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Counterpoise   Listen
Counterpoise

verb
(past & past part. counterpoised; pres. part. counterpoising)
1.
Constitute a counterweight or counterbalance to.  Synonyms: counterpose, counterweight.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Counterpoise" Quotes from Famous Books



... which no modern skill can wholly counterpoise, are known and felt by the scholar alone. He has not failed, in the sweet and silent studies of his youth, to drink deep at those sacred fountains of all that is just ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... By this means they render much more decided the differences existing in the conditions of production; they check the self-levelling power of industry, prevent fusion of interests, neutralize the counterpoise, and fence in each nation within its own ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... Tibet is chiefly due to the habit of representing one deity in many forms and aspects, thus making him a dozen or more personages both for art and for popular worship. The adoration of saints and their images is also more developed than in Nepal and forms some counterpoise to the prevalent demonolatry. ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... conflict, had not soon Th' Eternal to prevent such horrid fray Hung forth in Heav'n his golden Scales, yet seen Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion signe, Wherein all things created first he weighd, The pendulous round Earth with ballanc't Aire 1000 In counterpoise, now ponders all events, Battels and Realms: in these he put two weights The sequel each of parting and of fight; The latter quick up flew, and kickt the beam; Which Gabriel spying, thus bespake the Fiend. Satan, I know thy strength, and thou knowst mine, Neither our own but giv'n; what follie ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... generously about Mrs. Houghton. The sight of the woman brought that truth to his mind. He was aware of that. But no generosity on the part of the wife, no love, no temper, no virtue, no piety can be accepted by Caesar as weighing a grain in counterpoise against ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... towards the reformers, however, was not so extreme as that of his brother Joachim I., elector of Brandenburg; and he appears to have exerted himself in the interests of peace, although he was a member of the league of Nuremberg, which was formed in 1538 as a counterpoise to the league of Schmalkalden. The new doctrines nevertheless made considerable progress in his dominions, and he was compelled to grant religious liberty to the inhabitants of Magdeburg in return for 500,000 florins. During his latter years indeed he showed more intolerance towards ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... pretty good fee out of this compromise," is a reason that needs no expression in words: it is visible in the gesture, the tone, the glance; and as attorneys and solicitors meet constantly on this ground, the matter, whatever it is, is arranged. The counterpoise of this fraternal system is found in what we may call professional conscience. The public must believe the physician who says, giving medical testimony, "This body contains arsenic"; nothing is supposed to exceed the integrity of the ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... authors of antiquity. For although the supreme power cannot properly be said to be divided, yet it may be so placed in three several hands, as each to be a check upon the other; or formed into a balance, which is held by him that has the executive power, with the nobility and people in counterpoise in each scale. Thus the kingdom of Media is represented by Xenophon before the reign of Cyrus; so Polybius tells us, the best government is a mixture of the three forms, regno, optimatium, et populi imperio: the same was that of Sparta in its primitive institution by Lycurgus, made ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... constitutionally unlimited, or at least a practically preponderant authority in the chief ruler of the dominant class. He alone has by his position an interest in raising and improving the mass, of whom he is not jealous, as a counterpoise to his associates, of whom he is; and if fortunate circumstances place beside him, not as controllers but as subordinates, a body representative of the superior caste, which, by its objections and questionings, and by its occasional outbreaks of spirit, ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... to biblical questions which were not only erroneous, but altogether unnecessary for the stability of their position. Having renounced the dogma of an infallible church, it was deemed necessary to maintain as a counterpoise, not only that of an infallible Bible, but, as the necessary foundation of this, of a Bible which had been handed down from the earliest ages without the slightest textual alteration. Even the vowel points and accents were held to have been given by divine ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... counterpoise, there were admirable surprises in man. That cross-play of human tendencies determined from time to time in the forces of unique and irresistible character, "moving all together," pushing the world around it ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater

... the water in the boiler is replenished. This engine, it will be understood, is never put in operation except when the water in the boiler becomes too low: and when the water rises, the elevation of the encased float closes the valve and stops the engine. The ball on the end of the lever acts as a counterpoise to the float, (which is of stone) that it may be freely influenced by the rising or falling of the surface ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various

... gave To evil and to good, with even hand Drawing straight justice for the lot of each. But had another held the goad as One in whose heart was guile and greediness, He had not kept the people back from strife. For had I granted, now what pleased the one, Then what their foes devised in counterpoise, Of many a man this state had been bereft. Therefore I showed my might on every side, Turning at bay like wolf ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle

... full weight to the two last-named ingredients, they are not more than a counterpoise to Competitive Examination, which is also a recent ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... what we deprecate may be accessory to our delight, nor by what intricate involution what we deplore may be connected with what we love. Every good that nature herself bestows, or accomplishes, is given with a counterpoise, or gained at a sacrifice; nor is it to be expected of Man that he should win the hardest battles and tread the narrowest paths, without the betrayal of a weakness, or the acknowledgment of ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... islands of that great archipelago. [32] It is about one hundred leguas in circumference. Its climate is very hot, although the continual rains somewhat temper its unendurable heat. In its rains it exceeds all the other nearby islands. However this relief bears the counterpoise of making the island but little favorable to health, because of the bad consequences of the heat accompanied by the humidity. But for all that it is a very fertile land, although unequally so because of its rough mountain ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... as compared with that presented in the same field five-and-thirty years since, and its difference in weight is still greater than in number. Scott, the novelist and poet, may certainly be regarded as the counterpoise of much more than any one of the writers of fiction in this list. Byron, Moore, Rogers, and Campbell enjoyed a degree of reputation far exceeding that of Tennyson. Wellington, the historian of his own campaigns, would much outweigh any of the historians. Malthus and Ricardo were ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey

... force to the long end of a lever, we increase our power. We may also apply it, as Nature has done in our bodies, for another purpose. We have just noted that if the weight end of the beam of a pair of scales is nine times the length of the sugar end, that a 1-lb. weight will counterpoise 9 lb. of sugar. We also see that the weight scale moves at nine times the speed of the sugar scale. Now it often happens that Nature wants to increase, not the power, but the speed with which a load is ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... more assured in recounting Hegel a little freely here,[17] not only for offsetting the Carlylean letter and spirit-cutting it out all and several from the very roots, and below the roots—but to counterpoise, since the late death and deserv'd apotheosis of Darwin, the tenets of the evolutionists. Unspeakably precious as those are to biology, and henceforth indispensable to a right aim and estimate in study, they neither comprise or explain everything—and the last word or ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... into this play. The passion of Titus for a daughter of Tarquin, which constitutes the knot, is not improbable, and in its tone harmonizes with the manners which are depicted. Still less am I disposed to agree with La Harpe, when he says that Tullia, to afford a fitting counterpoise to the republican virtues, ought to utter proud and heroic sentiments, like Emilia in Cinna. By what means can a noble youth be more easily seduced than by female tenderness and modesty? It is not, generally speaking, natural that a being like ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... reputation, and that he could be no help to her against the well-known ill-will of the brothers of Bonaparte. She wanted some assurance for the future. She added that her husband was very fond of Louis, and that if she had the good fortune to unite him to her daughter this would be a counterpoise to the calumnies and persecutions of her other brothers-in-law. I answered her that she had concealed her intentions too long from me, and that I had promised my services to the young people, and the more willingly as I knew the favourable opinion ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... attained the unchallenged supremacy of a later day, the American leaders early sought the alliance of the Bourbon kingdoms, France and Spain, the hereditary enemies of Great Britain. There alone could be found the counterpoise to a power which, ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... The bellows of sealskin, furnished at its extremity with a nozzle of clay, which had been previously fabricated in the pottery kiln, was established near the heap of ore. Using the mechanism which consisted of a frame, cords of fiber and counterpoise, he threw into the mass an abundance of air, which by raising the temperature also concurred with the chemical transformation to ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... made in front; and through this opening the smoke, while the steamer was passing through the bridge, came out in dense volumes. As soon, however, as the arch was cleared, the pipe was brought back into its place again by the force of great weights placed at the ends of the levers as a counterpoise. Thus the opening below was closed, and the smoke came out of the top ...
— Rollo in London • Jacob Abbott

... painful illusion of life; and the religious way, which throws the veil of a dazzling falsehood over crime and sorrow. Those who devour others are said to be the chosen people who work for God. The weight of sin, thrown into one of the scales of life, finds its counterpoise beyond in the dream where all wounds and sorrows are to be cured. The form of the beyond varies from people to people and from time to time, and these variations are called Progress, though it is always the same need of illusion. Our terrible consciousness insists on seeing and reckoning ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain

... bad habits, bad food, and the want of fresh air develop, needs the counterpoise of a fresh excitement—so a German, the opera, or a tragedy, occupies her evening hours. Three or four days in the week, at least, she is up till midnight, and rises just in time to get to school at nine. She never stands in the cool evening air to see the ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... his adventure with the truck, judging the old lady of over eighty quite a fit and qualified person to sympathize with the raptures of sitting on a handle, and being jerked violently into the air by a counterpoise of confederates. And no doubt she was; but not to the extent imputed to her by Dave, of a great sense of privation from inability to go through the experience herself. Nevertheless there was that in his blue eyes, and ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... incident, however local or however remote, formed a feature of the whole; between 1854 and 1870, you cannot ignore the would-be secession of the Southern Confederates, which ended in making "all America" the counterpoise to our older world—neither dare you neglect the Indian meeting whence England issued, clad in moral as in political glory, and gave the noblest sign of the Christian significancy of the Victorian Era; all holds together, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various

