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Superstructure   Listen
noun
Superstructure  n.  
1.
Any material structure or edifice built on something else; that which is raised on a foundation or basis; esp. (Arch.), All that part of a building above the basement. Also used figuratively. "You have added to your natural endowments the superstructure of study."
2.
(Railway Engin.) The sleepers, and fastenings, in distinction from the roadbed.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Superstructure" Quotes from Famous Books



... the fact that the car behind, with almost no tonneau and minus the heavy covered superstructure, offered less resistance to the wind. With everything else made equal, and accident barred, the fellow at the wheel behind ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... single pole, which sags down a few inches from the flooring it was intended to help support, are three of these structures, marking the number of years the birds have nested there. The foundation is of mud with a superstructure of moss, elaborately lined with hair and feathers. Nothing can be more perfect and exquisite than the interior of one of these nests, yet a new one is built every season. Three broods, however, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... somnambular clairvoyance as an invaluable gift of certain privileged organizations. To these doctrines I sternly opposed myself,—the more sternly, perhaps, because on these doctrines Dr. Lloyd founded an argument for the existence of soul, independent of mind, as of matter, and built thereon a superstructure of physiological fantasies, which, could it be substantiated, would replace every system of metaphysics on which recognized philosophy condescends ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... foundation; for was not that foundation the total depravity of the human race inherited from their first parents?.... But now there was no Fall; there was no total depravity, or imminent danger of endless doom; and, the basis gone, the superstructure followed." ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton

... the improvements of Edison and Brush, Gramme and Wheatstone, and a host of others who have contributed to the work, would require a volume. One fact, however, should ever be kept in mind: Whatever may be the extent of the superstructure of electrical science, it is all built upon the foundation of electro-magnetic induction laid by Michael Faraday. The little "magnetic spark" he first produced, and the trembling of his galvanometer-needle, were but signals of the birth of the giant ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various

... destructive to wood foundations. If wood is used, only the most durable kinds should enter into the construction of the house. The under structure of masonry or of wood should be low, not higher than 18 inches or 2 feet before the superstructure of glass begins. The grapery must be well ventilated. There must be large ventilators at the peak of the house and small ones just above the foundation walls or in the foundation walls themselves. The ventilation ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... Englishman ought to have the courage of his opinion and to vote as his conscience told him, without caring whom he offended. Edmund Burke in one of his speeches tells us that the system which is founded on the heroic virtues is sure to have its {132} superstructure in failure and disappointment, meaning thereby that every system is doomed to failure which assumes as its principle the idea that all men can at all times be up to the level of the heroic mood. Some of us can well remember the days when English statesmen ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... solitary labor, remember, that the secret studies of an author are the sunken piers upon which is to rest the bridge of his fame, spanning the dark waters of Oblivion. They are out of sight; but without them no superstructure ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... craftsman. He lost control of his book. He loaded his whaling story with casks of natural history, deck loaded it with essays on the moral nature of man, lashed to its sides dramatic dialogues on the soul, built up a superstructure of symbolism and allegory, until the tale foundered and went down, like the Pequod. And then it emerged again a dream ship searching for a dream whale, manned by fantastic and terrible dreams; and every now and then, ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... not at present draw the conclusions which to many seem obvious. It took him, in fact, years to develope distinctly new conclusions. But from this time his philosophical position was substantially that of Bentham, Mill, and the empiricists, while the superstructure of ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... that of Instances, what has now been stated may suffice. But there may also be non-observation of some material circumstances, in instances which have not been altogether overlooked—nay, which may be the very instances on which the whole superstructure of a theory has been founded. As, in the cases hitherto examined, a general proposition was too rashly adopted, on the evidence of particulars, true indeed, but insufficient to support it; so in the cases to which we now turn, the particulars ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... The exposition rested in large part on authority or else largely on reasoning from accepted premises—a "just" reasoning. And while much keen observation was duly recorded and a considerable mass of fact underlay the theoretical superstructure, the idea of empirical proof was not current. Riverius chopped logic vigorously and drew conclusions from unsupported assertions in a way that ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer

... still more momentous set of events, the rise and establishment of Christianity, one might suppose from current speech that we could fix that within a space of half a century or so. Yet it was at least four hundred years before all the foundations of that great superstructure of doctrine and organisation were completely laid. Again, to descend to less imposing occurrences, the transition in the Eastern Empire from the old Roman system of national organisation to that other ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... of our social state is the capitalist system of production. On it modern society rests. All social, all political institutions are results and fruits of that system. It is the ground from which the whole social and political superstructure, together with its bright and dark sides, have sprung up. It influences and dominates the thoughts and feelings and actions of the people who live under it. Capital is the leading power in the State and in Society: ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... speedy improvement, was some small insight into the primer, which she had acquired at a day-school, during the life of her father, who was a day-labourer in the country. Upon this foundation did Peregrine build a most elegant superstructure; he culled out choice sentences from Shakespeare, Otway, and Pope, and taught her to repeat them with an emphasis and theatrical cadence. He then instructed her in the names and epithets of the most celebrated players, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... chief business asset of the nation and that wholesale public expenditures be entered into to develop his value. Mr. Webb does not think that this policy is necessarily Socialistic, for, as he very wisely remarks, "the necessary basis of society, whether the superstructure be collectivist ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... seems the fashion nowadays to ignore Hartley; though, a century and a half ago, he not only laid the foundations but built up much of the superstructure of a true theory of the Evolution of the intellectual and moral faculties. He speaks of what I have termed the ethical process as "our Progress from Self-interest to Self-annihilation." Observations on Man (1749), vol. ii ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... being drawn into the order of toasts, the individual filling that office, a firmly compacted figure, with well-rounded limbs, and a broad, pleasing face, set off by the addition of a well-lined nose, full intelligent eyes, a brow nicely arched, and organically well-developed, and surmounted with a superstructure of dark, glossy hair, tinged with grey, rose to reply. My lord, in addition to being rather shortish, possessed a countenance indicative of amiability rather than strength of mind or force of character. 'Silence!' ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... bean in the nursery tale,—let it once take root, and it will grow so rapidly, that in the course of a few hours the giant Imagination builds a castle on the top, and by and by comes Disappointment with the "curtal axe," and hews down both the plant and the superstructure. Jeanie's fancy, though not the most powerful of her faculties, was lively enough to transport her to a wild farm in Northumberland, well stocked with milk-cows, yeald beasts, and sheep; a meeting-house, hard by, frequented by serious Presbyterians, who had united in a harmonious ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... great men of our country is permanently fixed. He stands forth prominent above the politicians of the hour, in the midst of the chosen few who are perpetual guardians of the interest and of the honour [slavery?] of the nation. The foundations of his fame are laid deep and imperishable, and the superstructure is already erected. It only remains that the mild light of the evening of life be ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... passing vessels had not discovered her. The tall stacks had been beaten down, probably snapped off at the collision, but the superstructure was high, and not far ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson

... this fact: When the last of the Metopes was taken from the Parthenon, and, in moving it, a great part of the superstructure with one of the triglyphs, was thrown down by the work men whom Lord Elgin employed, the Disdar, who beheld the mischief done to the building, took his pipe out of his mouth, dropped a tear, and, in a supplicating tone of voice, said to Lusieri—[Greek: Telos]! ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... why things are so. Is it that ideal love is only founded upon the truth and the superstructure is built of fabrications? Is it that we women are much more artistic and more clever at masquerading the truth that we make so much better lovers than the men? Oh, the scores and scores of men who have told me what their wives thought of them, ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell

... Church, therefore, became the basis upon which would be reared the superstructure of all our subsequent achievements. The men who laid the foundation for the Negro Church, whether of Methodist, or Baptist, or Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, or of Congregational predilection, were wise ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... can build no superstructure without a foundation of unshakable principles. There are no such principles. Or, if there be any, they are beyond our reach—we cannot fathom them; therefore, qua us, they have no existence, for there is no other "is not" than inconceivableness by ourselves. ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... and cup-shaped, with a superstructure of twigs, forming a canopy over the egg-cavity. The eggs, generally five in number, are of the usual corvine green, blotched, spotted, and streaked, as a rule, most densely about the large end with umber mingled with sepia-brown. ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... as a bridge for evasion, for retreat and flight, the view of her relation to those surrounding her. Make it predominantly a view of THEIR relation and the trick is played: you give the general sense of her effect, and you give it, so far as the raising on it of a superstructure goes, with the maximum of ease. Well, I recall perfectly how little, in my now quite established connexion, the maximum of ease appealed to me, and how I seemed to get rid of it by an honest transposition of the weights in the two scales. "Place the centre ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... him the purport of General Order No. 26, which contemplated the passage of his army across Broad River at Alston, fifteen miles above Columbia. Riding down to the river-bank, I saw the wreck of the large bridge which had been burned by the enemy, with its many stone piers still standing, but the superstructure gone. Across the Congaree River lay the city of Columbia, in plain, easy view. I could see the unfinished State-House, a handsome granite structure, and the ruins of the railroad depot, which were still smouldering. Occasionally a few citizens or cavalry could be seen running ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... giant!" approved Dalzell. "When you meet Henley on the field just close in and pound off the whole of his superstructure! ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock

... 'Doubtless,' replied Cicero, 'there is an edict for it.' But, believe me, there can be no broad, stupendous evil, unless it be a part of God's plan; and in His own time, without other help from us than the performance of our duty, it will slough off its slime and rise into some fair superstructure. Our efforts dash like spray against the rock,—the spray is broken, the rock remains. To annihilate evil with evil,—that is an error in itself against which every man is justified in taking up ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... from age to age. They belong, as it were, to the Order of Nature, of whose stability so much is heard in our day; whereas tactics, using as its instruments the weapons made by man, shares in the change and progress of the race from generation to generation. From time to time the superstructure of tactics has to be altered or wholly torn down; but the old foundations of strategy so far remain, as though laid upon a rock. There will next be examined the general history of Europe and America, ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... that biology is the foundation rather than the house, if we may use so crude a figure. The solidity of the foundation is very important, but it does not dictate the details as to how the superstructure ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard

... the superstructure, the furniture, must be according to the written word of the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone. Reject all the inventions of man and all human authority ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... in the new order of ideas, of which I have spoken, is that our Thought possesses creative power, and since the whole superstructure depends on this foundation, it is well to examine it carefully. Now the starting point is to see that Thought, or purely mental action, is the only possible source from which the existing creation could ever have come into manifestation at all, and it ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... she was still four hundred yards distant from the body of the fleet. Five minutes later the Lackawanna, Captain Marchand, going at full speed, delivered her blow also at right angles on the port side, abreast the after end of the armored superstructure. As they swung round, both United States vessels fired such guns as would bear, but the shot glanced harmlessly from the armor; nor did the blow of the ships themselves produce any serious injury upon ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... talked as he followed Joyce to the door of the room. "Except that Number Three's come in the biggest gusher ever I see. She's knocked the whole superstructure galley-west an' she's rip-r'arin' to beat ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine

... of asphyxiation, for I had hidden myself under the boat's cover, I heard footsteps upon the superstructure and coughed with empress'—coughed loudly, Mr. Pyecroft. 'By this time I judged the vessel to be sufficiently far from land. A number of sailors extricated me amid language appropriate to their national brutality. I responded ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... Walter Lord Hungerford, in 1429, and removed from the nave in 1778 by his descendant, the Earl of Radnor, who converted it into a family pew. It has been re-decorated, and new emblazonments added. The arms of its founder and his two wives appear on the base. The superstructure is of iron, and a fine example of its class, which includes among the few still extant the chantry of Edward IV. (died 1483) at Windsor, and that of Henry VII. at Westminster Abbey (died 1509). The Audley and Hungerford chantries are the most important left in a cathedral once rich in ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White

... of the train around a curve makes little difference, as the clerks in a short time learn to follow every motion of the train. A quick decision, ready eye, and economy of movement as a superstructure to a good knowledge of his duties, are the invaluable qualities of a successful railway postal-clerk; and one so equipped soon outstrips his lagging seniors and associates in grade. As the train approaches a junction, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various

... master-builder supervising the whole work of organic structure. This master-builder is the one "elementary unit of life," which directs the movements of all the plastide particles, constantly adding to their working force, from the first primordial mucous layer of the superstructure to the majestic dome of thought (in the case of man) which crowns the ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... instruction is wretchedly supplemented amongst the savage-converts to the Popish religion, by that superstitious worship, and those fabulous traditions, its missionaries have introduced amongst them, and which must be only the more execrable, for their being a superstructure on so fair a foundation as that of the truths of the Gospel. At least, the savages, in their genuine unsophisticated state, have no such base, absurd, derogatory ideas of the Deity, as are implied by the doctrines of transubstantiation, purgatory, absolution, and the like ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard

... the destinies of a future Britannic empire, the shaping its course, the laying its foundations broad and deep, and the erecting thereon a noble and enduring superstructure, are indeed duties that may well evoke the energies of our people, and nerve the arms and give power and enthusiasm to the aspirations of all true patriots. The very magnitude of the interests involved, will, I doubt not, elevate many amongst us above the demands of mere sectionalism, and enable ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... know that I am conceited. But, candidly, can it be helped if one happens to be young, well and strong, passably good-looking, with some money that one has inherited and more that one has earned—in all, enough to make life comfortable—and if upon this foundation rests also the pleasant superstructure of a literary success? The success is deserved, I think: certainly it was not lightly-gained. Yet even with this I fully appreciate its rarity. Thus, I find myself very well entertained in life: I have all I wish in the way of society, and a deep, though of course ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... of Armenia. "The liturgy of Basil can be traced with tolerable certainty to the 4th century. Striking as are some of the features, in which it differs from that of Antioch, it is nevertheless evidently a superstructure raised on that basis: the composition of both is the same, i.e. the parts, which they have in common, follow in the same order. The same may be said of the Constantinopolitan liturgy, commonly attributed ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs

... beautiful simplicity and faultless taste. The fireplace was a marvel. It reached from floor to ceiling; the lower parts, black marble, carved into crouching Atlases, with great muscles that upbore the superstructure. The design of this latter, of a kind of purple marble, shot through with white veinings, was in the same style as the design of the silk hangings. In its midst was a bronze escutcheon, bearing an undecipherable monogram and a Latin motto. Andirons of brass, nearly ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... all the brains I possessed in it. Many of the sentences so pleased me that I had turned back with pardonable conceit to read them over and admire them: but now, like a destroying angel, came the news that shook from beneath my beautiful superstructure its very foundations, and left me nothing but the humiliation of so much ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various

