"Absolute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the meek and worm-like class, and which we usually attribute to any cause under the sun but the vulgar right one. "The impertinence!" muttered Jane, with a second glance at the note which conveyed; among other humiliating things, an impression of her own absolute lack of importance to Selma Gordon. "Serves me right for lowering myself to such people. If I wanted to try to do anything for the working class I'd have to keep away from them. They're so unattractive to look at and to associate ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... nature to make you a separate and distinct being, and you grow more separate and distinct by developing nature's gifts, traits, powers,—in brief, that which is essentially your own. Thus nature becomes your ally and sees to it with absolute certainty that you are not like other people. Following this principle of action you cannot know, nor can any one know, to just what you may attain. All true growth is from within, outward. In the ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... looked about. That long dark thing was her coat and fur stretched out on the flat couch in the corner where Richard had laid them; stretched out in an absolute ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... on how the guns are mounted. If in siege works or en barbette, it is much easier to load a muzzle loader under cover than a breech-loader. But I need not traverse the old ground all over again. It is sufficient for me to say here, that the real cause which has rendered breech-loading an absolute necessity is the improvement which has been made in the powder. You witnessed a few minutes ago the change which took place in the action of fired gunpowder when the grains were enlarged. You will readily understand that nearly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... first of all, and even only and exclusively, the property of Amon," said the priest. "There is absolute need, therefore, that only those should know the highest secrets to whom Amon has declared his plans ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... Calah, Calach, signify properly an eminence, like the Collis of the Romans; but are often used for a fortress so situated. We sometimes meet with a place styled absolute Calah: but the term is generally used in composition, as Cala Nechus, Cala-Anac, Cala-Chan, Cala-On, Cala-Es, Cala-Ait, Cala-Ur, Cala-Ope, Cala-Ham, Cala-Amon, Cala-Adon: whence came the names of people and places styled [358]Callinicus, Calachene, [359]Colonae, Cales, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... shaded with the surrounding trees, and here we spread our rugs, and, fatigued with our exertions, soon dropped into a deep sleep which lasted pretty well all day. It was a pleasant day for me, for I had waking intervals during which I experienced that sensation of absolute rest of mind and body which is so exceedingly sweet after a long period of toil and anxiety. During my waking intervals I smoked cigarettes and listened to the querulous pipings of a flock of young black-headed siskins flying ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... he had said nothing to comfort her, or himself; and because every word that came bubbling to the surface appeared banal and inadequate, he continued silent, gazing at her and marveling at her perfect serenity—her absolute poise. ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... room, a small back room, bare except for a table and sofa and a tawdry ikon in the farthest corner. And there we waited fully fifteen minutes in absolute silence. How silent that house was, full of invisible horrors! The headquarters of the secret police—why shouldn't it be terrifying when you think of the men and women who have been brought here in secret, and their existence suddenly ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... of supreme and universal authority over the whole of the Christian Church, is the Pope the Vicar of Christ: are questions of the greatest moment to all believers in Christianity. If the Pope holds such power and position, then is there the absolute need of subjection to him in things spiritual. The subject has been treated by me from different stand-points during my tour in the States. The substance of such discourses is now given to the public. To meet the demands on time made by the active, busy life in America, the ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... building is finished. It is a sad pity that modern modes of building, like modern manners and fashions, conceal actual construction and character, making a mask that may hide great excellence or absolute worthlessness." ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... that had ever been tried. While this alliance publicly proclaimed that it had no other object than the maintenance of peace and that the repose of the world was its motive and its end, its real object was to uphold absolute monarchy and to suppress every attempt at the establishment of representative government. As long as England remained in the alliance her statesmen exercised a restraining influence, for England was the only one of the allies which professed to have a representative ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... of a desire for its own natural complement. It is difficult here to give definite examples, but everybody knows how, in the subtle psychology of Falling in Love, there are involved innumerable minor elements, physical and mental, which strike us exactly because of their absolute adaptation to form with ourselves an adequate union. Of course we do not definitely seek out and discover such qualities; instinct works far more intuitively than that; but we find at last, by subsequent observation, how true and how trustworthy were its immediate ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... to go with him, and they were to sojourn at some point where she would still be within prompt reach of medical skill, yet from which he could make long jaunts into the absolute wilds. ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... Uzunkiupru and Keshan could arrive in strength very quickly and imperil the whole project. A further objection lies in the distance of the French intermediate base and great strain it would throw on Allied Fleets. Finally, it is all-important that absolute secrecy should be maintained. I suggest that it should be allowed to leak out that the destination of the French is Enos, this would probably have the effect of tricking Turkish troops in Thrace, as Enos is a destination which ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... however, not so easily managed. Part under their chief Nam-si maintained an absolute independence, and the remainder have been so troublesome, that the Gorkhalese have judged it prudent to give them a governor, or, at least, a collector of their own. This person, named Yu-kang-ta, and called Angriya Gabur by the Bengalese, is nephew of the ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... worries during these brief winter days—mostly other people's worries, however. The absolute disappearance of Inez was one; another was the whereabouts of the two runaway girls, Sallie and Celia, who should by this time have discovered that they were not destined to ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... would be in his own hands, and they would themselves form his advanced guard. Traubenberg, however (why has not been certainly explained), refused to march; grounding his refusal upon the condition of his army and their absolute need of refreshment. Long and fierce was the altercation; but at length, seeing no 5 chance of prevailing, and dreading above all other events the escape of their detested enemy, the ferocious Bashkirs went off in a body by forced marches. In six days ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... that the astute pope passed the word that no conclusion should be formulated, as he was not yet ready to indicate all that was in his mind. It may well be that the danger to Constantinople was not yet so evident to Alexius and to all as to indicate the hour for absolute ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... upon effective organisation, and its brutal principles of domination are supported by the bulk of the German people. The Central Powers are to-day Poland's only enemies, and are a danger to her as to all Europe. Poland's interests lie only in one orientation: in absolute opposition to Pan-Germany. ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... pleasing satisfaction of hearing from her own sweet lips, her solicitude about me—in a word, all the dressing-rooms but two were filled with hampers of provisions, glass, china, and crockery, and from absolute necessity, I had no other spot where I could attire myself unseen, except in the identical pavillion already alluded to—here, however, I was quite secure, and had abundant time also, for I was not to appear till scene the second, when I was ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... sense of absolute peace and well-being, if not happiness," she murmured. "I feel raised above all the miseries of life—they appear to me so paltry and ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... in London, who negotiated a loan for me, mortgaging, so far as I could gather from his technical communications, my reversion of Hopton in case Isabella Gayerson should marry another than myself. The money was an absolute necessity, for without it Madame and Lucille could not leave France, and I took but little heed of the manner ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... the fork;—gracious! how the juice spouts out. The dry dish swims; one skilful dash with the knife on each side, the victim is severed in three parts, streaming with richness, and whetting the appetite to absolute greediness. But there is an old adage which says, "All is not gold that glitters." Can this be a deception? The first piece you put in your mouth, as it melts away on the palate, dissipates the thought, and you unhesitatingly pronounce it the most delicious ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... there even been no such muse as Melpomene, would have forced us into an acquaintance with human character. History, as the representative of actual life, of real man, gives us powerful delineations of character in its chief agents, that is, in men; and therefore it is that Shakspeare, the absolute creator of female character, was but the mightiest of all painters with regard to male character. Take a single instance. The Antony of Shakspeare, immortal for its execution, is found, after all, as regards the primary conception, in history. Shakspeare's ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... he repeated, and there was absolute truth in the clear brown eyes, and Mrs. Fowley shifted her own uneasily as he ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... taking complaints of Sibyl to Mrs. Ogilvie, and she was fond, also, of hoping against hope that these complaints would lead to satisfactory results; but, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Ogilvie never troubled herself about them. She was the sort of woman who took the lives of others with absolute unconcern; her own life absorbed every thought and every feeling. Anything that added to her own comfort was esteemed; anything that worried her was shut as much as possible out of sight. She was fond of Sibyl in her ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... Peter, rashly, though speaking the absolute truth. Peter just then was willing to promise anything. Perhaps it was the warm cup of tea; perhaps it was the blazing logs; perhaps it was the shade of the lamp, which cast such a pleasant rosy tint over everything; ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... you are," he asserted with absolute assurance. "We'll catch the last boat back, an' you'll have one fine time. An' I'll put you next to some of the good dancers. Oh, I ain't a pincher, an' I know ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... enjoy reading. They might have been better had they been allowed to keep a cow. But if they had been in comfortable circumstances, they would have had visitors and lodgers, who might have carried guns to destroy the gentleman's creation, i.e. game; and for this risk the wretches were kept in absolute and abject poverty. I would rather be—himself than this brutal Earl. The daughter showed Lady Sinclair a well in the midst of a small bog, of great depth, into which, like Thurtell and Probert, they used to thrust the bodies of their victims till they had an opportunity of burying ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... The Absolute never contradicts itself; as fast as lives are unfolded to the Christ Consciousness, they leave the old thought life like an empty tomb and push themselves into a glorious human expression, just as the Easter lily rising above the dust and mould of earth, pushes ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... doing, as we afterwards discovered. But it had been enough to cause an exodus. No one dreamt that in less than three weeks' time the town would be packed with refugees, and that to get either a bed or a meal would be for many of them almost impossible. Everywhere we found an absolute confidence as to the course of the war, and the general opinion was that the Germans would be driven out of Belgium ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... in my power at the end of a happy day to make myself dream a continuation of it. How many times I have called up the faces of those I love just before falling asleep; but my thoughts wander and carry me off elsewhere, and I prefer that a hundred times over to the absolute negation of thought. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... was a long silence. The old man wished to give his companion time to think; and indeed he thought that Harold was weighing the proposition in his mind. As for Harold, he was thinking how best he could make his absolute refusal inoffensive. He must, he felt, give some reason; and his thoughts were bent on how much of the truth he could safely give without endangering his secret. Therefore he spoke at last ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... from the question of the increase of energy by discontinuous increments, the question of relative and absolute motion makes it very hard to give a particular position to energy, since the 'energy' we speak of in any case is not one quantity but may be interpreted in a great many ways. Take the important case of two ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... 2 The Lord! how absolute he reigns! Let every angel bend the knee; Sing of his love in heavenly strains, And speak how fierce his ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... have furnished anything but human beings, and never a congenial companion for her! Needless to say that she never had on a low-bodied gown, never went to the theatre or a ball, in all her fair young life; and to the loneliness of the country must be added the absolute loneliness during the absences of the count, who had much reading to do in Moscow for the historical portions of his great war drama. When he got tired of his village school, of his experiments upon the infant peasant mind, of things in general, he could and did go away for rest. ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... entirely satisfied? Why are we never at absolute peace or rest? Many are the answers that have been made to this question. The answer here given by the poet is that so richly is man endowed with qualities and attributes that if contentment were added to them, he would ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... Len Guy, "and if we get near the icebergs the damage will not be to them. Therefore, if prudence demands that we should go either to the east or to the west, we shall resign ourselves, but only in case of absolute necessity." ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, afore the glorious Tarnal I never did see yet! And if I hain't found the eighth wonder of monarchical Creation, in finding Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, all as aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not absolute Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the innermostest grit! Wheerfur—Theer!—I la'af! I Dew, ma'arm. I la'af!" And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the platform all the way ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... any such sense as this was indeed new to him; but he could grasp it under the expression "universal law of right reason" when he would have utterly failed, for example, to conceive of it as "the Absolute." He can feel himself the citizen of a State whose maker and ruler is God, and whose law is the inevitable force of Reason; he can realise his relationship to God as a part of the same State, gifted with the same power of discerning its legal basis, ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... dignity and simplicity of great size; and having fought his way all along the road to absolute supremacy, he was as mighty in his own line as Julius Caesar or the Duke of Wellington, and had the gravity [Footnote: A Highland game-keeper, when asked why a certain terrier, of singular pluck, was so much more solemn ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... with mild surprise. "To what else? I am stating my case, Mr. Quest, in the North American Review next month. I may tell you, however, as a fellow scientist, the great and absolute truth. My claim is incontestable. My skeleton will prove to the world, without a doubt, the absolute ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... most men, so attired, looked supremely ridiculous. It was not so with Mr. Silver. It may be that his absolute lack of self-consciousness distracted attention from his costume. It may be that he was so real himself that he dominated his artificial habiliments. Certainly his strong, clean face, his short, crisp hair, and pleasant, booming voice possessed ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... times, are growing upon the same stock. Her earlier impulses may have been derived directly from her father and mother, but all the ancestors who have been mentioned, and more or less obscurely many others, came uppermost in their time, before the absolute and total result of their several forces had found its equilibrium in the character by which she was to be known as an individual. These inherited impulses were therefore many, conflicting, some of them dangerous. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... tempted to commit a break of confidence such as in any one else she would have scorned beyond measure. She had heard, of course, of people secretly opening letters with the help of steam; whether it could be done with absolute security from detection she did not feel sure, but her thoughts dwelt on the subject for several hours. It was terrible to hold this letter of Everard's writing, and yet be obliged to send it away without knowledge of the contents, which perhaps gravely ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... planois had not been used, the line might have been explained in a metaphorical instead of an absolute sense, as we say "WAYS and means," and "wanderings" for error and confusion. But they meant literally paths or roads, such as we tread with our feet; and wanderings, such as a man makes when he loses himself in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... links. My game was distinctly poor at first. But a round or two put me back into my proper form, which is fair. The professor's demeanor at these accidental meetings on the links was a faithful reproduction of his attitude on the beach. Only by a studied imitation of the absolute stranger did he show that he had observed ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... no mind to leave the pleasures open to them in La Guayra, yet they were both men of intelligence and could easily see the absolute necessity for the precaution suggested by Hornigold and accepted by their captain. If they held the passage over the mountains, and fifty men could hold it against a thousand, no Spaniard could come at them. ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... flood; and to this end it was customary to support new settlers with their wives, families, and servants, for eighteen months, at the expense of the crown. The natural consequence was, that all who had become free, either by the expiration of their servitude, by conditional emancipation, or by absolute pardon, and who had no means of support, embraced this offer of the government, which assured them a subsistence that enabled them to seek at their leisure for a more lucrative occupation elsewhere. Nor are these poor creatures ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... marriage was ever thought of. Marriage is a good thing. It protects the wife and the children. As a rule, it enforces constancy. But there's a higher ideal of human companionship that is based on love alone, love so perfect, so absolute that legal bondage insults it; love that is its own justification. Such a ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... office to await results Lessingham paced agitatedly to and fro; he seemed to have reached the limits of his self-control, and to be in a condition in which movement of some sort was an absolute necessity. The mercurial Sydney, on the contrary, leaned back in a chair, his legs stretched out in front of him, his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, and stared at Lessingham, as if he found relief to his feelings in watching his ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... her position most terrible was the absolute certainty of the fatal result, and its close imminence. In his condition, to put off the operation for another day, in order to consider her answer, would be to condemn him to death according to all probability of human science, ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... Italians on the C.P.R., quite close to us. She was the daughter of one of the foremen. So then my brother made me go to his lawyers in Winnipeg. We collected evidence very easily. I got my divorce eighteen months ago. The decree was made absolute last February. So, of course, I'm quite ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... passage outside—no sound of a tread, light or heavy, in the room above—absolute silence everywhere. Besides locking and bolting my door, I had moved an old wooden chest against it, which I had found under the bed. To remove this chest (my blood ran cold as I thought of what its contents might be!) without making some disturbance was impossible; and, moreover, ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... for a moment. Locked in,—her cousin asleep here, exhausted if not ill, and needing absolute quiet,—and going on downstairs—what? She must know! She must call John Strong, and warn him that her fears were realised, and that unwelcome visitors were already at the doors of Fernley, perhaps already within. But how was it possible? She ran to the window ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... sick-room should be quiet; no talking, no gossiping, and, above all, no whispering,—this is absolute cruelty to the patient; he thinks his complaint the subject, and strains his ear painfully to catch the sound. No rustling of dresses, nor creaking shoes either; where the carpets are taken up, the nurse should wear list shoes, or some other noiseless material, and her dress should be of soft material ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... "Absolute!" he replied with conviction. "Do you take me for a native of these sink holes? Mon Dieu! Does your mud so completely cover me? But surely it must be this cursed darkness, or you would have said differently. Where is ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... Lecoq, "listen to me. The Count and Countess de Mussidan expect you to breakfast and here is the note they handed to me for you. Come back to your studio by four o'clock, and I will then introduce you to your father; but till then, remember, absolute silence." ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... clergyman at Annapolis, but was occasionally at home, mounting his horse, and taking a part, while yet a boy, in the fox-hunts at Mount Vernon. His education had consequently been irregular and imperfect, and not such as Washington would have enforced had he possessed over him the absolute authority of a father. Shortly after the return of the latter from his tour to the Ohio, he was concerned to find that there was an idea entertained of sending the lad abroad, though but little more than sixteen years of age, to travel under ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... remarkable. He said once to Mr. Langton, 'I think I am like Squire Richard in The Journey to London, "I'm never strange in a strange place."' He was truly SOCIAL. He strongly censured what is much too common in England among persons of condition,—maintaining an absolute silence, when unknown to each other; as for instance, when occasionally brought together in a room before the master or mistress of the house has appeared. 'Sir, that is being so uncivilised as not to understand the common rights ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... aggressor, and the temptation to the act and its expediency is not what the law has ever called necessity. Nor is this to be regretted; for if in this case the temptation to murder and the expediency of the deed had been held by law as absolute defence of the deed, there would have been no guilt in the case. Happily this is not so. The plea of necessity once admitted might be made the legal cloak for unbridled passions and atrocious crimes, such as the ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... compositions are ornamented with a cover design representing Beethoven's death-mask wreathed with laurel. It was in all sincerity that his publishers placed that decoration there. For there was a moment when Reger excited high hopes. At the time when he appeared, the cause of "absolute" music seemed lost. Musical modernity and the programmatic form had come to seem inseparable. The old classical forms were being supplanted by those of Wagner, Liszt and Strauss. Not that there was a paucity of bespectacled doctors of music ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... and awe environed it, owing to the consciousness of absolute and utter loneliness. It was probable that human feet had never before gained this recess, that human eyes had never been fixed upon these gushing waters. The aboriginal inhabitants had no motives to lead them into ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... this he happened to glance at Mr. Mencke, and was astonished, amazed, to observe a look of unmistakable satisfaction, if not of absolute triumph, flash from ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... each ridge which crosses or touches an imaginary line drawn from the delta to the core. Neither delta nor core is counted. A red line upon the reticule of the fingerprint glass is used to insure absolute accuracy. In the event there is a bifurcation of a ridge exactly at the point where the imaginary line would be drawn, two ridges are counted. Where the line crosses an island, both sides are counted. Fragments and ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation
... or rudeness was, probably, my not having address'd the paper to them with their assum'd titles of True and Absolute Proprietaries of the Province of Pennsylvania, which I omitted as not thinking it necessary in a paper, the intention of which was only to reduce to a certainty by writing, what in conversation I had ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... almost unknown. We were quite exhausted with hunger, and our hearts sank when we found every door and window closed. We then, as an act of mercy, stole a sheaf of oats from a neighbouring field, and cut the ears off for the horse with our penknives, after which we, in absolute hunger, ate as many grains as we could clean from the husks, and some fern, which we found very bitter. We looked very much like a group of vagrants sitting by the road-side, the possession of the oats being disputed with ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... view of the heart of the Exposition at its best compels recognition of Guerin's skill in color. It needed a vivid imagination to realize the possibilities of the scene, and visualize it. It required infinite delicacy and a fine sense of the absolute rightness of shade and tint to produce such harmonious beauty. The mere thought of it is a ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... other is very nearly, and by additional labour we can reduce the limits of uncertainty to as low a point as may be desired. We thus obtain a practical solution of the problem adequate for all the purposes of science. It avails us little to know the place of a planet with absolute mathematical accuracy. If we can determine what we want with so close an approximation to the true position that no telescope could possibly disclose the difference, then every practical end will have been ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... patience; other moments are but a preparation, or after-taste of it. Few men distinguish between them as jealously as he. Hence so many flaws even in the choicest work. But for Leonardo the distinction is absolute, and, in the moment of bien-etre, the alchemy complete: the idea is stricken into colour and imagery: a cloudy mysticism is refined to a subdued and graceful mystery, and painting pleases the eye while it satisfies ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... relief to be printed from like type. Using the smooth box block as a uniform surface from which, if covered with printing ink, a uniformly black impression might be obtained, Bewick, by cutting white lines across it at greater or lesser intervals, produced gradations of shade, from the absolute black of the block to the lightest tints. The general result of this method was to give a greater depth of colouring and variety to the engraving, but its advantages may perhaps be best understood by a glance at the background of the "Woodcock" ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... discoveries had already attained, represented that the tempestuous seas, strong currents, and whirlpools, which they fancied must prevail on the other side of Cape Bajadore, would necessarily destroy every vessel which should attempt to penetrate beyond that absolute limit of human navigation; they alleged that all the country to the south of that cape was utterly unfit for the habitation of mankind, sterile, burnt up, and destitute of soil and water, like the sandy deserts of Lybia; and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... was probably one on complex numbers, or possibly one on quaternions, in which direction as well as absolute value is involved. ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... the reasons which stimulated me on several occasions to urge upon the Government of this country to improve the Government of India, and to give us a chance of receiving a considerable portion of our supply from India, so that we might not be left in absolute want when the calamity occurred, which all thoughtful men knew must some day ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... fellow hops about, in his bright red waistcoat, from tree to tree. He flutters to the fence, and from the fence to the garden path, and so to the door and into the kitchen. If you will give him decent encouragement he will come on to your hand and take his meal with absolute confidence in your good faith. Then he will trip away and resume his ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... From whom was he descended? 2. What does Paulding say of him? 3. Where is found the quotation—"Free will fixed fate, foreknowledge absolute"? ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... should call a transformed genius so much as a genius becoming divested of its coarser life, and then breathing purely the inner spirit of goodness and beauty. The result is what one might almost term the "absolute" in pathos. Nothing is excluded that is necessary to impression; nothing is admitted that could vulgarize or weaken it. We have thus pathos at once practical and poetic,—pathos at once the most affecting and the most ideal,—coming from a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... favorable beyond suspicion. To such an extent was this a matter of public knowledge that the Customs Station of San Francisco was popularly dubbed the "Virginia Poor House." During all these years California was under the absolute control of the Democratic Party, and the party was under ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... finishing touch to his wonderful creation, would he abstain from the dissipation and self-indulgent idleness that was apt to follow any concentration on his part? I liked to believe that this would be the case; and as I cherished the idea, it grew almost into absolute faith. ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... disengages Beauty from the wide background of rudeness, darkness, and strength,—and disengages her from absolute nature! The mild and beneficent aspects of nature,— what gulfs and abysses of power underlie them! The great shaggy, barbaric earth,— yet the summing-up, the plenum, of all we know or can know of beauty! So the orbic poems of the world have a foundation as of the earth itself, and are beautiful ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... work. And when there is little money but either or both have a job, then by all means they should be married. When young people marry, they take difficulties of housekeeping and privations as a lark, even as young people do camping out. When I was a boy, camping out was absolute bliss; now it would be absolute horror. Furthermore, in youth neither of them has "set"; they can accommodate themselves to ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... palace at Opslo, and lived there with his mistress until recalled to Copenhagen, when he took her with him. The most singular feature in this whole intrigue is that the royal voluptuary was from the outset under the absolute sway, not of the fair Dyveke, but of her mother, Sigbrit, a low, cunning, intriguing woman of Dutch origin, who followed the couple to the royal palace at Opslo, and afterwards accompanied them to Stockholm, the complete ruler of her ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... dreaming, that journey of our thoughts through delightful visions, is assuredly the sweetest experience in the world; but it must come naturally, it must not be provoked in a painful, manner, and must be accompanied by absolute bodily comfort. This power of dreaming I can give you, provided you promise that ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... of the widows and orphans who, while bewailing the loss of those they loved, their protectors and bread-winners, were doomed to struggle on in poverty; and the numberless families, formerly in affluence, now reduced to absolute beggary. Such was the state of my native land. And yet no one complained—all were ready to struggle on in the cause of Liberty; blaming, not those who had risen to fight for freedom, but the tyranny of their oppressors as the cause ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... of earth as steps along which he mounts upwards, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is; this, my dear Socrates," said the prophetess of Mantineia, "is that life, above all others, which man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute. Do you not see that in that communion only, beholding beauty with ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... conceive how, in such a state of mind, he could be capable of making ludicrous jokes, nor how, with so bitter an example of despotic degradation [Footnote: What humiliation Caesar would have inwardly felt, could he have foreseen that, within a few generations, Nero, his successor in absolute authority, out of a lust for self-degradation, would expose himself frequently to infamy in the same manner as he, the first despot, had exposed a Roman of the middle rank, not without exciting a general feeling of indignation.] before their eyes, the spectators could take any ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... different when a group of evil-minded men encounter a person radiating a spirit of love and good will as contrasted with one who shows hatred, antagonism or fear. Their reactions will be quite different to those two persons, even though no absolute guarantee of immunity goes with ...
— Hidden from the Prudent - The 7th William Penn Lecture, May 8, 1921 • Paul Jones
... the Avenue, in absolute silence, a regiment of cuirassiers was passing, the level sun blazing like sheets of crimson fire across their helmets and breastplates. And now, listening, the far clatter of their horses came to his ears in an ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... possession of the Israelitish people, which they lost in the exile. Aaron ben Elijah is not willing to follow the philosophers as far as Maimonides. He admits positive attributes in God, which Maimonides rejects; he admits an absolute will in God and not merely a relative like Maimonides; he extends God's providence to all individuals including irrational creatures, whereas Maimonides limits special providence to the individuals of the human ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... clasping her tightly by the arm. "Rona Mitchell has come, and she's the most awful creature! I never was so disappointed in my life. Don't you sympathize with me, when I expected her to be so ripping? She's absolute backwoods!" ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... people would return after their first alarm had subsided, and therefore I determined on remaining until the next day, in the expectation of seeing them as I considered the opening of an early communication a matter of the greatest importance in our state of absolute ignorance respecting the sea-coast. The canoes and cargoes were carried across the portage and we encamped on the north side of it. We sent Augustus and Junius across the river to look for the runaways but their search was fruitless. They put a few pieces ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... are destroyed, we can thus at once see why existing forms are related to the extinct in the same manner as existing ones are in some part of existing continent. By chance we might even have one or two absolute parent fossils. ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other; and, as in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was various; sometimes I was received with favour, and sometimes I was mortified with a repulse. At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook, I feared no competitor, and thus I set absolute want at defiance; and as I never cared farther for my labours than while I was in actual exercise, I spent the evenings in the way after my own heart. A country lad seldom carries on a love adventure without an assisting confidant. I possessed a curiosity, zeal, and intrepid ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... capitalists swallowed up most of the small producers, so were the great capitalists swallowing up the smaller, and the middle class which survived was disappearing day by day. Wages, meanwhile, were regulated by an iron law. Under the system of capitalism it was an absolute impossibility that they could rise. As he put it, in language which has since become proverbial, "The rich are getting richer, the poor poorer, the middle class is being crushed out," and the time, he continued, was in sight already—it would ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... a case of "The People vs. Stuart (alias Berdue) and Windred," charged with robbery and assault. Coleman and his Committee of Twelve were in absolute charge. They selected as judges, three popular and trusted citizens, J.R. Spence, H.R. Bowie and C.L. Ross. W.A. Jones was named the judge's clerk and J.E. Townes the ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... a Poultis when he goes to Bed, To bind to his Temples behind of his Head; As hot as the Patient he well can endure, And this is for Cuckolds an absolute Cure. ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... assent. He was speaking again: "The first thing to do is to find the starting point on the map and work it out step by step, then when we locate the lode, you and Clen and I will file the first three claims, and we'll file all the Wattses on the adjoining claims. That will give us absolute control of a big block of what is probably a most ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... It was an excess of communicativeness, an eagerness to show what was most at my heart, and to ascertain what was at the heart of those to whom I talked, which made me incapable of mere fencing and trifling, and so often caused me to retreat into myself when I found absolute absense ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... the States of Europe? Before the War the political geography of Europe was almost tradition. To-day every part of Europe is in a state of flux. The only absolute certainty is that in Continental Europe conquerors and conquered are in a condition of spiritual, as well as economic, unrest. It is difficult indeed to say how many political unities there are and how many are lasting, and what new wars are being prepared, if a way of salvation is not found ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... in this matter of the Kirk's claim to the patrimony of the old Church which perhaps is generally misunderstood. That point is luminous as regards the absolute disinterestedness of Knox and his companions, both in respect to themselves and their fellow-preachers. The Book of Discipline contains a sentence already quoted, conceived in what we may justly style a chivalrous contempt of wealth. "Your Honours may easily understand that we speak ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang |
