Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Modify   /mˈɑdəfˌaɪ/   Listen
Modify

verb
(past & past part. modified; pres. part. modifying)
1.
Make less severe or harsh or extreme.  "He modified his views on same-gender marriage"
2.
Add a modifier to a constituent.  Synonym: qualify.
3.
Cause to change; make different; cause a transformation.  Synonyms: alter, change.  "The discussion has changed my thinking about the issue"






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





"Modify" Quotes from Famous Books



... disapproves of what was his intention at the moment of performing it and of the state of mind from which it then proceeded. It is true that the subsequent results of our acts and any change in our estimate of their moral character may considerably modify the feelings with which we look back upon them, but, still, in the main, it holds good that the approval or disapproval with which we regard our past conduct depends rather upon the opinions of right and wrong ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler

... behind the palate. This is entirely at variance with the facts as verified by my own experience and observation and the observation of others who are expert specialists. The true office of the soft palate is to modify the opening into the nose and thus attune the resonant cavities to the pitch and timbre of the note given by the vocal cords and pharynx. To develop the vowel sounds, the soft palate should be drawn forward, allowing a free passage into the nose; it should be ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown

... in acknowledging the receipt of the first and second cantos, was not so congratulatory as he had formerly been. The verses contained, no doubt, some of the author's finest poetry, but he had some objections to suggest. "I think," he said, "you may modify or substitute other words for the lines on Romilly, whose death should save him." But Byron entertained an extreme detestation for Romilly, because, he said, he had been "one of my assassins," and had sacrificed him on "his legal altar"; ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... from the second German edition (1892), with still later additions and corrections communicated by the author in manuscript. The translator has followed the original faithfully but not slavishly. He has not felt free to modify Professor Falckenberg's expositions, even in the rare cases where his own opinions would have led him to dissent, but minor changes have been made wherever needed to fit the book for the use of English-speaking students. Thus a few alterations have ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... upon which our Constitution rests being the people—a breath of theirs having made, as a breath can unmake, change, or modify it—it can be assigned to none of the great divisions of government but to that of democracy. If such is its theory, those who are called upon to administer it must recognize as its leading principle the duty of shaping their measures so as to produce the greatest good to ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... reorganization of Society and its social consequences, with economic changes and the reaction of these changes on administrative work; it has either accepted existing intellectual conditions and political institutions as beyond its control or assumed that they will obediently modify as economic and administrative necessity dictates.... Achieve your expropriation, said the early Fabians, get your network of skilled experts over the country, and your political forms, your public opinion, your collective soul will ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... week, Emily had accepted Sir Jervis's proposal, and had so interested the bookseller to whom she had been directed to apply, that he took it on himself to modify the ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins

... case," Frank said, "we must modify the arrangement, and agree that none of us will go into a bar unless actually asked to go and take a drink—that wouldn't be very often, the invitation is generally given inside. We come back from work ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... government. In debates in Parliament, in testimony before government commissions of investigation, in petitions, pamphlets, and newspapers, the conditions of factory labor were described and discussed. Successive laws to modify these conditions were introduced into Parliament, debated at great length, amended, postponed, reintroduced, and in some cases ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... The discovery of free hydrogen in the earth's atmosphere, by Professor Dewar, 1901, bears upon the theory of the escape of gases from a planet, and may modify the view above expressed. Since hydrogen is theoretically incapable of being permanently retained in the free state by the earth, its presence in the atmosphere indicates either that there is an influx from space or that it ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss

... written for the man of culture who is seeking for truth—believing, as does the author, that all truth is God's truth, and therefore it becomes the duty of every scientific man to accept it; knowing, however, that it will surely modify the popular creeds and methods of interpretation, its final result can only be to the glory of God and to the establishment of a more exalted and purer religion. All facts are truths; it consequently follows that all scientific facts are truths—there is no half-way house—a statement ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott

... certain general laws. It is fit that we should now consider whether these same laws still operate, when the distribution takes place through the complex mechanism of exchange and money; or whether the properties of the mechanism interfere with and modify the presiding principles. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... we may observe, that the true idea of the human mind, is to consider it as a system of different perceptions or different existences, which are linked together by the relation of cause and effect, and mutually produce, destroy, influence, and modify each other. Our impressions give rise to their correspondent ideas; said these ideas in their turn produce other impressions. One thought chaces another, and draws after it a third, by which it is expelled in its turn. ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... ignorant, acknowledged,—proclaimed as one of its chief merits,—a still more fatal defect for attracting converts from among beings whose ignorance had never been suffered to doubt, till then, that men in ecclesiastical garb could modify, or suspend, or defeat for them the justice of God; it proclaimed itself unable to give any exemptions or commutations in matters ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... proof. But also defenders of received doctrine learnt, almost insensibly, very much from its opponents. They became aware—or if not they, at all events their successors became aware—that orthodoxy must, in some respects, modify the stringency of its conclusions; that there was need, in other instances, of disentangling Christian verities from the scholastic refinements which had gradually grown up around them; and that there were many questions which might safely be ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... whole guard with you; one naked wretch can't do much against eight armed men. And, listen; take the young gentleman also, and let him see what goes on; the experience may modify his views, but don't touch him without telling me. I have reports to write, and shall ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... are thrown out with great deference, as they have not been sufficiently tested by actual experiments. Teachers, however, will be able, each for himself, according to the circumstances of his school, and the capacities of his children, to adopt such parts as he finds most effective; and so to modify others, that the end shall perhaps be more efficiently gained, than by strictly adhering to any one of them.—Education in all its parts is yet in its infancy; and these crude hints can only be expected to help it forward ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... of her dead body. But the dog beneath the table barks—"Taff! Taff! The master's daughter in silver and gold by the wedding party is borne along, but the mistress's daughter is wooed by none!" In vain does its mistress throw it a cake, and order it to modify its remarks. It eats the cake, but it repeats its offensive observations, until the stepdaughter appears in all her glory. Then the old woman's own daughter is sent afield. Frost comes to have a look at his new guest, expecting "wise words" from her too. But as none ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... help should he decide to humble American impudence." The press of France and Germany discoursed in much the same manner, while the diplomats of those countries agreed that "Europe would yet find it necessary to materially modify the Monroe Doctrine." But the Spaniard, believing discretion to be the better part of valor, had apologized for the acts of his undiapered babes and the excesses of his hungry beggars before his neighbors could stiffen his backbone ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... swallow is wholly a cliff-dweller, but it has learned to modify its home in different localities. As usually seen, it is gourd-shaped, opened at the top, built entirely of mud pellets ("bricks without straw"), softly lined with feathers and wisps of grass, and attached by the larger part to a ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... words, was the situation with which White was called upon to deal. He had two courses before turn; he could accommodate himself to it or he could endeavour to modify it. He attempted the latter, and failing he recurred to the former. He saw at once the insecurity of Symons' detached force, but being unable to convince the Natal Government of the necessity of withdrawing it he reluctantly allowed ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... of my colleagues and friends were in a maze with regard to my views and intentions. Shut up within the narrow confines of some old stereotyped form of faith or fancy into which they had been born, or into which they had been brought they knew not how, and afraid to change or modify one iota of their blind belief, investigation, search after truth, enlargement of thought, or change of sentiment, was with them out of the question. The very idea of anything differing from their own traditionary ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... to their new places under the altered circumstance, would not always occur at once. Unfortunately we have no means of determining, according to the standard of years, how long a period it takes to modify a species; but to the subject of time ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... modify, but could not annul Alcuine's decree, and thus the fate of the Princess was determined. "Aurore will prick her hand with a spindle; she will not die of it, but will fall into a sleep of a hundred years, from which the son of a king ...
— The Story Of The Duchess Of Cicogne And Of Monsieur De Boulingrin - 1920 • Anatole France

