"Act" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the attempt at divine officiation by those who have no conviction of their own Divine Office. There are surely sufficient persons, even in pessimistic and agnostic Spain, to carry on the Mass in sincerity for a long time to come. When sincerity failed, I would hold that the Mass as an act of religion had come to ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... were to decline coming, would not the many on the other side, who are strictly watching your movements, at once say that the whole arrangements are deceptive, and merely designed to make an impression on me for a certain purpose. You know they would. Of course you will act as you please. I neither advise nor persuade, but say: Be not too soon nor too much alarmed. There are no jealousies, no evil surmisings, no ambitious designs in the matter, but a sincere desire to promote the interests of Methodism ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... methods of finishing are reetching and burnishing. The finisher dips a camel's-hair brush in acid and applies it to the high-light portions of the plate, or other places that are too dark, and allows it to act on the metal until these parts of the plate are lightened sufficiently. The parts of the plate that are too light are made darker by rubbing down the surface of the plate with a tool called the burnisher. The skilful, artistic finisher has other methods at his command ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... your wife, your Caroline, over again, seize her by the waist again, and become the best of husbands by trying to guess at things to please her, so as to act according to her whims instead of according to your will. This is the ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... questions—whether a crime has been committed, by whom, and what compensation is due—out of the hands of the injured party, and to submit them to some sort of court or judicial authority. At first, following ancient custom as much as possible, the act of requital, or the choice of accepting compensation, is left to the next-of-kin; but with the growth of central power these things are entrusted to ministers of the Government. Then revenge has undergone its full transformation into punishment. Very ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... practically stole whole herds, and thereby took long strides toward wealth. Range scandals grown old; range gossip all of it, of men who had changed a brand or made one, using a cinch ring at a tiny fire in a secluded hollow, or a spur, or a jackknife; who were caught in the act, after the act, or merely suspected of the crime. Of "sweat" brands, blotched brands, brands added to and altered, of trials, of shootings, of hangings, even, and "getaways" spectacular and humorous ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... on the following morning by the jubilant music of "Oh, Su-san'-na-a-a, don't ye cry for me!" and crawling out of the tent I surprised one of our native boatmen in the very act of drumming on a frying-pan ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... age had brought vast experience, and had not yet dimmed any one of his senses. More than forty-five years ago he had been brought to see that men seldom act or speak so as to influence the fortunes of others without some motive of their own; and that these motives are seldom the motives they advance; and that their real motives are not always known to ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... rapier practice ends the act; the shopman is wounded, and his adversary takes the usual oath of being ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... mother continued, "that Elvira does not seem to be capable of friendship. You only act right in telling her what you consider wrong, Mea. If you show your attachment to her and try not to be hurt by little differences of opinion, your ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... unselfish action, and did not extend to providing him with that adamantine shield which virtue should of itself supply. He was as pervious to these stings as a man might be who had not strength to act in opposition to them. He could screw himself up to the doing of a great deed for the benefit of another, and could as he was doing so deplore with inward tears the punishment which the world would accord to him for the deed. As he sat there in the corner of his carriage, he ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... placed it in Delafield's hands than she was conscious of new forces of feeling in herself which robbed the act of its simplicity. She had meant to plead her lover's cause and her own with the friend who was nominally her husband. Her action had been a cry for sympathy, as from one ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... tyrannical! cruelly tyrannical! Because I dared to think and act for myself, you have cast off—utterly! You try to see how cold and distant you can be; and show me that you don't care whether I live or die, so long as I choose to be independent of you. I did not believe ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... of Daghestan have served, from time immemorial, as a covert for innumerable herds of wild hogs; and although the Tartars—like the Mussulmans—hold it a sin not only to eat, but even to touch the unclean animal, they consider it a praiseworthy act to destroy them—at least they practise the art of shooting on these beasts, as well as exhibit their courage, because the chase of the wild-boar is accompanied by great danger, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... out its complaints, but its cries grew fainter and fainter, and soon ceased. The boa then, having unwound himself, taking it by the nose, began to lubricate its body all over with saliva, and gradually sucked it into his capacious mouth. I expected to see the horns act like a spritsail-yard, and prevent its going down, but they went in also, and glided down his elastic and muscular inside without causing him any inconvenience! I waited till he had thus effectually put a gag in his mouth, and then, though his head was scarcely a yard from my rifle, I descended ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... driven out of it every time the door is opened, there is much less danger of the air of a room becoming unwholesome for the want of ventilation than has been generally imagined; particularly in cold weather, when all the different causes which conspire to change the air of warmed rooms act with increased power ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... birth and birth royal place certain families above the common body of freemen (landed or not); and for a commoner to pretend to a king's daughter is an act of presumption, and generally ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Brotherhoods have reached a permanent place in the railroad industry. Their progressive power can be discerned in Federal legislation pertaining to arbitration and labor conditions in interstate carriers. In 1888 an act was passed providing that, in cases of railway labor disputes, the President might appoint two investigators who, with the United States Commission of Labor, should form a board to investigate the controversy and ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... my labour, so through the Park to White Hall, and thence to my Lord Crew's to advise again with him about my Lord Sandwich, and so to the office, where till noon, and then I by coach to Westminster Hall, and there do understand that the business of religion, and the Act against Conventicles, have so taken them up all this morning, and do still, that my Lord Sandwich's business is not like to come on to-day, which I am heartily glad of. This law against Conventicles is very severe; but Creed, whom I met here, do tell me that, it ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... that moment. "But, for your own sake, it would have been better he should have abstained from such an act of Quixotism." ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... more anxious he is for stable government. Labor has little capital, and so often becomes venturesome, and is willing to stake all on the throw of a die. But labor in the presence of open hungry mouths can ill afford to take such chances. Labor with its little or no surplus should act reasonably, and on the side of conservatism, or wives and ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... surprised the worthy functionary while occupied in discussing it, and with his task yet unaccomplished. He meditated a mighty draft: one hand was fumbling with his tags, while the other was extended in the act of grasping the jorum, when a knock on the portal, solemn and sonorous, arrested his fingers. It was repeated thrice ere Emmanuel Saddleton had presence of mind sufficient to inquire who sought admittance ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... a feeling of devotion and awe came upon him as he prepared himself for his task; for perhaps there is not a single act in the whole economy of life better calculated to stir a thoughtful mind to its profoundest depths than the sowing of those golden grains which have within them the promise and potency of life. Year after year, century ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... sin might be forgiven me. A moment before he had been cursing and swearing at me, and speaking to me as if I had been his shoeblack. But, look you, I was not going to put up with any more of Madam Brough's airs, or of his. With me they might act as they thought fit; but I did not choose that my wife should be passed over by them, as she had been in the matter of ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... where in the pass he stands, I pledge you now they will return, the Franks." Says Oliver: "Great shame would come of that And a reproach on every one, your clan, That shall endure while each lives in the land, When I implored, you would not do this act; Doing it now, no raise from me you'll have: So wind your horn but not by courage rash, Seeing that both your arms with blood are splashed." Answers that count: "Fine blows ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... already a foregone conclusion, and I am ever too late to understand it. But at the moment of recovery from anaesthesis, just then, BEFORE STARTING ON LIFE, I catch, so to speak, a glimpse of my heels, a glimpse of the eternal process just in the act of starting. The truth is that we travel on a journey that was accomplished before we set out; and the real end of philosophy is accomplished, not when we arrive at, but when we remain in, our destination (being ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... eyes remained wide open to catch the general sentiment about himself, and the varying opinions as to his manners and character. He began to perceive by degrees the magnitude of the task which he had imposed upon himself; the act of disappearing was but a trifle compared with the relationships crowding upon him in his new environment. He would be forced to maintain them all with some likeness to the method which would have ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... am a rummy? I know how to act vit people. Ven you met your friends down the street, vat did you ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... answer—while he felt that John might not endorse this invitation. If the places were reversed, how would he himself act? Difficult as the situation was for him, it was infinitely harder for John. Then the train ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... descending, been the glory and the strength of England? Were Magna Charta and the Habeas Corpus Act, Hampden's resistance to ship-money, and the calm, righteous might of 1688—were they all futilities and fallacies? Ever downwards, for seven hundred years, welling from the heaven-watered mountain peaks of wisdom, had spread the stream of liberty. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... old factor turned away his head. He knew that Hume had done right. He knew the possible sacrifice this man was making of all his hopes, of his very life; and his sound Scotch heart appreciated the act to the full. But he did not know all. He did not know that Jaspar Hume was starting to search for the man who had robbed him of youth and hope and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... SHAKESPEAR. The Ignorance of which Censure is of a Piece with its Brutality. The Truth is, no one thought clearer, or argued more closely than this immortal Bard. But his Superiority of Genius less needing the Intervention of Words in the Act of Thinking, when he came to draw out his Contemplations into Discourse, he took up (as he was hurried on by the Torrent of his Matter) with the first Words that lay in his Way; and if, amongst these, there were two Mixed-modes that had but ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... just the same," Vandover went on. "We young men of the cities are a fine lot. I'm not doing the baby act. I'm not laying the blame on the girls altogether, but I say that in a measure the girls are responsible. They want a man to be a man, to be up to date, to be a man of the world and to go in for that sort of vice, but they don't know, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... "'Our first offishul act after reachin' the Rio Grande is to lay for a passel of Yank cavalry—thar's two thousand of 'em I reckons. We rides up on these yere lively persons as we sounds a halt for the evenin'. It looks like our boogles is a summons, for they comes buttin' into view through ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... cleansed." It required no little faith to start upon that journey; but they started, and their faith was rewarded. So to-day when men come to Christ with their request to be delivered from sin, he commands them to act as though the petition already were granted, and with the act of faith comes the answer to the prayer. The command of Christ involved a promise and upon his promises we can ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... government. One of their first measures is to revoke the grant made not long before by Fajardo of certain monopolies to a seminary founded by him for educating Christian Japanese to go as ordained missionaries to their own country. The members of the Audiencia claim that this was an ill-timed act, in view of the persecution of Christians in Japan, and the edicts of its ruler expelling Spaniards from his realm, and forbidding his subjects to trade with them. Moreover, the seminary building is being erected in a place selected in violation of a royal decree, and which has been arbitrarily ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... can certainly have no reason to advise us to represent the hardship of certain measures. And I am the rather inclin'd to think, that this is his particular humour, because I find that the stamp-act, which almost every one looked upon as a most violent infraction of our natural and constitutional rights, is called by this writer a Grievance. And he is so singular as to enquire, "What Liberties we are now deprived ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... act was drawing to a close. There had just been a duel. The baritone lay stretched upon the floor at left centre, his sword fallen at some paces from him. On the left of the scene, front, stood the tenor who had killed him, singing in his highest register, very red in ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... them for all that, or their attempts being followed by any success. And, certainly, if to obtain what is promised by the art of magic it sufficed to renounce God and invoke the devil, how many people would soon perform the dreadful act? How many impious men do we see every day who for money, or to revenge themselves on some one, or to satisfy a criminal desire, rush without remorse into the greatest excesses! How many wretches who are suffering in prison, at the galleys, or otherwise, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... Similarly, not only for the sake of its own citizens, but for the world at large, each country should diligently watch and weigh current external occurrences; not necessarily to meddle, still less to forsake its proper sphere, but because convinced that failure to act when occasion demands may be as injurious as mistaken action, and indicates a more dangerous condition, in that moral inadequacy means ultimately material decline. When the spirit leaves the body, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... French tongue,' and one of the most commendable actions of this King was the purchase of the noble series of vellum copies of the works printed at Paris by Antoine Verard, now in the British Museum—an act by which he may be said to have laid the foundation of our great national library. The value of books at this period is not without interest; but we must confine ourselves to one or two facts relating ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... act as reducing or oxidizing agents. The most important are carbonate of soda, potash, and cyanide of potassium. Limestone is used as ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... at the table sits (Whither the old Clerk leads her), "I deliver this," she says, "As my act and deed, Sir." ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... honest in the ordinary sense acts or is always disposed to act with careful regard for the rights of others, especially in matters of business or property; one who is honorable scrupulously observes the dictates of a personal honor that is higher than any demands of mercantile law or public opinion, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... "I can but approve of the idea that makes you act thus. The result of your studies must not be lost. But the means you employ seem to me to be primitive. Who knows where the winds will carry this case, and in whose hands it will fall? Could you not use some other means? Could not you, ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... left of the hall, and the floor is of the same cold stone flags, which in damp weather become wet and slimy. These flags, in fact, act as a barometer, and foretell rain with great accuracy, as it were perspiring with latent moisture at its approach. The chimney was originally constructed for a wood fire upon the hearth, and of enormous size, so that several sides of bacon could be ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... stillness in the air. Only rarely there came a gust of wind, which, as it sank for the last time near the house, brought to our ears the sound of rhythmically repeated blows, seeming to come from the stable. Mardary Apollonitch was in the act of lifting a saucer full of tea to his lips, and was just inflating his nostrils to sniff its fragrance—no true-born Russian, as we all know, can drink his tea without this preliminary—but he stopped short, listened, nodded his head, sipped his tea, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... for the supply of all our need, sovereignty, bounty, and good will in God. It is the travelling of the poor creature between his own emptiness and God's all sufficient fulness. It acknowledges that he hath nothing, and that God hath all things he can desire to make him happy. Prayer is an act of homage and subjection to our Creator, and it is also an act of love and reverence, for prayer looks upon God, as a Lord, a Father, and a Master. 5. Prayer is the pulse of a Christian, and here ye may find him. If he be vigorous and frequent here, he is well, a decay in this is a woful ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... raging when he alighted that evening from the up coach at the trail nearest his house. Although incumbered with a heavy carpet-bag, he started resignedly on his two-mile tramp without begrudging the neighborly act of his wife which had deprived him of his horse. It was "like her" to do these things in her good-humored abstraction, an abstraction, however, that sometimes worried him, from the fear that it indicated some unhappiness with her present lot. He was longing to rejoin her after his absence of three ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... on the one hand, or the certainty of Revealed Truth on the other. The passenger should not have embarked at all, if he did not reckon on the chance of a rough sea, of currents, of wind and tide, of rocks and shoals; and we should act more wisely in discountenancing altogether the exercise of Reason than in being alarmed and impatient under the suspense, delay, and anxiety which, from the nature of the case, may be found to attach to it. Let us eschew secular ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... enough to hold good for ever. And what mattered the existence of the sword provided it was never to fall? Sometimes it seemed to her in the pure and perfect happiness of this calm rural home, this useful, innocent life, as if that ill-advised act of hers had never been acted—as if that autumn morning, that one half-hour in the modern Gothic church, still smelling of mortar and pitch-pine, set in flat fields, from which October mists were rising ghostlike, was no more than a troubled dream—a dream that she had ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... and killed him. When I saw the stallion drop dead beside me, live coals of anger were kindled in my heart; so I took up the stone and throwing it at the old man, it was the cause of his end: thus his own wrongful act returned against him and the man was slain of that wherewith he slew. When the stone struck him, he cried out with a terrible great cry, and I hastened from the spot; but these young men hurried after me and laying hands on ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... it is not so. Behold, I proclaim to you, the exquisite Valmont and the threadbare Ducharme are one and the same person. That is why they do not promenade together. And, indeed, it requires no great histrionic art on my part to act the role of the miserable Ducharme, for when I first came to London, I warded off starvation in this wretched room, and my hand it was that nailed to the door the painted sign 'Professor Paul Ducharme, Teacher of the ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... millions authorized to be raised by loan by an act of the last session of Congress has been obtained upon terms advantageous to the Government, indicating not only an increased confidence in the faith of the nation, but the existence of a large amount of capital seeking that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... tomorrow." One of our wisest men has said that each one of us is a bundle of habits. We are so made that once we perform any act, that particular thing is ever afterward easier to do. We tend to do the things we have already done. By selecting the right things to do and always doing them, we actually are making our destiny. Each one of us has her character made by her habits. Habits are repeated acts, and we may choose ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... yet embraces many precious elements and many innocent persons whom it is a glory to defend. Courage and devotion, so common in the ranks of the police, so little recognised, so meagrely rewarded, have at length found their commemoration in an historical act. History, which will represent Mr. Parnell sitting silent under the appeal of Mr. Forster, and Gordon setting forth upon his tragic enterprise, will not forget Mr. Cole carrying the dynamite in his defenceless hands, nor Mr. Cox ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... obtained a patent to establish post-offices throughout the American colonies, appointed Andrew Hamilton (afterwards Governor of New Jersey), his deputy for all the plantations. Mr. Deputy Hamilton brought the subject before Gov. Fletcher and the New York Colonial Assembly in October following, and an Act was immediately passed "for ...
— The Postal Service of the United States in Connection with the Local History of Buffalo • Nathan Kelsey Hall
... the fullness of time (according to the laws of human nature, which draws into a juxtaposition all who would really enjoy the beauty of life) has been revealed a long looked for and also a long hoped for event. By an act of providence there has been provided two existences, two lives, two individualities in two different families in the immediate surroundings of this community. These two existences, which had heretofore traveled the pathway of life, each moving on in an independent course, passing through the ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... has three acts. The act of the prologue is already played. Then comes the act of false coquetry: one of those in which French ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... saved. Twichell, remembering the great honors which Li Hung Chang had paid to General Grant in China, also Grant's admiration of Mark Twain, went to the latter without delay. Necessarily Clemens would be enthusiastic, and act promptly. He wrote to Grant, and Grant replied by telegraph, naming a day when he would ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... he had heard of drunkards growing delirious upon ceasing to drink; he had heard of men who, in periods of aberration, were impelled by the motive of the last act or recollection which strongly impressed them; what if the captain should suddenly become delirious, and try to throw him overboard or shoot him? Fred determined to get the captain at once upon the guards—no, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... dictates, while they are so exasperated at being dispossessed of that invaluable blessing, Liberty? The apostles submitted to chains themselves, but loaded no man with them. Christ came to free, not to enslave us.—Submission to the faith he left us, ought to be a voluntary act, and should be propagated by ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... (or executors) the sum of —— dollars, in trust, to pay the same in —— days after my decease to the person who, when the same is payable, shall act as Treasurer of the 'American Missionary Association,' of New York City, to be applied, under the direction of the Executive Committee of the Association, to its charitable uses and purposes." The Will should ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 08, August, 1885 • Various
... the Observations for the Completion of the Physical Survey of New York Bar and Harbor, in pursuance of the Act of the Legislature of New York, April 17, 1857, and of the authority of the Commissioners on Harbor Encroachments. By A. D. BACHE, Supt. U.S. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... midst of all this the Emperor Alexander died, and after a short period of doubt concerning his successor it was found that Nicholas was to mount the throne. The first act of the Russian Government was to communicate to ours their resolution no longer to delay a recognition of the independence of Greece, and their determination to support that measure if necessary by force of arms. They invited us to co-operate in this object, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... mere carnal common sense, he professed to lead men to a deeper insight into nature than magian wisdom, with all its lofty antagonism to everything common, had ever reached. What, in fact, lay at the foundation of all Zadig's argument but the coarse commonplace assumption, upon which every act of our daily lives is based, that we may conclude from an effect to the pre-existence of a cause competent ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... in the business of the town and neighbourhood, there was no other bank established in Birmingham for more than twenty-five years. One reason, probably, was that, by a clause in an Act of Parliament, it was made incumbent upon all banks established after it became law, to publish periodical statements of their affairs. This seemed to many shrewd men to be an obstacle to the success of any new bank, although it was ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... this utterly detached attitude, was a pure invention of the shirt-sleeve statesman at home. I have long concluded, for other reasons as well as for this, that these men are the most ignorant men in the whole world; more ignorant—because they are viciously ignorant—than the Negro boys who act as caddies at Pinehurst; more ignorant than the inmates of the Morganton Asylum; more ignorant than sheep or rabbits or idiots. They have been the chief hindrances of our country—worse than traitors, in effect. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... distinction Absolute devotion to the day of her death, Absolutely, so positively, so almost aggressively truthful Abstract, the air-drawn, afflicted me like physical discomforts Act officiously, not officially Addressed to their tenderness out of his tenderness Advertising Aim at nothing higher than the amusement of your readers Always sumptuously providing out of his destitution Ambitious to be of ugly modern patterns Amiable perception, and yet with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... me a great service—not alone at some hazard to yourself, but by doing what must have cost you sorely. It is now my turn; and if the act of repayment is not equal to the original debt, let me ask you to believe that it taxes my strength even more than your generosity once taxed ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Edith, gravely, "and I will also hope that I may be able to do something to make you and this dear child happy once more. What a sweet little fellow he is!" she concluded, as she leaned forward and kissed him softly on the cheek, an act which brought the quick tears to ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... exclusive economic zone: 200 nm territorial sea: 12 nm in the north, 3 nm in the south; note - from the mouth of the Sarstoon River to Ranguana Cay, Belize's territorial sea is 3 miles; according to Belize's Maritime Areas Act, 1992, the purpose of this limitation is to provide a framework for the negotiation of a definitive agreement ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... particulars about the Figure, parts and use of the head, feet, and wings of a Fly, that are not common. He observes the various wayes of the generations of Insects, and discourses handsomely of the means, by which they seem to act so prudently. He taketh notice of the Mechanical reason of the Spider's Fabrick, and maketh pretty Observations on the hunting Spider, and other Spiders and their Webs. And what he notes of a Flea, Louse, Mites, and Vinegar-worms, cannot but exceedingly ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... when the people shall be enlightened—and that time is probably approaching. Resume the reins of government, hold them with a firm hand, and act, so that it cannot be said of you, 'Faeminas et scorta volvit ammo et haec principatus praemia putat':—Sire, if I see that my sincere advice should have produced any change, I shall continue it, and enter into more details; if ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... are the special partners liable? Whose names are used For what are the general partners liable? If the partnership is to be dissolved by the act of the parties, what is to ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... War result in a great measure from the dangers with which every moment of the act of War is more or less impregnated. To encounter these dangers at all points, to proceed onwards with security in the execution of one's plans, gives employment to a multitude of agencies which make up the tactical and strategic service ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... followed always counted in Roger Barnes's memory as the first act of the tragedy, the first onset of ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it is a whim in me or a piece of foolishness. Yet, the way I am constituted, it is practically impossible for me to do anything for my sake alone. Your sympathy would act as a stimulus to keep me to my resolution." He drew from his pocket a letter from Peter Schmidt, saying that near Meriden there was a frame house that would be suitable for Frederick. Evidently his plan to retire to rural solitude was by no means a recent one. "When I come to myself in ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... anything for you, remember that I will do it, whatever it is." And as he paced away from her across the lawn, the special deed in her favour to which his mind was turned,—that one thing which he most longed to do on her behalf,—was an act of corporal chastisement upon Crosbie. If Crosbie would but ill-treat her,—ill-treat her with some antenuptial barbarity,—and if only he could be called in to avenge her wrongs! And as he made his way back along the road towards Guestwick, he built up within his own bosom ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... sixty-eight thousand; Connecticut gave thirty-two thousand; Pennsylvania twenty-six thousand, and New York eighteen thousand; while that miserable little South Carolina gave only six thousand. And yet she has the impudence to talk and act as if she owned the country. It would have been money in her pocket and ours if she had been sunk out of sight in the Atlantic before she was made into ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... Woman, "must act according to the order of their being, and so I say to Thought, if you hold me against my will presently I will bind you against your will, for the holder of an unwilling mate becomes the guardian and the ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... firmly with the many problems before him. He is on the ground and knows the needs of the country, and is zealously devoted to its interests. All that is necessary is to follow his lead, and to give him cordial support and backing. The principle upon which I think it is wise to act in dealing with far-away possessions is this—choose your man, change him if you become discontented with him, but while you ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... soul of history. Michelet dared to hope that a resurrection of the integral life of the dead centuries was possible. All or nothing was his word. It was a bold venture, but it was a venture, or rather an act, of faith. Thierry had been tyrannised by the idea of the race: the race is much, but the people does not march in the air; it has a geographical basis; it draws its nutriment from a particular soil. ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... 1807 had been for manifest reasons entirely to Napoleon's liking, as is proved by the Bayonne Decree of 1808, which ordered the seizure and sale in French harbors of all American ships transgressing it. The Non-intercourse Act of March first, 1809, was, however, quite another thing. It was passed by the Democratic majority of Congress in defiance of Federalist sentiment, and prohibited commercial intercourse with both Great Britain ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... not touch at Valetta every day, and the Arizona soon had plenty of visitors. Most of the crew being busy, Frank was "told off" to act as showman, and for the first two days he had more than enough to do. From sunrise to sunset the decks were crowded with sight-seers of all ages and conditions—stiff, wooden-faced soldiers from the garrison; languid ladies, who looked much more ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... still more common than either of these. He is evidently sought as food. We find him carried in the hand of sportsmen returning from the chase, or see him flying above their heads as they beat the coverts, or finally observe him pierced by a successful shot, and in the act of falling a prey to his pursuers. [PLATE ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... the time and place of its own meetings, to supervise the administration of finances, to establish new congregations, to superintend all official Church publications, to nominate Bishops, and to elect the Provincial Elders' Conference. As the U.E.C. act in the name and by the authority of a General Synod, so the P.E.C. act in the name and by the authority of a Provincial Synod. They see to the execution of the laws of the Church, appoint and superintend all ministers, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... more instance of the boldness and ferocity of the weasel. A woman in northern Vermont discovered that something was killing her hens, often on the nest. She watched for the culprit, and at last caught a weasel in the act. It had seized the hen, and refused to let go when she tried to scare it away. Then the woman laid hold of it and tried choking it, when the weasel released its hold upon the hen and fastened its teeth into her hand between the thumb and forefinger. She could not choke it off, ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... the elements of stickiness and slipperiness to an unbelievable extent. It rained heavily throughout the game and the proverbial 'hog on ice' could not have slipped and slathered around worse than all the players on both sides. There was a long controversy about who should act as referee (in those days we had only one official) and after a delay of about an hour from the time the game should have begun, Harris, a Princeton man, was allowed to do the officiating. Bob Corwin, who was end-rush, only ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... at Scone. All Englishmen holding office were summarily dismissed. A committee of the estates was appointed to act as guardian of the kingdom, and Baliol himself was deprived of all active power; but an instrument was prepared in his name, reciting the injuries that he and his subjects had sustained at the hands of the English king, and renouncing all further allegiance. Following this up, a league was ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... justice, commander. The bit chafes, but yet you must acknowledge that I have a light hand. For a full week you have been in my power. Have I disturbed your quiet? Have I betrayed your secret? You know I have not. And I shall continue to act in the same manner. I hope with all my heart, however great would be your grief; that the chevalier may die of his wound. I have not the same reasons for loving him that you have, so much you can readily understand, even if I do not explain the cause of my interest in his fate. But in such a ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... point the moral to the multitude. A small, almost meagre procession, consisting of the Commander-in-Chief and his Staff, with a guard of honour, less than 150 all told, passed through the gate unheralded by a single trumpet note; a purely military act with a minimum of military display told the people that the old order had changed, yielding place to new. The native mind, keen, discerning, receptive, understood the meaning and depth of this simplicity, and from the ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... now thou mayst infer Of what high worth the vow, which so is fram'd That when man offers, God well-pleas'd accepts; For in the compact between God and him, This treasure, such as I describe it to thee, He makes the victim, and of his own act. What compensation therefore may he find? If that, whereof thou hast oblation made, By using well thou think'st to consecrate, Thou would'st of theft do charitable deed. Thus I resolve ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... crowd howled and hissed; then pushed him, and, as he turned his head in consequence, a sure hand stabbed him in the back. He said no word, but died almost instantly in the arms of a cardinal. The act was undoubtedly the result of the combination of many, from the dexterity with which it was accomplished, and the silence which ensued. Those who had not abetted beforehand seemed entirely to approve when done. The troops of the line, on whom he had relied, remained at their posts, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... whole shebang, man and machinery; then opened the spacecraft with the same attitude as a man peeling the lid from a can of sardines. He could have breached the air lock, but he wanted the Terran to understand the power behind the act. ...
— Instinct • George Oliver Smith
... Hindostan. And as for intellectual development, though Alexandria wants, as she has always wanted, that insular and exclusive position which seems almost necessary to develop original thought and original national life, yet she may still act as the point of fusion for distinct schools and polities, and the young and buoyant vigour of the new-born nations may at once teach, and learn from, the prudence, the experience, the traditional wisdom of the ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... come through with my end of it on schedule, and get yourself killed off. That ain't all, either. Your face always gives you away; if you knew all the very shrewd people I'm buckin', you'd give 'em the marble eye, and they'd watch you. Not knowin' 'em, you'll treat 'em all alike, and you won't act suspicious. ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... the lesser race flashes forth at the close when he takes his life, not in defiance, nor in despair, but as a last act of passionate fidelity to Florence. This is conceived with a refinement of moral imagination too subtle perhaps for appreciation on the stage; but of the tragic power and pathos of the conception there can be no question. Mrs Browning, whose eager interest accompanied this drama ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... swept the town. Almost the only friend who was not turned foe was Aunt Melvy. Her large philosophy of life held that all human beings were "chillun," and "chillun was bound to act bad sometimes." She left others to struggle with Sandy's moral welfare and devoted herself to his ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... that," said Mary; "though generally, in choosing officers, we ought to act for the good of the society, not for the good of ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... healthier individuals no other safeguard than their strength and activity. The instincts most favourable to the production and rearing of offspring will in these cases be most important, and the survival of the fittest will act so as to keep up and advance those instincts, while other causes which tend to modify colour and marking may continue their ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... felt easy enough about landing and embarking his passengers on the town shore. Rosewarne could not challenge him without raising the whole question of the slipway. But on the near shore he must act circumspectly. To be sure the approach to the water here was part of the king's highway. The whole village used it, and moored their boats without let or hindrance off the slip which (since the land belonged to the Killiow estate) ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... which everyone was to do as he pleased, without any fear that another should tell of him. Though a man should be seen in the broad daylight cutting the tails off half a score of oxen it would be recognised in the neighbourhood as no more than a fair act of vengeance, and nothing should be told of the deed, let the policemen busy themselves as they might. And the beauty of the system consisted in the fact that the fear of telling was brought home to the minds of all men, women, and children. Though it was certain that a woman had seen a ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... stream pouring over the ledges of the rocks, and I rushed and pressed my lips to the bubbling water. There was no intermediary between Nature's gifts and the man who needed them. Wish was translated into act without ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... work. His face spoke as plain as a face could speak, and what his face said was this: "After that, gentlemen of the jury, very little more can be necessary. You now see the motives of our opponents, and the way in which those motives have been allowed to act. We, who are altogether upon the square in what we are doing, desire nothing more than that." All which Mr. Chaffanbrass said by his look, his shrug, and his gesture, much more eloquently than he could have done by the ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... They had consulted Mr. Daubeny on the subject, and Mr. Daubeny told them that their duty lay in that direction. At the first blush of the matter the arrangement took the form of a gracious tender from themselves to a statesman called upon to act in very difficult circumstances,—and they were thanked accordingly by the Duke, with something of real cordial gratitude. But when the actual adjustment of things was in hand, the Duke, having but little power of assuming a soft countenance and using ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... colonel said, "when the time came for your entering the army, for we felt that it would indeed be a discredit to the regiment were you to go into the world without the equipment that a Scottish gentleman should have. Now, Captain Mackenzie and Captain Home, I will ask you to act as furnishers. You know what is required for a young officer on the staff of a general like Viscount Turenne, who would be called upon to accompany him to court, and must do him no discredit; besides which, he must of ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... voyage to Portugal Two of his sons did die; And to conclude, himself was brought To want and misery: He pawned and mortgaged all his land Ere seven years came about. And now at last this wicked act Did ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... the East, if we did not expect, when the proper time came, to admit them to the Union as States. This I did to the best of my power. I was invited to give an address before a college in Pennsylvania, where I took occasion to make an emphatic declaration of the doctrine on which I meant to act. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... Napoleon's letter to him of July 19th, 1807, on Portuguese affairs and the resignation which he persistently offered on their return to Paris. On August 10th he wrote to the Emperor that that letter would be the last act of his Ministry ("Lettres inedites de Tall.," p. 476). He was succeeded ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... be considered here. Natural law makes obedience to itself attractive; hence commerce is rapidly learning to cater to distaste for the unnatural. With few exceptions, only temporary concessions to unnatural living are required in order to dress and act conventionally. ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... mother cared about—and that not from moral lack alone, but from dullness and want of imagination as well. He was like the child so sure he can run alone that he snatches his hand from his mother's and sets off through dirt and puddles, so to act the part of the great personage ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... certainly not have remained an idle spectator even if the house in danger, instead of belonging to a man of mark, had been that of one of the poorest and meanest, even among the Christians. Any lawless act, any breach of constituted order was odious and intolerable to the Roman; he would not have been the man he was if he had looked on passively at an attack by the mob, in times of peace, on the life and property of a quiet and estimable citizen. This licentious ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... an Englishman's pride in England, as was prettily seen in his reply to Mrs. Thrale in the theatre at Versailles; "Now we are here what shall we act, Dr. Johnson? The Englishman at Paris?" "No, no; we will try to act Harry the Fifth"; and at bottom he thought that a free Englishman was too great a man to be patronized by any one ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... his uncle had gone, but he could hear nothing of what was said. Once the girl who had served his supper came in and told him that his bed was ready if he cared to go to it. Neal shook his head. Gradually he became drowsy. His eyes closed. He nodded. Then the very act of nodding awoke him with a start. He blamed himself for having gone near to sleeping at his post, for being neglectful of the very first duty imposed on him. The horror of the watch he was keeping returned on him. He felt ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... hands of her vile associates at Paris, procured her ample means to escape. I should have been the Queen's greatest enemy had I been the cause of giving liberty to one who acted, and might naturally have been expected to act, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... not, however, expect that this uniformity of human actions should be carried to such a length as that all men, in the same circumstances, will always act precisely in the same manner, without making any allowance for the diversity of characters, prejudices, and opinions. Such a uniformity in every particular, is found in no part of nature. On the contrary, from observing ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... Fraisier. "It is more than probable that I shall act for M. Pons' next-of-kin. In that case, I shall be even better able to ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... male and female. I have read a story whose author maintained, that, to his mind, by far the most interesting and thorough division of our race is into such as have been hanged and such as have not been hanged: he himself belonging to the former class. But we all, more or less, recognize and act upon the great classification of all human beings into the agreeable and the disagreeable. And we begin very early to recognize and act upon it. Very early in life, the little child understands and feels the vast difference between people who are nice and people who are not nice. In school-boy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... in, a plump, fair beauty, dressed, as people said, in everything from Paris. She did not act, but a chair was set for her on the stage at the rehearsals, and the performances never began till she had appeared in the front row, dazzling and astounding everyone with her fine clothes. As a product of the capital she was allowed to make remarks during the rehearsals; and she ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... immediately with a force of about two thousand, who were followed in June and July, 1917, by sufficient additional forces to make up a division. Wilson had been authorized by Congress, under the Selective Service Act, to send four volunteer divisions abroad under the command of Roosevelt. But he refused to interfere with the plans of the military experts, who strongly objected to any volunteer forces whatever. Neither the valiant ex-President nor the prospective volunteers were trained ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... disposition to levity upon the most awful occasions. I was never cut out for a public functionary. Ceremony and I have long shaken hands; but I could not resist the importunities of the young lady's father, whose gout unhappily confined him at home, to act as parent on this occasion, and give away the bride. Something ludicrous occurred to me at this most serious of all moments—a sense of my unfitness to have the disposal, even in imagination, of the sweet young creature beside me. I fear I was betrayed ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... high winds (the pampero is a chilly and occasional violent wind that blows north from the Argentine pampas), droughts, floods; because of the absence of mountains, which act as weather barriers, all locations are particularly vulnerable to ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Why should Hayden have killed himself? He had lied to me, it is true, but life was always sweet to him, and it hardly seems to me that he was the sort to die simply because his falsehood was discovered. Was there some other act of cruelty—some side to the story of which we are none of us aware? ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... bears the sultry day, And stores up all our winter's hay. He sows, he reaps the harvest's gain; We share the toil, and share the grain. Since every creature was decreed To aid each other's mutual need, 60 Appease your discontented mind, And act the part by heaven assigned.' The tumult ceased. The colt submitted, And, like his ancestors, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... to convince the other by abstract argument, England exerted her authority and passed the "Stamp Act," laying new taxes on the colonists.[25] They responded with protests, argumentative, eloquent, fiery, and defiant. They refused to trade with Great Britain, and became self-supporting. Thus the obnoxious laws, instead of bringing money to the mother country, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... Obviously he could learn nothing where he was, and he resolved to go up to town immediately. He would see Mark there, if he was still in London, and from him he would probably get information on which he might act—for, as yet, it did not even occur to Vincent that his friend could have played a treacherous part. Should he confide in Caffyn before he went? Somehow he felt reluctant to do that; he thought that Caffyn would feel no interest in such things (though here, ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... after her, the Queen throwing her roses on the stage out of her own bouquet, and viscountesses and marchionesses driving her about, a l'envie l'une de l'autre, to show her all the lions of the town. She is miserably supported on the stage, poor thing, the corps dramatique engaged to act with her being not only bad, but some of them (the principal hero, principally) ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... seen the possibility of establishing a second Alexandrian Empire. He began his campaign for world-domination with the murder of all Roman citizens who happened to be in Asia Minor, men, women and children. Such an act, of course, meant war. The Senate equipped an army to march against the King of Pontus and punish him for his crime. But who was to be commander-in-chief? "Sulla," said the Senate, "because he is Consul." "Marius," said the mob, "because he has been Consul five times and because he is ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... rose: for (now he came to remember) the moon would be at her full to-morrow, or next day. While the dusk lasted he could dig, up there, and no passer-by would suspect him of any intent beyond eking out the last glimpse of day. To be surprised in the act of digging by moonlight was another matter, and might start an evil rumour. For one thing, it was held uncanny, in Polpier, to turn the soil by moonlight—a deed never done save by witches or persons in league ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... brother I had only to get a bundle of papers which were in the possession of John Heron. They were at Albuquerque in Mrs. Heron's house. Heron kept them there because he believed no one would suspect; but a spy the 'Comrades' had hired to act as a gardener there overheard a conversation, and knew the hiding-place. Unfortunately he couldn't put his hand on the papers without killing a man to get at them. For me, it would be simple, because Louis Moreno was in love with me. Louis ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... progress on the violin as Ingred on the piano, so there seemed great possibilities of playing together. Sometimes when Bess brought her instrument to school for her lesson, she and Ingred would try over a few pieces, and other girls who chanced to be near would collect and act audience. ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil |
