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Past   Listen
preposition
Past  prep.  
1.
Beyond, in position, or degree; further than; beyond the reach or influence of. "Who being past feeling." "Galled past endurance." "Until we be past thy borders." "Love, when once past government, is consequently past shame."
2.
Beyond, in time; after; as, past the hour. "Is it not past two o'clock?"
3.
Above; exceeding; more than. (R.) "Not past three quarters of a mile." "Bows not past three quarters of a yard long."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Past" Quotes from Famous Books



... aroused by the appearance of the members of the Council of War had died down the crowd's attention was concentrated on the hero of this sensational adventure: his doings had been the one prevailing topic of conversation during the past few days. ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... a great sinner," Jesus continued, "and so she is. She has done many things that are wrong. But her sins have been forgiven her. I have brought her to a new life, and she doesn't have to worry any more about the sins of the past. That is why she loves me so much. But, of course, a person who hasn't had his sins forgiven isn't going ...
— The King Nobody Wanted • Norman F. Langford

... chapter or even one Halakah, I would not have vowed," was the reply. "I am he," said Akiba simply. At these words Kalba Sabua stared in amazement, and then fell at his feet and begged pardon for all his past unkindness towards both Akiba and Rachel. To make more substantial amends he gave them half his fortune and they lived in comfort ever after. The affluence in which Akiba henceforth lived, contrasted with the poverty of his student days when he used to cut wood for a living, is thus quaintly ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... gem-like, broken-shored lake. It was a world extraordinarily green and clean. Its cleanness was even more amazing than its greenness. The unsullied freshness of a new creation seemed to lie on it all day long. It was a world which suggested no past and boded no future. Its transparent air, in which there was not a shred of atmosphere, its high lights, and long shadows, and restful, clambering woods, and singing birds, and sweet, strong winds were like those of some perpetual, paradisical present, ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King

... few. He has led a practical life from a very early age; has been called upon to exercise judgment and self-control. All that developes one part of the intellect. To be sure, he needs some of the knowledge of the past, which gives the truest basis for conjecture as to the future; but he knows this need,—he perceives it, and that is something. You are quite prejudiced ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... about 200 persons. The man on whom this experiment was made is a Spaniard of Andalusia, named Martenez, aged 43. A cylindrical oven, constructed in the shape of a dome, had been heated for four hours, by a very powerful fire. At ten minutes past eight, the Spaniard, having on large pantaloons of red flannel, a thick cloak also of flannel, and a large felt, after the fashion of straw hats, went into the oven, where he remained, seated on a foot-stool, during fourteen minutes, exposed to a heat ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various

... weather, a furious summer hail-storm. The thermometer had ranged about 80 deg. in the early day, when suddenly heavy clouds seemed to gather from several points of the sky at the same time. The thermometer dropped quickly some 30 deg.. It was a couple of hours past noon when the clouds began to empty their contents upon the earth; down came the hailstones like buckshot, only twice as large, covering as with a white sheet the parched ground, which had not been wet by a drop of rain for months. ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... with his "Sea-stag" in the middle. Again he blew his horn. Cables were thrown across from one prow to the next, and all the ships were tied together so that their sides touched. Then the men set their sails again and they went past a tongue of land into a broad fiord. There lay the long line of King Harald's ships with their fierce heads grinning and mocking at the newcomers. Back of those prows was what looked like a long wall with spots of green and ...
— Viking Tales • Jennie Hall

... how she did love to talk about that man; truly she used his sirname to connect us to the vast past, and to the mysterious future. We trod that Plank every day and all day, if we would listen ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... subjected to much indignity, all the world now knows. The official records are in the Vatican, and the attempt to conceal them longer is out of the question. Wise Churchmen no longer deny the blunders of the past, but they say with Cardinal Satolli, "The enemies of the Church have ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... America, concerning which, they manifested the utmost curiosity. One of them, however, was somewhat astonished that I had not made the acquaintance of a brother of his, who had resided somewhere on the banks of the Mississippi for several years past; but among twenty millions of people, I had never happened to meet him, at least ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... all the preparation in our power for a prolonged hibernation. Winter was threatening us. For some days past the sun hardly showed at all through the mists. The temperature fell to 36 degrees and would rise no more, while the solar rays, casting shadows of endless length upon the soil, gave hardly any heat. The captain ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... recover from the cauterizing sun bombs, these things might still have been. But they might have had different names, and human history might have been considered to begin only a few hundred years before. Even this had not happened. The link with the past remained. There was a narrow, cobbled path on Manhattan, with sewage oozing down the ditch in its center, which was still Fifth Avenue. It ran roughly along the same directions as old Broadway, not because there was no one who could read the yellowed old maps but because surveying was ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry

... Soto instinctively seized his sword, and would doubtless have put spurs to his horse, rushed upon the governor, and plunged the weapon to the hilt in his breast, but for the restraining memories of the past. Hesitatingly he returned his ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott

... lord of the Past and the Present, is exceedingly devoted to me. He should go with me. My heart is full ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... knot in his scarf at just ten minutes past eight on a hot August morning after he had given one dime to his sister Sadie. With that she could either witness the first-run films at the Palace, or by dividing her fortune patronize two of the nickel shows ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis

... is too much indeed, past all bearing, I suspect. Well, but if I ever write to you again—I mean, if you wish it—it may be in the other extreme of shortness. So do not take me for a born heroine of Richardson, or think that I sin always to this length, else,—you might indeed repent your quotation from Juliet—which I guessed ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... forehead, but my bullet went low, entering his open mouth, smashing his lower jaw and going into the neck. I leaped to one side almost as I pulled the trigger; and through the hanging smoke the first thing I saw was his paw as he made a vicious side blow at me. The rush of his charge carried him past. As he struck he lurched forward, leaving a pool of bright blood where his muzzle hit the ground; but he recovered himself and made two or three jumps onwards, while I hurriedly jammed a couple of cartridges into the magazine, my rifle holding only four, all of which I had fired. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson

... a world that it seemed in the past two days they had left forever, Bounds sprang in short steps down the hall and appeared in the half darkness ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... hasn't got high cheek bones and teeth like a squirrel. Alla was pensive all through the first act, and while she was making her change from a lady-in-waiting to a bathing girl she remarked that she was going to write an ode—past tense of I O U, I guess—entitled 'Thoughts on Hearing Ben Teal Conduct a Chorus Rehearsal.' They won't let her ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey

... past. Helena, on her mettle, was driving her best, and Buntingford had already paid her one or two brief compliments, which she had taken in silence. Presently they topped a ridge, and there lay Dansworth in a hollow, a column of smoke gashed with occasional ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... The gulls, whose season of breeding is soon past, are extravagantly fond of murre eggs; and these rapacious birds follow the egg-gatherers, hover over their heads, and no sooner is a murre's nest uncovered than the bird swoops down, and the egger must be extremely ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... bob a week and all found' days of my handy-lad time. It was very likely true, I think; though really it is next door to impossible for any man to tell which period in his life has been the more happy; and especially is this so in the case of the type of man who finds more interest in the past than in the future. The other side of the road always will be the cleaner, the trees on the far side of the hill will always be the greener, for a great many of us. Any other time seems preferable before the present moment, to some folk; and to many, times past are ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... form and colour. We might say, that the volcano overwhelms with its mass the little island which serves as its base, and it shoots up from the bosom of the waters to a height three times loftier than the region where the clouds float in summer. If its crater, half extinguished for ages past, shot forth flakes of fire like that of Stromboli in the Aeolian Islands, the peak of Teneriffe, like a lighthouse, would serve to guide the mariner in a circuit of more ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... the English name of 'stores.' I found one of them flourishing in every commune which I visited in the vicinity of Anzin; at St.-Waast, where the experiment was first made, at Denain, where during the past year it has been found necessary to establish two stores instead of one—at Anzin, at Fresnes, at Thiers, at Abscon, at Vieux-Conde! The Association, indeed, which began in 1865 with fifty-one members ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... Nine Windings flowed past the front of the temple. Numerous boats were plying up and down, many of which, I was told, contained parties of pleasure who had come to see the strange scenery amongst these hills. The river was very rapid, and these boats seemed to ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.

... places which he had discovered, be abandoned to adventurers, or placed under the government of men who felt no interest in the cause. "This is not a child," he adds, "to be abandoned to a step-mother. I never think of Hispaniola and Paria without weeping. Their case is desperate and past cure; I hope their example may cause this region to be treated in a different manner." His imagination becomes heated. He magnifies the supposed importance of Veragua, as transcending all his former discoveries; and he alludes to his favorite project for the deliverance of the ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... of the newly risen sun as he threw the question. Rufus's massive head and shoulders were strongly outlined against it. He had ceased to row, but the boat still shot forward, impelled by the last powerful sweep of the oars, the water streaming past in a rush ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... are now called Melanesia. They have for some years past been regularly visited by the energetic Bishop of New Zealand, who has induced young men from most of them to accompany him in his mission vessel to New Zealand, where at the Auckland training college they are prepared to carry back the gospel ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... direct development from the latter. In this late form of pier, it will be observed that the projection, E, which carries the vaulting ribs of the nave, instead of springing from the capital, as in the early example, Fig. 111, springs from the floor, and runs right up past the capital; thus the plan of the vaulting is brought, as it were, down on to the floor, and the connection between the roofing of its building and its plan is as complete as can well be. In Fig. 113 the vaulting shaft is supposed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... a golden moment. He had won a notable victory against greed and craft and highly trained intelligence. And yet, a year later, he was to recall this recent past with envy and regret; for in the meantime he was to fight another battle against the same forces, and others quite as deeply rooted in human nature. But he was to fight upon a new field, and with different weapons, and with results ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... mists disarranged the perspectives; all the distances, all the depths had become inappreciable, the changing mountains seemed to have grown taller in the nebulous phantasmagoria of night. The hour, one knew not why, became strangely solemn, as if the shade of past centuries was to come out of the soil. On the vast lifting-up which is called the Pyrenees, one felt something soaring which was, perhaps, the finishing mind of that race, the fragments of which have been preserved and to which ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti

... misery. Partly from the introversion of his mind, and its habitual sleep of reverie in relation to all external interests, partly from his defect in all habits of prudential forecasting, resting his head always on the pillow of the present—he had been carried rapidly past all openings that offered towards the creation of a fortune before he even heard of them, and he first awoke to the knowledge that such openings had ever existed when he looked back upon them from a distance, and found them ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... Mackay, Edinburgh, a native of Reay, Sutherland, says:—'My father was the skipper of a fishing crew. Before beginning operations for the season, the crew of the boat met at night in our house to settle accounts for the past, and to plan operations for the new season. My mother and the rest of us were sent to bed. I lay in the kitchen, and was listening and watching, though they thought I was asleep. After the men had settled their past affairs and future plans, they put out ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... departure the day before, and of the high compliment that had been paid to "a prominent Skagwayan," it adds: "Although Mr. Burnham has lived in Skagway since last August, and has been North for many months, he has said little of his past, and few have known that he is the man famous over the world as 'the American scout' of ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... leaguer of the Welsh there was glee and triumph, for the loss of the past day was forgotten in recollection of the signal victory which had preceded this siege; and the dispirited garrison could hear from their walls the laugh and the song, the sound of harping and gaiety, which triumphed by anticipation over ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... more than an hour to Mrs. Nash, informing herself upon the history of Mrs. Nash's past and present lodgers, and about the ways of the city, and the prices of provisions and dress-goods. The dearness of everything alarmed and even shocked her; but she came back to her faith in Bartley's ability to meet and overcome all difficulties. She grew drowsy ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... upon me!' I murmured, as the empty glass fell from my hand. I threw myself upon the bed, and awaited the awful termination. An age of unutterable misery seemed crowded into a brief moment. All the events of my past life, a life, as it then seemed to me, made up of folly and crime, rose distinct before me, like accusing witnesses, as if the recording angel had unrolled to my view the full and black catalogue of my ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... and Proclus, were acknowledged as the lawful bishops of Constantinople. But in the silence of his cell, the degraded patriarch could no longer resume the innocence and security of a private monk. The past he regretted, he was discontented with the present, and the future he had reason to dread: the Oriental bishops successively disengaged their cause from his unpopular name, and each day decreased the number of the schismatics who revered Nestorius ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... past midsummer when the army of Genghis Khan laid siege to Bokhara, and it was not until the spring of the following year that they succeeded in carrying the outer wall, so strongly was the city fortified and so well was it defended. After having forced the outer wall, the Monguls destroyed the ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... December 16th.—Eight A.M.—The mornings are lovely here now; a bright sun, rising about half-past six; and not exactly frost, but a mere hint of its presence in the air. I take walks, and have just returned from one; generally the tour of the race ground, which is the only walk here. While I humbly pace along, the clerks of the Hongs—such of them at least ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... was subsequently effected. In consideration of the good service which the citizens of London had already done to the king in times past, and for the good service which they were prepared to render again in the future, they were released of arrears of the tax due from 2nd July to the 23rd September, provided they were willing to pay it for the remainder of the term.(469) After Christmas the restrictions ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... nations. The American note cited the Declaration of London and the prize rules of Germany, France, and Japan, in support of that principle. In addition, "so strictly has this principle been enforced in the past that in the Crimean War the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on appeal laid down that if belligerents themselves trade with blockaded ports they cannot be regarded as effectively blockaded. (The Franciska, Moore, P. C. 56). This decision has special significance at the present time ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... pulled out a chair and sat down in his accustomed place, regardless of the standing ladies. Barbara looked on in amazement but said nothing. She was past words! ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... team? How then did you manage to reach home in time to make your way back to Cuthbert Road by half-past eleven?" ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... steady, half-frightened look out of her blue eyes. I know now that I had struck a chord of memory; that I had established beyond question in her mind Paragot's identity with the man who had loved her in days past; that old things sweet and terrifying surged within her heart. Even then, holding their secret, I saw that ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... went with sick, sorrowful heart to see the dame. The strain had told upon her before the trial, and she had lost her cheerfulness somewhat. But she had come to a place now where anger and sense of wrong and impatience were past. ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... to the execution of orders, for criminal action susceptible of provoking a new civil war, is declared enemy of the People. All persons who support Dukhonin will be arrested, without respect to their social or political position or their past. Persons equipped with special authority will operate these arrests. I charge General Manikhovsky with the ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... 1816. The ballad appeared first in St. Nicholas, whose young readers were advised, while smiling at the absurd superstition, to remember that bad companionship and evil habits, desires, and passions are more to be dreaded now than the Elves and Trolls who frightened the children of past ages. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... are at certain times exceedingly plentiful, especially to those who live near the coast. They may be preserved so as to make an excellent and well-flavoured dish, weeks or months after the season is past, by the following means. Having chosen some fine fish, cleanse them perfectly, and either boil them or lightly fry them in oil. The fish should be divided, and the bones, heads, and skins removed; they should then be well rubbed over with the following seasoning:—For every ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... finds no place to rest, and comes back again to the desolate ark with its foreboding croak of evil in the present and evil in the future. Live in Christ, 'the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever'; and His presence shall make all your past, present, and future—memory, enjoyment, and hope—to be bright and beautiful, because all ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... and heartily I bid you good night and good-bye, and I trust the next time we meet it will be in even greater numbers, and in a larger room, and that we often shall meet again, to recal this evening, then of the past, and remember it as one of a series of increasing triumphs of your ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... Man, not all alive nor dead, Nor all asleep—in his extreme old age: 65 His body was bent double, feet and head Coming together in life's pilgrimage; [15] As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage Of sickness felt by him in times long past, A more than human weight upon his ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... observe it? Did the world of Geology come into existence for the first time when some eighteenth-century geologist first suspected that the world was more than six thousand years old? Are all those ages of past {17} history, when the earth and the sun were but nebulae, a mere imagination, or did that nebulous mass come into existence thousands or millions of years afterwards when Kant or Laplace first conceived that it had existed? The supposition is clearly self-contradictory and impossible. If Science ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall

... I ryght well behelde Remembrynge well / my dedes done in tymes past I toke forwytte / than for to be my shelde By grace well armed / not to be agast Thus as I stode / I dyde se at the last The seconde myrour / as bryght as phebus Set rounde about ...
— The coforte of louers - The Comfort of Lovers • Stephen Hawes

... Christianity grasps. And so from out of that approval or proof which comes, through perseverance, from tribulation, there rises, of course, in that heart that has been tested and has stood, a calm hope that the future will be as the past, and that, having fought through six troubles, by God's help the seventh will be vanquished also, till at last troubles will end, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... owners—storekeepers, lawyers, mechanics, and labourers—all gone to the Sacramento with their families. Small parties, of five to fifteen men, have sent to this town and offered cooks ten to fifteen dollars per day for a few weeks. Mechanics and teamsters, earning the year past five to eight dollars per day, have struck and gone. Several U.S. volunteers have deserted. U.S. barque Anita, belonging to the Army, now at anchor here, has but six men. One Sandwich Island vessel in port lost all her men; and was obliged to engaged another crew at 50 ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... of our journey was horrible by Nature only, without the atrocious aid of man. But the past had done its work. We reached Washoe with our very marrows almost burnt out by sleeplessness, sickness, and agony of mind. The morning before we came to the silver-mining metropolis, Virginia City, a stout, young Illinois farmer, whom we had regarded ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... all been conducted in the open air. Following the law of Cardigan Street, he met the girl at the street corner and spent the night in the park or the dance-room. Rarely, if she forgot the appointment, he would saunter past the house, and whistle till she came out. What passed within the house was no concern of his. Parents were his natural enemies, who regarded him with the eyes of a butcher watching a hungry dog. But his affair with Pinkey had been full of surprises, ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... "I know you are a good-natured little thing, and I don't believe you would do me a bad turn. You know the governor is always down upon me, won't let me have a latch-key, and says I must be in by half-past ten. A fellow can't live without a little pleasure, and if the governor won't let me have it I must take it. But don't say a word, there's a dear, or you will get me into ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley

... drunk earlier in life and would have no pastoral interlude to his ravings. Hospitality still survives among foreigners, although it is buried under false pride among the poorest Americans. One thing seemed clear in regard to entertaining immigrants; to preserve and keep whatever of value their past life contained and to bring them in contact with a better type of Americans. For several years, every Saturday evening the entire families of our Italian neighbors were our guests. These evenings were very popular during our first winters at Hull-House. Many educated Italians helped us, and the ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... confession was formerly made ours, or even so much as calling an assembly to vote and approve that confession of new. That the above conduct of the state, without regarding the church in her assemblies, either past or future, is gross Erastianism, and what does not belong, at first instance, to the civil magistrate, but to the church representative, to whom the Lord has committed the management of the affairs of his spiritual ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery

... as matters of every-day statistics. All the old haze of wonder is melting away from it; and the old local enthusiasms, which depended so largely on ignorance and isolation, are melting likewise. Knowledge has accumulated in a way never before dreamed of. The fountains of the past seem to have been broken up, and to be pouring all their secrets into the consciousness of the present. For the first time man's wide and varied history has become a coherent whole to him. Partly a cause and partly a result of this, ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... that I can make out the opening I want to find; yes, that's it, I'm sure." In a few minutes the boat glided in between high ocean-worn rocks, round from the waves of the Atlantic dashing against them for thousands of years past. A grapnel was hove on to the rocks, and there she lay as snug as any on board could desire. The boat was furnished with a little stove for cooking, and they had a good supply of eatables and drinkables on board, the latter being, however, more in the ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... was set for the 8th of April, and by half-past four of that morning the coolies, marshalled by the hong man, were at the door; but it was after nine before we were really under way. It is always a triumphant moment when one's caravan actually ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... asleep; however, one of them waking sooner than the other, and finding the boat too fast aground for him to stir it, hallooed for the rest who were straggling about, upon which they all soon came to the boat but it was past all their strength to launch her, the boat being very heavy, and the shore on that side being a soft oozy sand, almost like ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... determine the order of the attacks, and replies, and counter-attacks. The "Ibis" has been thought to mark the termination of the feud on the curious ground that it was impossible for abuse to go further. It was an age when literary men were more inclined to comment on writings of the past than to produce original work. Literature was engaged in taking stock of itself. Homer was, of course, professedly admired by all, but more admired than imitated. Epic poetry was out of fashion and we find many epigrams of this period—some by Callimachus—directed against ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... busy years went past, and the time of Washington's presidency drew to an end. He rejoiced to think that after his hard work for his country he could now go back to his peaceful home at Mount Vernon, and be at rest. But his friends ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... of the Dead, Long and painful is thy way! O'er rivers wide and deep Lies the road that must be past, By bridges narrow-wall'd, When scarce the soul can force its way, While the loose ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik

... they believed that the railway business did admit of a reorganization substantially on an eight-hour basis. The railway officials offered to submit to arbitration the demand of the men together with counter demands of their own. The brotherhoods, however, fearing prejudice and recalling to mind past disappointments, declined the proposal and threatened to tie up the whole transportation system of the country by a ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... no more of the past, except of what was bright in it. Frank's memory, and our own love, will be ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard

... as an early pea can be sustained only by careful culture, and judicious selection of seeds for propagation. If grown in cold soil, from late-ripened seeds, the variety will rapidly degenerate; and, if from the past any thing can be judged of the future, the Dan O'Rourke, under the ordinary forms of propagation and culture, will shortly follow its numerous and once equally popular predecessors to quiet retirement as a synonyme of the Early ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr

... his end. All that he owed to the Emperor was effaced from his mind; what he himself had done for the Emperor was imprinted in burning characters on his memory. To his insatiable thirst for power, the Emperor's ingratitude was welcome, as it seemed to tear in pieces the record of past favours, to absolve him from every obligation towards his former benefactor. In the disguise of a righteous retaliation, the projects dictated by his ambition now appeared to him just and pure. In proportion as the external circle of his operations was narrowed, the world of hope expanded ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... descended, That hath beside well in his person wrought To be set high in place, we did commend To your remembrances: but you have found, Scaling his present bearing with his past, That he's your fixed enemy, and revoke ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... not been studied; and how could he know that the western stream of water was the northern half of a great ocean current which sweeps through the Caribbean Sea, into and round the Gulf of Mexico, and flows out northward past ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... than this, chased the soul from the body of my lord." "So much the better for thee, Lady," said Luned, "for had he not been stronger than thy lord, he could not have deprived him of life. There is no remedy for that which is past, be it as it may." "Go back to thine abode," said the Countess, "and I ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... sleepy, glanced at a small clock, whose tick was the only sound that fell upon the ear, and whose hands indicated the hour of half-past two. ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne

... was ready. It was nearly eleven when we crossed the silent P. R. R. tracks and, plunging away into the night past great heaps of abandoned locomotives huddled dim and uncertain in the thin moonlight like ghosts of the French fiasco, dashed into a camp of the laborer's village of Cunette, pitched on the very edge of the now black and silent void of the canal. Eighteen ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... Band Master is one degree more important than the Colonel. He is a High Priest and the "Keel Row" is his holy song. The "Keel Row" is the Cavalry Trot; and the man who has never heard that tune rising, high and shrill, above the rattle of the Regiment going past the saluting-base, has something yet to ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... points of practice, the first is prayer. This duty is to be performed five times in the twenty-four hours: 1. In the morning before sunrise. 2. When noon is past. 3. A little before sunset. 4. A little after sunset. 5. Before the first watch of the night. Previous to prayer they are to purify themselves by washing. Some kinds of pollution require the whole body to be immersed in water, but commonly it is enough to wash some parts only—the head, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... go out of their way to do it. And now I will tell you the rules of this house, to which you will be expected to adhere. It is well to understand things at once, as it prevents mistakes. We breakfast at eight, dine at two, have tea at half-past six, and you will go to bed at half-past eight. These hours will be strictly observed. I shall expect your hands and faces to be washed, and your hairs brushed previous to each meal. When you come indoors you will always take off your boots and put ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty

... I will leave the clear high road, Joan. And you and I will take a path that is set with thorns. Pray God they do not wound us past healing at the ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

