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Current

adjective
1.
Occurring in or belonging to the present time.  "The current topic" , "Current negotiations" , "Current psychoanalytic theories" , "The ship's current position"



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"Current" Quotes from Famous Books



... and movable the partitions between attraction and disgust, every person is aware of certain standards of behavior, derived either from the strain of personal relationship or by imitation of current modes of behavior. The girl of the unclothed races who takes in sitting a modest attitude is acting on the result of experience. She may have been often annoyed by the attentions of men at periods when ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... pursued the windings of the stream, and contemplated the rural scenery, which appeared on every side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost the remembrance of the sea: and his fancy painted those celebrated straits, with all the attributes of a mighty river flowing with a swift current, in the midst of a woody and inland country, and at length, through a wide mouth, discharging itself ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... massacre," General Sibley pursued our people across this river. Now the Missouri is considered one of the most treacherous rivers in the world. Even a good modern boat is not safe upon its uncertain current. We were forced to cross in buffalo-skin boats—as round ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... bewildering perception that he could have done so much better—that the loftiest High-Churchism of all might have been consistent enough with Skelmersdale, had he but gone into the heart of the matter—gave a bitterness to the deeper, unseen current ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... In England the current of public feeling was somewhat weakened by the drifts and eddies of party politics. Many of the Whigs made a popular hero of Napoleon, some from a desire to overthrow the Liverpool Ministry that proscribed him; others because they believed, or tried to believe, that the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... my thoughts went on in the same current. "Tame, dull, and commonplace!" I felt the condemnation more strongly ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur

... that the colour of the doleful verse was enhanced, the mood expanded; perhaps the Hebraic strain in the composer's blood has endowed him with the gift of expressing sorrow and desolation and the abomination of living. How far are we here from the current notion that music is a consoler, is joy-breeding, or should, according to the Aristotelian formula, purge the soul through pity and terror. I felt the terror, but pity was absent. Blood-red clouds swept over vague horizons. It was a new land through ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... a current belief—especially on the part of many of Sir Charles's own political friends—that Germany was eagerly watching for an opportunity to seize the German provinces of Austria, and that Austria was eagerly watching for an opportunity 'to go to Salonica,' as the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... the next morning the watch saw a sail; it was the Valkyria, a Danish corvette, sailing towards the Forward, bound to Newfoundland. The current from the strait became perceptible, and Shandon had to set more sail ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... dwelling house, except in particular cases when absolutely necessary. In such cases the pipe should be of cast iron, and the length of drain laid under the house should be laid perfectly straight—a means of access should be provided at each end; it should have a free air current passing through it from end to end, and a flush tank should be placed at the upper end. 5. Every house drain should be arranged so as to be flushed, and kept at all times free from deposit. 6. Every ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various

... know all we can about matters concerning which we must speak or act, and, on the other hand, to refrain from voluntarily speaking or acting in matters of which we are ignorant. Thus our social relations and our daily intercourse may render it incumbent on us to obtain for current use a large amount of accurate knowledge which is not worth our remembering. Then a man's profession, stated business, or usual occupation opens a large field of knowledge, with which and with its allied provinces it is his manifest duty ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... considerations which the moralist ought to apply to the solution of the complex difficulties of life and action. And still, in spite of these obvious facts, ethical investigation, or any approach to an independent review of the current morality, is always unpopular with the great mass of mankind. Though the conduct of their own lives is the subject which most concerns men, it is that in which they are least patient of speculation. Nothing is so wounding to the self-complacency of a man of indolent habits of mind ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler

... channel never quite literally dry, and for certain purposes a continuous chronicle of its current is desirable, it is only in rare reaches, wherein it meets formidable obstacles to progress, that it becomes grand and impressive; and even in such cases the interest deepens immeasurably, when some master-spirit arises to direct its energies. The period of Frederick the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various

... of course great. It is sold by weight, gold being about 20s. per oz., and silver, 10s. per oz. In addition to its superiority in wear, it has this advantage, that old gold or silver thread is always of intrinsic value, and may be sold at the current price of the metal whatever state it may be in. Many varieties of gilt thread are manufactured in France and England, which may be used when the great expense of "real gold" is objected to. But although it looks equally well at first, it ...
— Handbook of Embroidery • L. Higgin

... slowly round; large quantities of pigs, the generality of them brindled, were either browsing on the banks or lying close to the sides half immersed in the water; one immense white hog, the monarch seemingly of the herd, was standing in the middle of the current. Such was the scene which I saw from the bridge, a scene of quiet rural life well suited to the brushes of two or three of the old Dutch painters, or to those of men scarcely inferior to them in their own ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow

... is evident that there is something transcendental, and the Platonizing Christians, following the habit of the Greek philosophers, considered it as a mysterious doctrine; they spoke of it as "meat for strong men," but the popular current doctrine was "milk for babes." Justin Martyr, A.D. 132, who had been a Platonic philosopher, believed that the divine ray, after it was attached to Christ, was never withdrawn from him, and never separated from its source. He ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... had been secreted, and Sambo having hastily launched it, they made directly for the opposite shore, unharmed by some fifteen or twenty shots that were fired at them by the guard, and drifting down with the current, reached, about an hour before dawn, the battery ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... to oppose, is carried out much further, and with less abruptness than the other." In some cases, the less inclination of a certain part of the external slope, for instance of the northern extremities of the two Keeling atolls, is caused by a prevailing current which there accumulates a bed of sand. Where the water is perfectly tranquil, as within a lagoon, the reefs generally grow up perpendicularly, and sometimes even overhang their bases; on the other hand, on the leeward side of Mauritius, where the water is generally ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin

... tendencies towards the real religion of England, the united worship of Success and Respectability, were encouraged to the utmost. But she noticed at times with a shy shrinking that some few of the girls had heard vague rumors about her mother as a most equivocal person, who didn't accept all the current superstitions, and were curious to ask her questions as to her family and antecedents. Crimson with shame, Dolly parried such enquiries as best she could; but she longed all the more herself to pierce this dim mystery. Was it a runaway match?—with the groom, perhaps, ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... he had patronized and protected indeed. But what contributed more than all to his success was his direct, equable manner with everyone, which very quickly made the majority of the noblemen reverse the current opinion of his supposed haughtiness. He was himself conscious that, except that whimsical gentleman married to Kitty Shtcherbatskaya, who had a propos de bottes poured out a stream of irrelevant absurdities with such spiteful fury, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... THE BEGINNING.—China is the seat of a very old civilization, older perhaps than that of any other land save Egypt; yet Chinese affairs have not until recently exerted any appreciable influence upon the general current of history. All through ancient and mediaeval times the country lay, vague and mysterious, in the haze of the world's horizon. During the Middle Ages the land was known to Europe under the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... is treated with a current of chlorine gas, which decomposes these salts, setting the bromine free, which at once colors the liquid to a reddish brown color. Ether is added and shaken with the liquid, until all the bromine is taken up by the ether, which acquires a fine red color and separates ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey

... moulding that character into a shape of good or evil; and, however unconscious we may be of the fact, a thought, casually conceived in the solitariness and silence and darkness of midnight, may so modify and change the current of our future conduct that a blessing or a curse to millions may ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... exceedingly beautiful like a new bride. Dhananjaya then caused a fierce and terrible river full of fearful objects and enhancing the fear of the timid, to flow resembling the Vaitarani itself. The marrow and fat (of men and animals) formed its mire. Blood formed its current. Full of limbs and bones, it was fathomless in depth. The hairs of creatures formed its moss and weeds. Heads and arms formed the stones on its shores. It was decked with standards and banners that variegated its aspect. Umbrellas and bows formed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... had carried Claire the last morning of their long march. Protected by its pines, the little house fronted on a small lake, a place where the river which they had followed widened to a half-mile, and stayed thus with scarcely any current save directly through the center. All around the lake the forest stretched its massed green, and here Philip trapped. The lake, in its turn, ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades

... it is true our heroes and heroines in fiction no longer fall in love at first sight, Nature, you must remember, is too busily employed with other matters to have much time to profit by current literature. Then, too, she is not especially anxious to be realistic. She prefers to jog along in the old rut, contentedly turning out chromolithographic sunrises such as they give away at the tea stores, contentedly staging the most violent and improbable melodramas; and—sturdy ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... automobile, and if we went to a window giving on to the court, we might see the astonishing vehicle make its start. It was as thrilling as the first near view of an aeroplane, and all-excitement we watched the two Frenchmen getting ready for the drive. Their elaborate preparation to face the current of air to be encountered en route was not unlike the preparation to-day for flying. It was Spring—June, at that—but those Frenchmen wearing very English tweeds and smoking English pipes, each drew on extra cloth trousers and coats and over these a complete outfit of leather! We saw them get ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank

... Remember that stoves are made with a damper, in order to control the current of hot air. If the oven damper is closed this heated air must pass over and around the oven before it gets to the chimney and so heat the oven. If it is open the hot air can ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... something, as if to herself, but the squire might have heard it if he had chosen. As it was, he wisely turned the current of the conversation. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... German words in a much wider sense than what they usually convey, and thus leave the door open to countless misunderstandings and idle controversies. It would, indeed, even amount to an error of fact to give to the wider concept the name already current in the narrower sense—nay, actually limited, like 'Erinnerungsbild,' to phenomena of consciousness. . . . In Animals, during the course of history, one set of organs has, so to speak, specialised itself for the reception and transmission of stimuli—the Nervous System. But from this specialisation ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... happiness, on the threshold of the new life which opened before her, she forgot all to think only of the reality, of the hero whose wife she was to be. His wife! So, as in a dream, without thinking, without resisting, abandoning herself to the current which bore her along, not trying to take account of time or of the future, loving, and beloved, living in a sort of charmed somnambulism, the Tzigana watched the preparations for ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Richelieu disregarded the Estates-General. He was convinced of its futility and unhesitatingly declined to consult it. Gradually the idea became current that the Estates-General was an out- worn, medieval institution, totally unfit for modern purposes, and that official business could best—and therefore properly—be conducted, not by the representatives of the chief social classes in the nation, but by personal appointees of the king. Thus ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... and struck Hans violently on the head. Then as he fell back senseless into the water, Fritz snatched the flask from off the belt to which it was attached, and Franz thrust with his foot Hans's body farther into the river, so that the current should carry it away, and, laughing at their own cleverness, the two ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... have of her. The lover of real poetry regards this romanticist's terrible drama of Lucretia Borgia as a grotesque manifestation of the art, while the historian laughs at it; the poet, however, may excuse himself on the ground of his ignorance, and of his belief in a myth which had been current since the publication ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... themselves no concern about man or his affairs. By such derisive promptings does Epicurus mock at the religion of his country—its rituals, sacrifices, prayers, and observances. He offers no better evidence of the existence of God than that there is a general belief current among men in support of such a notion; but, when brought to the point, he does not hesitate to utter his disbelief in the national theology, and to declare that, in his judgment, it is blind chance ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... intensity, as we three sat together with our newly-engraved sheepskins on our knees, "for these two years while you have been growing and developing along all your natural lines in a country which was not your own, in a little pool I should call it, out of even sight and sound of the current of events, we have been here in your own land engaged in the great work of the organization and reorganization which is molding the destinies of the women of our times, and those that come after us. That is what I want to talk to you about, and devoutly ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... fortune from the Vidarbha lake and covered with mire in the process. And oppressed with grief on account of her husband, and melancholy, she looketh like the night of the full moon when Rahu hath swallowed that luminary, or like a stream whose current hath dried up. Her plight is very much like that of a ravaged lake with the leaves of its lotuses crushed by the trunks of elephants, and with its birds and fowls affrighted by the invasion. Indeed, this girl, of a delicate frame ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... was certainly dangerous to her, something in him that excited her, that lifted her into an unusual vitality. She did not quite know what it was. But she felt it definitely. When she was with him alone she seemed to be in an adventure through which a current of definite danger was flowing. No other man had ever brought a sensation like that into her life, although she had met many types of men in Paris, had known well talented men of acknowledged bad character, reckless of the convenances, men who snapped their fingers at all the prejudices of the ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... to be dissembled that this triumph of the Papacy is to be chiefly attributed, not to the force of arms, but to a great reflux in public opinion. During the first half century after the commencement of the Reformation, the current of feeling, in the countries on this side of the Alps and of the Pyrenees, ran impetuously towards the new doctrines. Then the tide turned, and rushed as fiercely in the opposite direction. Neither during ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... The Rover goes to the landing-place and scans the gulf that yawns between him and his vessel. Two hundred yards at least must be covered before the Rover can bound on to the deck of his taut craft. Two hundred yards! And there is a current that might almost sweep a tea-chest out to sea! But the Rover's steady eye takes in the whole view, and his very nautical mind enables him to lay plans with wisdom. He looks sternly at his gig ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... had he ventured so deeply into the Pit. Never before had he committed himself so irrevocably to the send of the current. But something was preparing. Something indefinite and huge. He guessed it, felt it, knew it. On all sides of him he felt a quickening movement. Lethargy, inertia were breaking up. There was buoyancy to the current. In its ever-increasing swiftness there was exhilaration ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... for the first sign of movement upon the surface of the flood. Would he never come up? The slope up which the horses had scrambled steepened into a perpendicular cut-bank at no great distance below, and if the current bore the two men past that point the girl knew instinctively that rescue would be impossible and they would be swept into the vortex ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... examine. In 1901, he adapted, from the French, "Sapho"—to the production of which was attached some unpleasant notoriety—and "The Marriage Game." And of these he wrote (in Harper's Weekly), in response to current ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch

... then the growing current of my power Must fall again into the stately stream Of his great purpose. But a moment past I stood upon ambition's height, and now My brother comes to break my greatness up, And merge it in his own. I know his thoughts— That I am but a helper to his ends; And, were there not a whirlpool ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair

... in an artistic sense it is not necessary to think that the world is good. It is enough to believe that there is no impossibility of its being made so. If the flight of imaginative thought may be allowed to rise superior to many moralities current amongst mankind, a novelist who would think himself of a superior essence to other men would miss the first condition of his calling. To have the gift of words is no such great matter. A man furnished with a long-range weapon does not become a hunter or a warrior by the mere possession of a ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... solid weeks, and judging from the look of the sky and the thick haze hanging over Ponape I think we can safely count on this one lasting for three days at the very least. But even if it runs into a week or ten days there is one good thing about calms here—the current sets north-east at a great rate, two knots ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke

... Feasting Camp. Last evening the sky was clouded about nine P.M., and a shower came down from the north. At ten o'clock it became so dark that we camped on the bank of the creek, in which was a nice current of clear water. To-day we halted, intending to try a night journey. The packs we overhauled and left nearly 60 pounds weight of things behind. They were all suspended in a pack from the branches of a shrub close to the creek. We started at a quarter ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills

... crying down by the river and then, as he paused to listen, heard it no more. He jumped from the bridge without stopping to set down his lantern, knowing well the swiftness of the water, and caught the poor cowardly thing as she came, struggling and gasping, down with the current. He took her home and gave her dry clothes of his mother's. Then leaving the scared and repentant child by his hearth, he set out on foot for the minister's house and dragged him back ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... we turn again to the ideas now prevailing as they betray themselves in the lives of the people and the words that fall from their lips. Carefully studying earlier history, we ask ourselves wherein the new ideas differ from the ideas current in India a century ago. Then as progress appears, or is absent, the forces at work stand approved or condemned. The exact historical comparison we may claim to be a special ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... and the beginning of June in this country, in other countries they are sometimes more astonishingly numerous. In some parts of Holland, Switzerland, and France, their great numbers have been compared to pelting flakes of snow. "The myriads of Ephemerae which filled the air," says Reaumur, "over the current of the river and over the bank on which I stood, are neither to be expressed nor conceived. When the snow falls, with the largest flakes and with the least interval between them, the air is not so ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton

... was the more appreciable because it was comprehensible to the minds that sprang from it; there were mysteries in it, but mysteries that enticed rather than baffled, for they unfolded new glories with every discovery that man could make; even inanimate objects, the fossil, the electric current, the far-off stars, these were dust thrown off by the Spirit of the World—fragrant with His Presence and eloquent of His Nature. For example, the announcement made by Klein, the astronomer, twenty years before, that the inhabitation of certain ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... mind. Believe me, I should not have cared to devour even ardent praise if it had not come from one who showed the discriminating sensibility, the perfect response to the artist's intention, which must make the fullest, rarest joy to one who works from inward conviction and not in compliance with current fashions. Such a response holds for an author not only what is best in "the life that now is," but the promise of "that which is to come." I mean that the usual approximative, narrow perception of what one has been intending and professedly feeling in one's work, impresses one ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... controlled by government can have nothing very vital about it. Hebrew music was utterly annihilated by laws, and the poetic imagination thus pent up found its vent in poetry, the result being some of the most wonderful works the world has ever known. In Egypt, this current of inspiration from the very beginning was turned toward architecture. In Greece, music became a mere stage accessory or a subject for the dissecting table of mathematics; in China, we have the dead level of an obstinate adherence ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... went full speed, but not towards the plain where they were accustomed to go for their runs. Now they fled in the opposite direction down to the river: into it they went, into that wide, deep, dangerous current, leaping from the bank, each horse, as he fell into the water with a tremendous splash, disappearing from sight; but in another moment the head and upper part of the neck was seen to rise above the surface, until the whole lot ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.

... him some deep thought, and at length he arrived at the conclusion that there must be a current which crosses the Arctic Ocean and carries this material from Asia ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 56, December 2, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... silence the uncertain progress of their island. When sometimes the border of osiers and reeds which surrounded the island trembled in the breeze which proceeded from one of the banks, it seemed then to be driven towards the opposite side. Sometimes it went straight along with the current, but in any event, the efforts of those who were on it could do nothing to direct it. Luckily the fog was so thick that the very trees which bordered the river ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... They don't adopt any disinfectants; indeed, they don't appear to know their use. The patients all lie with their backs to the light, and there is a space five feet wide between the beds and the windows. All the windows were open both at the top and bottom, so as to create a complete current of air, and the airiness and freedom from smells and closeness were quite remarkable, considering the state in which the wounds are, which is worse than I dare attempt to describe. The hospital is conducted on strictly "temperance principles," i.e., no alcoholic stimulants ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... under such conditions, makes up his mind that he is going to hold her down, either he does hold her down, or chance trips him up. There is no legitimate way, short of murder, whereby the train-crew can ditch him. That train-crews have not stopped short of murder is a current belief in the tramp world. Not having had that particular experience in my tramp days I cannot ...
— The Road • Jack London

... warm silence about me. There was no sound but the high, sing-song buzz of wild bees and the sunny gurgle of the water underneath. I peeped over the edge of the bank to see the little stream that made the noise; it flowed along perfectly clear over the sand and gravel, cut off from the muddy main current by a long sandbar. Down there, on the lower shelf of the bank, I saw Antonia, seated alone under the pagoda-like elders. She looked up when she heard me, and smiled, but I saw that she had been crying. I slid ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... a gradual descent, and very rugged, leading along the bases of barren rocks, till we debouched upon the river Elbon, as it is termed by the natives, but the Helmund or Etymander of the ancients. Even here, where the stream was in its infancy, the current was so strong, that while we were fording it, one of our baggage ponies laden with a tent was carried away by its violence, and, but for the gallant exertions of our tent-pitcher, we should have had ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... good-humoured: "I like women. It's curious that they know it instinctively, because when they're bored or lonely they drift toward me.... Lonely women are always adrift, Geraldine. There seems to be some current that sets in toward me; it catches them and they drift in, linger, and drift on. I seem to be the first port they anchor in.... Then a day comes when they are gone—drifting on at hazard through ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... thunder-wings the mist-banks driving, Its lightning-talons cloud-walls riving, Till sunlight spreads o'er land and ocean. You are the freshening shower clean Upon our sluggish day's routine. You are the salt sea-current poured Into each close and sultry fjord. Your speech a mine-shaft is, deep-going To where the veins of ore are showing. And by your flashing eyes far-sighted The past is for our future lighted. So long as Sverre's sword you wield, So long as ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... immediately to prepare in my mind a method of discoursing. And anon we were called in to the Green Room, where the King, Duke of York, Prince Rupert, Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, Duke of Albemarle, Sirs G. Carteret, W. Coventry, Morrice. Nobody beginning, I did, and made a current, and I thought a good speech, laying open the ill state of the Navy: by the greatness of the debt; greatness of the work to do against next year; the time and materials it would take; and our incapacity, through a total want of money. I had no sooner done, but Prince Rupert rose up and told ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... comprehensible as one could possibly desire." In his talk at Asolo "he seemed purposely to avoid deep and serious topics. If such were broached in his presence he dismissed them with one strong, convincing sentence, and adroitly turned the current of ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... strong before him with the vigilant expression native to his face; a fit helmsman to guide the boat along that rapid stream. Mark seemed pausing to watch the oars silvered by the light, and their reflections wavy with the current. Moor, seen in shadow, leaned upon his hand, as if watching Sylvia, a quiet figure, full of grace and color, couched under the green arch. On either hand the summer woods made vernal gloom, behind the ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... man's life and property safe from the tyranny of rulers. A great river is not judged by the foam on its surface, and certain austere laws and doctrines which we have ridiculed are but froth on the surface of the mighty Puritan current that has flowed steadily, like a river of life, through English and American history since ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... was about to give the order to turn when Harry said, suddenly, "There is a current, sir. I have had my eye upon that root, and we have drifted backwards a couple of feet since we lost way, so there must be a stretch of ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... indescribable sweetness, but very subtle and penetrating, spread itself insensibly through the little room in which Djalma was. It might be, that the orifice of a tube, passing through one of the doors of the room, introduced this balmy current. At the height of angry and terrible thoughts, Djalma paid no attention to this odor—but soon the arteries of his temples began to beat violently, a burning heat seemed to circulate rapidly through ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... WOMEN.—A copy of the current issue nailed to your front door insures you absolutely ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various

... constituting a group, which Captain Cook called Shepherd's isles, in honour of his learned and valuable friend, Dr. Shepherd, Plumian professor of Astronomy at Cambridge. The ship was this day in some danger. It suddenly fell calm, and our voyagers were left to the mercy of the current, close by the isles, where no sounding could be found with a line of a hundred and eighty fathoms. The lands or islands, which lay around the vessel in every direction, were so numerous, that they could not be counted. At this crisis a breeze sprung up, which happily relieved ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... by a considerable stream of water. During the dry season it ran gently and silently along, but in the season of rain it would suddenly change into an impetuous torrent that inundated the whole plain, bearing huge rocks along in its current, and every ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... We went into Committee on the India Bill at twelve this morning, sate till three, and are just set at liberty for two hours. At five we recommence, and shall be at work till midnight. In the interval between three and five I have to despatch the current business of the office, which, at present, is fortunately not heavy; to eat my dinner, which I shall do at Grant's; and to write a short ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... make bashful confidences of their successes, and receive delicious chidings for their naughtiness—rebukes which give immeasurable rebounds. Then came Mr. Gordon Graine, with his daughter, Miss Jenny Graine, an early friend of Rose's, and numerous others. For the present, Miss Isabella Current need only be chronicled among the visitors—a sprightly maid fifty years old, without a wrinkle to show for it—the Aunt Bel of fifty houses where there were young women and little boys. Aunt Bel had quick wit and capital anecdotes, and tripped ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... still misty, but not cold. Across the Rhine the sun came wading through the reddish vapors; and soft and silver-white outspread the broad river, without a ripple upon its surface, or visible motion of the ever-moving current. A little vessel, with one loose sail, was riding at anchor, keel to keel with another, that lay right under it, its own apparition,—and all was ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... strangest rumors were current about these two buildings. They were said to be haunted by guests invisible by day, terrifying at night. The woodsmen and the belated peasants, who went to the forest to exercise against the Republic the rights which the town of Bourg had enjoyed in ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... The current of this lecture was never interrupted by a single observation from Ned, who usually employed himself in silently playing with "Bunty;" a little black cur, without a tail, and a great favorite with Nancy; or, if he noticed anything out of its place in the house, he would arrange it with great apparent ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... was current in camp, and the story has often been repeated, that Hodson was killed in the act of looting. This certainly was not the case. Hodson was sitting with Donald Stewart in the Head-Quarters camp, when the signal-gun announced that the attack on the Begum ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... work. The feeling for liberty was constantly with her, as was to be seen from Casa Guidi Windows and Poems before Congress. About 1855, when she was on a visit to England, through the work of Daniel D. Home, a notorious American exponent of spiritualism, Mrs. Browning became interested in the current fad, and gave to it vastly more serious attention than most other initiates. Browning himself, while patient, was intolerably irritated with those whom he regarded as imposing on his wife's credulity, and delivered himself ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... since the year 299 B.C. The character in which they were written, upon slips of bamboo, had already become so obsolete that the sustained work of antiquarians was absolutely necessary in order to reduce it to the current script of the day; or, in other words, of to-day. Another interesting fact is, that whilst the Chou dynasty, and consequently Confucius of Lu (which state was intimately connected by blood with the Chou family), had ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... "if there had been no gold in South Africa there would have been no war." They spoke as men who repeated a lesson; yet I am bound to say that they spoke with sincerity, and although they seemed to speak parrot-wise, they probably accepted current forms of speech as giving the best expression to ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young

... going through between them; but the channels being narrow, and seeing broken water in the one we were steering for, I gave up the design, and bore up, in order to go without, or to the south of them. Before this could be accomplished, it fell calm, and we were left to the mercy of the current, close to the isles, where we could find no soundings with a line of an hundred and eighty fathoms. We had now land or islands in every direction, and were not able to count the number which lay round ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook

... on the bridge, the dance-music troubled the current of his thoughts, rising to the surface of his mind, though he heard it without listening, like the teasing bubbles of a spring through deep water. Though he tried, he could not fully analyze his own feelings; yet he was sharply conscious of those two conflicting sides ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... short round upon those whom he meant before to support, and declared that the resolutions moved as an amendment by Mr. Trip, and seconded by Mr. Hunt, had his full concurrence. Sir John saw which was the strongest side, and which way the current of popular opinion was rolling, and therefore he was determined to come in for his share of merit, by joining in the cry and running with the stream. Upon a shew of hands our amendment was carried by a majority ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... streams usually results from dropping a little water a long way. In the mountains water is dropped many hundreds of feet upon the turbines which move the dynamos that produce the electric current. Water power on navigable streams is usually produced by dropping immense volumes of water a short distance, as twenty feet, fifteen feet, or even less. Every stream is a unit from its source to its mouth, and the ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot

... times the nervous impulse has been regarded as a current of electricity; as a progressive chemical change, likened to that in a burning fuse; as a mechanical vibration, such as may be passed over a stretched rope; and as a molecular disturbance accompanied by ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... would cover an experimental quantitative treatment of the electric current, it would glance in an explanatory way at many of the phenomena of physical geography, and it would be correlated with a study of the general principles of chemistry. A detailed knowledge of chemical compounds ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... But just as her boat would near the other, a chance current or a puff of wind would take the canoe just out of her reach. Paddling now with one oar she came very near the unsteady little craft, so near that Gladys suddenly decided to jump ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells

... enemies of the El Hassan movement would have had us in their palms. Our followers in Mopti can take care of themselves. If this movement is ever going to be worth anything, the local characters are going to have to get into the act. The current big thing is not to allow El Hassan and his immediate troupe to be eliminated before full activities can get under way. For the present, we're hiding out until we can gather forces enough ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... impossible," said the old man doggedly, and still holding on to his course; "we should only upset the boat and drown you all. We could never push her through the current on the other side, could ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... witch never imagined the roast that was to be made of her, and puts in, by way of parenthesis, "was not that fine fun!—was das war fuer ein Spiel!" As feathers thrown into the air shew how the wind blows, so this trumpery ballad serves to shew the current of popular feeling at the time of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... Blue Ridge, rising high above the Valley, changed imperceptibly to a mighty wall of rock and forest. As the night came down a long reach of the Shenandoah crossed the road. The ford was waist-deep, but the tall Virginians, plunging without hesitation into the strong current, gained the opposite shore with little loss of time. The guns and waggons followed in long succession through the darkling waters, and still the heavy tramp of the toiling column passed eastward through the quiet fields. The Blue Ridge was crossed at ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... unwearied patience of observation, of striking fertility and ingenuity of method, of unflinching devotion to and belief in the efficacy of truth. He revolutionised not merely half-a-dozen sciences, but the whole current of thinking ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany

... a current or stream, which rises in some elevated land, and flows into the sea, another river, or lake, as the River Thames, the Medway, and ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley

... had heard. A waste-pipe, placed at a certain height in the bath, prevented it from overflowing. Vapour was rising from the water, but not sufficient to cause it to hang in drops on the marble. The slender jet of water was like a supple wand of steel, bending at the slightest current of air. There was no furniture, except a chair-bed with pillows, long enough for a woman to lie on at full length, and yet have room for a dog at her feet. The French, indeed, borrow their word canape from can-al-pie. This sofa was of Spanish manufacture. In it silver took the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... city of New-Orleans, duly commissioned and sworn, this day personally appeared Richard Raynal Keene, Esq., attorney and counsellor at law of this city, who delivered to me, the said notary, and requested the same to be annexed to the current records of my office, the following documents, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... In diverting the current of quickened religious feeling into political channels, the influence of Princeton College was a memorable one. Founded by Presbyterians less interested in creeds than in vital religion, and barring no person on "account of ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... Neutrals, so that the reproaches of desertion of duty were unjust. He pledged himself to support Addington; and from this only Addington could release him. He admitted that this was a mistake, now that current events showed Bonaparte's ambition to be insatiable; but none the less he waved aside Canning's reiterated appeals that he would apply to Addington for release from the pledge, on the ground that such a step would seem an intrigue for a return to power. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... fifth successor in spiritual inspiration from Kabir, or the sixth from Ramanand. Dadu preached the unity of God and protested against the animistic abuses which had grown up in Hinduism. "To this day," writes Mr. Coldstream, "the Dadupanthis use the words Sat Ram, the True God, as a current phrase expressive of their creed. Dadu forbade the worship of idols, and did not build temples; now temples are built by his followers, who say they worship in them the Dadubani or Sacred Book." This is what has been done by other sects such as the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... faith, if real, remain inactive in my seasons of pain, loss, or grief. I am bound so to ponder on my assured belief, and on such proofs of it as may lie in my past experience, that it shall give its hue to my condition, its tone to my thought, its direction to the whole current of my sentiment and feeling. Thus may endurance be not only calm, but cheerful, because pervaded by the conviction that at the heart of all that seems ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... clean and unrumpled. Cabbages had not yet been frost-bitten. Autumn had dressed up her children in the garments of beauty, preparatory to their funeral. There was a good crop of grain that year, and hogs were brisk, and cattle lively, and all "looking-up," in the language of the prices current. This was long before the time when Mr. M—— made his famous gammon speeches; but the people had a presentiment of what was coming, and to crown the eventful anticipations of the season, there was quite a freshet ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... and internal taxation will necessarily receive your attention. The revenues of the country are greater than the requirements, and may with safety be reduced. But as the funding of the debt in a 4 or a 4-1/2 per cent loan would reduce annual current expenses largely, thus, after funding, justifying a greater reduction of taxation than would be now expedient, I suggest postponement of this question until the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... sometimes, but the moisture in that baking atmosphere only added to its stifling and enervating effects. All the while, however, the great slow current of the Atlantic was moving westward, and there came a day when a heavenly breeze, stirred in the torrid air and the musical talk of ripples began to rise again from the weedy stems of the ships. They sailed due west, always into ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... admit of doubt. But the historical difficulties surrounding this document have never yet been satisfactorily explained, and the student of the Huguenot annals must still content himself with regarding it as a summary of reports current within the first two years of the reign of Charles the Ninth, respecting the secret designs of the Triumvirs, rather than as an ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... Wallace clung to the hope that his country was not doomed to perish—that its prince's recovery was only protracted. In the midst of this anxiety, Lennox entered; and relating what he had just heard, turned the whole current of the auditor's ideas. Wallace started from his seat. His hand mechanically caught up his sword, which lay upon the table. Lennox gazed at him with animated veneration. "There is not a man in the ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... distance in the interior. They pulled on more certain than before of finding the chase. However, after they had gone some distance, they arrived at a spot where the river formed two distinct branches, or, rather, it might be, where another broad stream joined the main current. Up which the schooner had proceeded ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... moment later to test our insulated shields. The bolt came again. It darted along the front face of the building, caught our window, and clung. The double window shelves were our weakest points. The sheet of flashing Erentz current was transparent; we could see through it as though it were glass. It moved faster, but was thinner at the windows than the walls. We feared the bombarding electrons might cross it, penetrate the inner shell and, like a lightning bolt, enter ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... piano, served as his pilot and propeller while the rest of us formed an escort which could be turned into a rescue party if occasion required. A stout, capacious rowboat followed immediately in the wake of the canoe. We went down the dark, placid current in the fine summer weather to the Battleground, and then looked into the solemn forest aisle which arches over the narrow Assabeth. The day was perfect, the flowers and birds were at their best, the pleasant nature was all about us. All this John Fiske drank ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... sufficient occupation in stemming the furious current of these contending parties, when, two days after his return to Hamilton, he was visited by his friend and colleague, the Reverend Mr Poundtext, flying, as he presently found, from the face of John Balfour of Burley, whom he left not a little incensed at the share he had taken ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... The current of her thought must have changed suddenly, for she raised her face with a bright expression upon it ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... that he may reap? The so-called agricultural ants gather what they have not sown, and reap what they have not planted. Man sows that he may gather; breeds that he may use; and accomplishes civilization by an ever-increasing mastery and adaptation of natural forces. An insect may float with the current on a chip; but what one ever put a chip into the water? A beaver may build a dam; but what beaver ever turned the heightened water on a wheel? The dog may lie in a sunny spot; but what dog ever created artificial heat or condensed by a lens the sun's heat on a particular ...
— The Things Which Remain - An Address To Young Ministers • Daniel A. Goodsell

... of science which help to a better understanding of the nature of man; to present the claims of scientific education; and the bearings of science upon questions of society and government. How the various subjects of current opinion are affected by the advance of scientific inquiry will ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... After all, it would be better to sing. She would not be compelled to look at this man she so despised. For a moment her tones were not quite clear; but Celeste increased the volume of sound warningly, and as this required more force on Nora's part, the little cross-current was passed without mishap. It was mere pastime for her to follow these wonderful melodies. She had no words to recall so that her voice was free to do with as she elected. There were bars absolutely impossible to follow, note for note, but she got around this difficulty by taking the key and holding ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... line," whereas testimonials sent through the mails went on file and received due consideration. "So many hours a day having been given up to the reception of visitors, it has been necessary, in order to keep up with the current work, for the President to keep at his desk from early in the morning into the small hours of the next morning. Now that may do for a week or for a month, but there is a limit to human physical endurance, and ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford

... that it resisted the logic of facts with something of the exalted obstinacy with which faith has resisted the arguments of philosophy. Like all young and inexperienced creatures, she was possessed by the feeling that there exists a magnetic current of attraction between desire and the object which it desires. "Something told" her that she was meant for happiness, and the voice of this "something" was more convincing than the chaotic march of phenomena. Sorrow, decay, death—these appeared to her as things which must happen ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... familiar images of thought, returned to him new-clad, re-entering the desolate heart in a white-winged procession of consolation. On the heath beside him the Christ stood once more, and as the disciple felt the sacred presence he could bear for the first time to let the chafing pent-up current of love flow into the new channels, so painfully prepared for it by the toil of thought. 'Either God or an impostor.' What scorn the heart, the intellect, threw on the alternative! Not in the dress of speculations which represent ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... who conducts the post-mortem, and the coroner. This storm, the opportunity for which he has been waiting for weeks, is merely the cloak to his act. The weapon which he has planned to use—scarcely less powerful than lightning but much more tractable—is the high voltage current of electricity that flows along the ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah

... shows you that? "Blossoms floating." The children picked the flowers and threw some on the stream to watch the current carry them away. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education

... run with it, he gets it quickly into the upper air currents, which are always stirring more than those at the surface. It is sometimes necessary to run for a considerable distance before the kite reaches a sustaining current; but a real kite enthusiast will not mind taking trouble; indeed he had better abandon the whole business if he does. It is worth noting that even in a dead calm a kite may be kept up indefinitely as long as the flyer is willing to run with the cord at the rate ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various



Words linked to "Current" :   eddy, contemporary, underway, riptide, undertide, South Equatorial Current, ongoing, present-day, Japan current, new, tidal current, topical, afoot, actual, North Equatorial Current, currency, equatorial current, violent stream, noncurrent, modern, up-to-date, line, vortex, incumbent, current of air, up-to-the-minute, twist, online, circulating, course, live, latest, electrical phenomenon, maelstrom, on-going, flowing, whirlpool, on-line, juice, rip current, tidal flow, torrent, up-to-dateness



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