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More "Precision" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... describe, the account of a winter passed in these regions can no longer be expected to afford the interest of novelty it once possessed; more especially in a station already delineated with tolerable geographical precision on our maps, and thus, as it were, brought near to our firesides at home. Independently, indeed, of this circumstance, it is hard to conceive any one thing more like another than two winters passed in the higher latitudes of the Polar regions, except when ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been taught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. When she leaned over the balcony and came to ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... from Mazzini in many of his political views, and in our estimate of what may be the wisest policy for Italian liberals in existing circumstances. We think that he seeks to impart to politics a mathematical precision of which they are not susceptible, and does not sufficiently regard a principle the correctness of which has been admitted by himself, that the fact of a thing being true in principle cannot give the right of suddenly enthroning it in practice. But ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... the sea,' a legal term expressing a claim, if not a right. It has also been sometimes treated as though it were identical with the rhetorical expression 'Empire of the sea.' Mahan, instead of it, uses the term 'Control of the sea,' which has the merit of precision, and is not likely to be misunderstood or mixed up with a form of words meaning something different. The expression 'Command of the sea,' however, in its proper and strategic sense, is so firmly fixed ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... "dry sort;" or sometimes said, "How young he is!" But those whose fate it was to face the Minister in the House knew that there was something in him more to be feared even than his imperturability, his honesty, or his precision—and that was a certain sudden warmth, which was apt to carry away the House at unexpected times. On one of these occasions, it was rumored, Lady Betty Champion had seen him, and fallen in love with him. Why he had thrown the handkerchief ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... into being largely on French and Latin models, and as French is but a degraded Latin and retains Latin roots largely, in our older English poets the Latin forms of these names are generally used. In our own generation, with the precision now so much courted, a fashion has come in, of designating Mars by his Greek name of "Ares," Venus by her name of "Aphrodite," and so on. But in this book, as our object is to make familiar the stores of general English ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... certain finical precision to her English that told Peter she had been away to some school, and had been taught to guard her grammar very ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... been called by an uncountable number of housemaids and footmen "the little Madam"—the most sarcastic term of opprobrium contained in their dictionary. A leader of New York society, she had run charitable institutions and new movements with the same precision and efficiency that she had used in her houses. Every hour of her day had been filled. Not one moment had been wasted or frittered away. Her dinner parties had been famous, and she had had a spoke in the wheels ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... in the French style, as I afterwards, by comparing my garb with that of others, discovered. They were fitted to my shape with the nicest precision. I bedecked myself with all my care. I remembered the style of dress used by my beloved Clavering. My locks were of shining auburn, flowing and smooth like his. Having wrung the wet from them, and combed, I tied them carelessly in a black ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... precision in direction, let us proceed as follows: Imagine that you are standing on a stage, in a circle the diameter of your own feet; we will call that ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... the pool he saw a large flock of sheep approaching. They were very closely, even densely, packed, in a solid slow-moving mass and coming with a precision almost like a march. This fact surprised Shefford, for there was not an Indian in sight. Presently he saw that a dog was leading the flock, and a little later he discovered another dog in the rear of the sheep. They were splendid, long-haired dogs, of a wild-looking shepherd breed. He halted his ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... which remained "faithful among the faithless" to the house of David at a later day; Hebrew offspring of Hebrew ancestors,[9] child of a home in which, immemorially, the old manners and the old speech were cherished; in respect of the law,[10] a Pharisee—the votary of religious precision, elaborate devotion, exclusive ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... have to be strong enough and hard enough not to be afraid of me, by any trace. Able and eager to stand up to me and slug it out. To pin my ears back flat against my skull whenever she thinks I'm off the beam. Do it with skill and precision and nicety, with power and control; yet without doing herself any damage and without changing her basic feeling for me. In short, a ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... is." Lucille spoke now with cool precision, as yet untouched by the horror she had expected to feel. ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... officers, who are not to be "treated with contempt," etc., I have not inquired. Apart from such amusing criticism of the times past, it is undoubtedly true that attention to minutiae is symptomatic of a much more important underlying spirit, one of exactness and precision running through all the management of a ship and affecting her efficiency. I concede that a thing so trifling as the buttoning of a frock-coat may indicate a development and survival of the fittest; but ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... examples of the new Gospel of French Self-Supply. Before the war France manufactured lathes that were beautiful examples of art and precision. The firms that made them were old and solid and took infinite pride in their product. Now they realise that output must dominate. A simple type of machine has been chosen as model and will henceforth be made in ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... of it or not, varied occasionally by a solitary skiffing expedition down the river, or a game of billiards with some very steady friend on the sly. His dress must exhibit either the negligence of a sloven, (in case he be an aspirant for very high honours indeed,) or the grave precision of a respectable gentleman of forty. He must eschew all such vanities as white trousers and well-cut boots. He must be profoundly ignorant of all university intelligence that does not bear in some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... distinguit bene docet. This is an old adage. Now, he who imposes new names upon all the acts, the functions, and the objects of the philosophic understanding, must be presumed to have distinguished most sharply, and to have ascertained with most precision, their general relations—so long as his terminology continues to be adopted. This test, applied to Kant, will show that his spirit yet survives in Germany. Frederic Schlegel, it is true, twenty years ago, in his lectures upon literature, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... and not numerous. Outlines of operations, presented in skeleton, as they usually may be, are in most instances surprisingly clear; and, these once grasped, the details fall into place with a readiness and a precision that convey an ever increasing intellectual enjoyment. The writer has more than once been witness of the pleasure thus occasioned to men wholly strangers to military matters; a pleasure partly of novelty, but which possesses the elements of endurance ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... thing about me," she said with closely cut precision, "is my health. I haven't the faintest notion what it means to be ill. I am merely waiting for the conversation to take a I turn where I can join ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... to mention here A fact you all no doubt are sure to know, 'Tis necessary oftentimes to steer Clear of surrounding difficulties, so When an especial object lies below The precision of your kindness and attention, Snatch the right time (a glance may serve to show If in a mood for jesting or dissension, Domestic trials are too numerous ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... its warm, southern side. As the mounted musicians went by, the square was quite filled with the clang of drum and trumpet, which became fainter and fainter, and at length was lost on the ear beyond the Isar, but preserved the perfection of time and the precision of execution for which the military bands of the city are remarkable. After the band came a brave array of officers in bright uniform, upon horses that pranced and curveted in the sunshine; and the regiment of cavalry followed, rank on rank of splendidly ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... l'auteur; mais le style elegant, la precision des informations et quelques details d'opinion que je ne partage pas m'avaient fait supposer que nous devions attribuer a Jurien de la Graviere le travail en question. En tous cas, quelque soit l'auteur, je demande a tous mes amis de lui renvoyer le merite ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... felt a certain perplexing uneasiness; Elena was no longer exactly conscious of the moment, nor was she quite mistress of herself. In spite of all her efforts she was unable to recall with precision her motives for coming here, to follow out her intentions—even to regain her force of will. In the presence of this man to whom, once upon a time, she had been bound by such passionate ties, and in this spot where she lived the ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... eminent type of this class of men was Magliabecchi, librarian to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, who could direct you to any book in any part of the world, with the precision with which the metropolitan policeman directs you to St Paul's or Piccadilly. It is of him that the stories are told of answers to inquiries after books, in these terms: "There is but one copy of that book in the world. It is ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... that set of ten applied with beautiful precision to the special vices of that people and that time; but there is room for many more needed ones to-day. There is no commandment against gambling, for instance; one of the most universal and indefensible evils. Gambling does no one good; the winner of unearned money is ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... of the Sixth Corps to the left together in a half-wheel. Then leaving Crook, I rode along the Sixth and Nineteenth corps, the open ground over which they were passing affording a rare opportunity to witness the precision with which the attack was taken up from right to left. Crook's success began the moment he started to turn the enemy's left; and assured by the fact that Torbert had stampeded the Confederate cavalry and thrown Breckenridge's infantry into such disorder that it could do little ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... miles away when Hoddan fired his rockets. They made a colossal cloud of vapor in emptiness. The yacht stirred faintly, shifted deftly, lost just a suitable amount of velocity—which now was nearly straight up from the planet—and moved with precision and directness toward the liner. Hoddan stirred his controls and swung the whole small ship. Here, obviously, he could not use the space-drive for its proper purpose. But a switch cut out certain elements of the Lawlor unit and cut in those others which made the modified ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... on his riding gloves with grave precision, put his hat on his head, and took up his riding whip; then he turned ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... best games for training self-control under excitement, as the precision needed for a long shot, especially with the Indian club, is ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... all the color out of the picture, and leaving it a dirty gray. She gazed moodily down at the whirl of dust in the corral, where Whizzer was struggling to free himself from the loop Chip had thrown with his accustomed, calm precision. Whatever Chip did he did thoroughly, with no slurring of detail. Whizzer was fain ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... ladies by the pillar that I cannot tell to a certainty which one you mean,' whispered my would-be informant. Stooping and glancing along my arm with the precision of a Kentucky rifleman, I brought my finger to bear directly upon the head of the unknown, who, as the devil would have it, at this critical juncture turned her head and encountered the deadly aim which we ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... say, have been filled—with worthless "proofs" of the ownership of Iroquois, Shawnees, or Cherokees, as the case might be. In truth, it would probably have been difficult to get any two members of the same tribe to have pointed out with precision the tribal limits. Each tribe's country was elastic, for it included all lands from which it was deemed possible to drive out the possessors. In 1773 the various parties