"Absolute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... first question is answered at once by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case, to the great principle of self-preservation, to the transcendent law of nature and of nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... Spenser, by his quaint device To spiritualize the passionate, and subdue The wild, coarse temper of the British Muse, By meet diversion from the absolute: To lift the fancy, and, where still the song Proclaimed a wild humanity, to sway Soothingly soft, and by fantastic wiles Persuade the passions to a milder clime! His was the song of chivalry, and wrought For like results upon society; ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... and Mills's servant, and they both had to give evidence as regards what they knew of the movements of the deceased. This, as a matter of fact, Mr. Taynton had already given to Figgis, and in his examination now he repeated with absolute exactitude what he had said before including again the fact that Morris had gone up to town on Friday morning to try to find him there. On this occasion, however, a few further questions were put to him, eliciting the fact that the business on which Morris ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... themselves. And what with the unquestioned valour of Edward; what with the effect of his splendid person, towering above all present by the head, and moving lightly, with each impulse, through the mass of a mail that few there could have borne unsinking, this assertion of absolute power in the midst of mutiny—an army marching to the gates—imposed an unwilling reverence and sullen silence mixed with anger, that, while it chafed, admired. They who in peace had despised the voluptuous monarch, feasting in his palace, and reclining on the lap of harlot-beauty, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... nor at rest in any way. Head, limbs, and body were all in motion,—constantly changing, not only their relative attitudes to one another, but their absolute situation in regard ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... admirable example to other South American republics in the separation of State from Church. While providing for the maintenance of ecclesiastics now dependent on the State for support, the Brazilian Constitution decrees not only entire liberty of worship, but absolute equality of all before the law, without regard to their religious creed. The absence of this equality is the chief blot on some South ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... all documentary evidence goes, the indisputable property of the supposititious man of whom we have been speaking: and, that being the case, there will be nothing but his own inherent honesty to prevent him from taking absolute possession of her and doing exactly as he pleases with her, even to selling her, should he be so minded. Now, where are you going to find a man whom you can trust to ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... Tennessee had been ceded to the United States in 1790 by North Carolina, she had a most unusual method of throwing off her territorial government for nearly three months in 1796, and existed in absolute independence for that period before being admitted into statehood by the Federal Government.[3] Nevertheless in the period of the Civil War this State was the last to secede and the first to comply with the terms of readmission. With respect to slavery the early attitude of Tennessee ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... sort of moral stab which disturbs every faculty, unless he is absolutely stunned and left gasping. In England, the quiet club servant waits with dignity and reserve, but he is obedient to the last degree, and his civility reaches the point of absolute polish. When he performs a service his air is impassive, but if he is addressed his face assumes a quietly good-humoured expression, and he contrives to make his temporary employer feel as though it was a pleasure to attend ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... "This is absolute carelessness on Miss Nelson's part," he said to himself. "She knows my wishes, and it is her business to see that Ermengarde obeys. I must have a very serious talk with Miss Nelson when I return home this afternoon, but I have no time to attend to the matter now. If I don't hurry, I shall ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... too far gone in drink to be crafty, too sure of his absolute power of life and death to imagine a need for craft. Since his hand had not immediately sought ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... a pretty good time in there," said Fulkerson, detaching himself from his own absolute good time as well as ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... other hydraulic product has yet been found which presents absolute security against the decomposing ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... smile on his lips. His face was pale but there was no touch of fear in the expression. For a brief psychological moment there was absolute silence, then the Frenchman spoke again. "Gentlemen, you are my prisoners." Turning to the Colonel, he added: "You have clung to the waning dynasty, Von Ritz, until it fell, but your sword may still find service in Galavia. I offer you the opportunity. We have ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... are the doctors of the country. These savages attach an absolute faith to divinatory services, to incantations, to the fetiches, clay figures stained with white and red, representing fantastic animals or figures of men and women cut out of whole wood. For the rest, those magicians were not less mutilated than the other courtiers, and doubtless the monarch ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... vindicate a principle in which he believes? Not a bit of it. It is the old device of the enemy—if you want to defeat a measure, make it as hateful and odious and absurd as possible and you have done it. That is the proposition. Does he believe in the absolute right of women to vote? Not a bit of it, for he has said here time and again in the beginning, middle, and end of his discourse that he does not believe a ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... History as that of Suelonius, which gives us a Succession of Absolute Princes, is to me an unanswerable Argument against Despotick Power. Where the Prince is a Man of Wisdom and Virtue, it is indeed happy for his People that he is absolute; but since in the common Run of Mankind, for one ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... last of the terrible shower had fallen, nothing whatever of the vessel was to be seen save the floating morsels of the wreck. It was, we might say, a tremendous instance of almost absolute annihilation. ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... religion into two general parts, faith and practice, of which the first is divided into six distinct branches—belief in God, in his angels, in his Scriptures, in his prophets, in the resurrection and final judgment, and in God's absolute decrees. The points relating to practice are, prayer, with washings, alms, fasting, pilgrimage to ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... passionate players, becoming so intoxicated by their play that a hare has been known to take an approaching fox for a playmate.(16) As to the rabbit, it lives in societies, and its family life is entirely built upon the image of the old patriarchal family; the young ones being kept in absolute obedience to the father and even the grandfather.(17) And here we have the example of two very closely-allied species which cannot bear each other—not because they live upon nearly the same food, as like cases are too often explained, ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... which gives him his supremacy. The same views are repeated in the periodical essays. The Mirror regards it as "preposterous" to endeavour to regularise his plays, and finds the source of his superiority in his almost supernatural powers of invention, his absolute command over the passions, and his wonderful knowledge of nature; and the Lounger says that he presents the abstract of life in all its modes and in every time. The rules are forgotten,—we cease to hear ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... war is a struggle for existence, and that the only effective defence consists in the destruction of the adversary's force, received during the age of Napoleon an even more absolute demonstration at sea than was possible on land. Great Britain, whether she would or no, was drawn into the European conflict. The neglect of the army and of the art of war into which, during the eighteenth century, ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... There are several reasons for this. Among the bourgeoisie there was little of either love or confidence felt in Trochu and his colleagues, but they represented the cause of order, and were indeed the only barrier against absolute anarchy. Among the poorer classes everyone who liked was clothed, was fed, and was paid by Government for doing nothing, and consequently many who otherwise would have been ready to join in a revolt, thought it well not to disturb ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... fresh supply was always found. One island about latitude 80 deg. was said to be largely composed of mammoth bones. I presume this statement should be received with a little caution. During the doctor's expedition the supply of provisions was not always abundant, but there was no absolute scarcity. The party lived for some time on fish, and on the flesh of the reindeer. A story was told that the explorers were reduced to subsisting on the mammoth they discovered, and hence their failure to bring away portions of the ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... I might seem loneliest of the company, for cards and dice had never greatly attracted me, and to risk upon a turn of the one or a throw of the other the absolute necessaries of life, which were the only things of value we possessed as a rule, seemed to me most incredible folly. Possibly the personal value of the stakes added zest to the game, for they wrangled bitterly at times, and more than once fought ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... true that Mr. Fregelius had given him no absolute encouragement; he had said that personally the marriage would be very pleasing to himself, but that it was a matter of which Stella must judge; and when asked whether he would speak to his daughter, he had emphatically declined. Still, Stephen Layard had taken this to be all a part of the ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... prompted by his own restless and curious vanity. Since he had parted with Bessie Lynde, on terms of humiliation for her which must have been anguish for him if he had ever loved her, or loved anything but his power over her, he had remained in absolute ignorance of her. He had not heard where she was or how she was; but now, as the few weeks before Class Day and Commencement crumbled away, he began to wonder why she made no sign. He believed that since she had been willing to go so far to get him, she would not be willing to give ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... than we allay. England would like us to keep them; the Continental nations would like that better than any other control excepting Spain's or their own; and the Philippines would prefer it to anything save the absolute independence which they are incapable of maintaining. Having been led into their possession by the course of a war undertaken for the sake of humanity, shall we draw a geographical limit to our humanity, and say we cannot continue to be ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... blowing against the tides of his own nature, created unrest and storm. A strain of chivalry belonged to him and at first this conquered. He felt the magnitude of Sabina's sacrifice and his obligation to a love so absolute. In this spirit he remained for a time, during which their relations were of the closest. They spoke of marriage; they even appointed the day on which the announcement of their betrothal should be made. And though he had gone thus far at her entreaty, always recognising when ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... I attended the Court; at length it carne to Mr. Casberd's turn, to say, (in answer to the inquiry of the Chief Justice, whether he had any motion to make,) "My Lord, I move for the rule to be made absolute, which I obtained the other day, in the case of Simpkins and Hunt; and I call upon the defendant's counsel, my learned friend, Mr. Clifford, to shew cause why the second verdict, 'No Damages," should ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... showed thee what is good," . . . what is good in itself, and of itself—the one very eternal and absolute good, which was with God and in God and from God, before all worlds, and will be for ever, without changing, or growing less or greater, eternally the same good—the good which would be just as good and just and right and lovely and glorious ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... in visiting, gossiping, dressing, riding, dancing, asking nothing of them only to bring me my slippers, or some occasional act of kindness now and then, my neighbors would all cry out against me, declaring that I was spoiling my boys. They would denounce my course as absolute unkindness to the boys; would declare that they never would be any thing with such a miserable training. And yet my neighbors treat their girls in just this way. Now if it will spoil the boys, why will it not spoil the girls? If it is unkindness to the boys, why is it not unkindness ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... government we are helpless in the presence of the new conditions, and unable to grapple with them or to cut out whatever of evil has arisen in connection with them. The power of the Congress to regulate interstate commerce is an absolute and unqualified grant, and without limitations other than those prescribed by the Constitution. The Congress has constitutional authority to make all laws necessary and proper for executing this power, and I am satisfied that this power has not been ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... inch square, having been fastened together, a piece of chain was attached to one end to make the chord line 570 feet in length; and experiments having been made and comparisons drawn, Mr. Telford ascertained that the absolute weight of one of the main chains of the bridge between the points of suspension was 23 1/2 tons, requiring a strain of 39 1/2 tons to raise it to its proper curvature. On this calculation the necessary apparatus required for the hoisting was prepared. The mode of action finally determined ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... standards of the republic. The thin line of skirmishers thus thrown far out beyond the western ranges, was all that stood between the grasping power of Great Britain, and the realization of her desire for absolute dominion over the western country. The ambitious projects of her rebel children must be defeated, and they must be driven back beyond the great watershed which they had crossed. The western waters were to be preserved for the red allies of England, ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... Maria Theresa towards her daughter, the Queen of Naples, will sufficiently explain how much the Empress must have been chagrined at the absolute indifference of Marie Antoinette to the State policy which was intended to have been served in sending her to France. A less fitting instrument for the purpose could not have been selected by the mother. Marie Antoinette had much less of the politician about ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... not view God and the material universe as the same, any more than he viewed the body and soul of man as one. Antoninus has no speculations on the absolute nature of the Deity. It was not his fashion to waste his time on what man cannot understand. He was satisfied that God exists, that he governs all things, that man can only have an imperfect knowledge of his nature, and he must attain ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... Washington on Manhattan Island, and Fort Lee on the opposite side of the Hudson, the garrisons of which were under the command of General Greene. Washington now advised him to abandon the forts, but did not give him absolute orders to do so. It is probably that he would have taken his commander's advice had not Congress interfered and sent orders that Fort Washington was not to be given up, except as a last necessity. Greene, believing that it was possible to hold it, tried to ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... group which is bound to rule the government. The financial magnates have seen this truth, and, as Mr. Paul Warburg said to the American Association (New Orleans, Nov. 21, 1911), "Wall Street, like many an absolute ruler in recent years, finds it more conducive to safety and contentment to forego some of its prerogatives ... and to turn an oligarchy into a constitutional democratic federation [i.e. a ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... were inspired by book accounts of Indian methods, but, unfortunately, I have never yet seen a book account that was accurate enough to guide anyone successfully in the art of fire-making. All omit one or other of the absolute essentials, or dwell on some triviality. The impression they leave on those who know is ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... made so free with their fresh provisions, that in their next cruise they were put upon short allowance; and it was entirely owing to the sugar and other provisions that were in the leaky ship that they were preserved from absolute starvation. ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... and inevitable that a Government in which there was never any change or movement should stagnate and become corrupt. Porfirio Diaz was not a President, but, in all save the name, an absolute monarch, and inevitably there formed about his throne a cordon of men as unpatriotic and self-interested as he may have been patriotic and disinterested—as to a great extent he undeniably was. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... trying to look through the dazzling haze of joy so as to see his situation clearly. It was impossible for him not to perceive that there had been an absolute declaration of affection, and that he had established a private understanding with his cousin. It was not, however, an engagement, nor did he at present desire to make it so. It was impossible for him as yet to marry, and he was content to wait without a promise, since that could not add to ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shake before she answered him. "I will trust you in everything;—as God is my judge, in everything. What you tell me to do, I will do. But, Walter, I will say one thing first. I can look forward to nothing but absolute misery in any life that will separate me from you. I know the difference between comfort and discomfort in money matters, but all that is as a feather in the balance. You are my god upon earth, and to you I must ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... country, the land was divided and subdivided into lots—some as small as fifty acres—and each proprietor held his share—as their descendants do to this day—by udal right; that is, not as a fief of the Crown, or of any superior lord, but in absolute, inalienable possession, by the same udal right as the kings wore their crowns, to be transmitted, under the same title, to ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... a rumor passes from mouth to mouth that a fighting company on its way to the lines is coming up behind us. The way by which we have come is stopped up with men. It is the block absolute. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... Chamber of Magnates, which had hitherto opposed the demands of the Lower House, adopted the same by a unanimous vote. On March 15, a deputation was despatched to Vienna to demand from the Emperor not only a liberal constitution, but a separate Ministry, absolute freedom of the press, trial by jury, equality of religion, and a free public-school system. The Hungarians, with Kossuth in the lead, were received in triumph in Vienna. They paraded through the streets, and were greeted by Emperor ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... rest are seen, in so far as implying composure and concentration of mind, to promote the origination of knowledge, they also must necessarily be aimed at and practised. Nor can it be said that between works on the one side and calmness and so on on the other, there is an absolute antagonism; for the two have different spheres of application. Activity of the organs of action is the proper thing in the case of works enjoined; quiescence in the case of works not enjoined and such as ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... subordinating to humanistic values, of a brutal Imperialism which the so-called Conservatives among them set up in place of the truly humane devotion of which man is capable, of the sickening humanitarianism which appears in retrospect to have been merely an excuse for absolute indolence—but they certainly have forfeited the right to censure it. Let those who are so eager to cast the first stone at the aesthetic and moral anarchy of the present day consider Professor Babbitt's indictment of themselves and decide whether ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas, something like the true form of the whale as he actually appears to the eye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body the whale is moored alongside the whale-ship so that he can be fairly stepped upon there. It may be worth while, therefore, previously to advert to those curious imaginary portraits of him which even down to the present day confidently challenge the faith of the landsman. It is time ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the pair sat or stood or walked in absolute silence. Indeed, little Miss Blythe could never be silent for a long period nor permit it in others, but I mean that with the lines and the machinery of a North Atlantic liner, their craft of propinquity made about as much progress as a scow. Nevertheless, though neither ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... very different characters. The one rules his people by laws to which they consent; the other, by his absolute will and power: that government is called freedom; this, tyranny."—L. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Burgundy and Bretagne, had come to wear their feudal bonds so lightly that they had no scruple in lifting the standard against their liege and sovereign lord, the King of France, on the slightest pretence. When at peace, they reigned as absolute princes in their own provinces; and the House of Burgundy, possessed of the district so called, together with the fairest and richest part of Flanders, was itself so wealthy, and so powerful, as to yield nothing to the crown, either ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... occupied us all till evening, the rain increased tenfold, and at last came down in absolute sheets, flooding our dam to such an extent that it overflowed nearly all round the brim in pretty solid cataracts of dirty water, which brought down branches and leaves and other debris from the ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... encouraged the little fellow to talk. The Big Man, forgetting all fear in the seriousness of the situation, told the listening head master all the Butcher's conversation with him on the chapel steps the night before—told it simply and eloquently, with an ardor that bespoke absolute faith. Then suddenly ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... expresses the pure and still popular Moslem feeling; and yet the learned and experienced Mr Redhouse would confuse this absolute Predestination with Providence. A friend tells me that the idea of absolute Fate in The Nights makes her feel as if the world were a jail. [FN244] In the Book of Sindibad this is the Story of the Sandal-wood Merchant and the Advice of the Blind ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... BLUSTERING FELLOW! There's a deadly bore, Placed in a good man's way, who only yearns For happiness and joy. But day by day, This blusterer meets me, and the hope's defaced. I cannot say a word—make one remark, That meets not flat and absolute contradiction— I nothing know on earth—am misinformed On every circumstance. The very terms, Scope, rate, and merits of my own transactions Are all to me unknown, or falsified, Of which most potent proof can be adduced. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... the just and kindly old commonwealth which he so long served, it would have been hard for any party, no matter how much in the ascendant, to move anything for his injury. For the love and esteem which he had the faculty of attracting from the first deepened, as he advanced in age, into an absolute reverence the most general for his character and person; and the good North State honored and cherished no son of her own loins more than she did Joseph Gales. In Raleigh, there was no figure that, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... believe this, you must also believe that I have absolute power over you," rejoined Mistress Nutter, "and might strike you with sickness, cripple you, or kill ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the lamp, to find the girl, her dark eyes alight with amusement, watching him intently. She held the tip of a closed fan against her lips, which brought her head slightly forward in an attitude as though she listened. Somehow there was about her an air of poise, of absolute balanced repose quite different from Jane's rather awkward statics, and in direct ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... are concerned, the power of the mother is absolute; for they know no father, the maternal uncle standing in his stead. Property, both personal and real, is vested in the woman; she is the mistress and the ruler. "The mother reigns and governs; she has her eldest daughter for prime minister in her household, through whom all orders are ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... the meantime, at home, Virginia settlers stood on guard. Governor Yeardley appointed Capt. William Tucker, one of the Virginia Council, to check at Point Comfort all ships entering the James River. Tucker was provided with a well-armed shallop and absolute authority to check all ships arriving. He could not do battle with an enemy warship, of course, but he could give the alarm in case the enemy appeared. A few years later a fort was built at Point Comfort to defend the entrance to Virginia's great river. Although the channel was ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn
... that day onward the cow-catching industry languished; and though some of us held that the Colonel personally was in matters monetary above suspicion, like Caesar's wife, we did not forget that he was also an Absolute ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... believe that a man whom he knew so well could be guilty of the meanness of defrauding two women whose interests had been confided to him. Yet the story seemed probable. Moreover, even had matters been as Mr. Ferguson represented, his want of feeling seemed almost as bad as absolute dishonesty. He asked Ruth several questions in order that he might become fully ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... that act and are affected by nouns, as he says, these seem to signify. And one may say, the rest signify not. For instance, the groans and shrieks of stage players, and even their smiles and silence, make their discourse more emphatic. But they have no absolute power to signify anything, as a noun and verb have, but only an ascititious power to vary speech; just as they vary letters who mark spirits and quantities upon letters, these being the accidents and differences of letters. This ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... liberty to assign the one which most appeals to her. Claire de Bourgogne lived in such complete retirement that none of the servants, save Jacques and her own woman, ever saw their mistress. She required absolute silence all about her, and only left her room to go to the chapel on the Valleroy estate, whither a neighboring priest came to say ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... occasion to the letter which immediately follows. While the Spanish Decree of April 23 set out only one list of contraband goods, the United States Instructions of June 20 recognised two lists—viz. of "absolute" and of "conditional" contraband, including under the latter head "coal when destined for a naval station, a port of call, or a ship or ships of the enemy; materials for the construction of railways or ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... put you on your guard, Alicia," answered my lady. "Mr. Audley may be as you say, merely eccentric; but he has talked to me this evening in a manner that has filled me with absolute terror, and I believe that he is going mad? I shall speak very seriously to Sir Michael this ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... the office of priest. Aristotle defines a king as a Leader of war, a Judge of controversies, and President of the ceremonies of the gods. That he had the principal care of religious rites, appears from many passages in Homer. His power was nowhere absolute but in war, for we find Agamemnon insulted in the council, but in the army threatening deserters with death. Agamemnon is sometimes styled king of kings, as the other princes had given him supreme authority over ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... hate it!" said VANDERBILT. "They send neither men nor munitions by our road. It is an absolute dead loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars to me that my railroad is on this side of the ocean. I shall ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... of this kind never comes with absolute simplicity of application into the life of man; growth in particular is a complex thing, and all generalisations must needs be a little inaccurate. But the general law of the Food would seem to be this, that ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... other, they were so much enamoured, but of the soul and design, the ideas which of all others were most distasteful to them. They shut their eyes to this for a long time, but in the end appear to have seen that if they were in search of an absolute living and absolute non-living, the path along which they were travelling would never lead them to it. They were driving life up into a corner, but they were not eliminating it, and, moreover, at the very moment of their thinking they had hedged it ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... on the basis of documents how our allies aided us in the Lybian undertaking. The operations brilliantly begun by the Duke of the Abruzzi against the Turkish torpedo boats encountered at Preveza were stopped by Austria in a sudden and absolute manner. Count Aehrenthal on Oct. 1 informed our Ambassador at Vienna that our operations had made a painful impression upon him and that he could not allow them to be continued. It was urgently necessary, he said, to put an end to them ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... handicapped by one serious disadvantage—his own absolute ignorance of the country and its conditions, and as its natural consequence an impenetrable lack of sympathy. To him Scotland was simply the home of deep-rooted and obstinate rebellion. Her Church represented to Clarendon the sternest and most repulsive form ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... be a fact, fixed and absolute amid a shimmer of self- question, is that any one coming to London in the beginning of April, after devious delays in the South and West of England, is destined to have printed upon his mental films a succession of meteorological ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... in the morning there, They care not at all for adorning there; All sounds are hushed, And a man who rushed Would be treated with absolute scorning there. ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... than Western science is adequately represented in Japan by our popular imports there of kerosene oil, matches, and beer. Only half civilized the Far East presumably is, but it is so rather in an absolute than a relative sense; in the sense of what might have been, not of what is. It is so as compared, not with us, but with the eventual possibilities of humanity. As yet, neither system, Western nor Eastern, is perfect enough to serve in all things as standard for the other. The light of truth ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... his brain, just because he entered into the least details of their daily lives, Balzac was destined to become much more than a mere philosopher or student of society; to wit, a creator of characters, endowed with that "absolute dramatic vision" which distinguishes Homer and Shakespeare and Chaucer. But because he was also something of a philosopher and student of sociology, he conceived the stupendous idea of linking these ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... Missionary—goes forth from the serene Intellect of the Author to live in the wants, the griefs, the infirmities of others, in order that it may learn their language; and as its highest achievement is Pathos, so its most absolute ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the English word 'despot,' and it conveys all that that word conveys to us, not only a lord in the sense of a constitutional monarch, not only a lord in the polite sense of a superior in dignity, but a despot in the sense of being the absolute owner of a man who has no rights against the owner, and is a slave. For the word 'slave' is what logicians call the correlative of this word 'despot,' and as the latter asserts absolute ownership and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of April. Napoleon, at Fontaineblean, sat at his desk and stared at the paper before him. It contained an absolute resignation of his throne for himself and his family. After signing this document, he was no more Emperor of France, nor his son King of Rome, nor his consort empress—perhaps, no longer even his wife. By signing ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... must be more distinguished than we guessed, for we have been put at his table, where the honoured passengers usually find seats. Though this captain has such a kindly smile, a captain can be very terrifying indeed; he is king in his ship, and has absolute authority; his word is law, as, of course, it must be, for the safety of the whole ship's company depends on him, and there is the fine tradition, which British captains always live up to, that in case of any accident happening ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... concerned on account of what you said this morning; namely, that no pecuniary question shall ever be discussed betwixt you and your wife, and that you will owe nothing to her but happiness. This, together with your purpose of painting pictures to sell, means, I take it, that you will leave your wife absolute mistress ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... hard knot is what is known as the granny knot, a slurring name which means a failure. The granny knot will not always stay tied, it often slips and it cannot be trusted when absolute security is needed. ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... again upon the stain; nor could he free himself from these by the old expedient of prayer, for he could no longer pray with an honest heart; he was no longer unselfish, could no longer kneel in perfect submission; he was wholly bound to this child of her mother, and the peace of absolute and utter sacrifice could not come back to him. Full of unrest, feeling that somehow the end, at least for him, could not be far off, he went north to the April Conference. He took Prudence with him, not daring to leave ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... sat gazing out of the window, yet seeing nothing, with the letter lying open before her. Her promise to her dead husband bound her to answer favourably. What should she do with Phoebe? After some time of absolute silence, she ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... event. One of the best, though not one of the wisest, kings of Judah, he did his best to eradicate every trace of idolatry; but the hearts of the people responded faintly to his efforts. Reform was only outward and superficial,—an illustration of the inability even of an absolute monarch to remove evils to which the people cling in their hearts. To the eyes of Jeremiah, there was no hope while the hearts of the people were unchanged. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" he mournfully exclaims. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... clouds have been gathering for a good many years, and we have only buried our heads a little deeper in the sands. We have had our chances and wilfully chucked them away. National Service or three more army corps four years ago would have brought us an alliance which would have meant absolute safety for twenty-one years. You know what happened. We have lived through many rumours and escaped, more narrowly than most people realise, a great many dangers, but there is every indication this time that the end ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... truth and unction of her appeals. She dwelt upon the glorious scheme of redemption, through the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ Jesus upon the cross, for the sins of the whole world; and of the absolute necessity of sanctification of spirit, through the effectual operation of divine grace on the heart, as one, who had herself largely participated, in the blessings and mercies of her God. She was, however, no stranger to deep mental conflicts, both in the prosecution of her religious labours, ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous
... attacked, as a cold-blooded jilt. If the truth must be told, she had actually broken the heart of a young nobleman, who was fool enough to be taken in by her sort of manner: and the son, the famous Sir Herbert Annaly! he was an absolute miser: Miss Lardner declared that she knew, from the best authority, most ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... (Jude 4), the damnation of some of his creatures, it is evident; but whether this his determination be positive and absolute, there is the question: for the better understanding whereof, I shall open unto you the variety of God's determinations, and their nature, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... ordered to take—'requisition' they call it—everything that we can find and that we can use. This does not confine itself alone to food for the horses and people, but to every piece of portable property, not an absolute fixture, which, if of any value, we are directed to ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the other hand, his hope of immortality is uncertain;—he also conceives of death as a long sleep (in this respect differing from the Phaedo), and at last falls back on resignation to the divine will, and the certainty that no evil can happen to the good man either in life or death. His absolute truthfulness seems to hinder him from asserting positively more than this; and he makes no attempt to veil his ignorance in mythology and figures of speech. The gentleness of the first part of the ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... unfitness of the first lieutenant arises from absolute incompetence or negligence of his duties, it will soon appear in some palpable instance, for which he must be accountable before a court-martial, unless his captain permit him to quit the ship to avoid that ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... went her own way more than ever, with the absolute conviction that it was the right way. Nothing could turn her. At thirteen her body was no longer obedient. Dorothy was not going to be her mother's companion, or her father's, either; she was Rosalind Jervis's companion. ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... in the same manner, if he had not had the good fortune to become so madly enamoured of the Rector's daughter as to make a proposal of marriage. The young lady accepted him, and in less than a year had become the absolute mistress of Crome and her husband. An extraordinary reformation made itself apparent in Sir Ferdinando's character. He grew regular and economical in his habits; he even became temperate, rarely drinking more than a ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... honoured, was pitilessly punished by death. We therefore cannot have more striking testimony than this of the abridgment of the privileges of the Frankish aristocracy, and of the progress which the sovereign power was making towards absolute and uncontrolled authority over cases of life and death. By almost imperceptible steps Roman legislation became more humane and perfect, Christianity engrafted itself into barbarism, licentiousness ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... exerted against the best interests of the son. His desire to become an artist, his wish for a university training, were disregarded, and he was sent instead to St. Kitts, where he was given employment on his mother's sugar plantations. The breach between Robert and his father became absolute when the boy defied local prejudice by teaching a negro to read, and when, because of what his father considered a sentimental objection to slavery, he finally refused to remain in the West Indies. The young ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... Nigel Loring's blithe and elastic spirit was chilled as he lay that night in the penal cell of Waverley and pondered over the absolute ruin which threatened his house from a source against which all his courage was of no avail. As well take up sword and shield to defend himself against the black death, as against this blight of Holy Church. He was powerless in the grip of the Abbey. Already they had shorn off ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Lecky: "The men of each age must be judged by the ideal of their own age and country, and not by the ideal of ourselves."—The Political Value of History, p. 50, New York, 1892. The distinction is that between the relative standard, which we apply to motives and persons, and the absolute standard, which we apply to actions. The effects of the latter, for good or evil, are fixed, and independent of the motives which ...
— An Ethnologist's View of History • Daniel G. Brinton
... By this I mean that the physician, if forced to choose between absolute control of the air, diet, exercise, work, and general habits of a patient, and use of drugs without these, would choose the former, and yet there are cases where this decision would be a ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... An insane desire to crush that yelling thing induced him to cast himself recklessly over the chair with a desperate grab, and they came down together in a cloud of dust amongst the splintered wood. The last shriek died out under him in a faint gurgle, and he had secured the relief of absolute silence. ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... limited. To come here it was only necessary to move our furniture three miles, and the promise of needle-work from the superintendent's family assured us sufficient income to meet the absolute cost of living. But you need not go to the breaker again; it may be possible to find ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... pleasant spots is not absolute; but there are certain points in which the couplet is sound. For example, although Brede Place has no counterpart in Northiam, and although beside Udimore's lovely name Northiam has an uninspired prosaic ring, yet Northiam is alone in the possession of Queen Elizabeth's Oak, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... experiments, is following the dictates of a loathsome and mean self-interest. Self-interest, when this conduct entails endless dangers and bitterness! Self-interest, when it demands of us, before all, an absolute contempt of a world to which nearly all are slaves, when it exposes us to insults and suffering and increases the number of our enemies and multiplies the obstacles in our path!... No, that woman is not selfish who, in all good faith, plunges boldly into the adventure at the risk of ruining herself, ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... uses as well), and free goods (including raw cotton and wool, hides, and ores). The most significant provision of the Declaration was that the doctrine of continuous voyage should apply only to absolute contraband. This doctrine, established by Great Britain in the French wars and expanded by the United States in the American Civil War, holds that the ultimate enemy destination of a cargo determines its character, regardless of transshipment in a neutral port and subsequent carriage by sea or land. ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... orphans who, while bewailing the loss of those they loved, their protectors and bread-winners, were doomed to struggle on in poverty; and the numberless families, formerly in affluence, now reduced to absolute beggary. Such was the state of my native land. And yet no one complained—all were ready to struggle on in the cause of Liberty; blaming, not those who had risen to fight for freedom, but the tyranny of their oppressors as the ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... it should be," said MacMaine. His head was clearing up more now. He realized that he had been talking a little wildly at first. Or was he really insane? Had he been insane from the beginning? No. He knew with absolute clarity that every step he had made had been cold, calculating, and ruthless, but utterly and ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... administration of the government, had laid all the apprehensions of the sovereign at rest, and gained for him the widest popularity ever possessed, in my knowledge of Italian affairs, by any minister. The King said to me that he had the most absolute confidence in his devotion, integrity, and abilities. Yet, when in 1891 an artificial crisis in the Chamber gave Crispi his first defeat on a question of so little constitutional import that his ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... Lagerstraemia Reginae succeeds about Goba: and between this and Dhumria, the country being low and highly cultivated, presents generally the appearance of one sheet of rice. In this march I observed one or two instances of the absolute enclosure of Dicotyledonous trunks by Fici. This enclosure arises entirely from the excessive tendency to cohesion between the roots and radicles of some of the species of this genus. With these, an expert gardener might produce any form he likes; the tendency exists in all to throwing out ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... is not to be regarded as an absolute precedent for our imitation, considering that it is impracticable in all cases, was chiefly restricted to one Christian society in a very peculiar situation, and is never enjoined upon others; yet, no duty is ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... the end-all of religion is the practice of Subjective Concentration. The performance of objective work by the human organism necessitates expenditure of energy and at last death, because all Objective Concentration means 'going from' the Absolute centre—God—and hence it expends Spiritual Energy. Subjective Concentration means 'coming to' the centre and hence it husbands and recuperates this energy. Now nature is motion to and from, and ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... not," interposes Harry Blew, "there be much; and for myself, as I've said, I object to spillin' blood, where the thing an't absolute needcessary. True, by leavin them aboard an' tied, as Mr Gomez suggests, they'll get drowned, for sartin; but it'll at least keep our hands ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... compassionate pity, for in his face there dwelt a misery so complete, so voiceless that no comfort of hers appeared to be able to bring relief. Often through those days did Annette ask to see him, but the old doctor was relentless. There must be absolute quiet and utter absence of all excitement. No visitors were to be ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... learned anchorites who are initiated into many mysteries unattainable by common mortals. They are monks who never marry, but are quite different from other mendicant brotherhoods, the so-called Sannyasi and Hossein. This Pandit is considered the greatest Sanskritist of modern India and is an absolute enigma to everyone. It is only five years since he appeared on the arena of great reforms, but till then, he lived, entirely secluded, in a jungle, like the ancient gymnosophists mentioned by the Greek and Latin authors. At this time he was ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... every faculty of mind intensely strong and clear, and weighted with the great calamity to absolute gravity, had struck those he met as a marvel of clear apprehension and perception of all the surroundings and proprieties of his painful position. The younger members of the Painesville Bar, who had begun to know and love their young brother, had gathered about him in his illness, ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... this trade of parliament the King is absolute; his will is signified by both houses of parliament, who are now as much an instrument in his hand as a bayonet in the hands of a regiment. Like a regiment we have our adjutant, who sends to the infirmary for the old and to the ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... the dinner-table at any moment. His face changed expression, and it was with difficulty that he restrained his temper. His life had been made up of a constant recurrence of these scenes, and he was wholly weary of them; and the thought of the absolute want of reason in the causeless jealousy, and the misery that these little bickerings made of his life, exasperated him beyond measure. The dinner proceeded in silence, and every slight remark was a presage of storm. Hubert hoped the girl would say ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... Unless there was absolute necessity the thought that his adored daughter should learn of that old scandal ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... had absolute power over his wife. Her life was in his hands, and if he had made a payment for her, he could do with her about as he pleased. On the whole, however, women who behaved themselves were well treated and received a good deal of consideration. Those who were light-headed, or foolish, or obstinate ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... something about 'absolute necessity,' and seemed anxious to induce her to co-operate in his schemes. The proud lady burst forth ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... it is a feast!" exclaimed Quicksilver, laughing, "an absolute feast! And you shall see how bravely I will play my part at it! I think I never felt ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... earnest was he, and so intense and blank was Luca's absolute despair, that the young man had in turn given way to his entreaties. "Never can I do aught," he thought, bitterly, looking at his own clumsy designs, "And sometimes by the help of cherubs the saints ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... Little John and the baron, as she should not be happy unless she herself saw her father placed in security. Robin was very unwilling to consent to this, and assured her that there was more danger for her than the baron: but Marian was absolute. ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... was caused throughout New South Wales by this order; but South Australia was saved from absolute ruin, and the Secretary of State declined to recall the edict. In vain it was urged that a great part of the land was not worth more than two or three shillings an acre; the answer was that land was worth whatever people ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... exact the least complacence from him; and he would let her lovely limbs ach rather than offer her his chair: while the gentle Lyperus tumbles over benches and overthrows tea-tables to take up a fan or a glove; he forces you, as a good parent doth his child, for your own good; he is absolute master of a lady's will, nor will allow her the election of standing or sitting in his company. In short, the impertinent civility of Lyperus is as troublesome, though perhaps not so offensive, as the ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... particular demand or command on the king's part, than of admitting his right to exercise his will at all in the premises. If the colony conceded his sovereignty, they could not afterward draw the line at which its power was to cease. And yet they could not venture to declare absolute independence, partly because, if it came to a struggle in arms, they could not hope to prevail; and partly because absolute independence was less desired than autonomy under the English flag. England was as ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... is great sin." "Satan seeketh to sow dissension and hatred amongst you, by means of wine and lots," &c. (Surat ii. and v.) How the commentators have quieted the consciences of the Faithful on the point of lots and not about wine, I cannot imagine. Such is the absolute folly of matters of this sort, the "clean" ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... the animal connect (8) hunger and thirst and the annoyance of flies with solitude, whilst associating food and drink and escape from sources of irritation with the presence of man. As the result of this treatment, necessarily the young horse will acquire—not fondness merely, but an absolute craving for human beings. A good deal can be done by touching, stroking, patting those parts of the body which the creature likes to have so handled. These are the hairiest parts, or where, if there is anything annoying him, the horse can least ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... which this mode of questioning caused me; I knew how important it was to Lilian to secure to her the countenance and support of this absolute autocrat; I spoke of Lilian's long previous distemper of mind; I accounted for it as any intelligent physician, unacquainted with all that I could not reveal, would account. Heaven forgive me for the venial falsehood, but I spoke of the terrible charge against myself as enough to unhinge for ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... saffron and wine-yellow, the girl's green gown glowed like an emerald, and her eyes, too, seemed emeralds, vivid, inscrutable, of a clear verdancy that was quite untinged with either blue or gray. Very black lashes shaded them. The long oval of her face (you might have objected), was of an absolute pallor, rarely quickening to a flush; but her petulant lips burned crimson, and her hair mimicked the dwindling radiance of the autumn sunlight and shamed it. All in all, the aspect of Adelais Vernon was, beyond any questioning, spiced with a sorcerous ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... explained, smiling above the ruins. "When the King receives the representatives of the House of Barker, the hat of the latter is immediately destroyed in this manner. It represents the absolute finality of the act of homage expressed in the removal of it. It declares that never until that hat shall once more appear upon your head (a contingency which I firmly believe to be remote) shall the House of Barker rebel against the ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... force!" muttered the Baron. "Every old hag in the village knows about a thing whenever it's supposed to be conducted in absolute secrecy." Then he continued angrily: "He'd have indeed to be a stupid devil of a criminal who ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... control of a machine so much more powerful than he is would give him chills. Did you ever see what happens when you lock a claustrophobe up in a dark closet—the mad, unreasoning, uncontrollable panic of absolute terror? That's what would happen to Manny if you put him behind the wheel of a running automobile. It's worse than fear; fear ...
— Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... "absolute necessity compelled me to go on shore, or I should not have taken such an ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... success of the most thorough sanitary measures thus far instituted, and taking into consideration the inherent difficulties which must increase enormously with increasing populations, it appears inevitable that modern methods must ultimately fail in sanitary efficiency and that absolute safety must be secured in some manner having the equivalent effect of boiling water, long ago adopted by the Mongolian races, and which destroys active disease germs at the latest moment before using. And it must not be overlooked that the ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... scattered far and wide, some over the close, some over the fields, and some were seen swimming upon the water! No tongue, no pen, no muse can describe the feelings of our tanner at this spectacle—feelings which became the more violent from the absolute silence which he imposed on himself upon this occasion. He instantly decided in his own mind that this injury was perpetrated by O'Neill, in revenge for his arrest; and went privately to the attorney to inquire what was to be done, on his part, to ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... he had plunged, unhurt, into a black passage, and incontinently someone, coming, it may be, in a transverse direction, blundered violently into him. He was hurling down a staircase in absolute darkness. He reeled, and was struck again, and came against a wall with his hands. He was crushed by a weight of struggling bodies, whirled round, and thrust to the right. A vast pressure pinned him. He could not breathe, his ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... what otherwise she found him determined to seize: in fine, she was his mistress; and her ready compliance with his desires, together with the love she either had or feigned to have for him, afterward gained her an absolute ascendant over him. Every one knows the interest he had with the czar; and he so far exerted it, as to get this fair favourite lodged in the palace, where she was served with the same state and respect as if she ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... different men have different reasons; and generally what they imagine to be base, they do not confess at all. But they suppose timidity to be a characteristic of a good disposition, and compassion also; but silliness to be the absolute characteristic of a slave. And they do not at all admit (confess) the things which are offences against society. But in the case of most errors for this reason chiefly they are induced to confess them, because they imagine that ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... of the college," says a contemporary,[45] "would be thought, I am persuaded, still more remarkable than those upon Physiology. They were intended to exhibit the present state of mental philosophy. And the singular clearness with which he discriminated the settled points of absolute knowledge in this comprehensive and yet imperfect science, his happy development of intricate and complicated principles, and the beautiful colors which a true poetic spirit enabled him now and then to throw over the bald peaks and angles of this cold region, entitle him to a ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... was husky with emotion; his last words were scarcely audible, said within his breath in a high strain of passion which had got beyond his control. The contrast between this tremendous force of feeling and her absolute youthful calm was beyond description. It was more wonderful than anything ever represented on the tragic stage. Only in the depth and mystery of human experience could such ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... his famous order were ready to undergo. By love, by a brightness of wit and good-humor that charmed all, by an authority which he knew how to assume, by a mystery and silence about him which increased the child's reverence for him, he won Harry's absolute fealty, and would have kept it, doubtless, if schemes greater and more important than a poor little boy's admission into orders had not called ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the enemy in the dark, but Saint-Cyr had no intention of doing this, and for the moment wanted only to teach the Russians a lesson which would drive them away from Polotsk. As the French general aimed at taking the Russians by surprise, he ordered absolute calm to be maintained in the town and above all in the ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... hundred and fifty grains, down to one varying from seven to twelve grains; that in the year 1822 an appendix was added to the "Confessions" which contained a tabular statement of his further progress toward an absolute abandonment of the drug, and indicating his gradual descent, day by day, for thirty-five days, when the reader is naturally led to suppose that the experiment was triumphantly closed by his entire ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... which, if successful, would have afforded him the means of marrying in accordance with the dictates of his heart; but, like the majority of nefarious schemes, it failed signally, and fear of detection, and the absolute necessity of obtaining a large amount of money, had goaded him to the desperate step of sacrificing his happiness and offering his hand to me. He strained her to his breast, kissed her repeatedly, and impiously called God to witness that he loved ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... successively doubled his stakes till he closed the evening with a hundred louis in his pocket. He went to his friend, and with mutual congratulations they resolved to venture no more, and calculated how long their gains would support them from absolute want, and thus seemed to strengthen their ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... inconsistencies in Christian Science. The thing is impossible, for the Science is absolute. It cannot be otherwise, since it proceeds directly from the All-in-all and the Everything-in-Which, also Soul, Bones, Truth, one of a series, alone and without equal. It is Mathematics purified from material ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a ticklish job getting the car out of the garage and into the street. Lockley was afraid that starting the motor would make a noise which in the silence of the town's absolute abandonment could be heard for a long way. The grinding of the starter, though, lasted only for seconds. It might make men listen, but they could hardly locate it before the motor caught and ran quietly. Also, the trailer-truck ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... anything more unsatisfactory than a perfect house, perfect grounds, perfect gardens, art and nature brought into the most absolute harmony of taste and culture? What more can a man do with it? What satisfaction has a man in it if he really gets to the end of his power to improve it? There have been such nearly ideal places, and how strong nature, always working against man and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... remedy" I pronounce to be wrong, as it must produce error. The remedy is nevertheless obvious, and consists in placing the stereographs at the same distance from the eyes as the focal length of the lens. But, if this cannot be done, it were surely better to submit to some trifling exaggeration than to absolute deformity and error. MR. S. says also, that as we mainly judge of distance, &c. by the convergence of the optic axis of our eyes (Query, How do persons with only one eye judge?), so, in short or medium ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... their help and sympathy, I should have long since been ruined. The days and weeks spent in the Law Courts, the harassing work connected with each stage of litigation, the watching daily when each hearing was imminent, the absolute hindrance of all provincial lecturing—it is hardly possible for any one to judge the terrible mental and pecuniary strain of all this long-drawn-out struggle." Aye! it killed him at last, twenty years before his time, sapping his splendid vitality, ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... Japan, as I have said, is determined to keep her absolute monopoly on South Manchurian railway facilities. In Article IV of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty Japan and Russia reciprocally engaged not to "obstruct any general measures, common to all countries, which China may take for the development of the commerce and industry of Manchuria," but in December ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... he probably learnt from Liszt, and without it both Tristan and the Ring would be very different. But while these are the most striking characteristics of Wagner's later leading themes and mode of using them, it must be remembered that he was now absolute master of every device of operatic art previously known, and of many he invented as he went along. The same theme in Tristan has a dozen functions to fulfil; it may be changed almost out of recognition to suit ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... He is the nephew of Sir John Murray, who owns immense phosphate deposits in Christmas Island, two hundred miles south of Java Head. Years ago he went out to help work these great deposits and has climbed up until now he is the virtual head of the island. His authority is absolute and he has come to be called the King of Christmas Island. His every-day name is that of his distinguished uncle, Sir John, but his Sunday name ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon |
