"Positively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had been a quivering jelly of fear; positively annoyed with Rose for her serene assurance that 'the Pater would pull it off all right.' She had never quite fathomed her daughter's faith in the shy, undistinguished man for whom she cherished an affection secretly tinged with contempt. In this case it was justified. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... own standard work on the Shih appeared in A.D. 1178, declined to express himself positively on the expurgation of the odes, but summed up his view of what Confucius did for them in the following words:—'Royal methods had ceased, and poems were no more collected. Those which were extant were full of errors, and wanting in arrangement. When Confucius returned from ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... concluded with the following hypotheses, positively pronounced to be the only two possible: Either, 1, The Lunar attraction would finally prevail, in which case the travellers would reach their destination; or 2, The Projectile, kept whirling forever in an immutable orbit, would go ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... as an offence in the old sense of the word; and courteously, but most positively, I deny the right of any one who quotes to omit, or to alter emphasis, without stating what he has done. That A. E. B. did misunderstand me, I was justified in inferring from his implication (p. 198. col. 2) that I made the day begin "a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... Mr Crummles, taking off his outlaw's wig, the better to arrive at a cool-headed view of the whole case. 'Let me see. This is Wednesday night. We'll have posters out the first thing in the morning, announcing positively ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... flying-machine. Let us call it simply an automobile. There it is on the road, jolting, screeching, rattling, perfuming. And there he is, saying: 'This road ought to be as smooth as velvet. That hill in front is ridiculous, and the descent on the other side positively dangerous. And it's all turns—I can't see a hundred yards in front.' He has a wild idea of trying to force the County Council to sand-paper the road, or of employing the new Territorial Army to remove the hill. But he dismisses that idea—he is so reasonable. ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... of late the unanimous indignation of the whole civilized world, the English at the same time call forth amazement at their traits, instincts and aspirations which positively make them a monster in the family of cultured and civilized European nations. As the proverb says, there is no family without a black sheep. Every monstrosity, however, is to be explained—Jews come ...
— The History of a Lie - 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion' • Herman Bernstein
... stock answers to these stock objections. Such criticism of one's mother tongue was said to be unpatriotic or positively disloyal. If it was difficult to maintain that English was as smooth and euphonious as Italian, it could be maintained that its monosyllables and consonants gave it a characteristic and masculine brevity and force. Monosyllables were also very convenient for the ...
— An Apology For The Study of Northern Antiquities • Elizabeth Elstob
... affirmed that we were not over water, but trees. 'It is water,' Jules Godard persisted. Every one now looked out attentively; and, as the balloon descended a little, we saw plainly that there was no water, but without being able to say positively whether there were trees or not. At the moment when Jules Godard thought he saw water, Nadar exclaimed, 'I see a railway.' It turned out that what Nadar took for a railway was a canal running towards the Scheldt, which we had passed over a few minutes before. Hurrah for ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... other carriages, and at windows and balconies. The occupants of the carriages seemed to be embedded in a bank of flowers. And there sat the Marchese amid this wealth of rainbow- colours, looking positively ghastly,—so changed, so drawn, so aged was he. And his painful attempts to enter into the spirit of the scene, and act the part which he was expected to act, would have been pitiable to any eye which ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... men returned much disconcerted. They asked for Monsieur Follenvie, but were informed by the servant that on account of his asthma he never got up before ten o'clock—he had even positively forbidden them to awaken him before then except ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... mind. To an intellect so narrow, trifles were important, and that the husband who had so much admired and praised the elegance of her appearance could grudge the cost of her toilet galled her sorely. It was positively for her the first revelation of her husband's character. His retrenchments in household expenses she had been ready to applaud as praiseworthy economies; but when he assailed her own extravagance, she saw in him a husband who loved far ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... quite as anxious to see you. Lady Lisle; he positively asked me to introduce him to you, and that is a request he has never made before, though I have ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. You know, Beelzebub is positively the worst mare in the Valley. Sol Hanson will throw a fit of delight when he hears ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... it not nice, Miss Ross? But Cyril said he positively could not do with less than two—a rough suit for every day, and a better one for Sundays. I don't think Kester ever had two whole suits before. Mamma was pleased, but she thought it a little extravagant ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Sluys,(3) an officer of the company. On this cape the States' arms had been affixed to a tree in token of possession; but the English who now possess the Fresh River have torn them down and carved a ridiculous face in their place. Whether this was done by authority or not, cannot be positively asserted; it is however supposed that it was. It has been so charged upon them in several letters, and no denial has been made. Besides they have, contra jus gentium, per fas et nefas,(4) invaded the whole river, for the reason, as they ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... you are to do tonight. You are to kneel down here when I am gone, and you are to feel positively sure that God will help, if you ask Him in Jesus' name. Do you think you have faith ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... compiled, after an attentive examination of every accessible former collection; That plan has been since anxiously reconsidered, corrected, altered, and extended, in the progress of the work, as additional materials occurred: yet the Editor considers that the final and public adoption of his plan, in a positively fixed and pledged systematic form, any farther than has been already conveyed in the Prospectus, would have the effect to preclude the availment of those new views of the subject which are continually afforded by additional materials, in every progressive step ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... not positively break out on the prize day, but they made the proceedings far less pleasant and unanimous than they would have been. The cheers usually given to the head of the school were purposely omitted, from the fear of provoking any counter-demonstration, and there remained ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... and yet not brought to question their state, or to conclude themselves children of wrath, lying still in black nature, yet it is not so with all who are so exercised; but many under such a dispensation, may at least be in the dark as to their state before God; and if they do not positively assert their state to be bad, yet they do much question if they be in the state of grace, and would be comforted under all their pressures and afflictions, if they could win to the least well-grounded apprehension ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... put this down to extreme modesty, and were much affected by such proper conduct; but when they succeeded in restoring them to consciousness they were not a little disturbed to find that the maidens positively ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... time or other, long before the Christian era, a ship belonging to one of the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean was probably blown to the shores of America by the steady trade-winds. Of course, no one can say positively that such a voyage occurred. Yet certain curious similarities between the Old World and the New enable us to infer with a great deal of probability that it actually happened. The mere fact, for example, that the adobe houses of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... that the native finds a colt which is positively untamable. On the cheek of such an animal the Gaucho will burn a cross and then allow it to go free, like the scape-goat mentioned ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... to examine the contents of the packet," stated von Liebknecht positively. "Is it not so?" he asked, turning to the group of officers for confirmation ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... struggles against the climate, against nature and against men. But we must not take the exception for the general rule, and should rather seek the good of our country by stating what we believe to be true. We must confess that indolence does actually and positively exist there; only that, instead of holding it to be the cause of the backwardness and the trouble, we regard it as the effect of the trouble and the backwardness, by fostering the development of ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... investigation at Albany, we do not see how the public are to arrive at the facts in the case from any statement Lewis may make; for all his statements that I have seen in print, are positively void of truth, in the most essential part, so that they are of little or no importance at all unless substantiated ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... from his country trip, after a hard year's work, he has always found the cosiest of nooks, the cheapest houses, the best of landladies, the finest views, and the best dinners. But with the other the case is indeed altered. He has always been robbed; he has positively seen nothing; his landlady was a harpy, his bedroom was unhealthy, and the mutton was so tough that he could not get ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... anything positively, especially about a woman—and least of all about the lady in question, who ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... deceitful than her lover is the little nursery governess. The moment she comes into sight she looks at the post-office and sees him. Then she looks straight before her, and now she is observed, and he rushes across to her in a glory, and she starts—positively starts—as if he had taken her by surprise. Observe her hand rising suddenly to her wicked little heart. This is the moment when I stir my coffee violently. He gazes down at her in such rapture that he is in everybody's way, and as she takes his arm she ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... de Ventadour at last, tired, perhaps of the part she had been playing, and bringing to a sudden close an animated description of the then French court—"well, see now if we ought not to be ashamed of ourselves—our talk has positively interrupted the music. Did you see Lord Doningdale stop it with a bow to me, as much as to say, with his courtly reproof, 'It shall not disturb you, madam'? I will no longer be accessory to your crime of ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a barbarous age remains sacrosanct and traditional; nothing in its law, manners, or ritual is open to amendment. The unhappiness which may consequently overtake individuals is hushed up or positively blamed, with no thought of tinkering with the holy institutions which are its cause. Civilised men think more and cannot endure objectless tyrannies. It is inevitable, therefore, that as barbarism recedes the family should ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... "Positively, I have no explanation to offer," David replied. "About midnight I let myself out to go for a stroll, carefully closing the door behind me. Naturally, the door was on the latch. When I came back an hour or so later, ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... for the first time in several months, and demanded his five hundred dollars. I told him I had paid it, and tried to recall to him the circumstances. But, as I said, he was slightly intoxicated when I gave him the bills, and his mind was not clear. He declares positively that I never paid him, and he says he will make trouble for me if I do not hand him over the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... squire set himself to work for the baronet. The ablest lawyers were obtained, but Whitecraft most positively objected to Folliard's proposal of engaging Doldrum as his attorney; he knew the stupidity and ignorance of the man, and would have nothing to do with him as the conductor of his case. His own attorney, Mr. Sharply, was engaged; and indeed his selection of ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... "Not so positively at all. I shall say, 'No, thank you,' in my very nicest way, and say that you're very grateful and appreciative and not at all the growly old bear of a dad that you pretend to be when one doesn't know and love you. And perhaps I'll invite ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of those who have so long "reined" supreme over the "Nonpareils" and the "Brilliants," the "Telegraphs" and the "Stars," the "Magnets" and the "Emeralds," are nearly at an end, and the final way-bill of the total "Eclipse" is made up. It is positively their last appearance ...
— Hints on Driving • C. S. Ward
... into his trunk and bags, and found Joel seated rather despondently on the lounge looking on. For West was to spend his vacation with an uncle in Boston, and Joel, although Outfield had begged him to go along, asserting positively that his uncle would be proud and happy to see him (Joel), was to spend the recess at school, since he felt he could not afford the expense of the trip home. West hesitated long over a blue-checked waistcoat and at length sighed ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... soldier now, I dislike people who take an interest in me, especially if they have blue on their hats. I thanked him very much for his kind inquiry, but indicated that my lips were sealed. His curiosity thereupon became positively acute; he was, he said, a man from whom it was impossible to keep a secret. He still wished to know what my rank was. I said it all depended which of them he was referring to, since there are three in all, the "Acting," the "Temporary" and the Rock-bottom one. In any case, at heart I was and always ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... whatever!" Hsi Jen smiled, "you may be in real earnest to go and tell her, but aren't you afraid of putting her to shame? If even she positively means to leave, you can very well wait until you two have got over this bad blood. And when everything is past and gone, it won't be any too late for you to explain, in the course of conversation, the whole case to our lady, your mother. But if you now ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... "I hate poor people—I positively do! I despise their pale faces and cadaverous expression. I detest straggling little girls who come up to you and say their mothers have been bedridden for three months, and all their little brothers and sisters are down with the fever. I know it's a lie. I ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... in this deadness lay her only comfort; or so it seemed. Wandering in such mazes, she hardly knew how the conversation went on; a third was indeed 'trumpery,' where there was entire confidence between the two who were company, from which the other was shut out. She was positively unhappy, and her father did not appear to see it; he was absorbed with his new plans and his new wife that was to be. But he did notice it; and was keenly sorry for his little girl; only he thought that there was a greater chance for the future harmony of the household, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Big Business Man positively. "We won't get small again. Something might happen. Once we get through ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... require; these they can appreciate; and they feel respect for an orator, even though he be not a county member; for he can assist them in their paltry ambition for place and pension: but an author, or a man of science, the rogues positively ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Rochester said to her husband, a few minutes before the dinner-gong sounded, "for once you have been positively useful. A new young man is such a godsend, and Charlie Peyton threw us over most abominably. So mean of him, too, after the number of times I had him to dine in ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "I most positively assure you that you can never be a stranger to me again," he said eagerly. "But in a few days you will go to New York, and I thousands of miles in another direction. If I should tell you how you will dwell in my thoughts like an inspiration, I ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... For Providence has so arranged the circumstances of human life and of society, that some females are absolutely precluded from forming the matrimonial connection. Ill-health,—to name no other cause,—sometimes positively debars one from this relation. There are abundant reasons, indeed, for which every one, ordinarily situated, should contemplate marriage. It is the design of our physical and moral constitution, and the spring of unsullied enjoyments, social and spiritual; and no one should voluntarily exclude herself ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... surprised at the Boldness of this Fellow to demand his Pistol, as if he positively knew him to be the Murderer (for so he thought himself, since he believed Alcidiana dead) had so much Presence of Mind as to consider, if he suffered himself to be taken, he should poorly die a publick Death; and therefore resolv'd upon one Mischief more, to secure himself ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... we are old—we age rapidly. If, on the contrary, we THINK we are young, we preserve our vitality indefinitely. The action of thought influences the living particles of which our bodies are composed, so that we positively age them or rejuvenate them by the attitude we assume. The thinking attitude of the human Soul should be one of gratitude, love and joy. There is no room in Spiritual Nature for fear, depression, sickness or death. God intends His creation to ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... talk foolishness. They think, but they do not know," rejoined this Hyperborean agnostic, as positively and as ignorantly as if he had been a ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... night (minimum temperature 63 deg. F.), and we were treated to a most tormenting concert of mosquitoes. They swarmed positively in millions around us. With my bed and bedding which I had lost in the rapids I had unfortunately also lost my mosquito net, and I now was suffering greatly from the stings of all the troublesome ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... My heart positively warms to you as I write. At this precise moment I can think of a hundred different things that I ought to be doing. For instance, I have not written to TOM, who is in the wilds of Canada, for months. His last letter ended with a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... afterwards forgave my moral defection, he did not seem to have forgotten my practical medical ministration, and our brief interview had a surprising result. From that moment he confounded his parents and doctors by resolutely and positively refusing to take any more of their pills, tonics, or drops. Whether from a sense of loyalty to me, or whether he was not yet convinced of the efficacy of homoeopathy, he did not suggest a substitute, declare his preferences, or even give his reasons, but firmly and peremptorily ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... ourselves to blame when they did wrong, although we were quite aware of the absurd idea to that effect. We saw that our teaching did good to the general mind of the people by bringing new and better motives into play. Five instances are positively known to me in which, by our influence on public opinion, war was prevented; and where, in individual cases, we failed, the people did no worse than they did before we came into the country. In general they ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... No text states positively that Argistis II. immediately succeeded his father; but he is found mentioned as King of Urartu from 708 onwards, and hence it has been concluded, not without some reason, that such was the fact. The Vannic inscriptions have not as yet given us ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... wool divided on the absolute equator; not racially but uniquely ugly—till he smiled—and spoke. He smiled and spoke with a joy of soul, a transparency of innocence, a rapture of love, that made his ugliness positively endearing even apart from ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... on the cushioned seats of the standing-room. The fresh wind which had blown all day had not permitted him to pay much attention to the dietary department, which is always an important one in a boat; and, not being over sentimental, he was positively hungry. Even the half of his sheet of gingerbread and his "hunk of cheese" ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... himself plainly about the folly of the Rands in "runnin' into debt for a shif'less fellow" who had no claim upon them. "If they expect me to pay the funeral expenses they're mistaken," he added, positively. "I ain't no call to do it, ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... with her husband, today. I am sorry to say that they do not view your wild and lawless conduct in the same light that I do, and that they are unable to see there is anything positively disreputable in your being mixed up in midnight adventures with burglars. I am glad to gather, from Admiral Langton's letter, that Mr. Tulloch has seen your conduct in the proper light, and has inflicted a ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... does not know how to bend over—like a librarian—and when one comes on him in an alcove, the way one ought to come on a librarian, with a great folio on his knees, he is—well, there are those who think, that have seen it, that he is positively comic. I followed him around only the other day for fifteen or twenty minutes, from one alcove to another, and watched him taking down books. He does not even know how to take down a book. He takes all the books ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... very eyebrows; her head shook, and her eyes were dim, but they expressed zeal, the habit of years of submissive service, and at the same time a kind of respectful commiseration. She kissed Lavretsky's hand and stood still in the doorway awaiting his orders. He positively could not recollect her name and did not even remember whether he had ever seen her. Her name, it appeared, was Apraxya; forty years before, Glafira Petrovna had put her out of the master's house and ordered that she should be a poultry woman. She said little, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... assurance, Mr. Gray," said Aleck positively. "That's just what the company, or society, or whatever you have a mind to call it, was got together for. I know, because I was present at their last meeting, and the whole thing was explained to me before I took ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... repugnant to the regulations of the Navy." It is said that Sir Edward Hawke, having in his mind the disastrous result of giving Halley the command of a King's ship in 1698, when a serious mutiny occurred, positively refused to sign such a commission, saying that he would "rather cut off his right hand than permit any one but a King's officer to command one of the ships of His ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... "Not positively, no. If he and the bearded man are one and the same that would account for it. But I haven't noticed the bearded man once since he came aboard in ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... a very fierce little face, of the reddest gold imaginable, right in the front of the mug, with a pair of eyes in it which seemed to command its whole circumference. It was impossible to drink out of the mug without being subjected to an intense gaze out of the side of these eyes; and Schwartz positively averred that once, after emptying it full of Rhenish seventeen times, he had seen them wink! When it came to the mug's turn to be made into spoons, it half broke poor little Gluck's heart; but the brothers only laughed at him, tossed the mug ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... perceived the prelate approaching Father Rodin's door, Rousselet added, "The reverend father will positively see no one, my lord; he requires rest, to prepare for the operation; it might ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... know why. They are not afraid of me. While my spirit is willing enough, it was your skill and rapidity with a pistol that frustrated four attempts at abduction in as many days. It is positively uncanny, the way you explode into action. With all my practice, I didn't even have my pistol out yesterday until it was all over. And besides Prescott's guards, we had four policemen with us—detailed ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... had an advantage over the Navy in its dealings with Johnson and Fahy. It never had an integration policy to defend, had in fact consistently opposed the imposition of one, and was not, therefore, under the same psychological pressures to react positively to the secretary's latest rebuff. Determined to defend its current interpretation of the Gillem Board policy, the Army resisted the Personnel Policy Board's use of the Air Force plan, Secretary Johnson's directive, and the initial recommendations ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... even more distinctly now; it was coming down in torrents. She looked up at the little lamp burning quietly before Robbia's blue and white bas-relief of the infant Christ, and she thought of her prayers again; but it was positively wicked to let any one stand outside in the rain for hours, to catch his death ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... "and I am so much of a Britisher, that I positively object to your spitting past ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... itself insensibly felt in the general deliberations, even though they be known to be, in many respects, opposed to the tone of popular opinion and feeling. I am unable to conceive any mode by which the presence of such minds can be so positively insured as by that proposed ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... that had been planned, went to Scindia's camp to remonstrate against a heavy demand for money, on account of the expenses to which Scindia had been put; and to his astonishment he was, then and there, made a prisoner. Chimnajee positively refused to become a party to the usurpation of his brother's rights; but he was compelled, by threats, to ascend the musnud. On the day after his installation, Purseram Bhow wrote, proposing that Nana should come to Poona to meet Balloba, and ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... right until his men find him," he declared, positively, "and that ought to give us a good six hours' start. Come, Miss Hope, every minute ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... walking with his springy step, though he had come on foot the whole way from the Temple, hailed them with his hat. It was tall and black, and very shiny, neither quite oval nor positively round, and had a little curly brim. In this and his black coat, cut so as to show the front of him and cover the behind, he looked his best. The costume suited his long, rather narrow face, corrugated by ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Christian doctrine of satisfaction made by Christ. (L. u. W. 1918, 482.) In the Lutheran Church Work and Observer, April 4, 1918, Rev. W.R. Goff maintained: "The writer cannot find one passage in Scripture that definitely and positively asserts a visible return of the Lord." ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... our wants and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections; the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing; but government even in its best state ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... that this was exceedingly thin logic, a mere smoke screen behind which he meant to retreat back up North. He walked on down the poor village street, turning it over and over in his mind, affirming it positively to himself, after the manner ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... Christ with averted head. Every great painter in older times seems to have thought it incumbent upon him to paint a Christ, and consequently you meet them everywhere. As for the "Fathers" (i.e., Jehovah) one sees, these seem to me positively sacrilegious. I wonder the arms of the men who ventured upon such sacred ground did not wither at their sides. To paint old men with tremendous white flowing beards—a cross between Santa Claus and ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... a Literary Society among the summer people of South Harniss. The Society was to begin work with the discussion of the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore. Mrs. Fosdick said she doted on Tagore; Mrs. Calvin expressed herself as being positively insane about him. A warm friendship had sprung up between the two ladies, as each was particularly fond of shining as a literary light and neither under any circumstances permitted a new lion to roar unheard ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... point of view a double-edged sword. Other unhealthy and monotonous occupations, combined with bad conditions of food and lodging, and with all kinds of seduction—factory hands for example—have a positively deleterious effect on sexual life, which becomes absolutely depraved when the two sexes work together. The situation is hardly any better when they are only separated during ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... she is positively good for nothing, but she is more useful to me than any other member of my household. If she remains with me ten years, I have promised her twenty thousand francs. It will be money well earned, and I shall not forget to give it!" said the young ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... positively of your own knowledge that no invasion or movement of German troops is planned across M'tela's country? On your sacred word of ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... on the beach by the waves, of course," declared Phyllis, positively; "no doubt from some wreck, and buried in the sand after a while, just naturally, ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... it, and gives us hope that it will be more and more accomplished. In considering the first head, I began with stating in what the elevation of the laboring class does not consist, and then proceeded to show positively what it is, what it does consist in. I want time to retrace the ground over which we then travelled. I must trust to your memories. I was obliged by my narrow limits to confine myself chiefly to the consideration of the intellectual elevation which ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... he met a squad of mounted white regulars, who arrested him. The trooper's companion had sworn positively that he was the man who killed ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... my not knowing the whereabouts of the family? Between ourselves, I believe there was a screw loose in Lionel's domestic affairs. I know nothing definite—positively. We corresponded now and then," continued Parson Jack—"say twice a year—and of late years he dropped all mention of them, and I gathered that questions were not wanted. But the wife and children are provided for, you may depend; ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... her brother's court she would find, not compensation for their disobedience (filial unkindness admitted of none), but such a state of things and mode of life, as might best reconcile her to her fate. Under such circumstances, she positively declined ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... yet he did doubt;—more than doubted;—felt almost certain that his father was in error. While his father had remained alone up in town he had been living with Gregory, and had known what Gregory thought and believed. He had even seen his namesake's letter to Gregory, in which it was positively stated that the reversion would not be sold. Throughout the morning the Squire went on speaking of his hopes, and saying that this and that should be done the very moment that the contract was signed; at last Ralph spoke out, when, on some occasion, his father reproached him for indifference. ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... work; she can never do enough. No matter how late I go into her room at night, she is always finishing off some piece of work; and no matter how early I get up in the morning, she has already begun something new. If I had not positively forbidden it, she would keep at it even on a Sunday. It is a real source of anxiety to me, lest she should over-work ...
— Veronica And Other Friends - Two Stories For Children • Johanna (Heusser) Spyri
... bear with them, not insisting upon matters of minor importance as though they were essential and fundamental. Hence his course, instead of being needlessly repellant, was tenderly conciliatory; and it was a conspicuous sign of grace that, while holding his own views of truth and duty so positively and tenaciously, the intolerance of bigotry was so displaced by the forbearance of charity that, when the Lord so led and circumstances so required, he could conform for a time to customs whose propriety he doubted, without abating either the ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... become old), and could patiently submit to the sharper than a serpent's thanks of having a toothless child generally. But to be a mother-in-law! No, no; that was a plane of degradation to which she positively would not descend. So she employed me to cut her throat. It was the toughest throat I ever cut ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... but, in their eagerness to go, many Texans and Louisianians smuggled themselves aboard. The fighting part of the expedition was soon ready, but there was difficulty about stokers. Some planters from the upper Red River had brought down their slaves to De Russy to labor on earthworks, but they positively refused to furnish stokers for the boats. It was a curious feature of the war that the Southern people would cheerfully send their sons to battle, but kept their slaves out of danger. Having exhausted his powers ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... be no doubt now, that during a time when the voice is uncertain and hoarse from the irritation of the vocal bands and surrounding parts, that singing is positively harmful, but during the intervals separating these periods, especially where they extend, as in many cases, over several months, it would seem that the singing voice might ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... to him by a lady of Navarre (Queen Margaret?) as having occurred in that country, while Julio de Medrano, a Spanish author of the sixteenth century, asserts that it was told to him in the Bourbonnais as being actual fact, and that he positively saw the house where the lady's son and his wife resided; but on the other hand we find the tale related, in its broad lines, in Amadis de Gaule as being an old-time legend, and in proof of this, it figures in an ancient French ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... however, Christian Vellacott never saw beneath his lazy lashes. The Provincial never entered that little cell unless he was positively informed that its inmate was asleep. The inscrutable Jesuit seemed almost to be ashamed of the anxiety that he undoubtedly felt respecting the sick man thus thrown upon his hands by a peculiar chain of incidents. He spoke coldly and sarcastically to the ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... other hand, that superior prowess, even in such barbarous contests, inspires in our sex an interest akin to admiration. I can positively say in my case it was quite the reverse. Dudley Ruthyn stood lower than ever in my estimation; for though I feared him more, it was by reason of these brutal ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... able to swallow a single morsel thinking of you out here starving yourself in the dark. It's positively cruel to be so ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... careful to secure the good-will of the magistrates at the annual elections, assisting none of the candidates with his interest, nor suffering any persons to be advanced to any office, who would not positively undertake to defend him in his absence for which purpose he made no scruple to require of some of them an oath, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... stories which I illustrate, Mrs. Morgan," she said dryly. "The real brigands of life come in the shape of lawyers' clerks with writs and summonses. It's a relief from those mad fashion plates I draw, anyway. Do you know, Mrs. Morgan, that the sight of a dressmaker's shop window makes me positively ill!" ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... really must give her a party. I have known her so long, almost since she could first run about, and I always loved the little creature so much! I feel as if I have almost a right to be proud of her myself. Have you any engagements for the beginning of next week? If not, unless you positively forbid it, I shall send out invitations ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... of day I found every person complaining, and some of them solicited extra allowance, which I positively refused. Our situation was miserable; always wet, and suffering extreme cold during the night, without the least shelter from the weather. Being constantly obliged to bail, to keep the boat from filling, was perhaps not to be reckoned an evil as it ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... positively from the former knowledge I had of this island whether it was inhabited or not; but I knew it was considered inferior to the other islands, and I was not certain but that the Indians only resorted to it at particular times. ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... reins: it is—almost certainly— among these three that the responsibility for our "anonymous" group of onslaughts may be distributed. The two earliest appreciations of Jane Austen (from Scott and Whately) offer an interlude—actually in the same period—which positively startles us by the honesty of its attempt at fair criticism and ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... persons who had been engaged in this smuggling adventure. But it is here that Sir William Courtenay comes into the story. This gentleman, who had his seat at Powderham Castle, Devon, came forward and swore positively that the tubs, which the Lively was supposed to have picked up, had been seen floating off the coast. He himself was staying on a visit to Canterbury, and on that Sunday afternoon happened to be sailing about off the Kentish coast, and sighted the Lively ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... speaking to me of his master's dislike, positively ascribed it to the second of the above causes. In connection with this we must, however, not forget that the Germans of to-day differ from the Germans of fifty years ago as much socially as politically. Nor have the social characters of ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... approximation only to justice or to injustice; that to be fair is to have no opinion at all; that to be honest is to be uninterested; that to investigate is to admit prejudice; that nobody has ever really investigated anything, but has always sought positively to prove or to disprove something that was conceived ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... But he had positively refused to marry her! But yet she did not in the least doubt his love. "I'm a little bit of a thing," she said to herself; "but then he likes little bits of things. At ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... "She is positively rather handsome," she thought. "I can quite imagine a certain class of men losing their heads about ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... affair. Madame de Grandchamp was so anxious to get me out of the way that she sent me three leagues to visit a sick man, who, I found when I reached his home, was drinking in the inn. I blamed Champagne for deceiving Madame de Grandchamp, and Champagne positively told me that the workman had not appeared at the factory, but that he himself knows nothing about his ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... deformity lies principally in the countenance of these animals; and is caused by two pairs of large protuberances, or warts, that rise upon the cheeks and over the frontal bone. These excrescences—if we may so call them—lend to the visage of the creature an aspect positively hideous, which is rendered still more ugly and fierce-looking by a pair of formidable tusks curving upward from each jaw. The body is nearly naked—excepting along the neck and back, where a long bristly mane gives a shaggy appearance to the animal—especially ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... Thomas Headley, a smith, residing near Dale Farm. He swore positively that the late Mrs. Thorndyke, whom he knew well, had cheerfully signed the will now produced, after it had been deliberately read over to her by her husband about a fortnight before her death. Silas Thorndyke, John Cummins, Elizabeth Wareing, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... was a young priest of the Church of England, a medievalist with an ardent passion for ritual; the other a gentle Congregational minister, a mere holy and humble man of heart. They became great friends in the course of these expeditions, and they brought back this report—'It is positively wicked to let these children grow up being taught that there is no difference in value between Joshua and St Matthew: that the God of the Lord's Prayer is the same who commanded the massacre of ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... its application to any special branch of human inquiry signifies, in that sense, that the facts and principles relating to the given branch, or constituting it, are no longer subjects of uncertain investigation, but have become accurately and positively known, so as to be demonstrable to all intelligent minds and invariably recognized by them as true when rightly apprehended and understood. In the absence, however, of any clear conception of what constitutes knowledge, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... they overflowed in little grateful courtesies. He must have more cream; he was eating nothing. They feared his egg was not quite—was he positively sure? it would sometimes happen, with the greatest care, that eggs were not quite—a little scrap more bacon, then! or would he fancy some fresh cream cheese? and so on and so on, till the young doctor cried out, and said that if he ate any more he should not be able to mount ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... somewhat too long a work for this place Zetetically to examine, and positively to prove, what particular kind of motion it is that must be the efficient of Light; for though it be a motion, yet 'tis not every motion that produces it, since we find there are many bodies very violently mov'd, which yet afford not such an effect; and there are ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... "My dears, I positively had to come! Reggie would have it so. He and Mr. Christy are mixed up in some financial operations, and he said it was policy: I'm ...
— Mrs. Christy's Bridge Party • Sara Ware Bassett
... sent him ashore to get the twenty-five cent fee for the Mission which he had forgotten. No sooner had he gone than another man came and asked if his medicine was ready. I had to explain to him that the man just climbing over the rail had it. The odd thing was that the latter, having paid for it, positively refused to give it up. True, he had not said that he was ill, but the medicine looked good (Heaven save the mark!) and he "guessed that it would suit ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... notes positively burned in his fingers as he had laid them down on his dressing-table; the fellow's offer was extraordinarily tempting. Ah, welladay! This was the end, then, of Heronsbeck Hall, which he prized above every earthly possession after his daughter. His father had lost the half of it ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... life, a rejuvenation illustrated by his passion for music, had inclined him temporarily to discard, so that at times he would actually state his views with considerable warmth—"but I am quite sincere when I say that she is intelligent, while her husband is positively a bookworm. ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... anything from Madame Beattie," Lydia said positively. "She told them lots of stories about you, lovely stories. Sometimes she'd tell them to me afterward. She made you into ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... heard at Karague, about dogs with horns in Unyoro, was confirmed by Kidgwiga, who positively assured us that he once saw one in the possession of an official person, but it died. The horn then was stuffed with magic powder, and, whenever an army was ordered for war, it was placed on the ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... of the commonplace, the neither positively good nor the very bad, is the largest class of all humanity. The most pestiferous and difficult to adjust to the law of progress and advancement. Hold one of them out of hell by the hair of the head, and when he is let go he only drops further in, and nothing ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... member of the 'Katipunan' Society and the chief of the many members who were in the pueblo of Cavite Viejo. What was to be done? Aguinaldo, not knowing what to do, and mindful of the fact that the curate there knew positively that he was not only a mason, but also the chief of the Katipunans of his pueblo, considered it expedient on the night of August 29 to at once call a meeting of all the compromised persons in his town. Aguinaldo made clear to them ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... ounces of gold to any one who would make her laugh; whereupon his chief minister suggested that the beacon-fires should be lighted to summon the feudal nobles with their armies, as though the royal house were in danger. The trick succeeded; for in the hurry-skurry that ensued the impassive girl positively laughed outright. Later on, when a real attack was made upon the capital by barbarian hordes, and the beacon-fires were again lighted, this time in stern reality, there was no response from the insulted nobles. The king was killed, and his ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... drinker, or anything of that sort—by no means. He could rough it, (so he said), as well as any man, and put up with whatever chanced to be going, but, when there was no occasion for roughing it, he did like to see things well cooked and nicely served; and wine, you know, was not worth drinking—positively nauseous—if it was not of ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... him to use his influence with the government to obtain an order to prohibit the exportation of cast-steel. But on learning from the deputation that the Sheffield manufacturers themselves would not make use of the new steel, he positively declined to comply with their request. It was indeed fortunate for the interests of the town that the object of the deputation was defeated, for at that time Mr. Huntsman had very pressing and favourable ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... "I will not positively declare that I will not make the promise; it will depend upon the nature of the disclosure. Will you indicate the character of the disclosure you ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... the problem will be solved, either negatively or positively, as the Socialists say, if on the one hand I prevent the foreigner from taking from it, and on the other I oblige him ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... enormous with their taps splendidly glittering, and seemed to stretch into infinity in a quivering, golden mist. But one object was more monstrously magnified than all the rest, and that was the Marquis Tudesco; the old man positively towered as huge as the giant of a fairy-tale, and Jean looked for ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... Hoddan, and they were looking first at the most probable places, then they'd search the possible places for him to be, and by the time that had been accomplished they'd have cops from other cities pouring into the city and they'd search every square inch of it for him. And certainly and positively they'd take the most urgent and infallible precautions to make sure he didn't get back ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... who was supposed to have come down from heaven on a white horse. This horse was incombustible to bullets, and so was the Mody, and the two of 'em lived on weather and air. There are people who have seen 'em; but I haven't any reason, myself, to say positively that the things told about 'em were true. Anyhow, they were the great powers in Arabia; and the Mamelukes wanted to make the Egyptian soldiers think that the Mody could keep them from being killed in battle, and ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... assent went around the circle as the speaker resumed his seat. Master Slit-the-Weazand slowly opened his lantern jaws and began. He had spent much of his time in determining the exact location of the treasure. He believed—nay, he could state positively—that its position was now settled. It was true he had done some trifling little business outside. Modesty forbade his mentioning the particulars, but he would simply state that of the three tenants who had occupied the cabin during the past ten years, none ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. He seemed very anxious to know when workmen might be put upon the road again so as to make repairs and put it in shape for running. It was a large piece of property to have standing idle. I told him I could not answer then positively but would try and inform him before a great while. On my return Mr. Garrett met me again with the same and I told him I thought that by the Wednesday he might send his workmen out on his road. I gave him no further ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... a single observation of the accuracy of which I was not myself most positively convinced. Least of all can one rely on the reports of nurses, attendants, and other persons not practiced in scientific observing. I have often, merely by a brief, quiet cross-examination, brought such persons to see ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... it is a pretty general opinion that all the oracles were mere cheats and impostures; calculated either to serve the avaricious ends of the heathenish priests, or the political views of the princes. Bayle positively asserts, that they were mere human artifices, in which the devil had no hand. In this opinion he is strongly supported by Van Dale, a Dutch physician, and M. Fontenelle, who have expressly written on the subject."—Vide Demonologia, op. ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... "is positively the most unreliable dealer I know. He's erratic and irresponsible. A man may work himself to death and wait in the grave for his money. Do you wonder poor Blakelock met his doom through the cupidity of laggard dealers? Here am I on the verge of God ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... most earnest in their solicitations upon the subject. Mr. Burroughs (the present Judge) and Mr. Casberd, were employed for the prosecution; and I at length suffered my attorney to give a brief to Mr. Sergeant Pell. The cause was called on, and Stone positively swore to the assault, which he declared had deprived him of his senses, and that he had not been well since. Another person, who never saw one atom of the transaction, and who was never near the place till it was all over, swore to the same facts, and confirmed Stone's evidence; ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... that satiated with ways, That six long months engaged their nights and days: They gladly credit would have given now, But found the ladies would not this allow, Believing it most positively wrong, To keep whate'er might to the church belong. No tithe arrears were any where around, So zealous were the dames in duty found, They often in advance paid holy dues, How pure the monks!—how just the ladies views! The friars used despatch alone with those, That for their fascinating ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... attendant of Lady Berrick. After resting in Paris, the patient had continued her homeward journey as far as Boulogne. In her suffering condition, she was liable to sudden fits of caprice. An insurmountable horror of the Channel passage had got possession of her; she positively refused to be taken on board the steamboat. In this difficulty, the lady who held the post of her "companion" had ventured on a suggestion. Would Lady Berrick consent to make the Channel passage ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... on the other hand, you will not only hear the people yelling out "Ah gredin! Ah monstre:" and cursing the tyrant of the play from the boxes; but the actors themselves positively refuse to play the wicked parts, such as those of infames Anglais, brutal Cossacks, and what not, and prefer to appear at a smaller salary, in their real characters as loyal Frenchmen. I set the two stories one against the other, so that you ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... positively. It depends, as I said before, upon my finding an escort. I have six pressing invitations from different quarters, most of them acquaintances that I made last summer at Saratoga; and I have been hesitating between Albany, Boston, or Baltimore. I ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... he said presently, with a sigh. 'Breaking up, isn't he? He positively totters in his walk. I'm afraid he's the kind of man to have a paralytic stroke; it wouldn't astonish me to hear at any moment that he ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... under the protection of Strickland," said Mrs. Sam. "James Strickland is the most successful of the decent lawyers in New York. One never knows when one may want his services, and he's merciless, positively merciless, if he gets down on anybody. ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... round the ship and received many sound cuffs from the wind, they saw a sailor's face positively shine golden. They looked, and beheld a complete yellow circle of sun; next minute it was traversed by sailing stands of cloud, and then completely hidden. By breakfast the next morning, however, the sky was swept clean, the waves, although steep, were blue, and after ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... accurately known, as the soldier declared positively—after he came out of the hospital—that he had not pressed the button. The theory was that the wires had become crossed, making a short circuit, which caused the gun to go ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... observance or neglect of some forms of words in use with the gentlemen of the robe, about which there is even amongst themselves such a disagreement, that the most experienced veterans in the profession can never be positively assured that they ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to lavish freely for others the reserved strength that should have been kept for himself. This indeed was the great danger, for it dulled the apprehension of us all to the fact that absolute and pressing danger did positively exist. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... nevertheless, with decided affection. "Why did you put yourself out of breath, Kitty? Catch May setting her precious little heart a-beating too fast for any fellow! Ah, here you come, lazy Mabel. Where is the mater? In the house, I suppose? I say, Kate, what a hole you have pitched upon for living in? I positively couldn't ride down upon the thing they offered me at the station. It wasn't even clean. Look at it, my dear girls! It holds my respectable belongings, and not me. It's the scarecrow or ghost of the ordinary station-fly. ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... towards the desert; the new pessimism towards the restaurant. Byronism was a revolt against artificiality; the new pessimism is a revolt in its favour. The Byronic young man had an affectation of sincerity; the decadent, going a step deeper into the avenues of the unreal, has positively an affectation of affectation. And it is by their fopperies and their frivolities that we know that their sinister philosophy is sincere; in their lights and garlands and ribbons we read their indwelling despair. It was so, indeed, with Byron himself; ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... at the Surrey.'—'And what's to be done?' you inquire with as much gravity as you can counterfeit. 'Ah, that's the point,' replies the theatrical young gentleman, looking very serious; 'Boozle declines it; positively declines it. From all I am told, I should say it was decidedly in Boozle's line, and that he would be very likely to make a great hit in it; but he objects on the ground of Flimkins having been put up in the part first, and says no earthly power shall ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... There was something positively dazzling about those two words in flaming scarlet, and Polly and Dan stepped out twice in the course of their early breakfast to have a ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... quick reply; "I am certain! I tell you positively Mercy Merrick was the thief. She was alone with me when I was struck down by the shell. She was the only person who knew that I had letters of introduction about me. She confessed to my face that she had been a bad ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... has been the discussion of controverted points of history and science, and wonderful is the forensic and argumentative ability which these debates have developed. They are getting to be positively interesting. The only drawback to them is, that in the absence of any decisive authority they never come to any satisfactory conclusion. We have now been discussing for sixteen days the uses of a whale's blow-holes; and I firmly believe that if our voyage were prolonged, like the Flying Dutchman's, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... her ankles as displayed by the short Tyrolese skirt; he wandered about in a sort of frenzy of unrest, and was never happy except in her presence. That a certain amount of speculation entered into love's young dream, I cannot positively deny; but, on the whole, the emotion was as sincere as any that Mr. Hahn's bosom had ever harbored. Whether he should allow her to sing in public after she had become his wife was a point about which he sometimes worried, but which he ended by deciding in the affirmative. ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... with full stomachs from what it was travelling uphill over the snow quite starved and almost frozen. Indeed, had it not been for melancholy recollections of poor Ventvoegel's sad fate, and of that grim cave where he kept company with the old Dom, we should have felt positively cheerful, notwithstanding the sense of unknown dangers before us. Every mile we walked the atmosphere grew softer and balmier, and the country before us shone with a yet more luminous beauty. As for the road itself, I never saw such an engineering work, ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... repeated his sarcasm to Mr. Sheridan, who could never forgive this hasty, contemptuous expression, and ever after positively declined Johnson's repeated offers ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the increase in London, judging from hospital work alone," says Pernet (British Medical Journal, March 30, 1907). Syphilis was evidently very prevalent, however, a century or two ago, and there is no ground for asserting positively that ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Viracocha was Zapala.[1] It conveys strongly and positively the monotheistic idea. It means "The One," or, more strongly, "The ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... Positively, I had forgotten all about the business. I suppose because I did not hear who was appointed. It would be a good argument for turning people out of office after 65! But I have always had rather too much of the lawyer faculty of forgetting ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... 'Capital!' said General Merrick. 'Positively capital! If it was a real case, and she in momentary expectation of her father, she ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner |
