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Natural   /nˈætʃərəl/  /nˈætʃrəl/   Listen
Natural

noun
1.
Someone regarded as certain to succeed.
2.
A notation cancelling a previous sharp or flat.  Synonym: cancel.
3.
(craps) a first roll of 7 or 11 that immediately wins the stake.



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"Natural" Quotes from Famous Books



... Lucy's natural penetration and habit of attending to faces rather than words came to her aid. "Wait a minute, Mrs. Wilson," said she; "I think there is some misunderstanding here. Perhaps the fault is mine. And yet I remember more than one nursery-maid that ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... the higher life. Now Christianity, in going forward, had accepted from the Indo-Germanic races that sense of God in nature, as well as God above nature, which has always been native with those races. It took up natural religion into monotheism. But in taking it up, it went so far as to lose something of the true unity of God. Its doctrine of the Trinity, at least in its Oriental forms, lost the pure personal monotheism ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... marble garments clapping; St. Michael, descending upon the Fiend, has been caught and bronzified just as he lighted on the Castle of St. Angelo: his enemy doubtless fell crushing through the roof and so downwards. He is as natural as blank verse—that bronze angel-set, rhythmic, grandiose. You'll see, some day or other, he's a great sonnet, sir, I'm sure of that. Milton wrote in bronze; I am sure Virgil polished off his Georgics in marble—sweet calm shapes! exquisite harmonies of line! As for the Aeneid; that, sir, I consider ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to detect the influence of a philosophic idea there, the idea of a natural economy, of some pre-existent adaptation, between a relative, somewhere in the world of thought, and its correlative, somewhere in the world of language—both alike, rather, somewhere in the mind of the artist, ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater

... her manner—a mixture of shyness and diffidence with self-reliance and decisiveness, quite peculiar to herself. Her look, 'brimful of everything,' seemed to win sympathy and to command respect. Without marked accomplishments, unless that of singing most sweetly, with a good taste and natural power that were always evident, she had a passion for books, about which, however, she was particularly silent, as she dreaded anything like pretensions to literature. Her talent and quickness made everything easy to her, and she seemed to get through all she had to do with great facility. ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby

... quality than when heard at a distance of forty or fifty yards. When he had finished calling and flown away I crept out of my hole and walked back over the wet heath, thinking now of the cuckoo and now of that half natural, half supernatural but not very sublime being who, as I have said, was formerly a haunter of these parts. This was a question that puzzled my mind. It is easy to say that legends of the Devil are common enough all over the land, and date back to old monkish ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... rhetorical diction, or of aspiring to decorate my style of composition with studied embellishments, MY PURPOSE HAS SIMPLY AND UNIFORMLY BEEN TO RELATE FACTS IN THE MOST PLAIN AND ARTLESS MANNER; and I trust that my description of scenes and occurrences will be admitted to be natural and free from affectation; and my inferences, to be pertinent, impartial, and illustrative. I hope, too, that it will not be thought that the detail of circumstances is needlessly particular, and the relation of incidents too minute. For, these, though seemingly inconsiderable, ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... now I think otherwise—I think a parent has a right to say no, if he pleases, upon that point; for you see, sir, a lad, at the early age at which he goes to sea, does not know his own mind. Every high-spirited boy wishes to go to sea—it's quite natural; but if the most of them were to speak the truth, it is not that they so much want to go to sea, as that they want to go from school or from home, where they are under the control of ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat

... difficult, if not impossible, to check the operation of an economic law, and it is perfectly natural that men should seek fields of labor in which they are promised higher wages and better conditions, but those who go and those who encourage the going of them should get the facts of the so-called inducements and learn the truth ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott

... kept by Edward IV. with great magnificence, the king's natural inclinations leading him to adopt whatever was splendid and costly. "At the Christmas festivities he appeared in a variety of most costly dresses, of a form never seen before, which he thought displayed his person ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... suggestion. It'll be hard to find because there will be only traces of a plan, all put in so that it looks like natural, logical reasoning." ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... by the expectant gaze of the room, and the Justice's impatience, was divided between a natural generosity, which was one of his oddities, and a suspicion born of his profession. He liked Sir George; his smaller manhood went out in admiration to the other's splendid personality. On the other hand, he ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... natural statement'; these, Mr. Smith," said the man wha first took haud o' me; "but ye'll observe we're no bound to believe them. All that we have to do, is to execute our duty. If you are wronged, you may have your redress by legal process. In the meantime, ye ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... puffed up. There are no feelings of self-importance in the heart when the love of God is abounding. We love him so devotedly we desire him to receive all the praise. Should God make some use of you it will be natural to ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... only say, sir, what I am telling you is precisely what happened, and that I absolutely believed it. It seemed to me a natural thing that a young officer might come to a ball to see a lady who perhaps he had no other opportunity of meeting alone. I see now that I was very foolish to allow myself to be mixed up in the affair; but I thought ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... arches of crude brick, but long practice enabled their architects to use that unsatisfactory material with a skill of which we had no suspicion before the exhumation of Nineveh. Thanks to its natural qualities and to the experienced knowledge with which it was prepared, their clay was tough and plastic to a degree that astonished the modern explorers on more than one occasion. The arched galleries ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... that they commemorated his resurrection, by observing the Lord's day, the question comes up, How did they come to believe that he was risen from the dead? Could a few despised strangers, or a few citizens if you will, persuade such a community, purely by natural means, to believe such a report, to care whether the Syrian Jew died or rose, or to commemorate weekly, by a solemn religious service, either his death or resurrection? It is evident they believed what they commemorated. How did they come ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... Deserted you; those cheeks, which were before The seat of virtuous, blushing modesty, Glowed with the flames of unrestrained desire. You cast away the veil of secrecy, And the flagitious daring of the man O'ercame your natural coyness: you exposed Your shame, unblushingly, to public gaze: You let the murderer, whom the people followed With curses, through the streets of Edinburgh, Before you bear the royal sword of Scotland In triumph. You begirt your parliament With armed bands; ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... he spoke," thought Carey; "just as if he didn't like what I said. Of course, I don't want to stay here, but to go on to Brisbane to see them. Only, after being shut up like a cripple so long, it's natural to want to go ashore on this island and see what the place is like. I say, Bob," he cried, going to the side, "do you think there's a volcano—a burning mountain, up yonder where the clouds hang ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn

... always prefer this place to Bracondale—eh? It is but natural, because you are among your ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... and power. "These cannibal Bassonga were, according to the types we met with, one of those rare nations of the African interior which can be classed with the most esthetic and skilled, most discreet and intelligent of all those generally known to us as the so-called natural races. Before the Arabic and European invasion they did not dwell in 'hamlets,' but in towns with twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants, in towns whose highways were shaded by avenues of splendid palms planted ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois

... in many ways. For example, when a school-book is illustrated, how much more easily we understand the subject we are studying through the help we get from pictures of objects or places that we have not seen, and yet wish to know about. Pictures of natural scenery bring all countries before our eyes in such a way that by looking at them, while reading books of travel, we may know a great deal more about lands we have never seen, and may never ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement

... ancestor impure, For this we may thank Adam! but his thanks Shall be the execration: so, besides Mine own that bide upon me, all from me Shall with a fierce reflux on me rebound; On me, as on their natural center, light Heavy, though in their place. O fleeting joys Of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes! Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me Man? did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me, or here place In this delicious garden? As my will Concurred not to my being, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... world hang to-day bits of the beautiful lanes and wooded spots of "The Island of Nightingales." The American artist, William M. Chase, took his pupils there almost annually. "In all the world to-day," he declared to his students, as they exclaimed at the natural cool restfulness of the island, "there is no ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok

... part, felt repelled by him. He was gaunt and lean, and the state of his garments had shocked her. His hands were hard and battered. She was very dainty, and in some respects unduly sensitive, and it did not occur to her that it would have been more natural if, in place of shrinking, she had been sensible only of a tender pity for him. Perhaps there were excuses for her attitude. She had never been brought into contact with the grim realities of life, and it is only from those whom that befalls that one can expect the wide sympathy which ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... thinking strongly of taking a house in the country for himself and family, and asked the Colonel whether he could not suggest some part of the State that might suit him. Colonel Carter mentioned Clarke County as representing the natural-grass section of Virginia, and Gloucester County the salt-water. My father unhesitatingly pronounced in favour of the grass-growing country. He told Mrs. Carter how pleased he was to hear that she had received ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... himself! The comparisons which he himself had drawn so lately between the life of Paris and life in the provinces faded from his mind with the more painful motives for suicide; he was about to return to his natural sphere, and this time with a protector, a political ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... muttered Eliphalet. "It would have been natural for one of those old southerners who hadn't any confidence in Jeff Davis to plant his money in some lonely ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... me, Aubrey?" "No! I never doubted you. But I wondered whether your force would hold out, whether you might not be intimidated, whether you might not temporize, which would have been natural enough—whether you might not have used some little social art or grace to cover up and disguise the absoluteness of your resolve—but no! You were a heroine in the fight, and you gave your blows straight from the hilt, without flinching. You have ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... was thus on the wrong side of the valley. It was wanted on the other side, in order to be a water-bulwark against an Asiatic invader. The founder, therefore, before building his city, undertook a gigantic work. He raised a great embankment across the natural course of the river; and, forcing it from its bed, made it enter a new channel and run midway down the valley, or, if anything, rather towards its eastern side. He thus obtained the bulwark against invasion that he required, and he had an ample site ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... round of lunches, dinners, balls, operas, theatres, card-parties, and inane jabber," he answered. "A mixture of various kinds of food which people eat recklessly with the natural results,—dyspepsia, inertia, mental vacuity, and general uselessness. A few Court 'functions,' some picture shows, and two or three great races—and—that's all. Some unfortunate marriages are usually the result of ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... received from their employers; hardships connected with money earned but not paid, or only in part; the ups and downs of the daily struggle for bread; these naturally form the burning questions of the day, and they are the natural topics of conversation amongst men and women. The very scarcity of money intensifies the temptation to think too much of it when it has been acquired. It is not uncommon to hear the critic of the Indian Christian ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... alone here, is seldom seen, and won't go anywhere or receive anyone. That's not natural in a pretty girl. Paul won't talk about her, and, though he's fond of her, he always looks grave and grim when I ask questions. That's provoking, and I won't hear it. Maud is engaged to Raleigh, you know; well, he confided to her that he and a friend ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott

... had small regard for tears, And not much sympathy for blood, survey'd The women with their hair about their ears And natural agonies, with a slight shade Of feeling: for however habit sears Men's hearts against whole millions, when their trade Is butchery, sometimes a single sorrow Will touch even ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... trouble in distinguishing the pupils of the teachers holding this view. They will be found to exhibit the most negative mental condition—a natural result of absorbing the constant suggestion of "nothingness"—the gospel of negation. In marked contrast to the mental condition of the students, however, will be observed the mental attitude of the teachers, who are almost uniformly examples of vital, positive, mental force, capable of ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... vice rewarded, justice and innocence trodden under foot, as is the custom of men. Conduct him through the wild and terrible scenes of human life; let him mistake its aim, and lose among its horrors the guiding thread of virtue. And when he stands separated from all natural and heavenly ties, in doubt concerning the noble destination of his race,—when even pleasure and enjoyment have left him, and the inward worm awakes,—then depict to him, with infernal bitterness, the consequences of his deeds and delusions, ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

... said, "I believe that you are honest. I do indeed recognise your point of view. The thing is an absurdity, but, you know, all conventions, even the most foolish, have some human and natural right beneath them. I think that the convention which forbids a woman accepting money from a man, however close a friend, is like that. Frankly, my first impulse, a few minutes ago, was to ask you to lend me a thousand pounds. Now I know that ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... troubles of her later years may be clearly traced. And it is difficult to avoid agreeing with her rather than with her mother, and thinking the most entire freedom of intercourse between the king and his nearest relations as desirable as it was natural. Royalty is, as the empress herself described it, a burden sufficiently heavy, without its weight being augmented by observances and restrictions which would leave the rulers without a single friend even among the members of their own family. And probably the empress herself might have seen ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... ship neber come?" frequently ejaculated Nub. He was losing patience, and it was but natural. "The biscuits and water will soon be all gone, and den what shall we do?" he thought to himself; but he did not say that aloud, lest Alice ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... thread of the Greek mind vibrating strangely in him. At fifteen he is discoursing on Plotinus, and has translated the hymns of Synesius. So in later years he reflects from Schelling the flitting tradition. He conceives a subtle co-ordination between the ideas of the mind and the laws of the natural world. Science is to be attained, not by observation, analysis, generalization, but by the evolution or recovery of those ideas from within, by a sort of [Greek: anamnesis], every group of observed facts remaining an enigma ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... live. For its curves and vaultings, its cupolas mutually supported, the weight of each carried by all; the very colour of the marbles, brown, blond, living colours, and the irregular symmetry, flower-like, of their natural patterning, are all seemingly organic and ready for life. Time has added that, with the polish and dimming alternately of the marbles, the billowing of the pavement, the slanting of the columns, and last, but not ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... very well-informed man. He had not read and studied books as much as I had, and he had not had my advantages of direct intercourse with learned men; but he was a most earnest and indefatigable student of nature. I believe he knew more about natural history than any human being then living, or who had preceded him. Whenever it was possible for him to do so, he studied animal nature from the living model, and all the beasts, birds, and fishes which it was possible for him to obtain alive were ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton

... Probability Level; typical of the whole paratime belt I was working in." Verkan Vall handed it over for inspection. "The bowl's natural brier-root; the stem's a sort of plastic made from the sap of certain tropical trees. The little white dot is the maker's trademark; it's made ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper

... the person who jumps into the Thames and pulls a woman out, or the interesting inanity of a popular serial. There is nothing essentially heroic in life-saving. Indeed, all the old heroes of Norseland, Rome, and Greece regarded the saving of life with a contempt that was only natural when we consider the utter lack of board schools and their frantic belief in a hereafter. I imagine the Norse Sea-kings who pushed out to Vine-land—aye, even down to Cape Cod—would have been puzzled to hear an undersized clerk who had saved a man from a watery grave described as a hero. ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... natural formation of most people's noses allows them to see straight down beneath an ordinary bandage. I doubt if one child out of a hundred who plays 'Blind Man's Buff' is really unable ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells

... passage of Cicero, quoted by Dr. Vincent, in his Periplus, in which the same sentiments are expressed: he says, "Is such a man, who was a merchant and neighbour of Scipio, greater than Scipio because he is richer?" Pliny, also, though in his natural history he expatiates in praise of agriculture and gardening, medicine, painting and statuary, passes over merchandize with the simple observation that it was invented by the Phoenicians. In the periplus of the Erythrean sea, and in ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... latter was made perhaps a little excessive by strain of feelings. Alice at once came to the conclusion that Dick's future wife was cold and supercilious. She was not predisposed to like Adela. The circumstances were in a number of ways unfavourable. Even had there not existed the very natural resentment at the painful task which this young lady had indirectly imposed upon her, it was not in Alice's blood and breeding to take kindly at once to a girl of a class above her own. Alice had ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... pretty things, nor made any effort to say witty things. They behaved towards her with a sort of obsequious reverence, which was the fashion of that day much more than of this; and Betty liked far better a manner which never made pretence of anything, was thoroughly natural and perfectly well-bred, but which frankly paid more honour to his mother than to herself. She admired Pitt's behaviour to his mother. Even to his mother it had less formality than was the custom of the day; while it gave her every delicate little attention and every possible graceful ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... girl drove across a kind of natural meadow to a hillside not far distant, gathered a double handful of wild flowers, and turned homeward again. The stage was still there when she came in sight of the group of buildings at ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... combined to strike sparks of fancy and inspirit the task of composition at night. This new, strange, solitary life, cut off from her adulatory society, both by the shock that made the abyss and by the utter foreignness, threw her in upon her natural forces, recasting her, and thinning away her memory of her past days, excepting girlhood, into the remote. She lived with her girlhood as with a simple little sister. They were two in one, and she corrected the dreams of the younger, protected and counselled ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... a servant of the master of the house than she was. The State has taken control of the souls of her children, and she has not even that authority that she had twenty years ago. The father has become even more important than of yore. The natural tendency of a nation of which almost every man is a soldier, is to elevate the man at the expense of the woman, and the German woman has taken to her new position very readily. She plays her wonderful part in the production of munitions, ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... early visit this morning, some of them evidently bent on mischief, but were restrained by others more prudent—not, however, before it had nearly cost one of them his life; having pointed a spear at Mr. Moore, Dugel, whose natural instincts are very destructive, hastily took aim at him, but fortunately pulled the wrong trigger, which just gave his adversary time to lower his weapon; on our mounting our horses they hastily fell ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory

... by chemical agencies he was deeply interested. When a newspaper writer commented that a "consensus of opinion among biologists" would probably rate Dr. Loeb as a man of lively imagination rather than an inerrant investigator of natural phenomena, he felt called to chaff ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... from making poetry of it in this passage, has vulgarised and blurred by it the natural and inevitable emotion of terror and pity. Famished wolves howking up the dead is a dreadful image—but "inhuman to relate," is not an expression heavily laden with meaning; and the sudden, abrupt, violent, and, as we feel, unnatural introduction of ideas purely superstitious, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... said, "it's natural to take on, but you'll be better soon, when you get down to the farm alonger Agnetta. You must think of all you've got to be thankful for. And now I should relish a cup o' tea, for I started away early; so we'll go down and you'll get it for me, I dessay. ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton

... God ruling over the world of matter and the world of mind, revealed religion, as her spirit encountered it, consisted only in gorgeous pageants, and ridiculous dogmas, and puerile traditions. The spirit of piety and pure devotion she could admire. Her natural temperament was serious, reflective, and prayerful. Her mind, so far as religion was concerned, was very much in the state of that of any intellectual, high-minded, uncorruptible Roman, who renounced, without ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... its own express and telegraph companies. Its car-shops provided much of its rolling stock. Grain elevators were built at terminal points. In the later years a systematic policy of developing its western lands was adopted. A special department of Natural Resources was established, irrigation works were begun on a huge scale in the tract of three million acres between Calgary and Medicine Hat, and ready-made farms were provided or loans made ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton

... the deed, and gave up the plunder of the place to the soldiery, concluding that the Sicilians, deterred by this example, would refrain from betraying their garrisons. As this city was situated in the heart of Sicily, and was distinguished both on account of the remarkable strength of its natural situation, and because every part of it was rendered sacred by the traces it contained of the rape of Proserpine of old, the news of its disaster spread though the whole of Sicily in nearly one day, and as people considered that by this horrid massacre violence had ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... pathos, the tedious burlesque, the more tedious jactation which disfigure his work. A man writing against time may be driven to dulness, or commonplace, or inelegance of style; but he need never commit any of the faults just noticed. They were due beyond doubt, in Wilson's case, to a natural idiosyncrasy, the great characteristic of which Carlyle has happily hit off in the phrase, "want of a tie-beam," whether he has or has not been charitable in suggesting that the missing link was supplied ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... majority were not. Incidentally we now found out that Hugesson Gastrell had never been in Australia, nor yet in Tasmania, and that the story of his having been left a fortune by an uncle was wholly without foundation. The natural son of well-to-do people in Yorkshire, he had been launched penniless on the world to make his way as best he could, and the rapidity with which he had increased his circle of acquaintance among rich and useful people from the time he had become a member of the gang had been not the least remarkable ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... falling to the ground twenty feet below, as would have been natural, and lying there, a mangled body, Columbia hung to the wire, a mad, fantastic, incredible spectacle, head downward, in a blaze of inverted ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... storks faced the rising sun, and bowed their long necks three times. "Matabor!" they solemnly cried, together; and in an instant they were no longer storks, but stood before each other in their natural forms. In their joy they fell on each other's necks and forgot all about the screech owl, until they heard a sweet voice beside them, and turning beheld a beautiful Princess. When the Caliph recovered from his astonishment ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... if one looked back with pleasure on summer mornings and evenings. No doubt those languages, like all others, have fared hard at the hands of pedants; and there are active boys who hate all study, and others who love the natural sciences alone. Indeed, it is a hasty assumption, that the majority of boys hate Latin and Greek. I find that most college graduates, at least, retain some relish for the memory of such studies, even if they have utterly lost the power to masticate or digest them. "Though they speak ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various