... smartest books of travel which has appeared for a long time past.... Brings the general appearance of Transatlantic urban and rural life so clearly before the mind's eye of the reader, that a perusal of his work almost answers the purpose of a personal inspection. New York has probably never been more lightly ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens

... the evening, after waiting several hours in vain for one of our crew. It was soon dark, the wind blew stiffly, and the tide rushed along with great rapidity, carrying us swiftly past the crowd of vessels which were anchored in the port. The canoe rolled a good deal. After we had made five or six miles of way, the tide turned and we were obliged to cast anchor. Not long after, we lay ourselves down, all three together, on the mat which was spread ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... not stay till th' Masque was past? W'are ready. What a skirvie trick's this? Mir. O you may vanish, Performe it at some Hall, where the Citizens wives May see't for six pence a peece, and a cold supper. Come let's goe Charles; And ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... bird was rocking past me within ten yards. I fired and killed it, for where it had been appeared nothing but a cloud of feathers. It was a quick and clever shot, or so I thought. But when Charles stepped out and picked from the ground only a ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... bells, the gifts of Spanish gentlemen who died a hundred years ago perhaps, swing by withes of ancient rawhide from great, worm-gnawed, hand-riven beams; you walk through the Mission burying-ground, past crumbly old family vaults with half-obliterated names and titles and dates upon their ovenlike fronts, and you wander at will among the sunken individual graves under the ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb

... lower classes, than as merely a preserver of good order. In this character it has been insisted on by persons who avowed their aversion to every idea of an education in a more enlarged sense. We have heard it so insisted on, no such long while past, by members of the most learned institutions, at the same moment that they expressed more than a doubt of the prudence of enabling the common people to read, literally to read, the Bible. But assuredly the good order of a populace left in the stupid general ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... unquestionably, beyond all doubt, the dream and the romance that had lured him to the wilderness were here; hanging over him like the shadows of the great peaks. His heart swelled with emotion when he thought of how the black and incessant despair of the past was gone. So he embraced any attraction that made him forget and think and feel; some instinct stronger than ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... assisted by Lieutenant Baker and Mr. Higginbotham, had proved that for the present it was impossible to penetrate south by the main river, therefore I must make all preparations for an advance by the Bahr Giraffe, where I hoped that our past labour might have in ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... Most candid minds would prefer to believe in Darwin rather than in Moses even if the latter had, which he has not, a single leg to stand on. For the theory of our Simian origin at least involves progression in the past and perhaps salvation in the future of our race, while the "high original" theory involved our retrogression and perdition. His grace wonders how these persons can "confine their hopes and aspirations to ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... ate until their lips were red and the cloud of dust on the hill back of them had whirled past, attendant on a sorrel mare and runabout. They ate until the road was quite empty once more; and then the tinker pulled Patsy to her feet by way of reminding her that Arden still ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer

... show that his stock of reforming zeal had already run low. "The New Beer Bill[108] has begun its operations. Everybody is drunk. Those who are not singing are sprawling. The Sovereign People are in a beastly state." He was now past sixty, and a spirit of amiable ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... than culpable? By no means.—It is sufficient to remark, that though our original guilt be less than his, not having been personally the perpetrators of the first crime, our actual guilt is equal, if not greater. For it is obvious we sin with all the experience of the past to forewarn us; we sin, though we witness the deplorable effects of his fall, and hear the denunciations ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... left, above and below, everybody wanted to know, and Mrs. Cliff, with sparkling eyes, was only too glad to tell them. She had been obliged to be so reserved when she had come home before, that she was all the more eager to be communicative now; and it was past midnight before the first of that eager and delighted company thought ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... for the wonder of that sight—the mystery of it—I tell you this. That physicians, and the wise men who look into the laws of nature, of flesh and blood, say that the mystery is past their finding out; that if they could find out the whole meaning, and the true meaning of those two words, mother and child, they could get the key to the deepest wonders of ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley

... announce the death of this eminent literary character, and venerable citizen, so well known as the author of The Man of Feeling, and many other productions. Mr. Mackenzie had been confined almost to his room for a considerable time past by the general decay attending old age, and expired, we understand, on the evening of Friday the 14th. There will no doubt in time come from his friends a biographical account of so distinguished and excellent a man; and although it might not be proper to enter ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various

... not only or mainly the literature of the past, but they aim to give, within the limits imposed by such a view, an idea of contemporary achievement and tendencies in all civilized countries. In this view of the modern world the literary product of America and Great Britain occupies ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... past can be studied variously. Events can be arranged in the order of their occurrence: this is chronology or annals; in addition to this, their connections and mutual relations as cause and effect may be shown: this is historical science; or, thirdly, from a general view of ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... who are just entering on the vestibule of life, are prone to give preference to the habits of the present generation; viewing, too often, with contemptuous derision, those of the past. Mankind certainly advance in intelligence and refinement; but virtue and happiness do not at all times keep pace with this progress. "To inform the understanding," is not always "to correct and enlarge the heart;" nor do the blandishments ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... work, or healthful play Let my first years be past, That I may give for every day ...
— Divine Songs • Isaac Watts

... stole through the darkness with extremest caution, feeling her way past bay and promontory. Around her was none of that phosphorescent glow which lies above the open ocean, even on the darkest night, for the mountains ran down to the channel on either side. In places they overhung, and where they lay upturned against the dim sky it could be seen that they were ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... need not speak of the confidence I have in the judgment of you and Lodge, yet I can't help feeling more and more that the Vice Presidency is not an office in which I could do anything and not an office in which a man who is still vigorous and not past middle life has much chance of doing anything. As you know, I am of an active nature. In spite of all the work and all the worry, and very largely because of your own constant courtesy and consideration, my dear Senator,—I have thoroughly enjoyed being Governor. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... desperate straits for money, and he knew that Mr. Glenthorpe had drawn L300 from the bank that morning, all in small notes, which could not be traced. The fact that he obtained a second key to the room suggests that he had been meditating the act for some time past. It will be found, I think, when all the facts are brought to light, that he obtained the second key when he learnt that Mr. Glenthorpe intended to take a large sum of money out of the bank. Penreath's chance ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... the meadows, where all the flowers were withered and dead; above the fields, where the corn ears waved no more, floated dim phantom forms, all pale and wan, faint pictures of the past. Over the grand eternal woods and hills a biting mist was draped in clinging folds, as if all Nature, trembling into dust, must vanish in its wreaths.... But one bright thought pierced these dark fogs of Nature and the soul, turning them to a white gleaming mist, a ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... past midnight did the commanders of the storming party, having collected all the men they could discover, embark in the last boat and return with heavy hearts to their ships. Six gun-boats were on shore, and it was feared that all would be lost; but the tide, rising higher than ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... from giving any notice of about one fourth of all they see, because they do not wish to pain the feelings of their readers by reciting to them narrations of horrible tragedies that occurred in the past, or of groveling superstitions that prevailed; such as we all wish had never disgraced the history of infant humanity or constituted the day-dreams of our ancestors. They carefully select that which flatters ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... have me accompany him; and, though I was unwilling, he dragged me forward. I felt faint and sick and confused. The recollections of the past crowded on me with such force that they almost shut out, as it were, the scene before my eyes. I remember being in the midst of a vast crowd, and seeing on a high platform the sheriffs and a number of great officers in rich dresses, and below huge posts with ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... observations were accumulated to enable the orbit it follows to be determined. When the path was known, it was then a mere matter of mathematical calculation to ascertain where the planet was situated at any past time, and where it would be situated at any future time. An interesting enquiry was thus originated as to how far it might be possible to find any observations of the planet made previously to its discovery by ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... at the north country, he went from house to house, but did not find any employment, for every farmer had laborers enough, and one week of hay-harvest was already past. He heard it said, however, that one old woman in the district, generally thought by her neighbors to be skilled in magic and very rich, always began her hay-cutting a week later than anybody else, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... dear," said Nelly in a soothing tone, "we may regret the mistakes of the past, but let them only make us more anxious to do more with our future hours. You will begin to work hard to-morrow, and carry away a good store from Arithmetic or ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker

... of the grey slab's mechanism were correct, it was practically certain that with the satellite only a few nights past the full we could concentrate enough light on the bosses to open the rock. And as the ray streams through the seven globes described by Throckmartin would be too weak to energize the Pool, we could enter the chamber free from any fear of encountering its tenant, make our preliminary ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... From this conversation Yegorushka gathered that all his new acquaintances, in spite of the differences of their ages and their characters, had one point in common which made them all alike: they were all people with a splendid past and a very poor present. Of their past they all— every one of them—spoke with enthusiasm; their attitude to the present was almost one of contempt. The Russian loves recalling life, but he does not love living. Yegorushka did not yet know that, and ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... stopped indeed! The clouds have rolled away, the sun is coming out; in another hour it will be beaming, and you will have such a day as you have not had for weeks past. I told you so! If you had only listened to me, you would have been spared all your ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... importance and value to big names. He had paid dearly in the past for this proclivity with the Lester Wallack Company. Undaunted, he now turned to another investment in name that ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... for's hard to tell," she returned; "an' what a woman marries for's past find-in' out. I ain't never seen an old maid yet that ain't had a mighty good opinion of men—an' I ain't never seen a married woman that ain't had a feelin' that a few improvements wouldn't be out of place. I don't ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... returned his sister. 'Miss Tox and myself were present. Miss Tox and myself are always present. We make a point of it. Mr Pilkins has seen him for some days past, and a very clever man I believe him to be. He says it is nothing to speak of; which I can confirm, if that is any consolation; but he recommended, to-day, sea-air. Very wisely, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... success with these southern Moros may be traced to religious tolerance, and the fact that we interfere with them only in their disturbance of non-Mohammedan neighbours. Slave raids are a thing of the past, and leading dattos have been notified that any piratical or fanatical incursions into American territory will be punished ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... Olivarez to strenuously support those requirements which the Count de Soissons and the Duke de Bouillon sought at his hands, she despatched letters by a secret agent in the service of Spain to the Duke de Lorraine, entreating him not to fail her in this supreme opportunity of repairing her past misfortunes and of dealing a mortal blow to their remorseless enemy. The Duke Charles, thus solicited at once by Mdme. de Chevreuse, by his kinsman the Duke de Guise, by the Spanish Minister, and, more ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... McGuire glared at him, red as a young turkey cock, her finishing school training just saving her from a tirade. "Oh, you! We'll see about this——" and dashed past him out of the door ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... lord of the estate interested him greatly, and not unpleasantly. He compared what he seemed to be now with what, according to all reports, he had been in the past, and could make nothing of it, nor reconcile the two characters in the least. It seemed as if the estate were possessed by a devil,—a foul and melancholy fiend,—who resented the attempted possession of others by subjecting them to himself. One had turned ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... received any for two years before, and was extremely uneasy about him. But my excellent father is the same as ever! Age has not weakened him; his character is as energetic, his health as robust, as in times past—still a workman, still proud of his order, still faithful to his austere republican ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... off the bench. "That's the Ozziest thing I've heard since I landed in the Silver Islands. Tappy, my boy, I believe we are going to be friends! But let's forget the past and ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... explain, not for the first time, as their weary gestures and frequent interruptions showed, what in their common language they had christened their "lapses"; a constant source of distress to them, in the past few days, and the immediate reason why Ralph was on his way to leave the house when Katharine, listening anxiously, heard him and prevented him. What was the cause of these lapses? Either because Katharine looked ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... few days of her stay with the Trelawneys she just lived from hour to hour, not thinking of anything, past, present, or to come; but out of this apathy a desire grew by degrees. She wanted to see Lorrimer. She could speak to him, and she was sure he would help and advise her. She wrote to him, telling him ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... or rather young woman, for she was past five and twenty, sat by the fire, a book on her knee. The two men had drawn chairs close to a table. The elder of these men bore such an unmistakable likeness to the girl, that even the most casual ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade

... eye to which he owed this alertness? What had he seen? Nothing. Among the persons he had met, perhaps one might have resembled some one he had known, and, although he had not recognized it, it might have rung in his heart all the chords of the past. ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... and sister of Hyldreda lifted up their eyes, they saw nothing but a cloud of dust sweeping past the cottage-door, they heard nothing but the ancient elder-tree howling aloud as its branches were tossed about in a gust ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... wisely and patiently, and is ready to struggle, with all the energy her advisers think politic, for liberty. She has ceased to wail—she is beginning to make up a record of English crime and Irish suffering, in order to explain the past, justify the present, and caution the future. She begins to study the past—not to acquire a beggar's eloquence in petition, but a hero's wrath in strife. She no longer tears and parades her wounds to win her smiter's mercy; and now ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... the crumbs in the plate, and the dregs in the cup. There is surely a wise submission to those weaknesses in human nature which must be respected and not reproved, in the sympathizing rapidity with which servants in places of public refreshment clear away all signs of the customer in the past, from the eyes of the customer in the present. Although his predecessor may have been the wife of his bosom or the child of his loins, no man can find himself confronted at table by the traces of a vanished eater, without a passing ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... the hill, Past many a snow-wreath wild, Until the older guide stood still Beside a ...
— Dog of St. Bernard and Other Stories • Anonymous

... strategic meaning of "ruling the seas" was understood or not, the century witnessed the rise of the English naval power from comparative insignificance to an actual pre-eminence. The two Henries fostered their fleets; when Elizabeth was reigning, the sea-faring impulse was past any need of artificial encouragement. But it is noteworthy that coast defence and ship-building were almost the only public purposes to which an appreciable share of the King's ecclesiastical spoils was appropriated. The King's ships were few, but they were ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... long past, within the city of Norwich, and the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, there were no more but six or eight atturneys at the most coming to the King's Courts, in which time great tranquillity reigned in the said city and counties, little trouble ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... then, an easy victory? You fear him? Venture to accuse him first, As guilty of the charge which he may bring This day against you. Who can say 'tis false? All tells against him: in your hands his sword Happily left behind, your present trouble, Your past distress, your warnings to his father, His exile which ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine



Words linked to "Past" :   past progressive, auld langsyne, timing, time out of mind, historical, bypast, past progressive tense, past master, past tense, chivalric, present, future, outgoing, late, one-time, past perfect tense, historic, quondam, ago, past perfect, preterite, life, gone, bygone, period, preceding, old, by, erstwhile, go past, sometime, then, previous, langsyne, preterit, olden, noncurrent, departed, time period, water under the bridge, prehistorical, yesteryear, dead hand of the past, agone, medieval, yore, period of time, old times, ultimo, good old days, tense, retiring, ult, yesterday, past participle, ancient, time immemorial, other



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