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Absorb   Listen
verb
Absorb  v. t.  (past & past part. absorbed; pres. part. absorbing)  
1.
To swallow up; to engulf; to overwhelm; to cause to disappear as if by swallowing up; to use up; to include. "Dark oblivion soon absorbs them all." "The large cities absorb the wealth and fashion."
2.
To suck up; to drink in; to imbibe; as a sponge or as the lacteals of the body.
3.
To engross or engage wholly; to occupy fully; as, absorbed in study or the pursuit of wealth.
4.
To take up by cohesive, chemical, or any molecular action, as when charcoal absorbs gases. So heat, light, and electricity are absorbed or taken up in the substances into which they pass.
Synonyms: To Absorb, Engross, Swallow up, Engulf. These words agree in one general idea, that of completely taking up. They are chiefly used in a figurative sense and may be distinguished by a reference to their etymology. We speak of a person as absorbed (lit., drawn in, swallowed up) in study or some other employment of the highest interest. We speak of a person as ebgrossed (lit., seized upon in the gross, or wholly) by something which occupies his whole time and thoughts, as the acquisition of wealth, or the attainment of honor. We speak of a person (under a stronger image) as swallowed up and lost in that which completely occupies his thoughts and feelings, as in grief at the death of a friend, or in the multiplied cares of life. We speak of a person as engulfed in that which (like a gulf) takes in all his hopes and interests; as, engulfed in misery, ruin, etc. "That grave question which had begun to absorb the Christian mind the marriage of the clergy." "Too long hath love engrossed Britannia's stage, And sunk to softness all our tragic rage." "Should not the sad occasion swallow up My other cares?" "And in destruction's river Engulf and swallow those."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Absorb" Quotes from Famous Books



... I am afraid I never shall," answered Mrs. Jardine. "You are rather an astonishing creature. You're so big, so vital; you absorb knowledge like a sponge ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... if that was what the leaderless horde of soldiers was doing here! Or, at any rate, trying to do; accustomed to being fed by the workers, with mandibles too huge to permit of normal self-feeding, they would probably be able to hardly more than strain clumsily after the choice mass beneath them and absorb it in morsels so small as to be more a source of ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst

... mind that the incubator recommended has four inches of sawdust surrounding it, and more sawdust would still be an advantage. The sawdust is not used to protect against the outside temperature, but to absorb and hold a large amount of heat, and that is the secret of its success. The directions given were to first fill the tank with boiling water and allow it to remain for 24 hours. In the meantime the sawdust absorbs the heat, and more boiling water ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various

... sandstone, the strata horizontal. From the summit of the hill nothing was visible but one unbounded waste of sandy ridges and low rocky hillocks, which lay to the south-east of the hill. All was one impenetrable desert, as the flat and sandy surface, which could absorb the waters of the creek, was not likely to originate watercourses. Descending the hill, which I named Mount Wilson, after the geologist attached to the expedition, we returned towards the creek at the south end of the lake, ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory

... battle between geometrical monsters, made remote and obscure by the dust of a thousand thousand merely human struggles, too small to be visible from the crusty windows of the train by the merely human eye. They had about one second in which to absorb this vision of corporate purpose. Then they were plunging into a final stretch of tunnel to the center of the city itself, where no surface was ever more than fifteen paces away and where there were no horizons ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler

... now I only wish my venture had been double," observed Pickersgill; "but I shall not allow business to absorb me wholly—we must add a little amusement. It appears to me, Corbett, that the gentleman's clothes which lie there will fit you, and those of the good-looking fellow who was spokesman will, I am sure, suit me well. Now let us dress ourselves, ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat

... clean, dry cover-glass of about the width of the slip, over the water containing the torn fragments. Absorb the excess of moisture at the edge of the cover, by pressing a bit of blotting-paper against it for a moment. Place it on the stage of a microscope and examine with highest obtainable power, by light reflected upward ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... new paint and gilding. But Julien kept me at a distance, and the rare occasions when he favoured me with his society only served to prepare my mind for the friendship which awaited me, and which was destined to absorb some years of ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... should be married and happy, I think, but I have become quite depersonalized. And I really think I have done a little good. You will marry, of course; you are young and so beautiful; but let politics be your second great interest. You will, indeed, never give them up if you let them absorb you for one year, and I am more glad than I can say that you already have gone so far." She then invited Betty to a dinner she was giving, and even made an appointment for an hour's "talk" beforehand; but this appointment Betty was unable to keep, as her mother fell ill for a ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... months before you. What can absorb you so entirely? I know you have your pictures ready for ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... a woman until I spoke to Beatrice. Chance made me her friend. I began to understand the outside of some of those things which I had never even dreamed of before. She set me right in many ways. I began to read, think, absorb little bits of the real world. It was all wonderful. Then Elizabeth came. I met her, too, by accident—she came to my office ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... bodily system. You can drug your brain and thereby fill it with drowsy suggestions of ideas—of course they would only he SUGGESTIONS, and very vague and indefinite ones too, still they might be pleasant enough to absorb and repress bitter memories for a time. As for me, my poor skill would scarcely avail you, as I could promise you neither self-oblivion nor visionary joy. I have a certain internal force, it is true—a ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... to be absorbed by a joint protectorate that took in the Schleswig-Holstein Peninsula. Poland was to go back to Russia, Servia and Italy being allotted the shorelines of the Adriatic. The Dardanelles was to be an open, undefended waterway. Bulgaria was to absorb Turkey in Europe, Russia obtaining further ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor

... may be found in so many cabinets. They occur in an earthy, greenish-black amygdaloid, which forms a range of sea-cliffs varying in height from thirty to fifty feet, and that, from their sad hue and dull fracture, seem to absorb the light; while the veins themselves, bright and glistening, glitter in the sun, as if they were streams of water traversing the face of the rock. The first impression they imparted, in viewing them from the boat, was, that the inclosing mass ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... ounces; Gum Camphor, two ounces, dissolved in one pint of Gasolene. Shake the contents of the bottle before using each time and apply with a nail or toothbrush every forty-eight hours. This is very penetrating and will remove the enlargement or absorb fluids that might have accumulated from the ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... "Absorb—" began Gloria in surprise, but stopped. The bag was open under her eyes. She caught a confused glimpse of bottles and rolls of something carefully done up in white tissue, of a dark blue pasteboard box with a red cross on the visible end, of ...
— Gloria and Treeless Street • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... lead will have a similar effect. Sulphur burnt for the same purpose, has the power of overcoming the effects of noxious vapours. Shallow vessels filled with lime water are of great use in absorbing carbonic acid gas, especially in workshops where charcoal is burnt. Newly prepared charcoal will absorb various kinds of noxious effluvia, and might be used with considerable advantage for the purification of privies, if small pieces of it are strewed upon the floor. Never venture into a sick room if you are in a violent perspiration (if circumstances ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... fluent mind in which every thought and feeling came readily to the lips. "Loose the knots of the heart," he says. We absorb elements enough, but have not leaves and lungs for healthy perspiration and growth. An air of sterility, of incompetence to their proper aims, belongs to many who have both experience and wisdom. But a large utterance, a river that makes its own shores, quick perception and ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... water they contain: in the latter, rain is immediately absorbed by the cracked porous soil, which requires an immense quantity of moisture before it allows any drainage; whereas the sandstone forms steeper slopes, and does not absorb the rain so quickly, so that the water runs down the slopes, and collects in holes at the foot of the hills parallel to the creeks. Scrubs are frequent round the low rises of sandstone; and, where the country is level, and the soil loamy, the ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... earthly hope—a hope full of immortality—the hope, namely, that that Father's kingdom may come; that he has a duty which, like the sun in our celestial system, stands in the centre of his moral obligations, shedding upon them a hallowing light, which they in their turn reflect and absorb—the duty of striving to prove by his life and conversation the sincerity of his prayer, that that Father's will may be done upon earth as it is done in heaven. I understand, sir, that upon the broad and solid platform which is raised upon that good foundation, ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... perpetual snow, and the heat which is emitted from its sides prevents the formation of glaciers in the hollows. One might expect that the quantities of snow and rain which fall on the summit would give rise to numerous streams. But the small stones and cinders absorb the moisture, and springs are found only on the lower slopes. The cinders, however, retain sufficient moisture to support a rich vegetation wherever the surface of the lava is not too compact to be penetrated by roots. The surface of the more recent lava ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various

... severity. Yet they were eating rather more than their full ration a considerable part of the time. It has to be considered that the temperatures met by them averaged far below -10 deg.: that they did not absorb all their food: that increased heat was wanted not only for energy to do extra work caused by bad surfaces and contrary winds, but also to heat their bodies, and to thaw out their ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... sight of our dear invalid moving about her accustomed ways again. If you could see the Boy asleep by her side! The tranquillity of his slumber, and the shine of his mother's eyes thereover, seem to melt up and mysteriously absorb the great debates of the agnostics, and of science and politics, and to dissolve them into the pellucid Faith long ago reaffirmed by the Son of Man. Looking upon the child, this term seems to acquire a new meaning, as if Christ were in some sort ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... and inert to satisfy the ordinary wants of their masters, and to assist in the rebuilding of the town. Still the Spartans were greatly enfeebled, crippled, and embarrassed by the loss of the rest: and the siege of Ithome sufficed to absorb their attention, and to make them regard without open hostilities, if with secret enmity, the operations of the Athenians. The Spartan alliance formally dissolved —Megara, with its command of the Peloponnesus seized—the Doric city of Corinth humbled and defeated—Aegina blockaded; all ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... seemed to them to be principles of justice and equity. These principles gradually found a place in Roman law, together with many rules and observances of foreign peoples. Roman law in this way tended to take over and absorb all that was best in ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... Antony knew that the love in the soul of man is mated only with the infinite universe. In no marriage less than that shall it find lasting fulfilment of itself. No single face, however beautiful, no single human soul, however vast, can absorb it. Silencieux, Beatrice, Wonder, himself, all faded away, in a trance-like sense of a stupendous passion, an august possession. He felt that within him which rose up gigantic from the earth, and towered into eyries of space, from whence that morning ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne

... good analogy, Mr. Malone." Malone looked at him and felt relieved that he'd managed to get the conversation onto pure lecture-room science so quickly. O'Connor, easily at home in that world, had been able to absorb the shock of Malone's sudden appearance while providing the facts in his own inimitable, ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett

... nine-tenths of the money I brought here; I'll absorb the remaining tenth myself, if it's just the same to you, Major. Thank you." And the hundred and twenty-seventh man pocketed his salvage from the wreck and fought his way out through the jam at the doors. Two hours farther along in the forenoon the Apache National suspended payment, and the ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... preamble, attempted to offer some justification for the accidental meeting in the Champ de Mars. It was the merest chance that led to his being in that woman's company. While admitting that she was pretty—which really was not the case—how could she for even a moment absorb his thoughts, seeing that he loved ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... to another little glass of brandy. His mood seemed to absorb the spirit of the liqueur. "Fixed!" he repeated with a peevish snap in his tone. "I'm not 'fixed' at all, as you call it. Good God, sir! They no more care what becomes of me than they do about their old gloves. I gave them name and breeding and position—and ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... an intensity almost fierce into the other's confident eyes. He laid his thin, sinewy hand on the other's big brown fist, as though he would fain absorb conviction by contact. "But I'm sick with the slowness of the progress you talk of—believe in," he burst out finally. "It comes too late—the advance from our tragic materialism; too late for so many that could have profited by it most." He looked toward Lydia bending over her aunt's fancy work. ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... about 4 feet in length, which may be stored in piles in the open. Hurds very likely would be received baled, and it would seem advisable to store them under cover for the following reasons: (a) Baled hurds would probably absorb and retain more water during wet weather than logs of wood, thereby causing excessive dilution of the caustic liquor; (b) prolonged excessive dampness might create heating and deterioration unless the hemp were properly retted; (c) wet hurds could not be sieved free from sand and chaff. ...
— Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material - United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 404 • Lyster H. Dewey and Jason L. Merrill

... these and the good angels shall have continued the appointed time, and these Spirits enveloped in darkness shall long and in vain have endeavored to absorb the Divine light and life, then will the Eternal Himself come to correct them. He will deliver them from the gross envelopes of matter that hold them captive, will re-animate and strengthen the ray of light or spiritual nature which they have preserved, and re-establish ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... unfolding of its far-down emotional and sexual nature, is eminently capable of the most sensitive, affectional and serene appreciation of what sex means (generally more so as things are to-day, than its worldling parent or guardian); and can absorb the teaching, if sympathetically given, without any shock or disturbance to its sense of shame—that sense which is so natural and valuable a safeguard ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... was ripe for a great event, a universal and overwhelming enterprise which could absorb the passionate longing. Maybe that the wisdom of the great popes—half unconsciously, certainly, and under the pressure of the age, but yet led by an unerring instinct—guided this stream into the bed of the Church; the vague craving found a definite object: the Crusades ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... purified it is only necessary to keep a pitcher or some other vessel full of water in it. The water will absorb all the respired gases. The colder the water is the greater is its capacity to hold the gases. At ordinary temperature a pail of water will absorb a pint of carbonic acid gas and several pints of ammonia. The capacity is nearly doubled by reducing the water to the ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 12, December, 1880 • Various

... decanters with the regularity of a pendulum; the famous divine flirted openly with one of the Madame de Staels of the age, who looked daggers at another Corinne, who was amiably satirizing her, after outmaneuvering her in efforts to absorb the profound philosopher, who imbibed tea Johnsonianly and appeared to slumber, the loquacity of the lady rendering speech impossible. The scientific celebrities, forgetting their mollusks and glacial periods, gossiped about art, while ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... prose style in this century, De Quincey has so served the interests of art in this regard, that in his own case the charge is sometimes reversed: his own works are read rather to observe his manner than to absorb his thought. Yet when this is said, it is not to imply that the material is unworthy or the ideas unsound; on the contrary, his sentiment is true and his ideas are wholesome; but many of the topics treated lie outside the deeper interests of ordinary life, and fail to appeal ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... undulations in the ether fall upon other molecules the latter may reflect them away or they may absorb them, in which case the absorbing molecules are themselves made to vibrate with increased amplitude, and we say they have been heated. Some molecules, such as carbon, appear to be capable of stopping undulations of all wave lengths and to be heated by them; others are only affected ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various

... extensive natural wealth yet, with a large and rapidly increasing population, it remains a poor country. GDP growth in 1985-89 averaged about 4%, somewhat short of the more than 5% rate needed to absorb the 2.3 million workers annually entering the labor force. Agriculture, including forestry and fishing, is an important sector, accounting for 21% of GDP and over 50% of the labor force. The staple crop is ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Bosola presents the body of the murdered Duchess to her brother, Webster has wrought a scene of tragic savagery that surpasses almost any other that the English stage can show. The sight, of his dead sister maddens Ferdinand, who, feeling the eclipse of reason gradually absorb his faculties, turns round with frenzied hatred on the accomplice of his fratricide. Bosola demands the price of guilt. Ferdinand spurns him with the concentrated eloquence of despair and the extravagance of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... shown that when a piece of dried wool is exposed to an atmosphere saturated with water vapour it will absorb 50 per cent. of its weight; cotton under the same conditions will take up 23 per cent.; flax, 27.5 per cent.; jute, 28.5 per cent., and ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech

... everywhere colossal shams and abuses go unexposed, unrebuked. Is it because we are better at being common scolds than at being wise advisers that we prefer little reforms to big ones? Are we to allow the poor personal habits of other people to absorb and quite use up all our fine indignation? It will be a bad day for society when sentimentalists are encouraged to suggest all the measures that shall be taken for the betterment of the race. I, for one, sometimes sigh for the generation of "leading people" and of good ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson

... school cannot well be large, and is, in many cases, a negligible quantity. But the child who has once acted history will always be interested in it, and being interested in it will be able, without making a formal study of it, to absorb its spirit, its atmosphere, and the more significant of its facts. Nor do the advantages of the dramatic treatment of history end with the subject itself. The actors in these historical scenes are, as I have ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... I dare say. He was a rapid reader and had the rare faculty of being able to seize on what he needed to use. He often read three volumes a day. But I don't advise you to copy him. I want you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. He could absorb, but, we'll take it for granted that you must plod on steadily, step by step. He read through Johnson's ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin

... for what he called "details." His specialty was the making of suggestions in editorial council, in cheery expectation that they would be carried out by his associates— an expectation so rarely realized that Mr. Wilson's visage had almost a habit of hurt wonder. "Details" continued to absorb the activity of the Sunday "Searchlight" office, and Maxwell, the assistant editor, attended to them all, murmuring bitterly against ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... with a large and rapidly increasing population, it remains a rather poor country. Real GDP growth in 1985-94 averaged about 6%, quite impressive, but not sufficient to both slash underemployment and absorb the 2.3 million workers annually entering the labor force. Agriculture, including forestry and fishing, is an important sector, accounting for 21% of GDP and over 50% of the labor force. The staple ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... over the Ionian colonies and the islands of the AEgaean, made Athens, perhaps, the leading State. It was the richest, the most cultivated, and the most influential of the Grecian States, and threatened to absorb gradually all the other States ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... foods are important because of their wide distribution and the ease with which they can be prepared and utilized as food. They are very productive and need but little care and hence are a cheap food. The body can digest and absorb sugar and starch more completely than any ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... occasionally, and guarding the ceremony with great precautions, it has been an almost universal custom for the tribal elders to call a feast at which an animal (either the totem or some other) IS killed and commonly eaten—and this in order that the tribesmen may absorb some virtue belonging to it, and may confirm their identity with the tribe and with each other. The eating of the bear or other animal, the sprinkling with its blood, and the general ritual in which the participants shared its flesh, or dressed and disguised themselves ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... fathoms (142 m.) of water, or about the same as yesterday, and the sounding-line indicated a southwesterly drift. However anxious one is to take things philosophically, one can't help feeling a little depressed. I try to find solace in a book; absorb myself in the learning of the Indians—their happy faith in transcendental powers, in the supernatural faculties of the soul, and in a future life. Oh, if one could only get hold of a little supernatural power ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... arguments which applied to the complaints of ingratitude, apply to the complaints of neglected merit. The merit is oftentimes not understood. Be it ever so manifest, it cannot absorb men's attention. When it is really great, it has not been brought out by the hope of reward, any more than the kindest services by the hope of gratitude. In neither case is it becoming or rational to be ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps

... relief were so great as to absorb all thought or realization of what this mercy was to the prisoner himself, until Dr. May was able to pay him a visit on Monday afternoon. It was at a moment when the first effects of the tidings of life had subsided, and there had been time to look forth on the future with a spirit ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... we were dealing with a phenomenon of the Blind Spot. All told, we poured about nine pints of liquid into an area of about twenty square inches; all on the outer surface, for the split side would absorb nothing. And to all appearances we might ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... height beams with a light— The wondrous blaze of Glory's orb; Still those who gaze feel most the rays, While they who climb no warmth absorb. ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... that it is impossible for an alien thoroughly to absorb and understand Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech or Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" without working a slight but perceptible transformation in the brain, without making himself an heir of a measure of English tradition. And the impact ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... the caddis worm manage to remain on the surface without the support of the grasses, considering that itself and its sheath are both heavier than water? Its secret is soon revealed. I place a few high and dry on a sheet of blotting paper, which will absorb the excess of liquid unfavorable to successful observation. Outside its natural environment, the animal moves about violently and restlessly. With its body half out of the scabbard, this time composed entirely of fibrous ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... familiar Vandover that looked back at him from his mirror; then there was the wolf, the beast, whatever the creature was that lived in his flesh, and that struggled with him now, striving to gain the ascendency, to absorb the real Vandover into its own hideous identity; and last of all, there was a third self, formless, very vague, elusive, that stood aside and watched the strife of the other two. But as he fought against ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... to ride; I used to saddle it myself and set off alone for long rides, break into a rapid gallop and fancy myself a knight at a tournament. How gaily the wind whistled in my ears! or turning my face towards the sky, I would absorb its shining radiance and blue into my soul, that ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... dews which moisten it, and to benefit by the influence of the air; the roots are thus considerably refreshed. The dew falling on ground which has been recently moved, penetrates at once into it, and does good to the plant; but if it falls on the weeds, the first rays of the sun absorb it, and deprive the tree of this ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... evening in this apartment, where, saying he was confoundedly thirsty, he called for a bottle of champagne. At this order the waiter instantly supposed that he had to do with a grandee, and the Colonel sate down and began to eat his supper and absorb his drink, and enter affably into conversation with ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of a wisdom which surpasses our own as much as boundless space surpasses the imperceptible spot which we occupy upon the earth. Think of this: the science of nature is so vast that the least of its departments suffices to absorb one human lifetime. All our sciences are only in their very beginning; they are spelling out the first lines of an immense book. The elements of the universe are numberless; and yet, notwithstanding, all hangs together; ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... suggestion of the pathetic in his hard face and brusque manners; nearer companionship revealed occasional glimpses of a mood out of harmony with the vulgar pursuits and solicitudes which for the most part seemed to absorb him. One caught a hint of loneliness in his existence; his reticences, often very marked in the flow of his unpolished talk, seemed to indicate some disappointment, and a dislike to dwell upon it. In point of fact, ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... wide and five high, with one end left open and the other closed; the cover is made of the same material, with the edges bent over to go on and off. There are several wires running through the centre of the sides, which it is necessary to cover with cloth or paper to absorb all the moisture that may be made by applying the heat, and the buffs are put in and taken out at the open end. In order that the heat may be as nearly uniform as possible, an iron bar one inch wide, eighteen inches long and one half inch thick, is so bent that the centre is one quarter ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey

... seem inevitable that the surface waters of the northern and southern frigid zones must, sooner or later, find their way to the bottom of the rest of the ocean; and there accumulate to a thickness dependent on the rate at which they absorb heat from the crust of the earth below, and from ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... like the most patent fairy-tales. As a mere infant in arms he had been able to read fluently. Before his fourth birthday came he had read the Bible twice through, as well as Watts's Hymns—poor child!—and when seven or eight he had shown a propensity to absorb languages much as other children absorb nursery tattle and Mother Goose rhymes. When he was fourteen, a young lady visiting the household of his tutor patronized the pretty boy by asking to see ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... the very nature of the Athenian drama that, when once established, it should concentrate and absorb almost every variety of poetical genius. The old lyrical poetry, never much cultivated in Athens, ceased in a great measure when tragedy arose; or, rather, tragedy was the complete development, the new and perfected ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... fiery molecules of pain, burning atoms of pleasure. Just as the logical reason can abstract itself from the other primal energies and perform strange and fantastic tricks, so the activity of sensation can so absorb, obsess and overpower the whole personality that the rhythm of existence is ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys

... like a thermos bottle," Arcot explained. "The inner shell will be of rough relux, which will absorb the heat efficiently, while the outer one will be of polished relux to keep the radiation inside. Between the two we'll run a flow of helium at two tons per square inch pressure to carry the heat to the molecular ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell

... Indeed, I do not remember much about them. I must have seen many strange and beautiful sights, but they meant little to me. When the soul is young it does not take root in surroundings too vast and does not absorb the beautiful. I have a clearer recollection of certain picture books, of little cosy corners in the rooms we inhabited, of a small pewter can which I had found on the road and from which I would never be parted - not even when I went ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... embittered fancy. You have a work to do, and influence to do it; but your will must become humble, and then you will learn the sweets of true knowledge, and be able to disseminate truth and wisdom. Now you absorb it into your own mind, for your own satisfaction, and for the poor triumph of discouraging those of lower mental stature, and of natures lighter and grosser than your own. To the true Prophet and the true Philosopher, he himself is insignificant before ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)

... opportunity. Again came the yeas and nays. You shall see some of these. They are of help. Time has not settled this question. It is as alive as ever—more alive than ever. What if the Armistice was premature? What if Germany absorb Russia and join Japan? What if the League of ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister

... having strayed about, orphan-like, for a while, they accidentally crossed our track, and were taken as adopted children into our family, another question remains to be answered. Why did they not remain in their first position, absorb their full share of nebulous matter, beget a respectable family of planets, and take rank as chiefs of their own clan? These comparatively anomalous bodies are great stumbling-blocks for the soi-disant historians ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen

... a strong and efficient whole. Before being summarily recruited into the Project, Ross had been a loner—living on the ragged edges of the law, an indigestible bit for the civilization which had become too ordered and "adjusted" to absorb his kind. But in the Project he had discovered others like himself—men born out of time, too ruthless, too individualistic for their own age, but able to operate with ease in the dangerous paths ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton

... serpent of the Nile. From this vantage place I pointed out the things we had to see in the city spread out below us, so that on the vaguest minds the picture might be painted in its entirety, before they began to absorb details on that mosaic map which was Cairo. The tombs of the Mamelukes, strangely shaped monuments, vague and white as squatting ghosts; the graves of the Caliphs; the historic gates of el-Kahira; and the many ancient mosques, whose minarets soared against the blue like tall-stemmed ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... seventeen Methodist bodies, separated by no differences of polity or of doctrine that seem important to anybody but themselves, if consolidated into one, would constitute a truly imposing body, numbering nearly five millions of communicants and more than fifteen millions of people; and if this should absorb the Protestant Episcopal Church (an event the possibility of which has often been contemplated with complacency), with its half-million of communicants and its elements of influence far beyond the proportion of its numbers, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... regiment than with strangers, and as a rule the cure is more certain; but when men receive disabling wounds, or have sickness likely to become permanent, the sooner they go far to the rear the better for all. The tent or the shelter of a tree is a better hospital than a house, whose walls absorb fetid and poisonous emanations, and then give them back to the atmosphere. To men accustomed to the open air, who live on the plainest food, wounds seem to give less pain, and are attended with less danger to life than to ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... not impart flavor to the food may be used for frying, but the vegetable oils, such as cottonseed oils, combinations of coconut and cottonseed oils, and nut oils, are preferable to lards and other animal fats, because they do not burn so easily. Foods cooked in deep fat will not absorb the fat nor become greasy if they are properly prepared, quickly fried, and well drained on paper that will ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... should suppose them as likely as any other women to make a reciprocal impression. Hollingsworth could hardly give his affections to a person capable of taking an independent stand, but only to one whom he might absorb into himself. He has certainly shown ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, While, and on whom, thou may'st—shine on! nor heed Whether the object by reflected light Return thy radiance or absorb it quite: And though thou notest from thy safe recess Old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air, Love them for what they are; nor love them less, Because to thee they are not what ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons

... until it's saturated with opposite polarity. You get an alternating magnet, which doesn't evolve heat because of its magnetic instability, but absorbs heat trying to maintain its stability. This thing will absorb heat from anywhere—the air, water, sunlight or what have you—and give out ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster

... the House, and still more outside. With their recent experience of the evils arising from a rich and powerful body like the East India Company, men were cautious in allowing a Corporation to be erected in their midst which, as many feared, would absorb the wealth of the nation,(1802) and might render the Crown independent of parliament and people. This last consideration was not unimportant, and, in order to avert the possibility of such a danger, a clause was inserted in the Bill forbidding under the severest penalties ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... There was plenty of everything—enough for all—but all had to contribute to its getting. There was no greed, their few wants were easily satisfied, and here, as everywhere in my journeyings, I have noticed it to be the case among the common people, there was no desire to get rich and absorb wealth. They wanted to live, to learn to labor as little as the growth of food supplies demanded, to become fathers and mothers, and, to their minds, to get the most out of life. And who will contradict it? They ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... be used in the near future, they should be washed and put in a pure, cool atmosphere. The lower shelf of the refrigerator is best, as odours rise, and eggs readily absorb these. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education

... funds for building this university arise out of the misappropriation (by secularising them) of the clergy reserves; the lands appropriated to the college giving them possession of funds to the amount of about three hundred thousand pounds. Of this the building, it is supposed, will absorb about one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, and they propose to lay out a large sum to increase an already very good library, which is rich in works on natural history and English topography. Dr. McCaul, who is the president of the college, is a brother of the ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter

... watched the man's abstemious meal,—for he ate little,—I contrasted him with our neighbours at the board, who seemed to be vying, like the captives of Circe, to ascertain by trial who could swallow the most beef and mountain mutton, and who could absorb the most "pegs"—those vile concoctions of spirits, ice, and soda-water, which have destroyed so many splendid constitutions under the tropical sun. As I watched him an impression came over me that he must be an Italian. I scanned his appearance narrowly, ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford

... less than ten minutes, however, to banish every other thought from her mind and absorb it in amazement at her discovery. A brief battle with a dense and obstinate scrub found her standing in the centre of a wide sort of bridle path, scored with a dozen or so cattle tracks crowded with ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... has been said in this chapter the reader may form some idea of the immense sums of money which the clergy absorb by virtue of this belief in the dogma of purgatory. When he reflects that those contributions are upon a more liberal scale than any others which the Spanish nation pays, and that the product is sunk ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... night, towards the end of March, Magdalen was lying awake listening to the wind. Her tranquil mind travelled to a great distance away from that active, monotonous, daily life which seemed to absorb her, which had monopolised her energies but never her thoughts for so ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... frenzied eagerness to absorb every detail of the bitter news, and was confronted by the rough, stone bottom which had worn through the covering, leaving mangled shreds of paper, whose rolled and mutilated ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... responsibility, of the deposits from the Bank of the United States. After ascertaining that Duane, the Secretary of the Treasury, would not be his tool in that service, he, in the language of that officer, "concentrating in himself the power to judge and execute, to absorb the discretion given to the Secretary of the Treasury, and to nullify the law itself," proceeded at once to remove him, and to raise Roger B. Taney from the office of Attorney-General to that of Secretary of the Treasury, for the sole object of availing ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... more fully appreciated than by this remarkable people, who, sending forth consuls, vice-consuls, and prefects, yet left to the conquered the management of their own affairs and the guardianship of their own interests. Not even in the most corrupt days of the empire was it attempted to absorb the patronage of every department and province for the benefit of a few, under the pretext of imparting greater vigour to the administration of public affairs by centralization. It was not deemed wise or necessary ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen

... moving purpose is to propagate this. He holds that Psychology must be an inference from Physiology,—that the whole science of Man is included in a science of his body. His two perpetual aims are, first, to absorb all physical science in theoretical materialism,—second, to absorb all history in physical science. And beside the ambition of his aims one must say that his logic has an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... from the roof of the dwelling house. Much of the prairie land in this part of the State is inferior to the first quality of prairie land in Illinois, as the soil is more clayey, and does not so readily absorb the water. Between Salt river and Des Moines, is a beautiful and rich country of land. The counties of Ralls, Marion, Monroe, Lewis and Shelby, are first rate. The counties of Warren, Montgomery, Callaway, Boone, Howard, and Chaviton, ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... responsibility, that human control over the human will, and that reality of human agency which are often thought to be annihilated by these broad views of God as originating all good in the soul and life. The Apostle thought that this doctrine did not absorb all our individuality in one great divine Cause which made men mere tools and puppets. He did not believe that the inference from it was, 'Therefore do you sit still, and feel yourselves the cyphers that you are.' His practical conclusion is the very opposite. It is—God does all, therefore ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... strength, strength to do silently, to endure steadfastly, to die conquered, yet victorious, to live in the front, yet alone,—is it an ideal character? So much the more let it be studied, that our souls may absorb it and produce the reality: for it is ideal after no impossible sort. In his simple purity, in his fidelity to right, in his chivalry and his religion, he is only what all can be. It is an American boy, called to no loftier living, to no more "extraordinary seeking," than his country ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... put their fish into the water till it boils, but it is not a good plan, as the outside gets cooked too much, and breaks to pieces before the inside is sufficiently done. Fish for frying, after being cleaned and washed, should be put into a cloth to have it absorb the moisture. They should be dried perfectly, and a little flour rubbed over them. No salt should be put on them, if you wish to have them brown well. For five or six pounds of fish, fry three or four slices of salt pork—when brown, take them up, and if they do not make fat sufficient ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous

... climate, and they seem to us at first sight to be subjected to identically the same conditions; but this can hardly be the case, except under the unusual contingency of each individual being surrounded by other kinds of plants in exactly the same proportional numbers. For the surrounding plants absorb different amounts of various substances from the soil, and thus greatly affect the nourishment and even the life of the individuals of any particular species. These will also be shaded and otherwise affected by the nature of the surrounding plants. Moreover, ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin

... sobered me. In some degree at least I restrained myself: I made the effort to return to purer ways of life. Mr. Germaine, though I had disappointed him, was too just a man to give me up as lost. He advised me, as a means of self-reform, to make my choice of a profession, and to absorb myself in closer studies than any that I ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins

... on leaving St. Sulpice to remain as much of a St. Sulpice man as possible. The studies which I had begun at the seminary had so engrossed me, that my one desire was to resume them. One only occupation seemed worthy to absorb my life, and that was the pursuit of my critical researches upon Christianity by the much larger means which lay science offered me. I also imagined myself to be in the company of my teachers, discussing objections with them, and proving to them that whole pages ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... President, but hostile to Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, and probably intensely jealous of all the distinguished generals of the army. Greeley had long been, through the Tribune, a recognized factor in moulding public opinion, and now that war had come to absorb all other interests, his power and influence through the press had waned. He was wholly impracticable in executive matters. His failure to inaugurate a peace and to attain prominence in administrative affairs ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... have thus furnished us with the key wherewith to unlock the secret chambers of auto-infection. What is that key? It is the discovery that the system may possibly absorb as high as three-fourths of this feculent substance in the colon; that this absorption is made possible by an obstructed or sluggish intestinal canal where disease germs are propagated and lodged; that these germs, along with a certain amount of excrement, invade the tissues by absorption; and ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... more to the purpose is that it will approximately absorb our whole available capital," said the first speaker, who took up another paper. "Then we have as an alternative scheme several leagues of road and trail cutting, including wooden bridges and a strip that must be dug out of an impassable mountainside. You ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... to learn that which is contained between the covers of a book that our girls are sent to school or college, but also to gather in the thousand and one things untaught by either books or words. These must be absorbed as the flowers absorb the sunshine and dew, growing lovelier, sweeter and more attractive each ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... the organ-roll of Milton or the silvery flageolet tones of Thomas Moore. If culture consists in learning the grammar an etymologies of a poet's song, then no cultured man will ever get any pleasure from poetry while he is on a walking tour; but, if you absorb your poets into your being, you have spells of rare and ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... Unnecessary tasks absorb most of our labour to-day. In the ideal community, Godwin reckons that half an hour's toil from every man daily will suffice to produce the necessities of life. He modified this sanguine estimate in ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford

... kept separate—nor indeed would a complete separation be possible—the heading of this section of the Palatine Anthology distinguishes the {sumpotika}, the epigrams of youth and pleasure, from the {skoptika}, the witty or humorous verses which have accidentally in modern English come almost to absorb the full signification of the word epigram. The latter come principally under two heads: one, where the point of the epigram depends on an unexpected verbal turn, the other, where the humour lies in some gross exaggeration of statement. ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... medicine, I saw on the chimney-piece a note from Lady Olivia ——. It might have been there yesterday, and ever since my arrival, but I did not see it. At any other time it would have excited my indignation, but my mind is now too much weakened by sorrow. My fears for my husband's life absorb all other feelings. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... the hen's egg contains an excessively minute but complete chick; and that fecundation and incubation simply cause this germ to absorb nutritious matters, which are deposited in the interstices of the elementary structures of which the miniature chick, or germ, is made up. The consequence of this intussusceptive growth is the "development" or "evolution" ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley

... the large cities absorb the wealth and fashion of the nation; they are the only fixed abodes of elegant and intelligent society, and the country is inhabited almost entirely by boorish peasantry. In England, on the contrary, the metropolis is a mere gathering-place, or general rendezvous, of ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... was a savage, and entertained the thoughts of a savage. Toward those who, like the French, pampered his appetites and indulged his passions to secure his trade, he entertained no malice. The lazy, fiddling Canadians who dwelt in Kaskaskia and Vincennes, had no ambition to absorb the soil or build up a great commonwealth. The little land they required to raise their corn, their vines and their onions on, aroused no savage jealousies. But from the first moment that the Americans came through the gaps and passes of the Blue Ridge, and swept down the waters ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... what he said, since the contemplation of the beautiful, as their philosophy taught, induced a certain porosity of mind similar to that produced upon the physical body by the healthful influences of sun and air. Consequently it was probable that we might absorb the Zu-Vendi tongue a little faster if suitable teachers could be found. Another thing was that, as the female sex was naturally loquacious, good practice would be gained in the viva voce department ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... are allowed to cross freely, and one is {174} much more numerous than the other, the former will ultimately absorb the latter. Should both varieties exist in nearly equal numbers, it is probable that a considerable period would elapse before the acquirement of a uniform character; and the character ultimately acquired would largely depend on prepotency of transmission, and on the conditions of life; ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... powerfully: hence an image lures us away from an argument: judgment is paralysed, matters of fact disappear from view, eclipsed by the superior blaze. Nor is it surprising that we should be thus affected; for when two forces are thus placed in juxtaposition, the stronger must always absorb into itself the weaker. ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus

... mind on too many things; for whatever too much expands the mind weakens it; nor on vague or multitudinous thoughts and speculations; nor on dreams or things distant or unattainable. However interesting, they did not absorb him, body and soul, like the safety and welfare of ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall

... was of too great importance not to absorb all other business, and it was decided that the house of Mynheer Krause, and of the Jesuit, and the widow Vandersloosh should be entered by the peace-officers, at midnight, and that they and any of the conspirators ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... a mild surprise, and his mother chuckled. She was devoted to her son, and more or less overshadowed by his prerogative as "menfolks" born to absorb the cream of things; but the elderly good sense in her was alive to the certainty that if Amarita had not been so yielding, Elihu would never have been ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... of her as there was, the young fellow seemed ready to absorb, regarding her with avid eyes—a gaze which she seldom met. But whenever he gave his attention to the mahlstick, her eyes sought his countenance with a look which was almost scrutiny. It was as if some extrinsic force drew her glance to his face, until the ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... Colonel had a new interest to absorb his attention. He had taken a new house at 120 Fitzroy Square in connection with that Indian friend of his, Mr. Binnie. The house being taken, there was fine amusement for Clive, Mr. Binnie, and the Colonel, in frequenting sales, in inspection of upholsterers' ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... suspicious fact remains, that whatever experience her husband desires to gain, it is always a woman who must supply it. This he frankly admits; and he gives his reason. "Women lend themselves to experiment; men do not. Men are egotists, and absorb whatever comes in their way. Women, whether Fifines or Elvires, allow themselves to be absorbed. You master men only by reducing yourself to their level. You captivate women by showing yourself at your best. Their power of hero-worship is illustrated ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... the temperatures of bodies are affected by rays producing heat is different for different substances, and is very much connected with their colours. The bodies that absorb most light, and reflect least, are most heated when exposed either to solar or terrestrial rays. Black bodies are, in general, more heated than red; red more than green; green more than yellow; and yellow more than white. ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... they absorb it like a passion. To one class of readers he appears sublime, to another (and we fear the largest) ridiculous. He has probably realised Milton's wish,—"and fit audience found, though few:" but we suspect he is not reconciled ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... enough blotting paper, it seemed to me, to absorb a spot on the sun. I dare not calculate the number of hours ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... illustration of the rule that large bodies attract nearby smaller or weaker bodies whether in the world of physics or in international politics. The United States of America had scarcely become a nation when it began to absorb contiguous territory and exert a strong attraction on Cuba. With respect to Santo Domingo also, there was such attraction, as became evident in proposals for annexation or the establishment of a naval station. At times it appeared that the process ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... and transferring workers from this region of excess to that of scarcity; and whenever the excess is universal, the World State—failing an adequate development of private enterprise—will either reduce the working day and so absorb the excess, or set on foot some permanent special works of its own, paying the minimum wage and allowing them to progress just as slowly or just as rapidly as the ebb and flow of labour dictated. But ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... their plantations. They have almost invariably two residences, and spend less than half the year on their estates. Even while spending a few months on them, politics, field-sports, races, speculations, journeys, visits, company, literary pursuits, &c., absorb so much of their time, that they must, to a considerable extent, take the condition of their slaves on trust, from the reports of their overseers. I make this statement, because these slaveholders (the wealthier class,) ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... fair offset to the legislative reason,—that one man is the equal of the whole body of the people's representatives. The powers of an executive are of such a character, that, pushed wilfully to their ultimate expression, they can absorb all the other departments of the government, as when James the Second practically repealed laws by pushing to its abstract logical consequences his undoubted power of pardon; but a constitutional government implies, as a condition of its existence, that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... at its best when it does not absorb the whole plot. LORNA DOONE is a lovers' story, but there is a blessed minimum of spooning in it, and always enough of working and fighting to keep the air clear and fresh. THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN, and ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... I have seen that man work with a rose-bush as long and tenderly as a mother with her baby, and his eyes glow and grow wet at the sight of a new and delicate plant. Near him lived a woman,—a relative of his, I believe: one of those women who absorb so much of the world's room and air, and have a right to do it: a nature made up of grand, good pieces, with no mean bits mortared in: fresh and child-like, too, with heat or tears ready for any tale of wrong, or strongly spoken, true word. But strike against ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... are insinuating, Bickley, that I absorb spirits surreptitiously, you are more mistaken than usual, which is saying a good deal. This bottle contains, not Scotch whisky but paraffin, although I admit that its label may have misled you, unintentionally, so far as ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... circumstance in favour of it is, that those animals which possess the highest temperature consume the greatest quantity of air, and, under different circumstances of action and repose, the heat is in great measure proportional to the quantity of oxygen consumed. Then those animals which absorb the smallest quantity of air are cold-blooded. Another argument in favour of Dr. Black's opinion is the change of colour of blood from black to red, which seems to show that it ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... removing oxygen from the air and replacing it with carbon dioxide, tends to make the whole atmosphere deficient in the one and to have an excess of the other. This tendency is counteracted through the agency of vegetation. Green plants absorb the carbon dioxide from the air, decompose it, build the carbon into compounds (starch, etc.) that become a part of the plant, and return the free oxygen to the air (Fig. 57). In doing this, they not only preserve the necessary proportion of oxygen and carbon ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... There were no hills, no grandeurs, no proximity to the sea. It was a country whose pageants were made, not by great heights or sombre woods, but by the orderly and coloured procession of the harvests; where one recovered the preoccupied sight of little children, seeing so much to absorb one near the ground that one did not seek the horizon; where matters were measured and done not by the clock but by the sun's height, by midday heat and darkness, by the lowing of cows or the ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone

... halfway round, and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external influence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. I have always been my own master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray. Then—— but I don't know how to explain it to ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

... would have seen nothing of the sort," Lionel said. "To-night there is to be a shining galaxy of genius, and each particular star will be eager to absorb all the adoration that is going. Authors, actors, painters, musicians—that ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... reforms or hygienic improvements would be entirely inhibited in the truly artistic consciousness. It would make no difference to the spectator whether the action played in Chicago or Petersburg, whether it dealt with men and women of to-day or of two thousand years ago. The human element would absorb our interest, and as far as the joys and the miseries of sexual life entered into the drama, they would be accepted as a social background, just as the landscape is the natural background. A community which is aesthetically mature enough to appreciate ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... being, pistol practice, for instance, would absorb all his thoughts. He'd bang away at intervals all day, and figure out new ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White

... throat, exposed his hairy chest, and poured on grease until it ran in a tiny rivulets. He reached in and rubbed the grease vigorously with the palm of his hand, giving particular attention to the surface over the bronchial tubes. When he was satisfied that Cash's skin could absorb no more, he turned him unceremoniously on his face and repeated his ministrations upon Cash's shoulders. Then he rolled him back, buttoned his shirts for him, and tramped ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... our homes really efficient and worthy agencies for education in social living, the first thing to do is to seek the social atmosphere, to cultivate all those influences which young lives unconsciously absorb. We all know that character comes through environment in large measure, and that the mental and spiritual environment is by far the most potent. Here is something that affects us more than the finest or poorest furniture ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

... characteristic values; possession and pleasure became inevitably enough the end of action, and action itself, directed toward such ends, became the main business of life. Science offered so fascinating a field for thought as to absorb the general intellectual energy of the generation under the spell of it; the practical application of science to mechanism and industry with the consequent increase in luxury and convenience, absorbed the force of ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins

... gave to the imprisoned youth the passionately desired Gro to be with him in the dungeon. "She stood there as if she had glided into his prison by the flood of light entering in and he trembled lest the light would again absorb her into itself." He knew not what power forced him to his knees and threw him at her feet with a prayer for forgiveness. She had however merely a scornful laugh for the man humbling himself in his love and the cruelly ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... and more important to an inductive philosopher, there is no proof of it. I see no savages becoming really civilised men—that is—not merely men who will ape the outside of our so-called civilisation, even absorb a few of our ideas; not merely that; but truly civilised men who will think for themselves, invent for themselves, act for themselves; and when the sacred lamp of light and truth has been passed into their hands, carry ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley

... for grafting. The string should be strong enough to hold the graft, but thin enough to be broken by hand. No. 18 knitting cotton is a good size. It is waxed by soaking the balls in melted grafting wax for several hours. The string will absorb the wax, and may then be placed on one side until needed. A good wax for this purpose is made by melting together one part of tallow, two parts of beeswax, and three ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... want to do anything worth doing, you must detach yourself from outward wealth. It is not Christianity alone that says that, if you want to build up a noble life, you must not let earthly love dominate and absorb your energy; but it is Christianity that says so most emphatically, and that has best reason ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... tough, as its waxy luster might make one suppose, and in addition, being an opaque stone, slight dulling or scratching hardly lessens its beauty. It may therefore be used in ring mountings. However, it should be suggested that most turquoise is sufficiently porous to absorb grease, oil, or other liquids, and its color is frequently ruined thereby. Of course, such a change is far more likely to occur to a ring stone than to a turquoise mounted in ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade

... remembered the rum I had saved from the wreck all this time, and procuring some I rubbed their bodies with it, tied wet bandages round their necks, and rolled them about in wet sails, in the hope that in this way their bodies might absorb the necessary liquid. You see I had an idea that they were dying from want of water. All four were terribly emaciated, and in the last stages of exhaustion. After two or three hours' treatment, the two boys recovered consciousness, and some little time later the man also showed signs of reviving, ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... well-stocked cellar which is so deplorably lacking in E." No; the curious thing is that at any time and in any settled way of life a man is generally provided with friends far in excess of his desert, and also in excess of his capacity to absorb ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... we don't have to absorb any of it ourselves, under compulsion," remarked Dick with a chuckle. "It's like visiting a school and watching the other ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker

... to enjoy this inestimable privilege; for, apart from the cost of a tomb in the sacred city, the mere transport of mummies from great distances was both difficult and expensive. Yet so eager were many to absorb in death the blessed influence which radiated from the holy sepulchre that they caused their surviving friends to convey their mortal remains to Abydos, there to tarry for a short time, and then to ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... Fleda Ringgan," said Constance, "for her outward circumstances have no brightness, I should think, that reflection would not utterly absorb." ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... of Japanese Buddhism, cautioned his disciples that they must "absorb the self into the whole, the cosmos, if they would never die," and Jesus assured his hearers that "he who loses his life for ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... colonies to independence, favored its return. But Franklin said that Canada would be a source of strength to England. The expense of defending that vast frontier would be saved; the rapidly increasing population would absorb English manufactures without limit, and their necessary devotion to farming would diminish their competition as manufacturers. He pointed out that their differences in governments and mutual jealousies made their united action against ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... that will-o'-the wisp to successive Counts of Holland and never acknowledged by the Frisians. In efforts to weld together the various provinces the months passed, until a new turn of foreign events began to absorb ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... down to the construction line and went among the idle men and the strings of cars, the piles of rails and the piles of ties. He seemed to absorb in them again. Then he walked down the loose, unspiked ties to where they ended, and so on along the graded road- bed to the point where his quick eyes recognized the trouble. They swiftly took in what had been done and what had been attempted. ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... the top, printed in red on green, seemed to absorb Oliver's attention altogether, for he read it through two or three times, leaning back motionless in his chair. Then he sighed, and stared again through ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... not so absorb your mind that you cannot think clearly on any other subject? And does not your business connection with Mr. Lyon bias your feelings unduly in ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur

... word. It is curious," I went on, "how we let this idiotic love-passion absorb us to the very last. It is wholly unimportant who marries who, or whether anybody marries at all. And yet we no sooner have the making of a love-affair within reach than we revert to the folly of our own youth, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells



Words linked to "Absorb" :   fund, assimilate, sponge up, commingle, merge, center, mix, plunge, meld, receive, suck in, immerse, drink in, larn, consume, take over, immix, coalesce, learn, draw, invite, sorb, focus, blot, imbibe, chemical science, acquire, sop up, resorb, absorbable, wipe up, suck, mop up, involve, absorptive, fuse, ingest, reabsorb, absorbent, emit, interest, rivet, mop, conflate, soak up, drink, absorption, concentrate, engage, absorbate, steep, combine, flux, chemistry, engross



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