... of the constituency, which might subsist indefinitely if the majority of the House had always several years of their term still to run—if it received new infusions drop by drop, which would be more likely to assume than to modify the qualities of the mass they were joined to. It is as essential that the general sense of the House should accord in the main with that of the nation as is that distinguished individuals should be able, without forfeiting their seats, ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... imprisonment, was enforced strictly against Catholics who were still a strong body, especially in the north. On the accession of Pius V. (1566-72) the friendly attitude hitherto maintained by Rome was changed. There could no longer be any hope that Elizabeth would modify her religious policy, as even her former ally and supporter Philip II. was forced to admit, and there was grave danger that the opinion entertained by some, that Catholics should be permitted to ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... observe that all questions of property are subordinate to the authority of civil laws, which extend, restrain, modify, and alter the rules of natural justice, according to the particular CONVENIENCE of each community. The laws have, or ought to have, a constant reference to the constitution of government, the manners, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume

... redoubted and tremblingly crouched to by Negroes on whom Europeans had wrought such unspeakable calamities. Time, however, and the action of circumstances, especially in countries subject to Catholic dominion, soon began to modify the conditions under which this sentiment of terror had been maintained, and, with those conditions, the very sentiment itself. For it was not long in the life of many of the expatriated Africans before numbers of their own race obtained freedom, and, eventually, ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... corrections in his previous accounts of the Selenites as fresh facts flowed upon him to modify his conclusions, and accordingly one gives the quotations that follow with a certain amount of reservation. They are quoted from the ninth, thirteenth, and sixteenth messages, and, altogether vague and fragmentary as they ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... right place, and I for my part come back to mine, and entreat you my dearest friend, first, not to answer this, and next, to weigh and consider thoroughly 'that particular contingency' which (I tell you plainly, I who know) the tongue of men and of angels would not modify so as to render less full of vexations to you. Let Pisa prove the excellent hardness of some marbles! Judge. From motives of self-respect, you may well walk an opposite way ... you.... When I told you once ... or twice ... that ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... intuition is absolute and exact. It is not relatively true. It is absolutely and invariably true. No additional facts will ever modify ...
— Ancient and Modern Physics • Thomas E. Willson

... very fallible and very variable. A little opium, a little alcohol, a blow on the head, or some great emotion will modify their judgment to an incredible degree. Sir Harry Johnston may not be very representative as an exponent of scientific conclusions about the existence of God, but he is interesting and typical of much of the rough-and-ready opposition to formulated religion. ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... that "for a period of nearly fourteen years she has lived absolutely without food or nourishment of any kind," we are forced to declare, in the interest of science, that the statement is necessarily absolutely devoid of truth. Subsequent statements, as we have seen, modify this fourteen years' claim very materially, and really leave it in doubt whether there was ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond

... deals; and as others, using old materials, have been free to alter them in the sense of vulgarity or licence, so he has claimed and used the right to sever and recombine, to enlarge, retrench, and modify, for the purposes at once of a more powerful and elaborate art than his original presents, and of a yet more elevated, or at least of a far more sustained, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... should modify it," said the young priest airily. "Perhaps I should have rather said that modern theologians and right reason are ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... I must modify your more formal name a little,—for it seems now as if I almost knew you. I tremble with fear lest some one should discover that I write to you. But I cannot help writing. I am impelled by a feeling in my soul. I send my picture and I wish it were more beautiful. ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells

... their individual differences in quality, be brought into the same phase, into a common resonance of thought, but the language they will speak will still be a living tongue, an animated system of imperfections, which every individual man will infinitesimally modify. Through the universal freedom of exchange and movement, the developing change in its general spirit will be a world-wide change; that is the quality of its universality. I fancy it will be a coalesced language, a synthesis ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... tastes, and to renew the vow of asceticism which he formerly made before the crucified god. It says to him, on the contrary, "No society is free so long as the individual is not so! Do not seek to modify society by imposing upon it an authority which shall make everything right; if you do, you will fail as popes and emperors have failed. Modify society so that your fellows may not be any longer your enemies by the force of circumstances: ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin

... prearranged his father's behaviour at this announcement, but he now perceived that he would have to modify the scene if it were to represent the facts. His father did not brighten all over and demand, "Miss Pasmer, of course?" he contrived to hide whatever start the news had given him, and was some time in asking, with his soft lisp, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... dumb, and the inferences to be drawn from them vague and unsatisfactory, absolutely no better than mere random conjecture. And as the war has now become the great fact in our history, and its effects must modify our whole social life for many years to come, its results must not be neglected in an investigation of this kind, but, on the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... his oracular utterances Tyope hoped to destroy through the powerful speeches of the Koshare Naua and the strong medicine of the Shkuy Chayan. The plans of Tyope had been immensely furthered by the terrible accident; they had advanced so much that he felt it indispensable to modify them to some extent. Terror and dismay were great at the Rito, and the council had been adjourned sine die. There could be no thought of a fresh accusation against Shotaye until the four days of official mourning were past, and the campaign against the enemy, which the bloody outrage imperatively ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... the result partly of chance, and partly of law: viz. when the total effect is the result partly of the effects of casual conjunctions of causes, and partly of the effects of some constant cause which they blend with and modify. This is a case of Composition of Causes. The object being to find how much of the result is attributable to a given constant cause, the only resource, when the variable causes cannot be wholly excluded from the experiment, is to ascertain what is the effect of all of them taken ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing

... watched her smooth the tendrils of her hair at the sides. She was demure once more, utterly seemly, and the sly glance she shot him conveyed the hint that she might, perhaps, admit him into the joke. He felt inclined to modify his judgment and give her the benefit of the doubt. "Probably," he heard her remark to Holliday, "you've got me confused with someone else. I've only been a ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... would here remark, in reference to extracts made from various authors, that, for the sake of abridging, she has often left out parts of a paragraph, but never so as to modify the meaning of the author. Some ideas, not connected with the subject in hand, are ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... seductive charms of the national card game continued to support the bar. Of these, Smallbones only remained long enough to air his spleen at the doctor's expense. But even he found it incumbent upon him to modify his tone. For one thing he received an unmerciful baiting from his companions, and besides, he knew, if he allowed his tongue to riot too far, how easy it would be for his denunciation to reach the strenuous doctor's ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... or modification has this peculiarity, that it may not, in the vast majority of cases, be used independently but needs to be somehow attached to or welded with a radical element in order to convey an intelligible notion. We had better, therefore, modify our formula, A b, to A (b), the round brackets symbolizing the incapacity of an element to stand alone. The grammatical element, moreover, is not only non-existent except as associated with a radical one, it does not even, as a rule, obtain its measure of significance unless it is ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir

... the finding is based, and (c) the legality of the sentence, and he writes a minute on each case for the information of the lords commissioners of the admiralty with regard to these points. He has no power to modify a sentence, a power which is reserved to the admiralty by sec. 53 (1) of the Naval Discipline Act 1866, except in the case of a death sentence, which can only be remitted by the crown. All cases where the prisoner has pleaded guilty ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... a letter which visibly disturbed him. 'Hark at this,' he said, after a little while; and he then proceeded to read a really pathetic though not very well expressed letter from an aggrieved matron, who appealed to him to discontinue or modify the Caudle Lectures. She declared they were bringing discord into families and making a multitude ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... religious," while men had a right to read everything and think as they would, provided that they were upright and honourable in their lives. But the result of his liberal and unorthodox thought was to insensibly modify and partially rationalise her own beliefs, and she put on one side as errors the doctrines of eternal punishment, the vicarious atonement, the infallibility of the Bible, the equality of the Son with the Father in the Trinity, and other orthodox ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... next sentence, "Since which time I have not been advertised by any man of anything which they would require to be altered" probably expresses the fate of most of the many requests for criticism that accompany translations, but does not essentially modify the impression he conveys of unusually favorable conditions for such work. One remembers that Tyndale originally anticipated with some confidence a residence in the Bishop of London's house while he translated the Bible. Thomas Wilson, again, says ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

... its delicate shade of heliotrope is now a familiar object in hospital and surgery. But one story is of special interest because it shows us clearly how Lister, while clinging to a principle, was ready to modify the details of treatment by the lessons which experience taught him. It was on the advice of others that he first introduced a carbolic spray in order to purify the air in the neighbourhood of an operation. At ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... had been, in a way, prepared to see a transformation, having heard sundry rumours to that effect; but the Skeptic and the Philosopher, having classified Rhodora once and for all, had since received no impression sufficient to efface or modify the original one. I can say for them that to one who did not know them well their surprise would have been undiscoverable, yet to Hepatica and me it was perfectly evident that they considered a ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond

... not modify this attitude; the man of ten years says the same as the man of ten months, except—and the exception is worth noting—that the former's moral sense, whatever he originally had of it, has been blunted or discouraged, and he has conceived a settled ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... intrusted with the inspection of me, fatigued himself in bowing to the very ground, but would not in the least modify his charge. He got into a caleche, the horses of which followed me so close that they touched the hind wheels of my berline. The idea of entering, escorted in this manner, into the residence of an old friend, into a paradise of delight, where I had been feasting my ideas by anticipation, with ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... this much," he remarked, thoughtfully: "I believe you to be a better man than you think yourself to be, and a better man than I thought some hours ago. But do not take this," he added, with a smile, "as much praise. I promised you a possible deliverance from an unhappy perplexity. I will have to modify that promise. I can only remove the mystery that enhanced that perplexity. Your deliverance depends upon ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... makes them look hideous. My aim would be to suggest the style rather unobtrusively, and clothe myself becomingly. I'm too egotistical to be ultra-fashionable. Since I, who am in love chiefly with myself, can so modify style, much more should you, who are devoted to nature, make fashion ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... once constituted, it acquires certain provisional but determinable general characteristics. To these general characteristics there are adjoined particular characteristics which vary according to the elements of which the crowd is composed, and may modify its mental constitution. Psychological crowds, then, are susceptible of classification; and when we come to occupy ourselves with this matter, we shall see that a heterogeneous crowd—that is, a crowd composed ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon

... chambers met February 26, 1849. After a session of two months, during which the lower chamber showed a disposition to modify the constitution more than was agreeable to the king, the upper chamber was ordered to adjourn, the lower was dissolved, and a new election ordered. The new Parliament met August 7. The revision was completed on the last of January, 1850. On the 6th of February, the king, in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Scott has in all three lives the opportunity for fascinating studies, and his book presents them to us with much of the flavour of the period in which they lived. Perhaps to-day we should incline to modify his acceptance of the Vasari attitude to Lucrezia, especially since he himself tends to withdraw the charges against her, but leaves her as the villainess of the piece upon very little evidence. The inclusion of a chapter upon Ghirlandajo, treated merely as a follower of Fra Bartolommeo, scarcely ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)