... in British hulks. Of our vast squadrons of the summer-time But rags and splintered remnants now remain.— Thuswise Villeneuve, poor craven, quitted him! And England puffed to yet more bombastry. —Well, well; I can't be everywhere. No matter; A victory's brewing here as counterpoise! These water-rats may paddle in their salt slush, And welcome. 'Tis not long they'll have the lead. Ships can ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... the associates, obtaining corporate privileges, are enabled to prosecute, under one superintending head, their business to better advantage. Nothing can be more essentially democratic or better devised to counterpoise the influence of individual wealth. In Kentucky, almost every manufactory known to me is in the hands of enterprising and self-made men, who have acquired whatever wealth they possess by patient and diligent labor. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... foreign grocery and fruits, foreign timber, insurances, writs, and affidavits, hair-powder, licenses, &c.; and to increase the receipts of the post-office, the privilege of franking letters was somewhat abridged. As a counterpoise for these additional burdens, Pitt mentioned the extraordinary increase of commerce, which, in the preceding year, had exceeded that of the most flourishing period of peace. The ways and means were voted as Pitt desired; but some of his adherents were not very favourable ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... 10, 1860. On November 12 the Rochester Union argued that the threatened secession of the slave States was but a counterpoise of the personal liberty bills and other measures of antagonism to slave-holding at the North. See, also, the New York Herald, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers—particularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives. Lead is also of great service as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... protection against the enmity of the brothers. I must have some more certain reliance for the future. My husband loves Louis very much. If I can succeed in uniting my daughter to him, he will prove a strong counterpoise to the calumnies and ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... that the chronicler who records the events of an earlier age has some obvious advantages in the store of manuscript materials at his command,—the statements of friends, rivals, and enemies, furnishing a wholesome counterpoise to each other; and also, in the general course of events, as they actually occurred, affording the best commentary on the true motives of the parties. The actor, engaged in the heat of the strife, finds his view bounded by the circle around him and his ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... higher class, and harder to please. It was requisite, therefore, that this new book should be written by a man of talent, whose style nevertheless should not be so transcendental as to scare folks. And it was an advantage that the writer should be very well known, so that his enormous editions might counterpoise those of Lasserre. ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... Charles the flattering message from Parliament in May, 1660, and was then knighted. As Sir John Clarges, he had a long and active Parliamentary career, and did not die till 1695.] was now supreme in Scotland, where Cromwell had placed him in command. Parliament looked to him as the only possible counterpoise to Lambert. Hyde placed no great reliance upon him, and shrewdly judged that he was one whose actions would be governed by events rather than one whose foresight and initiative would direct the progress of those events. He had abundant military experience, was a competent commander, and not ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... the discussion, and it was a controversy to which his mind had often returned; and though he carefully disguised his vacillation from others, and, perhaps from himself, he had never been able to come to any precise line of decision on the subject. In fact, his natural sense had acted as a counterpoise to his controversial zeal. He was by no means pleased with the quiet and indifferent manner in which King William's government slurred over the errors of the times, when, far from restoring the Presbyterian kirk to its former supremacy, they passed an ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... its influence, and self-conceit of its illusion, it lessens the obstacle to pure practical reason and produces the conception of the superiority of its objective law to the impulses of the sensibility; and thus, by removing the counterpoise, it gives relatively greater weight to the law in the judgement of reason (in the case of a will affected by the aforesaid impulses). Thus the respect for the law is not a motive to morality, but is morality itself subjectively ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant

... levelling commonplace. With her, love was liking, duty something unpleasant—generally to other people, and kindness patronage. But she was just in money matters, and her son too had every intention of being worthy of his hire, though wherein lay the value of the labour with which he thought to counterpoise that hire, it ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... and under public accountability. But the more democratic the form of political life becomes, just so much the more indispensable are culture and the religious elevation of the people. The strengthening of a sense of right demands as a necessary counterpoise, an exalted sense of duty. Thus state and church go together, indissoluble in their mutual relations, in consequence of which every commotion in the sphere of one, reacts inevitably on that of the other; but whilst the authority of the state rests ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... diverted such an immense number of the ablest minds in England, France, and America, from more serious subjects to the production of such very frivolous and, on the whole, ephemeral works of art. But the novel has this one great counterpoise of undoubted good to set against all the manifold disadvantages and shortcomings of romantic literature—that it always appeals to the true internal promptings of inherited instinct, and opposes the foolish and selfish suggestions ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... bands of starving people swarmed in the streets, whilst the incursions of the savage Indians daily became more frequent. In fact, Asuncion was but a type of what the world would be under the domination of any of the sects without the counterpoise of any civil power. The Governor, seeing the misery on every side, determined, like an honest man, to pocket up his pride and reconcile himself with Cardenas at any price. So, setting forth with all his staff, he came to Yaguaron. There, like a penitent, he had ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... observation help thinking that they might have gone with very little inconvenience. To feel herself slighted by them was very painful. On the other hand, the delight of exploring an edifice like Udolpho, as her fancy represented Blaize Castle to be, was such a counterpoise of good as might console her ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... remain of the same length through vast periods of time is probably due to this balance between the effects of tidal action and those arising from the loss of heat—in other words, we have here one of those delicate arrangements in the way of counterpoise which serve to maintain the balanced conditions of the earth's surface amid the great conflicts of diverse energies which are at work in and upon ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... overbalanced in doing so, for, in order to counterpoise the forward weight of the big helmet, the weight on the diver's back is five pounds heavier than that in front. The instant his legs were in the water, however, the terrible weight of the leaded boots ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney

... by way of counterpoise to this of Silence, let me say that there are two kinds of ambition: one wholly blamable, the other laudable and inevitable. Nature has provided that the great silent Samuel shall not be silent too long. The selfish wish to shine over others, let it be accounted altogether poor and miserable. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... deeper movements of European thought. At one, in a limited sense, with Bergson and William James in their protests against final or static "truth," de Gourmont's writings, when taken as a whole, form a most salutary and valuable counterpoise to the popular and vulgar implications of this modern mysticism. That dangerous and pernicious method of estimating the truth of things according to what James calls somewhere their "cash-value" receives blow after blow from his swift ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... purely as he had loved her selfishly, he would have listened to Mary pleading in her behalf, and would have thought first about her well-being, not about her character in the eyes of the world. He would have seen also that, while the breath of the world's opinion is a mockery in counterpoise with a life of broken interest and the society of an unworthy husband, the mere fact of his mother's receiving her again at Thornwick would of itself be enough to reestablish her position in the face of all gainsayers. But in Godfrey Wardour ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... former, placed upon a plank, laid across a strong beam about ten feet high, with a sufficiently heavyweight at the other end, which balanced him, while he kept time, by the motions of his body and trunk, with the music, as well as the other elephant. The Hindoos, after having fastened on the counterpoise, had drawn the other end of the board down to the ground, and made the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... to make a visit in the country, and I thought her wild good-humor would be a counterpoise to the poetry and romance of ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... experience, adroitness and knowledge of men, he aspired to a task which surpassed his strength.' —Ihne. 4-6. By the Sempronian Laws of C. Gracchus 123 B.C. exclusive judicial rights had been given to the Equites, as a counterpoise to the power of the Senate. The corruption of the Equites (as Judices) was flagrant, and Drusus proposed to transfer the judicial functions to a mixed body of 300 Senators and 300 Knights, the selected Knights to be included in the now attenuated ranks of the Senate. 14. ad ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... once revealed the mystery of the trap-door. It formed a ponderous counterpoise attached to the smaller section of the stone slab, and so nearly equalised the weight on the hinge that, as we have seen, Softswan's weak arm was sufficient to ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne

... might one, to escape the flood, throw oneself into the rising ravening torrent. Before long, Germany will be the ruler of Austria, of Hungary, Turkey and Holland, and we shall have prepared no counterpoise to this encroachment, we, the Allies of the great Russian people, who, even though they may eventually succumb to the fatal attraction of Asia, might first help us to secure our racial psychology and to establish bonds between our Gallo-Latin ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam

... prejudices and preconceptions of the public opinion in each nation. There is nobody who possesses these qualifications. But in the absence of such a historian these imperfect notes are set down in the hope that they may offer a counterpoise to some of the wilder passions that sweep over all peoples in time of war and threaten to prepare for Europe a future even worse than ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson

... snapped Tracy. "I see a song there that would light up all London. Unfortunately, the sentiment's dead Radical. It wouldn't so much matter if we were certain to do Camillus as well; because one would act as a counterpoise to the other, you know. Well, follow your own fancy. Camillus is strictly classical. I treat opera there as Alfieri conceived tragedy. Clelia is modern style. Cast the die for Camillus, and let's take horse. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... safety-lock upon the public money-box, the right of knowing what is being done with your money, the solidity of credit, liberty of conscience, liberty of worship, protection of property, the guarantee against confiscation and spoliation, the safeguard of the individual, the counterpoise to arbitrary power, the dignity of the nation, the glory of France, the steadfast morals of free nations, movement, life,—all these exist no longer. Wiped out, annihilated, vanished! And this "deliverance" ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... Zen sect almost exclusively. Takauji built the temple Tenryu-ji, in Kyoto, and planned to establish a group of provincial temples under the name of Ankoku-ji. There can be little doubt that his animating purpose in thus acting was to create a counterpoise to the overwhelming strength of the monasteries of Nara and Hiei-zan. The latter comprised three thousand buildings—temples and seminaries—and housed a host of soldier-monks who held Kyoto at ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... except that, everywhere among his squadron ran yelling men on foot, shooting, lunging with bayonets, striking with clubbed rifles. Twice he felt the shocking impact of his lance point; once he drove the ferruled counterpoise at a man who went down under his horse's feet. One moment there was a perfect whirlwind of scarlet pennons flapping around him, another and he was galloping alone across the grass, lance crossed from right ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... the German bear, but soon the courtier came of his own accord into the position which was appropriate for him—he was used by Luther. And in the Leipzig disputation against Eck the favorable impression which the self-possessed, honest, and sturdy nature of Luther produced was the best counterpoise to the self-satisfied ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... work was by no means lost; a Spartan army, to reach Messenia, whose independence was to be secured, must pass through the territory of Megalopolis, and even a second-rate city would answer as a guard. But not even Epaminondas could make of Arcadia a first-class power, and a sufficient counterpoise to Sparta. Megalopolis is now wholly deserted, and represented only by the little village of Sinanu, half a mile distant, where we stopped at a khan kept by an old soldier of Colocotroni, and ran, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... closeness to nature, their picturesque life in the past, their mythical religion, social system and fateful history have begot one of the wide world's "legends," an ideal not wholly imaginary, which, as a counterpoise to Realism, our literature needs, and probably never ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson

... on this matter they have preached in vain. Dives has never believed that he will be damned because he is Dives. He has never even believed that the temptations incident to his position have been more than a fair counterpoise, or even so much as a fair counterpoise, to his opportunities for doing good. All men who work desire to prosper by their work, and they so desire by the nature given to them from God. Wealth and progress must go on hand ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... with what awful fear he had deprecated the success of his pursuit, and prayed that the Unpardonable Sin might never be revealed to him. Then ensued that vast intellectual development, which, in its progress, disturbed the counterpoise between his mind and heart. The Idea that possessed his life had operated as a means of education; it had gone on cultivating his powers to the highest point of which they were susceptible; it had raised him from the level of an ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... and entire revolution which this would occasion in the political system filled him with the most disquieting apprehensions. He saw all Europe in danger of being overrun by an ambitious prince, to whose power there now remained no counterpoise; and though he himself might at first be admitted, in quality of an ally, to some share in the spoils of the captive monarch, it was easy to discern that with regard to the manner of making the partition, as well as his security for keeping ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... we meet with are sometimes at fault. Nova onania possumus omnes is not a new nor profound axiom, but it is well to remember it as a counterpoise to that other truly American saying of the late Mr. Samuel Patch, "Some things can be done as well as others." Yes, some things, but not all things. We all know men and women who hate to admit their ignorance of anything. Like Talkative ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... thereby increasing the apparent sensitiveness of the scale, and, second, that of overcoming the effect of change of level. The secondary beam may be dispensed with if a multiplier is not needed, and the secondary truss, t, with its standard and counterpoise, H, used alone to counteract the effect of change of level. Fig. 5 shows a modification of this ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various

... worthy of Milo of Crotona. He carried this manner so far that he never used less apparent effort even to lift the lightest objects, and one day when he held in his right hand a basket of old papers I saw him extend his left arm horizontally as if to make a counterpoise ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee

... though mathematics cannot be spared from the foundation of an education, it yields less culture on the whole to students who have no taste for it than any other study, so I do not advocate carrying it far, but history or some science would be a good counterpoise for a mind given to ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... development of the vigour of the more favoured sex. Women are, by nature, more excitable than men—prone to be swept by tides of emotion, proceeding from hidden and inward, as well as from obvious and external causes; and female education does its best to weaken every physical counterpoise to this nervous mobility—tends in all ways to stimulate the emotional part of the mind and stunt the rest. We find girls naturally timid, inclined to dependence, born conservatives; and we teach them that independence is ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... cannot but conclude, that our geographers of Europe are in a great error, by supposing nothing but sea between Japan and California; for it was ever my opinion, that there must be a balance of earth to counterpoise the great continent of Tartary; and therefore they ought to correct their maps and charts, by joining this vast tract of land to the northwest parts of America, wherein I shall be ready to ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... on the very edge of Ausonia. As when in the depth of air adverse winds rise in battle with equal spirit and strength; not they, not clouds nor sea, yield one to another; long the battle is doubtful; all stands locked in counterpoise: even thus clash the ranks of Troy and ranks of Latium, foot fast on foot, and man crowded up ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... and also the invention of Mr. Lartigue, bears the name of the "Bellows Pedal." It consists (Figs. 9 and 10) of a pedal, properly so called, P, placed along the rail, one of its extremities forming a lever and the other being provided with a counterpoise, C. When a train passes over the pedal, the arm, B, fixed to its axle, on falling closes the circuit of an ordinary electrical alarm, and at the same time the bellows, S, becomes rapidly filled with air, and, after the passage of the train, is emptied again very slowly under the action of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various

... why, for what reasons, on what account, Mr Slope should not be dean of Barchester. As far as he himself, the bishop, was concerned, he could well spare the services of his chaplain. The little idea of using Mr Slope as a counterpoise to his wife had well nigh evaporated. He had all but acknowledged the futility of the scheme. If indeed he could have slept in his chaplain's bed-room instead of his wife's there might have been something in it. But—-. And thus as Mr Slope as speaking, the bishop began to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... of him that his father is making amends for the fault of his son's bad rearing. He endures from his son much disrespect, even fearing him and following his will in unjust things. Hence it can be inferred that he who cannot govern his own son will illy govern so many others. Further, with such a counterpoise, and since this matter is so worthy of consideration, and so important to the service of your Majesty, and since it is not a matter on which I can take action here or which I can remedy, I could not neglect reporting it to your Majesty, in order that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various

... criticized the boy's crude compositions with some severity was perfectly natural; equally so that the petted and bepraised boy should have felt these criticisms keenly. But the severity of the master was no more than a necessary counterpoise to the injudicious praise of others. That Beethoven, however he may have spoken of Neefe to Wegeler and Schindler, did at times have a due consciousness of his obligations to his old master, is proved by a letter which he wrote to him from Vienna, during the first transports ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... ruthlessly and without sparing blood must obtain an ascendancy if the enemy does not do likewise. By so doing he frames a law for the other and thus both strain every nerve without finding any other limitation but their own natural counterpoise." Von Der Goltz, the tutor of the Turks and the author of a German textbook on war, "The Nation in Arms," says, "If from humanitarian principles a nation decided not to resort to extremities, but to employ its strength up to a given point only, it would soon find itself ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... of the destroying angel. A Patmos for a new Apocalypse. Unamuno is constantly attacking sturdily those who clamor for the modernization, Europeanization of Spanish life and Spanish thought: he is the counterpoise to the northward-yearning apostles ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos

... states of Greece. Even in the Middle Ages, as regards Italy, the popes endeavored to keep up an equilibrium. They supported the Norman kingdom in Southern Italy, or the Lombard leagues in the North, as a counterpoise to the German emperors. In the sixteenth century, there were formed combinations to check the power of Charles V., king of Spain and emperor of Germany, and afterwards to restrain his successor ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... intended to confirm the indefinite teaching above, thus: "'R has one constant sound in English.'—Johnson. The same view is adopted by Webster, Perry, Kendrick, Sheridan, Jones, Jameson, Knowles, and others."—School Grammar, p. 40. In counterpoise of these, Wells next cites about as many more—namely, Frazee, Page, Russell, Walker, Rush, Barber, Comstock, and Smart,—as maintaining or admitting that r has sometimes a rough sound, and sometimes ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... mortally afraid of their great feudal tenants, the barons and knights through whom the Conquest had been effected. Hence, as English kings, they assiduously maintained and fostered Anglo-Saxon institutions, and particularly the "fyrd," which they used as a counterpoise to the feudal levy. They even called upon it for Continental service and took it across the Channel to defend their French provinces.[9] Thus in 1073 it fought for William I in Maine; in 1094 William II summoned it to Hastings for an expedition into Normandy; in 1102 it aided Henry I to suppress ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw

... Catholic population. It is easy to say that there ought to be no difference between Roman Catholics and Protestants. I wish to God it could be so; but the circumstances of Ireland are such as to render it necessary, that a counterpoise should be given to counteract the influence which the Roman Catholics will acquire by the bill. I wish to carry the principles of 1829 into effect, and that can not be done if both parties are placed upon an equal footing. I think ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... spoliation, the first partition of Poland, drew forth no remonstrance from England; in itself it did not concern us, and its effect on the balance of power in Europe was regarded with complacency as lowering to France and as an aggrandisement of powers which would act as a counterpoise to the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... she could not give him. On that at any rate she was fixed. She could not barter herself about from one to the other either as a make-weight or a counterpoise. All his pleading was in vain; all his generosity would fail in securing to him this one reward that he desired. And now she ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... discovery was not a pleasant one to the restored rulers, and the Prince of Canosa, the new Minister of Police, thought to counteract the evil done by his predecessor by setting up an abominable secret society called the Calderai del Contrapeso (Braziers of the Counterpoise), principally recruited from the refuse of the people, lazzaroni, bandits and let-out convicts, who were provided by Government with 20,000 muskets, and were sworn to exterminate all enemies of the Church of Rome, whether Jansenists, Freemasons ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... her, in the growing fear and jealousy of Thebes, thereby showing that the animosities of the Grecian States grew out of political jealousy rather than from revenge or injury. To rescue Sparta was a wise policy, if it were necessary to maintain a counterpoise against the ascendency of Thebes. An army was raised, and Iphicrates was appointed general. He first marched to Corinth, and from thence into Arcadia, but made war with ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... I have stolen an hour From holy prayer, for which may I be pardon'd, To weigh the merits of a mother's virtue Against the errors of an impious son; To put in counterpoise the deep disgrace, The insult offer'd to our brotherhood, With the atonement you ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... to frame a legislative power as a counterpoise to this executive power, so concentrated and so strong.—In organized and tolerably sound communities this point is reached through an elective parliament which represents the public will; it represents this because it is a copy, a faithful reduction of that will on a small scale; it ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... other gives fuel for the fire of hope. On the one hand, the exhortation, 'Fear not,' which is the most futile that can be spoken if the speaker does not touch the cause of the fear, comes from His lips with a gracious power. Faith is the one counterpoise of fear. There is none other for the deepest dreads that lie cold and paralysing, though often dormant, in every human spirit; and that ought to lie there. If a man has not faith in God, in Christ, he ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... if it was fair weather she went to them. But Madeline, without saying a word to any one, had adopted a plan of going out exactly at the same hour with exactly the same object, in all sorts of weather. All this made Lady Staveley uneasy; and then, by way of counterpoise, she talked of balls, and offered Madeline carte blanche as to a new dress for that special one which would grace the assizes. "I don't think I shall go," said Madeline; and thus Lady Staveley became really unhappy. Would not Felix ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... possibility had quickly been magnified to a certainty of such a largesse, and the multitude were thus stimulated to furious exertions to win the most favourable spot for gathering up such a golden rain as even little Prince Henry's counterpoise would afford; and ever as time waxed later, the throng grew denser and more unruly, and the struggle ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the opinion that any such air must be specifically heavier than ordinary air, both on account of its containing phlogiston and also of its greater condensation. But how perplexed was I when I saw that a very thin flask which was filled with this air, and most accurately weighed, not only did not counterpoise an equal quantity of ordinary air, but was even somewhat lighter. I then thought that the latter view might be admissible; but in that case it would necessarily follow also that the lost air could be separated again from the ...
— Discovery of Oxygen, Part 2 • Carl Wilhelm Scheele

... seemed to the writer that the picture of the world during the Roman period, commonly put before students in "Histories of Rome," was defective, not to say false, in its omission to recognize the real position of Parthia during the three most interesting centuries of that period, as a counterpoise to the power of Rome, a second figure in the picture not much inferior to the first, a rival state dividing with Rome the attention of mankind and the sovereignty of the known earth. Writers of Roman history have been too much in ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... conceived that she must die if neglected for three days. As to the matter of business, I have no doubt but that he was of great use. He was possessed of common sense and an honest purpose; and I am inclined to think that they are often a sufficient counterpoise to a considerable amount of worldly experience. If one could have the worldly experience also—! True! but then it is so difficult to get everything. But with that special matter of business we need not have any further concern. We will presume it to have been ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... cancel the preponderance of Russia in the Black Sea. No fewer than seven different plans were simultaneously or in turn propounded. They were every one of them admitted to be dubious, inefficient, and imperfect. I will spare the reader the mysteries of limitation, of counterpoise, of counterpoise and limitation mixed. Russia preferred counterpoise, the allies were for limitation. Was this preference between two degrees of the imperfect, the deficient, and the ineffective a good ground for prolonging a war that was costing the allies ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... country people weeping and praying for him who, as they supposed, was then being executed on a public square, among a crowd of persons come from all parts to swell the shame of such a death,—this feeble counterpoise of prayer and pity, opposed to the ferocious curiosity and just maledictions of a multitude, was enough to move any soul, especially when seen in that poor church. The Abbe Gabriel was tempted to go up to the ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... its greatest triumphs to Christianity. From the beginning, the Christian religion has assimilated and employed human learning, and has become a great formative force in modern intellectual movements. It favors a broad catholic spirit, and is the counterpoise and remedy of a narrow range of intellectual activity. History teaches that it has been a strong incentive in the search after truth, and the chief factor in training the race to a higher civilized ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker

... done without ruinous disadvantage, then the advantage of the negative must be considered as exhausted, and then comes forward unchanged the effort for the destruction of the enemy's force, which was kept back by a counterpoise, ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... consumer; the capitalist cannot exist without supporting the labourer; the borrower and lender are knit by the closest ties of mutual advantage; and so with all the ranks and divisions of mankind, social, political, economic, or what you will. Balanced, one against the other, in delicate counterpoise, in subtlest interaction of part with part, they sweep on in one majestic system, an equilibrium for ever disturbed, yet ever recovering itself anew, created, it is true, and maintained by countless individual impulses, yet summing up and reflecting ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson

... this high dignity of man, thus bringing the dust under his feet into sensible communion with the thoughts and affections of the angels, was supposed to belong to him, not as renewed by a religious system, but by his own natural right. The proclamation of it was a counterpoise to the increasing tendency of medieval religion to depreciate man's nature, to sacrifice this or that element in it, to make it ashamed of itself, to keep the degrading or painful accidents of it always in view. It helped man onward to that reassertion of himself, that rehabilitation ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater

... the unfortunate prisoner would have fallen ill but for the counterpoise which Providence had granted to his grief, ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... not much danger from them, being a body dispersed. They may sometimes discourse high, but that doth little hurt; besides, they are a counterpoise to the higher nobility, that they grow not too potent; and, lastly, being the most immediate in authority, with the common people, they ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... neutralization, nullification; counteraction &c 179; reaction; measure for measure, retaliation, &c 718 equalization; &c 27; robbing Peter to pay Paul. set-off, offset; make-weight, casting-weight; counterpoise, ballast; indemnity, equivalent, quid pro quo; bribe, hush money; amends &c (atonement) 952; counterbalance, counterclaim; cross-debt, cross- demand. V. make compensation; compensate, compense^; indemnify; counteract, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... the only person who noticed the omission. Soames had failed so piteously as all that! Nor is there a counterpoise in the thought that if he had had some measure of success he might have passed, like those others, out of my mind, to return only at the historian's beck. It is true that had his gifts, such as they were, been acknowledged in his lifetime, he would ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm

... easiness of his temper, which was agreeable to every one, they advanced Cimon to the highest employments in the government. The man that contributed most to his promotion was Aristides, who early discerned in his character his natural capacity, and purposely raised him, that he might be a counterpoise to the craft and boldness of Themistocles. After the Medes had been driven out of Greece, Cimon was sent out as admiral, when the Athenians had not yet attained their dominion by sea, but still followed Pausanias and the Lacedaemonians; and his ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... together as old iron, had once belonged to doors of rooms or strong chests in lawyers' offices. The litter of rags tumbled partly into and partly out of a one-legged wooden scale, hanging without any counterpoise from a beam, might have been counsellors' bands and gowns torn up. One had only to fancy, as Richard whispered to Ada and me while we all stood looking in, that yonder bones in a corner, piled together and ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... speak, as well as a nice equivalence in weight between passenger and driver difficult to always realize, its use is not likely to supersede that of wheeled vehicles. To take a ride en cacolet, one might have a long hunt before finding a driver who should be his proper counterpoise; and it would be often inconvenient, not to say impracticable, thus to have to order one's ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... most recent meeting of the City Council. Then, in addition, the Mayor had been mightily impressed by the personnel of that committee—chiefly old men, to be sure, but men of immense dignity and considerable weight in local finance; and also, for a counterpoise, there was Miss Starkweather. He hadn't liked the way Miss Starkweather looked at him. She had looked at him with the same rigid intensity with which his wife looked at a fly ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall

... diminished. In solitude our feelings have unrestricted play; and a man preoccupied like David, with all-absorbing thoughts, will give way to impulses for which ordinary life would have provided a sufficient counterpoise. As he read Lucien's letter to the sound of military music, and heard of this unlooked-for recognition, he was deeply touched by that expression of regret. He had known how it would be. A very slight expression of feeling appeals irresistibly to a sensitive soul, for they ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... should it have such an effect at all?" he went on. "The grandeur of the situation ought to counterpoise any such weakness. Given enough to support life without undue stinting, with a certainty of rescue at the end, and, I think, a fortnight as castaway in these waveless seas would be an uncommonly ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. The purpose you undertake is dangerous; the friends you have named uncertain; the time itself unsorted; and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.— Say you so, say you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... had already begun with his own work, and those who received him in faith became sensible of this beginning; for the "apocalyptical" was not merely the unveiling of the future, but above all the revelation of God as the Father, and the "eschatological" received its counterpoise in the view of Jesus' work as Saviour, in the assurance of being certainly called to the kingdom, and in the conviction that life and future dominion is hid with God the Lord and preserved for believers by him. Consequently, we are following not only the indications of the succeeding ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... ropes were attached, by each end of a so-called brace-fastening, two little bronze pulleys which supported an iron upright fixed into a level platform, on which stood two angels fastened by their girdles. These angels were kept upright by a counterpoise of lead which they had under their feet, and by another that was under the platform on which they stood; and this also served to make them balanced one with another. The whole was covered with a quantity ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari

... the west of it; and there were several critical points of connection along this line. St Joseph's Island, commanding the straits between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, was a vital point of contact with all the Indians to the west. It was the British counterpoise to the American post at Michilimackinac, which commanded the straits between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. Detroit commanded the waterway between Lake Huron and Lake Erie; while the command of the Niagara peninsula ensured the ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood

... theft and robbery of every kind, especially of the property of the Church. He bestowed freedom on slaves after six years of service. Some think he instituted trial by jury. Like Theodosius and Charlemagne, he gave peculiar privileges to the clergy as a counterpoise to the lawlessness ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... some disadvantages in counterpoise. After the gay life of Vienna, Eisenstadt must have been dull enough, and there is plenty of evidence to show that the young artist occasionally fell into the dumps. In one letter he complains that he "never can obtain leave, even ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden



Words linked to "Counterpoise" :   weight, tare, oppose, sash weight



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