"Desideratum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... requisites for gentility—a companion to the toilet, the salons, the Queen's Bench, the streets, and the police-stations, has long been felt to be a desideratum by every one aspiring to good-breeding. The few works which treat on the subject have all become as obselete as "hot cockles" and "crambo." "The geste of King Horne," the "[Greek: BASILIKON]" of King Jamie, "Peacham's Complete Gentleman," "The Poesye of princelye ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... cigarette came from the dealer whose wares were the caprice of the moment. That his complexion was pallid and that underneath his eyes were faint blue lines, which were certainly not the hall-marks of robust health, disturbed him not at all. These things were correct. Health was by no means a desideratum in the set to which he was striving to belong. He looked through his eyeglass ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "brought the ends of the earth together," the opportunity is no longer wanting; and it is to be hoped that a better classification may soon be obtained. Who knows but that some ardent young zoologist, who has taken his first lessons from this little book, may be the man to supply the desideratum? Who knows? ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... grand desideratum is, to secure comfort on the passage, by the most efficient and economical means, thereby, as far as possible insuring the arrival of the company at their destination in good health ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... acquire a wider knowledge of diseases and their cure—and acquire it much more quickly—under some hard-working practitioner among the East-End poor of London; and that, as he very truly pointed out, was the great desideratum in such a case as Dick's, far outweighing the extra hard work and the sordid surroundings to which Mrs Maitland had at first so strenuously objected. Moreover, Dick agreed with the solicitor; and in the end the maternal objections were overcome, careful enquiries were instituted, and finally ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... without inquiry. If the named streets were given names, with the first letter of each in alphabetical succession, as Alpha Street, Bishop Street, Canary Street, right through, beginning from one end, the great desideratum detailed above would be accomplished. In other words, whereas now you can find any one of the numbered streets without inquiry, you could then do just the same with ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... Lycanthropy—such was the name given to this infatuation—has vanished from the earth, but it is nevertheless well worthy the consideration of the observer of human aberrations, and a history of it by some writer who is equally well acquainted with the middle ages as with antiquity is still a desideratum. We leave it for the present without further notice, and turn to a malady most extraordinary in all its phenomena, having a close connection with the St. Vitus's dance, and, by a comparison of facts which are altogether similar, affording ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... getting the laugh in the right place. So, after long discussion, we fixed on She Stoops to Conquer. There were a good many reasons for this selection. First, it was a piece possessing that grand desideratum in all amateur performances, that there were several parts in it of equal calibre, and none which implied decided superiority of talent in its representative. Secondly, there was not much love in it; a material point where, as an Irishman might say, all the ladies were gentlemen. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... early put on a stimulating diet develop mental and sexual precocity, both of which are detrimental to physical welfare. The first desideratum is to give the children healthy bodies, and then there will be no trouble in giving them ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... writer of to-day in Hebrew, a "spiritual revival" should be the desideratum of the Zionists. Spiritual is of course not used in the restricted religious sense, but as the opposite of material. Although Ahad Ha-'Am concedes the establishment of a center in Palestine to be a necessity, he considers it only a means ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various |
