned expectantly upon him. "Seven hours is a normal day's work," he put in, deciding to ignore Hilmer's insolence, "but as an employer of an office force you must know how much overtime the average clerk puts in. We're not afraid to work a little bit more than we're paid for. We're thinking ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... dining-room for the third-class passengers. They were separated by the kitchens and the larder. The engine, with all its rioting and roaring, had dragged to Crewe a car in which numbers of passengers were lunching in a tranquility that was almost domestic, on an average menu of a chop and potatoes, a salad, cheese, and a bottle of beer. Betimes they watched through the windows the great chimney-marked towns of northern England. They were waited upon by a young man of London, who was supported by a lad ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... degrees Fahr. (in the shade). It was inspected by the foreman of the tunnel-work as he daily walked over the line; besides the occasional driving of a few wedges and putting on a band or two, it gave no trouble from leakage, which probably for its entire length did not amount to more than an average of 3 or 4 cubic feet a minute; from time to time, a little sawdust was put into the pen-stock. Three stop-gates were placed on the main, and a separate stop-gate at each shaft, operated by a fine-threaded screw, so that the water could be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various

... book has an average of 30 footnotes per page. These were of three types: (A) Glosses or explanations of obsolete words and phrases. These have been treated as follows: 1. In the poems, they have been moved up into the right-hand margin. Some of them have been shortened or paraphrased ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... it must be conceded that he did not hang over it; his words ran as smoothly as oil, and with perfect distinctness, and if any body missed his meaning, it was not for want of its being sufficiently expressed. To a listener of average ability, however, he became insupportable by repetition, which is, unhappily, not exclusively "the vice of the pulpit." We will take care to avoid his error. It will be sufficient to say that when he had finished Richard stood accused not only of having stolen two ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... the registrations were 4,000, mostly middle-class women, and in the first week 20,000 registered and an average of 5,000 a week after, but the mass of women who registered waited with no real lead or use of them for a long time. The Government seemed to suffer from a delusion a great many people have, that if you have enough machinery and masses of names something is being done, ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser

... to call it help, the sort of thing he came to me for on that summer afternoon. It is always help when a woman who is not an idiot lets an embarrassed man take up her time. If he too is not an idiot, that does n't diminish the service; on the contrary his superiority to the average helps him to profit. Ambrose Tester had said to me more than once, in the past, that he was capable of telling me things, because I was an American, that he would n't confide to his own people. He had proved it before this, as I have hinted, and I must say that being an American, with him, was ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James

... is so great, that, in the daytime especially, the hour may be ascertained from the height of the mercurial column without an error, on the average, of more than fifteen or seventeen minutes. In the torrid zones of the New Continent, on the coasts as well as at elevations of nearly 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, where the mean temperature falls to 44.6 degrees, I have found the regularity of the ebb and flow of the aerial ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... and two dozen napkins for common use, with two finer tablecloths and two dozen napkins for special occasions, make ample provision for the average home. There should be doilies and tray cloths, covers for the sideboard, also mats and centerpieces for ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway

... are that Rhogeessa from the Tres Marias Islands average smaller than Rhogeessa of the adjoining mainland of western Mexico but not enough smaller to warrant subspecific separation of the two. Specimens from places geographically intermediate between the geographic ranges, as now known, of R. parvula and R. tumida probably ...
— Taxonomic Notes on Mexican Bats of the Genus Rhogeessa • E. Raymond Hall

... will not give good work for miserable payment, and that they could do as well as any other if they were well paid. But, ye foolish folks! cannot such artists keep some good work, and then say: this is a costly work and this more moderate and this is average work and show that they ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... hiding-place for thieves by night; where no woman durst cross the street alone after dusk, and no man dared to walk home unattended after nine or ten; where, driving about in her gilded state-coach of an afternoon, the Pretender's bride must often have met a knot of people conveying a stabbed man (the average gave more than one assassination per day) to the nearest barber or apothecary, the blood of the murdered man mingling, in the black ooze about the rough cobble-stones over which the coaches jolted, with the blood trickling from the disembowelled sheep hanging, ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... difficult to conceive a more clumsy and ineffective machinery for ascertaining truth and doing justice than a jury of twelve men of the average intelligence, even among ourselves. What, then, must this device have been among the half-civilized tribes of the Connected States of America! Nay, the case is worse than that, for it was the practice to prevent men of even the average intelligence from serving ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... Monsieur le Marquis," said the family notary, M. Hebert, "by which you can put your estate in comparative safety. Your father raised his mortgages from time to time, as he wanted money, and often at interest above the average market interest. You may add considerably to your income by consolidating all these mortgages into one at a lower percentage, and in so doing pay off this formidable mortgagee, M. Louvier, who, I shrewdly suspect, is bent upon becoming the proprietor of Rochebriant. Unfortunately those ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... his position, he lived in a period of the greatest immorality and license, while he attended strictly to his formal religious duties. Judged by any standard of the morals of more modern times, the verdict of average citizens would be against him. He was surrounded by dissolute men, and some, who ought to have protected him from the assaults of vice, placed him in its way. He was no worse in this respect than even Richelieu and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... There were some shadows of diffidence between the ladies of our families, mainly on the part of my wife, but none between Talbert and me. He showed me, as a newspaper man with ideals if not abilities rather above the average, a deference which pleased my ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... name, one of the men in gray turned, his hands raised to hook the fastening at the throat of his cloak. Just four days short of his thirtieth birthday, he looked even more youthful; he was considerably below average height, and so slender as to give the impression of frailness. His hair and the beard he was wearing at the time were very light brown. He wore an officer's uniform without insignia of rank, and instead of a saber he ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper

... deposits on my desk a little rouleau of the Queen's coin, wrapped up in a piece of paper. This morning there were eight sovereigns, four half-crowns, and a shilling,—a pretty fair day's work, though not more than the average ought to be. This forenoon, thus far, I have had two calls, not of business,—one from an American captain and his son, another from Mr. H—— B——, whom I met in America, and who has showed us great attention here. He has arranged for us ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... from a report written by Mendelssohn long afterwards, in which he spoke of dismissing the incompetents of the band, who went away as men who had lost their bread. It had its opera, which was doubtless as good as the average German opera of the time. But without a conservatoire, without musicians of the first rank, with its middling orchestra, it cannot be compared with, say, Vienna, where the very air breathed music and great musical traditions ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman

... whom these words were spoken was below the average in stature, remarkably active for her age (she was then fully sixty), and possessed of as much goodness as intelligence. My mother's judgment concerning her own mother was well founded, for soon after her death that old lady appeared, and declared ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... latest of which in English is estimated to contain some 450,000 words. Life may be maintained upon a surprisingly meager group of words, as travelers in foreign lands can testify. Shakespeare's vocabulary is said to have included as many as 15,000 words. Figures for that of the average ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... Fitz-Sword; then as a reformed soldier whom Knowell takes into his service; then as justice Clement's man; and lastly as valet to the courts of law, by which devices he plays upon the same clique of some half-dozen men of average intelligence.—Ben Jonson, Every ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... classes here enumerated, were allowed to drift down stream with the current, being steered by long sweeps hung on pivots. The average speed was about three miles an hour, but the distances made were considerable, from the fact that in the earliest days they were, from fear of Indians, usually kept on the move through day and night,—the crew taking turns at the sweeps, that the craft might not be hung ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... Mabuchi and Motowori wrote, the nation had been long subjected to a discipline of almost incredible minuteness in detail, and of extraordinary rigour in application. And this discipline had actually brought into existence a wonderful average of character,—a character of surprising patience, unselfishness, honesty, kindliness, and docility combined with high courage. But only the evolutionist [162] can imagine what the cost of developing that character ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... here take for granted and receive as accurate what they have advanced. We shall also assume that the earth is spheroidal, that its surface is likewise spheroidal and, above all, that bodies have a tendency towards its centre, which latter point is clear to the perception of the most average understanding. However, we may show summarily that the earth is spheroidal, from the consideration that all things, however distant, tend to its centre, and that every body is attracted towards its centre by gravity. This is more distinctly proved from observations of the sea and sky, for here ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... Somebody must lead the way. I just showed that the thing could be done; but you men brought up to the use of steam cannot conceive the vast importance of my bit of venturesomeness to the Eastern trade of the time. Why, that new route reduced the average time of a southern passage by eleven days for more than half the year. Eleven days! It's on record. But the remarkable thing—speaking to a sailor—I should say was ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... to Rural Life. An average sample of a Logging-bee described. The Feast. The Logger's jests, and other incidents. Burning Log-heaps. The Loggers' Song. WILLIAM'S thoughts and employments in Autumn. The Autumnal garb of trees. Reflections connected therewith. The family's Sabbath-day employments. ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... the heat of the day, more on the horse's account than my own, and towards evening resumed my journey, leading the animal by the bridle as before; and in this manner I proceeded for several days, travelling on an average from twenty to twenty-five miles a day, always leading the animal, except perhaps now and then of an evening, when, if I saw a good piece of road before me, I would mount and put the horse into a trot, which the creature seemed to enjoy as much as myself, showing his satisfaction ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... bent over her, for, though she was taller than the average, he was head and almost shoulders above her, "Jeanne, you could have ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... than his thirty years; but it was a strained face, now—painted with weeks of fatigue, and grayish with fear, sweat-streaked and with nervous tension in every corded tendon of his throat. His somewhat bony, average-height figure shook visibly as he climbed ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey

... were passed, to require the people to vote 'yes' or 'no,' in order to ascertain whether there should, or should not be, a convention to amend the constitution. About one-fourth of the electors attended these primary meetings, and of the ten meetings which were held, in six "yes" prevailed by average majorities of about two votes in each parish. This was held to be demonstration of the wishes of the majority of the people to have a convention, though most of those who staid away did so because they believed the whole procedure ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... In the case of COMMON YELLOW TROUT, averaging, as most loch trout do, about three to the pound, there is no occasion to put off time with any one of them; but in some lochs, such as Loch Leven, where the average is fairly one pound, and where two and three pounders are by no means uncommon, some care and a little play are absolutely necessary. But do not, even in such a case, give him too much of his own way. We can assure our readers that a three-pound Loch Leven ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior

... thought of the ancient world. Rules of grammar, syntax, or metre, are but means towards that end; they must never be mistaken for the end itself. A young man of eighteen, who has probably spent on an average ten years in learning Greek and Latin, ought to be able to read any of the ordinary Greek or Latin classics without much difficulty; nay, with a certain amount of pleasure. He might have to consult his dictionary now and ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller

... other hand, the work only lasts eight months of the year, and that cuts wages down to an average ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... Empire makes so many blunders of her own that unless we doubled the year's average I guess it wouldn't strike her anything special had occurred," said the second man. "Are you prepared to say that all our resources are equal to blowing off the muzzle of a hundred-ton gun or spiking a ten-thousand-ton ship on a ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... got 'em eddicated up to the highest p'int o' morality, he was a goin' to send 'em out as missionaries ter convart the rest. Bachelder said he'd got 'em fur enough along, now, so't they'd pass examination along o' average folks that wa'n't admitted ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene



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