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Shape   Listen
verb
Shape  v. t.  (past shaped; past part. shaped or shapen; pres. part. shaping)  
1.
To form or create; especially, to mold or make into a particular form; to give proper form or figure to. "I was shapen in iniquity." "Grace shaped her limbs, and beauty decked her face."
2.
To adapt to a purpose; to regulate; to adjust; to direct; as, to shape the course of a vessel. "To the stream, when neither friends, nor force, Nor speed nor art avail, he shapes his course." "Charmed by their eyes, their manners I acquire, And shape my foolishness to their desire."
3.
To imagine; to conceive; to call forth (ideas). (archaic) "Oft my jealousy Shapes faults that are not."
4.
To design; to prepare; to plan; to arrange. "When shapen was all this conspiracy, From point to point."
Shaping machine. (Mach.) Same as Shaper.
To shape one's self, to prepare; to make ready. (Obs.) "I will early shape me therefor."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Shape" Quotes from Famous Books



... he likes, and will understand the language of all animals. When he wishes to resume the human form, he has only to bow three times towards the east, and to repeat the same word. Be careful, however, when wearing the shape of some beast or bird, not to laugh, or thou wilt certainly forget the magic word and remain ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... passed dim cycles by, and in the earth Strange peoples swarmed; new nations sprang to birth. Then first 'mong tented tribes men shuddering spake Dread tales of one that moved, an unseen shape, 'Mong chilling mists and snow. A spirit swift, That dwelt in lands beyond day's purple rift. Phantom of presage ill to babes unborn, Whose fast-sealed eyes ope not to earthly morn. "We heard," they ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier

... there suddenly took shape in his mind the picture of a spacious room, fragrant with the scent of roses—a room full of mellow tints of brown and gold, athwart which the afternoon sunlight lingered tenderly, picking out here the limpid blue of a bit of old Chinese "blue-and-white," there the warm ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... curate, obscurely found in the Huasteca wilds and yet not a Mexican, was a large sleek man whose paunch bulged repulsively under the priestly surplice. His flabby jowls hung down, and gave his head the shape of a pea, in the top of which were the eyes set close together. They were restless fawning little eyes and they roved constantly. But more than aught else, they were adventurous; two bright, glowing beads of adventure. From the folds of dull yellow flesh they peered ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... June, in which the rival four-oars of the three houses were to compete for the championship of the river. The second of June was far enough ahead at present, but an old hand like Bloomfield knew well that the time was all too short to lick his crew into shape. Parrett's boat, by all ordinary calculation, ought to win, for they had a specially good lot of men this year; and now Wyndham had left, the schoolhouse boat would be quite an orphan. Bloomfield himself was far away the best oar left in Willoughby, ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... of the deity and her ministers. But these were not the valuable inhabitants: the plains that stretch from the foot of Mount Argaeus to the banks of the Sarus, bred a generous race of horses, renowned above all others in the ancient world for their majestic shape and incomparable swiftness. These sacred animals, destined for the service of the palace and the Imperial games, were protected by the laws from the profanation of a vulgar master. The demesnes of Cappadocia were important enough to require the inspection of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... he, as he alighted at Sancho's door, "I am told you have stolen property in the shape of my signal glass. ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... of a narrow gorge—a gorge the shape of a shepherd's crook; if one looks up it he perceives that it is about straight, for a mile and a half, then makes a sharp curve to the right and disappears. This gorge—along whose bottom pours the swift Neckar —is confined between (or cloven through) a couple of long, steep ridges, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... pointed out whence his salvation had come. "For your cause can only be revealed to you through some presence that first teaches you to love the unity of the spiritual life. . . You must find it in human shape." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... is willing to wait, eh? Well, Effie is very young, and she's charming. But she won't be charming if she has an ugly appendage in the shape of a poor unsuccessful American artist (not even a good one), whose father went bankrupt, for a brother-in-law. That won't smooth the way, of course; and if a prince is to come into the family, the family must be kept tidy to receive him.' Dora got up quickly, as if she ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... little pleasantry of the Mercutians," Hilary said bitterly. He looked upward. High overhead hovered a gigantic shape, motionless. ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner

... from the artist, when the work, like a child who is provided for, has no more to fall back upon its father? And what a power there must be in art itself for its own self-advancing, when it has been obliged to shape itself almost solely out of what was open to all, only out of what was the property of every one, and therefore also of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... (1758) the first effective subsidy treaty with England takes shape, renewed annually; England to provide Frederick with two-thirds of a million sterling. Ferdinand has got the French clear over Rhine already. Frederick's next adventure, a swoop on Olmuetz, is not successful; the siege not very well managed; ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... own men, (and I strongly suspected Buctoo, although he most solemnly denied it,) played them a sad trick. I may here note that almost every Tartar carries a pipe, rudely made of wrought iron, of about the size and shape of the common clay pipe. Being inveterate smokers, a pipe full of good tobacco is one of the most convincing arguments you can employ. While I was at dinner, I ordered some tobacco to be given to them, and it was proposed they should put that in their pouches, and allow some of ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty

... "you have slain the two magicians, my foes. They changed me into a dragon, and bade me keep that shape till I had kissed Sir Gawain or some other knight of kin to Sir Gawain. You have saved my life: I will give you fifteen castles and myself for wife, if it be King ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... mankind, from the humblest beggar in the street to the king upon the throne, and had I been older I should have been proud of what then was my greatest annoyance. But I was young—a mere boy—and so I watched her jealously, until a new element of disquiet was presented to me in the shape of a ruffianly looking fellow, who was frequently seen about the premises, and with whom I once found Genevra in close converse, starting and blushing guiltily when I came upon her, while her companion ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... as if some tributary demon had heard his wish, a shape which could be none but Elsie's flitted through a gleam of moonlight into the shadow of the the trees. She was setting out on one of her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... that little crag of the Acropolis some eight hundred feet in length, by four hundred in breadth—about the size and shape of the Castle Rock at Edinburgh—was gathered, within forty years of the battle of Salamis, more and more noble beauty than ever stood together on any other ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... an Arnaout, whom the former styled a cokoshary, or hen-eater, another term for a robber; for when lawless Arnaouts arrive in a village, after eating up half the contents of the poultry-yard, they demand a tribute in the shape of compensation for the wear and tear of their teeth while consuming the ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... man's wishes, and on certain terms which should be declared to be just by persons able to compute the value of such rights. No doubt, also,—so Mr. Bolton thought,—the property would be utterly squandered if left in its present condition. It would be ruined by incumbrances in the shape of post-obits. All this had been deeply considered, and at last Mr. Bolton had consented to act between the father and ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... more put upon than was every present upper class man during his first year here. When we reach the sublime heights on which the yearlings dwell I believe that we shall look back and appreciate the fact that we truly needed some round thrashing into shape. We shall feel grateful to our present enemies, the yearlings—and we will turn around and help the new lot of plebes through the same kind of first-year life. In the meantime, classmates, I earnestly advise that we establish at least one record here. Let us, from now on, ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock

... The most of men have never answered that question. They live from hand to mouth, driven by circumstances, guided by accidents, impelled by unreflecting passions and desires, knowing what they want for the moment, but never having tried to shape the course of their lives into a consistent whole, so as to stand up before God in Christ when He puts the question to them, 'What seek ye?' and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... well—Away, my sovereign, And join your troops; then shape your march tow'rds Burgos, Nor doubt the event, for who that loves his country. To save his king shall fear to die himself? None, surely none! The patriot glow shall catch From heart to heart throughout Castile, as swiftly As sparks of fire disperse through summer ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... of the theoretical wisdom of the world comes to us in the shape of legacies bequeathed by fools. A fool is not a person without knowledge or understanding—that is an ignoramus. The true fool—the only fool worthy of a wise man's contemplation—is the man who knows and understands, and habitually refrains from acting according to knowledge and understanding. ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... and well sailed. The shape of her hull, her rigging, her sails, denoted her to be a ship-of-war, or at the least ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... to change the prescribed order of things. I, too, was to run away, thereby proving, if any proof were needed, that I was the grandson of my grandfather. I do not hold myself responsible for the step any more than I do for the shape of my nose, which is said to be a facsimile of ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... The very act of accommodating his mind to foreign modes of thought expands his nature; and he becomes more liberal in his sentiments, more charitable in his construction of deeds, and more capable of perceiving real goodness under whatever shape it may present itself. So when a Scotsman criticises Scotch poetry viewed by itself alone, he is apt to be carried away by his patriotism,—he sees only the delightful side of the subject, and he ventures on assertions which flatter himself and his country ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... arrangement of the various parts of a symphony orchestra is here supplied. The position of the wood winds and of the lower strings as well as of the percussion instruments and harp varies somewhat, this depending upon the composition being performed, the idiosyncrasies of the conductor, the size and shape ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens

... and restrictions to guard against abuses in the execution of a preemption law will necessarily attract the careful attention of Congress, but under no circumstances is it considered expedient to authorize floating claims in any shape. They have been heretofore, and doubtless would be hereafter, most prolific sources of fraud and oppression, and instead of operating to confer the favor of the Government on industrious settlers are often used only to minister to a spirit of cupidity at the expense ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... feet of him lay a murdered man, and that in his hands was that brown leather pocket-book with its miraculous contents. For the last time Laverick retraced his steps and bent over that huddled-up shape. One by one he went through the other pockets. There was a packet of Russian cigarettes; an empty card-case of chased silver, and obviously of foreign workmanship; a cigarette holder stained with much use, but of the finest amber, with rich gold mountings. There was nothing else ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... hygiene. As a stimulant and auxiliary in digestion it has been considered invaluable, especially in warm countries. A kind called the tobacco red pepper, is said to possess the most pungent properties of any of the species. It yields a small red pod, less than an inch in length, and longitudinal in shape, which is so exceedingly hot that a small quantity of it is sufficient to season a large dish of any food. Owing to its oleaginous character, it has been found impossible to preserve it by drying, but by pouring strong boiling vinegar on it a sauce or decoction ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... old-fashioned for the furniture, and a new one was built to correspond with the new purchases; "thus," added my friend, "summing up an outlay of thirty thousand dollars, caused by that single sofa, and saddling on me, in the shape of servants, equipage, and the necessary expenses attendant upon keeping up a fine 'establishment,' a yearly outlay of eleven thousand dollars, and a tight pinch at that: whereas, ten years ago, we lived with much more real comfort, because with much less care, on as many hundreds. The truth is," ...
— The Art of Money Getting - or, Golden Rules for Making Money • P. T. Barnum

... knowledge, and which he has been trained either directly or indirectly to draw from "the only rule of duty," the Bible. When, accordingly, the temptation is farther pressed upon him, and the reasons of his refusal are regularly put into form, they appear in something like the following shape and order:—"I must not absent myself from public worship; for thus it is written, 'Forget not the assembling of yourselves together;' and, 'Jesus, as his custom was, went to the synagogue on the Sabbath ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... now as I did on the steamer. I know that this man Norris Vine has a flat within a few yards of yours, and in the same building, but I ask no questions. I think that you must certainly acquit me of anything in the shape of undue curiosity. I was content to know that I had fallen in love with the sweetest little girl I ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... easily show that Mr. Sumner is grossly at fault in his Greek. We might show that something far more enormous than even trading in slaves is aimed at by the condemnation of the apostle. But we have not undertaken to defend "manstealers," nor "slave-traders," in any form or shape. Hence, we shall dismiss this point with the opinion of Macknight, who thinks the persons thus condemned in company with murderers of fathers and mothers, are "they who make war for the inhuman purpose of selling the vanquished as slaves, as is the practice ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... unlimited points dazzled the eye. The ceiling was decorated with an elaborate and most effective design in wood—a fashion very common in Srinagar, consisting of a sort of patchwork panelling of small pieces of wood, cut to length and shape, and tacked on to a backing in geometrical designs. At a little distance the effect is rich and excellent, but close inspection shows up the tintacks and the glue, and a prying finger penetrates the solid-looking panel ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... yard, and Callahan sat down in his shirt sleeves to take reports on train movements. The despatchers were annulling, holding the freights and distributing passenger trains at eating stations. But an hour's work at the head-breaking problem left the division, Callahan thought, in worse shape than when the planning began, and he got up from the keg in a mental whirl when Duffy at Medicine Bend sent a body blow in a long message supplementary to ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman

... quantities of Graham meal, and figs that have been chopped very fine. Make into a dough with cold sweet cream. Roll thin, cut in shape, and bake. ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... at the call. Luke hastily saddled him, vaulted upon his back, and, disregarding every impediment in the shape of fence or ditch, shaped his course across the field towards the sexton's cottage, which he reached just as its owner was in the act of unlocking his door. Peter testified his delight and surprise at the escape of his grandson, by a greeting ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Nobody pays any attention to me. I'M important!" He might have had that legend engraved on his card, it spoke from everything else that was his: face, voice, gesture—even from his clothes, for they also clamoured for attention without receiving it. Worn by another man, their extravagance of shape and shade might have advertised a self-sacrificing effort for the picturesque; but upon Mr. Trumble they paradoxically confirmed an impression that he was well off and close. Certainly this was the impression confirmed in the mind of the shrewdest and most experienced observer ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... always make it a point to encourage young business men, I am going to do my duty by one of you, at any rate. I shan't show favor to my nephew, Jim, any more than I do to the rest. And this is my plan: I want a painting five feet by two, to fill up a place in my house in St. Louis; it's an odd shape, and that is so much in my favor, because you haven't any of you a painting that size under way, and can all start even. I'll leave the subject to each one of you, and I'll pay five hundred dollars to the man who paints ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... gossamer: Ere long transfigured, each fine film became An independent creature, self-employd, Yet but an agent in one common work, The slim of all their individual labours. Shap'less they seem'd, but endless shape assumed; Elongated like worms, they writhed and shrunk Their tortuous bodies to grotesque dimensions; Compress'd like wedges, radiated like stars, Branching like sea-weed, whirl'd in dazzling rings; Subtle and variable as flickering flames, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various

... felt himself swaying and rocking, as though tossed gently on the billows of a sea. This was the first thought that took shape in his struggling brain—he was at sea; he was on a ship in the heart of a black night, and he was alone. He tried to call out, but his tongue seemed gone. It seemed a very long time before day broke, and then it was a strange day. Little ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... boys, by much slow work with stones and shells and beaver-tooth chisels, managed to scrape a wooden sword into shape. This, Henry was to wear at his back. Keketaw, for his part, found a piece of deer's horn. He stuck it into a stick so that it made something like a small pickax. With this he said he could quickly break the head of a Monacan. It would also serve ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston

... so-called "puddling furnace" was invented, by means of which steel was produced much more economically than it could be earlier. Rolling mills run by steam then took the place of the hammers with which the steel had formerly been beaten into shape. These discoveries of the use of steam and coal and iron revolutionized the life of the people at large in western Europe more quickly than any of the events which have been previously recorded in this volume. It is the aim of the remainder of this chapter to indicate very briefly ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... state of separation? Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society in every shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... upward cause dreams; and that these images fly from everything, vessels, garments, plants, but especially from animals, because of their heat and the motion of their spirits; and that these images not only carry the outward shape and likeness of the bodies (as Epicurus thinks, following Democritus so far and no farther), but the very designs, motions, and passions of the soul; and with those entering into the bodies, as if they were living ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... it was not uncommon for a man to get a passport from the sons of Liberty to attest to his standing as a "Liberty man." When the stamps made their first appearance, Boston tolled her church bells and put her flags at half-mast. Indeed, a new sort of flag appeared in the shape of an effigy of Oliver, the stamp distributor, swinging from the bough of a great elm which stood by the main entrance to town. The Chief Justice ordered this image to be removed. "Certainly," replied the people politely, "we will take it down ourselves this very evening." So ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan

... I had got within twenty paces of the monster, when, obtaining a clearer view than before, I was struck by the unusual colour of the hide. Still nearer I got. Surely an ear was wanting, and the trunk was of a very odd shape. In another minute I was indulging in a hearty fit of laughter, as I found myself standing close under the elephant. No wonder it did not move, nor had it for many hundred years, for it was carved, though roughly, out of a mass of stone; there it stood—a beast of great size and excellent ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... part of the world than most of that age. In his tender years (unhappily enough) he chanced to fall in love with a lady, whom we will call Myrtilla, who had charms enough to engage any heart; she had all the advantages of youth and nature; a shape excellent; a most agreeable stature, not too tall, and far from low, delicately proportioned; her face a little inclined round, soft, smooth and white; her eyes were blue, a little languishing, and full of love and wit; a mouth curiously made, dimpled, and full ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... any technical representative in existing professions; into what channels and conduits it has withdrawn itself, where it lurks unseen in cunning obscurity, or else shews its face boldly, pampered into all the insolence of office, in some other shape, as it is deterred or encouraged by circumstances. Chaucer's characters modernised, upon this principle of historic derivation, would be an useful addition to our knowledge of human nature. But who is there ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... that be true which is related to us of [109]Nicomedes a certain King of Bithynia, whose Cook made him a Pilchard (a Fish he exceedingly long'd for) of a well dissembl'd Turnip, carv'd in its Shape, and drest with Oyl, Salt, and Pepper, that so deceiv'd, and yet pleased the Prince, that he commended it for the best Fish he had ever eaten. Nor does all this exceed what every industrious Gardiner may innocently enjoy, as well as the ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn

... power to comfort her, and denied that consolation was possible in her case, she had nevertheless listened to him with interest, and now found herself thinking seriously of what he had said. He seemed to have put her thoughts into shape, and to have given direction to that sense of power she had already begun to feel. For the first time in her life she felt something like sympathy for the Cardinal, and she lingered for some minutes alone in the ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... eyes, and that this sensibility, for which some would give her credit, proceeds not from her heart. In comedy, she wishes to assume a cavalier and bold manner, brought into vogue by Mademoiselle CONTAT. This manner by no means suits Madame TALMA, who neither has elegance in her shape, nor animation in her features. In the drame, her defects disappear, and her good qualities remain. She then is really interesting, and her efforts to please are rewarded by the applause of ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... paused to take breath and looked, for the first time since the visitors had entered the house, at Miss Gwilt. For the first time, on her side, she stepped forward among the audience, and looked at him in return. After a momentary obstruction in the shape of a cough, the doctor ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... so great a matter of wonder that the movements for the instruction of the deaf took organized shape so late in the world's civilization. Learning or schooling was in no sense popular till some time after the passing away of the so-called dark ages. For long it was rather the privilege of the rich and powerful. The great mass of the people were not deemed worthy of learning, ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best

... of all the Affriens Southewarde, are the Ichthiophagi. A people borderyng vpon the Troglodities, in the Goulfe called Sinus Arabicus: whiche vnder the shape of man, liue the life of beastes. Thei goe naked all their life time, and make compte of their wiues and their children in commune. Thei knowe none other kindes of pleasure or displeasure, but like vnto beastes, suche as thei fiele: neither haue thei any respecte to vertue, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... agencies which characters introduced in the Drama bring to bear upon event and catastrophe, are carefully shunned,—as real life does for the most part shun them,—yet there is a latent coherence in all that, by influencing the mind, do, though indirectly, shape out the fate and ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Bouguer (1698-1758) was professor of hydrography at Paris, and was one of those sent by the Academy of Sciences to measure an arc of a meridian in Peru (1735). The object of this and the work of Maupertuis was to determine the shape of the earth and see if Newton's theory ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... life is the subordination of the individual's will to the general interest or the general will: practically, this takes the shape of unquestioning obedience by the members toward the leaders, elders, or ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... never found the poet's vent to his emotions; have wandered over the visionary world without chancing to discover the magic wand that was stored within the dark chamber of their mind, and would have reduced the visions into shape and substance. Alas! what existence can be more unfulfilled than that of one who has the soul of the poet and not the skill? who has the susceptibility and the craving, not the ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... least twenty Rituals in his Head, and his Hands were all twisted out of Shape from ...
— More Fables • George Ade

... and gradually sloping sides, broken here and there by the excrescence of minor craters and dotted over with villages; the summit crowned with snow, divided into peak and cone, girdled with clouds, and capped with smoke, that shifts shape as the wind veers, dominates a blue-black monstrous mass of outpoured lava. From the top of Monte Rosso, a subordinate volcano which broke into eruption in 1669, you can trace the fountain from which 'the unapproachable river of purest fire,' that nearly ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... the soul and the tender responses of the Most High. To what shall we refer this sublime, transfiguring dream? Is it the delusion of the sleeper, or the whisper of God? Is the ladder set up from the earth, or is it let down from above? Did man shape it out of his abysmal desire, or did God make and establish it out of His love. What can we say of that which is the highest wisdom, the widest sympathy, the divinest love, and the mightiest power in human history? What can we do with that which is the true life of man? Can the trees of the field, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various

... desired importunately that Orthon would show himself in his own true shape. Orthon told him that it might lead to his being forced to quit his service—but he persisted, and Orthon promised to show himself when first the Knight should leave his chamber in the morning. Therefore, as soon as he was dressed, the Knight went to a window overlooking the court, and there ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not understand that his love for her transcended all human love she ever wot of; it was great and noble and sublime as all that emanated from him, and, womanlike, she was content to let other matters shape themselves in accordance with the will ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... Brighton on Monday. There were a thousand or two of cattle in the extensive pens belonging to the tavern-keeper, besides many that were standing about. One could hardly stir a step without running upon the horns of one dilemma or another, in the shape of ox, cow, bull, or ram. The yeomen appeared to be more in their element than I have ever seen them anywhere else, except, indeed, at labor;—more so than at musterings and such gatherings of amusement. And yet this was a sort of festal day, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... This was well done (my bird) Thy shape inuisible retaine thou still: The trumpery in my house, goe bring it hither For stale to catch ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... seeing the two ferrymen, thought they were brothers. Often, they sat in the evening together by the bank on the log, said nothing and both listened to the water, which was no water to them, but the voice of life, the voice of what exists, of what is eternally taking shape. And it happened from time to time that both, when listening to the river, thought of the same things, of a conversation from the day before yesterday, of one of their travellers, the face and fate of whom ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse

... opera was reduced to three acts, in which form it is still given. In this abridged shape, and with the addition of the waltz now placed in the finale, it was brought out in London with Titiens, Giuglini, Santley, and Trebelli in the cast. In English it is always given under the title of "Mirella." The first scene opens in a mulberry grove, where Mireille ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton

... myself with cloves, cinnamon, and other spices. As we sailed from this island we saw a tortoise twenty cubits in length and breadth. We observed also an amphibious animal like a cow, which gave milk; its skin is so hard that they usually make bucklers of it. I saw another, which had the shape ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... of the rough stones called bethels that were regarded, as their name (beth-El) indicates, as the residence of the god, or rather, as the matter in which the god was embodied.[29] Aphrodite Astarte was worshiped in the shape of a conical stone at Paphos, and a black aerolite covered with projections and depressions to which a symbolic meaning was attributed represented Elagabal, and was transferred from Emesa to Rome, as we ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... his bony hand and lead him or drag him on the unmeasured journey towards it. The fancy had possession of me, and I shivered again as when I first entered the chamber. The picture and the shrouded shape; I saw only these two objects. They were enough. The house was deadly still, and the night-wind, blowing through an open window, struck me as from a field of ice, at the moment I passed into the creaking corridor. As I turned into the common passage, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... a cigarette into shape the while he watched with unfriendly eyes the shambling departure of their guest. "I believe the darned old reprobate was lyin' to us," he remarked, when the horseman disappeared ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... fields, you may often find the change half complete. Just so the lines of our Constitution were framed in old eras of sparse population, few wants, and simple habits; and we adhere in seeming to their shape, though civilisation has come with its dangers, complications, and enjoyments. These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle. The casual line was traced according to the strength ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... said. But these I pass over. For all who have in anywise reflected on the divine nature deny that God has a body. Of this they find excellent proof in the fact that we understand by body a definite quantity, so long, so broad, so deep, bounded by a certain shape, and it is the height of absurdity to predicate such a thing of God, a being absolutely infinite. But meanwhile by other reasons with which they try to prove their point, they show that they think corporeal or extended substance wholly apart from the divine nature, ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza

... dis I trots opon? Id's shape fool well I know, Dere nefer yet vas flower like dis, Dat in de garten crow. Dere nefer yet vas fruit like dis Ash ripen on a dree; Het is Mijn Heer van Torenborg Dat kan ik ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland

... oaks have a grand, fearless air? Birds from all Holland have told them how, elsewhere, trees are cropped and bobbed into shape—but THEY are untouched. Year after year they expand in unclipped luxuriance and beauty; their wide-spreading foliage, alive with song, casts a cool shade over lawn and pathway or bows to its ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... quite plainly before your eyes. Of Traugott I have a very great deal to say, because this is his history which I am telling, and so of course he occurs in it. If now it be true that a man's thoughts and feelings and actions, making their influence felt from within him outwards, so model and shape his bodily form as to give rise to that wonderful harmony of the whole man, that is not to be explained but only felt, which we call character, then my words will of themselves have already shown you Traugott ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... her hat still cockily awry, tears dried in a vitrified gleaming down her cheeks. Beneath her flying fingers, a sleeveless waistcoat was taking shape, a soldier's inner jacket against the dam of trenches. At sunup it lay completed, spread out as if the first of a pile. The first noises of the city began to rise remotely. A bell pealed off somewhere. Day began to raise its conglomerate voice. On her knees beside the couch there, the second waistcoat ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... besides." He swept into view a pile of golden eagles, larger than any there save himself had ever seen, and placed it beside that time-worn lot of similar material. In bestowing his gift he had provided to have it in such shape as he knew the half-wit would best comprehend. "This is for you, also. It is just as much more as you found. I give it to you because my little cousin here has taught me it is better to give than to receive. You must take both piles, in this new hand-bag, and ask Mr. Metcalf to take care ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... Garretson, Aspers, Adams Co., Penn., has on his place bearing Stuart and Schley pecans, two of the standard southern varieties. These bear nuts of typical shape but which are only a fraction of the size that these nuts would be if grown in southern Georgia. This clearly shows that some of the standard southern pecans require something which they do not get at Aspers to enable them to properly mature their nuts. The trees stand ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... Denison, "that such a marriage would be adulterous. I put the matter before you in its plainest shape. Now, my friend, are you prepared to take a woman for your wife who is ready to come to you on such terms? I think not. No, not even if her name ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur

... of the bread tree consists principally of hot rolls. The buttered-muffin variety is supposed to be a hybrid with the cocoanut palm, the cream found on the milk of the cocoanut exuding from the hybrid in the shape of butter, just as the ripe fruit is splitting, so as to fit it for the tea-table, where it is commonly ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... charity, looks upon himself with this great hope, as the servant of all, bound to labor and watch night and day, to bear every kind of affront, to suffer all manner of pains, to do all in his power, to put on every shape, and sacrifice his own ease and life to procure the spiritual improvement of the least of those who are committed to his charge. He is incapable of imperious haughtiness, which alienates the minds of ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... you would rather not have known the fact, any how?' said Jeremiah; and he said it with a twist, as if his words had come out of him in his own wry shape. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... head was a stiff cloth cap, also purple in colour, round which was fastened a fillet of light blue stuff spotted with white. The best idea that I can give of its general appearance is to liken it to a tall hat of fashionable shape, without a brim, slightly squashed in so that it bulged at the top, and surrounded by a rather sporting necktie. Really, however, it was the /kitaris/ or headdress of these monarchs worn by them alone. If anyone else ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... The shape of the reptile's head and back made our task the more easy, and we had run with it a good fifty feet before it recovered from its surprise, loosened its hold of the pole, and began to writhe and thrash about with its tail as it twisted itself over into its proper position, ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... to pay for them. On his own account Rene also made up a package for Has-se, and another of such things as women prize for his sister, the beautiful Nethla. Nor was the brave Yah-chi-la-ne forgotten, but received in the shape of knives and hatchets what seemed to him presents ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe

... were of all shapes and sizes, and were arranged and connected with each other in the most odd and singular fashion, as the external walls which enclosed them were extremely irregular in plan, being conformed in a great measure to the shape of the rocks on which the castle was founded. The schloss-vogt was continually leading his party, as he guided them through the rooms, into some unexpected and curious place—a little cabinet, built ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott

... all over. Of course he referred to the black Himalayan bear which all men know wears a yellowish patch, of chevron shape, just in front of his fore legs; but why he should call him a jungle-sergeant was quite beyond the wit of the village folk to say. Their imagination did not run in that direction. It never even occurred to ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... Repeat these, backwards and forwards, until a square is done, of as many holes up the sides as along the width. Remove the foundation, and add either a crochet-bead border all round, or a netted one. The bead border makes the shape more solid; the netted one is certainly lighter, and the ...
— The Ladies' Work-Book - Containing Instructions In Knitting, Crochet, Point-Lace, etc. • Unknown

... As the shape of a corpse dimmers up through deep water, In his eye lit the passionless passion of slaughter, And men who had fought with O'Neil for the life Had gazed on his face with less dread than ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling

... perfect truth, that he had no hand in the matter, and that Sir Charles, being bound upon his honor not to escape from Bellevue, would be in the asylum still if Mr. Bassett had not taken him out, and invoked brute force, in the shape of Burdoch. "Well, sir," said he, "it seems they have shown you two can play at that game." And so bade him good ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues longest in action without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments. The sense of feeling can indeed give us a notion of extension, shape, and all other ideas that enter at the eye, except colors; but at the same time it is very much strained, and confined in its operations, to the number, bulk, and distance of its particular objects. ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... A man with a wan face, seemingly pleading with a child who has its hands crossed on its breast. There is a buckle at his own breast in the shape of a ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... changed. The literary youth of London are all in the facetious line. They have regular clubs, at which they meet to collate the gathered slang and pilfered witticisms of the week; periodical compotations to work these materials into something like a readable shape; and hebdomadal journals, by means of which their choice productions are issued to a wondering world. Now, though a single gnat can give you very little annoyance in the course of a summer's night, the evil becomes serious when you are surrounded with whole scores of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... and dank parts during the more inactive but still warm and sunny winter season and during the hot months preceding the summer rainfall. Upon the first rains the malarial poison escapes through the then softened crust in the shape of vapoury miasms. This happens during the night, after the surface of the earth has been cooled off. Those miasms are dissipated or neutralised by the action of the sun. The dewy grass retains the poison until it is thoroughly dried ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... red (top) and green with a black isosceles triangle (based on the hoist side) all separated by a black-edged yellow stripe in the shape of a horizontal Y (the two points of the Y face the hoist side and enclose the triangle); centered in the triangle is a boar's tusk encircling two crossed ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... stirred some rice in a calabash; an anxious mother put some sandalwood on the coals and added incense, that the gods might be good to the ailing child on the mat; and thrice, at forges in the village, he saw the smith languidly beating iron into shape, while dark figures sat on the floor near by, and smoked and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... binding force of "Religio," constraining the individual to surrender himself for the good of the Supreme State, and realising itself in acts of patriotic self-devotion; such would have been the shape we should have expected Roman tragedy to take, and if it failed to do this, we should not expect it in other respects to be a ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... Letters in the shape of figures of men, etc. At a distance, the words composed by the letters are alone distinguishable. Close at hand, the figures alone are seen, and not distinguished as letters. Thus things may have a positive, a relative, and a composite meaning, according ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... (1) Passive resistance, i.e., a dilatory treatment of the affair, by which he forces upon me the role of a tiresome dun, and not infrequently, by reason of the nature of the affair, that of a paltry dun. (2) In case of attack, the fait accompli, in the shape of apparently insignificant usurpations on the part of the Chair. These are commonly so calculated that any protest on my part cannot but seem like a deliberate search for points of controversy or like ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... the park, but wandered up and down my own field for half an hour, thinking in what shape to put what had occurred before Charley. My perplexity arose not so much from the difficulty involved in the matter itself as from my inability to fix my thoughts. My brain was for the time like an ever-revolving kaleidoscope, in which, however, there was but one fair colour—the ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... printed material they have remembered and how well. It has not consisted of stimulating and guiding the children toward intelligent inquisitiveness and inquiring interest as to the world, and the skies above, and waters round about, and the conditions of nature that limit and shape ...
— What the Schools Teach and Might Teach • John Franklin Bobbitt

... come all the way from Switzerland,' she said, leading him to a chair, and seating herself by him. Her voice had a touch of masculine quality, even as her shape and features, but it chained attention, and impressed as the utterance of a large and strong nature. 'You are tired, too, with travel; I can see that. When ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... hostility from those of adverse principles. But I came to the government under circumstances calculated to generate peculiar acrimony. I found all its offices in the possession of a political sect, who wished to transform it ultimately into the shape of their darling model, the English government; and in the mean time, to familiarize the public mind to the change, by administering it on English principles, and in English forms. The elective interposition of the people had blown all their ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans

... watched while the carpenter and I worked at putting my study into shape. Ever since the fire two years before its ceiling had needed repair, and even now I was but half-hearted in its restoration. As I looked around the square, bare, ugly room and thought of the spacious ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... thought very odd, some very affected and a few very graceful. Isabel inclined to range herself in the last category. Madame Merle had thick, fair hair, arranged somehow "classically" and as if she were a Bust, Isabel judged—a Juno or a Niobe; and large white hands, of a perfect shape, a shape so perfect that their possessor, preferring to leave them unadorned, wore no jewelled rings. Isabel had taken her at first, as we have seen, for a Frenchwoman; but extended observation might have ranked her as a German—a German of high degree, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... We have set up a sort of turnpike gate here, as you see, between the title-page and the first story in our book, in the shape of a preface, or introduction. "What! do you mean to take toll of us, then?" Why, no—not exactly. But we want to say half a dozen words to you, as you pass along, and to tell you a little about these WREATHS which we have been twining for our friends. So ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth

... more piquant than concord. Stephen's letter was concerning nothing but oneness with her: the review was the very reverse. And a stranger with neither name nor shape, age nor appearance, but a mighty voice, is naturally rather an interesting novelty to a lady he chooses to address. When Elfride fell asleep that night she was loving the writer of the letter, but thinking of the writer ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... low structure of branches that were stuck into the ground, bent in and secured at the middle until it resembled an Esquimo hut in shape. The frame made by the branches was uncovered, but the women quickly threw some brightly colored blankets over the frame, the boys watching the proceeding with keen interest. They then hauled some hot rocks from ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin

... on to the town, the number and variety of the Campanili, the flat-roofed houses scattered near the lake, and the hills covered with foliage, presented a most delightful scene. With the lake itself we were disappointed, the mountains struck us as being rather uniform and uninteresting; the shape of the lake also is not so beautiful as that of either Como or Maggiore, as ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various

... phantasies that thou canst not behold it as it is." Then I beseeched her to explicate without delay wherein true happiness consisteth. To which she answered: "I will willingly do so for thy sake, but first I will endeavour to declare in words and to give shape to that which is better known unto thee, that, having thoroughly understood it, by reflecting of the contrary thou mayest discover the type of ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

... "This animal looks like a Goat, but it does not talk like one. So it is very likely some wicked spirit in this shape. Prudence often serves us better than valor, so for the present I shall return to the wood," and ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... fortune—an intoxication that no woman of Charlotte's age could stand against. Tell her that she has a claim to considerable wealth, and from that moment she will count upon the possession of that wealth, and shape all her plans for the future upon that basis. 'When I get my fortune, I will do this, that, and the other.' That is what she will be continually saying to herself; and by-and-by, when the affair results in failure, as it very ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... themselves into the sea; and more than one, when in the act of drowning, were seen to wave their hands in triumph, "exulting" (to use the words of an eye-witness) "that they had escaped." Yet these and similar things, when viewed through the African medium he had mentioned, took a different shape and colour. Captain Knox, an adverse witness, had maintained, that slaves lay during the night in tolerable comfort. And yet he confessed, that in a vessel of one hundred and twenty tons, in which he had carried two hundred ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... has one of the best natural deepwater harbors in the South Pacific Ocean, sheltered by shape from rough seas and protected by peripheral mountains from high winds; strategic location in the South ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... continue through many years and through the hands of several generations of craftsmen, with the result that its origins become lost; third, the achievement of an implement of demonstrated proficiency dictated against radical, and therefore easily datable, changes in shape or style; and fourth, dated survivals needed to establish a range of firm control specimens for the better identification of unknowns, particularly the wooden elements of tools—handles, moldings, and plane bodies—are frustratingly few in non-arid archaeological sites. ...
— Woodworking Tools 1600-1900 • Peter C. Welsh

... large place in Indian story, whose deeds and adventures are splendidly worthy of epic treatment. The Dynasty of Raghu is rather an epic poem in which Rama is the central figure, giving it such unity as it possesses, but which provides Rama with a most generous background in the shape of selected episodes concerning his ancestors ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... of health or goblin damn'd, Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou com'st in such a questionable shape That I will ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... rotation was slowing. The near shape of the enemy vessel swung close and past; and again and again I saw that we were over it, dropping down into the wide black opening of the funnel-top. It yawned presently like a great black tunnel, ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings

... political conceptions, institutions, and laws tend to impose themselves by force. Syndicalism, peaceful enough in other countries, immediately assumed in France an uncompromising and anarchical aspect, which betrayed itself in the shape ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon



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