Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Interposition   Listen
Interposition

noun
1.
The action of interjecting or interposing an action or remark that interrupts.  Synonyms: interjection, interpellation, interpolation.
2.
The act or fact of interposing one thing between or among others.  Synonym: intervention.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Interposition" Quotes from Famous Books



... the sun, to have made a visit to Egypt, to have fixed the year at three hundred and sixty-five days, and to have determined the course of the sun from solstice to solstice. He attributed an eclipse of the moon to the interposition of the earth between the sun and moon; and an eclipse of the sun to the interposition of the moon between the sun and earth. [Footnote: Sir G. G. Lewis, Hist. of Astron., p. 81.] He also determined the ratio of the sun's diameter to its apparent orbit. As he first solved ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... seems always to have found it more difficult to grasp the causes of an eclipse of the moon than an eclipse of the sun. As Mr. J.E. Gore[4] puts it: "The darkening of the sun's light by the interposition of the moon's body seems more obvious than the passing of the ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... interchange of public ministers and consuls, and all the personal and social intercourse between the individual inhabitants of the United States and foreign nations, and the Indian tribes, which require the interposition of any law. But the powers of war are all regulated by the laws of nations, and are subject to no other limitation...It was upon this principle that I voted against the resolution reported by the slavery committee, 'that Congress possess no constitutional authority to interfere, in ...
— The Abolition Of Slavery The Right Of The Government Under The War Power • Various

... only convey to him information of the death of some one whom he knew little, and for whom he cared less. But the first glance effectually changed his aspect. His face grew colourless, the paper fell out of his hands. "Good God!" he said. It was no profane exclamation. What was this? a direct interposition of heaven in his behalf, a miracle such as is supposed never to happen nowadays? The first effect was to take breath and strength from him. He sat with his under jaw fallen, his face livid as if with dismay. His heart seemed to stand ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... be inclined to yield to his expostulations. The Prince doubted much whether it would be prudent to accept the mission of intercessor. He had two counsellors, Bernardo Tasso and Vincenzo Martelli. The latter, who was an astute Florentine, advised him to undertake nothing so perilous as interposition between the Viceroy and the people. Tasso, on the contrary, exhorted him to sacrifice personal interest, honors, and glory, for the duty which he owed his country. The Prince chose the course which Tasso recommended. Charles V. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... oppressed always misuse sudden power. Rebellious Paris marched upon Versailles, camped outside the King's palace; broke in the night time into the King's palace, slaying and seeking to slay. The Royal Family were rescued, if rescue it can be called, by the interposition of Lafayette. They were carried in triumph to Paris. Still nominally sovereign, they were practically prisoners in their palace of the Tuileries. Europe looked on in astonishment at the unexpected ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... these orders," continues Lea, "seemed a providential interposition to supply the Church of Christ with what it most sorely needed. As the necessity grew apparent of special and permanent tribunals, devoted exclusively to the widespread sin of heresy, there was every ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... marries as many as he can conveniently maintain—and as it frequently happens that the ladies disagree among themselves, family quarrels sometimes rise to such a height, that the authority of the husband can no longer preserve peace in his household. In such cases, the interposition of Mumbo Jumbo is called in, and is ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park

... invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades. The highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... free colored man, of New Bedford, was arrested near Portsmouth, Virginia, and was about to be sold as a slave; but, by the strenuous interposition of Capt. Card, certificates were obtained from New Bedford, and he was ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society

... one on the shoulder, before interference in behalf of the poor wretch could be made. Our people now rushed in and seized him; but the other Indians continued quiet spectators of what was passing, either awed by Baneelon's superiority or deeming it a common case, unworthy of notice and interposition. In vain did the governor by turns soothe and threaten him. In vain did the sergeant point his musquet at him. He seemed dead to every passion but revenge; forgot his affection to his old friends and, instead of complying with the request they made, furiously brandished his sword at ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... from the frontier and the interposition of the mountain range in the Steynsburg district would combine to make observation of preliminary movements difficult to the enemy, except, indeed, by information from the disaffected inhabitants who abounded. The ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan

... exactness, lest the hearer should not have minded, or have forgotten, some things that had been told before. Hence the emphatic sentences marked in the good old (but deserted) Italic type; and hence, too, the frequent interposition of the reminding old colloquial parenthesis, 'I say,' 'Mind,' and the like, when the story-teller repeats what, to a practised reader, might appear to have been sufficiently insisted upon before: which made an ingenious critic observe, that his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... insinuated that if papa Taillefer lost his son through the interposition of a wise Providence, he would take back his pretty and amiable daughter, who would inherit his millions. To this end he, Vautrin, frankly volunteered to play the part of destiny. He had a friend, a colonel in the army of the Loire, who would pick ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... perfect symmetry with the quaintest [Greek: poikilia]. Then, from the tomb of your own Edward the Confessor, to the farthest shrine of the opposite Arabian and Indian world, I must show you how the glittering and iridescent dominion of Daedalus prevails; and his ingenuity in division, interposition, and labyrinthine sequence, more widely still. Only this last summer I found the dark red masses of the rough sandstone of Furness Abbey had been fitted by him, with no less pleasure than he had in carving them, into wedged hexagons—reminiscences of the honeycomb of Venus Erycina. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... was a Presumption which would provoke his Wrath; and that as he was a consuming Fire in himself, so he would burn up those in his Anger that dar'd to offer up any Sacrifice to him, but by the Interposition of some Medium which might receive their Adorations ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... convinced that the erection of a building upon the Eddystone rocks was not an impracticable thing, though long deemed so; and if experience now proved that the shock of the surges was augmented, by the interposition of the building, to a furious extent, it also led the way to further trials and expedients ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton

... which muted one string of each note by a piece of leather, became, by the interposition of a piece of cloth between the hammer and the strings, the piano, harp, or celeste. The more complete sourdine, which muted all the strings by contact of a long strip of leather, acted as the staccato, pizzicato, or pianissimo. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various

... the incautious haste with which he had ventured into their company. He was armed only with his sword, for he had left his pistols at the bow of his saddle; and, as the whigs were all provided with fire-arms, there was little or no chance of escaping from them by resistance. The interposition, however, of Macbriar ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... certainly first. It was first in magnitude, and first in obligation; but it gave Ralph no manner of uneasiness. He had really done his best to get Polly to marry him, and, luckily for him,—by the direct interposition of some divine Providence, as it now seemed to Ralph,—Polly had twice refused him. It seemed to him, indeed, that divine Providence looked after him in a special way, breaking his uncle's neck in the very nick of time, and filling a breeches-maker's ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... much flattered indeed by your interposition on his behalf, no doubt, Popsy; but I'm afraid it wouldn't produce much effect ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... during his watch, and, being suddenly aroused by the officer in command, attacked the latter with his sword, and would have killed him but for the interposition of the bystanders. The result of the medical examination was that the act was involuntary, being the result of a violent confusion of mind consequent upon the sudden awaking from a profound sleep. Other cases are cited by Wharton and Stille in their work on medical jurisprudence, by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various

... at least in French, except in the unfortunate Gerard de Nerval, who was akin to Cazotte in many ways, and actually edited him. A very carping critic may object to the not obvious nor afterwards explained interposition of a pretty little spaniel between the original diabolic avatar of the hideous camel's head and the subsequent incarnation of the beautiful Biondetto-Biondetta; especially as the later employment of another dog, to prevent Alvare's succumbing to temptation ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... Justin. Either the Clementine writer quotes our present Gospels, or else he quotes some other composition later than them, and which implies them. In other words, if he does not bear witness to our Gospels at first hand, he does so at second hand, and by the interposition of a further intermediate stage. It is quite possible that he may have had access to such a tertiary document, and that it may be the same which is the source of his apocryphal quotations: that he did draw from apocryphal sources, partly perhaps oral, but probably in the main ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday

... all as had been revealed to him. The miraculous preservation of St. Agnes is familiar to all students of legendary art. Throughout all Rome, shrine and niche and sculpture, picture, monument, arch and column, speak perpetually of some interposition of unseen forces with events and circumstances in this part of life. The Eternal City in its rich and poetic symbolism is one great object lesson of the interblending of the two worlds, the natural and the spiritual. ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... Kentucky, one of the states which is most affected by the escape of slaves into Upper Canada, has again, at their session which has just terminated, invoked the interposition of the General Government. In the treaty which has been recently concluded with the United Mexican States, and which is now under the consideration of the Senate, provision is made for the restoration of fugitive slaves. As it appears from your ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet

... of the finest and most admirable texture. Elsewhere you might see the cattle grazing. The ox dappled with a thousand spots, which nature seemed to have applied with a wanton and playful hand; the cow, whose udders were distended with milk, that appeared to call for the interposition of the maidens to lighten them of their store; and the lordly and majestic bull. With them was intermingled the horse, whose limbs seemed to be formed for speed and beauty. At a small distance were the stag with branching horns, the timid deer, and the sportive, frisking fawn. Even from ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... a duel. Everyone expected it. Only the interposition of friends prevented their meeting on the field. Only ...
— The Christmas Peace - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page

... no better than the first, He proposed to reconnoitre the Convent. The Friends advanced towards it. Every thing was still and dark. The Prioress was anxious to keep the story a secret, fearing lest the crime of one of its members should bring disgrace upon the whole community, or that the interposition of powerful Relations should deprive her vengeance of its intended victim. She took care therefore to give the Lover of Agnes no cause to suppose that his design was discovered, and his Mistress on the point of suffering the punishment of her fault. The same reason made her reject the idea ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... quietly at the end," Hannah wrote, "happy in the consciousness of father's forgiveness, and leaning trustfully upon his interposition with Heaven; but he had delirious moments, during which he raved painfully. The poor boy was in great fear of death, moaning prayers that he might be spared till after Yom Kippur, when he would be cleansed of sin, and babbling about serpents that would twine themselves round ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... his narrow escape from impalement had awakened, seized an enormous stone, heavier, as Homer represents it, than any two ordinary men could lift, and was about to hurl it at his advancing foe, when suddenly the whole combat was terminated by a very unexpected interposition. It seems that the various gods and goddesses, from their celestial abodes among the summits of Olympus, had assembled in invisible forms to witness this combat—some sympathizing with and upholding one of the combatants, and ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... "Well, Gwyn, perhaps we have been too hard on him. He is not popular with the other men, but he may turn out all right, and we can't afford to dismiss a willing worker; so you may tell him that, at the interposition of you two boys, we will cancel the dismissal, and ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... rejection. Who could believe, men said, that phenomena so strange and so portentous—not only so different from, and so contrary to, the uniform course of nature, but so much beyond the limited purpose which must have been contemplated by a truly miraculous interposition—had ever happened? If they had been single events, very transient and local disturbances of the laws of nature for a high object, the case, they candidly avowed, would have been wholly different; but such wholesale infractions of the fixed laws of the ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... were read to him; nevertheless, he agreed to them all. The consul and others were called into the hall and delivered up; the three guns were fired, and thereafter Lord Exmouth directed that, on the Sunday following, "a public thanksgiving should be offered up to Almighty God for the signal interposition of his Providence during the conflict which took place on the 27th between his Majesty's fleet and the ferocious enemies of mankind." In accordance with these terms of peace, all the Christian slaves were collected next day ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne

... and one other there, recognized the interposition of something akin to tragedy. A thickly-set, sandy young man, with an unwholesome complexion and grease-smooth hair, had entered the room. He wore a black tail coat buttoned tightly over his chest, and a large diamond pin sparkled in a white satin tie which had seen ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... as to use such extravagant expressions, appears plainly from those words of his quoted by Dr. Pocock in his Specimen. p. 167, where he says, "People ran on to such a degree, (of madness you may be sure) as to pretend to an Union with God, and a fight of him without the interposition of any Veil, and familiarly discourse with him. And a little after, which sort of Speeches have occasion'd great mischiefs among the common People; so that some Country Fellows laying aside their Husbandry, have pretended to the same things: for Men are ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail

... amid the vociferous cheers of his own side, a few of the Moderns ventured to mingle howls. They soon discovered their mistake, for not even their own side was with them as a body. They were hooted down with execrations, and the result of this interposition was that the captain was cheered for ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... imprudence of remaining so near the haunts of his enemies. Long did they debate the matter, but when she had explained to him what he had heard something of before, the profound reverence in which the Cascade of Melsingah, intended by her as the place of their retreat, was held, and related the interposition of its benevolent spirit in behalf of her own life, he was satisfied, and turned his canoe to the shore. They landed, and the warrior taking the light barque on his shoulders, they passed through the arch of shrubs and vines up the path of the rivulet, and soon stood by the cascade. The ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... effort—which contained a counter-proposition for the isolation of Russia—was that the German Government weakened—not to the point of disavowing the arrangement with us, but in the event of a redrafting of the treaty, to the adoption of a less favorable basis of negotiations, or, possibly, even to the interposition of such obstacles as would make a treaty possible. You can see how essential these papers were to us. There was not time to provide new copies, for the lost drafts carried certain seals and necessary signatures which could not be duplicated ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin

... proof, cites Dr. DODDRIDGE, who cannot be suspected of irreverence. "When we assert," says the pious and amiable author, "a perpetual Divine agency, we readily acknowledge that matters are so contrived as not to need a Divine interposition in a different manner from that in which it had been constantly exerted. And it must be evident that an unremitting energy, displayed in such circumstances, greatly exalts our idea of God, instead of depressing it; and, therefore, by the way, is so much more ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous

... neither party would be benefited by it. You have forged that deed! We have sufficient evidence of your attempt to destroy this document I now hold, in the very mansion which your unhallowed hands would, but for the direct interposition of Providence, have levelled with the dust. On one condition, and on one only, your conduct shall be concealed from the knowledge of your fellow-men. The eye of Providence alone has hitherto tracked the tortuous course of your villany. On one condition, I say, the past is for ever concealed from ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... remedy, or had Burke no remedy to offer for these grave distempers of Parliament? Only the remedy of the interposition of the body of the people itself. We must beware of interpreting this phrase in the modern democratic sense. In 1766 he had deliberately declared that he thought it would be more conformable to the spirit of the constitution, "by lessening the number, to add to the weight ...
— Burke • John Morley

... body of the Balloon through the pores of the silk, however accurately varnished, by which the purity of the hydrogen gas is contaminated, and its buoyant power ultimately exhausted This it is impossible to prevent by any process, except the interposition of a metallic covering; as for instance, by gilding the Balloon, which would be effectual could it be contrived to endure the constant friction and bending ...
— A Project for Flying - In Earnest at Last! • Robert Hardley

... Governor Carleton, had included his name in this punishment along with several others. He had powerful friends in Lieutenant-Governor Cramahe, Captain Bouchette, and Roderick Hardinge, but the force of circumstances might render their interposition unavailable. M. Belmont did not know how much truth there was in all this. But, according as the siege progressed, spirits within the town were getting terribly excited, and he really could not tell what might happen. At all events, the letter had completely roused him, and ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... which is of a miraculous nature, and his vanishing is not really necessary for the continuity of events. His "liberation" and "transportation" are sufficient for that continuity; and to be set free from prison and sent out of Rome are occurrences which might happen without a divine interposition. And in fact they seem very clearly to have taken place in the regular course of business. Philostratus allows that just before the philosopher's pretended disappearance, Domitian had publicly acquitted him, and that after the miracle he proceeded to hear the cause next in order, as if ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... South this year, or will be done there next year, would have been or would be done but for the exertions of the Freedmen's Bureau.... No other agency except one placed there by the national government could have wielded that moral power whose interposition was so necessary to prevent Southern society from falling at once into the chaos of a general collision between its different elements."[99] Notwithstanding this the Bureau was temporary, was regarded as a ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois

... It has nothing of the splendor of the project [Footnote: 9] which has been lately laid upon your table by the noble lord in the blue ribbon. [Footnote: 10] It does not propose to fill your lobby with squabbling Colony agents, [Footnote: 11] who will require the interposition of your mace, at every instant, to keep the peace amongst them. It does not institute a magnificent auction of finance, where captivated provinces come to general ransom by bidding against each other, until you knock down the hammer, and determine a ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... incision was made. There is a story of an occurrence which happened on a return voyage from India. The wife of one of the passengers, an officer in the army, to all appearances died. They were about to resort to sea-burial, when, through the interposition of the husband, who was anxious to take her home, the ship-carpenters started to construct a coffin suitable for a long voyage, a process which took several days, during which time she lay in her berth, swathed in robes and ready for interment. When the coffin was at last ready the husband ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... acknowledged, but which her more supine and yielding temper would have shrunk from asserting. Susan tried to be useful, where she could only have gone away and cried; and that Susan was useful she could perceive; that things, bad as they were, would have been worse but for such interposition, and that both her mother and Betsey were restrained from some excesses of very ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... Raja and the government of Lasa seem to have been most seriously alarmed at the progress of the Gorkhalese, and applied to the Emperor of China for his interposition. In the meanwhile, the Deva Dharma Raja is said to have sent an embassy to Kathmandu, offering as a sacrifice the part of Baikunthapur, that had been given to him by Mr Hastings; but the interposition of the emperor came in time to ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... daughter dreamed also what was to happen, and so, in obedience to her vision, would not eat when she was hungry, nor drink when she was thirsty. However that was, I would risk the event of the prosecution on this single circumstance, that, without the interposition of some preternatural cause, this conduct of the prisoner's must appear to exceed all ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various

... a very foolish conduct; our interposition is little more than as it were a running on by rote, and more commonly a consideration of custom and example, than of reason. Being formerly astonished at the greatness of some affair, I have been made acquainted with their motives and address by ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... not Moses the keystone, as it were, of the Jewish covenant? Are they not his trials, his meekness, his attachment to God and to God's people, his incessant toils, and patience, and long-suffering, even more than the miracles wrought by his interposition, which render the law published by him, and the ministry established by him, worthy of all acceptation in our eyes? Who can contemplate the rejection of Saul, and the election of David,—the wisdom of ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... active and ambitious man, had assumed an almost independent position. A large grant of territory had been given him by Scindia, and in this he ruled with absolute authority and, had it not been for the interposition of the British, it is probable that he would, ere long, have assumed the position of an independent prince. Indeed, his army of partially disciplined men was more than a match for the whole ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... not given up the hope of vanquishing the storm, and D——, who knew the disposition of his countrymen, did not yet dread their vacillation; but we did. Nothing seemed possible to save us, but the interposition of Heaven; for the storm-jib and reefed foresail were the only sails on the cutter, and they were barely sufficient, in such a sea, to give her steerage way. Every wave that struck the yacht hurled her near and nearer to ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... the progress of which the victorious arms of the English had driven the king from his capital and deprived him of more than one-half of his dominions. The work of reinstating the royal authority, though well begun by the wonderful interposition of the Maid of Orleans, was as yet by no means complete. Undaunted, however, by the unsettled aspect of his affairs, Charles—the "King of Bourges," as he was contemptuously styled by his opponents—made ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... occasionally interrupted by others not quite so agreeable. Strange to say, he fully believed what Smallbones had asserted about his being carried out by the tide to the Nab buoy and he canvassed the question in his mind, whether there was not something supernatural in the affair, a sort of interposition of Providence in behalf of the lad, which was to be considered as a warning to himself not to attempt anything further. He was frightened, although his feeling for revenge was still in all its force. As for any one suspecting him of having attempted the boy's life, he had recovered ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... was obliged to grant the desperate alternative. Reading this account of men going out to engage in personal combat for a cause so small, will lead us to consider that such a result ought to have been prevented by the interposition of friends. But it must not be overlooked that the customs of the times are very much ameliorated from what prevailed in those days (1772). It is probable that even then if the management of the affair had been confided to skilful diplomatists ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various

... delivered into their hands a mob of helpless enemies, in an ecstasy of terror, presenting their unarmed sides in such sort that none turned to defend himself, but each victim rather seemed to contribute what he could towards his own destruction—if that was not divine interposition, I know now what to call it. Miracle or not, in that little space so many fell, and the corpses lay piled so thick, that eyes familiar with the stacking of corn or wood or piles of stones were called upon to gaze at layers of human bodies. Nor did the guard of the Boeotians ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... not an exaggeration to say that for one conforming to modern modes of living, eating, sleeping, and drinking, absolute chastity is next to an absolute impossibility. This would certainly be true without a special interposition of Providence; but Providence never works miracles to obviate ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... birth—a conception which, if taken literally, would still leave him subject to the dominion of necessity in his after life; in the Statesman he supposes the human race to be preserved in the world only by a divine interposition; while in the Timaeus the supreme God commissions the inferior deities to avert from him all but self-inflicted evils—words which imply that all the evils of men are really self-inflicted. And here, like Plato (the insertion of a note in the text of an ancient ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... the third time since the war began, I derived some money from our farm. It was another interposition of Providence. Once before, on the very days that money was indispensable, a Mr. Evans, a blockade-runner to the Eastern Shore of Virginia, came unexpectedly with $100 obtained from my agent, who has had the management of the farm for many years, and ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... pitiful to hear historians beguiling themselves and their readers, by tracing in the early history of great men the minor circumstances which fitted them for the work they did, without ever taking notice of the other circumstances which as assuredly unfitted them for it; so concluding that miraculous interposition prepared them in all points for everything, and that they did all that could have been desired or hoped for from them; whereas the certainty of the matter is that, throughout their lives, they were thwarted and corrupted by some things as certainly as ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... of his companions, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were themselves destroyed in the furnace they had heated for their innocent victims, which the youths themselves were rescued from by the personal interposition of the king, who pretended to see—or in his religious exaltation did really see—the god himself standing guard over the victims in the midst ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... "wishes to perceive sentiments, the application of which is limited, and intended in their results to be limited to the affairs of Europe.... The United States of America, and their government, could not see with indifference, the forcible interposition of any European Power, other than Spain, either to restore the dominion of Spain over her emancipated Colonies in America, or to establish Monarchical Governments in those Countries, or to transfer any of the possessions heretofore or yet subject to Spain in the American Hemisphere, ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... and by the sound of trumpet they were at once summoned to their post, and positive directions were given that under no circumstances should the invading party be allowed to enter the town. The interposition of a long schoolhouse prevented the military from being seen until the party were within twenty yards of the school. The orders were then given to prime and load, and I cannot describe what my feelings were as the clink of the ramrods ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... minor matters and Seward was less belligerent in language. Seward now radiated supreme confidence in the ultimate victory of the North. He had heard rumours of a movement to be made in Parliament for interposition to bring the war to an end by a reunion of North and South on a basis of Abolition and of a Northern assumption of the Confederate debts. Commenting on this to Lyons he merely remarked that the Northern answer could be put briefly as: (1) determination to crush rebellion ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... him be of good cheer, saying, "This is not a disappearance of the sun, but a conjunction of two heavenly bodies; for the moon, which proceeds along a lower path, has placed her disk beneath the sun, and hidden it by the interposition of her own mass. Sometimes she only hides a small portion of the sun's disk, because she only grazes it in passing; sometimes she hides more, by placing more of herself before it; and sometimes she ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... possessed more liberty than was to be found in any part of Europe, except Switzerland. The taxes payable to the central government, including the haratsch or poll-tax levied on all Christians, had often been commuted for a fixed sum, which was raised without the interposition of the Turkish tax-gatherer. In Hydra, Spetza, and Psara, the so-called nautical islands, the supremacy of the Turk was felt only in the obligation to furnish sailors to the Ottoman navy, and in ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... species in A (X); unless such a state of matters is found to obtain, the objection before us has nothing to say. But at best this is negative evidence; and, in order to consider it fairly, we ought to set against it the cases where an interposition of fossils found in B (Y) does furnish the fossil ancestry of what would otherwise have been an abrupt appearance of whole groups of new species in A (X). Now such cases are neither few nor unimportant, and therefore they deprive the objection ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes

... hands that on this occasion the bishop had wielded the heavier arm: at least, in the absence of the criminals, he had brought his chances level. But what gave him most weight was that which had made the testimony of Francesco and the lackey overshadow every event of a week full of events—the interposition of Madonna of the Peach-Tree. Not a soul in the city was left to doubt; it might be said that not a soul was left to save, if faith can save you. The churches were packed from dawn to dark, not an altar in a chapel went bare of ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... their names, and on their behalf, most earnestly to entreat your acceptance of their grateful acknowledgments. Whether they consider themselves as Britons, or as men more particularly profiting by your generous and spirited interposition, they see great reasons to be thankful, for having been supported by a minister, in whose public affections, in whose wisdom and activity, both the national honor, and the interests of individuals, have been at once so well supported and secured."—Thanks of the Canada merchants ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... judgment and courage he displayed on the morning of November the 13th, 1858, when, under circumstances of great difficulty and imminent danger, when in charge of the cutter, with five men, in a gale of wind and high tumultuous sea running, he was, by the interposition of Divine Providence, mercifully allowed to be the means of rescuing the master, mate, and crew (9 in all) of the brig "Hebe," of Southampton, reported to be ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights

... Britons of Armorica tendered to him at that time, through the interposition of Melanins, bishop of Rennes, if not their actual submission, at any ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... tempestuous eloquence exerted on the minds of the soldiery was too much for him. A very serious riot ensued, which threatened to lead to the most disastrous results. For a time Antipater's life was in most imminent danger, and he was saved only by the interposition of some of the other generals, who hazarded their own lives to rescue ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... the king with superabundant wealth, gave up the inheritance of his fathers to his brother Horus, who was raised to the rank of chief pioneer as a reward for his interposition at the battle of Kadesh; Horus replaced the fallen cedar-trees which had stood at the door of his house by ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... I can make out, I ended my friendship with you every three months regularly. And each time that I did so you managed by means of entreaties, telegrams, letters, the interposition of your friends, the interposition of mine, and the like to induce me to allow ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... being liberated from the Garden Prison, was to captain Bergeret, whose interposition I considered to have been the principal cause of this favourable change; he obligingly offered me the accommodation of his lodging whilst in town, but M. Pitot had previously engaged my residence with ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... of a Christian not to bow before what appeared to him the purely providential interposition of this suggestion. Seizing it and Low at the same moment, he playfully forced him down again ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... Derby, but had no idea where he was to go; directing his footsteps towards the east, he passed through a village, and heard a woman instruct a girl to drive some calves to Deepdale. Regarding this as an interposition of Providence, the baker, encouraged, asked where was Deepdale; the woman told the girl to show him. Arrived there, he found it marshy land, distant from any human habitation; but, seeking a rising ground, he cut a small dwelling in a rock under the side of a hill, built an altar, and there ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... Prince looked far from contented with the appeal. He allowed the preliminaries of place and time to be fixed without his interposition; and when the council broke up, he fixed his clear deep eyes upon Richard in a manner which seemed to the boy to upbraid him with the want of confidence, for which, however, he would not condescend to ask. Richard felt that, let the issue ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... manifold occasion for the benign interposition of divine providence; which, in companion to the frailty, the imperfection, and the blindness of human reason, hath been pleased, at sundry times and in divers manners, to discover and enforce it's laws by an immediate and direct revelation. The doctrines ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... fell, his extraordinary destiny must appear a great interposition of Providence. History, too often confined to the ungrateful task of analyzing the uniform play of human passions, is occasionally rewarded by the appearance of events, which strike like a hand from heaven, into the nicely adjusted machinery ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... to ask the unprejudiced and open-minded reader how he explains them. Personally I cannot explain them except upon an hypothesis which, as a practical person, I confess I hesitate to adopt. I mean that of a direct interposition from above, or of the working of something so unrecognized or so undefined in the nature of man (which it will be remembered the old Egyptians, a very wise people, divided into many component parts, whereof we have now lost count), that it may be designated ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard

... blow stretched Von Aremberg on the ground. A savage yell announced the dreadful fate which impended over the fallen officer. And, spite of the generous exertions made for his protection by Maximilian and his brother students, it is probable that at that moment no human interposition could have availed to turn aside the awakened appetite for vengeance, and that he must have perished, but for the accident which at that particular instant of time occurred to draw off the attention ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... them by the priests. Dashing onward with increased speed and wildness, the bewildered animal ran with great force upon the King's mule, prostrating animal and rider dead upon the ground, and, in sorrow and tears do I record it, breaking his own neck. Thus was the interposition of providence displayed in all its bounties, and an end put to a battle which, had it continued, there is no estimating the consequences. As it was, the King, old Battle, and the mule alone paid the penalty of their temerity, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... followed. The queen had fled to Imeeo; and the dissensions among the chiefs, together with the ill-advised conduct of the missionaries, prevented a union upon some common plan of resistance. But the great body of the people, as well as their queen, confidently relied upon the speedy interposition of England—a nation bound to them by many ties, and which, more than once, had solemnly guaranteed ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... very annoying thing, my reader, when you are bringing in your long suit, and the game appears to be all your own, to have it all changed by the interposition of a miserable trump, on the existence of which you had not reckoned; and then to leave the role of Conquering Hero, and change the part of victor for that of vanquished, requires so many high moral qualities that few can ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... be a solemn duty to recognize my obligations to those so providentially sent to save us," replied his lordship, taking the hand of the commander with much feeling in his tone and manner. "I shall never cease to be grateful to Heaven for this interposition in my favor, and that of my companions; for all of us were in the very ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... rimmed with flame and smoke, amid which the active figures of the Dervish riflemen were momentarily visible, and behind the filmy curtain solid masses of swordsmen and spearmen appeared. The fortunate interposition of a small knoll in some degree protected the advance of the Lincoln Regiment, but in both Highland battalions soldiers began to drop. The whole air was full of a strange chirping whistle. The hard pebbly sand was everywhere dashed up into dust-spurts. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... merciful interposition of divine Providence it is that the African cannot blush! Captain Cram looked suspiciously at the earnest, unwinking, black face before him. Some memory of old college days flitted through his mind at the moment. "O Kunopes!" ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King

... story told of one of our City bankers, that he owed an excellent wife to the interposition of an Umbrella. It appears that on returning home one day in a heavy shower of rain, he found a young lady standing in his doorway. Politeness induced him to invite her to take shelter under his roof, and eventually ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster

... of Polotsk, when he had only to make a few efforts to appear in the plain, to reach the bridge of the town, and shut out Saint Cyr from the only outlet by which he could escape from Wittgenstein, he halted. Soon after, a thick fog, which the French looked upon as an interposition from heaven, preceded the approach of night, and shut out the three armies from the sight ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... unhappily, at the height of Mrs. Treacher's indignation, a sneeze sounded from a bush across the patch of garden; and the eyes of her visitors, attracted by the sound, rested on an object which Mrs. Treacher, by interposition of her shoulders, had been doing her best to hide—a scarecrow standing unashamed in the midst of the garrison potato patch—a scarecrow in a flaunting waistcoat ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... post of your honour. Let the Commons in Parliament assembled be one and the same thing with the Commons at large. I see no other way for the preservation of a decent attention to public interest in the representatives, but the interposition of the body of the people itself, whenever, it shall appear by some flagrant and notorious act, by some capital innovation, that those representatives are going to overleap the fences of the law and to introduce an arbitrary power. This interposition ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... with a crash overhead the great arms of the tree met the roof. At first, it seemed like a heavenly response to the emotion of the congregation, but the crackling of small timber, the showering down of broken glass and plaster gave evidence of a very earthly interposition. ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... to France with some other Scottish noblemen at the time of his sister's marriage with the dauphine, where his companions were supposed to have been poisoned, for they died in France: He escaped by the interposition of a kind providence, but retained a weak and disordered stomach all his life; this did not however unfit him for these services which he did to religion and ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... there was much talk over our escape from death, and the more light thrown on it in discussion the stronger grew the feeling that we had been saved by the interposition of Providence. Had the brig not struck the sandbank and done so at low tide, not a soul would have reached land, and relatives would never have known what became of the Heatherbell unless part of her wreckage was picked up. There ought to be public acknowledgment of our rescue and expression ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar

... give up this wretched insurance business that you've always hated so, and that's making you so unhappy now that you think they're going to take it from you. Give it up and take Mr. Fulkerson's offer! It's a perfect interposition, coming just at this time! Why, do it! Mercy!" she suddenly arrested herself, "he wouldn't expect you to get along on the possible profits?" Her face expressed ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... unwieldy a creature," she replied, "is unanswerable evidence of a Divine interposition in your favour; for had you persisted in your intention of carrying it to the shore, there is but little doubt that its weight would have overpowered you, and that you would have been drowned; and then what would have become of me? ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... on October 9, 1853, is fully narrated in an official letter to the Government of India (Bibliography, No. 15). Its failure may be reasonably ascribed to a special interposition of Providence. The Resident during all the years he had lived at Lucknow had been in the habit of sleeping in an upper chamber approached by a separate private staircase guarded by two sentries. On the night mentioned the sentries were drugged ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... interposition of Providence in our favour, I thought, noticing the lull from my station on the poop almost as soon as Jorrocks perceived it in the bows, and I feared he would have ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson

... months; one day he will forget to convoke them, and nobody will remark their absence.—As to the Tribunat, which talks too much, he will at first reduce its words to a minimum "by putting it on the diet of laws;" afterward, through the interposition of the senate, which designates retiring members, he gets rid of troublesome babblers; finally, and always through the interposition of the senate, titular interpreter, guardian, and reformer of the constitution, he ventilates and then suppresses the Tribunat itself.—The senate ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... interposition was in vain. My person was unknown to the man in authority; and I was evidently, from the frown of the sergeant, regarded as little better than an accomplice. My only resource was to follow the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... exuberance of his imagination, actually goes so far as to describe the particular food, "chocolate and turtle broth", by which the youthful hero is recruited and recovered. By this he designs to show, more emphatically, the immediate interposition, in his behalf, of an especial providence. The truth is, that any attempt at details where so little is known to have been preserved, must necessarily, of itself, subject to doubt any narrative not fortified by the most conclusive ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... toward the corner occupied by the mysterious machine. The inventor would have fallen on it, and perhaps have been instantly killed by contact with some portion of the brass or iron work, but for the interposition of the screen. This broke his fall. He scrambled to his feet, full of rage, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... understand it," said Mr. Wardrop. "Any Malay knows the use o' copper. They ought to have cut away the pipes. And with Chinese junks coming here, too. It's a special interposition ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... susceptible of expressing number, case, gender, time, modes of action, passion, and other accidents, similar to those of European languages. This is effected either by change of termination, preposition, or interposition. The character is extremely beautiful, and it is written, like the Chinese, in perpendicular columns, but beginning on the left side of the paper instead of the right, as is the case in writing the ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... size, its depth, its jagged sides, and all - as if it had been open to the light of day. When a servant walked across it, I felt as if he must sink in; when he had passed, I looked to see that his feet had not worn the edges. If a bird lighted there, I was in terror lest by some tremendous interposition it should be instrumental in the discovery; if a breath of air sighed across it, to me it whispered murder. There was not a sight or a sound - how ordinary, mean, or unimportant soever - but was fraught with fear. And in this state of ceaseless ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens

... pleasant, and the victory we may imagine on our side not to be questioned. For which of the enemies would not veil their turbans at so solemn an appearance? Which of the fiercest Janizaries would not throw away his scimitar, and all the half-moons be eclipsed by the interposition of so glorious ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... speaking, the glass door which led from the dining-room into the garden was obscured by the interposition between it and the light of a dark body. The glasses of a pair of spectacles, catching a sunbeam, sent forth a fugitive gleam; the latch creaked, the door opened, and the Penitentiary gravely entered the room. He saluted those present, taking off his broad-brimmed ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... God; and succeeded, at the Conquest, the fires and other ordeals of our ancestors, which the Normans affected to despise. The reader, however, may be disposed to conjecture, that as much of the divine interposition might be expected to decide the healing of a burn or scald, as the issue of a battle. The older custom was for the accused to plunge his hand into a cauldron of boiling water, and take out a stone or ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip

... most distant visible stars. But does it continue on indefinitely in outer space? If it does, then the invisibility of the other systems must be due to their distance diminishing the quantity of light that comes from them below the limit of perceptibility, or to the interposition of absorbing media; if it does not, then the reason why we cannot see them is owing to the absence of a means of conveyance for the light waves, as the lack of an interplanetary atmosphere prevents us from hearing the thunder of sun-spots. (It is ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss

... Sardinia overthrown by an invasion of the kasir's army. France, also, regarded events there with views similar to those entertained by England, but it did not suit the policy of either country to interfere beyond the diplomatic interposition by which Sardinia was saved. Probably they were also influenced by the suspicion that the royal house of Sardinia was more actuated by ambition than by a desire for the liberties of Italy. The fact of the king having granted a constitution did not ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... starry night, with a prospect of a slight frost, as we turned down the tree-lined streets of the friendly old town, whose folk on their homeward way dawdled in knots to discuss the interposition of the ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... it not been for the help and interposition of people in the choir, the nuns in their frenzy would have taken the life of the chief personage in this spectacle; so there was no choice but to take him away from the church and the furies who threatened his life. He was therefore brought back to prison about six o'clock in the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... that person about whom something came to our ears with tickling speech, know that that has been ordained which we believed would suit your intentions[667]; for it is our desire that by the interposition of our good offices your will should be law as much in our kingdom as in ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... the Jewish high priest, who headed the brilliant procession, and humbly kneel down at his feet! Then rising, he embraced him. The Israelites themselves were amazed, and acknowledged the merciful interposition of God. At length, Parmenio addressed the king, and asked why he, before whom monarchs and nations trembled, and at whose feet all were ready to fall, should condescend thus to do homage to a man? Alexander replied, 'that he did not bow down to the man, but to the mighty name ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... of increased opposition having lately manifested themselves in certain quarters, I judged a special interposition on my part proper and advisable, and under this impression have issued a proclamation warning against all unlawful combinations and proceedings having for their object or tending to obstruct the operation of the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... dinner-parties which form the main events in this tale. I was also taken into her confidence during the terrible fortnight which intervened between them. Like everybody else, I was hopelessly in the dark, and could only accept what happened as a divine interposition. My first clue came when James, the Caerlaverocks' second footman, entered my service as valet, and being a cheerful youth chose to gossip while he shaved me. I checked him, but he babbled on, and I could not ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... had revolted from Spain and had set up republics. The United States recognised them in 1821. Spain called on Europe for assistance. In his message to Congress, Monroe declared, "We could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny by any European power, in any other light than as a manifestation of an unfriendly feeling toward the United States....The ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... impetuous energy, his cool and calm decision, his forbearance, his magnanimity, and his faithfulness to his friends, were all so conspicuous. His pardoning the priests, whether they had been for him or against him, made every friend of religion incline to his favor. The same interposition in behalf of the poet's family and descendants spoke directly to the heart of every poet, orator, historian, and philosopher throughout the country, and tended to make all the lovers of literature his friends. His magnanimity, also, in deciding that one single friend of his ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... the two forces for the day, on account of the ill-advised and useless interposition of the Cardinal of Perigord, Hence when Chandos and Nigel had pushed their horses through the long hedge which fronted the position they found that many small parties of the knights of either army were riding up and down on the plain outside. The greater number of these groups were French, ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... same kind is the figure called Parembole, or interposition, when something outside having nothing to do with the subject is introduced. If it is removed, the construction is not affected (I. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... that the doctor is a Pariah, and miracles flourish in the Peninsula. At every considerable shrine you will see the walls covered with waxen models of feet, legs, hands, and arms secured by the miraculous interposition of the genius loci, and scores of little crutches attesting the marvellous hour when they became useless. Each shrine, like a mineral spring, has its own especial virtue. A Santiago medal was better than quinine for ague. St. Veronica's handkerchief is sovereign for sore eyes. A bone of St. Magin ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... times the lamps were continually burning before the richly decorated shrines of saints. In the audacity of my ignorance, as I humbly acknowledge it to have been, I criticised this great interior as too much broken into compartments, and shorn of half its rightful impressiveness by the interposition of a screen betwixt the nave and chancel. It did not spread itself in breadth, but ascended to the roof in lofty narrowness. One large body of worshippers might have knelt down in the nave, others in each of the transepts, and smaller ones in ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... with a tender cadence and solemn sweetness, enunciated the words. Why does Helen think of her picture at home—of the pitying glance it cast on her the night she committed that crime, which had almost wrecked her soul? Why does she think of her interposition that very morning which had saved her from self-murder? It was from no voluntary will of her own; but these visions came, subduing and touching the rind of her weary heart, until it heaved with the throes of a new birth. She listens now. She cannot do otherwise, for the powerful voice ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... December 6, 1665. About the 14th of January following, his excellency took a journey into Portugal, where he staid till towards the end of March; the design of his journey certainly was to effect an accommodation between that crown and Spain, which however was not produced till 1667, by the interposition of his Britannic Majesty. Our author having finished his commission was preparing for his return to England, when June 4, 1666, he was seized at Madrid with a violent fever, which put an end to ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... rather perhaps at the manner in which the result seemed to have been achieved. Of course he knew nothing of those terribly earnest petitions which Madame Staubach had preferred to the throne of heaven on behalf of his marriage, but he did not like being told at all of any interposition from above in such a matter. He would have preferred to be assured, even though he himself might not quite have believed the assurance, that Linda had yielded to a sense of his own merits. "I am glad she has thought ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... The interposition of Sir Henry Clinton, who was extremely anxious to save his much-loved aid-de-camp, still continued. It was expected that the examination of witnesses in Andre's case and the defense of the prisoner, would protract the decision of the court of inquiry then ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... up every thing to the Assembly. This according with the dispositions of the King, he went about eleven o'clock, accompanied only by his brothers, to the Assembly, and there read to them a speech, in which he asked their interposition to re-establish order. Although couched in terms of some caution, yet the manner in which it was delivered made it evident, that it was meant as a surrender at discretion. He returned to the Chateau ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Timarchus, whose soul was rapt from him in the cave of Trophonius, both returned, as we read in Plato and Plutarch, to relate with circumstantial detail what they saw in the other world. Alcestis, who so nobly died to save her husband's life, was brought back from the region of the dead, by the interposition of Herakles, to spend happy years with her grateful Admetus. The cunning Sisyphus, who was so notorious for his treachery, by a shrewd plot obtained leave, after his death, to visit the earth again. Safely up in the light, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... or blackness of the cloud; we explain, on mechanical principles, its drifting before the wind; for its disappearance we account on the principles of chemistry. It never occurs to us to invoke the interposition of the Almighty in the production and fashioning of this fugitive form. We explain all the facts connected with it by physical laws, and perhaps should reverentially hesitate to call into operation the finger ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... with all the precaution imaginable. The greatest minds were then sinking under such popular superstitions: and whoever has read much of the private history of this age will have smiled at their ludicrous terrors and bewildered reasonings. The most ordinary events were attributed to an interposition of Providence. In the unpublished memoirs of that learned antiquary, Sir Symouds D'Ewes, such frequently occur. When a comet appeared, and D'Ewes, for exercise at college, had been ringing the great bell, and entangled himself in the rope, which ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... reason in manner of continual clouds is reputed to be gross, and nothing so pleasant as that of the main. Howbeit, as they which affirm these things have only respect to the impediment or hindrance of the sunbeams by the interposition of the clouds and of ingrossed air, so experience teacheth us that it is no less pure, wholesome, and commodious than is that of other countries, and (as Caesar himself hereto addeth) much more temperate in summer than that of the Gauls, ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... Royal and Noble persons, who now crowded to "partake the gale" of Sheridan's glory—where were they all while any life remained in him? Where were they all, but a few weeks before, when their interposition might have saved his heart from breaking,—or when the zeal, now wasted on the grave, might have soothed and comforted the death-bed? This is a subject on which it is difficult to speak with patience. If the man was unworthy ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... carried into effect in conformity with that decision. I shall submit this convention to the Senate for its advice and consent as to the ratification, and, if obtained, shall immediately bring the subject before Congress for such provisions as may require the interposition ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe

... the circumstances of this memorable night were as follows:—As soon as the decisive intelligence was received, that the intrigues of his enemies had prevailed at Rome, and that the interposition of the popular magistrates (the tribunes) was set aside, Caesar sent forward the troops, who were then at his head-quarters, but in as private a manner as possible. He himself, by way of masque, (per dissimulationem) attended a public spectacle, gave an audience ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various

... efforts of England were suspended as far as regarded Europe; but an expedition had been fitted out at Cork against part of Spanish America, and Sir Arthur Wellesley was appointed to the command. Again a marvellous interposition of accidents prevented this his second projected service in America. Before the troops could set sail, the insurrection at Madrid on the 2nd of May, 1808, against the French under Murat, drew the attention of England to the Peninsula, where ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington



Words linked to "Interposition" :   location, interruption, position, placement, locating, emplacement, break, disruption, interpose, gap, interpolation, positioning



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com