of Long Hunters had just the same right to the whole of the territory ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... is sleeping; but, with a precision such as the somnambulist so strangely exerts, she trod the well-known paths slowly, but surely, toward that summer's bower, where her dreams had not told her lay crouching that most hideous spectre of her imagination, Sir Francis Varney. He who stood between her and her heart's best ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... should have imagined the other incapable of doing. He had bestowed the greatest care and attention on his dress, had brought his beard within reasonable limits, had combed his hair with the greatest precision, and held lightly in one hand an elegant little cap that I am sure must be provokingly becoming. Why, he was handsome! Ah ca! some mistake, surely, I cried to myself. My Mr. Halsey was not, certainly! "If it be I, as I hope ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... determined sailors without feeling that the men of the finest navy in the world, which I take to be that of her Britannic Majesty, would find in them foemen worthy of their steel. I remember that they were daily exercised at the guns, and the promptitude and precision with which they sank the Kowtung—such was the unlucky despatch-boat's name—was a handsome testimonial to ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... sight. This constant employment of words, impregnated with meaning, affords the blind considerable facility in acquiring information by pertinent questions, and enables him to communicate his thoughts with precision and correctness. These words, and the intelligence that resides in them, are the only sources of his knowledge, (his perceptions being commuted for words,) and the meaning they import is all that it is necessary for him to comprehend. It may here ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... with efficiency and precision; she smiled at the Gimmers and Ffoulkes and the Hedley Seatons. She threw with exactitude pennies to the boys who opened gates for her; she sat upright on the seat of the high dog-cart; she waved her hands to Edward and Nancy as they rode off with the hounds, and every ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... of government, commanded a degree of order sufficient at least for the temporary preservation of society. The Confederation which was early felt to be necessary was prepared from the models of the Batavian and Helvetic confederacies, the only examples which remain with any detail and precision in history, and certainly the only ones which the people at large had ever considered. But reflecting on the striking difference in so many particulars between this country and those where a courier may go from the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... pardon you," returned Mary coldly. "I have so much to pardon that I can well forgive the lukewarmness and precision that are so bred in your nature that you cannot help them. I pardon injuries, and I may well try to pardon disappointments. Fare you well, Mr. Talbot; may your fidelity have its reward ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had evidently been coached before he came. With slender, long-fingered hands, which trembled at first, he selected certain tools with nice precision, made some rapid measurements of the weapon and of the cleared space around it, and began to adjust the parts of a queer little machine. Arnold watched ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... With what precision are national changes and destinies foretold and depicted in Dan. 2 and 8! Acts 15:18—"Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world (ages)." In the context surrounding this verse are clearly set forth the religious changes that were to characterize the generations ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... no nurse or watcher by the bed. Everything was arranged with extreme neatness and precision; but it seemed to him that there were objects missing in the room, objects that had been familiar to him during the dead girl's illness, and which were associated with her presence,— the clock that had stood on the ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... September when the old yellow omnibus rolled up for Miss Barbara and her trunk. This time there was no returning in mad haste after forgotten property. With a precision that was almost fussiness, she had packed her trunk days before her departure, and her bonnet was on an hour before ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston
... meantime our whole transport came safely inside a little semi-circular valley, and arranged itself with almost ludicrous precision. The nigger drivers chaffed one another as the shells made melody above their heads, and made the air fairly dance with the picturesque terms of endearment they bestowed upon their mules, between the welts they bestowed with their long two-handed whips. ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... stood after her again. This manoeuvre he practised for two hours and a quarter, never allowing the CA IRA to get a single gun from either side to bear on him; and when the French fired their after-guns now, it was no longer with coolness and precision, for every shot went far ahead. By this time her sails were hanging in tatters, her mizen-top-mast, mizen-top-sail, and cross-jack-yards shot away. But the frigate which had her in tow hove in stays, and got her round. Both these French ships now brought their guns to bear, and opened their ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... the house of every article it contained, leaving nothing but the blanket in which the girl had wrapped herself. All their clothes, household utensils, money, everything was carried off with astonishing precision; and having made her swear not to move till they had time to leave the village, they paid her no further attention. The other women, who had given the alarm, found no one inclined to move in the middle of the night against a party ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... most part new, and have the merit of combining precision in the methods with extreme simplicity and elegance of design. The value of the book is further enhanced by the numerous carefully-drawn cuts, which add greatly to its beauty."—American Journal of ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... questioned whether, among the many varieties of work which Stevenson has left, all distinguished by a grace and precision of workmanship which are the rarest qualities in English art, there are any which can be pointed to as absolute masterpieces, such as the future cannot be expected to let die. Let the future decide. What is certain is that posterity must either be very well ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was, we soon found to our annoyance that it pitched an ounce of lead nearly twice as far as any of our rifles, and with sufficient precision to make it probable that, before the sun had set, El Zorro would be able to pick off our horses, and ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... counting-room were, like itself, peculiar. There were three—corresponding to the bedrooms. The senior was a tall, broad-shouldered, muscular man—a Scotchman—very good- humoured, yet a man whose under lip met the upper with that peculiar degree of precision that indicated the presence of other qualities besides that of good-humour. He was book-keeper and accountant, and managed the affairs intrusted to his care with the same dogged perseverance with which he would have led an expedition of discovery to the North ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... October. The Army of the Cumberland was now under Thomas, Rosecrans having been recalled. The first action was fought at Brown's Ferry in the Wauhatchie valley, where Hooker executed with complete precision a plan for the revictualling of Chattanooga, established himself near Wauhatchie on the 28th, and repulsed a determined attack on the same night. But Sherman was still far distant, and the Federal forces at Knoxville, against which a large detachment of Bragg's army under Longstreet was now ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... first day, the firmament on the second, dry land on the third, and so on? Probably for two reasons. First, that the rehearsal, as in a catalogue, of the leading classes of natural objects, might give definiteness and precision to the teaching that each and all were creatures, things made by the word of God. The bald statement that the heaven and the earth were made by God might still have left room for the imagination that the powers of nature were co-eternal with God, or were at least subordinate divinities; ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... his appearance in their village in great state, being accompanied by the band, the marines, and several boats' crews of jackies. He was hospitably received by the natives, who crowded about to listen to the band, and wonder at the military precision of the marines, whom they regarded as supernatural beings. Gattanewa, the chief, expressed his abounding love for the captain, and exchanged names with him, after the custom of the people; but ended by saying that the lawless Happahs were at war with the Taeehs, and ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... of the greatest good fortune, the day was beautifully fine and clear, so that I was able without the slightest difficulty to get every one of my bearings with the most absolute accuracy, and to place my several buoys on the prearranged spots with perfect precision. The work was successfully and most satisfactorily accomplished shortly before noon; and now all that remained to be done was to affix the different coloured flags to the buoys. But that part would have to be deferred ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... those who have not read the gospel would submit to such a change, or satisfy themselves with such an evasion. Besides, in adopting it we must confess at least that the Son of God himself was unable to prophesy with greater precision ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... contrasting elements. A tall and active fellow, a good horseman and a good shot, living through seven years of civil war, which he had himself heralded in, without the inclination to strike a blow; a scholar, musician, and mathematician, without delicacy, elevation, or precision of thought or language; a man of intense ambition, without either administrative capacity or the courage to assert himself in counsel or in debate; a dealer in philanthropic sentiment, privately malignant and vindictive. This is not ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... then tactical regulations should lay down no fixed evolutions, but should confine themselves essentially to forms and principles of action, which should be treated with the utmost clearness and precision. ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... days the awkwardness arising from the novelty of the scene, and from the superior dimensions of every variety of equipment on board of the frigate, compared to the small craft to which he had been accustomed, passed away. The order which was exacted to preserve discipline, the precision with which the time was regulated, the knowledge of the duty allotted to him, soon made him feel that no more was exacted than what could easily be performed, and that there was no hardship in serving on ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... Martiney when he saw them abandoned. [Footnote: The English diary shows that the Spaniards had spiked the guns.] The principal Castle and the Mole batteries, supported by that of La Concepcion, rained a shower of grape at a long range with such precision that three boats were sunk and the two others fell back upon the squadron. At the same time the Port Captain and Flag Officer of the frigate ordered his men to knock out the bottoms of eighteen boats which the enemy after his attack had ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... Veronese, and he quickly became known as the most rapid and intrepid ceiling painter of the time. He worked with tremendous spirit, as one deduces from the the examination of his many frescoes. Tiepolo drew with masterly precision and brio, and his colour can be very sprightly: but one always has the feeling that he had no right to be in a church at all, ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... at him and smiled, soothed into something resembling good-nature by the odd humour and appearance of his old companion, who was tricked out, with much precision, in a blue doublet and yellow hose, while a large bow of sad-coloured riband, with fringed ends, dangled from either knee. He then glanced a look of complacency on his own ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... the school physician or the schoolmaster to know, in individual cases, the degree to which the sexual life has developed? He must have definitely abandoned the old view that either the child's age in years or the external physical signs of puberty can be regarded as indicating with any degree of precision the progress of psychosexual puberty. But since this latter, the psychosexual development, should most often guide us in the choice of the right moment for effecting the sexual enlightenment, we are compelled to depend upon an individual ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... another grievance by refusing on ecclesiastical grounds to allow Henry to marry his brother to Stephen's daughter-in-law, the Countess of Warenne; and on the general question of the relations of Church and State, he hastened to define his views with sharp precision in an eloquent sermon preached before the king. "Henry observing it word by word, and understanding from it how greatly Thomas put the ecclesiastical before the civil right, did not receive this doctrine with an equal mind, for he perceived that the archbishop was far from his own view, ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... interest and kindred which they were at all times to be inspired with; the precautions to be taken in procuring the consent of parents, and securing the free action of the Oblates who might hereafter join the order, were all indicated with the greatest precision; and instructions were transmitted to Don Giovanni and his co-operators to enlighten them as to the guidance and government of the congregation. The miraculous manner in which the Saint had often read their most secret thoughts, ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... the inductive system of science and thought; and you know that it is by constant and close mathematical study of analogy—of probability—that we exclude error little by little from our observations—we improve more and more our instruments of precision—we count out the errors of our observation; and we are constantly seeking those laws which are not transient and ephemeral only, but which are eternal and immortal. Upon those laws, finally, must rest all our real, certain knowledge; and it is the endeavor of the anthropologist ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... us have what you can give us without preface. Why, it stands well enough, man," he continued, addressing impatiently the ancient butler, who, without reply, kept shifting the dish, until he had at length placed it with mathematical precision in the very ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... parts of the earth. It was on this account apprehended, that the parallax of the sun, by means of observations taken from different places at the time of the transit of Venus in 1761 and 1769, might be ascertained with a great degree of precision(53). ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... lines of San Pedro Macati Dyer's guns had sighted swarms of rebels up the Pasig, and with placid and methodical precision were sending shrapnel in that direction and dull, booming concussions in the other. An engagement of some kind was on at San Pedro, and Stuyvesant twitched with nervous longing to get there, despite the doctors, and sat wondering was another engagement ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... gray cloak and hose were rather of Flemish than of French fashion, while the smart blue bonnet, with a single sprig of holly and an eagle's feather, was already recognized as the Scottish head gear. His dress was very neat, and arranged with the precision of a youth conscious of possessing a fine person. He had at his back a satchel, which seemed to contain a few necessaries, a hawking gauntlet on his left hand, though he carried no bird, and in his right a stout hunter's pole. Over his left shoulder hung an embroidered scarf ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... and distracting. Never surely was there a career more beset with insoluble riddles and unmanageable dilemmas. At each step, in the relation of the most ordinary incidents, exactness of dates, or precision of events, appears unattainable. Fiction is ever elbowing fact, so that it might be supposed contemporaries had with one accord been conspiring to disguise the truth from posterity. The uncertainty is deepened tenfold when motives have to be measured ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... the use he made of Leland's collections, only show the insensibility of the mere heraldist to the nobler genius of the historian. Yet Brooke had no ordinary talents: his work is still valuable for his own peculiar researches; but his naive shrewdness, his pointed precision, the bitter invective, and the caustic humour of his cynical pen, give an air of originality, if not of genius, which no one has dared to notice. Brooke's first work against Camden was violently disturbed in its progress, and ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... Don Quixote had nourished his soul, and from the heroic world of beauty and grace of the dramatists, to the bare and hard reality of the life of the beggar and the vagabond. Not even Defoe himself ever surpassed the clearness and precision of the Lazarillo, and it was the first work of a type, whose slow development can be traced in almost every country in Europe: in England, in the realistic attempts of Greene and Nash and Deloney, in Germany in Simplicissimus, ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... sun, though the season was so early, had induced the wearer to fold up his cloak in small compass, and form it into a bundle, attached to the shoulders like the military greatcoat of the infantry soldier of the present day. The neatness with which it was made up, argued the precision of a practised traveller, who had been long accustomed to every resource which change of weather required. A great profusion of narrow ribands or points, constituting the loops with which our ancestors ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... trunk. There the frightened creature had scarcely halted, when the great hen-hawk came at him with a whistling rush, and sent him back to the other side. The male bird had by this time turned and now darted with such suddenness and precision, that the squirrel, unable to pass round the tree again, sprang off into the air. Guided by his broad tail the hawk followed, and before the squirrel could reach the ground, the bird was seen to strike. Then with a loud scream he rose into the air, with the squirrel ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... mechanical precision. On March 9 Morton and his company occupied Holyrood, going up the great staircase about eight at night; while Darnley and Ruthven, a dying man, entered the queen's supper- room by a privy stair. Morton's men burst in, Riccio was dragged forth, and died under forty daggers. Bothwell, ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... medium is one of the most beautiful for pure line work, and its use is an excellent training to the eye and hand in precision of observation. Perhaps this is why it has not been so popular in our art schools lately, when the charms of severe discipline are not so much in favour as they should be. It is the first medium we are given to draw ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... a fair, and gives us the list, of which this is a part: '5thly, a silver box, with 7s. in small silver; 6, a pocket-handkerchief; 7, another; 8, a jointed baby, and a little looking-glass.' The affectation of extreme precision, especially in the charming item 'another,' destroys the perspective of the story. We are listening to a contemporary, not to an old man giving us his fading recollections ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... and they waited. With noiseless precision Bessie lit the gas, made the fire, drew the curtains, and departed. Then they could hear John's ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... kill ourselves in the attempt. There is no necessity for throwing all caution to the winds, but we should press our advantages. With self-analysis comes a certain poise, a certain dignity and kindliness that tempers every move with precision. ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... was a commentary of about twelve hundred pages on the "Book of Sentences," in the Parma edition, which was received with great admiration for its logical precision, and its opposition to the rationalistic tendencies of the times. In it are discussed all the great theological questions treated by Saint Augustine,—God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, grace, predestination, faith, free-will, Providence, and the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... St. Bennet the whole order of psalmody had not yet been fixed with precision in the Psalter and the Antiphoner: it was the incomparable Pope Gregory of holy memory, himself a zealous observer of the rule of St. Bennet and an imitator of his monastic perfection, who afterwards regulated the arrangement ...
— St. Gregory and the Gregorian Music • E. G. P. Wyatt
... morning service ends. Now, remember that this worship is daily, that these formulas must be pronounced, these movements of the hands made with mechanical precision; that if the worshipper forgets one of the incarnations of Vishnu which he is to figure with his fingers, if he stop his left nostril when it should be the right, the entire ceremony loses its efficacy; ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... 1839. But if he will carefully consider the terms of this instrument he will see that there is nothing in them calculated to bear out that statement. It is perfectly true that this is a cumulative treaty, added to the Treaty of 1839, as the right hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli), with perfect precision, described it. Upon that ground I very much agree with the general opinion he expressed; but, at the same time, peculiar circumstances call for a departure from general rules, and the circumstances are most peculiar under which we have thought it right ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... belong to the preceding chapter, for originally they were simply regularly recurring occasions for sacrifice. The results of the investigation there made accordingly repeat themselves here, but with such clearness and precision as make it worth while to give the subject a separate consideration. In the first place and chiefly, the history of the solar festivals, that of those festivals which follow the seasons of the year, claims ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... out to the letter, the five shells exploding at the exact points and moments indicated, and the people realised with what horrible precision the German artillery-men held Manhattan ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... son of Zippor, King of Moab, has sent unto me, saying, Behold there is a people come out of Egypt, which covereth the face of the earth: come now, curse me them; peradventure I shall be able to overcome them and drive them out." The precision of Balaam's language is admirable, and so is its accuracy. He neither desired to keep the Lord in suspense, nor to leave him in ignorance of necessary details. God's answer was equally brief and perspicuous: "Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... approaching strife between laborers and employers, between poor and rich, and pointed out the cause of this strife in the selfishness, unkindness, and mutual distrust which ran through the community. He also described, with perfect precision, the only ultimate remedy,—namely, the sentiment of love. "Love would put a new face on this weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too long.... The virtue of this principle in human society ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... fighting-ships and transports, three-deckers, frigates, great troopers, ocean steamers, full-rigged ships—an Armada such as the world had never seen before. A grand display of naval power, a magnificent expedition marshalled with perfect precision, moving by day in well-kept parallel lines; at night, motionless, and studding the sea with a ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... well-hung curtains, her trains like heavy carpets; one might fancy that she got her gowns from Gillows. Her pearl dog-collar, her diamond ear-rings, her dark red fringe and the other details of her toilette were put on with the same precision when she dined alone with Sir Charles as if she were going to a ceremonious reception. She was a very tall, fine-looking woman. In Paris, where she sometimes went to see Ella at school, she attracted ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... shall know where she was last night," he said to himself, and was about to tear open the envelope, when suddenly the thought that she had touched the paper made him tender in his usage of it. He found a paper-knife and with careful precision cut the envelope along the top. The slight delay whetted his eagerness to read what Victoria had to tell. She had probably heard of the visit which she had missed, and had written this letter before going to bed. It was a sweet thought of ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... we were opposite our plates, the Sister clapped her hands three times, and, with the precision of soldiers presenting arms, the women made a rapid sign of the cross, and then the priest slowly repeated the 'Benedictus' in Latin. Then we sat down, and the two fowls appeared, brought in by Marchas, who chose to wait rather ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... Life Guards, a Mistress of the Robes, and the grandfather of the Central American Ambassador at the Court of St. James, and all four of them were smiling at a neat little low comedian, who was singing, without any voice and with the utmost precision, a pathetic romance entitled, "De Coon ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... or immaterial alike. This necessary distinction between the inheritance, bodily and mental, and the heritage, economic and social, obviously next requires further elaboration, and with this further precision of language also. For the present, let us leave the term heritage to the economist for the material wealth with which he is primarily concerned, and employ the term tradition for these immaterial and distinctively social elements we are here specially ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... the Englishman stuck to his guns. With his prodigious intuition, with that instinct which is all his own, he felt a mystery surrounding him. This was perceptible by small signs, which he could not have described with precision, but which impressed him from the moment when he first set foot ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... the trees, caused by the freshening night breeze which Tom thought smelt of rain. And again the silent figure veered around with a kind of mechanical precision, the very perfection of clock-work German discipline, as if to give each point of the compass ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... may be able to enumerate with systematic precision these ideas according to a principle, we must remark, in the first place, that it is from the understanding alone that pure and transcendental conceptions take their origin; that the reason does not properly ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... And Amaryllis felt a wave of cold fear run down her spine when she heard the voice and words of her lover's reply—words not meant for her hearing she knew for the voice was so low that it was only the precision of the speaker's passion which carried them, against the ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... visiting there. Lucy drew up her pretty shoulders in her grey sister-of-mercy cloak, and opened her blue eyes a little wider. She was still in circumstances to defy her reverend lover, if his eyes had declined upon lower attractions than her own. She looked very straight before her with unpitying precision down the road, on which St Roque's Church and Cottage were becoming already visible. The whole party were walking briskly over a path hard with frost, which made their footsteps ring. The air was still with a winterly touch, benumbed with cold, yet ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... chamber of the maid. To tell how often they embraced, How changed in form their tenderness, Would lead to nothing but a waste Of time, my readers will confess. The longest, most abstruse discourse Would lack precision, want the force Their youthful ardour to portray. To understand there's but one way— Experience. The nightingale Sang all night long his pleasing tale, And though he made but little noise, The lass was satisfied. Her joys So exquisite that she averred The other nightingale, ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... dying words of heroes, the delights of Beulah or the Celestial City, Apollyon and my Lord Hate-good, Great-heart, and Mr. Worldly- Wiseman, all have been imagined with the same clearness, all written of with equal gusto and precision, all created in the same mixed element, of simplicity that is almost comical, and art that, for its ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of thought. One of our most eminent students[1] has justly said: "Every Indian synthesis—names of persons and places not excepted—must preserve the consciousness of its roots, and must not only have a meaning, but be so framed as to convey that meaning with precision, to all who speak the language to which it belongs." Hence, the names of their divinities can nearly always be interpreted, though for the reasons above given the most obvious and current interpretation is not in every case ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... is particularly useful with mild steel, nonferrous metals, alloys, and parts that must be maintained at close tolerances. Modifications of the blast method are used in finishing molded plastics, metal die-castings, and machined parts. One manufacturer of precision instruments states that his company saves $100,000 a year in finishing ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... which was a mass of burning tow, which had been dipped in pitch. When a breach was made in the walls, the inflowing army would be met by a rain of this deadly falaric, which was hurled with telling power and precision. Then, in the short interval of rest this gave them, men, women, and children swiftly repaired the broken ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... its nature, or to appreciate its character as a science, unless he shall devote himself, with some labor and assiduity, to this study of its system. That skill which consists in repeating, with fluency and precision, the ordinary lectures, in complying with all the ceremonial requisitions of the ritual, or the giving, with sufficient accuracy, the appointed modes of recognition, pertains only to the very ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... another thought. How easily he was thinking! With what precision! Yellow! They might think him yellow, even if the roof had fallen, if he didn't get up. They might think—At that he rolled over and discovered that there were miles of bodiless space between his head and his feet. It made the latter hard to handle, but he managed it doggedly. He ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... of our people. At this moment there is no man acquainted with the inhabitants of the two countries, who does not know, that where the English is vernacular in Ireland, it is spoken with far more purity, and grammatical precision than is to be heard beyond the Channel. Those, then, who are in the habit of defending what are termed our bulls, or of apologizing for them, do us injustice; and Miss Edgeworth herself, when writing an essay upon the subject, wrote an essay upon that which does not, ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... traced out the sources of his author's statements and exhibited them in notes, but he has had recourse to sources of which Charlevoix knew nothing. He is thus enabled to substantiate, correct, or amplify the original narrative. He translates it, indeed, with literal precision, but, in his copious notes he sheds such a flood of new light upon it that this translation is of far more value to the student than the original work. Since Charlevoix's time, many documents, unknown to him, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... being filled by an equally long line of little girls. All my efforts failed to induce the children to break up the arrangement they had made. They merely altered their formation by advancing three or four paces nearer with almost military precision. They were still standing in their unbroken rows when ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... undisciplined body of farmers, ill-armed, weary, hungry and thirsty, calmly awaited the charge of old British campaigners, and by a fire of dreadful precision drove them back. "They may talk of their Mindens and their Fontenoys," said the British general, Howe, "but there was no such fire there." At Charleston, while the wooden fort shook with the British broadsides, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... journey and of his feelings, expressing all the affection, gratitude, and respect which was natural and honourable, and describing every thing exterior and local that could be supposed attractive, with spirit and precision. No suspicious flourishes now of apology or concern; it was the language of real feeling towards Mrs. Weston; and the transition from Highbury to Enscombe, the contrast between the places in some of the first blessings of social life was just enough touched on to shew how keenly it was felt, and ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... proper bow with deadly precision, there was not a smile or a sound. That ceremony over, they charged down upon me in an avalanche of gaiety. They waved their lanterns, they called banzai, they laughed and sung some of the old time foolish songs we used to sing. They promptly ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... upon us and with a feeling akin to reverence heard the instructions which Major Reed had brought from the surgeon general; they comprised the investigation also of malaria, leprosy and unclassified febrile conditions, and were given with such detail and precision as only a man of General Sternberg's experience and knowledge in such matters could have prepared. After deciding upon the first steps to be taken, it was unanimously agreed that whatever the result of our investigation ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... washstand behind the screen in the corner where he manufactured his moulds. In the round bay window were his operating chair, his dental engine, and the movable rack on which he laid out his instruments. Three chairs, a bargain at the second-hand store, ranged themselves against the wall with military precision underneath a steel engraving of the court of Lorenzo de' Medici, which he had bought because there were a great many figures in it for the money. Over the bed-lounge hung a rifle manufacturer's advertisement ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... he could only act, command, and be obeyed, in union with, and dependence on, the will of the populace of Paris; and the higher he rose in that path of life which he marked out for himself with so much precision, and followed with se much constancy, the more bitterly his spirit chafed at the dependence. He knew it was of no avail to complain of the people to the people, and he seldom ventured to risk his position by opposing the wishes of the fearful masters whom he served, ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... the Revue des Eaux et Forets for April, 1867, an article entitled De l'influence des Forets sur le Regime des Eaux, and the papers in previous numbers of the same journal therein referred to.] We cannot, it is true, arrive at the same certainty and precision of result in these inquiries as in those branches of physical research where exact quantitative appreciation is possible, and we must content ourselves with probabilities and approximations. We cannot positively affirm that the precipitation in a given locality ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... laughter in which Hoolan indulged at the thought of the regiment being turned out on a false alarm was unseemly, as he was accompanying an officer. So Tim straightened himself up, and then followed in Terence's footsteps with military precision and stiffness. ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... twice asked a question as to the reason or the use of something. Dr. Harrison glanced up at her the first time—it might have been with incipient impatience—or irony,—but if either, it disappeared. He answered her questions straightforward and sensibly, giving her, and with admirable precision, exactly the information she desired, and even more than absolutely that. For everything else, the work went on in silence. When the doctor however was standing at the table a moment, preparing his lint or something else, and Faith had followed him there and stood watching; ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... conjuring me," said Don Quixote, "and ask what thou wouldst know; I have already told thee I will answer with all possible precision." ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... freedom of a vast landscape whose every particular was devoted to the behoof of any man seized with a purpose of attaining speed and efficiency with firearms, did not always reach that smoothness and precision in the execution of this personal manoeuvre which alone could render it safe to themselves or impressive to the beholder. The owner of this accomplishment was never apt to find himself much crowded with ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... through a forest of vessels with tall masts, of every build and tonnage. Steam-tugs were beating the water, towing sailing-vessels out to sea; others, moving about freely, made their way hither and thither, with that precision which makes a steam-boat seem like a conscious being, endowed by a will of its own, and served by sentient organs. From the elevation the Elbe is seen, spreading broadly like all great rivers as they near the sea. Its waters, sure of arriving ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... and when one beholds the fat cattle, lamentations for the lost buffalo cease. It is a delight to see young orchards and farmhouses, and cribs and sheds fortified against tornadoes by groves, laid out with irritating precision to confront the whirling storms from west and south. The broad bad lands in which the tempests are raised devour the ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... of gentle calisthenics invented by her father, combined with breathing exercises, she had developed a body of rarest grace. Her head had corners, as once Professor O. S. Fowler told us that a woman's head must have, if she is to think and act with purpose and precision. ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... men executed with agility and precision some of the ordinary military movements. They then practised individually at a mark, and showed extraordinary dexterity in the management of the pistol and firelock. They took aim, standing, sitting, leaning, or lying prostrate, as they were commanded, and always with effect upon the target. Next, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... inclined to be finical about his dress, or over-particular regarding orderliness, he will be interested if your garb is punctiliously correct and if you suggest to him the habits of precision. I read a little while ago the story of a young man who lost the chance to become the confidential assistant of a noted financier. The young man missed his opportunity because he made the mistake of wearing a soft collar when he ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... connection I would recognize that repetition is better than effort. Mastery, perfection, the doing of difficult things with ease and precision, depend more upon doing things over and over than upon ...
— 21 • Frank Crane
... find leisure to follow them up. There must be some kind of separation from the camp if we are to know ourselves, some leisure gained for quiet reflection. It is due to God that we be at some pains to ascertain with precision our actual relation ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods
... one of the charms of this woman. Her voice was deliciously soft and musical. The words seemed to leave her lips slowly, almost lingeringly, and she spoke with the precision and slight accent of a well-educated foreigner. Her eyes seemed to be wandering all over me and my possessions, yet her interest, if it amounted to that, never even suggested curiosity ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the offices of the royal household, without making, as Richelieu had made, any "advance out of his own money to the state, when there was none in the treasury." The power had been honestly won, if the fortune were of a doubtful kind. M. Mignet has said with his manly precision of language, "Amidst those unreasonable disturbances which upset for a while the judgment of the great Turenne, which, in the case of the great Conde, turned the sword of Rocroi against France, and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... student who is not interested in the statistical methods involved in measuring with precision the achievements of pupils may omit the remainder of ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... might be suddenly threatened. The loss of the barbican had also this unfortunate effect, that notwithstanding the superior height of the castle walls, the besieged could not see from them, with the same precision as before, the operations of the enemy; for some straggling underwood approached so near the sallyport of the outwork that the assailants might introduce into it whatever force they thought proper, not only under cover, but even without the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... synonymous with expense these days, when the general patterns and colors of costly papers are successfully reproduced in the cheaper grades. Tapestry papers are too heavy for bedrooms. Those figured with that mathematical precision which drives the beholder to counting and thence to incipient insanity, and others on which we fancy we can trace the features of our friends, are always distracting, especially during illness, when restfulness is so essential. The plain cartridge-papered ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... of anything like precision in the language employed in such verses frequently causes confusion. The word atma as used in the first line is very indefinite. The commentator thinks it implies achetanabuddhi, i.e., the perishable understanding. I prefer, however, to take it as employed in the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... lieutenant was quick to see the disadvantage he laboured under, and he called out "Heave!" as he found the cutter was falling close under the counter of the ship, and would be in her wake in another minute. The bowman of the boat cast a light grapnel with so much precision that it hooked in the mizzen rigging, and the line instantly tightened so as to tow the cutter. A seaman was passing along the outer edge of the hurricane-house at the moment, coming from the wheel, and with the decision of an old salt, he ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... yards, and immediately commenced a heavy cannonade, supported by the cannon and mortars on the enemy's lines. On seeing this the garrison opened a tremendous fire; the red-hot shot were thrown with such precision that about two o'clock in the afternoon, the smoke was seen to issue from the admiral and another ship, the men in vain endeavouring to extinguish the fire by pouring water into the holes. By one o'clock the two ships were in flames, and seven more took fire in succession. Signals ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... of nature, the action of the mind is obedient to law; the cause is followed by the consequence with the precision that the earth moves round the sun, and impelled by this resistless power his destiny is wrought out by man. To the ecclesiastic a deep debt of gratitude is due, for it was by his effort that the first step from barbarism was made. In the world's childhood, knowledge seems divine, ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... not share the trembling anxieties of Louis XIV. and his Minister; anxieties which grew more keen as time went on. However, "a soldier only has his orders," and Saint-Mars executed his orders with minute precision, taking such unheard-of precautions that, in legend, the valet blossomed into the rightful kind ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... partners: NA External debt: $NA Industrial production: growth rate NA% Electricity: 23,000 kW capacity; 150 million kWh produced, 5,340 kWh per capita (1989) Industries: electronics, metal manufacturing, textiles, ceramics, pharmaceuticals, food products, precision instruments, tourism Agriculture: livestock, vegetables, corn, wheat, potatoes, grapes Economic aid: none Currency: Swiss franc, franken, or franco (plural - francs, franken, or franchi); 1 Swiss franc, franken, or franco (SwF) 100 centimes, ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... us to form the habit of looking intensely at words. We should scrutinize them closely and endeavor to grasp their innermost meaning. There is an indefinable satisfaction in knowing how to choose and use words with accuracy and precision. As Fox once said, "I am never at a loss for a word, but Pitt always has ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... of age when she ascended the throne of England. It is odd that the date of her birth cannot be given with precision. The intrigues and disturbances of the English court, and the fact that she was a princess, made her birth a matter of less account than if there had been no male heir to the throne. At any rate, when she ascended it, after ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... pourpose; but it is absurd to suppose that providence has bestowed a virtue on a part only of this species produced in any one country, (which species was undoubtedly designed for the use of man) and that mankind should not be able, in any age, to determine with precision this virtue, or fix any criterion, whereby ...
— A Dissertation on Horses • William Osmer
... this want of inflective grace that English, and more especially French, speakers lose so much of their force. Both read admirably and articulate with precision, but the unvaried straight line tone, so suited to reading, will not serve the purpose when we not only wish to make people understand, but also endeavour to ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... respecting the number of vessels, their names, their destination, the time of their arrival, of their departure, the number of troops they embark, or artillery; in fact, not a single movement can be known with too much precision. And I must request, that you will take the necessary measures to give M. de Vaudreuil regular information on all these points. It could be wished, that you would station regular expresses to facilitate the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... With all the ingenuity and astuteness of which he is master he has attacked every part of the respondent's case; and, to do him justice, he has often displayed great acuteness and expressed himself with admirable force and precision; but it was the conduct of an advocate and not of a judge, and a much better advocate has he been for Swift than either of those he retained. (Pemberton, however, conducted the case with consummate skill and judgment.) He finished by declaring that as far as ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... and that veteran and most excellent regiment of Welsh fusileers, so distinguished for its gallant conduct in the battle of Minden, advanced in column directly on the rail-fence; when within eighty or an hundred yards, displayed into line, with the precision and firmness of troops on parade, and opened a brisk, but regular fire by platoons, which was returned by a well-directed, rapid, and fatal ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... knowledge of the practice of birth-control gives us the mastery of all that the ancients gained by infanticide, while yet enabling us to cherish that ideal of the sacredness of human life which we profess to honour so highly. The main difficulty is that it demands a degree of scientific precision which the ancients could not possess and might dispense with, so long as they were able to decide the eugenic claims of the infant by actual inspection. We have to be content to determine not what the infant is but when it be likely to be, and that ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... which lay round a sharp corner of the cliff. But the engineer's blunder was never a check upon the alacrity of the Die-hards, who cleaned, loaded, rammed home, primed, sighted, and blazed away with the precision of clockwork and the ardour of Britons, as though aware that the true strength of a nation lay not so much in the construction of her fortresses as in the spirit of ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... prior one," he remarked with dogged precision; "but, of course, Miss Reynier must decide." He recovered his temper enough to add, quite pleasantly, considering the circumstances, "Unless Madame Reynier will take my part?" ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... performance, if the time for that should ever come) a musical work on Duke Carl himself; Balder, an Interlude. He was contented to re-cast and enlarge the part of the northern god of light, with a now wholly serious intention. But still, the near, the real and familiar, gave precision to, or actually superseded, the distant and the ideal. The soul of the music was but a transfusion from the fantastic but so interesting creature close at hand. And Carl was certainly true to his proposed part ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... plain clothes man with military precision and touched the dancer on the shoulder. Without a word she turned and followed him into ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... not possessed of sufficient data for stating, with precision, what proportion the abolitionists bear in the population of the Northern and Middle non-slaveholding states respectively. Within the last ten months, I have travelled extensively in both these geographical divisions. I have had whatever advantage this, assisted ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... to take the chronometer time for my observations, and that, too, with a precision which Bob himself could not surpass; and in a very short time she could steer as well as either of us, which was an immense advantage when shortening or making sail. Add to all this the amusement we derived from her incessant lively prattle, and the ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... proceeded to read, in a manner perfectly simple, yet impressive, and in a voice singularly melodious and distinct. Finer reading I never heard anywhere; every syllable was clearly enunciated, and the emphasis fell with unerring precision, though ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... lunatic, confined to his chamber by day, and wandering like a ghost by night, refusing all admission. Moreover my good Aylward had appeared hitherto a paragon of a duenna for discretion, only over starched in her precision. Little did I expect to find my young lady spending all her evenings alone with him, and the solitary hermit transformed into a gay and gallant bachelor like the Friar of Orders Gray in the song. And since matters have gone to such a length, I, as a woman who has seen more of the world ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... resources they have driven back upon a judgment which has been inadequately trained. The mind which guided them is absent. The instrument is called on to become self-acting, and necessarily acts unwisely. Caesar's lieutenants while under his own eye had executed his orders with the precision of a machine. When left to their own responsibility they were invariably found wanting. Among all his officers there was not a man of real eminence. Labienus, the ablest of them, had but to desert Caesar, to commit blunder upon blunder, and to ruin the cause ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... of letters is less like the style of Lady Byron than any of them. We cannot judge whether it is a whole consecutive letter, or fragments from a letter, selected and united. There is a great want of that clearness and precision which usually characterised Lady Byron's style. It shows, however, that the decision is made,—a decision which she regrets on account of the sister who has tried so ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... rifles crashed to the floor with precision, and they were allowed to break ranks ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... coats of other people of the country and sewed them on their own garments, taking great pleasure in these, as though it were matter of some greater perfection."[1] These few broad strokes would portray with equally happy precision a myriad other black servants born centuries after the writer's death and dwelling in a continent of whose existence he never dreamed. Azurara wrote further that while some of the captives were not able to endure the change and died happily ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... his heels together, he had turned with military precision and left her. Then she had tossed the night long, dreaming horrible things. Now she sat in her private apartments staring with troubled eyes over the sunlit grounds. So an hour passed, when without warning, the door snapped open, closed, ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... bill-sticker carries about his placards in a four-wheeled waggon, and that his paste-pot is a huge cauldron! How he contrives to paste and stick such an enormous sheet so neatly against the rugged side of a house, is really astonishing. Whether three or four stories high, the same precision is remarkable. We cannot but wonder at the dexterity of his practised hand: The union is as perfect as if Dan Hymen, the saffron-robed Joiner, ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... advice, and we began our retreat, having the street to ourselves for the first minute. My messmates supported me on either side, and we walked backward with military precision. ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... palaeontology to his aid, and studies the evidence of the fossils embedded in the rocks. Not only is it thus much easier to determine the order of succession of the strata in any given region, but it becomes now for the first time possible to compare, with certainty and precision, the order of succession in one region with that which exists in other regions far distant. The value of fossils as tests of the relative ages of the sedimentary rocks depends on the fact that they are not indefinitely or promiscuously scattered through the ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... deep, and there was not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his whole body. Under his clear, white skin the muscles tensed and flowed, as he crouched, and approached and retreated warily, looking for an opening. His movements were swift and graceful, carried out with a precision and certainty that not only claimed, ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... pleasant from that reminiscence, with the consent of parent and pupil, and to his own great delight, the hour designed for the scholar's scales and exercises was given to the master's playing. He was fond of Weber's "Invitation to the Waltz," and he played it with force and precision and the utmost delicacy. Mr. Timm had a pale, smooth, sharp face, a rather prim manner, and a quick, modest gait. He was most simple-hearted, and loved a joke; and his fun was all the more effective from his very sober face and his lisp. It was his wife who was long ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... another, but really by the force of his relentless will, kept his victim by him for years after their escape from the South. He noted from time to time certain curious changes that took place in his physical nature, and recorded his observations with scientific precision in a book kept for the purpose, for the renewal of life had entailed results of an extraordinary character, as the reader may have already anticipated. At length he wrote 'My hypothesis is verified, it has ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... the road in many places to rid it of dust and dirt. Here and there it ran for a considerable distance through beautiful avenues of fine elms and yews; the hawthorne hedges which bordered it almost everywhere were trimmed with careful exactness; and yet amid all this precision there bloomed in many places the sweet English wild flowers—forget-me-nots, violets, wild hyacinths and bluebells. The country itself was rather flat and the villages generally uninteresting. The road was literally bordered with wayside inns, or, more properly, ale houses, for they ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... de Rome from the American Academy, which prize allowed him to study in Rome and Greece for three years, from 1909 to 1912. His study in Greece gave a most interesting, individual touch to his work, for he united to his fresh, vigorous western style the classic precision of the Greek. He has a certain archaistic mannerism in his work recalling the Aeginetan marbles, which individuality puts a Manship stamp upon his work, striking a distinctly personal note. His statuettes ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James
... Strict devotees were, I believe, noted for the smallness and precision of their ruffs, which were termed in print from the exactness of the folds. So in Mynshul's Essays, 4to, 1618. "I vndertooke a warre when I aduentured to speake in print, (not in print as Puritan's ruffes are set.)" The term of Geneva print probably arose from the minuteness of the type ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... nothing of the popular conception of the criminal about Freddy as he swaggered into the room, bearing a glossy silk hat of the latest fashionable shape on one arm. His morning coat was of faultless cut. His trousers were creased with precision. Grey spats covered his ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... difference between accuracy and vagueness, and an insight into nature's complexity and into the inadequacy of all abstract verbal accounts of real phenomena, which once wrought into the mind, remain there as lifelong possessions. They confer precision; because, if you are doing a thing, you must do it definitely right or definitely wrong. They give honesty; for, when you express yourself by making things, and not by using words, it becomes impossible to dissimulate your vagueness or ignorance by ambiguity. They beget a habit ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... reporter called him), who headed the procession at least four times a day, up and down the church, was a very important and successful part of the machinery, and from him, up to the highest official, everything was carried out with exact precision. ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... boats approaches that of a salmon-fisher's punt used on certain British rivers. Being floored gives them the appearance of being absolutely flat-bottomed; but, though they tilt readily, they are very safe, being heavily built and fitted together with singular precision with wooden bolts and a few copper cleets. They are SCULLED, not what we should call rowed, by two or four men with very heavy oars made of two pieces of wood working on pins placed on outrigger bars. The men scull standing and use the thigh ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... his heel, with military precision. Then he chuckled Dolores under the chin with a leer, to have his hand indignantly pushed aside. As the girl glared at him with a flash of hatred in her eyes, he stalked into the taproom, followed ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... had been an utterly profane pause while the officers had waited for Trooper Weldon to bring his bolting steed back into some semblance of alignment. The pause always ended with Weldon upright in his saddle, his face beaming with jovial smiles and his horse ranged up with mathematical precision. The delays were by no means helpful to discipline. Nevertheless, the officers yielded to the inevitable with the better grace, inasmuch as no one else would voluntarily trust life and limb to the vicious beasts in which ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... say, Moniteur Industriel—what will you say, disciples of good M. F. Chamans, who has calculated with so much precision how much trade would gain by the burning of Paris, from the number of houses it ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... manager; and I must own the scene that followed was not unentertaining. Mrs. Stainforth and myself were fast fixed in an angle at the corner of the stairs, and Mr. de Luc stood in the midst of the crowd, where he began offering so many grave arguments, with such deliberation and precision, every now and then going back in his reasoning to correct his own English, representing our right to proceed, and the wrong of not making way for us, that it was irresistibly comic to see the people stare, as they pushed On, and to see his unconscious content in their passing him, so long as ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... Registrar-General, I am enabled to point, with some precision, to a few of the localities in which the name of Longfellow exists in this country. Upon reference to the well-arranged indexes in his office, it appears that the deaths of sixty-one persons bearing this name were ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various
... of the multifarious and complex environmental forces, which in the past have moulded women into what to-day they are, will lead us to our goal. We may examine woman's present character, both physical and mental, with every precision of detail, but the knowledge gained will not settle her inborn Nature. We shall discover what she is, not what she might be. No, rather to do this we must go back through many generations to primitive ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... cultivating the soil, besides manufacturing blankets, baskets, pottery, etc. Quiet and peaceable, they have no fears except from their enemies, the Apaches, and are very industrious, much more so than the lower order of Mexicans, and live far more comfortably. It is astonishing with what precision they construct their acequias—irrigating canals—some of them, the acequias madre, of very large size, and without the use of levelling apparatus, but simply by the eye. Their gardens and farms too are regularly ditched ...
— Memoir of the Proposed Territory of Arizona • Sylvester Mowry
... and executed with the usual precision, only that Tim, who was not thoroughly "broken in," made some blunders, though, considering his short service, his proficiency was ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... history, and, to some extent, the moral history of its population. "History does not stand outside of nature, but in her very heart, so that the historian only grasps a people's character with true precision when he keeps in full view its geographical position, and the influences which its surroundings have ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... in the east when the Indian awoke Sullivan; and after a slight repast, they both started for the settlement of the whites. The Indian kept in advance of his companion, and threaded his way through the still darkened forest with a precision and a rapidity which showed him to be well acquainted with its paths and secret recesses. As he took the most direct way, without fear of losing his course, being guided by signs unknown to any save some of the oldest and most experienced hunters, they traversed the forest far more quickly ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... they were out of sight; but in the next they appeared on the starboard beam, swimming parallel as before, both to the course of the Catamaran and to each other. The manoeuvre was executed with such precision and uniformity, as could not be imitated among men,—even under the tuition of the ablest drill-sergeant that ever existed. They swerved from right to left, as if each and all were actuated by the same impulse, and at the same instant of time. At the same instant their tails made a ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... usual was pacing with a slow and measured tread the whole length of the deck, wheeling round with measured precision, when he arrived at the end of his walk; and whether upon this occasion, any one interested in his movements had secretly slipped a guinea into his hand, not to quicken but to retard his progress, was never known; but ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... Englishman and a German—Dr. Joule and Dr. Mayer—to the honor of having founded the new philosophy. Tyndall accords a high place to the German as having worked out the view in an a priori way with remarkable precision and comprehensiveness, while he grants to the Englishman the credit of being the first to experimentally establish the law of the mechanical equivalent of heat. But his English critics seem to be satisfied with nothing short of an entire monopoly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... kingfisher's nest—showed no more than a pretty surprise at the intrusion. She had, in fact, seen Captain Hocken pass the window some moments before; and it had not caused her to joggle the tiny ivory hook for a moment or to miss a moment's precision. What native quickness did for her, native stolidity did almost as well for Captain Hunken, who sat in an arm-chair by the fireplace smoking and watching her—and had been sitting and watching her for a good half an hour admiringly, without converse. "Spillikins" is a game during ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... by these cruel attacks, which had been calculated with the greatest nicety and precision, hardly knew what answer to return; she even seemed to have lost all power of thought. Her perfidious friend's voice had assumed the most affectionate tone; she spoke as a woman, but concealed the instincts ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and the physicochemical analysis of vital processes was to continue into the eighteenth century and to contribute to the great stress upon precision in that period. It was not, however, destined to become immediately the main stream of embryological investigation. For even as the studies of Mayow were in progress, embryology was embarked upon a course leading to preformationism. By the end ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer
... moorland feud of the ferrets and the wild cats. One after another closed his obscure adventures in mid-air, triced up to the arm of the royal gibbet or the Baron's dule-tree. For the rusty blunderbuss of Scots criminal justice, which usually hurt nobody but jurymen, became a weapon of precision for the Nicksons, the Ellwalds, and the Crozers. The exhilaration of their exploits seemed to haunt the memories of their descendants alone, and the shame to be forgotten. Pride glowed in their bosoms to publish their relationship to "Andrew Ellwald ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... grey stone, surrounded by battlements and ramparts, kept in perfect repair, but destitute of any kind of ornament whatever. It might have been even now a military stronghold, and it was evident that there were traditions of precision and obedience within its walls which would have done credit to any barracks. The dominant temper of the master made itself felt at every turn, and the servants moved quickly and silently about their duties. There was something intensely attractive ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... slowly and with great precision. Overland Red, utterly unable to manage the Yuma colt under fire, rode up to Williams. "Let's call it off, Brand. I got my man. They was no need of the rest of it. How did ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... were useless with God. Said he, "Balak the son of Zippor, King of Moab, has sent unto me, saying, Behold there is a people come out of Egypt, which covereth the face of the earth: come now, curse me them; peradventure I shall be able to overcome them and drive them out." The precision of Balaam's language is admirable, and so is its accuracy. He neither desired to keep the Lord in suspense, nor to leave him in ignorance of necessary details. God's answer was equally brief and perspicuous: "Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... France ought to be a sufficient guarantee that the manufacture of beet root sugar is not a speculative but a great staple trade, in which the supply can be regulated by the demand, with a precision scarcely attainable in any other ease, and when, in addition, this demand tends rather to increase than to diminish. That the trade is profitable there can also be no doubt from the large capital embarked in it on the Continent—a capital ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... my dear Claude; but it will not do for every one to try Mr. Ruskin's tools. Neither you nor I possess that almost Roman severity, that stern precision of conception and expression, which enables him to revel in the most gorgeous language, without ever letting it pall upon the reader's taste by affectation or over- lusciousness. His style is like ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... science to find out the real nature of the universe. Its purpose is to eliminate the personal equation and the human equation in statements of truth. By methods of precision of thought and instruments of precision in observation, it seeks to make our knowledge of the small, the distant, the invisible, the mysterious as accurate as our knowledge of the common things men have handled for ages. It seeks to make our knowledge of common things exact and precise, ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... exploded like the groan of a shell. For while Winslow's bicycling was all that could be wished, and he flung himself in the path of the on-coming wheel with marvellous celerity and precision, he had not the power to withstand the never yet revealed number of pounds carried by Miss Lorania, impelled by the rapid descent and gathering momentum at every whirl. They met; he caught her; but instantly he was rolling down the steep incline and she was doubled ...
— Different Girls • Various
... at a conciseness and purity of style which had been hitherto unknown in Roman satire, and studied, not unsuccessfully, to give to his own work, by great and well-disguised elaboration of finish, the concentrated force and picturesque precision which are large elements in all genuine poetry. His own practice, as we see from its results, is given in the following lines, and a better description of how didactic or satiric poetry should be written could scarcely be ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... energy; and he consequently became a ready, accurate, and thorough lawyer, equal to all the practical exigencies of his profession. He brought his knowledge to bear on every point presented to him, with beautiful precision. He was equally quick and cautious—artful to a degree—But I shall have other opportunities of describing him; since on him, as on every working junior, will devolve the real conduct of the defendant's case in the memorable action of ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... affect the outer tentacles, but all those near the two points were directed to them, so that two wheels were formed on the disc of the same leaf; the pedicels of the tentacles forming the spokes, and the glands united in a mass over the phosphate representing the axles. The precision with which each tentacle pointed to the particle was wonderful; so that in some cases I could detect no deviation from perfect accuracy. Thus, although the short tentacles in the middle of the disc ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... which indicate with considerable exactness the slope of the original plane-surfaces of the pyramid, the ratio of the height to the side of the base may be regarded as much more satisfactorily determined than the actual value of either dimension. Of course the pyramidalists claim a degree of precision indicating a most accurate knowledge of the ratio between the diameter and the circumference of a circle; and the angle of the only casing stone measured being diversely estimated at 51 deg. 50' and 51 deg. 52-1/4', they consider 50 deg. 51' 14.3" the true value, and infer that ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... lung action, and modern experiment has shown by means of the spirometer that the systole and diastole motion of the hemispheres of the brain coincide exactly with the respiration of the lungs. The brain as the organ of the mind registers every emotion with unerring precision. But so also do the lungs, as a few common observations will prove. Thus if a person is in deep thought the breathing will be found to be long and regular, but if the mind is agitated the breathing will be short and stertorous, while if fear affects the ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... him, but the precision with which I was comparing my watch with the clock over the mantelpiece, saved me from suspicion, and he resumed his conversation, in a voice which ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... women, bring the date of their birth forward, but Knox with much care set his back. He justified himself in this because, when he was twenty, he was explaining the difference between truth and error with great precision, and to give the words weight he added ten years to his age, explaining to a finikin friend that at twenty he knew more than any man of thirty that could be produced. And ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... of Greek culture, which was an awakening of the powers of the mind, the senses and the spirit had no distinctly separated property; no division had yet torn them asunder, leading them to partition in a hostile attitude, and to mark off their limits with precision. Poetry had not as yet become the adversary of wit, nor had speculation abused itself by passing into quibbling. In cases of necessity both poetry and wit could exchange parts, because they both honored truth only in their special way. However ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... before Achilles rageing. You perceive the picture, you can almost sing the ballad. We want only a few names of the fallen. It was the carving of a maitre chef, according to Skepsey: right-left-and point, with supreme precision: they fell, accurately sliced from the joint. Having done with them, Dartrey tossed the Demerara to Skepsey, and washed his hands of battle; and he let his major go unscathed. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hour-glass. They wore grey camlet riding habits, with large black Birmingham buttons (to mark the slight mourning for their deceased brother-in-law): while petticoats, fastened as pins did or did not their office, shewed more of the quilted marseilles and stuff beneath, than the precision of the toilet required: both of which, from their contact with the water of the bog, merited the epithet of "Slappersallagh," bestowed on their wearers by Terence O'Brien. Their habit-shirts, chitterlings, and cravats, though trimmed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... character. It is stereotyped throughout. Not only are the intervals and accents fixed, but the pitch and quality changes are now definite, sustained and recurrent. The whole sum of the motor processes of utterance has become cooerdinated and regulated. Along with this precision of all the movements comes a tendency to beat a new rhythm. This accompanying rhythm is simpler and broader in character; it is a kind of long swell on which the speech movements ripple. This second rhythm may express itself in ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... to the taube," he announced. "It appears from four to five with the precision a punctilious guest coming to ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the nosegays began to fly about, pretty smartly; and I was fortunate enough to observe one gentleman attired as a Greek warrior, catch a light-whiskered brigand on the nose (he was in the very act of tossing up a bouquet to a young lady in a first-floor window) with a precision that was much applauded by the bystanders. As this victorious Greek was exchanging a facetious remark with a stout gentleman in a doorway— one-half black and one-half white, as if he had been peeled up the middle—who had offered him his congratulations on this ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... that in assigning a more definite value to the terms in question—a proceeding in which we have the countenance of nearly every modern historian—we do not detach them from their original acceptation; at most we give them more constancy and precision than the colloquial language of the Greeks and Romans demanded.[12] The expressions Khasdim and Chaldaei were used in the Bible and by classic authors mainly to denote the inhabitants of Babylon and its neighbourhood; and we ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... almost impersonal standpoint. His sense of humor was constantly appealed to, and he laughed softly to himself with a feeling of amusement scarcely tinged by concern for the result of the contest when Mr. Ranger, stately and ponderous, got upon his feet. He could have told with reasonable precision the inconsequent remarks which were to come; and the interruption which they made appealed to his sense of the ludicrous as strongly as it irritated ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... a stormy Polish march, which she played very well, but with a mechanical precision which seemed to offend Clarke, who rose and laid his hand on her arm. "Wait, you're not in the mood yet." He turned to Serviss. "The spirit of our discussion is upon her. She is very sensitive to such things. ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... machine-gun fire which seemed to leap upon them from almost every angle. Some of the enemy machine-guns were captured by our troops, who used them with deadly effect upon the then retiring foe. All the objectives were obtained with clock-like precision. Again and again the victorious troops were subjected to withering counter-attacks, and shells fell around them like hail. There was no faltering. They held the recovered ground in the face of a merciless tornado of steel ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... their glory. The turquoise one in the middle, the coral and the tortoise-shell ones at each side of it, the three others, the silver bird, the mosaic and the mother-of-pearl arranged in a half-moon below them, in the front of the child's dress. They were placed with the greatest neatness and precision; it must have cost Molly both time and trouble to put ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... the monarch was yet alive. The gentlemen in waiting, the cupbearer, the pantler, the carver, and all the retinue of servants who, as in feudal times, appeared at the royal meals, discharged each his appointed office with punctilious precision. Courses of viands were brought on in regular succession, and as regularly removed from the board. A cardinal or prelate blessed the table before the empty show of a meal, and rendered thanks at its conclusion. Only at the close, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... our task, not merely to show what these principles are, but to point out how they have been discovered by our predecessors. We shall trace the growth of these ideas from their first vague beginnings. We shall see how vagueness of thought gave way to precision; how a general truth, once grasped and formulated, was found to be a stepping-stone to other truths. We shall see that there are no isolated facts, no isolated principles, in nature; that each part of our story is linked by indissoluble bands with that which goes before, and ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... they appear. It is difficult in a modern democratic society to conceive the substantial importance of the signs and symbols of dignity and authority, at a time and among a people where they were adjusted with the most scrupulous precision, and accepted by all classes as exponents of relative degrees in the social and political scale. Whether the bishop or the governor should sit in the higher seat at table thus became a political question, for it defined to the popular understanding ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... in Guichard, of stiff and, as it were, GRITTY, which might have offended a weaker taste; but Friedrich likes the rugged sense of the man; his real knowledge on certain interesting heads; and the precision with which the known and the not rightly known are divided from one ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... near the outlet of the lake, probably on the west side. Perrot afterwards built another fort, called Fort St. Antoine, a little above, on the east bank. The position of these forts has been the subject of much discussion, and cannot be ascertained with precision. It appears by the Prise de Possession, cited above, that there was also, in 1689, a temporary French post near the mouth ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... among these was the poem, "O why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" which she had been told was a great favorite of Abraham Lincoln. It was this piece which came into her mind when Mrs. Earle broached the subject, and this she proceeded to deliver with august precision. She spoke clearly and solemnly without the trace of the giggling protestation which is so often incident to feminine diffidence. She treated the opportunity with the seriousness expected, for though the Institute was not proof against light and diverting contributions, as the whistling performance ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... was, therefore, obtained, and we flattered ourselves that this must produce universal happiness. In thus, however, we were most grievously disappointed; for the balls frequently bounced over the wall,—the players, not being able to throw them with the precision of Spartan children, sometimes struck their comrades, perhaps, in the eye: if we could succeed in quieting the sufferer, by a kiss and a sugar-plum, the ear was as immediately afterwards saluted with the ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... the three musicians who played at the ball come down the stairs. The one with the violin adjusts his handkerchief on his shoulder with great precision, and all three begin to play, making an exaggerated effort. But the notes are soft and gentle as in ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... to watch the procession, and their cheers, as some particularly well-drilled club passes, cause the men to ride with great care, and to preserve their lines so well that they move with the steadiness and precision of ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... explainingly, "was because I held my right wrist firmly with my left hand, and played mostly with only one finger. The method, I find, secures steadiness of touch and precision ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... discoveries of their predecessors, and of casting a brighter light on the truths revealed. One would have thought that all researches for diversifying the results of experiment were exhausted, and that theory itself could only be augmented by the addition of a greater degree of precision to the applications of principles already known. While science thus appeared to be making for repose, the phenomena of the convulsive movements observed by Galvani in the muscles of a frog when connected by metal were brought to the attention and ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... conceal themselves if any man tries to visit them at another than the established time. Should any one attempt to force his way into these caverns by violence or by trickery, they defend themselves with arrows, which they shoot with great precision. At least, this is the story as it is told, and I repeat it to you. The north wind renders this island unapproachable, and it can only be reached when the wind is ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... miles the other side Clonmel. From a character so remarkable for intelligence and precision, I could not fail of meeting information of the most valuable kind. This gentleman has made a mountain improvement which demands particular attention, being upon a principle very ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... Kaiser's a damned murderer, and we've got to smash him if it takes the last drop of blood in Hillsdale; yes, sir, the last precious drop!" So by the time he reached the hotel his step was vigorous and the ferrule of his cane struck the sidewalk with military precision. Fifty-three years ago he had marched that way with Grant—or was it with Lee? Hillsdales do spread over such a lot ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... warning, or without making any attempt at bravado, the book-keeper walked deliberately to his desk and rang an electric call for the police. Simultaneously it seemed, for so rapid and quiet was the action, he opened a drawer, took out a small revolver, and covered both burglars with a fatal precision. As he did so he uttered these ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... in the show, instead of two days a week, as had been his custom. Never was he more calm, graceful and fascinating in his performances. The evening before the eventful day, he repeated in pantomime his victory over the lion near Damascus, with so much elegance, precision and suppleness as to elicit round after round of enthusiastic cheers. Of course everybody who had seen him play killing a lion was wild with curiosity to see him actually fight ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... have deemed it sacrilege to open his father's medicine-sack; but now he hastily seized the three arrows and ran back, leaving the other contents of the sack scattered over the lodge. The swan was still there. He shot the first arrow with great precision, and came very near to it. The second came still closer; as he took the last arrow, he felt his arm firmer, and, drawing it up with vigor, saw it pass through the neck of the swan a little above the breast. Still it did not prevent the bird from flying ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... mistress, a cavalier might now and then proclaim his passion in Tuscan or Provenc'al rhymes. The vulgar might occasionally be edified by a pious allegory in the popular jargon. But no writer had conceived it possible that the dialect of peasants and market-women should possess sufficient energy and precision for a majestic and durable work. Dante adventured first. He detected the rich treasures of thought and diction which still lay latent in their ore. He refined them into purity. He burnished them into splendour. He fitted them ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... manner in which he extricated the remains of the czar's army. Oyama did not feel safe in following up the pursuit. His game was that of a skillful chess player. First make sure of the result with mathematical precision, then strike. The Japanese were deaf to the demand for ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... collected with equal care and knowledge. Nor was the interior of this bachelor's residence devoid of amusement. Every nook and corner was filled with objects of interest; and everything was in admirable order. The goddess of neatness and precision reigned supreme, especially in his hall, which, though barely ten feet square, was a cabinet of rural curiosities. His guns, his fishing-tackle, a cabinet of birds stuffed by himself, a fox in a glass-case that seemed absolutely running, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... when Hugh was asked down to shoot partridges,—in the doing of which, however, all his brightness did not bring him near in excellence to his host. Lord Peterborough had been shooting partridges all his life, and shot them with a precision which excited Hugh's envy. To own the truth, Stanbury did not shoot well, and was treated rather with scorn by the gamekeeper; but in other respects he spent three or four of the happiest days of his life. He had his work to do, and after the second ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Brodrick; otherwise she was self-regulating, provided with a compensation balance, and so long as Brodrick wound her, incapable of going wrong. Jane envied her her secure and secret mechanism, her automatic rhythm, the delicate precision of her ways. Compared with them her own performance was dangerous, fantastic, a dance on a tight-rope. She marvelled ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... there are stakes of that kind some men would not shrink from. What are called "arms of precision" have had a great influence on modern politics. When there's no time for a plebiscite, there's ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... afterward by another, and yet others; these foxy-looking members of the Persian priesthood always seem to me to possess the faculty of scenting these little occasions from afar and of following their noses to the place with unerring precision. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... sketch her with precision, 'snouted' would better convey the vivacity of her ugly flash of features. It was an error in me to think her heartless. She talked of her aunt Kiomi affectionately, for a gipsy girl, whose modulated tones are all addressed to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the prisoners, each officer has his assigned position and duty, and everything is conducted with a precision closely approximating that of ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... Christie, "if it looked not like a man's hand holding a sword.—But touching my master, he, like a prudent man, hath kept himself aloof in these broken times, until he could see with precision what footing he was to stand upon. Right tempting offers he hath had from the Lords of Congregation, whom you call heretics; and at one time he was minded, to be plain with you, to have taken their way—for he was assured that the Lord James [Footnote: Lord James Stewart, afterwards the Regent ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... and waited, Dale's hands came up and gripped the top of the wall—both hands, huge and muscular. Owen looked at them with great glee before he acted. Then he brought the stock of the rifle down on one of the hands with the precision of a cold deliberation that ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... do not speak here of the Dutch school, whose highest aim, and highest praise, is exquisite mechanical precision in the representation of common nature and still life: but of those pictures which are the productions of mind, which address themselves to the understanding, the fancy, the feelings, and convey either a ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... spurs into her mare and galloped off at the height of her speed into camp—a very city of canvas, buzzing with the hum of life, regulated with the marvellous skill and precision of French warfare, yet with the carelessness and the picturesqueness of the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... now a man of experience. He had been out among the dragons, he said, and he assured himself that they were not so hideous as he had imagined them. Also, they were inaccurate; they did not sting with precision. A stout heart often defied, and ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... with a precision such as the somnambulist so strangely exerts, she trod the well-known paths slowly, but surely, toward that summer's bower, where her dreams had not told her lay crouching that most hideous spectre of her imagination, Sir Francis Varney. He ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... advance, suddenly drew his bow again, and let fly an arrow at Jacques, which the latter dexterously avoided; and while his antagonist lowered his eyes for an instant to fit another arrow to the string, the guide, making use of his paddle as a sort of javelin, threw it with such force and precision that it struck Misconna directly between the eyes and felled him to the earth, In another instant the two parties rushed upon each other, and a general melee ensued, in which the white men, being greatly superior to their adversaries in the use of their fists, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... banker on his track, so that the constables might be led to my garden? Who suggested the idea to the bailiff to search the cellars? Was it chance? But chance is blind, and does not proceed with such precision to the fulfilment of a purpose. How frightful if God himself conducted justice! if the Supreme Judge, who cannot be deceived, has condemned me to an infamous death! How vain then all hope, all ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... of medicine, or what might be called the natural ways of nature through its physical laws, is true to itself; the fault lies in our interpretation of its phenomena, which we fail to study with sufficient discriminative precision and nicety. We have repeatedly mistaken causes and results from this want of close observance and of precision, attributing results to causes which did not exist. As an example, when the early disciples of homoeopathy in ancient Palestine undertook to revive poor, old, withered King David, ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... excommunicated compositions. As regards the performances of the Sondershausen orchestra I am quite of your opinion, and I repeat that they are not only not outdone, but are even not often equalled in their sustained richness, their judicious and liberal choice of works, as well as in their precision, drilling, and refinement.—It is only a shame that no suitable concert-hall has been built in Sondershausen. The orchestra has long deserved such an attention; should such a thing ever fall to their lot, pray urge upon Stein to spread out the Podium of the orchestra as far as possible, ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... proves a desirable one. It is not uncommon for the student trained solely in the humanities and other non-quantitative subjects to have difficulty in acquiring habits of mind which lead to sufficient precision in the application of his science. He may have a good grasp of general principles and be able to express himself well, but he is handicapped in securing definite results. This does not necessarily mean that a large amount of time should be given ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... again. I began to feel some joyful anxiety when in a letter dated a week after Armour's arrival in Calcutta, the Director of Public Instruction wrote to inquire whether he had yet left Simla; but the sweet blow did not fall with any precision or certainty until the newspaper arrived containing his name immediately under that of Herr Vanrig and Mme. Dansky in the list of passengers who had sailed per S.S. Dupleix on the fifteenth of June for Colombo. There it was, 'I. Armour,' as significant ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... some whose opinion is of great authority. They thought that the 'Economist' drew 'rash deductions' from a speech which was in itself 'open to some objection'which was, like all such speeches, defective in theoretical precision, and which was at best only the expression of an opinion by the Governor of that day, which had not been authorised by the Court of Directors, which could not bind the Bank. However the article had at least this use, that it brought out the facts. All the directors ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... been judiciously chosen by Mr. Lecky as the subject of his first section on the Declining Sense of the Miraculous, because it is strikingly illustrative of a position with the truth of which he is strongly impressed, though he does not always treat of it with desirable clearness and precision, namely, that certain beliefs become obsolete, not in consequence of direct arguments against them, but because of their incongruity with prevalent habits of thought. Here is his statement of the two "classes of influences" by which the mass of men, in what is called civilized society, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... immediate motive of action ceases to be praiseworthy. With the fulness of this spirit the prosperity of the state is exactly correspondent, and with its failure her decline, and that with a closeness and precision which it will be one of the collateral objects of the following essay to demonstrate from such accidental evidence as the field of its inquiry presents. And, thus far, all is natural and simple. But the stopping short of this religious faith when it appears likely to influence national action, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... McLean's movements gained aim and precision. He got his coat, hat and stick, flung the first over his arm and the second on ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... some countries are based on a small and sometimes different set of goods and services. In addition, many countries do not formally participate in the World Bank's PPP project that calculates these measures, so the resulting GDP estimates for these countries may lack precision. For many developing countries, PPP-based GDP measures are multiples of the official exchange rate (OER) measure. The difference between the OER- and PPP- denominated GDP values for most of the weathly industrialized countries are ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... years, endured indeed until my master's death, and clouded all our subsequent relations, I may well consider of it more at large. When he was able to resume some charge of his affairs, I had many opportunities to try him with precision. There was no lack of understanding, nor yet of authority; but the old continuous interest had quite departed; he grew readily fatigued, and fell to yawning; and he carried into money relations, where it is certainly out of place, a facility that bordered ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I am to you! You can't think how grateful I am to you for having come to me, first. How is it I haven't met you before? I shall feel flattered at seeing you at my house in the future. How delightful it is that you are living here!... Such precision! Such practical ability!... They must appreciate you, they must understand you. If there's anything I can do, believe me ... oh, I love young people! I'm in love with young people! The younger generation are the one prop of ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... had not been wonted before her mind became affected. Here in this safe, secluded corner, amid familiar and thoroughly known conditions, she moved placidly about her daily tasks, performing them with the same care and precision that she had used from the beginning of her married life. All the heavy work was done for her by Ivory and Rodman; the boy in particular being the fleetest-footed, the most willing, and the neatest of helpers; washing dishes, sweeping and dusting, laying the table, ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... books of verse, By and Large and Weights and Measures, have fairly earned a place in contemporary American literature; and the influence of his column toward precision and dignity in the use of the English language has made him one of the best teachers of English composition ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... seemed to remind him that man was human, and not divine as the rest of the world proclaimed—human, and therefore careless and individualistic; human, and therefore occupied with interests other than those of speed, cleanliness, and precision. ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
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