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Nearness   Listen
noun
Nearness  n.  The state or quality of being near; used in the various senses of the adjective.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Nearness" Quotes from Famous Books



... this much is clear: that both Emperors had gone to work behind the backs of their Ministers, and that the military chiefs of France and Austria brought their States to the brink of war while their Ministers and diplomatists were unaware of the nearness of danger. ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... lumber far above the guards, a coasting steam-schooner was lumbering drunkenly into port. It was magnificent—this battle between man and the elements. Whatever timidity he had entertained fled away, and Joe's nostrils began to dilate and his eyes to flash at the nearness of the ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London

... officers' mess or have a mess of their own with similar service; they might provide their own horses which would be cared for with the other horses of the unit to which they were attached. They were to stay where they were put, so far as nearness to the fighting was concerned, according to the judgment of the commanding officer, and all their dispatches must first pass a ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... be a whit nearer the throne and the heaven; since he is exalted by (infinite) degrees above the throne no less than he is exalted above the earth, and at the same time is near to everything that hath a being; nay, nearer to men than their jugular veins, and is witness to everything; though his nearness is not like the nearness of bodies, as neither is his essence like the essence of bodies. Neither doth he exist in anything, neither doth anything exist in him; but he is too high to be contained in any place, and too holy to be determined by time; for he was before ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... incorrectly used without the possessive pronoun; thus, "Washington and vicinity," instead of "Washington and its vicinity." The primary meaning of vicinity is nearness, proximity. In many of the cases in which vicinity is used, neighborhood would be the better word, though vicinity is perhaps preferable where it is a question of ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... Bantu has been cited as a racial mark denoting comparative nearness to the brutes, but when it is noted that anthropologists differ among themselves as to what constitutes this feature, whether it is to be measured from points above or below the nose or both, and when we are informed in some text books that while the negroes are ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen

... candle, which is more or less close to the object. In the first case there is no perceptible divergence of rays, and the outlines of the sides of the shadows of regular objects, as cubes, posts, &c., will be parallel. In the second case, the rays diverge according to the nearness of the light, and consequently the lines of the shadows, instead of being ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey

... she said. "You must cap it—so!" A faint smile showed again on her lips as she dropped a metal covering over the shining sphere. They stood tense in the darkness; Dan sensed her nearness achingly, and then the light was on once more. She moved toward the door, and there ...
— Pygmalion's Spectacles • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum

... attendance, methods of teaching and supervision, course of study, etc. Outside experts are brought in for various reasons: known to have no personal interest in the outcome, their reports are likely to be received with greater respect; and, too, a local committee, thru nearness and very familiarity, would fail to notice features, good as well as bad, that might at once attract the attention of strangers. Many cities, ranging from 2500 to half a million people, have already availed ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... variety. The birds of the desert mingled with those of the fertile lands. The song-birds vied with those of gorgeous plume. Water-birds disported themselves in the mud-banks and sloughs. The smaller birds seemed to pay little attention to the nearness of the hawks. Kingfisher perched on limbs overhanging the quiet pools, ready to drop at the faintest movement on the opaque water; the road-runner chased the festive lizard on the desert land back of the ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb

... The entrepot system herein found additional justification, for not only did it foster navigation by the homeward voyage, confined to British ships, and extort toll in transit, but the re-exportation made a double voyage which was more than doubly fruitful in seamen; for from the nearness of the British Islands to the European continent, which held the great body of consumers, this second carriage could be done, and actually was done, by numerous small vessels, able to bear a short voyage but not to brave an Atlantic passage. Economically, trade by many small ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... was indescribable, but noiseless. One realized the restraint which nearness to a great presence imposed upon the exasperated guards. The stakes and the dice-boxes had rolled in one direction, the copper ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... softly, but as if she spoke to Something whose nearness to her was such that her hand might have touched it. "Speak, Lord, thy ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... light in the chinks of Gaston's shutter. She had felt his nearness, but rigid aloofness. The memory of these things had tortured her and left their trace in worn-out nerves and hurt pride. She felt that she hated Gaston and in revolt her thought now clung to Jude. She forgot ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... into his pocket, and hurriedly locked the trunk. He went downstairs, and hastened to the bank, which, unlike the Sixpenny Savings Bank, was located downtown, and not far from the City Hall. Henry had selected it on account of its nearness. ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger

... but he took on him the seed of Abraham." (Heb. ii. 16.) All believers are "members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones." (Eph. v. 30.) He has highly advanced human nature, by taking it into real and indissoluble union with his divine person. This is the special ground of nearness and intimacy between Christ and his brethren. And O, how ought we to emulate holy angels in adoring this precious Redeemer! "He loved the church and gave himself for it," (Eph. v. 25,) and he loved and gave himself for every member of ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... foundation for such rumors. Liberty was the creed or the cant of the day. France was being disturbed by revolution, and England by Clarkson. In America, slavery was habitually recognized as a misfortune and an error, only to be palliated by the nearness of its expected end. How freely anti-slavery pamphlets had been circulated in Virginia, we know from the priceless volumes collected and annotated by Washington, and now preserved in the Boston Athenaeum. ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... hubbub of talk that followed, it was a very subdued and quiet pair of girls who kissed father and mother good night and went upstairs to the room in which they had slept ever since their childhood. The certain nearness of the first home-breaking, of the first going away from their dear ones, and a new conception of the tenderness of the parents, who were sacrificing so much for them, had taken such possession of their ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt

... it replied; "will you never get beyond your miserable ideas of space, and learn that there is no separation but that of feeling, no nearness but that of sympathy? If you had cared enough for us, we should have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... believe. She will then be six, so that in about twelve more I shall have some chance of meeting her;—perhaps sooner, if I am obliged to go to England by business or otherwise. Recollect, however, one thing, either in distance or nearness;—every day which keeps us asunder should, after so long a period, rather soften our mutual feelings, which must always have one rallying-point as long as our child exists, which I presume we both hope will be long after ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... of God are the souls of the pious, a little farther Mercy and Justice, and close to these was the position Moses was allowed to occupy. [241] The vision of Moses, owing to his nearness to God, was clear and distinct, unlike that of the other prophets, who saw but dimly. He is furthermore distinguished from all the other prophets, that he was conscious of his prophetic revelations, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... of eagerness in her voice, "when something seemed to tell me that—that I ought to keep away from you. I used to have the queerest sensations running all over—" She did not complete the sentence; instead, as if in a sudden panic over the nearness of unmaidenly revelations, she somewhat breathlessly began all over again: "I guess it must have been a—a warning, ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... be applied to the pleadings under review; and ostensibly to give time for further examination, the case was postponed and a re-argument ordered for the next term. It may, however, be suspected that the nearness of the Presidential election had more to do with this postponement than did ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... and as they hurried along the shingly beach, straining their eyes to discover the whereabouts of the hapless brig, another and another gun was heard, the loud reports rapidly succeeding the bright flashes, showing the nearness of the vessel. The whistling of the wind and the roaring of the waves overpowered all other sounds. They listened for another gun, but listened ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston

... conscious of fighting against the overmastering desire to sleep. It seemed to him that he was struggling for hours, and all that time his subconsciousness was crying out for him to awake, struggling to rouse him to the nearness of a great danger. It succeeded at last. His eyes opened, and he stared in a dazed and half blinded tray toward Blake. His first sensation was one of vast relief that he had awakened. The stars were brighter. The night was still. And there, a dozen ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood

... induced us to assert in our Code a constitution, providing that if a testator has children, grandchildren, or greatgrandchildren who are lunatics or idiots, he may, after the analogy of pupillary substitution, substitute certain definite persons to them, whatever their sex or the nearness of their relationship to him, and even though they have reached the age of puberty; provided always that on their recovering their faculties such substitution shall at once become void, exactly as pupillary substitution proper ceases to have ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... was greeting Mrs. Gregory with exaggerated pleasure, in order to escape facing her husband, Abbott spoke to the other with an odd sense of meanness, as if he partook, by mere nearness, of the other's cowardice. "I wish to speak to you for a few ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis

... satisfied himself with one of the rapiers, and signified his readiness by a gesture that was not devoid of a rude nobility. The nearness of peril, and the sense of courage, even to this obnoxious villain, lent an air of ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the voice of our captain. With much affluence of gesture he was explaining—his treachery! Our nearness to the coast had made the confession necessary. To the blandness of his smile, as he proceeded in his unabashed recital, succeeded a pained expression. We were not accepting the situation with the true phlegm of philosophers; he felt that he had just cause for protest. What possible ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... is of a fresh libel, in and upon this Court and palace; a commodity I have in my nature no inclination at all to vent, either by wholesale or retail; yet is this fit also, in my humble judgment, for persons of great nearness to his Majesty not to be unacquainted with, representing sores which are in foreign kingdoms, whereby to praise God the more for the modesty of ours at home, as ours for the great goodness of his Majesty that stops our mouths, or rather fills them with prayers to God and him; ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... is born in savages and can only be acquired after long experience by the white man. I believe he could smell where the north lay. He had settled roughly which part of the line he would try, merely because of its nearness to the enemy. But he might see reason to vary this, and as he moved he began to think that the safest place was where the shelling was hottest. He didn't like the notion, but it ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... of herself, his bay-rummed nearness was not unpleasant to her. "Cut it out—here, Getaway," she said through ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst

... wood and water can hardly be realized from any mere description. A life-long denizen of Europe, or of the cis-Alleghany portion of this continent, is so accustomed to the unfailing presence or nearness of trees and springs, or streams, that he naturally supposes them as universal as the air we breathe. In a New Englander's crude conception, trees spring up and grow to stately maturity wherever they are not repressed by constant vigilance and exertion, while ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... paper and envelopes are used by persons in mourning, the width of the black border varies according to the nearness of the deceased relative or the length of time since the loss, though some never use more than the narrowest line of black, while others still, with the most perfect propriety, discard it altogether. Its ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... appears on our level some distance ahead. We change direction, but the gunners find our new position and send bursts all round the bus. The single wouff of the first shot has become a jerky chorus that swells or dwindles according to the number of shells and their nearness. ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... discourage us? Not at all! There are choice varieties that will grow in the extremes of sand or clay. More effort will be required, but skill and information can still secure success; and advantages of location, climate, and nearness to good markets may more than counterbalance natural deficiencies in the land. Besides, there is almost as solid a satisfaction in transforming a bit of the wilderness into a garden as in reforming and educating a crude or evil specimen of humanity. Therefore if one finds himself in an unfavorable ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... you that his coming will be shortly. It is true, no man can tell neither the day nor the hour, yet so far as the scriptures will give us light into the nearness of his coming, so far we may go. And if you read Matthew 24 you shall see many sings of his ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the conning tower kept his eye on the two compasses, the one telling the direction, the other the nearness to the north pole. The latter gradually kept inclining more ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood

... there be any secret passages of sympathy between persons of near blood,—as parents, children, brothers, sisters, nurse-children, husbands, wives, etc. There be many reports in history, that, upon the death of persons of such nearness, men have had an inward feeling of it. I myself remember, that, being in Paris, and my father dying in London, two or three days before my father's death I had a dream, which I told to divers English gentlemen, that my father's house in the country was plastered all over with black ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... in MS. form of Venus and Adonis by Southampton's friends. It is likely also that Greene's public attack upon Shakespeare led this generous and high-spirited nobleman to acquiesce in the use of his name as sponsor for the publication. The nearness of these dates and incidents gives us good grounds for believing that the Earl of Southampton was included in the number referred to by Chettle as "divers of worship." In using the expression "the qualitie ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson

... chapters what it was like to be under an intense bombardment. I have attempted to analyse my feelings when lying in the trenches with shells bursting directly overhead. I have been in all sorts of places, under heavy shell-fire, but for intensity and nearness—nothing—absolutely nothing—compared with the frightful and demoralising nature of the shell-fire which I ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins

... of my own. I did it easily. After the first moments Ned's presence excited me. I was always conscious of his nearness; I felt that whether I talked or was silent—though I was never allowed to be that—to whatever part of the room he went, his glowing eyes never left me. And there came to me a thrilling confidence that he understood. He knew ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... which, in turn, would don the uniforms and make Hillsdale gasp at its brilliant efficiency. Flags would wave, citizens would applaud, and the President would send a message of fervent congratulations. That was the way it seemed to Jeb. He did not dream of the nearness of the war, which had been viewed by him, as by millions of others, as a mirage far off beyond the seas. Now he spoke in a voice that ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... VIII, 2. (MSG, 3:1092.) "Every order of the ecclesiastical hierarchy has relation to God and is more godlike than that which is further removed from God, and lighter and more illuminating in all that is nearer to the true light. Do not understand this nearness in a local sense: it has reference rather to the ability ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... eyes, and with a sweet but serious expression that told both sides of her character. She inherited from her father a desire for knowledge and a love of literature, and was herself a fine linguist. These graces of mind and person, added to her nearness to the throne, soon brought many ardent suppliants from the principal thrones of Europe for the honor of her hand. Her cousin, Prince Ferdinand of Aragon, was her wise choice, and to him she was married, notwithstanding ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... broth from this and brought it to Rhoda's side. The girl struck it away. Kut-le walked slowly over, picked up the empty cup at which the squaw stood staring stupidly and filled it once more at the kettle. Then he held it out to Rhoda. His nearness roused the girl to frenzy. With difficulty she brought her stiffened body to a sitting position. Her beautiful gray eyes were black with her ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... the fact that there was a decidedly pleasant flavor to the whole thing. The girl's hand did not merely touch his arm; it was snuggled there confidently, and she was necessarily so close to him that when he looked down, the glossy coils of her hair were within a few inches of his face. His nearness to her, together with the soft pressure of her hand on his arm, was a ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... serious face Jim unfastened the check, whereupon the horse's head was lowered at once, and he drank in long gulps the water that had so long mocked him with its nearness. ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... agricultural area of forty acres or an available source of energy equal to one hundred horse-power? The data for the solution of such a question are obviously not at hand, unless the quality of the land, its relative nearness to the position at which power might be required, and several other factors in its economic application have been supplied. Still, the fact remains that very large quantities of the coastal land and a considerable quantity of ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... such counsel; but these toughened my weak frame, and added zest to frontier labors and pleasures; for I was soon able to do a man's share of the former, and in threading forest and prairie I was brought into delightful nearness to nature in its beauty, freshness, and magnitude, and in visiting the lodge of the Indian and the cabins of the settlers I met with ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... possible that Drake had been near her, so near as to almost have touched her? She trembled—and thrilled—at the thought; then crimsoned with shame for the sinful thrill of joy and happiness which his nearness had caused her. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... fell out that they brought Sir Gawain on the horse, sorely wounded and mishandled, within the nearness of half a mile, so that the knight knew he was nigh to the cell of the Hermit of whom at that self-same cross-road he had asked tidings of King Arthur's knights, and of that bad and evil land where many were brought to shame. ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston

... to get through with them, for the general disorder caused by Cabinski's over-thieveries was growing ever greater and, moreover, the nearness of the departure for Warsaw, the debts in which all were swamped, the approach of winter and the worry over securing new engagements did not put anyone in a mood ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... looked on while the other two discussed pounds, shillings, and pence, it was plain to her that he had an inclination to the change. The probability of rising, the benefit of lodging Edgar, the nearness to Alda, the probable openings for the younger lads, were advantages; but against these Wilmet set the heavy London house-rent, rates and taxes—from which they were free—the expense of living, the loss of her present situation, the ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... girl made no move. With parted lips she swayed towards him, while he watched her, with the veins standing out on his forehead. "Billy—I don't care; I'm mad, too!" The scent she used was mounting to his brain—the nearness of her was ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... the cloth and keeping it straight on the tenter hooks, so it will feed evenly. The newer machines run in such a manner that one girl who may either stand or sit can watch both edges. Because of the nearness of the drying closet, the air would be hot and dry here but that outside air is driven in constantly by fans through pipes with vents opening close ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt

... that they would all resign at once if Sir Orlando should carry his amendment. It is not unlikely that they were agreed to do the same if he should nearly carry it,—leaving probably the Prime Minister to judge what narrow majority would constitute nearness. On this occasion all the gentlemen assembled were jocund in their manner, and apparently well satisfied,—as though they saw before them an end to all their troubles. The Spartan boy did not even make a grimace when the wolf bit him beneath ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... usually appears about thirty days after inoculation, to be followed, in about half the cases, by secondary manifestations, which are usually of a mild character; in no instance has any tertiary lesion been observed. The severity of the affection amongst apes would appear to be in proportion to the nearness of the relationship of the animal to the human subject. The eye of the rabbit is also susceptible to inoculation from syphilitic lesions; the material in a finely divided state is introduced into the anterior chamber ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... which He cried in His hour of anguish, 'Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.' Every time you do this it will be easier to do it; every such consent to suffer will bring you nearer and nearer to Him; and in this nearness to Him you will find such peace, such blessed, sweet peace, as will make your life infinitely happy, no matter what may be its mere outside conditions. Just think, my dear Katy, of the honor and the joy of having your will one with the Divine will, and so becoming changed into Christ's image ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... again on the morrow, she might yield to this yearning for the comfort of his nearness; but never again, for ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... minute—the second had come, and MacDonald had pressed the little white button that was to send him into eternity! He did not cry out now. He knew that the end was very near, and in its nearness he found new strength. Once he had seen a man walk to his death on the scaffold, and as the condemned had spoken his last farewell, with the noose about his neck, he had marveled at the clearness of his voice, at the fearlessness ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood

... have known the male to sing almost uninterruptedly during the evenings of early summer till twilight duskened into dark. They differ greatly in vocal talent, but all have a delightful way of crooning over, and, as it were, rehearsing their song in an undertone, which makes their nearness always unobtrusive. Though there is the most trustworthy witness to the imitative propensity of this bird, I have only once, during an intimacy of more than forty years, heard him indulge it. In that case, the imitation was by no means so close as to deceive, but a free ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell

... woman whose husband was stage manager of a Boston theatre—had consented to come and "coach" the performers. At her appearance the performers—promptly thrown into nervous spasms by this fearsome nearness to the "real thing"—forgot half their cues, and conducted themselves generally like frightened school children on "piece day," much to their own and every one else's despair. Then, on the evening of the nineteenth, came the final dress rehearsal on the stage of the pretty little hall that had been ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter

... the sense of utter quiet; and many friends called in amiable pilgrimage. But a week of monotony is immensely long, and a few hours of zest are provokingly short. Nature and seclusion are welcome when, at our option, we can bid them good-by. All England is refreshing with the nearness of London. In the rush of cares and interruptions which we suppose will kill the opportunity, while we half lose ourselves and our intellectual threads of speculation, the flowers of inspiration suddenly blow, the ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... at dusk. In some ways the afternoon was memorable. It was hard for her to keep her doubts about Bedient. Most of all that impressed her was Vina's sense of the mother's nearness to the man. She had thought of that at once, as she listened to his story. And he had not told Vina nor the Grey One about his mother... She sat down at her table and drew forth the opened but unread letter ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... which come into the lives of a people none has been so far-reaching as the gradual localization of industries each in the region best adapted to it. For instance, manufacturing industries require power, but not fertile soil; therefore the manufacturing industries seek nearness to fuel or to water-power, and a ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... the values of the forms which it assumes, and while each stratification may create some intrinsic ideal and achieve some good, these goods are dull and fleeting in proportion to their rudimentary character and their nearness to protoplasmic thrills. Where reason exists life cannot, indeed, be altogether slavish; for any operation, however menial and fragmentary, when it is accompanied by ideal representation of the ends pursued and by felt success in attaining them, becomes a sample and ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... that I enjoyed your esteem; but I expected to fade with my native land, not from your thoughts, but from your heart. Your letter satisfies me that I shall have one more friend in England. I shall not feel far from you, for what a nearness is there in the consciousness of working in the same spirit!" The friendship between Channing and Lucy Aikin, as seen in the rich series of her letters to him, extending over a period of sixteen years, must have been a valued resource, enjoyment, and stimulus to ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... he sat at table without speaking; he ate very little, and drank more wine. Adela's eyes followed his every action. I could see that sometimes she was ready to rise and throw her arms about him. Often I saw in her lovely eyes that peculiar clearness of the atmosphere which indicates the nearness of rain. And once or twice she rose and left the room, as if to save her from an otherwise unavoidable exposure of ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald

... that he thought. There was just one positive element that included all: time seemed to mean nothing, the ticks of the clock with the painted face were scarcely consecutive; it was all one, and distance was nothing, nor nearness—not even the nearness of the dying face ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... he was glad. He felt that he could not have endured the sensation of her nearness, of her actually being in the next house. Her presence at the Orgreaves' would have made the neighbourhood, the whole town, dangerous. It would have subjected him to the risk of meeting her suddenly at any corner. Nay, he would have been forced to go in cold blood to encounter her. And he knew ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... Grieg, Saint-Saens, and many other notable persons. The impression made by the great work was the deeper because of the unusual circumstances: the theatre specially constructed after Wagner's novel plan; the amphitheatric seats; the concealed orchestra; the stereoscopic clearness and nearness of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... that, even as regards the affection we ought to love one neighbor more than another. The reason is that, since the principle of love is God, and the person who loves, it must needs be that the affection of love increases in proportion to the nearness to one or the other of those principles. For as we stated above (A. 1), wherever we find a principle, order depends on relation to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... expressed in that white riband of possible travel that severs the uneven country; not a ploughman following his plough up the shining furrow, not the blue smoke of any cottage in a hollow, but is brought to us with a sense of nearness and attainability by this wavering line of junction. There is a passionate paragraph in Werther that strikes the very key. "When I came hither," he writes, "how the beautiful valley invited me on every side, as I gazed down into it from the hill-top! There the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... motionless. They loomed through the river fog like giants—rank behind rank, each man stiff and upright and silent in his saddle—as it were a vale full of mounted ghosts awaiting the dreadful trumpet, and in my terror I forgot to tremble at the nearness of our escape (for we had all but blundered into them). But while I stared, and the wreaths of fog hid and again disclosed them, I ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... sensations in the evening were those of terror, the day and its prospect of boundless adventures soon turned them into entire delight. The whole world was before him, and all the old conceptions of romance were instantly revived by the supposed nearness of their realisation. He roamed for two or three days among the villages in the neighbourhood of Geneva, finding such hospitality as he needed in the cottages of friendly peasants. Before long his wanderings brought him to the end of the ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... all supervening colors from the sun, there are white clouds, brown clouds, gray clouds, and black clouds. Are these indeed—what they appear to be—entirely distinct monastic disciplines of cloud: Black Friars, and White Friars, and Friars of Orders Gray? Or is it only their various nearness to us, their denseness, and the failing of the light upon them, that makes some clouds ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin

... you dreamed how a friend's smile And nearness soothe a heart that's sore, You might be moved to stay awhile ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... of steel-shod soles against the rocks began to be heard, and the man's voice grew louder. It was raised in a sort of chant and became distinct with nearness, so that the words could ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... we came up with the coasts of Atlantis, though Tob, with the aid of his modern instruments, had made his landfall with most marvellous skill and nearness, there still remained some ten days' more journey in which we had to retrace our course, till we came to that arm of the sea up which lies the great city ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... sleeping on his flat rock; San Pietro lay down for a brief, ascetic slumber. The lovers sat side by side, with the mystery of beauty about them: the purple and gold of nearness and distance; bright color of green grass near, sombre tint of cypress ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood

... hill-like reptile shuffle ponderously forward and realized that, high on its back, was fixed a small fort, rather like those howdahs or boxes which are fastened to the backs of elephants. Chilled with the nearness of death, Nelson counted six mail-clad warriors in the howdah. Then the true import of the Jarmuthians evil jest struck ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... no room or efficacy, it was just the restoration of the Jewish captives to the land and city of their fathers. And yet, so far from supposing that there was no place for prayer to occupy, among the various means that were employed to bring about that event, it was just his firm belief in the nearness and certainty of it that set Daniel upon fervent and persevering supplications for its accomplishment.... With regard to the rank which Daniel's prayer occupied among the various means or agencies that were to be employed in bringing about the ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... lands have been diked and drained, they are sold for from twenty to twenty-five dollars per acre. Considering the crops they bear, and their nearness to market—ships could load at almost any of the islands—I suppose the price is not high; but a farmer ought to be sure that the levees are high enough, and properly made. To levee them costs variously, from three to twelve ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... very far away—don't they?' murmured Sarratt, after they had laughed together. They were standing at the window again, his arm close round her, her small dark head pressed against him. There was ecstasy in their nearness to each other—in the silver beauty of the lake—in the soft coming of the June evening; and in that stern fact itself that in one short week, he would have left her, would be facing death or mutilation, day after day, in the trenches on the Ypres salient. ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... little she saw a new, deeply probing look in his eyes, a look to be understood. He towered over her, physically superb. As she had felt it before, so now did she experience that odd little thrill born from nearness to him go singing through her. She withdrew her hand hastily and went in. In her own room she stood a long time before her glass, seeking to read what lay ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... shake off the preponderance of Russia. I have lived in Turkey. I know what enthusiasm exists there for that idea, and how popular such a war would be. Turkey is a match for Russia on the continent. The weak point of Turkey lies in the nearness of Sevastopol, the Russian harbour and arsenal, to Constantinople. Well, an English fleet, or an American fleet, or both joined, stationed at the mouth of the Bosphorus, may easily prevent this danger ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... and obedient a wife to him, and would hang upon him as if her affection grew to him: and now within two months, or as it seemed to young Hamlet, less than two months, she had married again, married his uncle, her dear husband's brother, in itself a highly improper and unlawful marriage, from the nearness of relationship, but made much more so by the indecent haste with which it was concluded, and the unkingly character of the man whom she had chosen to be the partner of her throne and bed. This it was, which more than the loss of ten kingdoms, dashed the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... reasons for justifying the opinion of our neighbors. A young fellow, apparently in somewhat better circumstances, who came to take the seat beside me from preference, listened to my reasoning with inoffensive smiles. An approximate nearness of age, a similarity in ways of thinking, a common love of fresh air, and of the rich landscape scenery through which the coach was lumbering along,—these things, together with an indescribable magnetic something, drew us before ...
— The Message • Honore de Balzac

... them did turn in and were soon asleep. Some of the older men had a smoke and an overhauling of their wet clothes, while a few joined in a little game of draw before turning in. One or two were deploring the loss of the seine. The nearness to losing lives didn't seem to be worrying anybody. For myself, I was somewhat worked up. There was one time in the water when I thought I was gone. So I went on deck after the skipper. It was a black night and breezing all the time and I wanted ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

... chose for her castle a place down close by the water. She loved the nearness of the waves and the thrill of knowing that maybe, if she didn't watch out, a wave would come up really close and get her wet. Betty picked out a spot nearer the fire on the side away from the smoke and Alice chose a place ...
— Mary Jane's City Home • Clara Ingram Judson

... stop the steam is carried to a water tank under the carriage, which thus receives the condensed water. This arrangement afforded a condensing surface of about 800 square feet. It should be mentioned that with larger engines Mr. Rowan employs as much as 1,600 feet of condensing surface. The nearness of the chambers to each other tends no doubt to diminish the power of condensing the steam, but this is somewhat compensated by the artificial circulation of air produced by the movement of the carriage. But in any case, if there is surplus steam, the pipe from the condenser ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various

... blessed God has made, look for what he likes best, but to that blessed God? If we have been indeed enabled to see that God is our Father, as the Lord taught us, let us advance from that truth to understand that he is far more than father—that his nearness to us is beyond the embodiment of the highest idea of father; that the fatherhood of God is but a step towards the Godhood for them that can receive it. What a man likes best may be God's will, may be the voice of the Spirit striving with his ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... Over the nearness of Norwood Hill, through the mellow veil Of the afternoon glows to me the old romance of David and Dora, With the old, sweet, soothing tears, and laughter that shakes the sail Of the ship of the soul over seas where dreamed ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence

... of its aims. On the contrary, with every year I feel increasing confidence that the ultimate forms of civilized society will surely include women in its political management. I am not so sanguine of the nearness of the day when a woman's vote must be calculated by political assemblies as many are, but little by little the cause will gain and ultimately the result is certain. I wish you an enthusiastic meeting, a harmonious adjustment of all ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... because we are set free from the law of sin and death? God forbid. Let grace teach us another lesson, and lay other obligations upon our spirits. "My little children," saith he, "these things write I unto you, that ye sin not." What things? Why, tidings of pardon and salvation, and of that nearness to God, to which you are brought by the precious blood of Christ. Now, lest also by this last exhortation he should yet be misunderstood, he adds, "And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the rather, Jesus Christ the righteous." ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the margin of which was steep and well sheltered by a growth of cottonwoods. After peering about for some time, the lad caught a glimpse of a beautiful sight. A young doe and her fawn were playing together in the open meadow below, absolutely unconscious of the nearness of any living thing besides themselves. The mother-deer was browsing, now and again, and at times the fawn, playful as a young kitten, would kick its heels, or butt its head against its mother's side, and both would squeal in a ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks

... gently into a great chair, while she herself took a carved baronial seat opposite. The nearness of anything so exquisitely perfect as Marjorie Schuyler, and the comparison it was bound to suggest, would have been a conscious ordeal for almost any other girl. But Patsy was oblivious of the comparison—oblivious ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer

... blood that had swept her face paced back, leaving her ashen pale. She did not speak, but swayed a little, and supported herself on the top of his chair. Feeling her nearness, he shifted back, and the small ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White

... to tack without signal. This deceived the enemy, who had no conception that the British fleet should be so near them at day-light: we instantly formed the line of battle on our starboard tack, the enemy formed theirs on the larboard tack, and had made the signal to wear; but the nearness of the British squadron prevented its being put into execution; and the British fleet taking the lee gage, the Admiral made the ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross

... Northbourne. It was Sunday afternoon, and, dressed in his best, the fisher-boy stood up straight in class to repeat his hymn to his earnest-eyed, sweet-faced teacher, 'Miss Theedory.' And the words he fought sleepily to remember must have been born of his nearness to the growling monsters ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell

... to keep him quiet I told him a long trivial story, full of unexciting incidents. He lay musing, his head on his hand; then he seemed inclined to sleep, so I sate beside him, watching and wondering at the nearness and the dearness of the child to me, almost amazed at the revelation which this shadow of fear gives me of the place which he fills in my heart and life. He tossed about for some time, and when I ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the cooing doves are mating And shadows quiver noiseless 'neath the courtyard trees, Cool keeps the gloom where the suppliants are waiting Begging little favors of Jinendra on their knees. Peace over all, and the consciousness of nearness, Charity removing the remoteness of the gods; Spirit of compassion breathing with new clearness "There's a limit set to khama; there's a surcease from the rods." "Blessed were the few, who trim the lights of kindness, Toiling ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... from it. You might as well complain of the uselessness of the fire which is burned out, or the extinguished lamp. They have, though for a brief time, pleased, perhaps even consoled, us—warmed our heart with the sense of a loving nearness, shed a light on the visions in our mind. Hence we should cherish them as useful delusions, or rather realities, so long as they awaken a reality of feeling. And 'tis a decent instinct of gratitude, not mere inertness, which causes us to keep ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... homestead accessible, streets are laid out. The distances traveled being short, people go about principally on foot; hence the need of sidewalks. To reduce the danger of going about after dark, street-lamps are needed. The nearness of the houses to each other renders it necessary to take special precautions for the prevention of fires, and for their extinguishment in case ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary

... for feeling that way," she said at last. "It was a terrible thing. You had the right of way. I don't know why or how Robertson let it happen. He has always been a careful navigator. The nearness when he saw you under his bows must have paralyzed him, and with our speed—oh, it isn't any use, I know, to tell you how sorry I am. That won't bring that poor boy back ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... over afterwards the events of this dreadful night, it has always seemed strange to me that my second nightmare, so vivid in its terror and its nearness, should have furnished me with no inkling of what was really going on all this while; and that I should not have been able to put two and two together, or have discovered sooner than I did what this sound was and where it came from. I can well ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... I cannot seem to forego the temptation of using that expression again. It was a typical New England village, the nearness of it to New York ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose

... advantages of the ellipse are given by the fact that the sum of the distances of any point from the foci is always constant. No particle is left out in the cold; no one does not possess the advantages of a social government. Though his distance may be far from the Upper House, he has the advantage of nearness to the Lower, and vice versa. The sum of the distances is constant. The extinction of one focus, the House of Lords, for example, would create a complete disorganization of the whole system: the other focus would set up a powerful magnetic attraction, and a ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson

... than the bay itself; eyes no less glinting than the sunlight on the waves. He seemed to be paying no heed to anything but what lay before him. But "Tiger" Waldron, possessed of something of the instinct of the beast whose name he bore, subconsciously sensed a peril in his nearness. The man's ear—if unusually quick—might, just might possibly have caught a word or two meant for no interloper. And at that thought, Waldron once more ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England



Words linked to "Nearness" :   closeness, propinquity, adjacency, contiguousness, distance



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