"Positive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his purposes, no wonder that he instituted martial law[438] in a seemingly refractory country, no wonder that he took desperate measures to force Pike to activity. Pike's leisurely way of attending to business was in itself an annoyance and his leisurely way of moving over the country was a positive offence. He had been ordered to proceed with dispatch to Fort Gibson. The expiration of a month and a half found him still at Fort McCulloch. He really did not move from thence until, having sent in his resignation, he made preparations for handing ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... society as will afford the old gentleman or lady no excuse for being ashamed of their connexion with him, he launches into expenses he would never otherwise have dreamed of incurring, and contracts debts without regard to his positive means of liquidating them, on the strength of a contingency which, if he could but be taught to believe it, is of all earthly anticipations the most remote and uncertain. A passion for unnecessary expense ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... wholly inadequate for so tremendous a task as reducing to submission a city containing at least half-a-million inhabitants, together with thirty or forty thousand mutineers and a host of Oude's best men, with the advantage of the possession of a score or two of buildings, all of which are positive fortresses." ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... themselves if this Ayrton's word was to be absolutely believed. There was something suspicious about this unexpected meeting. Certainly the man had mentioned facts and dates which corresponded, and the minuteness of his details was most striking. Still exactness of details was no positive proof. Indeed, it has been noticed that a falsehood has sometimes gained ground by being exceedingly particular in minutiae. McNabbs, therefore, prudently refrained from committing himself by expressing ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... the Philippines as "turbita," is a purgative and is a component part of the tincture of jalap, one of the most positive and active of known cathartics. But turpeth root is seldom used alone, for its action is so uncertain that Sir W. O'Shaughnessy pronounced the plant unworthy of a place in the Pharmacopoeia of India. The dose of the ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... As he has to marshal a large force of people he is bound to find among them—of course in the orthodox society manner—a few turbulent spirits, a few who would mutiny, and who must be taught their places in a conciliatory but positive manner. ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... permission of government. The more and more avowed materialistic theories revolted his shrewd and sensible mind; without caring to go to the bottom of his thought and contemplate its consequences, he clung to the notion of Providence as to a waif in the great shipwreck of positive creeds; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... words to explain fully, whereas only a few can be devoted to the purpose here. "The Hina-yana Sutra is intended for beginners; the Maha-yana for those more advanced in the path of the law." The teaching in the former is negative; in the latter, positive. In the Hina-yana the perfect path is to abstain from four things—women, palaces, beautiful objects, and riches. In the Maha-yana perfect virtue is the presence of four things—the spirit of wisdom, the love of virtue, patience and firmness, and the retired life. By the "spirit of wisdom" ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... I want you to do your best to find out who the man is. Make a sure thing of it. Get positive proof, ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... no positive answer, Martin," replied Mr Campbell. "At all events, I will permit him to visit the old man; there can be no objection to that:—but it ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... inexplicably escaped their notice, expose. In a letter addressed to Fajardo occurs the following explicit statement: "...cum me utero mater gestaret sic volente patre, Aronam, ubi plaeraque illis erant praedia domusque ... ibi me mater dederat orbi." Letters 388, 630, and 794 contain equally positive assertions.] ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... science, passionately Pyrrhonistic, indifferent to all suffering, all deceit, almost indifferent to reality, listened, with closed eyes, to the silent music of souls, the delicate and grand harmony of numbers and forms. These great mathematicians, these free philosophers,—the most rigorous and positive minds in the world,—had reached the uttermost limit of mystic ecstasy: they created a void about themselves, they hung over the abyss, they were drunk with its dizzy depths: into the boundless night with joy sublime they flashed the ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... the cosmopolitanism of which had been long established; that is to say, a face, a figure, or a mode, to gain a second look from one of its denizens, had then, as it has now, to be grossly outlandish. In this instance the owner of the stall indulged a positive stare. He had seen, he thought, representatives of all known nationalities, but never one like the present visitor—never one so pinkish in complexion, and so very bias-eyed—never one who wrapped and re-wrapped himself in a single ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... heard, evidently—so at least I read the evidence—because he did not wish to bring upon the stage those who had worked at it. If indeed the passage which I have placed in square brackets be accepted as evidence, Fawkes did more than keep silence upon the mine. He must have made a positive assertion—soon afterward found to be untrue—that the cellar was hired several months before it really was. This passage is, however, inserted in a different hand from the rest of the document. My own belief ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... he went to Oxford, Birmingham, Lichfield, and Ashbourne, for which very good reasons might be given in the conjectural yet positive manner of writers, who are proud to account for every event which they relate. He himself, however, says, 'The motives of my journey I hardly know; I omitted it last year, and am not willing to ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... the fire and go sidling and wriggling across the room in the most absurd fashion, purring and simply confused with delight, to rub herself up and down the empty air, and by the way her tail was flattened down and then shot up again, I was positive she was being stroked. She almost lived in the picture gallery, sitting staring at the pictures of an ancestor of mine, who had ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... religious susceptibilities of the people. Begging has come to be such a national institution and is so much a part and parcel of the Indian's life and religion, that any proposal to extinguish the fraternity may cause in some minds positive regret. To such I would say that we do not propose to extinguish but to reform, and with this one hint I must beg them, before making up their minds, to study carefully the proposals detailed in ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... came on slowly, the gunner tracked it with his sights. There was a driver and three passengers. Jason waited until he was positive ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... large collection that shall not contain works of real merit. But the object should be to exclude all worthless and pernicious works, and meet and improve the public taste, by offering it mental food better than that to which it has been accustomed. The other danger is negative, rather than positive; but, as books are comparatively worthless when they are not read, it becomes a matter of great moment to select such as will touch the public mind at a few points, at least. It is indeed possible, and, under the guidance of some persons, it would be natural, ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... silent and troubled, but she smiled a little at Ruth's mixed-up sentences. Ruth thought this was a good sign and rushed on without giving her a chance for a positive refusal. ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... of our poet is offered first by Boccaccio who was acquainted with Dante's daughter Beatrice, a nun who lived near enough to the poet to get information from the Portinari family. Certainly Boccaccio did not hesitate when chosen in 1373 by the Florentines to lecture on Dante, to make the very positive statement that the boy Dante, "received the image of Beatrice Portinari into his heart with such affection that from that day forward as long as he lived it never departed from him." That statement was doubtless made within ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... entries show that Robert was a hosier to his trade. Possibly in suppressing the other particulars of her life, Mrs. Haywood may have consigned to oblivion a year or two of her age, but in her numerous writings I have not found any allusion that could lead to her positive identification with ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... the child as far as the Speech-room, where a policeman accepted a shilling, and gave in return a positive assurance that he would see woman and child to their destination. When the boys ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... already evident, both in positive and negative results, both in the schools and the general public taste, that literature cannot be set aside in the scheme of education; nay, that it is of the first importance. The teacher must be able to inspire the pupil; not only to awaken eagerness to know, but to kindle ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in your own hands. I come not to declare war against the fortunes and persons of individuals. The enemy of the liberty and independence of America alone is the object of the vengeance of the arms of the PATRIA. I promise you in the most positive manner, that your property and persons shall be inviolable, and that you shall be treated as respectable citizens, if you co-operate in the ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... four fools who are past grace. Neither do I think it any part of prudence to perplex the minds of well-disposed people with doubts, which probably would never have otherwise come into their heads. But I am of opinion, and dare be positive in it, that not one in an hundred of those who pretend to be freethinkers, are really so in their hearts. For there is one observation which I never knew to fail, and I desire you will examine it in the course of your life, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... it all! (To Minard) Sir, with regard to the love of young people I have those positive ideas which are considered peculiar to old men. My distrust of such love is all the more permissible because I am not the father blinded by paternal affection. I see Julie exactly as she is; without being absolutely plain, she has none of that beauty that ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... positive daily, however, that, in view of these stimulating aspirations, he could no longer pursue his ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... pot, working like day laborers, and happy at that, was really a remarkable spectacle. For my part, I noticed with surprise that scratched and bruised hands—scratched so that the salt water caused positive pain—did not appeal to me. I tore off a corner of my right thumb trying to squeeze a large box through the forward hatch, and the only treatment I gave it was a fragment of rather soiled rag and a little vaseline borrowed from a mate. To quit ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... that the explanation of the propagation of sound through gases, and even of the positive fluid pressure of a gas against the sides of the containing vessel, according to the kinetic theory of gases, is quite independent of the question whether the ultimate collisional force is attractive or repulsive. Of course it must be understood ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... not inform my father that I had written to you. He doesn't like strangers; he doesn't like scientists. I did not dare tell him that I had asked you to come out here. It was entirely my own idea. I felt that I must write you because I am positive that what is happening in this wilderness is ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... twenty separate lays and eliminated those strophes (more than one third of the whole number) that he deemed not genuine. It is now generally admitted, however, that the pioneer of Nibelungen investigation fell here into over-positive refinements of literary criticism. Separate shorter poems there doubtless existed narrating separate episodes of the story, but these are no longer to be arrived at by a process of critical disintegration and pruning of the epic as we have it. An examination of the twenty lieder according to Lachmann's ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... I am inclined to a more comfortable consideration of this great question—for it is one of my weaknesses to be positive on few matters. But to-day I taunted my soul with its unmanliness till it rose in rebellion against me. 'Poor-spirited creature,' I said, 'where is thy valour? When a fool has struck thee I have seen thee pass on without ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... favourite tenets in all respects, and therefore they assumed that his text must have been corrupted or interpolated. So far from its being at all doubtful, as our author seems to suggest, whether Tatian was acquainted with any of St Paul's Epistles, we have positive evidence that he did receive some [273:3]; and moreover one or two coincidences in his extant work point to an acquaintance with the Apostle's writings. His leanings, like those of Marcion and Valentinus, were generally in the opposite direction to Judaism. ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... to the papers and parchments, to which the city clerk had just added several books and rolls. His address, frequently interrupted by references to the documents before him, sounded clear and positive. The amount of the sums owed by the Eysvogel firm, as well as the names of its creditors in Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, and Regensburg, Venice, Milan, Bruges, and other German and foreign cities, formed the most ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and sent the energy into the hand that drew the model, and then again dictated to and sent the energy into the hands whereby the first instrument was clothed in the material form of metal or of wood. The lower negative always gives way to the higher when made positive. Mind ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... mind and body, developed those eccentricities which became the marked feature of his latter days. The animosity of the old man was aroused, and once an enemy was always an enemy with him. He cared nothing for his daughter. Indeed, he cherished a positive hatred of her at times; and never lost an opportunity of humiliating the rector and making him feel that he gained nothing by marrying the daughter against her ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... Castruccio-Castracani, to the Braccio of Mantua, to the Piccinino, the Malatestas of Rimini, and the Sforzas of Milan. In their opinion, however, it is only a chance analogy, a psychological resemblance. Really, however, and)historically it is a positive relationship. He is a descendant of the great Italians, the men of action of the year 1400, the military adventurers, usurpers, and founders of governments lasting their life-time. He inherits in direct affiliation their blood and inward organization, mental and moral.[1142] A bud, collected ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... most important contribution to English philosophy since the publication of Mr. Bradley's "Appearance and Reality." Full of brilliant criticism and of positive theories which are models of ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... and yours—probably," she said with spirit, for she took sides in that moment, and was positive that the blame for the estrangement lay with the father. The level, unagitated voice irritated her; she resented ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... person would immediately exclaim, "Oh, that is only one of Mrs. Rae's Indians!" I said very little about what I saw during the last day or two, for I felt that the constant teasing must have become as wearisome to the others as it had to me. But I am still positive that I saw the black heads of Indians on the top of ever so many hills we passed. When they wish to see and not be seen they crawl up a hill on the side farthest from you, but only far enough up to enable them to look over, and in this position they will remain for hours, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... fame might I have acquired. Every thing which Hume has advanced against Christianity had passed through my mind long before he wrote. Always remember this, that after a system is well settled upon positive evidence, a few partial objections ought not to shake it. The human mind is so limited, that it cannot take in all the parts of a subject, so that there may be objections raised against any thing. There are objections against a plenum, and objections ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... instance, concerning the position of the western tribes during the period of early contact of our colonies and its agreement with their position later when they appear in history, it may be inferred that as a rule it was stationary, though positive evidence is lacking. When changes of tribal habitat actually took place they were rarely in the nature of extensive migration, by which a portion of a linguistic family was severed from the main body, but usually in the form of encroachment by a tribe or tribes upon neighboring territory, ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... though he was less sure that it had the nature of love. As for love, since yesterday the word sickened him. Its association had become, for the present, at any rate, both sacred and appalling. He couldn't have used it, even if he had been more positive concerning the blends that made up his ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... quite positive, it is my opinion, after having examined the specimen carefully, that the body of the cloth belongs to my first group and that the border only is of the second group. My section and drawing give a clear idea ...
— Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States, Derived From Impressions On Pottery • William Henry Holmes
... converted) 144; bring into existence &c. 161. abide, continue, endure, last, remain, stay. Adj. existing &c. v.; existent, under the sun; in existence &c. n.; extant; afloat, afoot, on foot, current, prevalent; undestroyed. real, actual, positive, absolute; true &c. 494; substantial, substantive; self-existing, self-existent; essential. well-founded, well-grounded; unideal[obs3], unimagined; not potential &c. 2; authentic. Adv. actually &c. adj.; in fact, in point of fact, in reality; indeed; de ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... substance. This fact is solemnly inscribed in a notebook and the incident is closed. But the student who has imagination and industry inquires "What then?" and proceeds with investigations on his own initiative that result in a positive boon to humanity. Imagination takes the facts and makes something of them, while the college teacher has disclosed his inability to cope with his own students in fields that only ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... take place at the positive pole, the composition of the peroxides, and the manner of their determination, relatively ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... by Mr. Cotton in the name of them all, they being all present, and not one dissentient." Then the magistrates propounded four more questions, the last of which is as follows: "Whether a judge be bound to pronounce such sentence as a positive law prescribes, in case it be apparently above or beneath the merit of the offence?" To which the elders replied at great length, saying that the penalty must vary with the gravity of the crime, and added examples: "So any sin committed with an ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... Crabtree for this once to excuse them and to give some cakes and tea to their little visitors; but they might as well have spoken to one of the Chinese mandarins, for she only shook her head with a positive look, declaring over and over again that nothing should appear upon the table except what was always brought up for their own supper—two biscuits and ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... a backful of whip scars, you couldn't find a liker likeness anywhere. (pause) But—when I think it over—I'm positive I'm the same man I always was, of course I am. (with growing conviction) I know master, I know our house. I'm sane and sound, I've got my senses. I won't take any notice of what he says, not I. I'll knock at the door (moves toward ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... molehill recently thrown up and scattered the earth right and left with his bill—striking now to one side and now to the other. Hilary admitted that rooks destroyed vast quantities of grubs and creeping things, but was equally positive that they feasted on grain; and indeed it could not be denied that a crop of wheat almost ripe is a very favourite resort of a flock. He had seen rooks carry away ears of wheat detached from the stalk to an open spot ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... over the pages of Valerius will see that these stories of the great men of the past are so detached from their historical surroundings that they could not possibly serve as helps in the practical conduct of life; they might indeed do positive mischief, by leading a shallow reasoner to suppose that what may have been justifiable at one time and under certain circumstances, regicide, for example, or exposure of oneself in battle, is justifiable at all times and in all circumstances. Such an appeal failed also ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... that Rouse and Sheldon, instead of treating the accused as bribers and men unworthy of confidence, had maintained their former relations with them, subsequently voting for Thomas for treasurer of state, and for Southwick as regent of the State University. As positive proof of bribery was limited in each case to the prosecuting witness, we may very well accept the defendants' repeated declarations of their own integrity and uprightness, although the conditions surrounding ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... being asked by everyone, even by General Byington, how it felt to be a grandmother. "Oh! ho, ho!" Mrs. Morris's unutilized dimple kept itself busy to the point of positive fatigue. ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... the well-known publisher, solicited William E. Burton to establish a literary journal in Philadelphia, and Burton, who was sympathetic yet dogmatic, possessed of excellent literary taste, but never more positive than when in error, founded in July, 1837, the Gentleman's Magazine. The fifth and sixth volumes, 1839, were conducted by Burton and by Poe. The seventh volume, 1840, was conducted by George R. Graham. The poetry of Burton's was ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... soon divided them into two distinct groups—those who worried about the smooth working of the great trek, and those who did not. Among the former was Captain Resmith, the second in command, a dark man with a positive, strong voice, somewhat similar to George in appearance. Captain Resmith took George very seriously, and promised to initiate him personally into as many technical mysteries as could be compressed into one afternoon. Then a Major ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... of other gesture. But his head was a splendid dome. A few hairs, whiter than fine-drawn silver, fringed the base; over a broad, full-sphered skull the skin was drawn close, and shone in the light with positive brilliance; the temples were deep hollows, from which the forehead beetled like a wrinkled crag; the eyes were wan and dim; the nose was pinched; and all the lower face was muffed in a beard flowing and venerable as Aaron's. Such was Hillel the Babylonian! The line of prophets, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... commanders of her forces, and to urge them to adopt the best, the speediest, and the most efficient measures to relieve the citadel. The Government and the commanders have always replied with promises of the most positive kind to raise the siege in a very few days. We can no longer believe their word. To give you further intelligence, we send now five men, who will tell you verbally what we cannot describe. If, however, they ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... received this communication almost cheerfully. It seemed more like a relief to her than anything else. Her one dread in this world was her "responsibility "; and the thought that she might have to account for ten talents hereafter, instead of one, had often of late been a positive distress to her. There was also in her mind a secret disgust at the thought of the hungry creatures who would swarm round her if she should ever be in a position to bestow patronage. This had grown upon her as the habits of lonely ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Sir William Phipps sent a haughty summons to the French chief, demanding an unconditional surrender in the name of King William of England, and concluding with this imperious sentence: "Your answer positive in an hour, returned with your own trumpet, with the return of mine, is required upon ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... inasmuch (i. e.) as he excels in his appeal to those passions which the outward form of the drama merely subserves. Still there is surely too much stress laid by the philosopher upon the artificial part; which, after all, leads to negative, more than to positive excellence; and should rather be the natural and (so to say) unintentional result of the poet's feeling and imagination, than be separated from them as the direct object of his care. Perhaps it is hardly fair to judge of Aristotle's sentiments by the fragment of his work which ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... positive result could issue from this imbroglio of dark passions; its most distinctive character was just its utterly ludicrous want of object. Even a man of Caesar's genius had to learn by experience that democratic agitation was completely worn out, and that ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... elect the candidate into them. I rather think that elections are only successful where the candidate is elected into a body other than the body of electors; but I have not considered the principles of election fully enough to be able to give any positive statement of opinion upon that matter. I only feel that at present the thing is liable to many errors ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Trades-Unions had used a tenth of the money they have wasted in futile efforts to shorten hours of labor and excite their members to hatred, indolence, and waste, in making public the statistics and the possibilities of co-operation, they would have achieved some positive good. ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... therefore you are an "Infidel" instead of an "Agnostic." To which the agnostic may reply: No; for two reasons: first, because your evidence that Jesus said what you say he said is worth very little; and secondly, because a man may be an agnostic, in the sense of admitting he has no positive knowledge, and yet consider that he has more or less probable ground for accepting any given hypothesis about the spiritual world. Just as a man may frankly declare that he has no means of knowing whether the planets generally are inhabited ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... we drove round through Regent's Park. I suppose that if we use the superlative in speaking of Hyde Park, Regent's Park will be the comparative, and Battersea Park the positive, ranking them in the descending grades of their hierarchy. But this is my conjecture only, and the social geography of London is a subject which only one who has become familiarly acquainted with the place should speak of with any confidence. A stranger coming ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... and hymns, or the simplified and popularized forms of the earlier and mediaeval worship, have had vastly to do with the daily thought and education of the people into whose life they have brought not only increase of lofty devotion but also a positive and stimulative culture. ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Havard, in a positive tone, "for a logical mind that reasons coolly, for one who does not bewilder himself in a network of Fantomas hypotheses, he who killed Brocq is assuredly he who has killed Nichoune! Brocq, I imagine, was killed by someone lying in wait on the top of the Arc de Triomphe. An accomplice, during this ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... shrinking from the instant approach of torment. And those will often pity that weakness most, who in their own persons would yield to it least. Meantime there never was a calumny uttered that drew less support from the recorded circumstances. It rests upon no positive testimony, and it has a weight of contradicting testimony to stem.... What else but her meek, saintly demeanor won, from the enemies that till now had believed her a witch, tears of rapturous admiration? "Ten thousand men," says M. Michelet himself, "ten thousand men wept; and of these ten ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... one among the clear and positive doctrines of the New Testament. Justification, regeneration, adoption, and conversion are terms used to signify the same work of grace, or the same experience in the Christian life. Sanctification has reference to a higher work of grace, or higher life. It is ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... gracious religion, whose chief precepts are the love of God and the love of man—this same Christianity confirms the subordinate position of woman, by allotting to man the headship in plain language and by positive precept. No system of philosophy has ever yet worked out in behalf of woman the practical results for good which Christianity has conferred on her. Christianity has raised woman from slavery and made her the thoughtful companion of man; finds her ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... imagine; it has been changed during the last twenty years within my own recollection. In different parts of the island particular types appear and disappear with a generation. There is a sort of race-fermentation going on, which gives no fixed result of a positive sort for any great length of time. It is true that certain elements continue to dominate in certain communes, but the particular characteristics come and vanish in the most mysterious way. As to color, ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... out of harmony with the virtuous; the children of darkness cannot find peace with the children of light. And not only is there a lack of sympathy in the worldly-minded for the men and women who are led of God, but there is often positive hatred for them—a hatred which spends itself in actual, persistent persecution. To be devout, to refrain from sinful words and sinful deeds, to shun the vain and dangerous amusements of worldlings, to attend much to prayer and recollection, ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... why we have so many conflicting yet positive accounts of great successes in Europe with torpedo shells is because each nation wishes its neighbors to think that it is prepared for all eventualities, and they are obliged to keep on hand large quantities of some explosive, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... the housekeeping of her young ladies before Mrs Arthur came among them, and was resented accordingly. All hints, suggestions, recipes, or even direct instructions from her, were utterly ignored by Nelly, when it could be done without positive disobedience to Miss Graeme or Mrs Elliott. If direct orders made it necessary for her to do violence to her feelings to the extent of availing herself of Mrs Grove's experience, it was done under protest, or with an open incredulousness as to ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... that ensued Gale did not have anything to say; but his mind was forming a conclusion. When he found his old saddle and bridle missing from the peg in the barn his conclusion became a positive conviction, and it made him, for the moment, cold and sick ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... face with her hands. "You who uphold all these social arrangements, how do you feel when you find yourself obliged to urge me to marry, not for the sake of the positive joys of domestic existence, but for the merely negative advantage of avoiding a hapless and forlorn state? You propose it as a pis-aller. Does that argue that all is sound in the state ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Vivacious, inconsistent, positive, decided, she can not fail to give you plenty of exercise. An attentive and caressing woman would weary you; you must be handled in a military fashion, if you are to be amused and retained. As soon ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... said. He kept harking back to this question with a singular persistence. There are a few men and many women for whom a secret is a responsibility to be transferred to the first-comer without hesitation. One half of the world takes pleasure in divulging a secret—for the other half it is positive pain ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... and looked hard at Rod. Evidently he had been already favorably impressed with the frank face of the lad, and was puzzled to know what to believe. He turned to the Secret Service agent and exchanged several low sentences with him. The man seemed positive, and apparently did his best to convince the officer that at least the boys should be held, ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... the bar of the cellar grating at Stanwick, I discovered that the same person who had prowled about the lawn on the night of the murder had scaled the scaffolding outside Miss Cavanaugh's window, you fancied this to be almost positive proof. What you saw at Bohlmier's hotel, and the story told you by Big ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... in a very casual, laughing way—such a positive set of lies that I marveled and began to wonder how much of Tom was acting and ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... had already stated to M. de Corcelles, the Plenipotentiary of France, his objections to an immediate return. He now held the same language to General Oudinot. He could not, he said, so far forget the purely moral nature of his power as to bind himself in a positive way, when there was nothing settled as to matters of detail, and especially when he was called upon to speak in presence of a first-class Power, whose exigencies were no secret. Ought he to condemn himself to ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... is felt in its full force, while no hold is as yet laid on the affections, there is a very strong preference induced in most minds for that to which they are not accustomed over that they know not, and this is strongest in those which are least open to sensations of positive beauty. But however far this operation may be carried, its utmost effect is but the deadening and approximating the sensations of beauty and ugliness. It never mixes nor crosses, nor in any way alters them; it has not the slightest connection with ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... a work as this. One, however, I heard lately as coming from a Forfarshire old lady of this class, which bears upon the point of "resolute" determination referred to in the learned judge's description. She had been very positive in the disclaiming of some assertion which had been attributed to her, and on being asked if she had not written it, or something very like it, she replied, "Na, na; I never write onything of consequence—I may deny what I say, but I canna deny ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... last night," she admitted, inflating with a multitude of feelings. "The most ungrateful people in the world! So far from being thankful for the time and pains and money we spent to protect them, they're viciously angry and are making threats—positive threats—that they ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... engagements are as chaff before the wind—to whom bloodshed, robbery, assassination, and murder, are objects of placid contemplation—whose narrow creed of bigotry supersedes all the obligations, of morality, and all the commands of positive law. With such men what valid compact can be made? The appeal must be to those who think that a deliberate compact is mutually binding on parties of any and every religious creed. To such men I appeal, and ask, ought ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... mouth at once began to have a sullen expression; evidently he was not pleased and felt rebellious; but it was hard for him to resist Father Beret, whom he loved, as did every soul in the post. The priest's voice was sweet and gentle, yet positive to a degree. Rene did ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... excited my imagination were the enormous mass meetings, with processions, coming in from all points of the compass, miles in length, and bearing every patriotic device and political emblem. Here the Whigs had infinitely the advantage. Their campaign was positive and aggressive. On platform- wagons were men working at every trade which expected to be benefited by Whig success; log cabins of all sorts and sizes, hard-cider barrels, coon pens, great canvas balls, which were kept ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... an army surgeon, and quite the cleverest man at his profession that I ever had the privilege to meet. He might have made a large fortune in England, but he got into some trouble and had to leave the country. It was much the same in India. Bentwood had a positive genius for the occult and underground. After a time very few white people cared to associate with him and he became the companion of the dervishes and the mullahs and all that class, whose secrets he learned. I ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... could but have seen and heard her! She could never have been born to it! You look away: I offend you! I have no right to tax your benevolence for others; but, instead of showering favours upon me, so little would suffice for her!—if she were but above positive want, with that old man (she would not be happy without him), safe in such a cottage as you give to your own peasants! I am a man, or shall be one soon; I can wrestle with the world, and force my way somehow; ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his affairs. Perhaps Monsignor Nani would look in; perhaps he might be lucky enough to come across some cardinal or domestic prelate willing to help him. It was in vain that he had tried to extract any positive information from Don Vigilio, for, after a short spell of affability and willingness, Cardinal Pio's secretary had relapsed into distrust and fear, and avoided Pierre as if he were resolved not to meddle in a business which, all considered, was decidedly ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... supposed by certain soldiers," says a well-informed military critic (Colonel A'Court Repington, at page 276 of his "Vestigia"), "that the war against Germany would be decided by the fighting of some seven great battles en rase campagne, where heavies would be a positive encumbrance." ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... at Manila. Our column was to be increased by a party of Ifugaos, whom, with a head man named Comhit, Gallman wished to take through the Bontok into the Kalinga country. The fact that these men returned safely unaccompanied by Gallman or any other American is the best possible proof of the positive results already achieved by our Government ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... Lord Bromley. The tidings of her elopement without any positive proof of a bona fide marriage preceding it, had shocked him into bitter remorse for having left her, an unprotected waif and stray, to the tender mercies of the world, and now she had passed out of his ken, and he could not but ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... the Superintendent's keen face. "Well, well, it's never too late to mend, anyhow." And then aloud, "Exactly my thought, Mr. Narkom. Perhaps Mr. Brent could enlighten us as to his own suspicions, for I'm positive that he has some tucked away somewhere ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... suspect, and surmise, but he actually asserts (page 154), "there was poison in the house," because three out of five patients admitted into a ward had puerperal fever and died. Have I not as much right to draw a positive inference from "Dr. A.'s" seventy exclusive cases as he from the three cases in the ward of the Dublin Hospital? All practical medicine, and all action in common affairs, is founded on inferences. How does Dr. Meigs know that the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... nation would blow all Mr. Congreve's schemes to atoms like so many cobwebs. England will never be argued out of Gibraltar except by the ultima ratio.' These doctrines, he thinks, are the fruits of abandoning a belief in theology. 'We, too, have a positive philosophy, and its fundamental maxim is that it is wise for men and nations to mind their own business, and do their own duty, and leave the results to God.' The argument seems to be rather questionable; and perhaps one which follows is not altogether ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... of self-respect: when the Great Southwestern train had roared around the cliffs of Lebanon with the returning exiles, and the locomotive whistle was sounding for Gordonia, some other of the negative virtues had become definitely positive, and the halo was ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... merely a negative influence we deal with, but a positive, for, to paraphrase a little, "ugly associations corrupt good morals." Youth is beaten upon at many points by things that not only look ugly, but are, and as in compassion we are bound to offer some new agency to fill a lack, so in self-defence ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... of this passive indolence, or rather this unconsciousness of one's own faculties, appear every day; not only in the fine arts, but in cases where the mere taste, according to the original meaning of the word, is alone concerned. For I am positive there are many thousands who, if they were to bring their own palate to a severe examination, would discover that they really find a more delicious flavour in mutton than in venison, in flounder than in turbut, and yet prefer middling or ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... such an air of final farewell that I felt my apprehensions take a positive form. Rushing towards the door through which he had just vanished, I listened and heard, as I thought, his stealthy feet descend the stair. But when I sought to follow, I found myself for the second time overwhelmed by darkness. The ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... stern for the oarsman. A meal of frogs and squirrels was a good preparation, and, when darkness came, all were keenly alive to the opportunity it brought. Though by no means an expert in the use of the gun,—adding the superlative degree of enthusiasm to only the positive degree of skill,—yet it seemed tacitly agreed that I should act as marksman and kill the deer, if such was ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... presence of the class as ignorant and stupid; ridiculed him as awkward and ugly, and at times in the transports of his temper indulged in