... well known to the common people amongst us, or about whom they have so much to say".[183] What they had to say was, as the reader will have observed, strangely removed from the truth of history. How all this elaborate superstructure of romance could be reared on the mere name of Theodoric of Verona is almost inconceivable to us, till we call to mind that the minstrels were in truth the novelists of the Middle Ages, not pretending or desiring to instruct, but only to amuse and interest their hearers, and ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... poet, diplomatist, letter-writer, he excelled in almost every branch of knowledge and made himself a master of whatever subject he took in hand. For the student of International Law the treatise of Grotius, De Jure belli et pacis, still remains the text-book on which the later superstructure has been reared. His Mare liberum, written expressly to controvert the Portuguese claim of an exclusive right to trade and navigate in the Indian Ocean, excited much attention in Europe, and was taken ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... whatever occupation I might afterwards decide on. This was, so far as I was concerned, a fatal error, and one of a kind far too common in New England communities, where education is estimated by the extent of the ground it covers, without relation to the superstructure to be raised on it. I had always been a greedy reader of books, and especially of histories and the natural sciences,—everything in the vegetable or animal world fascinated me,—and I had no ambition ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... origins is unquestionably a matter of great importance to the community; for society has been built and cemented to a great extent on a foundation of religion, and it is impossible to loosen the cement and shake the foundation without endangering the superstructure. The candid historian of religion will not dissemble the danger incidental to his enquiries, but nevertheless it is his duty to prosecute them unflinchingly. Come what may, he must ascertain the facts so ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... a broad foundation on which I hope to erect a superstructure of doctrine that may do us all good. I will here say that EDUCATION into the knowledge and love of God's revealed Truth in its true relation to man's life is the one thing needful to every human being. I use the word EDUCATION in its most comprehensive and exalted sense, that ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... predecessor, only perhaps because he had too much honour and integrity to promote their selfish views, at the expence of the public weal. Scarcely, therefore, will this gentleman have quitted the colony, before the whole of the superstructure which he had been rearing will have been pulled down, and another of a different description commenced in its stead. Such has almost invariably been, and such will continue to be the conduct of the actual ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... full acknowledgment of Mother Church as the way of salvation. Indeed, he seems neither to doubt the impregnability of the foundations of Christianity, nor the validity of the Petrine corner-stone; taking these for granted he aims to live the Christian life in every act, in every thought. The superstructure—the practices of the Catholic Church to-day, the failures and sins of clerical society, the rigid ecclesiasticism—these he must in loyalty to fundamental truth, criticise, and if need be, condemn, ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... open-hearted; but he is vain, ostentatious, extravagant, and fond of display, light in counsel, deficient in perseverance, without skill in private or public economy, an enjoyer, not an acquirer—one who despises the slow and patient virtues—who wants the superstructure without the foundation, the result without the previous operation, the oak without the acorn and the three hundred years of expectation. The Irish are irascible, prone to debt and to fight, and very impatient of the restraints of law. Such a people are not likely to keep their eyes steadily ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... his importance. He perceived the bulk of mankind were actuated by a sordid thirst of lucre; he had sagacity enough to convert the degeneracy of the times to his own advantage; and on this, and this alone, he founded the whole superstructure of his subsequent administration. In the late reign he had by dint of speaking decisively to every question, by boldly impeaching the conduct of the tory ministers, by his activity in elections, and engaging as a projector in the schemes of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... their labours, and of the fruits of them: and if, in doing this, I should be more minute for a few pages than some would wish, I must apologize for myself by saying, that there are others who would be sorry to lose the knowledge of the particular manner in which the foundation was laid, and the superstructure advanced, of a work which will make so brilliant an appearance in our history, as that of the abolition of ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... morning after his scathing repulse, going to the train, and looking forlorn and sadly out of humor, and he was quite sure he had not been near the little cottage since. Arden needed but little fact upon which to rear a wondrous superstructure, and here seemed much, and all in Edith's favor, and he longed with an intensity beyond language to do something ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... factory, maintained from the salaries of office; and they gradually disappeared as their offices became filled with Muhammadans and Hindoos. The duties of the artillery, its arsenals, and foundries, were the chief foundation upon which the superstructure of Christianity then stood in India. These duties were everywhere entrusted exclusively to Europeans, and all Europeans were Christians, and, under Shah Jahan, permitted freely to follow their own modes of worship. They were, too. Roman ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... same errand he himself has just achieved. For about five minutes these officers are coming and going, bringing in thrilling intelligence from all quarters of the frigate; most stoically received, however, by the First Lieutenant. With his legs apart, so as to give a broad foundation for the superstructure of his dignity, this gentleman stands stiff as a pike-staff on the quarter-deck. One hand holds his sabre—an appurtenance altogether unnecessary at the time; and which he accordingly tucks, point ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... this christianly scientific work? By intrenching ourselves in the knowledge that our true temple is no human fabrication, but the superstructure of Truth, reared on the foundation of Love, and pinnacled in Life. Such being its nature, how can our godly temple possibly be demolished, or even disturbed? Can eternity end? Can Life die? Can Truth be uncertain? Can Love be less than boundless? ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy

... the genius of popular vanity. Among the nations who have adopted the Mosaic history of the world, the ark of Noah has been of the same use, as was formerly to the Greeks and Romans the siege of Troy. On a narrow basis of acknowledged truth, an immense but rude superstructure of fable has been erected; and the wild Irishman, [13] as well as the wild Tartar, [14] could point out the individual son of Japhet, from whose loins his ancestors were lineally descended. The last century abounded with antiquarians of profound learning and easy faith, who, by the dim light of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... himself. Humility, as it makes a man to think well of another, so it hinders him to speak evil of his brother. James iv. He lays down the ground work in the 10th verse, "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up." He raises his superstructure, verses 11, 12: "Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law, but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... decision. He reached his conclusions by the light of reason. "There, Story," he would say to his associate, "is the law. Now you must find the authorities." In a peculiar sense it is true to say that Marshall both laid the foundations of constitutional law and reared the superstructure, as one of his biographers remarks. But Marshall was ably supported by his colleagues; and he owed much, as he freely admitted, to the arguments of a remarkable body of lawyers of the federal bar. Wirt, Pinkney, ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... infringer, when, in the middle of a sentence, he fell to the floor, overcome by sickness and the responsibilities he had carried for twelve years. Storrow, in a different way, was fully as indispensable as Smith. It was he who built up the superstructure of the Bell defence. He was a master of details. His brain was keen and incisive; and some of his briefs will be studied as long as the art of telephony exists. He might fairly have been compared, in action, to a rapid-firing ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... none other than the central or bell-tower of the cathedral, and that the earlier tower, with its supporting arches, must have fallen, else it is not likely that the work would have been rebuilt from below the spring of these arches before the new superstructure could be added; for we are obliged to take the customs of mediaeval builders into consideration in any attempt to sift the evidence concerning their work—and they were before all things practical. The claims of structure, the motives of common-sense, rather than abstract ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette

... catastrophe, issue, upshot, result; final touch, last touch, crowning touch, finishing touch, finishing stroke; last finish, coup de grace; crowning of the edifice; coping-stone, keystone; missing link &c 53; superstructure, ne plus ultra [Lat.], work done, fait accompli [Fr.]. elaboration; finality; completeness &c 52. V. effect, effectuate; accomplish, achieve, compass, consummate, hammer out; bring to maturity, bring to perfection; perfect, complete; elaborate. do, execute, make; go through, get through; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... all sorts of water-fowl, which has been wisely imitated by the people of Augsburg. This ditch is called Gruessa. There are two walls, whose materials were furnished by the flesh-market; for they are made of bones, the larger serving for the foundations, the lesser for the superstructure, whilst the smallest fill up what is wanting in the middle; being all cemented with the whites of eggs, by a wonderful artifice. The houses are not very beautiful, nor built high after the manner of other cities; so that there is no need of an Augustus to restrain the buildings to the height of ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... the militant Socialist Movement. Opinion among these forces, while it cannot be said to clash, takes on a variety of shades—as needs will happen among men, who, at one on basic principles, on the material substructure of institutional superstructure, cannot but yield to the allurements of speculative thought on matters as yet hidden in the future, and below the horizon. For one, I hold there is as little ground for rejecting monogamy, by reason of the taint that clings to its inception, as there would ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... at the eastern end of the nave, and was covered with a great superstructure, so large that processions, it is said, were obliged to divide and march to each ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock

... meagre records of the life of the composer, who carved and laid the foundation of the superstructure of Italian music; who, viewed in connection with his times and their limitations, must be regarded as one of the great creative minds in his art; who shares with Sebastian Bach the glory of having built an imperishable base for the labors of ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris

... and consequent humidity of the town that the sides of the streets were connected, at the height of two or perhaps three stories, by thin arches—mere jets of stone from the one house to the other, with but in rare instance the smallest superstructure to keep down the key of the arch. Whatever the intention of them, they might seem to serve it, for the time they had straddled there undisturbed had sufficed for moss and even grass to grow upon those which Mr. Porson now regarded with curious speculation. A bit of an architect, and foiled, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... henceforth in the Romans, who would defend Jerusalem against all barbarians. It was necessary to observe the Sabbath and to preach its observances and to punish those who violated it, for on the Sabbath rested the entire superstructure of the Temple itself, and all belief might topple if the Sabbath was not maintained, and rigorously. In the houses of the Sadducees Joseph heard these very words, and their crude scepticism revolted his tender soul: he was drawn back to his own sect, the Pharisees, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... Cervantes making Don Quixote die[1107].—I never could see why Sir Roger is represented as a little cracked. It appears to me that the story of the widow was intended to have something superinduced upon it: but the superstructure did ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... words will suffice for the main features. The first stage of the superstructure is the Stylobate, of 25 feet in height and some 140 to 145 feet in diameter. The next, the Peristyle or Colonnade which lights up the interior. It has thirty-two Composite columns of a height of 38 feet, including the pedestals. Every fourth intercolumnation is filled up with an ornamental ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock

... respectable philosopher may lay down what premises he pleases if he does not avowedly draw his conclusions. Mill could argue in perfect safety against the foundations of theology, while Richard Carlile was being sent to gaol again and again for attacking the superstructure. The Utilitarians thought themselves justified in taking advantage of the illogicality of mankind. Whether it was that the ruling powers had no philosophical principles themselves, or that they did not see what inferences would follow, or that they thought that the average ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... they are the foundations; better be dead than without them. Yet one can have them, in crude form, and still better be dead. The noble, the humane, the chaste, the beautiful, 'tis with them we build the superstructure, the temple, of life—Mr. Chester, if you knew French I could ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable

... in which the work of the critic is wholly superfluous. "There are periods in the growth of science," writes Professor Pearson in his deservedly popular work, "The Grammar of Science," [3] "when it is well to turn our attention from its imposing superstructure and to examine carefully its foundations. The present book is primarily intended as a criticism of the fundamental concepts of modern science, and as such finds its justification in the motto placed upon its title-page." ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... chance and fair play to all the citizens are absolute essentials to the continued life of a republic such as ours is to be. It is in this self-evident truth that is found a sure ground of confidence. Upon this bed-rock of America's boasted pride for interest in her humblest citizen may be built the superstructure of the future ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... ready the heating apparatus and the superstructure of our miniature greenhouse, the building of it is a very simple matter. If the ground is frozen, spread the manure in a low, flat heap—nine or ten feet side, a foot and a half deep, and as long as the ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell

... set forth that a certain "tomfoolery lemma," with its "tomfoolery" superstructure, "never had existence outside the shallow brains of its inventor," Euclid. He then ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... language a nation expresses its very self. Our language is the loosest, the most analytic, of all European languages. And we, then, what are we? what is England? I will not answer, A vast obscure Cymric basis with a vast visible Teutonic superstructure; but I will say that that answer sometimes suggests itself, at any rate,— sometimes knocks at our mind's door for admission; and we begin to cast about and see whether it is to be ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold

... of such assemblage, the basis of the superstructure of government, is the political communal meeting. "In it take place the elections, federal, state, and local; it is the local unit of state government and the residuary legatee of all powers not granted to other authorities. Its procedure ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan

... the superstructure of an iron trestle rose pencilled in snow against the night. Far below a black river wound serpentine into the mists. A mile to the left, he knew, was Squire Kirby's. In those dim bottoms on either side of the trestle he ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux

... foundation stone, so to speak, on which was to be erected the spacious superstructure of his after benevolence began at the time of his retirement to the chateau of Mont St. Jean, during the period of weakness resulting from his wound at Waterloo. The owner of the mansion had a little girl, six years of age, who was a most attentive nurse to him. She hardly ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold

... art; and Rousseau says, it is not an art easily acquired. Thinking may be the foundation of style, but it is not the superstructure; it is the marble of the edifice, but not its architecture. The art of presenting our thoughts to another, is often a process of considerable time and labour; and the delicate task of correction, in the development of ideas, is reserved only for writers of fine taste. There are several ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... the glacial period were uniformity, what was catastrophe? To him the two or three labored guesses that Sir Charles suggested or borrowed to explain glaciation were proof of nothing, and were quite unsolid as support for so immense a superstructure as geological uniformity. If one were at liberty to be as lax in science as in theology, and to assume unity from the start, one might better say so, as the Church did, and not invite attack by appearing weak in evidence. Naturally a young man, altogether ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... large apse, semicircular within and showing three sides on the exterior. Only the lower part is original; the Turkish superstructure is lower and on a smaller scale than the Byzantine portion it has replaced. There are no side chapels. Under the bema the Russian explorers discovered a small cruciform crypt. The large quantity of mosaic cubes found in the church ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen

... way that weird geometry proceeds: it sets before beginners certain strange assumptions, and insists on their granting the existence of inconceivable things, such as points having no parts, lines without breadth, and so on, builds on these rotten foundations a superstructure equally rotten, and pretends to go on to a demonstration which is true, though it starts ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... country, then, and its position and influence as one of the family of nations, depend on its return to, and its enforcing of, those fundamental principles of freedom, moral right, and justice which underlie our system, and for the most part form our superstructure. Ours is the moral lever that is to move the world, if we will have it so. If we lose our moral prestige we are nothing. We have the best Government in the world, but it has, since the time of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... upon which Rousseau's superstructure rests is that society is the result of a compact, a partnership between men. They have not made an agreement to submit their individual sovereignty to some superior power, but they have made a covenant of brotherhood. It is a contract of association. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... superstructure of mystery on a basis ludicrously weak. Thus the hero of his first novel, Wieland (whose father anticipates "Old Krook," in Dickens's Bleak House, by dying of spontaneous combustion), is led on by what he mistakes for spiritual voices to kill ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... worth the attempt to take up the pictures of these and succeeding authors, and see whether the real truth of the matter cannot be elicited from their own statements. There was undoubtedly a basis of facts underneath them, because without such a basis the superstructure ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... of the element at the remote period of interment,—if, indeed, the construction of these mounds can he ascribed to the Cherokees. Those on which their town houses were erected at a later date, the clay-covered rotunda forming a superstructure looking like a small mountain at a little distance, according to Timberlake, wherein were held the assemblies, whether for amusement or council or religious observances, served also as a substitute for the modern bulletin-board. Two stands of colors were flying, one from ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... after brief speech on the former, there was such an air of rapt consciousness in his private hints as to his conviction that all thinking hitherto had been an elaborate mistake, and as to his own power of conceiving a sound basis for a lasting superstructure, that I began to believe less in the poetical stores, and to infer that the line of Lentulus lay rather in the rational criticism of our beliefs and in systematic construction. In this case I did not figure to myself ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot

... experience, Captain Lawton," returned the surgeon, "I conceive myself to be no incompetent judge of muscular action, whether in the knee, or in any other part of the human frame. And although but humbly educated, I am not now to learn that the wider the base, the more firm is the superstructure." ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... the affair had been left to the surges alone. The thought struck me at the moment, that this caisson was the emblem of a government assailed by an irresistible force. The firmer the foundations, and the loftier the superstructure, the surer it was to be ultimately carried away, and to carry away with it all that the mere popular outburst would have spared.—The massiveness of the obstacle increased the spread of the ruin. Few Asiatic kingdoms ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... relations of production that correspond with definite degrees of development of their material productive forces. The totality of these relations of production constitute the economic structure of society, the true basis from which arises a juridical and political superstructure to which definite social forms of consciousness correspond. The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and intellectual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of mankind that determines ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff

... turned on his heel, and left the schoolroom, and me standing by the throne of my future pedagogue—I say throne, because he had not a desk, as schoolmasters generally have, but a sort of square dais, about eighteen inches high, on which was placed another oblong superstructure of the same height, serving him for a seat; both parts were covered with some patched and torn old drugget, and upon subsequent examination I found them to consist of three old claret cases without covers, which ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... for dangerous service under Captain John L. Worden. She was not a good sea boat; and she nearly foundered on her way down from New York to Fortress Monroe. Her underwater hull was shipshape enough; but her superstructure—a round iron tower resting on a very low deck—was not. Contemptuous eyewitnesses described her very well as looking like a tin can on a shingle or a cheesebox on a raft. She carried only two guns, eleven-inchers, ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood

... chest, and a drawing downward at the pit of the stomach. Then as the support beneath is really gone, there is what is often called "a feeling of goneness." This is sometimes relieved by food, which, so long as it remains in a solid form, helps to hold up the falling superstructure. This displacement of the stomach, liver, and spleen interrupts their healthful functions, and dyspepsia and biliary difficulties not unfrequently are ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... finished, and that he had, like Sir Peter Teazle, taken leave of his disciples with the words, "Gentlemen, I leave my character in your hands." On the basis of such an exegesis they managed to raise a superstructure of sentiment which had, until it was touched, some likeness to the old fabric, but which a breath of air would dissipate, and unmask the ruins within. Canon Farrar's Life of Christ was a work of this description. The work had an enormous sale, and the author, at an ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... as error could not control. I knew [1] that to God's gift, foundation and superstructure, no one could hold a wholly material title. The land, and the church standing on it, must be conveyed through a type representing the true nature of the gift; a type morally [5] and spiritually inalienable, but materially questionable —even after the manner that all spiritual good comes ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... in reason, justice, or in the principles on which we profess to have based our entire political system? Upon this question there seems to have been but little difference of opinion among the men who laid the foundation and built the superstructure of this Government. In those days no limitation was placed upon the enjoyment of the defensive rights of the citizen, including the right of suffrage, on account of the color of the skin, except in the State of South Carolina. All of the other States participating in the formation of the ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... manner of building is somewhat strange: yet generally used in this Part of the East-Indies. Their House are all built on Posts, about 14, 16, 18, or 20 Foot high. These Posts are bigger or less, according to the intended magnificence of the Superstructure. They have but one Floor, but many Partitions or Rooms, and a Ladder or Stairs to go up out of the Streets. The Roof is large, and covered with Palmeto or Palm-leaves. So there is a clear passage like a Piazza (but a filthy one) under the House. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... and hurled her end-over-end, sending von Schlichten and Paula sprawling at full length on the deck, still clinging to one another. There was a blast of almost palpable sound, and a sensation of heat that penetrated even the airtight superstructure of the Elmoran. An instant later, there was another, and another, similar shock. Two more bombs had gone off behind them, in Keegark; that meant that they had found King Orgzild's remaining nuclear armament. There were shattering sounds of breaking glass, and ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper

... He is like a fanatic, that contents himself with the mere title of a saint, and makes that his privilege to act all manner of wickedness; or the ruins of a noble structure, of which there is nothing left but the foundation, and that obscured and buried under the rubbish of the superstructure. The living honour of his ancestors is long ago departed, dead and gone, and his is but the ghost and shadow of it, that haunts the house with horror and disquiet where once it lived. His nobility is truly descended from the glory of his forefathers, and may be rightly said ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... is to be cut off to form what he calls chalcidica, by which must be meant open vestibules. The interior is divided into a central space and side aisles one-third the width of this. The ground plan of the basilica at Pompeii (fig. 1) illustrates this description, though the superstructure did not correspond to the Vitruvian scheme. The columns between nave and aisles, Vitruvius proceeds, are the same height as the width of the latter, and the aisle is covered with a flat roof forming a terrace (contignatio) on which people can walk. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... are—what shall I say?—coat deep. His politeness is not proof against temptation, however petty. The reason is, it is only a spurious politeness. Real politeness is founded and built on the golden rule, however delicate and artificial its superstructure may be. But, leaving out of the question the politeness of the heart, he has not in any sense the true art of good-breeding; he has only the common traditions. Put him in a novel situation, with no rules and examples to guide him, he would be maladroit ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... they proceed as upon first principles granted by all men, though in their hearts they know they are false, or at best very doubtful. When they have laid these foundations of scurrility, it is no wonder that their superstructure is every way answerable to them. If this shameless practice of the present age endures much longer, praise and reproach will cease to be motives ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various

... the lagoons tolerable for all. They sought some system of rule, after trying several, which would enable them to live in peace at home, and to gain strength to protect themselves from enemies. They would have been the most far-seeing of human beings if they had formed a suspicion of what kind of superstructure they were laying on the foundation. The nearest model for their adoption or imitation was the Lombard type of government almost under their very eyes; and so far as the difference of local postulates suffered, it was that to which they had recourse, when they vested ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... sand. In a few nights, the silk bag bristles with a long, thick beard of stalactites, a curious piece of work, excellently adapted to maintain the web in an unvaried curve. Even so are the cables of a suspension-bridge steadied by the weight of the superstructure. ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... two classes of constituents—the Inorganic, which may be called the foundation; and the Organic, which may be considered the superstructure. With the former of these we are principally concerned here. A plant must derive from the soil certain proportions of silica, lime, sulphur, phosphates, alkalies, and other mineral constituents, or it cannot ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... queen is good' of Polonius. - 'His sagacity and wisdom led him to profit by the spirit of the times; his opulence enabled him to lay the foundation of a nobler system; and the splendour of his example induced others, in subsequent ages, to raise a superstructure at once attractive and solid.' - That's piling it up mountaynious, ain't it? - 'The students were no longer dispersed through the streets and lanes of the city, dwelling in insulated houses, halls, inns, or hostels, subject to ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... The necessary machinery and superstructure are supported on two vessels connected, as shown in Figs. 4 and 5, with cross girders, a sufficient width being left between each vessel to form a well large enough for a barge to float into, and for the working of the bucket ladder utilized in raising the material ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various

... captain, or crew might be posted. Harry, after many enquiries, found that the wheel was on a platform on the roof forward, where the captain and pilot stood. He pronounced the vessel to be constructed on two huge arches, having a vast Thames wherry below, with a superstructure of picture galleries on a wide platform extending far over her ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston

... in part, and to build upon that? And if this was impossible, if Christ's Church must go back to the Divine foundation in His new-discovered Word, was that Word sufficient, not for foundation merely, but for all superstructure—for doctrine, discipline, and worship alike? Or would the Church be entitled to impose its own wise and reasonable additions to the recovered statute-book of Scripture? Lastly, if such a new Church shone ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes

... muddy Streams, and as it were, under Ground. But notwithstanding the great Rust it may have contracted, there is much of the OLD FABRICK remaining: the essential Pillars of the Building may be discov'd through the Rubbish, tho' the Superstructure be overrun with Moss and Ivy, and the Stones, by Length of Time, be disjointed. And therefore, as the Bust of an OLD HERO is of great Value among the Curious, tho' it has lost an Eye, the Nose or the Right Hand; so Masonry ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... projects to the ignorant and credulous, dazzle them with golden visions, and set them madding after shadows. The example of one stimulates another; speculation rises on speculation; bubble rises on bubble; every one helps with his breath to swell the windy superstructure, and admires and wonders at the magnitude of the inflation he has ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... recognition of physical fatherhood.[378] There is, therefore, an important distinction in the social position of the two parallel systems. Among the Semang people, their totemic belief and custom do not carry with them a superstructure of society. They form the substantive cult of the scattered social groups, which are kinless groups dependent upon ties local in character and derived from the conscious use of the facts of nature surrounding them. Among the Arunta people, on the contrary, the totem belief and custom are ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... by rote, and was not surprised that Agatha said, "That is just what one has heard so often, and what Miss Merrifield harped upon! I want to breathe in a fresh atmosphere beyond the old traditions, and know which are Divine and which are only the superstructure of those who have always had the dominion and justified it in ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... see. The very principles on which it is based are as yet only imperfectly understood. The reason is obvious. It is because the very foundations have not yet been laid, (except to a wholly inadequate extent,) on which the future superstructure is to rise. A careful collation of every extant Codex, (executed after the manner of the Rev. F. H. Scrivener's labours in this department,) is the first indispensable preliminary to any real progress. Another, is a revised Text, not to say a more exact knowledge, of the oldest Versions. ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... penman and at once resolved to take up the situation as copyist, and using that as a foundation for future superstructure, to do my best, early and late. I entered the room. There didn't seem to be such a rush of applicants there as I had anticipated; in fact, the room was entirely unoccupied, save by a flashy youth who seemed to be ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin



Words linked to "Superstructure" :   structure, construction



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