... repeated Cardross with his quick engaging laugh; "if a man doesn't care for a thing he's not fitted to alter or modify it. I've often thought that those old French landscape men must have dearly loved the country they made so beautiful—loved it intelligently—for they left so much wild beauty edging the formality of their creations. Do you happen to remember the Chasse at Versailles? ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... me lowering and stowing the big mainsail while they surlily slouched about the deck, letting go halliards, clewing up and hauling down; and perhaps, more than all, the aspect of the heavens, conveying a message that no man could misinterpret, caused them somewhat to modify their attitude, and by four bells the ship was as nearly ready for what might come as ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... understood—to be understood, if not to be pardoned. A woman might marry, thinking she cared, and all too soon, sometimes before the second day had dawned, learn that shrinking and repugnance which not even habit can modify or obscure. A girl might be mistaken, with her heart and nature undeveloped, and with that closer intimate life with another of another sex still untried. With the transition from maidenhood to wifehood, fateful beyond all transitions, yet unmade, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... genito-urinary systems should be less frequent. Taking the facts which I have here given into account one may see that not only do health and longevity depend upon laws which we can understand and successfully operate, but man has it in his power to modify to a great extent the circumstances in which he lives, with a view to the promotion of his well-being ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... the lake toward other lakes. In a series whose basins lie in the same canyon, and are fed by one and the same main stream, the uppermost will, of course, vanish first unless some other lake-filling agent comes in to modify the result; because at first it receives nearly all of the sediments that the stream brings down, only the finest of the mud-particles being carried through the highest of the series to the next below. Then the next ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... affair is settled. To be sure, one may make some allowance for the existing life of the nation; that is our business, the business of the people who are" (he all but said "statesmen") "in the public service; but if need arises, don't be uneasy. Those institutions will modify ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... became so strong that I determined to ascertain the truth, if I could. The next day I questioned the countess, and, I must confess, rather treacherously. Her replies and her looks were not such as to modify my views. When I asked her, looking straight into her eyes, what she thought of Cocoleu's mental condition, she nearly fainted; and she could hardly make me hear her when she said that she occasionally caught glimpses of intelligence in him. When ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... 260) decided not to contest their right to remain in the general service. This action did not go unnoticed, and in subsequent months a number of men who signed up with the intention of becoming stewards refused to modify their enlistment contract while others, who already had changed their contract, suddenly began to fail the qualifying ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... heated in their passage over America, Asia, and Europe, and they contribute to raise the temperature of the atmosphere. The nearest land, ending in the points of the Cape of Good Hope, Patagonia, and Tasmania, does not modify the ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... regarded steamers with the utmost contempt, and never spoke of them without quoting the remarks of Admiral Triton, who, however, in the course of time, learnt to modify ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... have been introduced, and more or less domesticated, and some useful exotics have been cultivated for the purpose of testing their applicability to French agriculture or horticulture; but neither in the case of animals nor of plants has there been any systematic effort to modify the constitution of the species, by breeding largely and selecting the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... opportunity of gratifying his resentment in a Christian and constitutional spirit, and with no obstacle in his way but Darby's inveterate piety. This, however, for the sake of truth, he hoped to remove, or so modify, that it would not prevent him from punishing that very ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... mysterious and inexplicable movements as indications of a distinct personal life. Hence, as Darwin in his "Movements of Plants" remarks: "why a touch, slight pressure, or any other irritant, such as electricity, heat, or the absorption of animal matter, should modify the turgescence of the affected cells in such a manner as to cause movement, we do not know. But a touch acts in this manner so often, and on such widely distinct plants, that the tendency seems to be a very general one; and, if beneficial, it might ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... and it is to implore you to modify them that we have come. Father, they are cruel terms—to be dead to each other for ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... Edward, as the mother's favorite, escaped her severity; but it fell upon Mary with double force, and was with her carried out with a thoroughness that laid its shortcomings bare, and consequently forced Mrs. Wollstonecraft to modify her treatment of her younger children. This concession on her part shows that she must have had their well-being at heart, even when her policy in their regard was most misguided, and that her unkindness was not, like her husband's cruelty, born of ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... as to the fact, is fixed: seize Silesia we will: but as to the manner of doing it, Schwerin and Podewils modify him. Their counsel is: "Do not step out in hostile attitude at the very first, saying, 'These Duchies, Liegnitz, Brieg, Wohlau, Jagerndorf, are mine, and I will fight for them;' say only, 'Having, as is well known, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... the fever, Macrotin, Bell. and Aconite should be taken, a dose every eight to twelve hours, by every one that is exposed. These will, no doubt, often prevent an attack, and if they do not, they will so modify it, that it will be very mild, of short duration, and ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill

... ancestry that comes to them through herself; that is a fixed fact. Her parents must of necessity be her children's grandparents. Her family characteristics are also their inheritance. The only thing she can do in regard to their inheritance through her is to modify the objectionable traits, and to cultivate the good traits herself, so that family faults may in her be weakened and the probability of transmission lessened, and the family virtues be strengthened and their probable ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... kernel were ground together. Now, to stomachs and livers brought to great grief by persistent pie and doughnuts and some other New-England wickednesses, these husks did a certain office of stimulation, stirring up jaded digestions, and really seeming to arrest or modify long-standing dyspepsia. But they did not know what we do, that this outer husk is a layer of pure silica, one of the hardest of known minerals. Boil it six weeks, and it comes out unchanged. Boil it six years, or six centuries, and the result would ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell

... spare moments John Gates began the construction of a house. He was a man of tremendous energy, but also of many activities. The days were not long enough for him. In him was the true ferment of constructive civilization. Instinctively he reached out to modify his surroundings. A house, then a picket fence, split from the living trees; an irrigation ditch; a garden spot; fruit trees; vines over the porch; better stables; more fences; the gradual shaping from ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... In the war of 1812, Hampton, Craney Island, White House, and various places on and near the Potomac, since identified with fierce encounters and forays in the war of the rebellion, witnessed gallant deeds in behalf of the Republic. In 1829 a convention assembled in Virginia to modify the Constitution. Long having the most extensive territory and largest slaveholders, the aristocratic element disturbed and overmastered democratic principles. During Cromwell's rule, when virtually independent, Virginia proffered a fleet to the fugitive monarch; who, when ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... Education.—Furthermore, the formation of these habitual modes of reaction being largely conditioned by outside influences, it is possible to control the process of their formation. For this reason, the educator is able to modify the child's natural reactions, and develop in their stead more valuable habits. No small part of the work of formal education, therefore, must consist in adding to the social efficiency of the child by endowing him with habits making for neatness, regularity, accuracy, obedience, etc. A detailed ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... Guido, find themselves within the plan, fulfilling, after all, the task allotted to them in the universal scheme, how can we condemn them? Must we not plainly either modify our optimism and keep our faith in God within bounds, or, on the other hand, make every failure "apparent" only, sin a phantom, and the distinction between right and wrong a helpful illusion that stings man to effort—but an ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones

... of twenty years. At present ten is the term allowed for afterthought; and when the regulation was made, all the men of abilities were invited to give their opinion whether it were better to abrogate or modify it. It is certainly a convenient and safe way of mortgaging land; yet the most rational men whom I conversed with on the subject seemed convinced that the right was more injurious than beneficial to society; ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... novel and revolutionary; it is. The Endowment of Motherhood implies a new method of social organization, a rearrangement of the social unit, untried in human experience—as untried as electric traction was or flying in 1800. Of course, it may work out to modify men's ideas of marriage profoundly. To me that is a secondary consideration. I do not believe that particular assertion myself, because I am convinced that a practical monogamy is a psychological necessity to the mass of civilised ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... husband. She is a distant relation of my own, too, for my grandfather married Lady Carlisle's aunt. Beseech her, Wilton, to gain you admittance; and try also—try, by all means—to make her use her influence with her husband in my behalf. Perhaps at her entreaty he would modify the charge, or retract a part of it. It can do him ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... the artistic soul of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He was, however, enough of an autocrat to take liberties with the fashions. When obliged to paint the portrait of a lady with a "head" (for so the coiffure was called) he always managed to modify its height and make its outlines harmonize with ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... of a peculiar color-brilliance; patches of smaller flowers where for the trifling space of a street's width the sun had unobstructed fall,—these from time to time diversified the way, brought to our perceptions the endearing trifles of earthiness, of humanity, befittingly to modify the austerity of the great forest. At a brookside we saw, still fresh and moist, the print of a bear's foot. From a patch of the little emerald brush, a barren doe rose to her feet, eyed us a moment, and then bounded away as though propelled ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... of the peculiar affection entertained for these massy forms by the Byzantines, they were apt, when they used any condition of capital founded on the Corinthian, to modify the concave profile by making it bulge out at the bottom. Fig. 1, a, Plate X., is the profile of a capital of the pure concave family; and observe, it needs a fillet or cord round the neck of the capital to show where it separates ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... soothing and steadying. And of precisely this he stood sorely in need just now. For it must be admitted that a change had come over the spirit of Julius March's great ecclesiastical dream. Absence from Oxford and foreign travel had tended at once to widen and modify his thought. He had seen the Tractarian Movement from a distance, in due perspective. He had also seen Catholicism at close quarters. He had realised that the logical consequence of the teaching of the former could ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... to the class of agglutinate tongues, i.e. tongues wherein the inflections can be shown to consist of separate words more or legs incorporated or amalgamated with the roots which they modify. It may be said that this view ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... consider how bacteria may behave when they have gained entrance to the body, what effects may be produced, and what circumstances may modify the disease in any particular case. The extreme instance of bacterial invasion is found in some of the septicaemias in the lower animals, e.g. anthrax septicaemia in guinea-pigs, pneumococcus septicaemia in rabbits. In such diseases the bacteria, when introduced into the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... performing its duties."—Thus, "the act by which a people is subject to its chiefs is absolutely only a commission, a service in which, as simple officers of their sovereign, they exercise in his name the power of which he has made them depositories, and which he may modify, limit and resume at pleasure."[3418] Not only does it always reserve to itself "the legislative power which belongs to it and which can belong only to it," but again, it delegates and withdraws the executive power according to its fancy. Those who exercise it ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... earliest of that great multitude who were within the next few months to stream along every road which led from France, finding their journey's end too often in galley, dungeon and torture chamber, and yet flooding over the frontiers in numbers sufficient to change the industries and modify the characters of all the neighbouring peoples. Like the Israelites of old, they had been driven from their homes at the bidding of an angry king, who, even while he exiled them, threw every difficulty in the ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... The result might not be seen at once, but the thing would work, and the people have less and less confidence in their leaders. The most unlettered peasant is a keen judge of character, and, given time, would modify his views. The truth about the mines, given in clear and simple language, would have a great effect. Education is fighting for the Union. Time is all the Loyalists require. The National Schools must, in the long run, be fatal to political ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... sufficient to modify the ideas of these barbarians. I had come into the town one day, and was seated at table at M. Dubois Thainville's, when the English Consul, Mr. Blankley, arrived in great haste, announcing to our Consul the entrance into the port of a French ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... Trope. This Trope limits the argument to each separate sense, and the effect is considered of the condition of body and mind upon sense-perception in relation to the several sense-organs.[1] The physical states which modify sense-perception are health and illness, sleeping and waking, youth and age, hunger and satiety, drunkenness and sobriety. All of these conditions of the body entirely change the character of the mental images, producing ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick

... we all came to modify our opinions on this matter, however, when we learnt more of the general conditions attending trans-Atlantic steamship services. The discussion as to who was responsible for these warnings being disregarded had perhaps better be postponed to a later ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley

... with the powers of the President and Senate, but is unconstitutional, because it comes in conflict with that clause of the Constitution which says that the President shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate to make treaties. No law of Congress can in any way modify or limit those powers. The Dingley Law can not limit the time in which we shall be allowed to make a treaty; it can not give to Congress any power on the subject of treaties not given it by the Constitution, and under the Constitution Congress as a legislative ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... they wouldn't. You'd have to modify your stride a little; but you'd negotiate it. You're ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... constitutional measures as were taken, only strengthened racial dissensions and were equally insincere and inefficient. The present constitution of 1867, as well as the previous constitutions of 1849, 1860 and 1861, was granted by the crown, to whom it was reserved to reverse or modify the same. The parliament is absolutely powerless in Austria. It is a mere cloak for absolutism, since the famous Paragraph 14 provides for absolutist government by means of imperial decrees without parliament in case of emergency. The dynasty took ample advantage of this clause during ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... makes it modify 'astod.' If this be right, the punctuation of the fifth edition is wrong. ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin

... Soul of the World, motive power of Heaven and of the Spheres, it was held, exercises its creative energy chiefly through the medium of the Sun, during his revolution along the signs of the Zodiac, with which signs unite the paranatellons that modify their influence, and concur in furnishing the symbolic attributes of the Great Luminary that regulates Nature and is the depository of her greatest powers. The action of this Universal Soul of the World is displayed ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... Certainly, in Goethe's romances, and even more in the romances of Victor Hugo, we have high examples of modern art dealing thus with modern life, regarding that life as the modern mind must regard it, yet reflecting upon it blitheness and repose. Natural laws we shall never modify, embarrass us as they may; but there is still something in the nobler or less noble attitude with which we watch their fatal combinations. In those romances of Goethe and Victor Hugo, in some excellent work done after them, this [232] entanglement, this network of law, becomes the ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... re-arrangement of the myriad details accessible to all in the writings of Borrow and about Borrow. Such re-arrangement will sometimes heighten the old effects and sometimes modify them. The total impression will, I hope, not be a smaller one, though it must inevitably be softer, less clear, less isolated, less gigantic. I do not wish, and I shall not try, to deface Borrow's portrait of himself; ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... looking into her ardent face with a wonder not unmixed with awe. To his rather cynical view of the Fletchers such an outburst came as little less than a veritable thunderclap, and for the first time in his life he felt a need to modify his conservative theories as to the necessity of blue blood to nourish high ideals. Maria, indeed, seemed to him as she stood there, drawn fine and strong against the curtains of faded green, to hold about her something better than that aroma of ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... has compelled these ill-wishers to modify their most cherished theory of democracy in the United States. They thought that the marvellous energy for military combination, developed by a democracy suddenly emancipated from oppression, such as was presented by the French people in the Revolution of 1789, was not the characteristic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... serrations of the jaws in the Odontopteryx of the London clay being mere processes of the bony substance of the jaws, and not teeth in the proper sense of the word. In view of the characteristics of this bird we are therefore obliged to modify the definitions of the classes of birds and reptiles. Before the discovery of Hesperornis, the definition of the class Aves based upon our knowledge of existing birds, might have been extended to all birds; it might have been said that the ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley

... thoughts to the length of almost forgiving the author of her troubles. But she could not forgive him considered also as the author of her husband's. The Major could not find any forgiveness at all, though the thought of Sally just sufficed to modify the severity of his ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... well with Percy Rimbolt since we saw him last, six or eight months ago, just before Jeffreys' expulsion from the house in Clarges Street. Mrs Rimbolt had some reason to modify her self- congratulations on that occasion, when Percy and Raby, who, it will be remembered, had been out riding at the time, returned home. Percy returned in high spirits; his new horse had turned out a beauty, and the canter ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... principles and recognize a great difference in the expressions of two faces,—one predominant in the lower and the other in the upper portion of the face. That there was any scientific basis for this was entirely unknown before my discoveries of the organs behind the face, which modify its development and expression. My lectures upon this subject in 1842 were attended by the physiognomical writer, Redfield, who derived from them ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various