personal violence. The effect was to aggravate a passive distaste into a positive aversion. Goldsmith was loud in expressing his contempt for mathematics and his dislike of ethics and logic; and the prejudices thus imbibed continued through life. Mathematics he always pronounced a science to which the meanest intellects ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... of such a body for such a purpose was a distinct gain; but vastly more important is the positive ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... carried further the hatred to ceremonies forms, orders, rites, and positive institutions. Even baptism and the Lord's supper, by all other sects believed to be interwoven with the very vitals of Christianity, were disdainfully rejected by them. The very Sabbath they profaned. The holiness of churches they derided; and they would give to these ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... object be? Even as he looked he surely saw it move. Yes, a second and more positive examination convinced him of this fact. Then there was danger of the expected breakfast being carried off while ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... all efforts to remove it only increase the pain it causes; and animals that know it well do not attempt to rub, scratch, or bite it off, therefore the great size and the conspicuous colour of the tick are positive advantages to it. The flea, without the subtlety and highly-specialized organs of the Ornithomyia, or the stick-fast powers and leathery body of the Ixodes, can only escape its vigilant enemies by making itself invisible; hence every variation, i.e. increase in jumping-power ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... There was really no doubt of Henry's sincerity, but his isolation was terrible. There was none true to him at home but Sully. Abroad, the States-General alone were really friendly, so far as positive agreements existed. Above all, the intolerable tergiversations and suspicions of those most interested, the princes in possession, and their bickerings among themselves, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Can we conceive of a relation between place and time of the individual events relative to both reference-bodies, such that every ray of light possesses the velocity of transmission c relative to the embankment and relative to the train ? This question leads to a quite definite positive answer, and to a perfectly definite transformation law for the space-time magnitudes of an event when changing over from one body of reference ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... In addition, the scope for private sector activity has been expanded, primarily through decollectivization of the agricultural sector and introduction of laws giving legal recognition to private business. Despite such positive indicators, the country's economic turnaround remains tenuous. Nearly three-quarters of export earnings are generated by only two commodities, rice and crude oil. Meanwhile, industrial production stagnates, burdened by uncompetitive state-owned enterprises the government is unwilling or unable ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... determined to give his valorous comrade all the distinction he deserved. "Bob," he added, as the restive team proceeded on their way, "you have been something of a martyr—now you are a positive hero." ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... passengers going perpetually on deck and bringing down news, either that we were in the act of crossing the bar, or that we had crossed it, or that all this was wrong and that we were still outside. As often as it was announced, and that with the most positive assertion, that we should land to-night, there was great joy and glee among all the passengers, excepting ourselves and a few others who had visions of a late Custom House examination in a dark and dismal night with pouring rain, and a conviction that ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... lunatics. I knew the Man from the Quarter—had known him from the day of his birth—and knew what he would do and where he would go (over his head sometimes) for a poor devil of a fish half as long as his finger, and I had had positive evidence of what the other web-footed duck thought of ice-cold water. No, I'd take a little sugar in mine, if you please, and put a drop of—but the Sculptor had already foreseen and was then forestalling my needs, so we leaned back in our chairs ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... consider a man a Brahmo if he be conservative in other respects than idolatry; but it can never consider an idolater to be a Brahmo. The conservative Brahmo can do one thing, that is, observe the old ritual, leaving out only the idolatrous portion of it, if he do not choose to follow the positive Brahmo ritual laid down in the 'Anushthna Paddhati.' Liberty should be given by the progressive Brahmo to the conservative Brahmo in judging of the idolatrous character of the portions of the old ritual rejected by him. If a progressive ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... their political nationality beyond cavil, and taken a positive rank among the powers of the civilized world, they still remained subject to reproach, that in the worlds of Art, Science, and Literature, they had no national existence. Admitting, or, at any rate, feeling, the truth of this taunt, they bestirred themselves resolutely to produce a practical ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... not done, arranging and re-arranging what I have got to do and what every one else is going to do, till I can hardly eat or sleep. To be in one position for long at a time, or sit through bad plays, to listen to moderate music or moderate conversation is a positive punishment to me. I am energetic and industrious, but I am a little too quick; I am DRIVEN along by my temperament till I tire myself and ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... brought to a close by the sight of Louvois, who with his son joined the party of the Duchess of Orleans. He did not like to see him so near his angel; but his uneasiness increased to positive pain when he saw her extend her hand, and greet him with ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... had as a girl when she carried her father's dinner in a flagon to the country place where he was at work, but to walk with no end save the good of your health seemed a very droll proceeding to her. In her young days, she was positive, no one had ever gone for a walk, and she never lost the belief that it was an absurdity introduced by a new generation with too much time on their hands. That they enjoyed it she could not believe; ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... out some of the negative wastes of competition," answered the other. "I have hardly mentioned the positive economies of co-operation. Allowing five to a family, there are fifteen million families in this country; and at least ten million of these live separately, the domestic drudge being either the wife or a ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... With positive proof of bribery that left conviction and a term in prison as the alternative to resignation, District Attorney William H. Langdon had complete control of the situation. In consultation with those who had proved their interest ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... eyes devoured the scene. On the chair from which the model had risen she had deposited yet another hat, so large, so audacious and beplumed that it seemed to have a positive personality, a positive swagger of its own, and to be winking roguishly at the audience. Meanwhile Madame's muslin dress of the day before had been exchanged for something more appropriate to the warmth of her poetry—a tawdry flame-coloured satin, in which her "too, ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... States must reach forth to pluck out the Spaniard from the land he ravaged. And when a number of Senators and Representatives in Congress made journeys to Cuba, and returning, described in formal addresses at the Capitol the scenes of starvation and misery, this opinion hardened into positive conviction. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... reflective man in spectacles, 'positive virtues are getting moved off the stage: negative ones are moved on to the place of positives; we thank bare justice as we used only to thank generosity; call a man honest who steals only by law, and consider him a benefactor if he does not ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... beloved one's heart is touched and she is in sympathy with the lover, the answer should be frankly and unequivocally given. If the negative answer is necessary, it should be done in the kindest and most sympathetic language, yet definite, positive and to the point, and the gentleman should at once withdraw his suit and continue ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... about universal notions, to which I fully agree: but then it doth not appear to me that those notions are formed by ABSTRACTION in the manner PREMISED—UNIVERSALITY, so far as I can comprehend, not consisting in the absolute, POSITIVE nature or conception of anything, but in the RELATION it bears to the particulars signified or represented by it; by virtue whereof it is that things, names, or notions, being in their own nature PARTICULAR, are rendered UNIVERSAL. Thus, when I demonstrate any proposition ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... him to whom she gave all the love that she possessed! And he must want something of her which was to be concealed from the wife. She could not be mistaken. She had never been deceived in a presentiment that was so positive. Ever since she reached Augsburg, an inner voice had told her—and old Brigitta's cards confirmed it—that the destiny of her life would be decided here, and he alone held her weal ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... with his communication a positive prepared in the manner described, we are enabled to corroborate all he says as to the richness and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... Religious Assemblies, Political Conferences, suffrage meetings, educational conventions. But our meeting is for a purpose which, while inclusive, in some respects, of these various concerns, is for an object more distinct and positive ...
— Civilization the Primal Need of the Race - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Paper No. 3 • Alexander Crummell
... A question always existed, whether the Empress was really buried here, or at the abbey of Ste Marie des Pres, at Rouen. Hoveden expressly says, that she was interred at Rouen: the chronicle of Bec, on the other hand, is equally positive in the assertion that her body was brought to Bec, and entombed with honor before the altar of the Virgin. The same chronicle adds that, in the year 1273, her remains were discovered before the high altar, sewed up in an ox's hide.—Still farther to substantiate their claim, the monks of ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... put on the light but found I had been in bed JUST TEN MINUTES! I did not sleep anymore that night but spent the time in meditating on my dream which convinced me that there must be within the human body a positive something that would continue to live forever and ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... who was slightly lame, limp around to the buggy after his horse was tied, and take out two cases. She hated him while he did it. She felt intuitively that something terrible was to come to her mother because of those cases. She watched the doctor limp up the steps with positive malevolence. "If he is such a smart doctor, why doesn't ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... so likewise in these intellectual matters there seemeth to be no less contention between the excellency of your Majesty's gifts of Nature and the universality and perfection of your learning. For I am well assured that this which I shall say is no amplification at all, but a positive and measured truth; which is, that there hath not been since Christ's time any king or temporal monarch which hath been so learned in all literature and erudition, divine and human. For let a man seriously and diligently revolve ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... land were noted and some whales were seen, which the sailors say is the first sign of land. On the following day they saw some seals, which, according to the sailors, was the second sign of land. On the 24th, they saw some ducks, which, they say, is proof positive of land being near. On the same day land was sighted at 4 p. m.; the North Farallones of San Francisco were seen to the north and Point Ano Nuevo to the southeast. At 7 p. m., the South Farallones were seen ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... not like eating and drinking and exercise, if he is not something positive in his tastes, it means he has a feeble body and should have some medicine; but children may be pure spirits, if they will, and take their enjoyment in a world of moonshine. Sensation does not count for so much in our first years as afterwards; something of the swaddling numbness of infancy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... authority for that?" Phil turned a large, bizarre ring round on his slender left little finger and the whole room waited, testing this positive-spoken outsider. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... reveals Ravel the peer of Debussy as the fact that he has succeeded so beautifully in manifesting what is peculiar to him. For he is by ten years Debussy's junior, and were he less positive an individuality, less original a temperament, less fully the genius, he could never have realized himself. There would have descended upon him the blight that has fallen upon so many of the younger Parisian composers less determinate than ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... light of Our Lady's brow," said Prince John, "our orders to him were most precise—though it may be you heard them not, as we stood together in the oriel window—Most clear and positive was our charge that Richard's safety should be cared for, and woe to Waldemar's head if ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... aid to the elementary study of bird life nothing has ever been published more satisfactory than this most successful of Nature Books. This book makes the identification of our birds simple and positive, even to the uninitiated, through certain unique features. I. All the birds are grouped according to color, in the belief that a bird's coloring is the first and often the only characteristic noticed. ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... of them had ever heard of that gap in the hills; there was no one to guide them through it except the Indian girl, whose memory had hitherto been so positive and so trustworthy. They ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... Polly had seemed so positive, and so eager to get her father started after the motor boat he had lost, that Wyn could not understand why the Jarleys were ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... consequence of my unexpected relief from a painful suffering, and only lasted until calm reflection returned. In a few minutes it was over, and my apprehension of death became as acute as ever. It is wrong to call it an apprehension, for it was a positive certainty that stared me in the face. I had not given five minutes' thought to my situation, till I felt as certain of death as I was that I still lived. There was no hope of escape from my prison—that I had given up long ago; and since I had nothing to eat, ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... Haiphong, when they got there after a course of most unprofitable peregrinations (during which the ship was nearly lost twice), he got himself, in Mr. Burns' own words, "mixed up" with some woman. Mr. Burns had had no personal knowledge of that affair, but positive evidence of it existed in the shape of a photograph taken in Haiphong. Mr. Burns found it in one of the drawers ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... that such power has always been a disturbing force in the progress of the human race, which modern theories too hastily overlook; and that the science of history (unless the existence of the human will be denied) must belong rather to the moral sciences, than to that 'positive science' which seems to me inclined to reduce all human phaenomena under physical laws, hastily assumed, by the old fallacy of [Greek text], to apply where there is no proof whatsoever that they do or ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... what does he say of it? Why this. "Matthew composed a writing of the Oracles (meaning without doubt the Doctrines of the Gospel,) in the Hebrew Language, and every one interpreted them as he was able." So far as this Testimony goes it is positive evidence, that the only Gospel of Matthew extant in 116, was extant in Hebrew; and there was then no translation, of it, for "every one interpreted as he was able." The present gospel called of Matthew was then ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... the balance, the strength and weight of testimony, this author has provided an answer to every possible accumulation of historical proof by telling us that we are not obliged to explain how the story of the evidence arose. Now I think that we are obliged; not, perhaps, to show by positive accounts how it did, but by a probable hypothesis how it might so happen. The existence of the testimony is a phenomenon; the truth of the fact solves the phenomenon. If we reject this solution, we ought to have some other to rest in; and none, even by our adversaries, can be admired, which is ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... important part in the great results achieved. Unfortunately, no one can answer one way or another, but our very ignorance should emphasize the importance of looking at the question from every side, and not jumping at conclusions before they are warranted by facts. It is true that most of our positive knowledge on this subject would condemn alcohol as being the greatest curse of the ages, but it may be that it has played a beneficent part in the affairs of mankind through devious paths impossible to trace. Unquestionably a drug, the taking of which assists us in momentarily throwing ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... hours of Gordon's absence, Bernard had frequent colloquies with his friend's wife, whose irresponsible prattle amused him, and in whom he tried to discover some faculty, some quality, which might be a positive guarantee of Gordon's future felicity. But often, of course, Gordon was an auditor as well; I say an auditor, because it seemed to Bernard that he had grown to be less of a talker than of yore. Doubtless, when a man finds himself united to a garrulous ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"—and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do—that's just what they say—is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... a matter of concealments but of positive deceptions. The figure of Justin comes back to me. It is a curious thing that in spite of our bitter antagonism and the savage jealousy we were to feel for one another, there has always been, and there remains now in my thought of him, a certain liking, a regret at our opposition, ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... whether he appeared of his own accord, or by a particular summons from the king. The barons by writ, therefore, began gradually to intermix themselves with the barons by tenure; and, as Camden tells us,[**] from an ancient manuscript now lost, that after the battle of Evesham, a positive law was enacted, prohibiting every baron from appearing in parliament, who was not invited thither by a particular summons, the whole baronage of England held thenceforward their seat by writ, and this important privilege of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... were in a frosty atmosphere, with scarcely warmth enough to keep life in the region about his heart. It is a patient, long-suffering, quiet, hopeless, shivering aspect. He is not desperate,—that, though its etymology implies no more, would be too positive an expression,—but merely devoid of hope. As all his past life, probably, offers no spots of brightness to his memory, so he takes his present poverty and discomfort as entirely a matter of course; he thinks it the definition ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... the Tartar frigate ever went before the wind. Be this as it may, the visitors had a coach in waiting at a quiet corner not far off; and the chronometer, on being incidentally referred to, gave such a positive opinion that it had been waiting a long time, that it was impossible to doubt the fact, especially when stated on such unimpeachable authority. If Uncle Sol had been going to be hanged by his own time, he never would have allowed that the chronometer was too fast, by the ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... look Bolger left them, and the surgeon, turning to Belton, said: "That settles him, anyway, for a time. He's a thorough scoundrel, I believe. Mrs. Clinton has a positive horror of the man; yet the brute is continually pestering her with offers of his services. Now I must go ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... day, and also in the highest degree a practical person, who clearly perceived what would most rapidly educate and interest the uncultivated. In his thirty-three dramas, sparkling comedies in prose, more or less in imitation of Molire, he has left his most important positive legacy to literature. Nor in any series of comedies in existence is decency so rarely sacrificed to a desire for popularity or a false sense ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... of anatomy. The art and process of embalming, in such vogue among the Egyptians, naturally fostered the advance of this science. Whilst Alexandria in abstract speculation could not rival Greece, yet it became the home of the pioneers of positive science, who left a great and priceless legacy to modern civilisation. The importance of this event (the foundation of the Museion), says Draper, in his Intellectual Development of Europe, though hitherto little understood, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... when Paul saw the tender way in which the rough farm boy forced the little old lady back into her chair, and caught the positive tone in which he gave her this assurance, he seemed almost ready to believe Jo must be innocent; although when he glanced at the money his heart misgave ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... or rattling noise, as a rule gradually becoming louder and then dying away. There was the usual conflict in the evidence of different observers due to the depth of the sound. In Calcutta, which lies well within the sound-area, some persons asserted that they heard a rumbling noise; others were positive that the only noise was that caused by falling buildings and furniture. Some, again, noticed that the shock was preceded by a loud roar; while others were certain that there was no sound of any kind until ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... have foundered. If she did, we shall never obtain proof positive of the fact," said the captain. "I am far rather inclined to believe that she struck on some unknown reef, and that the rock or island was reached in the boats, or that the ship herself gained it, unless too much damaged to continue her voyage. One thing ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... history, and in the sublime self-sacrifice of Sidney Carton, which Henry Miller, in "The Only Way," has impressed on thousands of tearful playgoers. That David Copperfield is not autobiographical we have the positive assertion of Charles Dickens the younger, yet at the same time every lover of this book feels that the boyhood of David reproduces memories of the novelist's childhood and youth, and that from real people and real scenes are drawn the humble home and ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... instance of a man who had a strange belief. Indeed, it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed, and insisted on my being put under control. I used to fancy that life was a positive and perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live things, no matter how low in the scale of creation, one might indefinitely prolong life. At times I held the belief so strongly that I actually tried to take human ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... succeeded in 1897 in observing the displacement of a dark line due to magnesium, and found that the body emitting it was also moving in an orbit, but while the velocities given by the bright F line are positive after the principal minimum of the star's light, those given by the dark line are negative. Therefore, during the principal minimum it is a star giving the dark line which is eclipsed, and during the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... evening game of cricket, and she never made one at rounders now, much to the others' disgust. No one, to look at the sweet blossom-like face, and soft, calm eyes, could have guessed what torture was being felt beneath the now pretty, welt-fitting dress body. To walk quickly was positive pain; to stoop, almost agony; but she endured it all with a heroism worthy of a truly ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... of maples, to the fine old-fashioned mansion of Mr. Phillips. As they stood on the steps, Mr. Raeburn noticed that Mary had been much agitated by recognizing scenes once familiar to her baby eyes, and he begged her to try to be calm. "Remember," he said, "we have no positive, reliable evidence that you are the lost child of Mr. and Mrs. Phillips. You must not suddenly proclaim yourself. They have probably despaired so long that they will be unable to credit your story, if too abruptly told, and any repulse ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... standard historical works, and to such editions of poets and prose writers as have come into my hands. How much I am endebted to the genius of Michelet; nay, rather, how much I am, however unimportant, the thing made by him, every one will see and judge. With regard to positive information I must express my great obligations to the works of Jacob Burckhardt, of Prof. Villari, and of Mr. J.A. Symonds in everything that concerns the political history and social condition of the Renaissance. Mr. Symonds' name I have placed last, although this is ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee |
