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More "Comprehend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sent fresh exchangers for the exchanges. Of this gold I had put aside certain specimens, very big lumps, like the eggs of geese, hens, and pullets, and of many other shapes, which some persons had collected in a short space of time, in order that their Highnesses might be gladdened, and might comprehend the business upon seeing a quantity of large stones full of gold. This collection was the first to be given away, with malicious intent, so that their Highnesses should not hold the matter in any account until he has feathered his nest, which he is in great ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... reference to the object of his passion: 'My own life without her will be hell. What can the so-called love of her wretched sickly husband be to her compared with mine?' Now, turn to 'Wuthering Heights' and you will read these words: 'Two words would comprehend my future—death and hell; existence after losing her would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine. If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love in eighty years as much ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... the grave troubles pending snap their fingers at the law. We are pressed to take counsel with you, though why the high officers who communicate with me should, as it were, shift their responsibilities upon the shoulders of a Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard I am at a loss to comprehend. What I would ask of my colleagues is this: who is in fact responsible for the maintenance of a due observance of law in the Northern district from which you have come, and where you appear to discharge unofficial and wholly irregular ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... crowning justification of New World democracy in the creative realms of time and space. There is that about them which only the vastness, the multiplicity and the vitality of America would seem able to comprehend, to give scope and illustration to, or to be fit for, or even originate. It is strange to me that they were born in Germany, or in the old world at all. While a Carlyle, I should say, is quite the legitimate ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... gig, fetching a long sweep, had made a half-circuit of the Vesuvius and fallen alongside her accommodation-ladder did the Major comprehend. Captain Crang, with Mr. Wapshott behind him, had stepped down the ladder and stood at the foot of it reverently lifting ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to the wall. Vassily Ivanovitch gesticulated at his wife with both hands; she bit her lips so as not to cry, and went away. The whole house seemed suddenly darkened; every one looked gloomy; there was a strange hush; a shrill cock was carried away from the yard to the village, unable to comprehend why he should be treated so. Bazarov still lay, turned to the wall. Vassily Ivanovitch tried to address him with various questions, but they fatigued Bazarov, and the old man sank into his armchair, motionless, only cracking his finger-joints now and then. He went for a few minutes into the garden, ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... emphasis and dignity. For a moment she was puzzled. But Sam's older brother was this year completing his education at a university, and Mrs. Williams was not altogether ignorant of the obligations of secrecy imposed upon some brotherhoods; so she was able to comprehend Sam's silent withdrawal, and, instead of summoning him back for further questions, she waited until he was out of hearing and ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... discuss in the beginning of each chapter the most striking events of the period, Giving such outlines of the contents and principal events of the period as will make the whole period stand out so that the student may comprehend it at a glance. This is very ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... recalling what had latterly passed between us, that the young woman's sole desire, and a perfectly natural desire, was to recover her missing treasure. There was something behind all this which I could not comprehend, and I resolved in the morning to question the Marquis of Blair as shrewdly as he cared to allow. Failing him, I should cross-question the niece in a somewhat dryer light than that which had enshrouded me during this interesting evening. I care ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... day," if he thought he had not performed some good action or learned something in the twenty-four hours. Most of us have no such qualms; we waste the time freely; and we never know that it is wasted until with a dull shock we comprehend that all must be left and that the squandered hours can never be retrieved. The men who are strongest and greatest and best suffer the acutest remorse for the lost days; they know their own powers, and ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... saying: "Carry this letter immediately to its address." Eponine had put the letter in her pocket. The next day, on the 5th of June, she went to Courfeyrac's quarters to inquire for Marius, not for the purpose of delivering the letter, but,—a thing which every jealous and loving soul will comprehend,—"to see." There she had waited for Marius, or at least for Courfeyrac, still for the purpose of seeing. When Courfeyrac had told her: "We are going to the barricades," an idea flashed through her mind, to fling herself into that death, as she would have done into any other, and to thrust Marius ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... that none of the enemy was in any way, moral or physical, circumventing them. As for Fisher minor, he simply trembled with excitement as he cast his eyes round and calculated his brother's chances. He could not comprehend how any one could dare not to vote for Fisher major; and absorbed in that wonder he continued to hold up his hand long after the two tellers had agreed their figure, and the captain had ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... yet they remained simple, unaffected, and cordial to these daring reporters. They spoke with quiet dignity of their work, their earnest efforts to give the public something better and finer. They wished the countless readers of the interviews to comprehend that their triumphs had come only with infinite work and struggle, that the beautiful comes only through suffering and sacrifice. At lighter moments they spoke gayly of their palatial homes, their domestic pets, their wives or husbands and their charming children. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... into a sort of swoon; but hearing at every instant the cries, To arms! with us, comrades; we are lost! joined with the groans and imprecations of the wounded and dying, was soon roused from his lethargy. All this horrible tumult speedily made him comprehend how necessary it was to be upon his guard. Armed with his sabre, he gathered together some of his workmen on the front of the raft, and there charged them to hurt no one, unless they were attacked. He almost always remained with them; and several times they had ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... present time. I suppose hardly a week passes that, either by letter or in conversation, I do not come face to face with this same old problem, showing that only partially and here and there have men and women even to-day come to comprehend the real method after which this universe of ours is governed. For example, let me give ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... contract with the robber chief, that he should be allowed to resist as desperately as he pleased, and he took advantage of it. He gazed at the Rancheros for a moment with well-assumed astonishment, and then, appearing to comprehend the situation, he shouted: ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... letters to the old man, in a different hand, and that he either committed the murder, or knows something about it. His motive for annoying Miss Minford I can understand—for this city is full of just such well dressed scoundrels; but the motive of the murder I can't comprehend. But mark me—- this fellow has some knowledge of it; and we must hunt him up. And, first, let us ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... strong yet respectful management. The cat's circuitous methods puzzled him, and his elaborate pretences perhaps shocked the dog's liking for direct, undisguised action. Yet, while he failed to comprehend these tortuous feline mysteries, he was never contemptuous or condescending; and he presided over the safety of his furry black friend somewhat as a father, loving, but intuitive, might superintend ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... language the common life and common facts of men and their common nature. He had his limitations, of course; but just here lies the power of his special genius. He never attempted to express what he did not fully comprehend. If he saw things narrowly, he saw them definitely, and there was no mistaking the ideas he wished to convey. "He understands himself," said Dr. Johnson, "and his reader always understands him." Within his limitations Swift swayed a sovereign power. His narrowness of vision, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... and smiled to find nothing that he did not seem to comprehend, and often went back, fearing that the seeming might ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... that? Said the prince—This youthful impetuosity told the governor that there was something more in the question than he had apprehended; and though he could be very solemn about nothing, he was ten times more so when there was something he did not comprehend. Yet that unknown something occasioning a conflict between his cunning and his ignorance, and the latter being the greater, always betrayed itself, for nothing looks so silly as a fool acting wisdom. The prince repeated his question; ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... felt as if attacked by vertigo, and his thoughts whirled within his brain. Then, fatigued with his vain toils and hopeless endeavors, he would sink down depressed, unmanned, life-wearied, only living in the sensation of that silent grief which he felt and could not comprehend." ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... learn from me,—how, I hardly know,—the simple story of my life, and, indeed, assumed a certain air of patronizing superiority, boasting unduly of his wider experience and achievements in a way that somewhat nettled me at last, as I began to comprehend that he was merely showing off his genteel graces the better to exhibit his contempt for my provincial narrowness. I did not permit this really to anger me, for our views upon such matters were totally ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... Macdermot was therefore so surprised that he knew not how to address his visitor. This, together with his hatred of the man, and his customary inability to do or say anything, made him so perplexed that he could not comprehend Mr. Keegan's first words, which were not only conciliatory ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... spirits; she was thoughtful, and once sighed heavily. Dorriforth began to fear that she had not only made a sacrifice of her affections, but of her veracity; yet, why she had done so, he could not comprehend. ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... at first, did not seem to comprehend; he could scarcely realise so much determination and tenacity. Then he cried, "Well—yes! Your honour is right. ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... the Emperor, "learn to comprehend the universe with your intellect, and not till then speak of these things for not till then will you discern that every atom of things created, and the greatest as well as the least, is in the closest bonds with every other; that all work together, and each depends on all. All that is or ever ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... sin," this baptism signified, he said. She looked at the child's bright face; she recalled the experience through which she had passed, by which she was able to comprehend these words. She had passed through death; she had risen to life; for Luke was dead, and was alive again,—therefore she lived also. Tears came into the girl's eyes, unexpected, abundant, as she listened ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... Franks' own settlements contributed much towards the independence which Southern Gaul, and especially Aquitania, was constantly striving and partly managed to recover, amidst the extension and tempestuous fortunes of the Frankish monarchy. It is easy to comprehend how these repeated partitions of a mighty inheritance with so many successors, these dominions continually changing both their limits and their masters, must have tended to increase the already profound anarchy ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... broken soldier went down the hill, in the blaze of the mid-morning sunlight, toward Domremy, there was much misgiving and confusion in his thoughts. He did not comprehend why he was going, except that he had promised. He was not sure that some one might not know him, or perhaps out of mere curiosity stop him and question him. It ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... despairing of an audience in her own language, she began to adopt ours as a medium for her thought. Her first essay, published when she was eighteen, was a monograph, in the "Bengal Magazine," on Leconte de Lisle, a writer with whom she had a sympathy which is very easy to comprehend. The austere poet of "La Mort de Valmiki" was, obviously, a figure to whom the poet of "Sindhu" must needs be attracted on approaching European literature. This study, which was illustrated by translations into English verse, was followed ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... by thy kind twin-sister, Certitude, Yon puzzled crowd, whose tired intent Hunts like a pack without a scent. And now come home, Where none of our mild days Can fail, though simple, to confess The magic of mysteriousness; For there 'bide charming Wonders three, Besides, Sweet, thee, To comprehend whose commonest ways, Ev'n could that be, Were coward's 'vantage and no ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... permit me to seat myself in your august company," continued the stranger, "I will gladly relate my history, so that you will be better able to comprehend my unusual — may I ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... General Austin had lately named him for promotion, and the quartermaster's clerk was now Lieutenant Ferry, raised from the ranks for gallantry, and followed ubiquitously by a chosen sixty or so drawn from the whole brigade. Could the like occur again? And could it occur to a chap who could not comprehend how it had ever ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... unreasonable to expect intelligent votes from men who could not read or write, had small knowledge of politics, little practical training in local administration, and none of the will to exercise control. Politics were still the affair of the few, because only the few could comprehend them, or were conscious of the uses and limitations of political power. The corrupt and misguided use of their votes by those who possessed them was some reason for not extending the franchise to still more ignorant masses; ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... thinking perhaps, as simple characters are apt to think, that there was something immodest in unveiling griefs when human language cannot render their depths and may only rouse the mockery of those who do not comprehend them. Monsieur d'Albon had one of those delicate natures which divine sorrows, and are instantly sympathetic to the emotion they have involuntarily aroused. He respected his friend's silence, rose, forgot his fatigue, and followed ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... sort of Juggernaut that would work fearful ruin upon any one who got in its way, but otherwise was not a matter of concern. When I explained to them that the law was their friend and not their enemy, they did not appear to comprehend. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... with some few ministerial reservations. He always agrees with me, and why he is not tortured at the thought of my being the promised bride of another, but continues to squander his affections upon a quarrelsome and unappreciative girl, is more than I can comprehend. ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... 1. To determine the syntactic structure of a sentence or other utterance (close to the standard English meaning). "That was the one I saw you." "I can't parse that." 2. More generally, to understand or comprehend. "It's very simple; you just kretch the glims and then aos the zotz." "I can't parse that." 3. Of fish, to have to remove the bones yourself. "I object to parsing fish", means "I don't want to get a whole fish, but a sliced one is okay". A 'parsed fish' has been deboned. There is some controversy ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... below-stairs, thinking that she should spare Louis something, by taking the initiative in speaking to his father; and she was sorry to see the alacrity with which the Earl came up to her, with a congratulatory 'Well, Mary!' She could hardly make him comprehend the real state of the case; and then his resignation was far more trying than that of the party chiefly concerned. Her praise of Fitzjocelyn had little power to comfort. 'I see how it is,' he said, calmly: 'do not try to explain it away; I acquiesce—I ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... us to comprehend the exasperation of our forefathers in the days of King Philip. The month which witnessed his death saw also the end of the war in the southern parts of New England; but, almost before people had time to offer thanks for the victory, there came ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... the living beings which surround us, and to communicate the conceptions which result from considering either the moral or the material universe as a whole. Of course, I believe these faculties, which perhaps comprehend all that is sublime in man, to exist very imperfectly in my own mind. But, when you advert to my Chancery-paper, a cold, forced, unimpassioned, insignificant piece of cramped and cautious argument, and to the little scrap about ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... been described as a very humane and indolent man, the country was distracted by sanguinary broils; the governors of several provinces and districts withdrew their allegiance; and the dominions of the khans of Kalat gradually so diminished that they now comprehend only a small portion of the provinces formerly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... to put up the wire; and this was a piece of work that interested the whole neighborhood. There had been lookers-on enough while the instruments were being put in working order, but the general mind did not comprehend the mechanism and uses of registers and keys ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... whether you understand much about elections. When I first came here I was joined with a gentleman who was one of the old members;—but now I stand alone, because he does not comprehend or sympathise with the advanced doctrines which it is my mission to preach to the people. Purity and the Rights of Labour;—those are my watchwords. But there are many here who hate the very name of Purity, and who know nothing of the Rights ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... contemporaneous with the reign of Harold, "the Fair-haired" King of Norway, the scourge of the sea-kings. This more fortunate Charles XII., born in 853, died at the age of 81, after sixty years of almost unbroken successes, over all his Danish, Swedish, and insular enemies. It is easy to comprehend, by reference to his exploits upon the Baltic, the absence of the usual northern force from the Irish waters, during his lifetime, and that of his cotemporary, Flan of the Shannon. Yet the race of the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... it is, my boy," returned the other, eagerly now, for he was beginning to comprehend that this was no ordinary young chap with whom an error of judgment had thrown ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... unable to comprehend, the girl rode on in silence, her ears ringing with Rosamund's words. And Rosamund, riding beside her, cool, blond, and cynically amused, continued the theme ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... all others, since it contains them all, we cannot see the forest for the trees. One brief impression obliterates another. There is something stupefying in the recurrence of unimportant things. And it is only on rare provocations that we can rise to take an outlook beyond daily concerns, and comprehend the narrow limits and great possibilities of our existence. It is the duty of the poet to induce such moments of clear sight. He is the declared enemy of all living by reflex action, of all that is done betwixt sleep and waking, of all the pleasureless pleasurings and imaginary duties in ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thou,' so the helmsman answered, 'Learn the secrets of the sea? Only those who brave its dangers Comprehend ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... has become suddenly rich, has made a fortune of half a million or a million dollars in a few hours through speculation on the stock market. Perhaps he has seen an account of another man who has done practically the same thing lately. He is not quite wise enough, however, to comprehend the fact that when he reads of one or two cases of this kind he could find, were he to look into the matter carefully, one or two hundred cases of men who have lost all they had in the same way. He thinks, however, ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... reading that winter Dorian obtained an enlarged view of his religion. It gave him vision to see and to comprehend better the whole and thus to more fully understand the details. Besides, he was laying a broad and firm foundation for his faith in God and the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, a faith which would stand him well in need when he ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... opportunity to become accustomed to the formalities and cautious proceedings of republican deliberations, or to bear opposition with patience. Ready to act, the instant the necessity of action was apparent, and inflexible in his resolution, when he had once taken it, he was at a loss to comprehend the inconsistency of most men, who, while they desire the end, are yet averse to the means. Prompt and impetuous by nature, he was so on this occasion from principle; for every thing depended on ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... wretched and oppressed populace; and if we take into consideration that among their numerous bands many wandered about whose consciences were tormented with the recollection of the crimes which they had committed during the prevalence of the black plague, we shall comprehend how their despair sought relief in the intoxication of an artificial delirium. There is hence good ground for supposing that the frantic celebration of the festival of St. John, A.D. 1374, only served to bring to a crisis a malady which had been long impending; and if we would further inquire ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... heard him, and quietly stepped down to bed. I shall avoid friend Ryan in the morning, as it would be embarrassing to be asked, especially before the young ladies, who or what I was howling at last night. Some people have no tact, and he might be one of these and fail to comprehend. With the exception of the officers, our crew, sailors, stewards, and all, are Chinese, and in all and each of these capacities they excel. They stand the heat of the furnaces better than any other people, and ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... learn about the Prince Consort," continues Dr. Macleod, "the more I agree with what the Queen said to me about him: 'that he really did not seem to comprehend a selfish character, or what selfishness was.' And on whatever day his public life is revealed to the world, I feel certain this ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... obscured on many sides as almost to justify people in saying that he was mad. She knew that he was almost a saint, and yet almost a castaway through vanity and hatred of those above him. But she did not know that he knew all this of himself also. She did not comprehend that he should be hourly telling himself that people were calling him mad and were so calling him with truth. It did not occur to her that he could see her insight into him. She doubted as to the way in which he had got the cheque,—never imagining, however, that he had wilfully stolen it;—thinking ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... way," said the student, and he shrugged his shoulders, and blushed because the footman seemed to comprehend the situation. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... till his poor wife was utterly lost in the complexity of the accounts. She could by no means follow him in the details of his story; nor could she quite sympathize with him in his indignation against Mr. Sowerby, seeing that she did not comprehend at all the nature of the renewing of a bill. The only part to her of importance in the matter was the amount of money which her husband would be called upon to pay; that, and her strong hope, which was already a conviction, that he would never ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... to the throne of a planet, slipped into the tepid waters of her bath, Mellie stood by, her smooth little Martian's face disturbed. For she loved her mistress, and could not comprehend the things she did under ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... chill; but clouds that dimm'd the sky Have passed. Things spited me, and why? But now my heart repents. Behold What 'twas that made me cross, and scold! All by-and-by you'll understand, When brows are mark'd by Time's stern hand; Then you will comprehend, be sure, When older—that's to ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... attract attention. Still unable to comprehend the reason of the whole affair, De Launay was crawling between legs and making a more or less undamaged progress to the door, while his enemies battered one another. He had almost reached it, and was rising to ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... understand the glances that the elegant young women who were chattering in the Hall drawing-room before dinner cast upon her when she was introduced to her schoolmates. Nor did she immediately comprehend the intention of the insults and tortures to which she was submitted during the ensuing year. She felt lonely: she missed her aunt and even the "roomers" more than she had expected to. But gradually even into her dumb mind there penetrated a sense of undeserved ignominy, not ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... equality. When taking my ticket I was asked to say would I go to Commines in France or to Commines in Belgium, for it seems that, by an odd arrangement, half the town is in one country and half in the other! Each has a station of its own. This curious partition I did not quite comprehend at first, and I shall not forget the indignant style in which, on my asking 'was this the French Commines,' I was answered that 'of course it was Commines in Belgium.' Here was yet another piquant bell-tower seen rising above trees and houses, long before we even came near to it. I was pursued ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... great room, and then down into the streete. I did give the boys 4s. among them, and mighty merry. So home to bed, with my heart at great rest and quiett, saving that the consideration of the victory is too great for me presently to comprehend. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... strange," he says, "that there should be so much of the best part of the globe still unoccupied, where the foot of man never trod, and in Europe such destruction of people. It is however for some purpose we do not, as yet, comprehend." Those were the days when Napoleon Bonaparte's star was rising and when, in defiance of England, led by Pitt, he smote state after state which stood in the path of his ambition. Nairne's friend and business agent James Ker, an Edinburgh banker, was obviously no admirer of Pitt, ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... in the several acts on that subject, a district of 10 miles square for the permanent seat of the Government of the United States has been fixed and announced by proclamation, which district will comprehend lands on both sides of the river Potomac and the towns of Alexandria and Georgetown. A city has also been laid out agreeably to a plan which will be placed before Congress, and as there is a prospect, favored ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George Washington • George Washington
... To comprehend these mental methods and to make use of them in business affairs you must thoroughly understand the two ...
— Applied Psychology: Making Your Own World • Warren Hilton
... into crapes and damasks, and other rich stuffs of China, but found, to his astonishment, by the legerdemain of traffic, his cargo had all disappeared, and, in place of it, remained a bill of charges amounting to three thousand dollars. It was some time before he could be made to comprehend certain of the most important items of the bill, such as pilotage, anchorage, and custom-house fees; but when he discovered that maritime states in other countries derived large revenues in this manner, ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... English families. It is true the land had lain derelict for seventy years, bereft of capital since the Reformation, and swamped. It is true that the occupiers (and owners) were very poor. It is true, therefore, that they could not properly comprehend a policy that was designed for the general advantage of the country. They only understood that the hunting and fishing by which they lived were to stop; that their land was to be very considerably improved and taken from them. In their ignorance of ultimate political ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... Mendel," he began, "you are scarcely old or experienced enough to comprehend the gravity of your question. It is important for Israel the world over to remain unpolluted by the influence of gentile customs. The Messiah will surely come, nor can his arrival be far off, and a new kingdom, a ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... mother while yet alive, that he might feel the more secure of being made a god himself after his death.[10] In all religions there are points at which the professors declare that reason must stop, and cease to be a guide to faith. The pious man thinks that all which he cannot comprehend or reconcile to reason in his own religion must be above it. The superstitions of the people of India will diminish before the spread of science, art, and literature; and good works of history and fiction would, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... "corralled." A man fortunate in any business has "struck the pay-dirt"; unfortunate, has "reached the bed-rock." Everything viewed in the aggregate, as a train, a family, or a town, is an "outfit." I was much at a loss, on my first arrival, to comprehend the exact purport of a miner's criticism upon a windy lawyer of Virginia,—"When you come to pan him out, you don't find color." But this vocabulary is not extensive, and the pilgrim soon learns to perceive ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... free labor, from 1820 to 1850, was fitly closed in 1850 by the annexation of California to the roll of the Free States, securing to liberty the gold mines and the Pacific coast. It is impossible to comprehend all the consequences of this step. It was the decisive industrial triumph of the people over the slave aristocracy. The Slave Power went mad over the defeat, and for the last ten years has virtually abandoned the rivalry of industries, and turned to violence, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... this. Do you not know what is due to guests? Do you not comprehend that in presuming to hint that this lady and gentleman could have any idea of patronizing any member of your family—I care not which—you accuse them of an ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... your poor old feet first," said May, kneeling down, and drawing off the tattered shoes from her feet, while she chafed them briskly with her hands; then slipped the soft warm stockings and slippers on them, ere the old creature could fully comprehend her object; then opening the shawl, she folded it about the bowed and shivering form. With a blended expression of gratitude and amazement, old Mabel looked at her feet, then at the shawl, then at May, who stood off enjoying it, and finally covered her face with her hand, and ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... recovered. I have seen her, forty years after George Butts' wedding-day, lift up her hands, and have heard her call out with emotion, as fresh as if the event were of yesterday, "What made that girl have George I can NOT think—but there!" What she meant by the last two words we could not comprehend. Many of her acquaintances interpreted them to mean that she knew more than she dared communicate, but I think they were mistaken. I am quite certain if she had known anything she must have told it, and, in the next place, ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... franked from the Government with every post, and the Duke will be calling on them now and then in his chariot. They speak to me of nothing but the poorest, simplest, meanest transactions of the day because they think I cannot comprehend nor feel. Gilian, do you know I am afraid of them? Not of John the Captain, for he is different, with a tongue that goes, but I'm frightened when the General and the Cornal sit and look at me saying nothing because I am ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... speak to you when I don't understand," she answered gravely. "Either you lie—which I should be sorry to accuse you of doing—or you tell me a very terrible thing, if, that is, I at all comprehend what you say.—Are you not the son of Mrs. Faircloth, who lives at the inn out ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... but it is true, nevertheless. Sit down again, I beg of you, and you, my Lord of Treves. Even my Lord of Mayence will, I think, comprehend my abhorrence when such a proposal was made to me, and I hope, my Lord, you will forgive my ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... not quite understand. Marilla's impassioned grief, breaking all the bounds of natural reserve and lifelong habit in its stormy rush, she could comprehend better than Anne's tearless agony. But she went away kindly, leaving Anne alone to keep her first ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Where hast thou seen the gods, or how dost thou comprehend that they exist and so worshippest them, I answer, in the first place, they may be seen even with the eyes;[A] in the second place, neither have I seen even my own soul, and yet I honor it. Thus then with respect to the gods, from what I constantly experience ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... know what some of the talk I heard about being a Christian could mean. I saw that it was something which only men and women could comprehend. And yet they taught me to say those dear words of the Master, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me!" Surely He meant what He said. He did not tell the children that they must receive the kingdom of God like grown people; He said that everybody ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... we were all prepared. Margaret and I were one as to the risk. The question of the moral aspect of the case, which involved the religious belief in which I had been reared, was not one to trouble me; for the issues, and the causes that lay behind them, were not within my power even to comprehend. The doubt of the success of the Great Experiment was such a doubt as exists in all enterprises which have great possibilities. To me, whose life was passed in a series of intellectual struggles, this form of ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... same time that we find a British writer, who had witnessed the efficiency of the rifle as a companion implement to the axe in pushing European settlement on this continent, saying, "Whatever state shall thoroughly comprehend the nature and advantages of rifle-pieces, and, having facilitated and completed their construction, shall introduce into its armies their general use, with a dexterity in the management of them, will by this means acquire ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... was, although I wasn't going to tell Juli this, one reason why, at the end—during that terrible explosion of violence which no normal Terran mind could comprehend—I had done my best to kill him. We had both known that after this, the planet would not hold the two of us. We could both go on living only by dividing it unevenly. I had been given the slow death of the Terran Zone. And he had all ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... love thee! Thou alone canst comprehend my joys and my deliriums. But, more fortunate than I, thou wilt some day, when earth shall be no more, recline and sleep ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... make sufficient allowance for the distrust which the Mussulmans were likely to entertain of his new promises; he forgot that they were too ignorant to appreciate the change which recent circumstances had effected in his political views; and that barbarians like them could still less comprehend the feelings of dislike with which they had inspired him, by their deposition and murder of Selim, to whom he was attached, and in conjunction with whom he had hoped to make European Turkey a military power capable ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... breakfast; "my books are here, you see, and the aspect suits me. The drawing-room will be almost entirely at your disposal. We have occasional callers, of course; I have not been able to make these impervious country people comprehend that I don't want society. They sometimes pester me with invitations to dinner, which no doubt they consider an amazing kindness to a man in my position; invitations which I make a point of declining. It will be different with you, of course; and if any eligible people—Lady ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... and they with her. They were writers and critics, lawyers and doctors, engineers and painters. Actors almost never. They sent her books and flowers; valued her opinion, delighted in her conversation, wished she wouldn't sometimes look at them so quizzically. And if they didn't always comprehend her wit, they never failed to appreciate the contour of her face, where the thoughtful brow was contradicted by the lovely little nose, and both were drowned in the twin wells of the wide-apart, misleadingly limpid eyes that ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... of despair, at the scenes of doubt which assail him, the poet assists rather as the historian than as the actor. And the same holds good for other poems, where he describes those peculiar diseases of the mind which great geniuses alone can comprehend, though they need not have experienced them. But it was the very life which he infused into his heroes that made it appear as if they could not personify any one but himself. And as to their faults, because ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... between the states was upset when the North began to outstrip the South in population, and every state was then fiercely jealous of its individual rights and obligations in a way that we can now hardly comprehend. ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... There were many troops under arms, and their escort was numerous. The crowd, generally loud in its applause, was silent. Camille Desmoulins, when in the fatal cart, was still full of astonishment at his condemnation, which he could not comprehend. "This, then," said he, "is the reward reserved for the first apostle of liberty." Danton stood erect, and looked proudly and calmly around. At the foot of the scaffold he betrayed a momentary emotion. "Oh, ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... take time to think of the terrific things which the central figure who commanded, and the crews of the fleet of rickety, worn-out, leaky baskets—proudly spoken of as the "wooden walls of Old England"—had to contend with and actually did, that we comprehend the vast strain and task of it all. It was because Nelson was ever being reminded by some clumsy act of the Admiralty or thoughtless, ignorant criticism on the part of the politicians and civilian public generally that the work he and the men under him were doing was not appreciated as it should ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... returned her to the porter; but lovely Amine spared him the trouble of leading her back into the closet, and did it herself. The three calenders and the caliph, with his companions, were extremely surprised at this execution, and could not comprehend why Zobeide, after having so furiously whipped those two bitches, that, by the Mussulman religion, are reckoned unclean animals, should cry with them, wipe off their tears, and kiss them. They muttered among themselves; and the caliph, being ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... he returned, "for such a likeness would by no means favour my usefulness with such as those. If you see any reason why a layman, as was our Lord, should not speak to his fellows, I fear it is one I should be unable to comprehend. I do whatever seems to me a desirable action, so long as I see no reason for not doing it. As to the customs of society, my experience of them has resulted in mere and simple contempt—in so far ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... what is here to lend Ear to my lament? What is here can comprehend My dull discontent? Neither grass nor reed, Nor the ripples heed, Flowing by, While the stream with ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... be born in a moral sense a lover of his country, for society politically regulated is a state contradistinguished from a state of nature, and any attention to that coalition of interests which makes the happiness of a country is possible only to those whom inquiry and reflection have enabled to comprehend it. This doctrine is in itself pernicious as well as false; its tendency is to produce the belief of a kind of moral predestination or over-ruling principle which cannot be resisted. He that admits it is prepared to comply ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... Academy, Michelangelo ceased to paint and draw, and devoted all his energies to modeling in clay. So intent was his application that in a few weeks he had mastered technicalities that took others years to comprehend. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... sometimes the cause of disease, and sudden changes the cause of disappointment. This was true of the swift progress of Haskalah during the reign of Alexander II. To comprehend fully the tragedies that took place frequently at that time, the disillusionments that embittered the lives of many of the Maskilim, the breaking up of homes and bruising of hearts, one should read Youthful Sins (Plattot Neurim, 1876) by Moses Loeb ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... of men. Women in general would be brought up equally capable of understanding business, public affairs, and the higher matters of speculation, with men in the same class of society; and the select few of the one as well as of the other sex, who were qualified not only to comprehend what is done or thought by others, but to think or do something considerable themselves, would meet with the same facilities for improving and training their capacities in the one sex as in the other. In this way, the widening of the sphere of action for women would ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... to her laws, and closely attend to her appearances in their infinite varieties are guarded against any prejudicial bias from truth; while those who have seen many things that they cannot well understand, and read many books which they do not fully comprehend, notwithstanding all their parade of knowledge, are apt to wander about it and about it; perplexing themselves and their readers with the various opinions of other men. As to those painters who have written treatises on painting, they were in general too much taken up with giving ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... if they are to be handled by the trade in a regular way, and they will always allow it if proportioned aright; but what I complain of is that so many manufacturers are unable to comprehend the jobber's position. Here is a sheep-shear that is advertised to consumers at $1.25 per pair; the maker says the lowest he can sell at and make a small margin is $8 per dozen. There is a good margin between $8, factory price, and $15, consumer's ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... he selected inherent capacity, zeal, and perseverance as the three prerequisites. And he states that "If a man is gifted with vast intellectual ability, eagerness to work, and power of working, I cannot comprehend how such a man should be suppressed." "Such men (those who have gained great reputations) biographies show to be haunted and driven by an incessant, instinctive craving for intellectual work." "They ... work ... to satisfy a natural craving for brain work." ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... untaught masses are easily deceived, and their unreasoning credulity enables them to proudly boast of their unquestioning faith. When their feelings are excited and their passions aroused by professional evangelists, they even profess to believe that which they cannot comprehend; and, in the satirical language of Bulwer, they endeavor to "assist their ignorance by the conjectures ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... you saying?" Plainly the speaker did not comprehend; there was nothing but apprehension ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... allowed by the aforesaid laws of the Indies, under all circumstances, is the only alternate left. Even if, against the adoption of this measure, it should be attempted to urge the ambiguous sense of the concluding part of the second clause, it would be easy to comprehend its true intent and meaning, by referring to Law 1, Title 13, Book 5, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... not comprehend her hesitation and tone. Said he,—"Pierre is wonderfully changed since he and I wore the green sash of the seminary. He is taller than I, wiser and better,—he was always that,—but in heart the same generous, noble Pierre Philibert he was when a boy. Voila la ressemblance!" ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... rejected as a woman, but as a poor physician's daughter; and this, to an understanding so clear, so strong, so just as Helena's, is not felt as an unpardonable insult. The mere pride of rank and birth is a prejudice of which she cannot comprehend the force, because her mind towers so immeasurably above it; and, compared to the infinite love which swells within her own bosom, it sinks into nothing. She cannot conceive that he, to whom she has devoted her heart and truth, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... pile with your rake as a poker and hearing the red flames crackle and roar through the heap, while great puffs of beautiful brown smoke go rolling away across the garden and the warmth is good to your tired body. Clearing up is such a delight, indeed, that I cannot now comprehend why I so intensely disliked to do it when I was half my present age. Perhaps it was because at that time clearing up was put to me in the light of a ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... him the figure of HAMET, proceeded in his purpose: 'I knew,' said he, 'that in thy judgment I should be condemned; and yet, the preservation of life is the strongest principle of nature, and the love of virtue is her proudest boast.' 'Explain thyself,' said ALMORAN, 'for I cannot comprehend thee.' 'I mean,' said Osmyn, 'that he, whose life depends upon the caprice of a tyrant, is like the wretch whose sentence is already pronounced; and who, if the wind does but rush by his dungeon, imagines that it is ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... the morning of the 7th, I found Otoo at the tents, and took the opportunity to ask his leave to cut down some trees, for fuel. He not well understanding me, I took him to some growing near the sea-shore, where I presently made him comprehend what I wanted, and he as readily gave his consent. I told him, at the same time, that I should cut down no trees that bore any fruit. He was pleased with this declaration, and told it aloud, several times, to ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... Could not comprehend how it was possible for the attendants to come near those who hung on the inside towards the sides of the ship, in order to assist them, as they seemed barricadoed by those who lay on the outside, and entirely out of the reach of all visitation; much less could I conceive how my friend ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... who had been so strangely recommended to her sympathy. What she would before have lacked, was discipline and thoughtfulness. These she had attained to some degree, in a manner which she could not much more comprehend than those who surrounded her. But it was impossible that she could be able at once to supply the double want of sister and mother to one who had been so differently nurtured and educated as Marion Hobart; and the very desire to be even kinder than she would have cared to be to ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... as it should be. Tout passe.—L'art robust seul a l'eternite, precisely as Gautier points out, with bracing common-sense; and it is excellent thus to comprehend that to-day, as always, only through exercise of the auctorial virtues of distinction and clarity, of beauty and symmetry, of tenderness and truth and urbanity, may a man in reason attempt to insure his ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... of their woes. It is true, opportunities were scanty; but, on the way to the fields, and back again, and during the hours of labor, chances fell in his way of extending a helping-hand to the weary, the disheartened and discouraged. The poor, worn-down, brutalized creatures, at first, could scarce comprehend this; but, when it was continued week after week, and month after month, it began to awaken long-silent chords in their benumbed hearts. Gradually and imperceptibly the strange, silent, patient man, who was ready ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... little dog, a white spaniel, answering to the name of Prince. Prince was a dog of high degree, and would have very little to do with the children of the school; he made an exception, however, in the case of Sophy, whose devotion for his mistress he seemed to comprehend. He was a clever dog, and could fetch and carry, sit up on his haunches, extend his paw to shake hands, and possessed several other canine accomplishments. He was very fond of his mistress, and always, unless shut up at home, accompanied ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... to take that sweet young creature to her bosom, and concentrate in one wild, passionate hug the love of so many wasted years; but Nina must not be unduly startled if she would make her comprehend what she had to tell, and conquering her own agitation with a wondrous effort she sat down upon ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... brandy, and the other comforts of life—and it is astonishing to read how soon the poor savages learn to estimate those blessings—they likewise made known to them a thousand remedies, by which the most inveterate diseases are alleviated and healed; and that they might comprehend the benefits and enjoy the comforts of these medicines, they previously introduced among them the diseases which they were calculated to cure. By these and a variety of other methods was the condition ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... that to keep the seamen in subjection, he wanted to prepare a warning of what road they should be made to take did they or any of them oppose him; and that, by means of the death of Don Alexandro, that warning would best be given; but, that what this last meant, the deponent did not at the time comprehend, nor could not, further than that the death of Don Alexandro was intended; and moreover the negro Babo proposed to the deponent to call the mate Raneds, who was sleeping in the cabin, before the thing was done, for fear, as the deponent understood it, that the mate, who was a good navigator, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... Railsford's house to accommodate itself to the new order of things imposed upon it. Indeed, it took twenty-four hours for Grandcourt generally to comprehend the calamity which had befallen the disgraced house. When one o'clock arrived on the first afternoon, and neither Ainger, Wake, Wignet, Tilbury, Herapath, nor the other familiar frequenters of the playing-field, ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... God is a conception so wonderful, so sublime, that none but Himself can fathom its depths. Human intelligence is too finite to penetrate or comprehend a system so complex, and yet so uniform. The mind of man can only form a just idea of a cause when the effect has been made manifest to his understanding. There might have been a reason for the death of Mary Wolston—who knows? But if it ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... the Gospel had been his task-book in learning to read. So many years ago, that he had become familiar with the events before he could comprehend the Spirit ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Brahman[49], the absorption of the soul in God, or its feeling that it is one with him. But this is certainly not the only explanation of ecstasy given in India, for it is recognized as real and beneficent by Buddhists and Jains. The same rapture, the same sense of omniscience and of ability to comprehend the scheme of things, the same peace and freedom are experienced by both theistic and non-theistic sects, just as they have also been experienced by Christian mystics. The experiences are real but they do not depend on the presence of any ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... very grateful," the young man said; "but I am unable to comprehend how the sight of this pretty piece of painted confectionery should incite you all to slander ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... understand, a thing not wholly normal; a manifestation that came to the stoic face and transformed it, when the eyes of the brain and heart were seeing things which she herself could not see. It was the proclamation of the part of Samson which she could not comprehend, as though he were looking into a spirit world of weird and abnormal things. It was the light of an enthusiasm such as his love for her could not bring to his eyes—and it told her that the strongest ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... seal of England (of which his wife knew nothing), Sir Thomas presented himself at the pew-door, and, after the fashion of his servitor, quaintly said, "Madam, my lord is gone." The vain woman could not comprehend his meaning, which, when, during their short walk home, he fully explained, she was greatly pained thereby, lamenting it ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... his enemies on, saw her in one of his calculating looks behind him. And his heart leapt into his throat for pride of the woman that could listen to, comprehend and interpret orders—and carry them out with a stride ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... look of the posters with great letters on them—his name—that memory isn't likely to leave me till I die. Of course, I got hold of every detail and tried to picture the manner of it to myself, but I couldn't get it that he was dead. Kitchener, the heart of the nation; I couldn't comprehend that he had stopped breathing. I couldn't get myself satisfied that I wasn't to see him again. It seemed there must be some way out. You'll remember, perhaps, that four boats were seen to put off from the Hampshire as she sank? I tried to trace those boats. I traveled up there and interviewed ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... with the remarkable contrast between the conversions to God in the apostolic time and those which we hear of now? How much more simple they were! A man is riding in a chariot, reading his Bible, and trying in vain to comprehend it. An apostle comes, and explains to him the prophecy, and applies it to Jesus. Presently they come to water, and he says, "See, here is water;" he is baptized, and goes on his way rejoicing. We fear there ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... not to comprehend what the interpreter said to him at first. But Vitellius threw a meaning glance at Antipas, who quickly made the Babylonian understand the command of the proconsul. Jacim immediately laid both his hands against the door, giving it a powerful shove; whereupon it quietly slid ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert
... in the name of wantonness she had wished to do with him. The answer to this speculation was so old,—it had dropped so ont of the line of recurrence,—that it was now almost new again. Moreover, it was only approximate, for, as I have already said, he could comprehend such conduct as little at the end as at the beginning. She had found herself on a slope which her nature forced her to descend to the bottom. She did him the honor of wishing to enjoy his society, ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James
... indomitable youthfulness and health of spirit—all the qualities that we associate with Davis himself. It was serious work in a sense that only the more thoughtful of its critics had begun of late to comprehend. It had not inspired a body of disciples like Kipling's, but it had helped to clear the air and to give a new proof of the vitality of certain ideals—even of a few of the simpler ones now outmoded in current masterpieces; and it was at its best far truer in an artistic ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various
... letter of the 14th justifies me in noticing you by this mail. Your newspapers of the same date, and also of the 15th, contain particulars of the races; but so technically expressed that I comprehend nothing of it. Your story is quite intelligible as far forth as it is legible. I am very glad that Papa Alston has won once. It is, I am told, the first time in his life. Where is Hampton all this while, that you say nothing of him? Already I have told you that on the 4th of March I shall ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... with the rest. He did not comprehend what was said, as the speech was in the Waco tongue, and he understood it not. He guessed that it related to the fallen chief and his enemies, but its exact purport ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... This is a telegram from George." The old woman looked bewildered, as though she did not as yet quite comprehend what had been said to her. "You know," continued Lady Sarah, "that he was so ill that we all ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... teacher is to make the student see visions of beauty, truth and love, to open up to him these mighty fields that he may go in and possess them. To implant a yearning, an unquenchable, all-consuming desire to comprehend and to express the emotions of which his teacher ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... say that," answered Paul; "but I think I do comprehend Miss Effingham's meaning. You have travelled enough to know, that, as a rule, there is more aptitude in a southern, than in a northern people. They receive impressions more readily, and are quicker in ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... supports his theory, not by scientific but by metaphysical evidence; his theory is "essentially and completely metaphysical in character, resting altogether upon that idea of the infinite' which the human mind can neither put aside nor comprehend."[III-17] And so a theory which will be generally regarded as much too physical is transferred by a ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... them in the city during the day. With but little difficulty he found the dwelling of his friends, and entering it, was received with open arms, and was instantly asked as to where he left Kate. For a moment he did not comprehend the question, but when by degrees he heard the fearful disclosure, that she had secretly left the house, by night, about a week previously, he fell into a chair, almost fainting, while the greatest consternation seized all those about him. Slowly, and with their ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... to which alone it appeared to him that a mediation could be applied. Persisting invariably in the same sentiments, the King wishes that the mediation, at the same time that it confines itself to this particular object, may comprehend it in its full extent, and that the war between Great Britain and the Republic of Holland may be included ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... the responsibility. You will find him passionately affectionate, and in danger there; quick to anger, and in danger there; personally fascinating and beautiful, and in danger there; and in these three things his trial will be. But he does not resent nor brood; he is docile, apt to listen, eager to comprehend; and he ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... opening and the closing ones—which he understood, and "they are both lies," he feelingly added. Douglas Jerrold tackled it when he was just recovering from an illness, and despairingly set down his inability to comprehend it to the probability that his mind was impaired by disease; and thrusting the book into the hands of his wife he entreated her to read it at once. He watched her breathlessly, and when she exclaimed, "I don't know what this ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... blind to-day to the menace of the revolution as it was blind in the past to its own God-given opportunity. It cannot see how precarious is its position, cannot comprehend the power and the portent of the revolution. It goes on its placid way, prattling sweet ideals and dear moralities, and scrambling ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... eye is a superficial delusion. Observation is worth little without reflection, and everything depends on the manner in which the observer deals with his facts. Emerson looked at life in order to penetrate it; Hawthorne, in order to comprehend it, and assimilate it to his own nature. The one talked heroism and the other lived it. Not but that Emerson's life was a stoical one, but Hawthorne's was still more so, and only his wife and children knew what a heart there was ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... with the liquor and the drug she had taken, and she was utterly unable to comprehend the tumult ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... must abide by it in its simplicity and not be wise. Christians are under the necessity of believing things apparently foolish to reason. As Paul says (1 Cor 1, 21): "It was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe." How can reason adapt itself to comprehend that three are one, and one is three; that God became man; that he who is washed with water in obedience to Christ's command, is washed with the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and cleansed from all sins? Such articles ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... runnest before rightly," quoth she, "and it is (as physicians are wont to hope) a token of an erected and resisting nature. Wherefore, since I see thee most apt and willing to comprehend, I will therefore heap up many reasons together. For consider the great weakness of vicious men, who cannot come so far as their natural intention leadeth and almost compelleth them. And what if they ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... man seems happy—is happy; goes about as cheerful as the day; laughs and jokes, and enjoys his life. I cannot comprehend it!" ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... up impulsively, to the amazement of his companion, who of course could not comprehend what seemed so to have stung his American friend. As they passed the tree, on the other side of its huge trunk, they saw a young woman, sitting on that side of it, and sketching, apparently, the church tower, with the old Elizabethan vicarage ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... is unnecessary," said Wilder. "If I can comprehend these palpable signs, I stand in ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... himself compelled to overthrow Venice, and hold it as a substitute for Lombardy in the coming trade with Austria. But the directors either could not or would not at that time enter into his plans, and refused to comprehend the situation. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... under a man's influence, inevitably grows apart from her family, her circle of friends. She was not, even before then, satisfied with their life, though she moved in step with them, while she treasured all her secret dreams in her soul.... But the discrepancy soon becomes apparent.... They cease to comprehend her, and are ready to look askance at everything she does.... At first this is nothing to her, but afterwards, afterwards ... when she is left alone, when what she was striving towards, for which she had sacrificed ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... labours not at all; all the faculties are quiescent. As she pondered how she might describe this state, "the Lord said these words to me: She (the soul) unmakes herself, my daughter, to bring herself closer to Me. It is no more she that lives, but I. As she cannot comprehend what she sees, understanding she ceases to understand." Years after she had attained this fourth stage, Teresa experienced what the mystics call "the great dereliction," a sense of ineffable loneliness and desolation, which nevertheless is the path to incomparable happiness. It was accompanied ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... move, but crouched in a corner of the room farthest from me, reminding me of my kitten when I try to drive it from a place where it has been permitted to play. As that will not understand my scats and gestures, so she did not seem to comprehend my meaning. But I made her at last, and with a very white face and a strange look in her great, staring blue eyes, ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... able to study, to think and to comprehend it, the judicious parent will be glad to avail himself of the help of Luther's Catechism. Here the more important teachings of the Word are summarized ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... strong sensation than that of disappointment in the fact that he could only so meagrely fulfil his father's ideal and his own. There came a sense of dishonesty, too, in having used the old man's money chiefly in acquiring those mental graces which his father could neither comprehend nor value. ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... of M. Verduret's plans, Prosper began to comprehend the sense of his investigations. His fate depended upon their success, and yet he almost forgot this fact in his admiration of this singular man; for his energy, his bantering coolness when he wished to discover anything, the ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... our work by taking photographs of all the monuments in their tout ensemble, and in all their details, as much as practicable. Next, we surveyed them carefully; made accurate plans of them in order to be able to comprehend by the disposition of their different parts, for what possible use they were erected; taking, as a starting point, that the human mind and human inclinations and wants are the same in all times, in all countries, in all races when ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... see if I can;" and accordingly spread out the scrap of wrapping paper, which had not been very smooth to start with and had suffered further ill treatment at Ned's hand. The note required a second reading before he could fully comprehend its meaning, which he then found sufficiently startling to send him stableward in hot haste. The message was from the little captain, and ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... readily comprehend this principle in temporal things; no one is stupid enough to tolerate the idea of grace being granted to extend opportunity to do wrong. It is only the Gospel doctrine concerning God's grace and the forgiveness of sin that must suffer the slanderous misrepresentation that ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... thing; the desire to baffle, or at least to discover, a dark design; the wish to be of service to her mistress; and the hope of finding out something which would keep Iris from going back to her husband. Fanny was unable to comprehend the depth of her mistress's affection for Lord Harry; but that she was foolishly, weakly in love with him, and that she would certainly return to him unless plain proofs of real villainy were prepared—so much Fanny understood very well. When the omnibus set her down, she found a ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... it in his pocket. In his exaltation he felt that even the mother he had never loved was promoted to a certain respect as his father's wife, although he was equally conscious of a new resentment against her for her contemptuous allusions to HIS father, and her evident hopeless inability to comprehend his position. His mother, he feared, was indeed low!—but HE was his father's son! Nevertheless, he gave her a funeral at Atherly, long remembered for its barbaric opulence and display. Thirty carriages, ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... Musa. "Once I told you that Tommy and Nick lent me the money with which to live. For me, since then, you have never been the same being. How stupid I was to tell you! You could not comprehend such a thing. Your soul is too low to comprehend it. Permit me to say that I have already repaid Nick. And at the first moment I shall repay Tommy. My position is secure. I have only to wait. But you will not wait. You are a bourgeoise of the most terrible sort. Opulence fascinates ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... proud steed shall know why man restrains His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains: When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod, Is now a victim, and now Egypt's god: Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend His actions', passions', being's, use and end; Why doing, suffering, checked, impelled; and why This hour a slave, the next a deity. Then say not man's imperfect, Heaven in fault; Say rather man's as perfect as he ought: His knowledge measured to his state and place; His time a moment, and a ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... school-days (1824 to 1826). His reply was that Tobin either was then, or had previously been, assisting him in the capacity of amanuensis; but there is a subsequent mystery about Tobin, in connection with his friend and patron, which I have never been able to comprehend; for I understood shortly afterwards that there was entire separation between them, and it must have been an offense of some gravity to have sundered an acquaintance formed in early youth, and which had endured, greatly to Tobin's advantage, so long. He resided in our school-days ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... at Doris's wondering face, said, smiling: "Thou dost not comprehend, dear heart? Well, I will explain. As I said, this is our Spring-room, and in it all the sunshine and flowers and clouds and rain are made that go to make up a spring day. They," he said, pointing to the first group, "are separating ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... with a sly laugh, "of anything but her temper. I hear of Court ladies who pine because her Majesty looks cold on them; and great noblemen who would give a limb that they might wear a garter on the other. This worldliness, which I can't comprehend, was born with Beatrix, who, on the first day of her waiting, was a perfect courtier. We are like sisters, and she the eldest sister, somehow. She tells me I have a mean spirit. I laugh, and say she adores ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... attached to the dial plate of a needle instrument for the needle to strike against. As these give different notes, the operator can comprehend the message by ear alone. But the most widely used sounding instrument is the Morse sounder, named after its inventor. For this a reversible current is not needed. The receiver is merely an electro-magnet (connected with the line circuit and an earth-plate) which, when a current ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... do not know the full story of his life. He certainly did wrestle with the flesh and blood in himself. He sighed for peace, but the moment he seemed to become conciliatory and pacific, his enemies set up a shout that he was vanquished. It seemed that they could not be made to comprehend the issues confronting them unless they were blown in upon them on the wings of a hurricane. As early as 1520 Luther replies to an anxious letter of Spalatin, who thought that Luther had used too strong language against the Bishop of Meissen, as ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... would trouble her least? Finally she decided on telephoning to a rich American spinster whom she had known for years, a woman who was what is called "large minded," who was very tolerant, very understanding, and not more curious than a woman has to be. Caroline Briggs could comprehend a hint without ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Spain had come to life under their window. A voice joined the instrument, melodious and melancholy, singing an air with little variation, but with an insistent burden of desire. The voice and the guitar mingled and fluctuated, drifting up from the pavement exotic and moving. Lavinia could comprehend ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... nearly confirmed Serenissimus in his frantic decision. Then arrived Osiander. He was a man of great strength of character and intellect, and he succeeded in demonstrating to the Duke the dishonourable nature of his intentions. Also he induced his Highness to comprehend that the Pope, though ready to gather all men, and especially princes, into the maw of Rome, could not make a double marriage legal where there was no feasible plea for annulment of the first union. To be politically hostile to Austria was one thing, ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... state of fermentation in Turkey. Instead of alienating from itself the feelings of the Christian population, the Ottoman Government ought more than ever to labour to conciliate them to itself. Let it comprehend, in fine, the necessity of allowing to become obsolete antiquated enactments of the Mahomedan law, which cannot be upheld but in disregard of the unanimous representations of all the Powers. Such should be the purport of the language which, Sir, you should hold to the Ottoman Porte, in concert ...
— Correspondence Relating to Executions in Turkey for Apostacy from Islamism • Various
... American influences. The public school is the one experience that is common to them all, and therefore the greatest single force in bringing them all to share in a common ideal, to reverence the great men of our country's history, and to comprehend the meaning of democracy. How does ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... of the difficulty of teaching young children such matters, and in the same breath insist upon their learning their Catechism, which contains propositions far harder to comprehend than anything in the educational course I have proposed. Again, I am incessantly told that we, who advocate the introduction of science into schools, make no allowance for the stupidity of the average boy or girl; but, ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... sons of Zuccato, who are engaged in this work, confide to each other their trials and difficulties in the undertaking: like artists of all ages, they cannot easily convince their patrons that they comprehend their art better than their employers! Francesco complains of the Procurator, who is commissioned to examine the work: "He is not an artist. He sees in mosaic only an application of particles more or less brilliant. Perfection of tone, beauty of design, ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... impending campaign were carried forward, and saw how each day the disorderly host that had been gathered at Huitzilan was changing from a confused mass of good fighting material into a body fairly well adapted to the needs of war. It was, in truth, astonishing to us—for we could not well comprehend how essentially warlike were the instincts of this people, and how quick, therefore, they must be in military matters—to observe the promptness that was shown in getting our army in readiness for the field. And with our astonishment came also a comforting ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... faith, in loftier style convey'd, Shall be with praise and admiration paid: On points like these your hearers all admire A preacher's depth, and nothing more require. Shall we a studious youth to college send, That every clown his words may comprehend? 'Tis for your glory, when your hearers own Your learning matchless, but the sense unknown. "Thus honour gain'd, learn now to gain a friend, And the sure way is—never to offend; For, James, consider—what your ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... a little private matter of my own!" He stared at her, unable to comprehend, and she went on gravely: "Howard, you must do what's best for yourself. I'll pack your things. You can go when ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... In order to comprehend the more intricate processes of the higher peoples it is necessary to examine the textile industry in all of the culture areas. It is essentially woman's work, though among the Pueblos, strangely ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... so please Gwen I was at a loss to comprehend, but I could not fail to see that it did please her greatly. She had been the most anxious of us all to see her father's murderer brought to justice, and now, when through the efforts of M. Godin, a man stood all but convicted of the crime, she ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... specialized forms of, this original sense of feeling. I am telling you this not merely in the way of interesting and instructive scientific information, but also because an understanding of this fact will enable you to more clearly comprehend that which I shall have to say to you about the higher faculties ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... been said to make Mr Gordon fully comprehend the case. The men were dissatisfied. They had come in a roundabout way to the conclusion that some pecuniary concession, not mentioned in their bond, should come from the side of capital to that of labour. Whether wages, interest of capital, share of profits, reserve fund, they ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... say literally, and in the deepest sense. You doubt me; we have brought society to such a state that we all suspect one another. But whatever is true will command belief sooner or later from those who have wit enough to comprehend truth. Now let me recall Miss Lindsay to consciousness by remarking that we have been out for ten minutes, and that our hostess is not the woman to allow our absence ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... who appeared to comprehend these signs perfectly, answered by making a graceful, undulating motion with his right hand, not unlike the wriggling movement made by a snake in crawling. Then he elevated both hands high above his ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... by her Horace taught, Than we are here to comprehend his thought; The poet writ to noble Piso there; A noble Piso does instruct us here, Gives us a pattern in his flowing style, And with rich precepts does oblige our isle: Britain! whose genius is in verse express'd, Bold ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... and purifying the savage instincts in man—her art advanced in sureness and in strength. Singularly accessible to external influences, singularly receptive of ideas, the full significance and relations of which she failed to comprehend, she felt the force of intelligences stronger than her own—of Lamennais, of Ledru-Rollin, of Jean Raynaud, of Pierre Leroux. Mystical religious sentiment, an ardent enthusiasm of humanity, mingled in her mind with all the discordant formulas of socialism. From 1840 to 1848 her love ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... not for some time, and until, by repeated trances, if they are to be so called, my mind became better prepared to interchange ideas with my entertainers, and more fully to comprehend differences of manners and customs, at first too strange to my experience to be seized by my reason, that I was enabled to gather the following details respecting the origin and history of the subterranean population, as portion of one great ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... kindness towards herself. Fleda would readily have given her credit for them all; and yet, the nautilus may as soon compare notes with the navigator, the canary might as well study Maelzel's Metronome, as a child of nature and a woman of the world comprehend and suit each other. The nature of the one must change or the two must remain the world wide apart. Fleda felt it, she did not know why. Mrs. Carleton was very kind, and perfectly polite; but Fleda had no pleasure in her kindness, no trust ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... it! or clap brakes on it! or take some advantage of it that will be in our favor! What matters the exact term so you comprehend me?" ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... gracious smiles and fiery glance? Of what were those unfathomable eyes dreaming? what signified those sighs which burst from her full crimson lips? Did she know herself, or did she wish to know? Did she comprehend the weakness of her own proud heart, or had she veiled it from herself, ashamed to read what was ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... eyes, seeking to comprehend. God knows, at that moment I pitied the poor dumb waif, alone in all the whole round earth with me. The candle-flame, moved by the wind like a slow-painting brush, flickered upon her face, though every cranny ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... puzzlement to that which I have indicated, besets one not unfrequently in the contemplation of men and women. You are brought in contact with a person, you attempt to comprehend him, to enter into him, in a word to be him, and, if you are utterly foiled in the attempt, you cannot flatter yourself that you have been successful to the measure of your desire. A person interests, or piques, or tantalises you, you do ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... comprehend the nature of your language, sir," said the Rev. Thomas Tozer angrily, thinking it was an impudent undergraduate. "I don't understand you, sir; but I desire at once to know your ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... honour the gentleman for his plan, which was ingeniously contrived, and artfully conducted; but I happened to have too much address for him in the sequel, cunning as he was, though at first I did not perceive his drift; and his lordship was much less likely to comprehend his meaning. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... how all this is done," added the boy quickly. "But I have the main idea and when I see the thing in operation I shall comprehend it more clearly, I am sure. You see, I don't really know much of anything about printing a paper. All I am actually sure of is that often the making up of a page is a big puzzle. I've had enough experience ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas, views and conceptions, in one word, man's consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and ...
— The Communist Manifesto • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
... Lancashire no one can doubt) could not well understand how boats were to be raised above the level of the sea. A lock to them was as incom-prehensible as Locke on the Human Understanding. A celebrated member of a celebrated trotting club was amongst the number of those who could not comprehend the mystery. Unwilling to appear ignorant upon a question which formed the common topic of conversation, he applied to a scientific gentleman in the neighbourhood for an accurate description of a lock. It happened that the man of science had on one ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... is full of mysteries. I can comprehend the pleasure to be got out of the hydraulic engine; but what can be the fascination of a whip, when one has nothing to flagellate but the calves of his own legs, I could never understand. Yet a small riding-whip ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... easily imagine, that it was only by degrees that I could comprehend some of the subjects they investigated, or acquire from their reasoning what might be termed a moral sense. But my fondness of reading increasing, and my master occasionally shutting himself up in this retreat, for weeks together, to write, I had many opportunities of improvement. ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... alleviating the misery with which they found themselves confronted in such an unexpected manner. The Municipal Council, the various religious communities, the Medical men—one and all applied themselves to relief measures, even though they could not comprehend the reason of the blind rush to the Cape. Nor, in the main, could the refugees explain more lucidly than the one phrase which could, be heard on all sides, no matter what might have been the social position: "We had to go away because we did not feel safe on the Rand." In many cases it ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... you do not comprehend the impossibility of such a passage. We can not possibly break from the confines of our three dimensional world. Here, let me explain by a ...
— The 4-D Doodler • Graph Waldeyer
... same news to tell in the little camp, and though the Doctor could not comprehend the Indian chief's dialect, his motions were significant enough, as he rapidly touched the barrels of his followers' rifles, and then those of the white ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... railroads. This is a right which he neither despises, nor, in any way, affects to despise, since it meets, and is suited to, his common condition of slender and straitened means. The moderate charge permits him to avail frequently of the privilege at seasons (which comprehend, in truth, the greater portion of the year) when the roads are almost unfit for travel, the Indian, as a rule, going in for economy in locomotive exercise (so my judgment decrees, though it has been claimed for him that, at an earlier period of his history, walking was congenial ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... this over many times. She could not comprehend one word of it as yet. Who was L. C. she knew not. The mention of Captain Pomeroy, however, seemed to implicate her father in some "unpleasant business." A darker anticipation of evil, and a profounder dread, settled over her heart. She ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... them, and consequently approach nearest to nonentity. But for my own part I cannot help thinking that the most important truths must be the most refined and subtle; for that very reason, that they must comprehend a great number of particulars, and instead of referring to any distinct or positive fact, must point out the combined effects of an extensive chain of causes, operating gradually, remotely, and collectively, and therefore imperceptibly. ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... to comprehend fully the principles of this subject, and their application to practical operations, it will be necessary to take a general view of the generative organs of the vegetable kingdom, and the manner in which they act in the ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... Historically.—In explanation and extenuation of the Platform blunder Dr. Mann remarked in 1856: "The more thoroughly we investigate the history of the Lutheran Church of this country, the better we will comprehend why all happened just so. No one is particularly guilty; it is a common misfortune of the times, of the conditions." (Spaeth, 175.) H. E. Jacobs explains: "The ministers, in most cases, did not obtain that thorough and many-sided liberal culture which a college course was supposed to ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... own?" exclaimed Katuti. "How can you know what that is! Honor is a word that the slave may utter, but whose meaning he can never comprehend; you rub the weals that are raised on you by blows; to me every finger pointed at me in scorn makes a wound like an ashwood lance with a poisoned tip of brass. Oh ye holy ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and wrung from it the conditions of subsistence, relieved the strain under which he had been laboring. He sold his pictures rarely, however, and only when absolutely compelled to get money. Miss Marston could not comprehend his feeling about the inadequacy of his work, and he gave up attempting to make ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... certain to him then that Henry Roberts was connected with the kidnapping, and while it was impossible for him to comprehend the meaning of the episode in which he was an enforced actor, he had settled it in his mind, that if Regy was to be found, it would be ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... however, as soon as he was well enough to comprehend what was going forward, seemed quite insurmountable; and after Sir Henry had sought the place by moonlight, and found it wild and open, with goats browsing on the unpicturesque graves, and with nothing to mark the sanctity of the spot, save a glaring painted picture ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... did then. He was sure that she must be aware of the unutterably tender affection he held toward her—a feeling that had grown within the last few days, until it took possession of his being. Not until the life of Rosa Minturn was placed in peril did he comprehend how much he loved her. When there was reason to fear she was in the hands of the Iroquois or the Tory colonel, and that he might never see her more, then it was that it seemed his heart must break from grief ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... close to settlement, and began to hear human sounds. One rod more, and we were out of the woods. It took us a moment to comprehend the scene. Things looked very strange at first; but quickly they began to change and to put on familiar features. Some magic scene-shifting seemed to take place before my eyes, till, instead of the unknown settlement which I had at first seemed ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... privilege for the wealthy as for the poor to have an opportunity to send their children to good public schools. It is a maxim in education that the teacher must first comprehend the pupil mentally and morally; and might not many of the errors of individual and public life be avoided, if the citizen, from the first, were to have an accurate idea of the world in which he is to live? The demand of labor upon education, ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... another story, and there are yet many of them. If everybody could see the beautiful life-size painting of Christ blessing the little children which is painted right on the very wall and blended into the tinting, they could better comprehend the spirit which ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... the hour when you deemed it best to speak, my love; for I fully comprehend the reasons for your silence. I waited therefore until Minerva should come forth, full armed, to challenge Jove's opponents to the strife. Meanwhile I had faith in God and thee, Christopher, and I prayed for Heaven's blessing on ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... this prince, who has been described as a very humane and indolent man, the country was distracted by sanguinary broils; the governors of several provinces and districts withdrew their allegiance; and the dominions of the khans of Kalat gradually so diminished that they now comprehend only a small portion of the provinces ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... for the chief of the boat department, required an account of the number of boats, the means of preventing accidents, &c. He entered so minutely into particulars with him, that the man could scarcely recover from his surprise, or comprehend how an Emperor should know so much as a boatman. Napoleon persisted in the speedy departure of his troops. Several times he ordered me to go and hasten the embarkation: he was in the habit of employing those about him for every thing that came ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... girl, life and all personal gratifications are as dust in the balance against the preservation and advancement of universal happiness and the great Cause. I thought my sister, young as she was, sufficiently great-minded to comprehend this and sufficiently great-hearted to do the society's bidding with joy at the sacrifice. But I found her lacking, and—" He stopped and almost lost himself again, but roused and cried with sudden fire, ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... of some difficulty at the moment, seeing that the request comes suddenly upon you in the depths of Hertfordshire. The more you endeavour to indicate where Brighton is—when you have with the greatest difficulty remembered—the less the devoted father can be made to comprehend, and the more obtusely he stares at the prospect; whereby, being reduced to extremity, you recommend the faithful parent to begin by going to St. Albans, and present him with half- a-crown. It does him good, no doubt, but scarcely ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... Donatello,—"but I know little of such things, and never could comprehend the interest which some of you Forestieri take in them. A year or two ago an English signore, with a venerable white beard—they say he was a magician, too—came hither from as far off as Florence, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... living in an idyllic state of poverty and idleness. The enthusiasm aroused by his first voyage subsided and his fame as an explorer was obscured by his incompetency as a governor. He himself never lived to comprehend the real importance of his discovery and he persisted in regarding the islands as the outposts of a great Oriental empire. Having sailed to seek a short route to the ancient East, Columbus was constrained to render his disappointing discovery acceptable ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... fought over again with them campaign after campaign—those where he had served, and those before his time with which he had close acquaintance; and they entered more and more into the spirit of martial exercise, learning to comprehend military tactics and the art of war as they had ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... distinctly perceived in one view; such are those strata elevated like the roof of a house, which M. de Saussure has also described. But when the operation of this cause is to be extended to a great country, as that of the Alps, it is not easy to comprehend, as it were, in one view, the various corresponding effects of the same cause, through a space of country so extensive, and where so many different and confounding observations must be made. In this case, we must generalize the particular observations, ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... the scientific investigator finds himself overshadowed by the same awe. Breaking contact with the hampering details of earth, it associates him with a power which gives fulness and tone to his existence, but which he can neither analyse nor comprehend.' This, Dr. Tyndall tells us, is the only rational statement of the fact of that 'divine communion,' whose nature is 'simply distorted and desecrated' by the unwarranted assumptions ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... the one compared with the other may be somewhat obscured. The secret of that obscurity lies hidden in the quantitative side of labor. Here we must enter upon an abstract inquiry, that part of the Marxian theory which is most difficult to comprehend. Yet, it is not so very difficult, after all, to understand that the years devoted to learning his trade, by a mechanical engineer, for instance, during all of which years he must be provided with the ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice. And how can woman be expected to co-operate, unless she know why she ought to be virtuous? Unless freedom strengthen her reason till she comprehend her duty, and see in what manner it is connected with her real good? If children are to be educated to understand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be a patriot; and the love ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... Le Gardeur did not comprehend her hesitation and tone. Said he,—"Pierre is wonderfully changed since he and I wore the green sash of the seminary. He is taller than I, wiser and better,—he was always that,—but in heart the same generous, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... know that? Said the prince—This youthful impetuosity told the governor that there was something more in the question than he had apprehended; and though he could be very solemn about nothing, he was ten times more so when there was something he did not comprehend. Yet that unknown something occasioning a conflict between his cunning and his ignorance, and the latter being the greater, always betrayed itself, for nothing looks so silly as a fool acting wisdom. The prince repeated his question; the governor demanded ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... this world produces; our creatures are our thoughts, creatures that are born giants; that reach from east to west, from earth to heaven; that do not only bestride all the sea and land, but span the sun and firmament at once; my thoughts reach all, comprehend all. Inexplicable mystery; I their creator am in a close prison, in a sick bed, any where, and any one of my creatures, my thoughts, is with the sun, and beyond the sun, overtakes the sun, and overgoes the sun in one pace, one step, ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... still growing upon her, and the few payments "on account," since she had been Lady Keith, by no means tallied with the amount of new purchases and orders. No one had suspected her money matters of being in disorder, and Rachel was very slow to comprehend; her simple, country life had made her utterly unaware of the difficulties and ways and means of a young lady of fashion. Even the direct evidence before her eyes would not at first persuade her that it was not "all those wicked tradesmen;" she had always heard ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... That is the question that has given the trouble, but it has only troubled those, mark you, who are unwilling to admit that the infinite mind of God may have reasons that the finite mind of man does not comprehend. If, for any reason, God desires to do so, can He not, with His infinite strength, temporarily suspend the operation of any of His laws, as man with his feeble arm overcomes the law of gravitation when he ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... What of that? Its sorrow is its dowry's noblest part. She bears it not alone. Such griefs, so shared— Sickness, and fear, and vigils lone and long, Waken her heart to love sublimer far Than ecstasies of youth could comprehend; Lift her perchance to heights serene as those The Ascetic treadeth.' 'I would be that wife!' Thus cried the second of those maidens three: Yet who that gazed upon her could have guessed Creature so soft could bear a heart so brave? She seemed that goodness which was beauteous ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... he was tyrannical, that he disregarded the laws by which he swore to rule, that he was narrow, and bigoted, that he was deceitful in his promises, that he was bent on overturning the liberties of England, and did not comprehend the wants and circumstances of his times, can scarcely be questioned. But that he was sincere in his religion, upright in his private life, of respectable talents, and good intentions, must also be admitted. His execution, or rather his martyrdom, made ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... to HENEAGE's help with an argument founded on profound study and pointed with legal lore, he should suddenly jump up, lower his head, and, as it were, butt me in the stomach with the Closure. It is more than I can at the moment comprehend." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various
... roused her crew from their slumbers. The ex-miner, followed by his children, rushed forth from the tolda. He was not only alarmed, but perplexed, by the unaccountable occurrence. Mozey was equally in a muddle. The only one who appeared to comprehend the situation was the old Indian, who showed sufficient uneasiness as to its consequences by the terrified manner in which he called ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... cry; I did not comprehend the meaning of his words. I sat silent, looking at him. He came to me, took both my hands in his: 'Hush!' he said; 'don't cry aloud—it would disturb him. But I must tell you the truth: he won't live three days.' I understood it all now—took in the full meaning of his dreadful ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... this is because the rich learn, either from books, or conversation with physicians, how necessary fresh air is to life and health; hence they keep their houses well aired; but the poor, and servants, are not made to comprehend this matter properly; and therefore from neglecting to open their windows, and breathing a foul, tainted air, the greatest part of their time, many disorders are brought on, and others rendered worse than they naturally ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.
... be their own; the one who did not seem To know what royal place awaited him Within the Temple of the Beautiful, Has passed away; and we who knew him, sit Aghast in darkness, dumb with that great grief, Whose stature yet we cannot comprehend; While over yonder churchyard, hearsed with pines, The night-wind sings its immemorial hymn, And sobs ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... parts at a shilling each only, it will be published in weekly parts at threepence and monthly parts at a shilling; my object being to baffle the imitators and make it as novel as possible. The plan is a new one—I mean the plan of the fiction—and it will comprehend a great variety of tales. The title ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... not so unfair as it seems. It is not very quick to read people, but it gets to comprehend them at last, and no one who is really good has to confess that he ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... cottage-door. When the stranger conversed, it was with gravity, and in such a way that Philemon felt irresistibly moved to tell him everything which he had most at heart. This is always the feeling that people have, when they meet with any one wise enough to comprehend all their good and evil, and to despise not ...
— The Miraculous Pitcher - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Brambling are found in the Wharfe, in years where there has been no deficiency in that respect; yet why they should be common in that river, when they are never met with in the Ribble, which has ten times as many Salmon and Smolts in it, I am unable to comprehend. ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... whatever. This ambiguity, which has been the source of much confusion and much captious criticism, is well pointed out by Norris in his Reason and Faith (written in reply to Toland), p. 118, Ed. 1697: "When we say that above reason is when we do not comprehend or perceive the truth of a thing, this must not be meant of not comprehending the truth in its whole latitude and extent, so that as many truths should be said to be above reason as we cannot thus thoroughly comprehend and pursue throughout ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... his home, where he thenceforth acted as permanent mediator between his confederacy and the Romans. He was present at the destruction of Carthage and of Corinth (608). He seemed educated, as it were, by destiny to comprehend the historical position of Rome more clearly than the Romans of that day could themselves. From the place which he occupied, a Greek statesman and a Roman prisoner, esteemed and occasionally envied for his Hellenic culture by Scipio Aemilianus and the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... are, is able to make a reconciliation and most sweet and harmonious agreement with all the sayings therein, how obscure, cross, dark, and contradictory soever they seem to thee. To understand all mysteries, to have all knowledge, to be able to comprehend with all saints, is a great work; enough to crush the spirit, and to stretch the strings of the most capacious, widened soul that breatheth on this side glory, be they notwithstanding exceedingly enlarged by revelation. Paul, when he was caught up to heaven, saw that which was unlawful, ...
— Miscellaneous Pieces • John Bunyan
... his leg to his servant, and leaning on the saddle of his horse, tried, by listening attentively, to understand the subject of the colloquy; but he knew nothing of German, and could not comprehend the dispute. Grandchamp, who, still holding the boot, had also been listening very seriously, suddenly burst into loud laughter, holding his sides in a manner not ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... regard for De Guise, and, to make him believe it, would take frequent opportunities of embracing him, crying out at the same time, "would to God you were my brother!" This he often put in practice before me, which M. de Guise seemed not to comprehend; but I, who knew his malicious designs, lost all patience, yet did not dare to reproach ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... built by human hands. The tapering shaft stretched out of sight for something like a furlong, and the bulk of the butt rose over us so that we could not see the mountains. Having never seen any such tree before, I must have been amazed if I had been old enough to comprehend it. ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... kitten, it is not I who say those frightful things. I repeat to you the stupid reports they spread, so that you may comprehend that Pascal is wrong to pay no heed to public opinion. He thinks he has found a new remedy—nothing could be better! and I will even admit that he will be able to cure everybody, as he hopes. Only, why ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... being clean and of pure mind, and disposed to think everybody like himself, and married in haste—a girl whom his tiresome proprieties had wearied at once, and who did not in the most rudimentary way comprehend what to him was the foundation of life. He shuddered, but could give no coherent account of that time. She left him, inclosing him her "marriage lines" and a paper declaring him to be free. And from that time until she ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... ships in the harbour, and yellow old Indians returning from Bundelcund, should think proper to be enthusiastic about a country of which they know nothing; the mere physical beauty of which they cannot, for the most part, comprehend; and because certain characters lived in it two thousand four hundred years ago? What have these people in common with Pericles, what have these ladies in common with Aspasia (O fie)? Of the race of Englishmen who come wandering about the tomb of Socrates, do you think the majority would not have ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... poetry is not confined to the clipped alleys, no, nor to the blue tops of 'Parnassus hill'? Poetry is where we live and have our being—wherever God works and man understands. Hein! ... if you are in a dungeon and a friend knocks through the outer wall, spelling out by knocks the words you comprehend; you don't think the worse of the friend standing in the sun who remembers you. He is not degraded by it, you rather think. Now apply this. Certainly, there is a reaction from the materialism of the age, and this ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... contained within its ranks a few persons of more than average ability. Some of them doubtless believed that the course pursued by their organization was for the advantage of the colony, though, reasoning by the light of present knowledge, it is difficult to comprehend how men of even moderate perspicacity and judgment could have brought themselves to such a conclusion. It was, however, inevitable that persons of such narrow and contracted views—persons to whom self and pelf were the mainsprings ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... the porch for some time back, and Esther had been listlessly standing by his side. He had put out his hand to bar her entrance, and she had submitted without surprise; and though she seemed to listen, she scarcely appeared to comprehend. Dick, on his part, was as white as a sheet; his eyes burned and his lips trembled with anger as he thrust the door suddenly open, introduced Esther with ceremonious gallantry, and stood forward and knocked his hat firmer on his head like a man ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... other happy beings in the world to whom it was also the beginning of new life, but in her name was its consecration, hers the supremacy of blessedness. Let the morrow wait on the hour of waking, if indeed sleep would ever come; this moment, the sacred now, was all that she could comprehend. ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... grant to you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his Spirit as to the inner man, (17)that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; having been rooted and grounded in love, (18)that ye may be able to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, (19)and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... people in the art of making them, he took fright, declared that the cheese was something supernatural, and that it could never have been made by any ordinary artifice. Moreover, if his people were shown the way to do it one hundred times, they would never be able to comprehend it. He further showed his alarm by forbidding us any more milk, lest, by our tampering with it, we should bewitch his cows and make them all run dry. The cattle this milk was taken from are of a uniform ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... giving her to understand that he was very much pleased with her appearance; adding, that if agreeable to her, he should like the privilege of paying his addresses to her. While vainly endeavoring to make the excellent old lady comprehend his very flattering proposition, he was interrupted by the return of my father, who, at once understanding the matter, turned him out of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... assured you comprehend and know Mine and Geneura's love, and old accord; And, in legitimate espousal, how I am about to claim her from my lord: Then why disturb my suit, and why bestow Your heart on her who offers no reward? By Heaven, I should ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... found Mona's eyes were fixed on me, and she looked so innocent, so entirely unconscious of wrong, that if I had any anger in my heart it melted away and left me more her slave than ever. There was something in her behavior which I could not comprehend, and it was evident that she had not yet acquired any particular fondness for me, but these were not sufficient reasons to make me cease to care for her. My love was too strong to give her up, even after I had just heard her declare, in such a passionate way, her ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... the axiom, if you please, which both the ethnologist and the historian must bear ever present in mind if they would comprehend the meaning of institutions or the significance of events. They must be referred to, and explained by, the ideas which gave them birth. As an American historian has tersely put it, "The facts relating to successive phases of human thought ...
— An Ethnologist's View of History • Daniel G. Brinton
... For," said she, "Mr. Home is a sensible man in his way, though not very practical: he is fond of science, and lives half his life in a laboratory trying experiments—a thing his butterfly wife could neither comprehend nor endure; and indeed" confessed my godmother, "I should not ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... interrupted Mrs. Brewton. "Uptown, drinking, ma'am." "And who may Mr. Smith be?" "Most popular citizen of Rincon, ma'am. We had to accept his twins because—well, he come down here himself, and most of Rincon come with him, and as we aimed to have everything pass off pleasant-like—" "I quite comprehend," said Mrs. Brewton. "And I should consider twins within the rule; or any number born at one time. But little Aqua Marine is the finest single child in that six months class. I told her mother she ought to take that splurgy ring off the poor little thing's thumb. It's most unsafe. ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... which gave the impression that it was lighter and vaguer than a thistle-down; and yet, in the same moment, another part of me seemed to know that it was to me, as something that might be beyond thick, invisible glass, and subject to conditions and forces that I was unable to comprehend. ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... they tell me he was with a party in front of his trench mending wire. How did he reach the well of La Folette? I don't comprehend at all." ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... to read as he had been requested. For the first two or three times he took very little interest in his subject and thought it very dry. In fact, it was not all he began to re-read the earlier portions that he could comprehend ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... the less likely to be carried into execution, perhaps only the more likely from its practical absurdity. Of course, the more educated and wealthy portion of the nation view the doctrines of Socialism, as far as they can comprehend them, with serious apprehension; but unhappily for France, these classes uniformly submit to any folly or crime, which comes with the emphasis of authority, valid or usurped. At present, they may be said to have made a compromise, bartering civil liberty for bare safety—permission ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... bosoms There are longings, yearnings, strivings For the good they comprehend not; That the feeble hands and helpless, Groping blindly in the darkness, Touch God's ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... even enjoy the truth in the sharp satire of Voltaire on the medical profession. I frequently prefer the remarks I hear from the pew after the sermon to those I have just been hearing from the pulpit. There are a great many things which I never expect to comprehend, but which I desire very much to apprehend. Suppose that our circle of Teacups were made up of specialists,—experts in various departments. I should be very willing that each one should have his innings at the proper time, when the company were ready ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Louvre like one newly gifted with sight. I haunted the Venus of Milo and the Diane Chasseresse like another Pygmalion. The more I admired, the more I found to admire. The more I comprehended, the more I found there remained for me to comprehend. I recognised in art the Sphinx whose enigma is never solved. I learned, for the first time, that poetry may be committed to imperishable marble, and steeped in unfading colors. By degrees, as I followed in the footsteps of great thinkers, my ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... them, in the most comprehensive language, the marvelous power and knowledge that they might possess as sons and daughters of the Most High. It was theirs "to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man," to be "rooted and grounded in love," to "comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." But the prayer of the apostle reaches the climax of privilege when he prays that "ye might be filled with all the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... menaced Indian invasion had passed away, when suddenly the sheriff appears in Boone's little cabin, and informs him that his title to his land is disputed, and that legal proceedings were commenced against him. Boone could not comprehend this. Kentucky he regarded almost his own by the right of his discovery. He had led the way there. He had established himself and family in the land, and had defended it from the incursions of the Indians. And now, in his advancing ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... and the decades drifted by, and the spectacle of the marvelous child's meteor flight across the war firmament of France and its extinction in the smoke-clouds of the stake receded deeper and deeper into the past and grew ever more strange, and wonderful, and divine, and pathetic, I came to comprehend and recognize her at last for what she was—the most noble life that was ever born into this world save ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... often used for the word man, as, "a hand to the lead," "clap more hands on," &c.—To hand a sail, is to furl it.—To lend a hand, to assist.—Bear a hand, make haste.—Hand in the leech, a call in furling sails. To comprehend this it must be understood that the leech, or outer border of the sail, if left to belly or fill with wind, would set at naught all the powers of the men. It is therefore necessary, as Falconer has it, "the ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... rarest of gifts upon him to whom they have given pinions? Do they mate him, ever, with another who soars as high as he, who circles higher that he may circle higher still? Who can answer? Must those who soar be condemned to eternal loneliness, and was it a longing they did not comprehend which bade them stretch their wings toward the sun? ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in this tale, besides men and women, are giants, enchanters, sirens: things which denote external force or internal temptations, the twofold danger which a wise fortitude must expect to encounter in its course through this world. The fictions contained in it will be found to comprehend some of the most admired inventions ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... amazing love of Nature, his moments of almost womanish weakness and sentiment, astonished and mystified him. It was as if a hawk had acquired the utterly useless trick of fluting like a nightingale, and being himself wholly without imagination, he could not comprehend it ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... slip of paper in a dazed fashion. She could not comprehend the good fortune that had suddenly come to her. Then she handed the check back to Mr. Bartlett. "I can't take your money," she said. "I really didn't do anything, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... nurse, the surgeon glanced at her once more. He was conscious of her calm tread, her admirable self-control. The sad, passive face with its broad, white brow was the face of a woman who was just waking to terrible facts, who was struggling to comprehend a world that had caught her unawares. She had removed her hat and was carrying it loosely in her hand that had fallen to her side. Her hair swept back in two waves above the temples with a simplicity that made the head distinguished. Even ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... study on the cultivated intellect is here shown to best advantage. Mr. Fritter traces the slow unfolding of celestial knowledge to the world, and points out the divinity of that mental power which enables man to discern the vastness of the universe, and to comprehend the complex principles by which it is governed. In the laws of the heavens he finds the prototype of all human laws, and the one perfect model for human institutions. Mr. Fritter's essay is eminently worthy of a place among the classics of ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... exist to-day, the same intolerance of anything higher than the low level, the same incapacity to comprehend simple devotion and lofty aims, the same dislike of a man who comes and rebukes by his silent presence the vices in which he takes no part. And it is a great deal easier to say, 'Poor fool! enthusiastic fanatic!' than it is to lay to heart the lesson that lies ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... had engaged passage for himself, wife, and two sisters—his own. The state-rooms were sufficiently roomy, and each had two berths, one above the other. These berths, to be sure, were so exceedingly narrow as to be insufficient for more than one person; still, I could not comprehend why there were THREE staterooms for these four persons. I was, just at that epoch, in one of those moody frames of mind which make a man abnormally inquisitive about trifles: and I confess, with shame, that I busied myself ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... and his little hands suddenly doubled at his side. He did not comprehend the meaning of these words, but he felt that his friend, the white-headed old man, was being insulted. With him to think was to act, and many a boy larger than himself had felt the lightning blows of those ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... terrible of aspect—she could not comprehend his words. Who was this man with the face gray as death, with eyes that would have made her shriek had she the strength, with the strange, ruthlessly bitter lips? Where was the gentle Lassiter? What was this presence in the hall, about him, ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
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