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Critical   Listen
adjective
Critical  adj.  
1.
Qualified to criticise, or pass judgment upon, literary or artistic productions. "It is submitted to the judgment of more critical ears to direct and determine what is graceful and what is not."
2.
Pertaining to criticism or the critic's art; of the nature of a criticism; accurate; as, critical knowledge; a critical dissertation.
3.
Inclined to make nice distinctions, or to exercise careful judgment and selection; exact; nicely judicious. "Virgil was so critical in the rites of religion, that he would never have brought in such prayers as these, if they had not been agreeable to the Roman customs."
4.
Inclined to criticise or find fault; fastidious; captious; censorious; exacting. "O gentle lady, do not put me to 't, For I am nothing, if not critical."
5.
Characterized by thoroughness and a reference to principles, as becomes a critic; as, a critical analysis of a subject.
6.
Pertaining to, or indicating, a crisis, turning point, or specially important juncture; important as regards consequences; hence, of doubtful issue; attended with risk; dangerous; as, the critical stage of a fever; a critical situation. "Our circumstances are indeed critical." "The small moment, the exact point, the critical minute, on which every good work so much depends."
Critical angle (Optics), that angle of incidence of a luminous ray at which it is wholly reflected, and no portion of it transmitted. The sine of this angle is the reciprocal of the refractive index of the medium.
Critical philosophy, the metaphysical system of Kant; so called from his most important work, the "Critique of Pure Reason."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Critical" Quotes from Famous Books



... gauntlets. The grace of the alert, slender figure, the perfect poise of the beautiful little tawny head, proclaimed her distinction no less certainly than the fine modeling of the mobile face. It was a distinction that stirred the pulse of his emotion and disarmed his keen, critical sense. Ridgway could study her with an amused, detached interest, but Hobart's admiration had traveled past that point. He found it as impossible to define her charm as to evade it. Her inheritance of blood and her environment should have made her a finished product of civilization, but ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... to confess, even post facto, to an anterior descent,—would expose her, as I have said, to the scorn of all other women. Such a confession would be an admission that emotion had got the better of her at a critical intellectual moment, and in the eyes of women, as in the eyes of the small minority of genuinely intelligent men, no treason to the higher cerebral centres could ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... of their country. Detained by the quarrels which against all advice he continually pursued with Geneva and Berne, he delegated his command of these troops to the same untrustworthy agent who had collected them, a certain Sire de Cugy of Vaud. At a critical moment in the battle of Cerisolles this helpless band of peasants not surprisingly took to their heels and seriously endangered the victory of the French. The other Swiss soldiers sustained their old reputation ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven

... the Occident. A few are not averse to adopting Christianity; many more are free-thinkers; but the bulk remain loyal to Buddhism. They have reproduced here the compact trade guilds of Japan. The persistent aggressiveness of the Japanese, their cunning, their aptitude in taking advantage of critical circumstances in making bargains, have by contrast partially restored to popular favor the ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... more and more admitted by theologians who are regarded as quite orthodox and rather conservative, that the idea of a miracle need not necessarily imply such a suspension of natural law. And on the other hand, decidedly critical and liberal theologians are more and more disposed to admit {159} that many of the abnormal events commonly called miraculous may very well have occurred without involving any real suspension of natural law. Recent advances in psychological knowledge have widened our conception of the ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall

... each text, the editor has provided a critical and historical introduction, including a sketch of the life of the author and his relation to the thought of his time, critical opinions of the work in question chosen from the great body of English criticism, and, where possible, a portrait of the ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... accidental heat, Whereby the moisture of your blood is dried: The humidum and calor, which some hold Is not a parcel of the elements, But of a substance more divine and pure, Is almost clean extinguished and spent; Which, being the cause of life, imports your death: Besides, my lord, this day is critical, Dangerous to those whose crisis is as yours: Your artiers, [304] which alongst the veins convey The lively spirits which the heart engenders, Are parch'd and void of spirit, that the soul, Wanting those organons by which it moves, Cannot endure, by ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe

... it, just at present; but you had better pass the word for all of them to hold on, when the gale strikes her. That will be the critical moment. Once past that, she will be all right till the sea begins to rise. Then you had best get them below, for we shall have the water sweeping knee deep along the waist, in ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty

... thy noble spirit cast down, Edward? Dost think that the Elector's ministers are such doves as to set their enemies at liberty at this critical moment if they could or durst confine and punish them? Assure thyself that either they have no charge against your relations on which they can continue their imprisonment, or else they are afraid of our friends, the jolly Cavaliers ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... 31st.—We set off accordingly at sunrise, before any one was abroad in the street. Our coachman reported, that General Clausel had reached the gates, and that the national guard had been beat off. We have arrived, therefore, at the most critical moment, and may be grateful that we have escaped. The road between Bourdeaux and Poillac is very bad. Arrived at the inn at half way, we met with the Marquis de Valsuzenai, prefect of the town, who confirmed the bad news: ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... battle ground, the only one worth considering in a general view. There are minor "critical stages" which the chemist studies, but for us, in this broad sketch of the universe, the important battle-ground is that between solid and liquid on one side representing gravity, and gas on the ...
— Ancient and Modern Physics • Thomas E. Willson

... Cromwell's motive in the fabrication of this Insurrection of March, 1655? It was not, as might be suggested, a device to thwart by a premature explosion, a dangerous conspiracy during a critical moment in the Protectorate. Cromwell himself asserts in his 'Declaration,' that 'this Attempt was made, when nothing but a well-formed Power could hope to put Us into disorder; Scotland and Ireland being perfectly reduced; Differences ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... consumption, it lost all its importance for the latter purpose, and that all relations dependent thereon ceased. At present, he claims money is only the representative of commodities, but no commodity itself. See, on the other hand, Roscher's critical analysis in the Literarisches ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... fate. Publishers are his humble servants—waiting eagerly to snatch up his work that they may get all they can for themselves out of it,—and the public—the great public which, apart from all 'interested' critical bias, delivers its own verdict, is always ready to hearken and to applaud the writer of its choice. There is no more splendid and enviable life!—if I could only make a hundred pounds a year by it, I would rather be an author than a king! ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... was one of the family. Neither did Bridget think it worth while to mention it to Mrs. Fenelby. From the time she was informed of the existence of the tariff up to the arrival of Kitty Bridget paid into Bobberts' bank twenty cents. This was the duty on a two dollar hat that even the most critical mind could not have called a luxury, and there Bridget's payments seemed to stop. She did not seem to feel the need of making ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler

... been shown by his encounter with Indra's watchman, was a bold prince, and he was cautious as he was brave. The sight of a human being in the midst of these terrors raised his mettle; he determined to prove himself a hero, and feeling that the critical moment was now come, he hoped to rid himself and his house forever of the family curse ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... acquitted; and he ever after looked upon this escape, as one of the most remarkable blessings of his life. 'In such 'critical times (says he) how little evidence would have sufficed to ruin any man, that had been accused with the least probability of truth? I do therefore, most solemnly oblige myself, and all mine, to keep the grateful remembrance of my ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... though not formally, engaged to Kestner, a man of two-and-thirty, secretary to the Hanoverian legation. The discovery of this relation made no difference to Goethe; he remained the devoted friend to both. But the position was too critical to last. On September 10 they met in the German house for the last time. Goethe and Schlosser went together to Wetzlar in November. Here he heard of the death of Jerusalem, a young man attached to the Brunswick legation. He had been ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... of modern scepticism, from which, if religion emerge at all, it will emerge without its dross? Are not we Jews always the first prey of new ideas, with our alert intellect, our swift receptiveness, our keen critical sense? And if we are not hypocrites, we are indifferent—which is almost worse. Indifference is the only infidelity I recognize, and it is unfortunately as conservative as zeal. Indifference and hypocrisy between them keep orthodoxy ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... situated as we were, not to imbibe the idea that everything in nature and human existence was fluid, or fast becoming so; that the crust of the earth in many places was broken, and its whole surface portentously upheaving; that it was a day of crisis, and that we ourselves were in the critical vortex. Our great globe floated in the atmosphere of infinite space like an unsubstantial bubble. No sagacious man will long retain his sagacity, if he live exclusively among reformers and progressive people, without periodically ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... so long as he continued, was full of polite wonder over these things; perhaps had critical advices here and there, which would be politely received. It is certain he came out extremely brilliant, gifted and agreeable, in the eyes of Friedrich; who often afterwards, not in the very strictest language, calls him a great man, great soldier, and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... then flump on to a lot of rotten, wet debris, with more snakes and centipedes among it than you had any immediate use for, even though you were a collector; but there you had to stay, while Wiki, who was a most critical connoisseur, selected from the surrounding forest a bush-rope that he regarded as the correct remedy for the case, and then up you were hauled, through the sticks you had turned the wrong ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... Portugais, Arabie, Afrique, Hollande, Grande Bretagne, &c. Paris, 1657. 4to.—This work bears a high character for veracity and exactness; and is very minute in its account of the casts and religions of India. Prefixed to it is a short critical notice of travellers who preceded him, written with great judgment ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... Che sera, sera— Lest it should be thought that I am wrong in not altering the old spelling here, I may quote from Panizzi's very critical edition of the ORLANDO FURIOSO, "La satisfazion ci SERA pronta." C. xviii. ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe

... arguments for and against the theory of sexual selection in general. Of course in nearly all respects this corresponds with the resume which is given in the foregoing pages; but I have left the latter as it was originally written, because all the critical part is reproduced verbatim from a review of Mr. Wallace's Darwinism, of a date still earlier than that of Mr. Poulton's ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes

... betrayed a certain concern for some aspects of Lowell's criticism. Is it always penetrating, they ask? Did he think his critical problems through? Did he have a body of doctrine, a general thesis to maintain? Did he always keep to the business in hand? Candor compels the admission that he often had no theses to maintain: he invented them as he went ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... lying alongside of the brig, but across its bows, so that the bowsprit of the latter crossed its deck. We could not, therefore, reach it, since the Spaniards had possession of the forecastle of their own vessel. At this critical moment we received unexpected aid in the shape of a shower of grape shot from our schooner, which swept away many of the negroes, besides wounding a large number of them, whilst at the same time a new party of combatants sprang on deck to ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... behind the scenes. I can only say that there was smoothness outwardly. But you, who have known Miss Fairfax from a child, must be a better judge of her character, and of how she is likely to conduct herself in critical situations, than ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... the advocate that he owed the early granting of his request to the powerful influence of the French minister. And Manasseh, on his part, was not slow to perceive that the advocate's chief concern was lest his fair client, at this critical time, should be seen in public in the company of a strange young man. It might hurt ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... complaint of the police that they are hampered by the fact that rarely are they notified of a case of criminal abortion until the woman's condition is so critical that it is impossible to obtain a statement from her, and if she dies the evidence she might have given is lost. Without such evidence there is little chance of successfully prosecuting ...
— Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Various Aspects of the Problem of Abortion in New Zealand • David G. McMillan

... be placed at school in Kottbus, at that time still a little manufacturing town in the Mark. My mother did not venture to keep me in Berlin during the critical years now approaching. Kottbus was not far away, and knowing that I was backward in the science that Dr. Boltze, the mathematician, taught, she gave him the preference over the heads of the other boarding-schools in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the prayers of his good children, and one hand, well rodded, for the backs of the naughty ones. The seed of the righteous never begged for bread, and the villain always came to a bad end. It was the childish philosophy of the "gods" in a modern theatre. The more critical want something truer and more natural, something more accordant with the stern realities of life. Renan has some excellent remarks on this in the Preface to his second volume of the Histoire ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... week Ned lay between life and death; then the fever left him, and the most critical point of his illness was reached. It was for days a question whether he had strength left to rally from his exhaustion. But youth and a good constitution triumphed at last, and six weeks from the day on which he was brought in, he started ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... white-tail deer, and the antelope—animals which give birth to their young without trouble. Medicine-men are called in to pray to the spirits of these animals when a woman approaching confinement puts on the belt. It is worn for a day or so only, but constantly during the critical period, not being removed until after the child is born. Prayers are made, first by a mother or father for their daughter, then by a medicine-man, and lastly by the patient to the gods and elements depicted ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... his note-book and writing] "Fiddles while Rome is burning!" Mr. Lemmy, it's my business at this very critical time to find out what the nation's thinking. Now, as ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... E. side of the Mare Serenitatis, described by Lohrmann and Madler as a deep crater, but which in 1866 was found by Schmidt to have lost all the appearance of one. The announcement of this apparent change led to a critical examination of the object by most of the leading observers, and to a controversy which, if it had no other result, tended to awaken an interest in selenography that has been maintained ever since. According ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger

... by so sublime a theme; and remembering that I had no critical hearer, I gave free reins to fancy, forgetting for the moment that some undiscovered thought or feeling had prompted her questions. And while I spoke of the mountains, she hung on my words, following me closely ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... then in straitened circumstances, left unredeemed his promise to do so. The brief memoir by Sir Walter Scott, which is prefixed to many popular editions of Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental Journey, sets out the so-called autobiography in full, but for the rest is mainly critical; Thackeray's well-known lecture essay is almost wholly so; and nothing, worthy to be dignified by the name of a Life of Sterne, seems ever to have been published, until the appearance of Mr. Percy Fitzgerald's two stout volumes, under this title, some eighteen years ago. Of this ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... see the American flag floating over the consulate. This outlook had afforded them some occupation during the day, and even when night fell they stood together gazing silently out into the deserted street, lighted only by the brilliant moon. They began now to feel that their position was critical, and Bert, who more easily yielded to the depressing effects of circumstances, bemoaned his fate and all the series of events that had led up to their present unenviable plight. He was inclined to blame Harry for ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich

... English lawyers occasionally rejected the evidence of women on the ground that they are "frail." But the exclusion of women as witnesses in the old days was not for psychological reasons, nor did it originate from a critical study of the ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... son of Caius, Pontiff and Propraetor, has at a most critical period of the republic exhorted the veteran soldiers to defend the liberty of the Roman people, and has enlisted them in his army, and as the Martial legion and the fourth legion, with great zeal for the republic, and with admirable unanimity, under the guidance and authority ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... critical time in English history, when the people, tired of the misgovernment of the later Stuarts, were most in need of a forum where questions of great moment could be discussed, the coffee house became a sanctuary. Here ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... It is the critical moment that shows the man. So when the crisis is upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough and stalwart antagonist.—"To what end?" you ask. That you may prove the victor at ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... without inquiring as to the nature of the information, denied it at once upon principle; he also alluded darkly to his education, and shook his head over the effects of a change at such a critical period of ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... somehow managed to make themselves into three, viewing the displayed lettering, the photograph of the dead man, the line drawing of the entry in Middle Temple Lane, and the facsimile of the scrap of grey paper, with a critical eye. "Yes—merely a new method," he continued. "The question is—will it ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher

... written in Latin, and so also is a brief unfinished treatise, the work of some period during his exile, on the Common Speech, 'De Vulgari Eloquio.' It has intrinsic interest as the first critical study of language and of literature in modern times, as well as from the acute and sound judgments with which it abounds, and from its discussion of the various forms and topics of poetry, but still more from its numerous illustrations of Dante's personal experience and sentiment. Its object ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... parts"[19]—such a statement would pass almost unnoticed as a mere truism. Yet I believe that it embodies a failure to effect thoroughly the "Copernican revolution," and that the apparent oneness of the world is merely the oneness of what is seen by a single spectator or apprehended by a single mind. The Critical Philosophy, although it intended to emphasise the subjective element in many apparent characteristics of the world, yet, by regarding the world in itself as unknowable, so concentrated attention upon the subjective representation that its subjectivity ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell

... remained, in spite of herself, a girl receiving a man. She was glad that no one was there to watch with quizzical eye as she rearranged the furniture; she was doubly glad that he could not watch her at the mirror. She gave herself the most critical examination since she left the East and on the whole she approved of the changes. The stirring life in the open had darkened the olive of her skin, she found, but also had made it more translucent; the curve of her cheek was pleasantly filled; her throat rounder; ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... the critical Aunt Annie had to admit that the little minx was managing the whole matter with consummate skill. Leslie was not in the least self-conscious with Acton; she turned to him with all the artless confidence ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... to hit her and discourage her. But she never seemed to mind them; and although eventually he fired off pretty nearly every movable thing in the house excepting the piano, she continued to shriek and scream in a manner that was simply appalling. At last, one day, Potts made a critical examination of the premises, and, guided by the noise, he finally located the cat in the tin waterspout which descends the north wall of the house. He thinks the cat must have been skylarking on the roof some dark night and accidentally tumbled ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... hand of God for such their rashness and profaneness, according to the Divine threatenings, Numbers 4:15, 20; but how other copies come to add such an incredible number as fifty thousand in this one town, or small city, I know not. See Dr. Wall's Critical ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... Madame Camilla accelerated her steps to deliver the orders of the princess to the cook. An hour later, the lady's maid had finished the toilet of the princess, who approached the large looking-glass in order to cast a last critical look ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... to a printer's. On his return thence his health is discovered to be very bad; strong drastics are applied; he is gradually cooked up; and when convalescent, he puts on his Sunday clothes, and struts before the public. At this critical juncture up comes the typish master of the ceremonies, Mr. Preface, and commences introducing him to them; but knowing that both man and woman are essentially inquisitive, he follows the example of that ancient and shrewd traveller who, by ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... along the port bulwarks, and waving their hats joyously in the air. Most prominent of all was the renegade mate, standing on the foc'sle head, and gesticulating wildly. Craddock looked over the side to see what they were cheering at, and then in a flash he saw how critical was the moment. ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... than by immediately adopting it—this shall be done in the next edition. I am sorry your remarks are not more frequent, as I am certain they would be equally beneficial. Since my last, I have received two critical opinions from Edinburgh, both too flattering for me to detail. One is from Lord Woodhouselee, at the head of the Scotch literati, and a most voluminous writer (his last work is a life of Lord Kaimes); the other from Mackenzie, who sent his decision a second time, more at length. I am not ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... has the same power as the President. The reform element, although in the majority, permitted the election of Senator Edward I. Wolfe as President pro tem. Wolfe was admittedly leader of the machine element in the Senate. At critical times during the session, the fact that both the President and President pro tem. of the Senate were friendly to machine interests gave the machine great advantage ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn

... and philosophic interpretation of life are not to be confused. Philosophy must separate the matter from the form. Its synthesis comes through analysis, and analysis is destructive of beauty, as it is of all life. Art, therefore, resists the violence of the critical methods of philosophy, and the feud between them, of which Plato speaks, will last through all time. The beauty of form and the music of speech which criticism destroys, and to which philosophy is, at the best, indifferent, ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones

... spite of the progress of enclosure for centuries, were still farmed on the old common-field system. When anything out of the common was to be done on common farms, all common work came to a standstill. 'To carry out corn stops the ploughs, perhaps at a critical season; the fallows are frequently seen overrun with weeds because it is seed time; in a word, some business is ever neglected.'[444] As for the outcry against enclosing commons and wastes, people forgot ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... found room for a long and most laudatory article, in which the son of one of our most distinguished historians did the honors of the venerable literary periodical to the new-comer, for whom the folding-doors of all the critical headquarters were flying open as if of themselves. Mr. Allibone has recorded the opinions of some of our best scholars ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... only knows; but I never worked there without a consciousness that you might at any moment come down the walk, under the grape-arbor, bestowing glances of approval, that were none the worse for not being critical; exercising a sort of superintendence that elevated gardening into a fine art; expressing a wonder that was as complimentary to me as it was to Nature; bringing an atmosphere which made the garden a region of romance, the soil of which was set apart for fruits ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Aaron Rockharrt was very critical. Irritative fever had set in with great violence, and this was the beginning of the hard struggle for life that lasted many days, during which delirium, stupor, and brief lucid intervals followed each other with the rise and fall of the fever. A professional nurse was ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... last Shakespeare manual was prepared. This little volume aims to present what may be necessary for the majority of classes, as a background upon which may be begun the study and reading of the plays. Critical comment on individual plays has been added, in the hope that it may stimulate interest in other plays than those ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken

... advance on Wiclif. In the realm of verse, John Skelton was a powerful satirist with a unique manipulation of doggerel which has permanently associated a particular type of rhyme with his name; an original and versatile writer was Skelton, but without that new critical sense of style which was to become so marked a feature of the great literary outburst under Elizabeth. Herein, two minor poets alone, Surrey and Wyatt, appear as harbingers of the coming day. A hundred anonymous writers of Gloriana's time produced verses as good as the best ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... now conversing, now occupied with their pursuits, and occasionally listening to some passage which Herbert called to their attention, and which ever served as the occasion for some critical remarks, always as striking from their originality as they were happy in their expression, the freshness of the morning disappeared; the sun now crowned the valley with his meridian beam, and they re-entered the villa. The ladies returned to their cool ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... back, you will find that the fourth year in the history of a Government is always a very critical and has often been a very unfortunate year. It is quite true that Mr. Disraeli's Government, which assumed office in 1874, did enjoy in its fourth year a fleeting flush of success, which, however, proved illusory. With ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... unpractised in philosophical reflection, Bergson's skill and clarity of statement, his fertility in illustration, his frequent and picturesque use of analogy may be a pitfall. It all sounds so convincing and right, as Bergson puts it, that the critical faculty is put to sleep. There is peril in this, particularly here, where we have to deal with so bold and even revolutionary a doctrine. If we are able to retain our independence of judgment we are bound sooner or later, in spite of Bergson's persuasiveness, to have our misgivings. After all, we ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn

... becomes for the young man himself a serious task. For him, at all events, the better future will not merely happen. He will have to do something to deserve it. It may be wrecked by unforeseen obstacles, by unsuspected infirmities, or by some critical error of judgment. So it is with the Promise of American life. From the point of view of an immigrant this Promise may consist of the anticipation of a better future, which he can share merely by taking up his residence on American soil; but once he has become an American, the Promise ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... with me), a critical investigating faculty, mental acumen, intellectual precision and independence equal to the occasion; without this, the completest inspection will be useless. Reason insists that the owner of it must further be allowed ample time; he will collect the rival candidates together, and ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... dose of that to make me work hard. Everything seemed to me to have been done, and there was no virgin soil left to the plough, no ruins on which to try one's own spade. Hermann and Haupt gave me work to do, but it was all in the critical line—the genealogical relation of various MSS., or, again, the peculiarities of certain poets, long before I had fully grasped their general character. What Latin vowels could or could not form elision ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... obligation an editor is under not to deal unexpectedly with matters that are not virginibus puerisque, the chances are heavily in favor of the Censor escaping all remonstrance. With the exception of such comments as I was able to make in my own critical articles in The World and The Saturday Review when the pieces I have described were first produced, and a few ignorant protests by churchmen against much better plays which they confessed they had not seen nor read, nothing has been said in the press that could seriously disturb the easygoing notion ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... critical. I soon saw that the horses did not keep the road, but turned out of it towards the Platte River (the river and the road run parallel about half a mile apart, as you probably know), and I knew that ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle

... annals of the house of Musgrave: and further adventuring is blocked by R. V. Musgrave's monumental work The Musgraves of Matocton. The critical may differ as to the plausibility of the family tradition (ably defended by Colonel Musgrave, pp. 33-41) that Mistress Cynthia Musgrave was the dark lady of Shakespeare's Sonnets, and that this poet, also, in the end, absolved her of intentional malice. There is none, at any event, ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... darkness, they prepared to pass another disagreeable night. Rayner felt that their position was critical in the extreme. He and his companions, accused as they were of being spies, might be led out at any moment and shot. He therefore considered it his duty to prepare his companions as best he could for the worst. Oliver he knew was as ready to die as he was himself. He spoke ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... reported to have said of the movies, "shake the rattle which keeps the American child amused so that it forgets its aches and pains." We may safely trust education to keep the American mind infantile, merely acquisitive and not critical. And thus the nonsenseorship seems sure to be perpetuated, and we reach the ideal of all the ages, society in its permanent and final form. Here we ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... evening these critical gentlemen of the Army were less satisfied than ever. There had been three "first appearances," of poor quality, and they accused the management of having filled the hall with civilians in order to secure a good reception for these ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... He knew that he was in a very critical position. His safety depended on the silence of two persons—one of whom would soon be gone. He was not aware that Ferguson also knew of his attempted crime, or the danger would have seemed greater. However much he thirsted for vengeance, it would not do to gratify ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... spring. I repeat that I forlornly hope so, notwithstanding the supercilious regard of hope by Schopenhauer, von Hartmann, and other philosophers down to Einstein who have my respect. But one dares not prophesy. Physical, chronological, and other contingencies keep me in these days from critical ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy

... new and he could not account for it, he turned back to regard the scene on the viewer with a more critical eye. The foliage which grew in riotous profusion was green right enough, and Terra green into the bargain—there was no mistaking that. But—Dane caught at the edge of Com-unit for support. But—What was that liver-red blossom ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... critical, and epigrammatic verse (1604-1655). He was born in Silesia and spent the most of his life at Brieg, where he was sometime ducal councillor. In 1654 he published Salomon von Golaws deutscher Sinngetichte drei Tausend, the name Golaw being ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas

... and almost resentful. But happily his affection was incipient as yet, and a sudden sense of the ridiculous in his own position carried him to the verge of risibility during the scene. She signified a chair, and began the critical study of some rings ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... irrumation, tete-beche, feuille-de- rose, etc.), till they induce the venereal orgasm. Such was the account once given to me by a eunuch's wife; and I need hardly say that she, like her confrerie, was to be pitied. At the critical moment she held up a little pillow for her husband to bite who otherwise would have torn ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... yet intensely dramatic. Ravenswood, wrought to the verge of despair, bursts upon the scene at the critical moment, detaches Emily from her party, and leads her slowly forward. He is unutterably sad. He questions her very tenderly; asks her whether she is not enforced; whether she is taking this step of her own free will and accord; whether she has indeed ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... index numbers have been worked out for different countries and periods. The main results of the more recent ones have been brought together with critical comments, by Professor Wesley C. Mitchell, in Bulletin 173 of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, July, 1915, from which the ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... work. With the result that—for the first time in eleven years—he felt his position in the working-class movement giving beneath his feet, and his influence beginning to drop from his hand. Coldness in place of enthusiasm; critical aloofness in place of affection; readiness to forget and omit him in matters where he had always hitherto belonged to the inner circle and the trusted few—these bitter ghosts, with their hard, unfamiliar looks, had risen of late in his world of idealist effort and joy, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... critical periods of ancient republics, we shall find that opinions did not exist as the grounds of feud, nor could by any dexterity have been applied to the settlement of feuds. Whereas, on the other hand, with ourselves ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... special attention to those reviews of Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, Mr. Alfred Austin, the Hon. John Collier, Mr. Brander Matthews and Sir Edwin Arnold, Rossetti, Pater, Henley and Morris; they have more permanent value than the others, and are in accord with the wiser critical judgments of to-day. ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... of legalism an excessive deference is wont to be paid to public, and even to parochial, opinion. The life of the votary of the Law is lived under strict and constant surveillance; and a man learns at last to value himself as his conduct is valued by a critical onlooker, and to make it the business of his life to produce "results" which can be weighed and measured by conventional standards, rather than to grow in grace,—with silent, subtle, ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... and rectum are very common, very numerous and of very critical consequences. This is especially true of the disease of chronic inflammation, one of whose symptoms is piles or hemorrhoids. In the writings of the early Greek and Roman physicians will be found minute descriptions ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... commanded every approach to it. As long as the Americans kept in the side streets they were comparatively safe, but the moment they showed themselves in any of the avenues leading to the Plaza, they encountered a hail of bullets. This was serious enough; but at the end of two days the situation became critical, for the ammunition began to run low, and it was realized that, if the Mexicans discovered this, they would sweep down and cut their defenseless opponents to pieces. Face to face with this predicament, the Colonel on September 23rd, called for a volunteer to carry a dispatch to ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... on the flank of the Fifth French Army, with General Lanrezac, against General von Buelow's hosts—was unable to help the British, owing to the exhausted state of his cavalry. The situation was full of peril; indeed, Wednesday bade fair to become the most critical day of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... for sidelights, we did not talk about his school life at all. The set of boys in which he lived was a curious one; they were fairly clever, but they must have been, I gathered afterwards, quite extraordinarily critical and quarrelsome. There was one boy in particular, a caustic, spiteful, and extremely mischief-making creature, who turned the set into a series of cliques and parties. Hugh used to say afterwards that he had never known anyone in his life with such an eye for other people's ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson

... and that he drew his breath more deeply and with much more evidence of freedom, now that my testimony had been thoroughly sifted and nothing had come to light implicating Carmel. I even thought I caught a kindly gleam in his eye as it met mine at this critical juncture, and by its light I understood my man and what he hoped from me. He wished me at any risk to himself, to unite with him in saving Carmel's good name. That I should accede to this; that I should respect his generous wishes and let him go to unmerited destruction for even so imperative ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... the consciousness that ere long she would be gleefully hammering the fleets of the world, in the glorious times to follow. When that golden period arrived, Selina was busy indeed; and, while loving best to stand where the splinters were flying the thickest. she was also a careful and critical student of seamanship and of manoeuvre. She knew the order in which the great line-of-battle ships moved into action, the vessels they respectively engaged, the moment when each let go its anchor, and ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... ground, struck down by Mulrady's bullets. One was the blacksmith of Blackpoint. His face, already changed by death, was a dreadful spectacle. Glenarvan searched no further. Prudence forbade him to wander from the camp. He returned to the wagon, deeply absorbed by the critical ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... about which I had always felt deficient. These were the History and Geography of modern Europe, beginning the former in the fourteenth century; the Elements of Architecture; the works of Alfieri, with his opinions on them; the historical and critical works of Goethe and Schiller, and the outlines of history of our ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... president; conspiracies for burning Northern cities had been unearthed by government detectives, and emissaries from the South were endeavoring to spread disease and pestilence throughout the loyal North. It was during this critical period in the great struggle for the suppression of the Rebellion that one of the most fiendish atrocities in the history of Indian warfare was enacted on the ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore

... possible by the artful mechanical devices of the greatest inventor that three worlds had ever known! Thus it was that they approached Ganymede, ready, with blanketing screens full out, save for one narrow working band, and with a keen-eyed observer at every plate. When even the hyper-critical Westfall was convinced that their preparations were as complete as they could be made with the limited information at hand, Brandon directed a beam upon the satellite and tapped ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... his part, went quietly about as before, saying nothing and observing much, working hard as chairman of the military committees, planning for defense, and arranging for raising an army. One act of his alone stands out for us with significance at this critical time. In this second Congress he appeared habitually on the floor in his blue and buff uniform of a Virginia colonel. It was his way of saying that the hour for action had come, and that he at least was ready for the fight ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... Critical and Historical Introduction to the Canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament. Translated and Enlarged from the German of DE ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... was empty, and the congregation were critical. Earl Hubert thought that Father Bruno had a good flow of language, and could preach an excellent discourse. The Countess would have preferred a different subject: it was so melancholy! Sir John thought it a pity that man had been wasted on the Church. ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... instant was the critical one, and before he could get around again to face the wolf it ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... terms with his master and the other authorities; Kalinitch wore shoes of bast, and lived from hand to mouth. Hor had reared a large family, who were obedient and united; Kalinitch had once had a wife, whom he had been afraid of, and he had had no children. Hor took a very critical view of Mr. Polutikin; Kalinitch revered his master. Hor loved Kalinitch, and took protecting care of him; Kalinitch loved and respected Hor. Hor spoke little, chuckled, and thought for himself; Kalinitch expressed ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev

... we all ready?" Dick gathered up his reins, and took critical inventory of the load. His mother peered under the front seat to be doubly sure that there were at least four umbrellas and her waterproof raglan in the rig; Mrs. Lansell did not propose to be caught unawares ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... preternaturally nervous. I looked about me hurriedly, thrust the negatives I'd recovered into my breast-pocket as fast as ever I could, flung the apparatus away from me with the sixth plate jammed hard in the groove, and made off at the top of my speed for the wall behind me. For there, at that critical point, it occurred to me suddenly that the sixth and last flash of the machine had come and gone just as I stood poising myself on the ledge of the window-sill; and I thought to myself—rightly as it turned out—this additional evidence would only strengthen the belief in the public mind ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen

... in running into such danger, and the folly of his men in having shewn fight on shore when there was no occasion for doing so. But Manton was too much alive to his own danger and interests to allow passion at such a critical moment to interfere with his judgment. He paced the deck slowly, as we have said, undecided as to what course he ought to pursue, but ready to act with the utmost energy and promptitude when the time ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... my possession I had but to charter a horse or vehicle and in a few hours should be with her again, safe from all fears and dangers, secure from all further hardships. Moved by this thought, I rose to eager feet, but remembering the keen, critical eyes and aggressive chin of my uncle Jervas, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... descriptive Catalogue of the Imperial Library, arranged under the four heads of Classics (Confucianism), History, Philosophy, and General Literature, in which all the facts known about each work are set forth, coupled with judicious critical remarks,—an achievement which has hardly a parallel in any literature in ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... luminous paint is being widely advocated with the view of mitigating the dangers arising from the darkened streets. It is pointed out that the use of luminous language has already proved of extreme value in critical situations. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various

... missed it by so little. You mustn't think me a goose about you, Fred," she added, after a thoughtful pause. "I don't usually praise you to your face and make an undue fuss about you, do I, dear? I think I am disposed to be critical of you rather than otherwise. But you are so much superior to the men they generally put up, that I'm unable to reconcile myself to the idea that you're not to be anything distinguished after all. Of course ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... emergency. I have thought there was encouragement for nations as well as for individuals in remembering the sobering and steadying influence of great responsibilities suddenly devolved. When Prince Hal comes to the crown he is apt to abjure Falstaff. When we come to the critical and dangerous work of controlling turbulent semi-tropical dependencies, the agents we choose cannot be the ward heelers of the local bosses. Now, if ever, is the time to rally the brain and conscience of the American people to a real elevation and purification of their ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... earnest desire of Dr. Shaw and the suffragists that she might now give her important services to the Federal Suffrage Amendment, which was at a critical stage, but this hope could not be realized. Former President Taft and President Lowell of Harvard University, both of whom had done valuable work for the Peace Treaty and the League of Nations, were starting in May, 1919, on a speaking tour to advocate the League in fifteen States ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper



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