... ariM] denotes the fulness of light or salvation, comp. chap. xxvi. 19; [Hebrew: b] is, in both instances, used in a local sense. The light is the spiritual territory; the isles of the sea, the natural. ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... nowadays are a pack of fools, a pack of fools!" said the man. His long, rather handsome face, a face which should have been mild in its natural state was twisted into a thousand sardonic wrinkles. "A pack of fools!" he repeated. "Here they'll go and hire a little whippersnapper like that every time, instead of a man who has had experience and knows how to do the work, just because he's young. Young! What's ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Ill fare our Ancestor impure, For this we may thank Adam; but his thanks Shall be the execration; so besides Mine own that bide upon me, all from mee Shall with a fierce reflux on mee redound, On mee as on thir natural center light 740 Heavie, though in thir place. O fleeting joyes Of Paradise, deare bought with lasting woes! Did I request thee, Maker, from my Clay To mould me Man, did I sollicite thee From darkness to promote me, or here place In this delicious Garden? as my Will Concurd not to my being, it were ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... their independence, they became one of the most formidable of maritime powers. In the course of another century Holland possessed more colonies, and had a larger share of the carrying trade of the world than Britain. It was natural therefore that the Dutch republic should take an interest in the North-west passage; and the Dutch sailors, by their enterprise and bravery, were among the first to point the way to Arctic discovery. Barents ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... causing him to remain mortal, from the beginning of the world to its end. Do you imagine that I, who despoiled the whole world, cannot at present give counsel which will serve for a paltry islet? And cannot I, who cheated Eve in Paradise, vanquish Anne in Britain? If no natural craft will avail, and continued experience for more than five thousand years, my counsel to you is, to dress up your daughter Hypocrisy, to deceive Britain and its queen; you have not a daughter in the world, so useful ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... library to Lucia. But after all Sir Frederick had some respect for the family tradition. When it seemed only too likely that a woman would inherit the Harden Library, he stepped in and saved it from that supreme disgrace by the happy expedient of a bill of sale. Otherwise his natural inclination would have been to leave it to his daughter, for whom he had more or less affection, rather than to his nephew, for whom he ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... had moved up to the seat once glorified by the dignity of Miss Elvira Snowden, was serving the cold corned beef; while opposite her, in the chair where Elizabeth Berry used to sit, Mrs. Aurora Chase was ladling forth the preserved pears. And, in the absence of the matron, it was of course natural that conversation should turn to subjects which could not be discussed as freely or ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... which was sent to Calvin, Servetus rejected the doctrine of natural, vital, and animal spirits, as contained in the veins, arteries, and nerves respectively, and made the all-important statement that the fluids contained in veins and arteries are the same. He showed also that the blood is ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... occasionally in England before the Conquest, but the weight of evidence shows that they were either adopted in England as French names or were corrupted in form by the Norman scribes and officials. To take other examples, our Tibbald, Tibbles, Tibbs suggest the Fr. Thibaut rather than the natural development of Anglo-Sax. Thiudbeald, i.e. Theobald; and Ralph, Relf, Roff, etc., show the regular Old French development of Raedwulf, Radolf. Tibaut Wauter, i.e. Theobald Walter, who lived in Lancashire in 1242, had both his names ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... occurred to me, as an object of curiosity, to dig up the mouldering bones of the Culprit, which I considered as the most revolting of all objects. The thing was, however, done last month, and a discovery made of one of the greatest natural phenomena that I have heard of in ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... headquarters: '"City of Thebes" is to go to Baltimore.' Another palace here, sir, waiting for you." And so we were trans-shipped into such chairs and berths as might have been left in this other palace, as not wanted by anybody in the great law of natural selection; and the "City of Thebes" went to Baltimore, I suppose. The promises which had been made to us when we bought our tickets went to their place, and the people who made them went ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... chaste spouses; they always think on him, and place all their desires on him; but those who love the earth are earthly in their thoughts and affections, their corrupt inclinations gain such a mastery, that they seem natural to them. Vigilance is absolutely necessary to remove this insinuating enemy; and purity of conscience begets prudence, which can never be found under the tyranny of the passions, and which is the eye that guides the soul through the craggy paths of this life. Pure souls are ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... the ordinary routine of the professions and the ordinary curriculum of business life is a species of slavery. We live in overcivilized times. There seems to be very little room anywhere for a man to gratify his natural instincts ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and passed; dull September followed suit; dreary October ensued, in the natural cycle of the seasons; foggy, suicidal November came; and yet, she ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... hostess too, for by a tacit agreement he had roused himself from his habitual abstraction, and had assumed many of Margaret's little household duties. While he moved about he was deep in conversation with the young sailor, trying to extract from him any circumstances connected with the natural history of the different ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... Prussians could understand one another, and knew their own interests, or if the French had a liberal national Government, I mean, one more identified with the interests of the people than the present one is, what advantage might not rise therefrom? They are natural allies, and united they might be able effectually to humble the overbearing insolence and political coxcombry of the Czar, shake to its centre the systematic despotism and light-fearing leader of Austria, and keep in check the commercial greediness, monopolizing ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... to a form of government subjecting its inhabitants to institutions abhorrent to their souls and fatal to their prosperity, forced upon them at the point of the bowie-knife and the muzzle of the revolver by hordes of sordid barbarians from a hostile soil, their natural and necessary enemies. And the sweet harbinger of this blessed peace, the halcyon which broods over the stormy waves and tells of the calm at hand, is a bribe so cunningly devised that its contrivers firmly believe it will buy up the souls of these much-injured men, and reconcile them to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... emancipation of mind and speech from schoolgirl habits. A defensive assumption of impertinent reserve, varied by fits of superficial garrulity, gave way to real thoughtfulness, to natural amiability. Then came, too, an emboldenment of the facial outline, a constancy to the colour of the cheeks, a certainty of gait, and the first perceptible roundness of contour ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... fixed and general among them, that death was but the entrance into another life; that all men who lived lazy and inactive lives, and died natural deaths, by sickness, or by age, went into vast caves under ground, all dark and miry, full of noisom creatures, usual in such places, and there forever grovelled in endless stench and misery. On the contrary, all who gave themselves to warlike actions and enterprises, ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby

... impressive an object lesson for the instructions that followed, that smitten tree has proved of greater service to humanity than have all the fig orchards of Bethphage.[1083] To the apostles the act was another and an indisputable proof of the Lord's power over nature, His control of natural forces and all material things, His jurisdiction over life and death. He had healed multitudes; the wind and the waves had obeyed His words; on three occasions He had restored the dead to life; it was fitting that He should demonstrate His power to smite and to destroy. In manifesting His ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... military force to depend upon, and he ruled the country through the missionaries. His tenure of office was embittered by the constant opposition of the Company at Wellington, as well as by the difficulties natural to such a position; and he was harassed into his grave within two years of his arrival. But this period may be looked upon as the climax of missionary influence in New Zealand. After 1842, mission work went on extending, but the old workers no longer occupied the forefront ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... and blue one puts under water all that one wishes but a general who goes and examines it, as I have done, finds in divers places distances of a mile where these little rivers, which are supposed to inundate the country, are quite snug in their natural bed, larger than usual, but not enough to hinder the enemy in any way in the world from making bridges." Fort Louis was surrounded, and Villars found himself obliged to retire upon Strasburg, whence he protected Elsass during the whole ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... emerged from the shadow of the woods, and come in sight of her father's house. Claxon was standing coatless before the door in full enjoyment of the late afternoon air; his wife beside him, at sight of Gregory, quelled a natural impulse to run round the corner of the house from ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... properly arranged. Indeed, he was a prisoner—taken in battle—though his name did not appear on the lists. So Vincent's sudden going was welcomed as a stroke of good fortune. The Atterburys, understanding the natural feelings of the family, made only perfunctory opposition. Olympia and Kate were to remain until their brothers' fates were decided. Vincent, who had been for weeks wildly impatient to return to the field, was divided in mind now—by joy and despair. He had put off and put off a last appeal to ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... the near Salem beaches and points, or to the pleasant lanes of Danvers or across the river to the upland or seashore of Beverly. He occasionally drove a dozen miles or more to Ipswich, Nahant, or Andover. What he saw, however, was only rustic life of the countryside, or the natural views of wood and sky and sea, with the nearer objects to attract particular attention, of which he has left so many minute descriptions. His observation at such times, though without the naturalist's preoccupation,—rather ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... proclaimed slave in his dominions. Worse than this, however, remained behind: the proposed measure not only hurt the feelings of the monarch, it touched his title. It was a bill to reverse the attainder which had been passed upon Popery, and the natural consequences of this reversal were obvious. The privileges of Protestantism were the title-deeds of the royal family to the throne, the actual transfer of the estate which the king held in parliament and in the country. It was Protestant ascendancy now become a term of reproach, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... is naturally prone To evil from his youth, as Scripture doth recite,[33] It is necessary that he be speedily withdrawn From concupiscence of sin, his natural appetite: An[34] order to bring up youth Ecclesiasticus doth write,— An untamed horse will be hard, saith he, And a wanton ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley

... and bolted across country. But Charlie, of course, had no intention of acting the highway robber. He unharnessed the horse, and turning him round started him off in the direction from which he had come. But the horse knew that his stable was at Kwang-ngan, and had a very natural objection to being sent in the reverse direction. After trotting about twenty yards he turned round, and, breaking into a gallop, approached Charlie, who stood in the middle of the track, with arms extended, to stop his progress. But the cunning horse pretended that he was going to pass ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... proudly struts away; Don't you s'pose he knows there's something in the name he bears to-day? See how all his feathers glisten—ain't he big and plump and nice? No, sir! No; you couldn't buy 'im, not for any kind of price. That there gobbler, there, that Charley gave the name McKinley to, He'll die natural—that's something turkeys mighty ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... shovel; an overflown and forgotten woodland torrent will leave in some remote hollow a disturbed and ungraceful chaos of inextricable logs, branches, rock, and soil that will rival the unsavory details of some wrecked or abandoned settlement. Of lesser magnitude and importance, there are certain natural dust-heaps, sinks, and cesspools, where the elements have collected the cast-off, broken, and frayed disjecta of wood and field—the sweepings of the sylvan household. It was remarkable that Nature, so kindly considerate of mere human ruins, made no attempt ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte

... Tian Shan route, shows that the Chinese had fully appreciated the importance of this historic highway, which continues the road running from the extreme western gate of the Great Wall obliquely across Mongolian Kan-su, through Hami and Barkul, to Urumtsi. From here the two natural highways lead, one to the head-waters of the Black Irtish, the other to the passes leading into the Ili valley, and other routes of the Arolo-Caspian depression. The latter route, which is now commanded at intervals by ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... more natural to tell the stories in the manner of the thatched houses, where I have heard so many legends of Finn and his friends, and Oisin and Patrick, and the Ever-Living Ones, and the Country of the Young, rather than ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... also have instruction in the training of children. The right training of children is not a natural instinct. It is an art, and a lost art among us. It must be learned from the experience and observation of those who have lived before us; and where do we now find the woman who knows how to give proper care to the bodies ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... had crashed, they came to see if we were dead or injured. What they found was one almost complete aeroplane and two leather-coated figures, who cursed each other heartily as they stood side by side, and performed a certain natural function which is publicly represented in Brussels by a ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... broadening of the stem into wings between the leaflets. Hungry migrating birds alight to feast on the harmless acid red fruit when the gorgeous autumnal foliage illuminates their route southward. But while they are, of course, the natural agents for distributing the plants over the country, men find that by cutting bits of any sumac root and planting them in good garden soil, strong specimens are secured within a year. An exquisite cut-leaved variety of the smooth sumac adorns many ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... Falkland Islands, then uninhabited, except by a few Gauchos, who had crossed from South America with a herd of cattle, which have since increased to a prodigious number, as they thrive well on the tussac grass, the chief natural production of the country. The fresh beef afforded by a couple of oxen was very acceptable, and contributed to keep ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... G. S. of M. wished me to understand at this point that I was not made right, that I was incapable, helpless in a library, that I did not seem to know what to do unless I could have a simple, natural, ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... my dear little wife left to her own resources, marrying again, as she feels inclined, marrying some one unworthy of her, perhaps. I won't have it! I'm responsible for you! I'm your natural protector! You're not Miss Lily, you're Mrs. Trampy. You've been in the wrong, certainly; you had me turned off the stage, me, your husband; but ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... the story of the great naturalist's life, and has woven into the narrative a large number of his letters, the whole forming a peculiarly attractive biography and a work of remarkable value and interest to all students of Natural History. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various

... sprang up the bank. Even in this brief visit she had observed how habitually the uppermost thought in her aunt's mind effervesced into speech, and she saw how natural had been Miss Martha's lack of repression at Hotel Frisbie. She felt for Benny Merritt with his nervous passenger, but her sympathy was wasted. When Miss Lacey sailed alone with Benny she always kept up an intermittent stream of directions and ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... personally attributed to him. This denial did not, however, in the eyes of the convention, overthrow facts, proved for the most part by documents written or signed by the hand of Louis XVI. himself; he made use of the natural right of every accused person. Thus he did not admit the existence of the iron chest, and the papers that were brought forward. Louis XVI. invoked a law of safety, which the convention did not admit, and the convention sought to protect itself from anti-revolutionary ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... obeyed, Madame de la Grenouillere regarded the creature she had rescued. It was a true type of the street-cat. His natural hideousness was increased by the accidents of a long and irregular career; his short hair was soiled with mud; one could scarcely distinguish beneath the various splashes his gray fur robe striped with ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire

... occupants of the room were just beginning to relax and to show some resemblance to their natural selves, when their features were again simultaneously frozen by a ring at ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo

... difficulties that, he had little time or disposition to make researches into feminine psychology, even that of his wife. He had an optimistic theory that, in the end, his domestic troubles would adjust themselves by some process of natural evolution. He was confident, too, that his assertion of mastery must eventually be accepted by his wife. So, he smiled pleasantly on Cicily, when he was not too busy to notice her presence, and betimes he felt the little packet that he carried in the inner pocket of his waistcoat, ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan

... one hundred and sixty-eight miles long, and can be used by ships of a thousand tons, gives an outlet, via the Rhine, at Emden. All this is the work of a patient, persistent, and economical people working under great natural disadvantages. ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... preventing a general rising. But the tribes on the upper Seine broke into disturbance. The Aedui and the Remi alone remained really loyal; and it was evident that only a leader was wanted to raise the whole of Gaul. Caesar himself admitted that nothing could be more natural. The more high-spirited of the Gauls were miserable to see that their countrymen had so lost conceit of themselves as to submit willingly to ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... It was quite natural, that those who had the blind-alley Vide-Gousset, [Empty-Pocket] or the Rue Coupe-Gorge [Cut-Throat], for the scene of their daily labor, should have for their domicile by night the culvert of the Chemin-Vert, or the catch basin of Hurepoix. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... was worth investigating. He soon decided that it was, and seizing his pick, he inserted the point at the edge of the slab, and attempted to lever the stone away. It resisted for so long, however, that he was beginning to think the stone was after all no more than a part of the natural rock, when, under a more than usually vigorous pull, he ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... birthplace of a certain Tent-maker of song-rich memory. In Armenia an Arsacid— that is, Parthian—house has survived and holds sovereignty: and Armenia is a sort of weak Belgium between Persia and Rome; inclining to the latter, of course, because ruled by Arsacids, who are the natural dynastic enemies of the Sassanids of Persia. Rome has turned Christian; so, to cement his alliance with Rome and insure Roman aid against powerful Persia, the Armenian king has had himself coverted ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... which Langethal wrote in my album, and which mean "Be truthful in love," were beginning to be as natural to me as abhorrence of cowardice ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers



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