... vision, or the urgency of his meaning. The meaning was the main thing and had to be beat out, even though to effect this was to make the lines irregular. As I have said in my Schweich Lectures: "If the Hebrew poet be so constantly bent on a rhythm of sense this must inevitably modify his rhythms of sound. If his first aim be to produce lines each more or less complete in meaning, but so as to run parallel to its fellow, it follows that these lines cannot be always exactly regular in length or measure of time. If the governing ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... and ascertain what the Lord means by forgiving a brother. There should not be a little, narrow, grudging forgiveness; it should be large, loving, and free. But parallel with forgiveness there must be faithfulness. Faithfulness to the evil-doer himself, and to the community, comes in here to modify, not the nature, but the ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... whole system tends to the bondage of the servant of Christ. One must be unusually faithful and intrepid if he feels no temptation to keep back or in some degree modify his message in order to please men, when he remembers that the very parties, most open to rebuke and most liable to offence, are perhaps the main contributors toward ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... when he comes around the brow of the mountain, directly above you, the barking is loud and sharp. On he goes along the northern spur, his voice rising and sinking as the wind and the lay of the ground modify it, ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... impulses, each given once and for all time by the Creator. The first of these was an impulse imparted to forms of life, lifting them gradually through higher grades; the second was an impulse tending to modify organic substances in accordance with external circumstances; in fact, the doctrine of the book was evolution tempered by miracle—a stretching out of the creative act through all time—a pious version ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... called to base its attachment to that form of government, on the principle, that it is of Divine right. To maintain, or admit, that other forms of Church government are of Divine original, is to surrender a scriptural truth, to act as if facts in providence could modify the institutes of that society which is essentially spiritual, to become liable to inefficiency in the maintenance of the truth, and to give scope to the unworthy suggestions of those who would contend, that what right even the Church maintains on an improper ground, other communities besides ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham

... with the modification of my soul which is called will, and by some philosophers volition, as with the modifications of bodies. A body does not in the least modify itself, but is modified by the sole power of God. It does not move itself, it is moved; it does not act in anything, it is only acted and actuated. Thus God is the only real and immediate cause of all the different ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon

... only the other extreme of austere abnegation of self for any cause however trivial. Nature is the only guide and I don't believe Nature is bad. Of course the curse of freedom will allow one for a long time to distort and vilely modify natural instincts, but at least one can fly from the too palpable artificial. Dear Poodie, don't sigh. I only let off steam in words—that is safe. I am still a slave to this disgusting civilization and always ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff

... and hours teaching people. I used to think impatiently: "Acting can't be taught." Gradually I learned to modify this conviction and to recognize that there ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... no . . . not quite.' I wanted to explain, to modify, to speak airily of woollens being 'just rubbed through,' but she hurried ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick

... these words were written a book has appeared in Paris by an able disciple of Leibnitz, which, although it does not lead us to modify the opinion expressed in them, yet obliges us to give our reasons for speaking as we do. M. de Careil[P] has discovered in the library at Hanover, a MS. in the hand-writing of Leibnitz, containing a series of remarks on the book of a certain John Wachter. It does not appear who this ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... dull person who devours blue-books and figures may mock at their fribbles; but persons who are tolerant take large and gentle views, and they indulge the dandy, and let him strut for his day unmolested, until the pressing hints given by the years cause him to modify his splendours and sink into unassuming sobriety of demeanour ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... industry, and that the galleons, on their return to the Philippines, instead of loading Spanish manufactures, took back specie for the continuance of their traffic to the extent of three or four millions of pesos each year. The King, however, refused to modify the decree of 1726 until the five years had expired, after which time the Governor was ordered to load the galleons according to the former decree ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... Schleiermacher meets the Rationalist objector on his own ground. In what aspect, he asks, have you considered religion that you so despise it? Have you looked on its outward manifestations only? These the peculiarities of an age or a nation may modify. You should have looked deeper. That which constitutes the religious life has escaped you. Your criticism has dissected a dead creed. That scalpel will never detect a soul. Or will you aver that you have indeed looked upon religion in its inward reality? ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... with an obstinate tenacity, and an extravagant passion, unknown to those quiet philosophers who take up novelties every day, examine them with the sobriety of practised eyes, to lay down altogether, modify in part, or accept in whole, according as inductive experiment supports or ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... self-restraint, minuteness, these high-souled ones make by operations of their own mind, like the gods themselves dwelling in Heaven. Such men are said to have their courses directed upwards. They are veritable gods capable of modifying all things. Attaining to Heaven, they modify all things by their very nature. They get whatever objects they desire and enjoy them.[109] Thus have I, ye foremost of regenerate ones, described to you what that conduct is which appertains to the quality of goodness. Understanding these duly, one acquires ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... though, when you are master of your art, you may modify your outline by making it dark in some parts, light in others, and even sometimes thick and sometimes slender, a scientifically accurate outline is perfectly equal throughout; and in your first practice I wish you to ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin

... environment of our women. As the matter stands they have already too much liberty. The restraining influences which formerly made woman peculiarly a housewife have been, in a measure, removed, and woman mixes freely with the world. Any new duty added to woman as a member of society would modify her environment to some extent and call for increased nervous activity. When a duty like suffrage is added the change in her environment must necessarily be marked and radical, with great demands for an increased activity. ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... with relentless persistency and profound cunning to instil into the nation the demoniacal obsession of power-worship and world-dominion, to modify and pervert the mentality—indeed the very fibre and moral substance—of the German people, a people which until misled, corrupted and systematically poisoned by the Prussian ruling caste, was and deserved to be an honoured, ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn

... must somewhat modify any European model is in the limited training provided for girls. A country which is frankly coeducational in its public schools, state universities and professional colleges, must continue to be so when installing a new educational department to meet the changed ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... modify certain sweeping convictions. He was not conscious of this inner compulsion when he concluded to try and meet Sam Carr without making theology an issue. Somehow this man Carr began to loom in the background of ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... do, that the thing which most needs to be done is to induce Germany to modify its present opinion that the nation must fight for its very life to its last mark and the last drop of its blood. Now, every private letter that I have received from Germany, and every printed circular, pamphlet, ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... native incapacity to do right (total depravity), held by some religious bodies, is antimoral since it denies human freedom. The attempt to modify it by the supposition of divine impartation of moral power is inadequate unless such power is held to be given to every person, and this amounts to an indirect affirmation of freedom and denial of moral impotency. The theory is, however, practically innocuous, ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... Poetry', raisonnement is out of place; in comedy, pathos. Lessing had yielded to the 'whim' of mixing the two. If, therefore, it was desired to make an acceptable stage-play out of 'Nathan' it would be advisable to modify it in the direction of tragedy by reducing its raisonnement, or else to make it more like comedy by reducing its pathos. In other words, theory had given Schiller a point of view which is not the modern point of view. ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... parents do? The wise will study the characters of their children, and modify their treatment accordingly. If a daughter be naturally good, she will be treated with a prudent confidence. If she be vicious, an apparent trust will be reposed in her; but her father and mother will secretly ever be upon their guard. ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... you think that, in such a complicated matter, every day, every hour, doesn't more or less modify one's ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... the return journey would manage to see Miss Madden at her Somerset retreat. For the present, Virginia was to live on at Mrs. Conisbee's, but not in the old way; henceforth she would have proper attendance, and modify her vegetarian diet—at the express bidding of the doctor, as she ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... we find an age of socialistic ideas followed by one of individualistic ideas, and vice versa, and there is much that is valuable in each, in that it tends to modify and disprove the other's ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones

... that the interviewer waited for more? Not she. Leaving him mixed up with his daydream, she took herself off before he could retract, or modify, or in any way spoil ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors

... respecting your interests is a keen regard for your honour. Have concealed in the privacy of your mind a code of what is due to you. Expand or modify it as occasion offers. Be as it were a collector of what are called "slights," and never let one pass you. Watch your friend in doorways, passages; when he eats by you, when he drinks with you, when ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... was a gentleman;—and would have felt himself disgraced to enter the house of such a one as Augustus Melmotte. Not all the duchesses in the peerage, or all the money in the city, could alter his notions or induce him to modify his conduct. But he knew that it would be useless for him to explain this to Lady Carbury. He trusted, however, that one of the family might be taught to appreciate the difference between honour and dishonour. Henrietta Carbury had, he thought, a higher turn of mind than her mother, and had as ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... aggregation. In the observations of physics all the senses are employed, and mathematical analysis and experiment assist observation. In the phenomena of astronomy human intervention was impossible; in the phenomena of physics man begins to modify natural phenomena. ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... his own Environment. His relation to it, however largely determined by Heredity in the first instance, is always open to alteration. And so great is his control over Environment and so radical its influence over him, that he can so direct it as either to undo, modify, perpetuate, or intensify the earlier hereditary influences within certain limits. ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond

... on my title to trouble you for a few words more. I perceive that I shall have a good deal to modify in my modest treatise. I beg you to give us your views on some of the modifications now going on in the East, especially the Turkish question ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... and health of the animal will, of course, modify the digestibility of feeds, as will also the manner and time of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... than probable that the enemy concentrate for a heavy attack on Hancock this afternoon. In case they do we must be prepared to resist them, and follow up any success we may gain, with our whole force. Such a result would necessarily modify ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... the only plausible reason for the deviation. However slight it had been, it had been sufficient to modify the trajectory of the projectile. It was a fatality. The audacious attempt had miscarried by a fortuitous circumstance, and unless anything unexpected happened, the lunar disc could no longer be reached. Would they pass it near enough to resolve ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... over my last night's wine—though you yourself were the pink of good manners, not showing your consciousness of the slip by any ghost of a smile. It occurred to me to write to myself a little something in the way of comfort, and so modify the distress my blunder gave me—prove to myself that it was not absolutely unpardonable for an old man to transgress etiquette so flagrantly before so many witnesses. As to apology, there could be no occasion for that, when one's ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... the conversion rates at which their currencies shall be irrevocably fixed and at which irrevocably fixed rate the ECU shall be substituted for these currencies, and the ECU will become a currency in its own right. This measure shall by itself not modify the external value of the ECU. The Council shall, acting according to the same procedure, also take the other measures necessary for the rapid introduction of the ECU as the single currency of those Member States. 5. If it is decided, according to the procedure set ...
— The Treaty of the European Union, Maastricht Treaty, 7th February, 1992 • European Union

... trouble between The Daily Mail and its enterprising young protege, The Times. It is all on account of the former possibly being compelled to modify its announcement, "Daily net sale six times as large as that of any penny London morning journal," and charges of ingratitude ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various

... indulge. "In presenting the abandonment of armed resistance on the part of the insurgents as the only indispensable condition to ending the war," said the President, "I retract nothing heretofore said as to slavery. . . . While I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation. Nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that Proclamation or by any of the Acts of Congress. If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an Executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... of a Man, shape of a Time, have we in this Abbot Samson and his history; how strangely do modes, creeds, formularies, and the date and place of a man's birth, modify the figure ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... Thus, though we conventionalise practice, we never conventionalise dogma. Here, indeed, we stickle for the letter most inflexibly; yet one would have thought that we might have had greater licence to modify the latter than the former. If we say that the teaching of Christ is not to be taken according to its import—why give it so much importance? Teaching by exaggeration is not a satisfactory method, nor one worthy of ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... blunt motion that the Bill be rejected; and it was only when it had been pressed upon his attention that such a method of disposing of the measure would be a downright insult to the Commons that he consented to modify his proposal into the formal and familiar amendment that the Bill be read a second time this day six months. The effect would be just the same in either case, for no Ministry would think of retaining office ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... in 1882 and 1886 to mere expressions of contingent hope, such (to use Goldwin Smith's own words) 'as any Unionist might have subscribed,'[2] and that Macdonald voted against Mr Curran's substantive resolution in favour of Home Rule in 1887, when he could not modify it, was as well known to Goldwin Smith as to Mr Costigan. In addition, Goldwin Smith possessed indubitable evidence, at first hand, of Sir John Macdonald's sentiments on the subject of Home Rule. During the political campaign of 1886-87 Goldwin ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope

... future preservation of public and other records. Those who occupy official position and who can help to ameliorate this increasing evil, should begin to do so without delay. Abroad England, Germany and France and at home Massachusetts and Connecticut have sought to modify these conditions by legislation and our National Treasury Department only last year, in establishing a standard for its ink, gives official ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... miles to be mended could often be saved if some of the laboratory force could seal on a new stopcock, replace a broken tube, or make some temporary repairs. Many men in physical or chemical laboratories have occasion to modify some piece of apparatus designed perhaps for other uses, or to design new apparatus. To such also, the ability to perform some of the operations herein described may ...
— Laboratory Manual of Glass-Blowing • Francis C. Frary

... to his strategic conception to draw the enemy on at all points until a favorable situation was created from which to assume the offensive, Gen. Joffre found it necessary to modify from day to day the methods by which he sought to attain this object, owing to the development of the enemy's plans and ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... they despised was not the real, but the usual. Now the usual, of the sort thus despised, happens to represent the necessities of our organisms and of that wider organism which we call circumstances. We may modify it, always in the direction in which it tends spontaneously to evolve; but we cannot subvert it. You might as well try to subvert gravitation: "Je m'en suis apercu etant par terre," is the only result, as in Moliere's ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... nearly exact than the assertion. Every novelist whose work is to endure even for a generation must draw from life, sometimes generalizing broadly and sometimes keeping close to the single individual, but always free to modify the mere fact as he may have observed it to conform with the larger truth of the fable he shall devise. Most story-tellers tend to generalize, and their fictions lack the sharpness of outline we find in nature. Daudet prefers to retain as much of the actual individual as he dares ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... his rent in a part of the crop, and the government in turn receives a share of this rent in lieu of taxes. This is an ancient system which the British government has never interfered with, and any attempt to modify or change it would undoubtedly be resisted. At the same time the rents are largely regulated by the taxes. These customs, which have come down from the Mogul empire, have been defined and strengthened by time and experience. Nearly every province ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... exercise mildly their bodies, and freshen the colours of their outlook on life. Such people like to live comfortably, work little, and enjoy existence lazily. Instead of modifying themselves to fit the life of the wilderness, they modify their city methods to fit open-air conditions. They do not need to strip to the contest, for contest there is none, and Indian packers are cheap at a dollar a day. But even so the problem of the greatest comfort—defining ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... unconstitutional. The first draft of his inaugural was so wantonly offensive to the anti-slavery Whigs who had aided in his election, that even Mr. Clay condemned it, and prevailed on the General to modify it. He had declared that "the schemes of the Abolitionists were fraught with horrors, upon which an incarnate devil only could look with approbation." With such candidates the hour had fairly struck for anti-slavery men, who believed in the use of the ballot, to launch the grand movement ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... plots against us? It was that, as it seemed to them, and as indeed it actually may have been, we, independently of our own wills, stood between Germany and that world empire of which she dreamed. This was caused by circumstances over which we had no control and which we could not modify if we had wished to do so. Britain, through her maritime power and the energy of her merchants and people, had become a great world power when Germany was still unformed. Thus, when she had grown to her full stature, ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... against error, though her infallible utterances would seem incredibly few, if summed up and presented to the more ignorant of her critics. She also claims to derive from her Founder legislative power by which she can make decrees, unmake them or modify and vary them to suit different times and circumstances. She rightfully claims the obedience of her children to this exercise of her authority, but such disciplinary enactments, by their very nature variable and modifiable, do not and cannot come within the province ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... exception of three or four lines, this song, though marked in the Museum as an old song with additions, is the work of Burns. He often seems to have sat down to amend or modify old verses, and found it easier to make ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... Pembroke passed his happy and industrious life. His technical position was that of master to a form low down on the Modern Side. But his work lay elsewhere. He organized. If no organization existed, he would create one. If one did exist, he would modify it. "An organization," he would say, "is after all not an end in itself. It must contribute to a movement." When one good custom seemed likely to corrupt the school, he was ready with another; he believed that without innumerable customs there was no safety, either ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster



Words linked to "Modify" :   hue, laicize, fill up, glamorize, better, amend, change over, eroticize, elevate, bemire, eternalise, acetylize, indispose, charge, change, begrime, decentralise, colour in, accelerate, domesticize, digitize, Frenchify, animalise, internationalise, allegorize, accustom, demagnetize, exasperate, colourize, immortalize, legitimate, counterchange, animate, deaden, digitalize, hop up, animalize, feminise, classicize, centralise, eternalize, end, bolshevize, energise, deactivate, dope, contribute, detransitivize, hide, Americanize, alienate, get, harmonise, colourise, drop, animise, compensate, dynamize, decentralize, alien, dry, classicise, domesticise, check, externalize, decarboxylate, boil, decimalize, cook, flocculate, deprave, equate, even, excite, freshen, dinge, denaturalize, invalidate, fatten, grace, decrease, glamorise, exchange, emulsify, customise, fat, blister, increase, archaize, diabolize, fertilise, energize, glamourise, extend, industrialise, blind, improve, inflate, embellish, internationalize, constitutionalize, optimize, ionate, alkalinize, ash, automatise, denationalize, affect, fill out, gelatinize, depersonalize, dissolve, depersonalise, digitise, barb, incapacitate, concentrate, civilise, edit out, brutalise, alcoholise, devilise, specialise, Islamise, etherialise, activate, edit, restrict, capture, demulsify, antiquate, contract, devilize, commute, alchemise, defog, demoralise, cool, optimise, antique, draw, communize, equal, delay, cut, conventionalize, dismiss, devalue, hydrogenate, enable, isomerize, fecundate, chill, fill, denationalise, disharmonize, bestow, acetylate, introvert, condense, individualize, archaise, angulate, blear, harmonize, Europeanise, heat, circularize, denaturalise, disenable, decorate, confuse, debase, assimilate, incandesce, crack, color in, commercialise, disorder, flesh out, embrittle, deconcentrate, colorise, democratize, disqualify, interchange, deflate, disturb, elaborate, debauch, cool down, automate, deodorize, camp, disaffect, arterialise, effeminise, beautify, effeminize, de-emphasise, achromatize, humanise, demonize, conventionalise, immortalise, decelerate, colour, depolarize, break down, iodinate, invert, laicise, ease up, glamourize, empty, deodorise, civilize, inspissate, cohere, damage, develop, constitutionalise, ease off, immaterialise, decrepitate, dry out, destabilise, disable, bubble, change intensity, alcoholize, Europeanize, fix, animize, achromatise, corrupt, bring, dynamise, commix, update, color, demythologize, beef up, communise, chord, complicate, contaminate, fatten out, diabolise, brutalize, inflect, coagulate, humanize, inseminate, habituate, externalise, eternize, eternise, dissimilate, break, etiolate, full, demoralize, alkalinise, arterialize, dissonate, disarray, fasten, aerate, Islamize, exacerbate, expand, demythologise, dehydrogenate, deform, adjust, digitalise, envenom, evaporate, grime, clarify, industrialize, clot, centralize, bedim, colorize, break up, cream, land, hot up, humble, specialize, bestialize, attemper, domesticate, degauss, chasten, gelatinise, commercialize, lace, deaminate, estrange, deaminize, depress, intransitivise, impact, fortify, flatten, gear up, desensitize, colly, alchemize, syncopate, desensitise, bolshevise, denature, fatten up, correct, discolor, intensify, soup up, awaken, ameliorate, deodourise, change taste, fertilize, demonise, intransitivize, adorn, buffer, individualise, equalize, feminize, exteriorise, automatize, blur, detransitivise, glorify, even out, cushion, cloud, blot out, harshen, democratise, inactivate, age, insulate, barbarise, modifier, arouse, aggravate, inform, allegorise, dull, harden, grammar, demist, bestialise, diversify, exteriorize, disintegrate, collimate, barbarize, destress, cry, customize, immaterialize, depolarise, freeze, calcify, dizzy, bear upon, amalgamate, brighten, crush, demagnetise, de-emphasize, darken, clean, Americanise, impart, spoil, blunt, acetylise, decimalise, etherealize, equalise, bear on, form, cause to sleep, destabilize, clear, acerbate, convert, isomerise, dirty, add, coarsen, heat up



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com