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Problem   Listen
noun
Problem  n.  
1.
A question proposed for solution; a matter stated for examination or proof; hence, a matter difficult of solution or settlement; a doubtful case; a question involving doubt.
2.
(Math.) Anything which is required to be done; as, in geometry, to bisect a line, to draw a perpendicular; or, in algebra, to find an unknown quantity. Note: Problem differs from theorem in this, that a problem is something to be done, as to bisect a triangle, to describe a circle, etc.; a theorem is something to be proved, as that all the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles.
Plane problem (Geom.), a problem that can be solved by the use of the rule and compass.
Solid problem (Geom.), a problem requiring in its geometric solution the use of a conic section or higher curve.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Problem" Quotes from Famous Books



... kind, however, hardly comes within the scope of practical work. Long, loose stitches want sewing down. Some compromise has to be made between art and beauty. The problem is to make the work strong enough without seriously disturbing its lustrous surface, and the solution of it is "laid-work," at which we ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day

... who employed her, if her nature was at all generous, could not feel that money alone was an equivalent for a heart's service; she added to it her friendship, her gratitude and esteem. The domestic problem can never be rightly settled until the old idea of mutual help is in some way restored. This is a question for girls of the present generation to consider, and she who can bring about a practical solution of it will ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... sure I do not exaggerate when I say that this political war has been one of the most unfortunate events in the history of this Republic, for it made the most important problem of the time, a problem of extraordinary complexity, which required the calmest and most delicate and circumspect treatment, the foot-ball of a personal and party brawl which was in the highest degree apt to inflame the passions and to obscure the judgment of everybody concerned in ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... however, Are there any traces of foreign influence displayed in this statue? The only way of solving this problem seemed to me the following: First to determine the number and the name of the alleged Marco Polo Lo-han at Canton, and then by means of this number to trace him in the series of pictures of the traditional 500 Lo-han (the so-called ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... suppose, or a Zantiote—might have written Tom; only not an Englishman. Whether an Englishman could have forged Tom must remain a matter of doubt, unless the thing had been tried long ago. That problem was intercepted for ever by Tom's perverseness in choosing to manufacture himself. Yet, since nobody is better aware than M. Michelet that this very point of Kempis having manufactured Kempis is furiously and hopelessly litigated, three or four nations claiming to have forged ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... you. You give me life—and I adore you.... Let me. It will not harm you. The problem of life is solved for me; I have solved it; but unless some day you will prove it for me—Betty—the problem of life is but a sorry sum—a total of ciphers without end.... No other two people in all the world could be what we are and what we have been to each other. No other two people could ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers

... the principles of soil treatment discussed in the preceding chapters will leave the soil in good condition for sowing, either in the fall or spring. Nevertheless, though proper dry-farming insures a first-class seed-bed, the problem of sowing is one of the most difficult in the successful production of crops without irrigation. This is chiefly due to the difficulty of choosing, under somewhat rainless conditions, a time for sowing that will insure rapid and complete germination and the establishmcnt of a root system ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe

... to recall to you these great considerations, a sketch of which I traced for you last year, and which I have stated for the most part in my different works, because they serve, as you have seen, as a solution of the problem which interests so many naturalists, and which concerns the determination of ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... wrote I was hammering my brains for some solution of the problem before us; for, although I took pains to make the story complete, I was hoping that Captain Riggs would finally hit upon some scheme which would release us from the forecastle and give an opportunity to do battle with ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore

... it so. Like many other persons, he was not principled against virtue, provided virtue were a better investment than its opposite; but he knew that there might be contingencies in which the property would be better without its incumbrances, and he contemplated this conceivable problem in the light ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... shall ever do that now,' he said. 'Yet he is the most interesting of all the alchemists, for he offers the fascinating problem of an immensely complex character. It is impossible to know to what extent he was a charlatan and to what ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham

... gigantic grasp of his calculus and aided by the instruments of his invention, have solved perplexity after perplexity, blended discords into harmony, and shown to his delighted vision the calm perfection of the stellar system. So, too, in the moral world he has lifted the shrouds from many a dark problem, and extended the empire of light and love far out over the ancient realm of darkness and terror. But the secret of Death, the mystery of the Future, remains yet, as of old, unfathomed and inscrutable to his inquiries. Still, as of old, he kneels before ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... average girl knows him, and may refer to every man in her acquaintance or only to one. It certainly must refer to one! Misery loves company to such an extent that I could not bear to think that there was any girl living who did not occasionally have to grapple with the problem of at least one man in the raw, if only for her ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell

... "the Immortals" (the last section of the class), and it was only by the most strenuous efforts that he maintained his place. His struggles at the blackboard were often painful to witness. In the struggle to solve a problem he invariably covered both his face and uniform with chalk, and he perspired so freely, even in the coldest weather, that the cadets, with boyish exaggeration, declared that whenever "the General," as he had at once ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... scarcely awake, had she confounded the tones of a stranger, with those so long familiar? She could not shake off the conviction that Bertie had really spoken only a few yards from her, and while she stood irresolute, puzzling over the problem, the through freight train dashed by the station and left a trail of sparks and cinders. To avoid it she sprang on a pile of cross ties beside the track, and when the fiery serpent wound out of sight, she reluctantly retraced her steps. How long the night seemed! Would day never ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... visit Rome frequently before he could fully realise the true bearings of classical art. It has been argued that Donatello never made this early visit to Rome on the ground that his subsequent work shows no traces of classical influence. On such a problem as this the affirmative statement of Vasari is lightly disregarded. But the biographer of Brunellesco is explicit on the point, giving many details about their sojourn; and this book was written during the lifetime of both Donatello ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

... Alexander's intentions, the men charged with their execution had no sympathy with the moujik. The question never occurred to them: How shall we raise the peasant from his degradation? The problem before them was, how he should be made to support the State, as he had done before. The Russian statesmen had no conception of the truth that the wealth of a State is gauged by the prosperity of ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen

... fact is, what I touch must have a risk Of failure, or it wouldn't suit JIM FISK, I'll conquer this, too—keep a secretary To help me out when I'm in a quandary. I will not budge! My banner is unfurled, Proclaiming FISK the Problem of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various

... Railway Brotherhoods. This act, viewed by union leaders as a triumph, called forth a bitter denunciation of "trade union domination," but it was easier to criticize than to find another solution of the problem. ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... to solve this problem I turned to my Bible, beginning at the very beginning. And there, in the very first chapter, I found the explanation. 'Have dominion,' God said, 'over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.' ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham

... made up of inclination, pleaded against all the urging of expediency. He deemed the vicar an honest man, and that stout-hearted phrase of his stuck. Yet, whether he went or stayed, the ultimate solution of the problem lay with Helen herself. Once on speaking terms with her, he could form a more decided view. It was wonderful how one's estimate of a man or woman could be modified in the course of a few minutes' conversation. Well, he would settle things ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... but a profile relieved against a flat background. Their object, therefore, was to select forms which presented a characteristic outline capable of being reproduced in pure line upon a plane surface. As regarded animal life, the problem was in no wise complicated. The profile of the back and body, the head and neck, carried in undulating lines parallel with the ground, were outlined at one sweep of the pencil. The legs also are well detached from ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... who looked as though she had come straight out of the Bible via Bond Street, and his host, who looked as though he had never come out of Petticoat Lane at all, both accused him of being unable to work out the problem of "Find Calcutta Time given the Standard Time," and he professed to be proud to be able to acknowledge the ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... thought the less he doubted the result. It was not then a problem of defence, but of escape, for he believed now that no opportunity to defend himself would ever be allowed. The arrest was merely part of the plot intended to leave him helpless in the hands of the mob. In this Hicks was in no way ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... and only used his fists freely because of imagination he had none, and thinking made him sweat, and consequently the simplest way of proving his case was to say, "I'll fight you." What might have been the issue of a conflict between him and Shovel was a problem for Tommy to puzzle over. Shovel was as quick as Corp was deliberate, and would have danced round him, putting in unexpected ones, but if he had remained just one moment ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... apparently still senseless, Chris was grappling with the seemingly hopeless problem. So, even when he felt the tingling coldness of a spray of water on his cheeks, not one line of his face moved, nor did the tiniest flutter ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall

... to that shameless but unassailable declaration. Also, he was aware that she entertained, and sought solution of, a problem, the question of how best to satisfy her implacable determination to make the man pay. That purpose occupied all her mind, now that her money ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... has been given of the conditions in the Roman Empire, and of the manner in which the barbarians occupied its western part, makes clear the great problem of the Middle Ages. The Germans, no doubt, varied a good deal in their habits and spirit. The Goths differed from the Lombards, and the Franks from the Vandals; but they all agreed in knowing nothing of the art, literature, and science ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... peaceful future before her, I could have found courage enough to press my suit, to throw myself at her feet, and woo her boldly, as man woos woman. But this poor, unhappy, friendless, lovely girl! What could I do? Day and night I pondered the problem, and at last an expedient occurred ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... problem of the foreign woman's vote. Many people fear that the granting of woman suffrage would greatly increase the unintelligent vote, because the foreign women would then have the franchise, and in our blind egotism we class our foreign people as ignorant people, ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung

... was beginning to waver slightly, and he knew that weariness and the lack of sleep were at last gaining the mastery over his daring young spirit. It gave him relief, as it solved a problem that had been worrying him. He rode up by the side of Billy, but he said nothing. The boy's eyelids were heavy and the youthful figure was wavering, but it was in no danger of falling. Billy could have ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Barron did take his departure. As he walked to the inn to find his carriage he pondered the problem of the virtuous unbeliever. A certain Bampton lecture by a well-known and learned Bishop recurred to him, which most frankly and drastically connected "Unbelief" with "Sin." Yet somehow the view was not borne out, as in the interests of a sound theology it should ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Blount listened again, and when the cry was repeated he closed the window softly and sat down to grapple with this newest development of his problem. Did the newsboy's selling-cry mean that Blenkinsop had found out for himself, and independently, about the falsified registration lists? If so, there would be no public vindication for one Evan Blount; but also—thank God!—no need for a son to blazon himself to the world as his father's ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... lofty tiers of seats in the pale, clear starlight. Can you see no shadowy figures sitting there, hear no light whisper of ghostly laughter, no thin ripple of clapping hands? What flash of wit amuses them, what nobly tragic word or action stirs them to applause? What problem of their own life, what reflection of their own heart, does the stage reveal to them? We shall never know. The ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... to take from a motor tour the time which should rightly be given to Edinburgh, for the many attractions of the Athens of the North might well occupy a solid week. Fortunately, a previous visit by rail two years before had solved the problem for us and we were fairly familiar with the more salient features of the city. There is one side-trip that no one should miss, and though we had once journeyed by railway train to Melrose Abbey and Abbottsford House, we could not forego a second visit ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy

... the little push been given? Had not heaven been lost? That was the problem. But Doctor Levillier, if he saw a little way into effect, was quite at a loss as to cause. And already he had a suspicion that the change in Valentine was not quite on the lines of one of those strange and dreadful human changes familiar to ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... possible, or making her forget all terror in her joy. I began at once to devise ways and means, as I understood it must be done in such a way as to make it forever impossible for her to cast me off. My mind worked very hard at it, as the problem was not an easy one. Gradually a great emotion stole over me: and strange to say, it was more on Aniela's account than on my own that I felt moved,—for I realized suddenly what a great wrench it would be, and I was afraid ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... was thus applied to a sail before it was given to a mast. Although the Italian word means "middle," it is perhaps, in this particular sense, a popular corruption of an Arabic word of quite different meaning. The discussion of so difficult a problem is rather out of place in a book intended for the general reader, but I cannot refrain from giving a most interesting note which I owe to Mr W. B. Whall, Master Mariner, the author of Shakespeare's Sea Terms Explained—"The sail was (until c. 1780) ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley

... there was little rest for Katherine that night, for she was faced by a problem that had never even occurred to her before. If she followed the desire of her own heart, she stood in the way of two people. True, she might make Jervis Ferrars happy with her love, more especially as she was quite sure that he cared for ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... should osteopathy (chiropractic) be permitted (or protected) by law? What is wrong with municipal government in my city How woman suffrage affects local government How to make rural life more attractive The importance of the rotation of crops The race problem as it affects my community The class problem as it affects my community The school-house as a social center How to Americanize the alien elements in our population To what extent, if at all, should foreign-born ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... north-west of the Andamans, we find in India a problem of considerable difficulty. That there were at one period numerous Negrito tribes inhabiting that part of Asia is indubitable; that some of them persist to this day in a state of approximate purity is no less true, but the influence of crossing has here been most potent. Races of ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson

... how the different spacing of the word FRENCH in the first and second lines is managed. In the advertisement, 123, also by Mr. Bridwell, note how the letters are spaced close or wide in order to produce a definite effect. The whole problem of spacing is, however, one of such subtle interrelation and composition, that it can only be satisfactorily solved by the artistic sense of the designer. Any rules which might be here formulated would prove more often a drawback ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown

... suit of greasy overalls, and went into the grimy vitals of the destroyer, a wrench in one hand, a chisel in the other. In about ten minutes he had solved the problem, explained it to the mechanics gathered about him, and then demonstrated just how simple the remedial measures were. All torpedo boat officers do this more often than not. It explains the blind fidelity with which the crews of craft of ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... the problem—not from any special training (rowing in regattas and the like), but rather from that universal adaptability of the Irishman which fits him for filling any situation in life, from a seat on a dirt-cart to a chair ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... am eliminating entirely the possibility of compounding two or more radical elements into single words or word-like phrases (see pages 67-70). To expressly consider compounding in the present survey of types would be to complicate our problem unduly. Most languages that possess no derivational affixes of any sort may nevertheless freely compound radical elements (independent words). Such compounds often have a fixity that simulates ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir

... a century ago, but yet at a period not so far distant as to be beyond the remembrance of many still living, a clear-headed North-countryman, on the banks of the Tyne, was working out, in spite of all opposition, the great problem of adapting the steam engine to railway locomotion. Buoyed up by an almost prophetic confidence in his ultimate triumph over all obstacles, he continued to labor to complete an invention which promised the grandest benefits ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various

... gloomy view, helping to bring about the very state of things which we all desire to avert. Again I wish to guard myself against seeming to be too hopeful; but let us look at the effect as if we were examining a chess problem. If we keep the command of the sea, what is going to happen? It all depends on that. I admit that if that goes the position is gloomy indeed; but of that I have no fear. [Cheers.] If we keep the command of the sea what ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), which extends slightly beyond the Antarctic Treaty area). Unregulated fishing, particularly of Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides), is a serious problem. The CCAMLR determines the recommended catch limits for marine species. A total of 36,460 tourists visited the Antarctic Treaty area in the 2006-07 Antarctic summer, up from the 30,877 visitors the previous year (estimates provided to the Antarctic Treaty by the International ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... not time? There is, it is true, an audacity in the mere suggestion that the problem is not insoluble that is enough to take away the breath. But can nothing be done? If, after full and exhaustive consideration, we come to the deliberate conclusion that nothing can be done, and that it is the inevitable and inexorable destiny of thousands of Englishmen to be brutalised into ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... beast, of course, offers the most interesting problem to the lion hunter. If it sees the hunter, it is likely to charge him at once. If hit while making off, however, it is more apt to take cover. Then one must summon all his good sense and nerve to get it out. No rules can be given for this; nor am I trying to write ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... paper (showing it us) I am bringing to the banquet. Thales replied, after his wonted smiling way, If it contains any hard question, away with it to Priene. Bias will resolve it with the same readiness he did your former problem. What problem was that? quoth he. Why, saith Thales, a certain person sent him a beast for sacrifice with this command, that he should return him that part of his flesh which was best and worst; ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... close scrutiny; but the detective soon became satisfied that he must look elsewhere for the robber. His suspicions were next directed to another office, where also the mails lay over night; but the postmaster bore a countenance so open and honest that he too was eliminated from the problem. ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne

... to her! Delicately Henrietta hugged herself perceiving that, other things being equal, her own career was by no means ended yet. Through Damaris might she not very well enter upon a fresh and effective phase of it? How often and how ruefully had she revolved the problem of advancing age, questioning how gracefully to confront that dreaded enemy, and endure its rather terrible imposition of hands without too glaring a loss of prestige and popularity! Might not Damaris' childish infatuation offer a solution of that haunting problem, always supposing ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... this being a room of great importance. Apparently it does not occur to the Zui architect that the result could be achieved in a more direct and much less laborious manner by making the walls a foot or so higher at the time of building the kiva, after the manner in which the same problem is solved when it is encountered in their ordinary dwelling house construction. Such explanations, of course, originated long after the practice ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff

... esteem and respect of his fellow-citizens to as great an extent as he would for the violation of any of his social and most of his moral obligations. What the most perfect plan of management would be, is a problem hard to solve. From the commencement of slavery in this country, this subject has occupied the minds of all slaveholders, as much as the improvement of the general condition of mankind has those of the most ardent philanthropists; and the greatest progressive amelioration of the system has been ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... problem shows that our real objective is to reach the surface, and that need not be done the most obvious way, by returning over the course ...
— The Death-Traps of FX-31 • Sewell Peaslee Wright

... care, after being thus "Japanesed," was to enter a tea-house of modest appearance, and, upon half a bird and a little rice, to breakfast like a man for whom dinner was as yet a problem to be solved. ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... Fay and Jan, who were like the lilies of the field, and expected new and pretty frocks at reasonable intervals as a matter of course, looked serious too; for the first time confronted by a problem whose possibility they ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker

... mushrooms having been made up, the spawn having been selected, the beds are ready for planting whenever the temperature has been sufficiently reduced and the material is properly cured. It is quite easy to determine the temperature of the beds, but it is a more difficult problem for the inexperienced to determine the best stage in the curing of the material for the reception of the spawn. Some growers rely more on the state of curing of the manure than they do upon the temperature. They would ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... to consider war as a gallant survival with an impressive ritual and a code of honour curiously detached from the social environment, like the Hindu suttee; or with a procedure euphemistically disguised, like some chthonic liturgy of ancient Athens. But it is a problem too broad for the anthropologist when we consider that we have reached a stage of civilisation which regards murder as the most detestable of crimes and deprives the murderer of all civil rights and often even of the natural right to live: while in the same community the organised ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato

... of the pleasant home, with the saddened faces there, of the happy days he had spent, and now for the first time fully realised what a joyous boyhood he had passed in the rocky wildly picturesque old place, with no greater trouble to disturb his peaceful life than some puzzling problem or a trivial fit of illness. All so bright, so joyous, so happy,—and now gone, perhaps, for ever; and some strange, wild life to come, but what kind of existence ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... maintenance for 10 miles of earth road can be accomplished by one man giving his entire time to the work, and that is the only method that has proven adequate to the problem. ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg

... have been far happier without Miss Darrell; she has rather a peculiar temper, and I have often fancied that she has misrepresented things. It is always difficult to understand women, even the best of them,' with a smothered sigh, 'but I confess Miss Darrell is rather a problem ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... acts of two of them consisted in joyously brushing aside as of no account whatever, and quite beneath serious consideration, everything that had been seen, done and said previous to the rise of their group, and the laboratory Problem Box. In view of what this group has accomplished since 1910, with their "problem boxes," their "mazes" and their millions of "trials by error," expressed in solid pages of figures, the world of animal lovers is entitled to smile ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... No problem more difficult or of more delicate treatment than the 'criteria' of miracles; yet none on which young divines are fonder of displaying their gifts. Nor is this the worst. Their charity too often goes to wreck from the error of identifying the faith in Christ with the arguments by ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... consequence of Hume's reasoning. He considered that Hume had been misled by turning his attention to Physics, and that his own good sense would have saved him from his conclusion had he thought rather of Mathematics. Kant's solution of the problem, based mainly on the reality of Mathematics, and especially of Geometry, is the ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter

... lagoons were frozen for miles in every direction; and under our windows on the Grand Canal, great sheets of ice went up and down with the rising and the falling tide for nearly a whole month. The visible misery throughout the fireless city was great; and it was a problem I never could solve, whether people in-doors were greater sufferers from the cold than those who weathered the cruel winds sweeping the squares and the canals, and whistling through the streets of stone and brine. The boys had an unwonted season of sliding ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... therefore the Schlegel-Coleridge view (apart from its descriptive value) seems to me fatally untrue, for it implies that Hamlet's procrastination was the normal response of an over-speculative nature confronted with a difficult practical problem. ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... government was to be justified in its acts, and in deed the public weal seemed, after what had gone before, to demand such an issue. Of Grebel's end no report has reached us. But to later times has been left the problem of the thorough instruction of the people, toleration in matters of faith, contempt where morals, and punishment, sore punishment, where the sanctity of the law has ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... over to a bookcase, Mr. Lavender took out the third from the top of a pile of newspapers. "Listen!" he said. "'The problem before us is the extraction of every potential ounce of food. No half measures must content us. Potatoes! Potatoes! No matter how, where, when the prime national necessity is now the growth of potatoes. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... adventure in France, Graham learned much. Philip Desten's luck had been to die when the wheel of his fortune had turned over and down. Ernestine and Lute, little tots, had been easy enough for Desten's sisters to manage. But Paula, who had fallen to Mrs. Tully, had been the problem—"because of that Frenchman." ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... did. When he set his heart upon anything he was not as "unstable as water." While but an indifferent and superficial student, who had habitually escaped lessons and skipped difficulties, he occasionally became nettled by a perplexing problem or task, and would work at it with a sort of vindictive, unrelenting earnestness, as if he were subduing an enemy. Having put his foot on the obstacle, and mastered the difficulty that piqued him, he would cast the book aside, indifferent to ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... freedom and planted their standard, where it has stood against dangers which have threatened from abroad, and internal agitation, which has at times fearfully menaced at home. They proved themselves equal to the solution of the great problem, to understand which their minds had been illuminated by the dawning lights of the Revolution. The object sought was not a thing dreamed of; it was a thing realized. They had exhibited only the power to achieve, but, what all history affirms to be so much more unusual, the capacity to ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... gradually to the eyes of the climber up the holy mount, is very near to the heart of Mysticism. It rests on the faith that the ideal not only ought to be, but is the real. It has been applied by some, notably by that earnest but fantastic thinker, James Hinton, as offering a solution of the problem of evil. We shall encounter attempts to deal with this great difficulty in several of the Christian mystics. The problem among the speculative writers was how to reconcile the Absolute of philosophy, who is above all distinctions,[40] ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... more eager did I become to solve the problem. When my eye began to ache with watching the chase, Nol took the glass. I had had my breakfast brought on deck. I ate my dinner there also. I was just washing down the cold salt junk and biscuit with a glass of rum and water, ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... child cogitated over the situation, but, as is the Indian's habit, without a word to her grand parent of what was occupying her mind. The old woman saw she was absorbed in some mental problem, and, with the shrewdness of the aborigine, guessed the subject, and sought to divert her thoughts into other channels. It was in vain, for one evening, after their simple meal of herbs, the girl, gathering courage, ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... but was wrestling with her problem even in her jumbled dreams. She woke with a start, and with the impression strong upon her that someone or something had touched her face and her breast. Scared, she groped for the electric switch and flashed on the light above the bed, and as she did so she remembered having awakened months previously ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... Joe," said the banker, "for it's certainly the best solution of that troublesome problem I ever heard. No one can rightfully refuse to pay for the actual use of a tool, even though he can't afford to own one, and five years ought to be a fair book value average. So Bob thought that out," he chuckled. "Joe, I'm getting prouder of that red-head, freckled ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson

... the English ambassador that the United States could not endure, "since a republican government had never been known to exist for any length of time where the territory was not limited and concentred." The problem was a new one; but in communities without a titled aristocracy, which had set themselves against the power of a monarch, and which had long been accustomed to self-government, the problem was successfully worked out. The ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart

... one who knew him, "is a problem and a riddle—a problem worthy of the study of those who delight in exploring that labyrinth of all that is hidden and mysterious, the human heart; and a riddle to himself and others. He is a wit and a humorist of a high order; of keen ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... and there, on the spot, he got his. And the heroine was always so pluperfectly pure. And the hero always was a hero to his finger tips, never doing anything unmanly or wrong or cowardly, and always using the most respectful language in the presence of the opposite sex. There was never any sex problem in a nickul librury. There were never any smutty words or questionable phrases. If a villain said "Curse you!" he was going pretty far. Any one of us might whet up our natural instincts for cruelty on Fore's Book of Martyrs, or read of all manner of unmentionable horrors in the Old Testament, ...
— A Plea for Old Cap Collier • Irvin S. Cobb

... there in the gathering dark I thought that in this simple explanation I had mastered the problem of the world—mastered the whole secret of these delicious people. Possibly the checks they had devised for the increase of population had succeeded too well, and their numbers had rather diminished than kept stationary. That would account for the abandoned ruins. Very simple was my ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... "but I get to wondering about the little guys. They were so serious and intense about everything. I never did solve their problem, you know. I just shifted it onto other shoulders than ours. No joke intended," he hurried ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... his arms on the side and stood ruefully watching the stairs. He was quite confident that there were head-pieces walking the earth, to which a satisfactory solution of this problem would have afforded no difficulty whatever, and he shook his own sadly, as ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... the bull by the horns in his reply to the national reception of Ghosts was proved by the instant success of The Enemy of the People. Presented to the public in this new and audacious form, the problem of a "moral water-supply" struck sensible Norwegians as less absurd and less dangerous than they had conceived it to be. The reproof was mordant, and the worst offenders crouched under the lash. Ghosts itself was still, for some time, tabooed, but The Enemy of the People ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... afforded of the fact that into the natural and primitive phenomena of myth, or, as Mueller holds, into its various metaphors, man has so far infused his own life, that they have, like man himself, a subjective and deliberate consciousness and force. It seems to me that this problem has not yet been solved by scholars; they have stopped short after establishing the primary fact, and are content to affirm that such is human nature, which ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli

... in this, I was trying to think out some way of letting Mr. Cullen and Albert know where the letters were. The problem was to suggest the saddle to them, without letting the cowboys understand, and by good luck I thought I had the means. Albert had complained to me the day we had ridden out to the Indian dwellings at Flagstaff that his saddle fretted ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... stringent social law which protected the coloured girl from the lust of the white man. Therefore, as she could not undo the harm already done, and as a crusade in behalf of the next generation would be meaningless, not to say indelicate, she dismissed the "problem" from her mind. But the image of those two sad and stately reflections of the old school sank indelibly into her memory, and rose to their part in one of the most momentous decisions of ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... heart."—"This season, so sacred to the enthusiast, has been, in all ages, selected by the poet and the moralist, as a theme for poetic description and moral reflection;" and we may add that amidst such scenes, Newton drew the most glorious problem of his philosophy, and Bishop Horne his simple but pathetic lines on the "Fall of the Leaf,"—lessons of nature which will still find their way to the hearts of mankind, when the more subtle workings of speculative philosophy shall ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various

... no less strongly than this great French colleague, Marshal Foch, "this war has given no new principles." But it has greatly complicated the application of the old. Every new invention makes the problem of co-operation—of interaction between the different armies and services—more difficult and ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and pined for intellectual companionship beyond all ignorant men whom I have ever met. I believe that he would have talked all day and all night, for days together, to any officer who could instruct him, until his companion, at least, fell asleep exhausted. His comprehension of the whole problem of Slavery was more thorough and far-reaching than that of any Abolitionist, so far as its social and military aspects went; in that direction I could teach him nothing, and he taught me much. But it was his methods of thought which always impressed me chiefly: superficial ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... scene-backing. And when we are told that they are apt to run too much into grooves and families, it is sufficient to answer that it really does not lie in the mouth of an age which produces grime-novels, problem-novels, and so forth, as if they had been struck off on a hectograph, possessing the not very exalted gift of varying names and places—to reproach any other age on this score. But we have only limited room ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... you do,—in fact I know you do; but you've no business to. I maintain that even according to Moses, king David deserved a felon's death. Murder and adultery were crimes every bit as heinous then as they are now. Yet David, this most human of heroes, was the man after God's own heart. Solve me the problem." ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... a bitter controversy on the ethics of male and female morality as regards marriage. It was currently said that hundreds of contemplated marriages were broken off in Norway as an effect of its statement of a vital problem. The remodelling the play originally underwent for its performance in Germany was drastic. The second and third acts were entirely recast, the character of Dr. Nordan was omitted and others introduced, and the ending was changed. The ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson

... and that is perhaps the reason why his eye rested with a sense of relief on a little group of people who, like himself, seemed to have nothing particular to do. They were six in number, two ladies and four gentlemen, and stood quietly discussing some interesting problem, apparently unconscious of the hurrying crowds which ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... all. This girl was familiar with the city; doubtless knew all the people; she seemed intelligent and capable, as girls went. He remembered that he had consulted her about securing remunerative work, with some results; possibly she would also have something sensible to say about his paternal problem. He might make an even shrewder stroke. As his landlady's agent, this girl would of course be interested in establishing his connection with a relative who had twenty-dollar bills to give away. Therefore if it ever should ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... peace, and the preliminaries are ratified. If the French observe them as strictly as I do, and will do, then your situation will be improved; but already the French are beginning to disregard them. The principal problem which remains to be solved is, whether the French Directory approve of Bonaparte's proceedings, and whether the latter, as appears by some papers distributed through his army, is not disposed to revolt ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... have read your article on the possibility of travelling to the other members of the Solar system with much interest. It is a problem at which I, myself, have been working for a great many years, and I believe that I have now discovered a means of solving it in a practical manner. If you would care to see my experiments, and will do me the honour of coming here, I shall be glad to ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... muddy hand at her, and seemed to be beyond speech. There was a dull, wondering look in his eyes, as though he were trying to figure out some abstruse problem. He did not brighten until a team came tearing up to the gate, and a man with a scoop fireman's hat on came running to the porch. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... ready to defend them. I believe the enemy could have stolen up in the night and rushed in here," pointing again. Marco thought he was right. The Rat had argued it all out, and had studied Melzarr as he might have studied a puzzle or an arithmetical problem. He was very clever, and as sharp as his queer ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... his algebraic problem, with a desperate plunge at its solution. The unknown quantity remained unknown; and, a moment later, he was gratified to see how he had finally caught and expressed, with his pencil, a look of Julia, that had always ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... servants might overhear the conversation. More liberally endowed than Rena with imagination, and not without a vein of sentiment, he had nevertheless a practical side that outweighed them both. With him, the problem that oppressed his sister had been in the main a matter of argument, of self-conviction. Once persuaded that he had certain rights, or ought to have them, by virtue of the laws of nature, in defiance of ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... the hotel parlor between the hours of 10:30 and 12 o'clock, and as to my certain knowledge only three persons crossed its threshold on that especial morning at that especial time, I naturally appeal to each of them in turn for an answer to the problem that is troubling me. You know Miss N——. Seeing by accident a letter addressed to her lying in a Bible in a strange hotel, you might have thought it your duty to take it out and carry it to her. If you did and if you ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... than ours, its oceans have shrunk until they cover but a third of its surface, and as its slow seasons change huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and periodically inundate its temperate zones. That last stage of exhaustion, which to us is still incredibly remote, has become a present-day problem for the inhabitants of Mars. The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts. And looking across space with instruments, and intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of, they see, at its nearest distance ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... most like is a spider's web, insecurely hung on leaves and twigs, quivering in every wind, and sprinkled with dewdrops and dead flies. And at its centre, pondering forever the Problem of Existence, sits motionless the spider-like and ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... Oyster Cove, in 1847, thirteen were men, twenty-two women, and ten children. Such has been the progress of their decline, and with numbers so inconsiderable, the problem of ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... Bellini's church of St. Mark's is the best church of St. Mark's that has ever been painted, so far as I know; and I believe the reconciliation of true aerial perspective and chiaroscuro with the splendor and dignity obtained by the real gilding and elaborate detail, is a problem yet to be accomplished. With the help of the Daguerreotype, and the lessons of color given by the later Venetians, we ought now to be able to accomplish it, more especially as the right use of gold has been shown us by the greatest master of effect whom Venice herself produced, ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... was evolved from the moneron, a creature of one substance, homogeneous, how were creatures of more than one substance evolved without more being evolved than was involved? Let some of our scientific "wise-acres" solve this problem. ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 • Various

... strain, whether to use steel that is rigid or that which is so flexible that it can be tied in a knot. On the designer depends the price asked for the work, and so it is his business to invent, for each bridge is a separate problem in invention, a bridge that will carry the required weight with the least expenditure of material and labour and at the same time be strong enough to carry very much greater loads than it is ever likely to be called upon to sustain. The designer ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday

... exist when certain privileged families sicken and die. Not that I would ask people to do what is beyond their power and prohibited by their honor. There was no necessity, as a revolutionist might imagine, to overturn the dynasty. A very simple solution of the problem would have been to take against the probable extravagances of the Fredericks and Williams of Prussia the same precautions that were taken in England against the Georges of Hanover. These last likewise suffered from mental disorders. And so troubled ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... Mankind committed a fatal wrong in permitting the land that supported them to become an object of speculation. This noxious seed brings noxious fruits to light. It must be the highest task of all governments to carry out land reform—the great problem that decides the destiny of a world—by all possible legislative measures. Now that, in all human probability, peace is assured, now that external dangers no longer threaten the existence of our Empire, there is nothing to exonerate ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... delegates reassembled in Baltimore, the factional quarrel had lost none of its bitterness. Almost immediately the convention fell foul of a complicated problem of organization. Some of the original delegates, who had withdrawn at Charleston, desired to be re-admitted. From some States there were contesting delegations, notably from Louisiana and Alabama, where the Douglas men had rallied in force. Those anti-Douglas delegates ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... used of God in the conversion of the people. Nearly all of these converts have come from the lowest class of society. But at present the higher classes are beginning to consider the claims of the Gospel. It is natural that the most serious problem and principal concern of this mission has been to keep pace with the movement, and to train suitable agents for the guidance and instruction of the incoming thousands. It has also been largely blessed in this line, as its various and ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... importance, becomingly clad in a waving white petticoat, with bare legs and elastic-sided boots, surmounted by a long cutaway frock-coat, topped by a black skull-cap, and finally decorated by a pen behind his ear—seemed totally unable to cope with the terrible problem ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... have attended her petition is uncertain, but the problem was solved by the appearance of the Countess herself on the terrace above them, which ran the length of the castle on its western side. The lady leaned over the parapet and watched with evident curiosity ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... The problem before you is, how the general ignorance is to be dispersed, and other people enabled to discriminate between the genuine and the other sort. Find the solution, Truth; for indeed it concerns you; Falsehood must not prevail; shall ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... the situation had calmed down quite a bit. The androids obviously didn't mean to hurt anyone; it was just some sort of disagreement between them and the scientists; it wasn't up to the inhabitants of the city to figure out a solution to the problem. They merely sat back and blamed me for allowing my robots to get out of hand and lead their own servants astray. It would be settled; this type of thing always was. So said the people of the city. They came out of their houses now. They had to. Without the robots they were forced to do their ...
— Robots of the World! Arise! • Mari Wolf

... sphynx to solve that problem, my gracious master," said the favourite, toying with his plumed cap; "they will endeavour to effect the exile of Concini and his dark-browed wife: your good subjects have no love for foreigners, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... impossibility of such a thing? I greatly feared that to convince her of this would be wholly beyond my power. Yet what was to become of her? I could not abandon her, alone and unprotected, to her fate; nor could I take her with me. The problem seemed absolutely insoluble; and at length I came to the conclusion that the only thing to be done was to leave the issue ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... people who have never met, and who are hundreds of miles apart, can exert a magnetic influence on each other? I have read of such psychological phenomena, but never credited them. I leave the solution of the problem to you. As for myself, all other things being favorable, it would be impossible for me to fall in love with a woman who listens to me only when I am ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... natures prior to herself; and hence the soul very properly rejoices in fables, as an image in an image. As we are therefore from our childhood nourished in fables, it is necessary that they should be introduced. And thus much for the first problem, concerning the origin ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor

... sufficiently common-place, but we are sometimes driven to common-place. It is no less a false and shallow, than a presumptuous philosophy, which theorizes on the affairs of men as a problem to be solved by some unerring rule of human reason, without reference to the designs of a superior intelligence, so far as he has been placed to indicate them, in their creation and destiny. Man is born to subjection. Not only during infancy is he dependent, and under the control ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... sitting there, thinking. The old negro came shuffling in, bringing hot hoe-cake and bacon for his dinner. He ate obediently; later he submitted to the razor and clothes brush, absently pondering the problem that obsessed him: "Why had Hallam spared Letty; how could he convey the ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... tried to. In the end, hidden in his room, he wept—honest tears of a strong man conscious that he was unable by his strength to hold disaster from an innocent. Even his attempt to find the rogue, Spinney, was futile. He wept, thinking of Clare Kavanagh—exiled from her home, bravely solving her problem of life alone. He went to sleep thinking of ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... corner of the country, in the Minho province, that the highest rural prosperity is to be met with. This little province, scarcely as large as the State of Delaware, but with more than four times its population, has successfully solved the problem of affording labor and sustenance in nearly equal shares to a large number of inhabitants. Bonanza-farming is unheard of there. The high perfection of its culture, which gives the whole province the trim, thriving air of a well-kept ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... be had among the fishermen, I suppose, but how to provide you with one is the most serious problem I have to solve in this matter. My army chest is empty, and my personal purse ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston

... were eagerly attentive. He liked this cryptic old man. This was real stuff he was talking; and it was getting at the bottom of Rogeen's own problem. All these years he had tried to produce value single-handed. But to win big, he must think, plan, organize so as to make money for many people, and therefore entitle himself ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby

... sense of well-being left him. He straightened himself to face this problem, ignoring the hint of James, who was weaving circles about his legs expectant of more tickling. A man cannot spend his time tickling cats when he has to concentrate on ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse

... written in no hope that all readers would agree with the author, who is zealous in his cause. His purpose will be gained if he induces the reader to reflect for himself on the problem in the light of ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... trophy of early Saracenic work, the pointed style as a school of architecture was destined to triumph immediately it rose from the position of mere ornament to the necessity of a constructive feature. It was the problem of vaulting over a space that was not square, which gave the pointed arch its reason for absolute existence, its beauty of proved strength and adequate proportion. Some of the noblest forms of its development ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... and of discovering some substitute for the loss of the Dutch colonies, which had proved so helpful during the period of union with Holland, might have been felt by any far-sighted statesman. Leopold I had already devoted some attention to the problem. He encouraged several Belgian settlements in Rio Nunez, where a regular protectorate was established for a short time, in Guatemala and in various parts of Brazil. None of these enterprises, however, bore fruit, and the problem was still ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... that's his affair." But I did not feel so lightly about it as I spoke, and from time to time during the day I was overtaken with a cold dismay at the thought of the unknown quantity in the problem. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... philosopher, was "profoundly moved" by it, we are told. "It was the last judgment for that region," he wrote; "nothing was wanting to it except the trumpet." More than a month afterward, while still the perturbations of the earth were continuing, this skeptic wrote a poem upon the problem presented, ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer

... despair past, and wrestling with the problem he came upon its solution and with it ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... claim of the individual citizen to the enjoyment of personal liberty, with the effective obligation of private contracts, is the difficult problem to be solved by a law of bankruptcy. These are objects of the deepest interest to society, affecting all that is precious in the existence of multitudes of persons, many of them in the classes essentially dependent and helpless, of the age requiring nurture, and of the sex entitled to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams

... walked on with long, irregular steps, lowering at the pavement as if it were a difficult problem, and occasionally thrusting at it with his stick. At last he looked up, ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... Greek philosophy were, as Cicero often insists, the establishment of a criterion such as would suffice to distinguish the true from the false, and the determination of an ethical standard[71]. We have in the Academica Cicero's view of the first problem: that the attainment of any infallible criterion was impossible. To go more into detail here would be to anticipate the text of the Lucullus as well as my notes. Without further refinements, I may say that Cicero in this respect ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... a problem to the class which he immediately recognized as being the question of the safety of the South Fork dam. He sent it to me at the time in a letter, which, of course, is lost, with everything else I possessed, in which he stated that the verdict of the ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... enters again, his mechanical importance is overwhelming. Therefore, for his first entrance the motion picture star does not require the preparations that are made on the stage. The support does not need to warm the spectators to the problem, then ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay

... of the book deals with what might be called our instrument of research; in other words, with the problem of what particular powers of insight the human mind must use, if its vision of reality is to be of any deeper or more permanent value than the "passing on the wing," so to speak, ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys

... fit the life of the wilderness, they modify their city methods to fit open-air conditions. They do not need to strip to the contest, for contest there is none, and Indian packers are cheap at a dollar a day. But even so the problem of the greatest comfort—defining comfort as an accurate balance of effort expended to results obtained—can be solved only by the one formula. And that formula is, again, go light, for a superabundance of paraphernalia proves always more of a care than a satisfaction. When the woods offer ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... The problem before the State convention at Reno in February was how to educate the voters and overcome the active opposition of the liquor and other vested interests, which were determined to continue Nevada "wide-open" by "keeping out the women." ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... but the goal of ambition and power. Brutal and evil minded as Estada undoubtedly was, I had taken his measure, and felt confident of being able to outwit him; but Sanchez would prove a different problem, for he possessed brains and cool, resourceful courage. Of the two he was ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... study of the Gospels has shown that very little of the traditional material can be regarded as historical; it is even very uncertain whether the Galilean prophet really paid the supreme penalty as a supposed enemy of Rome on the shameful cross. Even apart from the problem referred to, it is more than doubtful whether critics have left us enough stones standing in the life of Jesus to serve as the basis of a christology or doctrine of the divine Redeemer. And yet one feels that a theology without a theophany is both dry and difficult to defend. We want an ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne

... too much, Gracie, dear," said Betty, at last, going over and sitting down beside her friend. "Will has some problem that he's trying to work out all by himself. We know that he's true blue all the way through, and when he's ready to confide in us, he'll do it. Until then, we've just got to trust him, that's all, and help him all we ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope

... have said also that the hexagonal form of construction employed by bees produces the largest possible result with the least labour and material. Maeterlinck rehearses (La Vie des Abeilles, 138) the result of the study of this problem in the highest mathematics: ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... seem that the importance and magnitude of the problem of association time are such as to demand not merely a crude measurement of the gross reaction time in a large number of cases, but rather a special investigation by such exact methods as have been used by Cattell [1] and others in the analysis of the complex reaction. ...
— A Study of Association in Insanity • Grace Helen Kent



Words linked to "Problem" :   pons asinorum, riddle, poser, stumper, koan, balance-of-payments problem, enigma, sticker, trouble, toughie, case, pressure point, mystifier, teaser, problem solver, Gordian knot, problematic, conundrum, question, problem-oriented language, growing pains, job, race problem, health problem, difficulty, puzzle



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