"Attain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ought else than this, you are very greatly mistaken, Caesar, and you will find yourself sadly deceived. Perhaps we have been ambitious—we confess this humbly before the face of all men—passionately and immoderately ambitious to attain to the dignity of sovereign pontiff, and to reach this end we have followed every path that is open to human industry; but we have acted thus, vowing an inward vow that when once we had reached our goal, we would follow no other path but ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... honourable life, in which all lying and humbug would not find a place. A life spent for the good of one's fellow-creatures is the noblest one, but few attain to that. I think we ought to leave some the better for our influence when we depart ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... this mortal life. 'O my soul, the time I trust will be, when thou shalt be good, simple, more open and visible, than that body by which it is enclosed;' but this is said of the calm contentment with human lot which he hopes to attain, not of a time when the trammels of the body shall be cast off. For the rest, the world and its fame and wealth, 'all is vanity.' The gods may perhaps have a particular care for him, but their especial care is for the universe ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... the books of which I have been speaking attain to the highest literary excellence by favour of simplicity and unconsciousness. Neither the German nor the Scotsman considered himself an artist. The Scot sings a successful foray, in which perhaps he was engaged, and he sings as he ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... one of the regular cadences is omitted,—owing to the rapidity of the tempo, or a small denomination of measure,—the phrase will attain just double the ordinary length; that is, eight measures. An eight-measure phrase is called a Large phrase. ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... fault he was ready to make amends for it, the more willingly as he felt himself to be superior to every kind of prejudice—and in fact—was ready to marry Malanya. In uttering these words Ivan Petrovitch did undoubtedly attain his object; he so astonished Piotr Andreitch that the latter stood open-eyed, and was struck dumb for a moment; but instantly he came to himself, and just as he was, in a dressing-gown bordered with squirrel ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... incline to thy will, and walk in thy way: Endue him plenteously with heavenly gifts; grant him in health and wealth long to live; strengthen him that he may vanquish and overcome all his enemies, and finally after this life he may attain everlasting joy and felicity; through Jesus ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... operation of this pestilent indolence is its way of infusing into the mind the delusive belief that it can attain the objects of activity without its exercise. Under this illusion, men expect to grow wise, as men who gamble in stocks expect to grow rich, by chance, and not by work. They invest in mediocrity in the confident hope that it will go ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... chance, you know; the Coan doctor [Footnote: Hippocrates] spoke so truly: ars longa, vita brevis. And what be referred to was only physic—a simpler matter. As to philosophy, not only will you never attain it, however long you study, unless you are wide awake all the time, contemplating it with intense eager gaze; the stake is so tremendous, too,—whether you shall rot miserably with the vulgar herd, or be counted among philosophers ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... this old saying that the parents and guardians of children would do well to ponder in their hearts, for it is a well substantiated statement that the first ten years of a child's life stamp upon his character the imprint for good or ill-breeding. Thus is spared the after struggle on their part to attain the grace and self-possession that should have been theirs ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... to do with the temporal and spiritual prosperity of the Scriptural Knowledge Institution, etc. Dear reader, do not think that I have attained in faith (and how much less in other respects!) to that degree to which I might and ought to attain; but thank God for the faith which He has given me, and ask Him to uphold and increase it. And lastly, once more, let not Satan deceive you in making you think that you could not have the same faith, but that it is only for persons who are situated as I am. When I lose ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... morning. Tesla, the great electrician, has put himself on record as intimating that the want of sleep is a potent factor in the deplorably heavy death rate of the present day. He thinks sleep and longevity are synonymous, therefore it becomes us to bend every effort to attain ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... increase: it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself. When they once desire to learn, they will naturally have recourse to the nearest language by which that desire can be gratified; and one will tell another that if he would attain knowledge, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... poor, dear Dickie!" he said. "He attempts the impossible. Fails to attain it—as a matter of course, and, meanwhile, misses the possible—equally as a matter of course. It is all very magnificent, no doubt, but it is also not a little uncomfortable, at times, for other people.—However that trifle of criticism is, after all, beside the mark. Now that the whirlwind has ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... severely tried by the non-appearance of counsel. These inconveniences became more apparent after it had ceased to be the fashion for the Judges and the Bar to travel on horseback from one assize-town to another. Cowper, writing to his pedestrian friend Rose, playfully imagines that when he should attain to the dignity of the ermine, he would institute the practice of 'walking' the circuit. But equestrian circuits were long in use, and the Bar turned out as if their chase had been deer instead of John Doe and Richard Roe. When however ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... of water as they could be. The number of these is great; they do not, however, attract the eye, being hidden by the hillocks with which each is more or less surrounded; they vary in extent from a few square feet or yards to perhaps an acre or two, while one or two attain the dimensions of a considerable lake. There is no timber in this valley, and accordingly the scenery, though on a large scale, is neither impressive nor pleasing; the mountains are large swelling hummocks, grassed up to the summit, and ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... so much, that the onlookers fully expected to see it right itself, and Tommy gave vent to a premature cheer, but he cut it suddenly short on observing that the boat remained on its side with one of the gunwales immersed, unable to attain an even keel in consequence of the weight of ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... specie aeternitatis, we might be able to understand how {156} Divine omniscience can co-exist with human freedom; as it is, we can only say, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for us—it is high, and we cannot attain unto it." We know that we cannot know. In any case, even while the Divine omniscience may present itself to us as a necessity of thought, human freedom remains a reality of experience and a ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... of all are the stone and club-fights, which are a national institution, approved by the Government and patronised by everybody. They sometimes attain such large proportions as to be regular battles. Supposing that one town or village has, from motives of jealousy or other causes, reason to complain of a neighbouring city or borough, a stone-fight during the ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... at an excellence in the art of introducing numerous colors into the same vase, to which our European workmen, in spite of their improvements in many branches of this manufacture, are still unable to attain. A few years ago the glass-makers of Venice made several attempts to imitate the variety of colors found in antique cups; but as the component parts were of different densities, they did not all cool, or set, at the same ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... 1702, an armed force was sent to compel him to depart. They marched with due expedition, but, being detained overnight by a severe snow-storm at a blockhouse about two miles from his residence, they arrived too late to attain their object, and found his body, scarcely yet cold, lying on the floor, and his family carried captive by the Indians. Thus terminated the second attempt at a settlement on this spot, which was again given over for several years to desolation ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... there seems no reason to assume that herein Africa has borrowed from Europe or Europe from Africa. So far as Europe is concerned, the evidence tends strongly to shew that the grand evil which the festivals aimed at combating was witchcraft, and that they were conceived to attain their end by actually burning the witches, whether visible or invisible, in the flames. If that was so, the wide prevalence and the immense popularity of the fire-festivals provides us with a measure for estimating ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... Femmes d'Artistes) and parts at least of Robert Helmont, would almost of themselves suffice to put Daudet high in the ranks of the writers who charm without leaving upon one's mind the slightest suspicion that they are weak. It is true that Daudet's stories do not attain the tremendous impressiveness that Balzac's occasionally do, as, for example, in La Grande Breteche, nor has his clear-cut art the almost disconcerting firmness, the surgeon-like quality of Maupassant's; but the author of the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... present animates my body has at some former period tenanted that of one of their people, for many among them are believers in metempsychosis and, like the followers of Bouddha, imagine that their souls by passing through an infinite number of bodies, attain at length sufficient purity to be admitted to a state of perfect rest and quietude, which is the only idea of ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... of heat and frost are not so apparent in Oak woods, which have a more coriaceous and persistent foliage than other deciduous trees: but Oaks do not attain the perfection of their beauty, until the Ash, the Maple, and the Tupelo—the glory of the first period of autumn—have shed a great portion of their leaves. The last-named trees are in their splendor during a period of about three weeks after the middle ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... and enumerated some of the fruits of the Spirit. I revert to the same subject again, for the purpose of showing the importance of cultivating the several Christian graces in due proportion, so as to attain to ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... can think of no cataclysm that could have the force to move me from my path. Fire or flood or the envy of men may tear the roof off my house, but my soul would still be at home under the lofty mountain pines that dip their heads in star dust. Even life, that was so difficult to attain, may serve me merely as a wayside inn, if I choose to go on eternally. However I came here, it is mine ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... that here all presumption has faded away into a vanishing point, and pure agnosticism is our only rational attitude. In other words, here we should all alike be pure agnostics as far as reason is concerned; and, if any of us are to attain to any information, it can only be by means of some super-added faculty of our minds. The questions as to whether there are any such super-added faculties; if so, whether they ever appear to have been acted ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... to be considered the head medicine-man of the tribe is more of a politician than a doctor of diseases, and in important cases only is he called to treat in a healing ceremony. It requires a particularly capable Indian to attain the position of head medicine-man, for to do so he must not only make the people subservient to his will, but must wrest the leadership from some other and usually older medicine-man who is himself an influential character. Unfortunately it is apt to be the most crafty, ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... as far up the cliffs as possible, and trust that the tide would turn back before it reached them. With the help of the old beggar, they perched themselves upon the highest shelf to which, on that almost perpendicular wall of rock, they could hope to attain. But, nevertheless, as the waves leaped white beneath, it seemed ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... in Farbridge, married, and spent all her life there, and hoped, so she often declared, to remain there to the end of her days. And there seemed no reason why she should not attain her wish. ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... credit for being brilliant because you affect the extravagances which sometimes accompany genius. Some of you ladies, I perceive, have adopted a peculiar form of dress, half male, half female; or, to be more correct, three-fourths male, and one-fourth female. Do not imagine that you will thus attain to the highest honours in this university by your eccentricity, unless your talents are hid beneath your short-cut hair, and brains are working hard under your college head-gear. As well might we expect to find that all females who wear ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... fortune. It proves to me what an excellent thing perseverance is for getting on in the world. Calm self-confidence (not impudence, for that is vulgar and repulsive) is an admirable quality; but how are those not naturally gifted with it to attain it? We all here get on much as usual. Papa wishes he could hear of a curate, that Mr. Smith may be at liberty to go. Good-bye, dear Ellen. I wish to you and ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... code of laws for the prince and another for the peasant, or that his precepts possess an accommodating flexibility suited to the prejudices and passions of mankind, no exception can be for a moment admitted. As there is no royal road to the heights of human science, but all who attain them must ascend by assiduous and persevering application, so there is none to the summit of celestial felicity; but persons of every class, rank, sex, and age, must follow Christ in the same unsmoothed path of repentance and self-denial. Hence, such is the bewitching ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... no great legacy of reputation to his son, who had the boldness, nevertheless, to take upon him the government, to which birth gave him no claim, which had been held by Caesar, and became the inheritor of his great labors. And such power did he attain, with only himself to thank for it, that, in a division of the whole empire into two portions, he took and received the nobler one; and, absent himself, by his mere subalterns and lieutenants often defeated the Parthians, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... who are sent here and are occupied in instructing the Indians, are not able to carry on their work. If there were convents, none but the most approved persons would be sent to occupy them, as is necessary for the result that they strive to attain by their doctrine, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... now to give you some advices, to assist you in understanding the gospel for yourselves, which if you observe, I trust, you will attain to the possession of those principles, and walk by those rules, which will both afford you present peace, and secure your future happiness. For godliness has promises pertaining to the life that now is, and to that which ...
— An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies, Established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island. • Richard Johnson
... existence of Britain indicated the greatness she was destined to attain. Of the western provinces which obeyed the Caesars, she was the last conquered, and the first flung away. Though she had been subjugated by the Roman arms, she received only a faint tincture of Roman arts and letters. No magnificent remains of Roman porches and aqueducts are to be found in Britain, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... heart, straight I again revolved The Law and Prophets, searching what was writ 260 Concerning the Messiah, to our scribes Known partly, and soon found of whom they spake I am—this chiefly, that my way must lie Through many a hard assay, even to the death, Ere I the promised kingdom can attain, Or work redemption for mankind, whose sins' Full weight must be transferred upon my head. Yet, neither thus disheartened or dismayed, The time prefixed I waited; when behold The Baptist (of whose birth I oft had ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... contributions it collects from others than on its own demesne. As pride therefore is seldom without arrogance, so is this never to be found without insolence. The arrogant man must be insolent in order to attain his own ends; and, to convince and remind men of the superiority he affects, will naturally, by ill-words, actions, and gestures, endeavour to throw the despised person at as much distance as possible ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... b. in Caermarthenshire. In his early years he studied painting, but finding that he was not likely to attain a satisfactory measure of success, entered the Church. He has a definite, if a modest, place in literature as the author of three poems, Grongar Hill (1727), The Ruins of Rome (1740), and The ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... may one attain to this sublime realization? The answer which Truth has always given, and will ever give to this question is,—"Empty thyself, and I will fill thee." Divine Love cannot be known until self is dead, for self is the denial of ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... sometimes proclaimed themselves the champions of Greek Orthodoxy against the Roman Catholicism of the Poles and the Mahometanism of the Tartars; but religion occupied in their minds a very secondary place. Their great object in life was the acquisition of booty. To attain this object they lived in intermittent warfare with the Tartars, lifted their cattle, pillaged their aouls, swept the Black Sea in flotillas of small boats, and occasionally sacked important coast towns, such as Varna and Sinope. When Tartar ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... (1836-1870) wrote perhaps the most highly polished Spanish verse of the nineteenth century. His Rimas are charged with true poetic fancy and the sweetest melody, but the many inversions of word-order that were used to attain to perfection of metrical form detract not a little from their charm. His writings are contained in three small volumes in which are found, together with the Rimas, a collection of prose legends. His prose work is page xl filled with morbid mysticism or fairy-like mystery. His dreamy ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... concealing the skin as to reconcile one to the lack of clothing. I noticed an enormous breadth of chest, and a great development of the muscles of the arms and legs. All these Ainos shave their hair off for two inches above their brows, only allowing it there to attain the length of an inch. Among the well-clothed Ainos in the yard there was one smooth-faced, smooth-skinned, concave-chested, spindle-limbed, yellow Japanese, with no other clothing than the decorated bark- cloth apron which the Ainos wear in addition to their coats ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... interrupted. "At least, not for a long time, unless one of your scholars dies and leaves you a legacy. It is the future that I am thinking about. No matter what you might sweep away, and to what position you might attain, it could always be said, 'He married a woman who used to keep a tavern.' Now, every one who is a friend to you, who knows what is before you, if you choose to try for it, should do everything that can be done to prevent such ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... conjure you, think ere you decide.—If the union of two people whose pure love, founded on an unerring conviction of mutual worth, might promise the reality of that heaven of which the world delights to dream; whose souls, both burning with the same ardour to attain and to diffuse excellence, would mingle and act with incessant energy, who, having risen superior to the mistakes of mankind, would disseminate the same spirit of truth, the same internal peace, the same happiness, the same virtues ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... the service of his ideal, without hesitancy or reservation, then he will achieve his object. Either by himself or his successors he will achieve it, for he disposes of the greatest power to which humanity can attain. Under such conditions there is no man among us who cannot render high service to our ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... Brixia, a part of that Italy of ours which still retains and preserves much of the old- fashioned courtesy, frugality and even rusticity. His father, Minucius Macrinus, was one of the leaders of the Equestrian order, because he did not wish to attain higher rank; he was admitted by the divine Vespasian to Praetorian rank, and to the end of his days preferred this modest and honourable distinction to the—what shall I say?—ambitions or dignities for which we strive. His grandmother on his mother's side was Serrana Procula, ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... at 5 a.m. on September 24th, and though the 5th Leicesters made most strenuous efforts to attain their objectives, they just failed to achieve the full purpose for which they set out, and at the end of the day Pontruet was not ours. Our 5th Battalion on the right also had some stiff fighting, and suffered several casualties, taking their objective on the high ground ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... own fields, we have adopted several expedients to attain this object of convenient inspection. In one case, where we have a sub-main, which receives the small drains of an acre of orchard, laid at nearly five feet depth, we sunk two 40-gallon oil casks, one upon the other, at the junction of this sub-main with another, and fitted upon the ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... readiest secure an easy entrance to society. Pleased with the fancy that she herself was the object sought, she did not perceive how enormous was the sort of deception which the stranger had employed to attain the end desired. With all her intellect she had not the wisdom to suspect that he who could so readily practise so bold an hypocrisy, was capable of the worst performances; and when their names were mentioned, and his eyes were permitted to meet and mingle their glances with hers, she was conscious ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... which, as king of the forest, stood a little detached from the rest, as if scorning the vicinity of any rival. It was scathed and gnarled in the branches, but the immense trunk still showed to what gigantic size the monarch of the forest can attain in the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... also toward the morality of the settlement, a point which he could not venture to promise himself that he should ever attain, he issued some necessary orders for enforcing attendance on divine service, and had the satisfaction of seeing the Sabbath better observed than it had been for some time past. But there were some who were refractory. A fellow named Carroll, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... the "damnable iteration" of a mediocre prose work or the harping away on one theme by the hack composer. In no art more than music is this dual standard of greater importance, and in no art more difficult to attain. For the raw material of music, fleeting rhythms and waves of sound, is in its very nature most incoherent. Here we are not dealing with the concrete, tangible and definite material which is available for all the other ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... thing as time with Rowland, and he saw the misery of his hovel. The cure was a deeper and harder matter than Dr. Bayly yet understood, or than probably Rowland himself would for years attain to, while yet the least glimmer of its approach would be enough ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... that you are right, my dear," agreed Mrs. Blake. "Strong men, if unhampered, have a chance to fight their way up out of the social pit. But women and girls, even when they escape the—the worst down there, can hardly hope ever to attain—And of course those that fall!—Our dual code of morality is hideously unjust to our sex, yet it still is the code ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... of the monuments is proved—e. g., by the growth of trees in the midst of the buildings in Yucatan. Many have had time to attain a diameter of from six to nine feet. In a courtyard at Uxmal, the figures of tortoises sculptured in relief upon the granite pavement are so worn away by the feet of countless generations of the natives that the design of the artist is ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... was able enough to attain his own further objects without assistance, and that the country he left behind him might stand in need of an active and faithful governor, when he came into Cilicia, dismissed Eumenes, under color of sending him to his command, but in truth to secure Armenia, which was ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... it was foreseen that an ardent and restless genius, like his, and accustomed to short cuts, would not wait eight months, when he felt his object within his reach, and when twenty days were sufficient to attain it. ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... Judgment about what is to be done is directed to something further: for it may happen in some matter of action that a man's judgment is sound, while his execution is wrong. The matter does not attain to its final complement until the reason has commanded aright in the point of what has to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... concord of the churches you found. But, with what daring or with what swelling of pride I know not, you have attempted to seize upon a new name for yourself, whereby the hearts of all your brethren would be offended. I wonder exceedingly at this, since I remember that in order not to attain to the episcopal office thou wouldest have fled. But now that thou hast attained unto it, thou desirest so to exercise it as if thou hadst run after it with ambitious desire. And thou who didst confess thyself unworthy to be called ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... stretch'd his yoke in vain, The plowman lost his sweat; and the green corn Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard; The fold stands empty in the drowned field, And crows are fatted with the ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... and associations, we are borne along by forces mightier than our creeds or negations, and the loyal spirit catches at moments the "deeper voice across the storm," even though the voice be inarticulate. But it is felt that we need to somehow define anew the rule of life. By what road shall man attain his supreme desire,—how can he be good, and ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... wars are small wars, and spill no blood. A Wagnerite may be a freethinker or a Catholic, an anarchist or a conservative. Even painting, which is an art of miserable general ideas, is not so far removed from intelligence as is music. This explains why the Greeks were able to attain such heights in philosophy, and yet fell to ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... hand, there are many schismatics in good faith who would never attain the truth unless they were forced to enter into themselves and examine their false position. The civil power admonishes such souls to abandon their errors; it does not punish them for any crime.[1] The ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... about, unless they studied very closely his eccentric pronunciation and the wild scrawl of his writing. He never went far enough to get even a second mate's certificate. He thought it an unnecessary waste of time, seeing that he intended to leave the sea as soon as he could attain a pilot's branch. This he succeeded in doing, and had a long and successful career; his fame as a pilot only equalled that which he bore when employed as a sailor. He lived to a good ripe age, and died in harness still adhering to the up-to-date belief that England was being imposed upon ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... part of a coward in order to hide his treason at the battle of Monmouth? It was the inward eating corruption of that selfish vanity which caused him to desire the defeat of an army whose command he had wished but failed to attain. He had offered his sword to America for his own glory, and when that was denied him, he withdrew the offering, and died, as he had ...
— The Americanism of Washington • Henry Van Dyke
... at Mulhausen, and shows the drift toward a co-operative phase of capital and labor. Indeed, this tendency will probably prove to be strongly characteristic of all similar schemes as fast as they attain to any magnitude. Tendencies which can be resisted in communities of few hundreds become overpowering when the population rises into thousands. But from the purely commercial point of view, this drift is hardly to be deprecated, so long as the operation ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... language to communicate thought. And they overlook another fact of even greater importance: the pupil entering the high school is by no means a beginner in English. He has been using the language ten or twelve years, and has a fluency of expression in English which he cannot attain in German throughout a high school and college course. The conditions under which a pupil begins the study of German in a high school and the study of English composition are entirely dissimilar; and a conclusion based upon a fancied ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... be as nearly realized as it is. To speak slightingly of her part in the women's movement is uncomprehending. She was then, and always has been, a tragic figure, this woman in the front of the woman's movement—driven by a great unrest, sacrificing old ideals to attain new, losing herself in a frantic and frequently blind struggle, often putting back her cause by the sad illustration she was of the price that must be paid to attain a result. Certainly no woman who to-day takes it as ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... violent prepossession, that this stain in the birth of any person was incompatible with so holy an office. And in another point the canon law was express and positive, that no man guilty of simony could attain that dignity. A severe bull of Julius II. had added new sanctions to this law, by declaring that a simoniacal election could not be rendered valid, even by a posterior consent of the cardinals. But unfortunately Clement had given to Cardinal Colonna a billet, containing ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... authorities, it is at present impossible to arrive at a definite conclusion as to the nature or extent of the incident, but it is quite certain that public interest will be much excited when details are forthcoming. All sorts of rumours attain credence in the locality, the murder of several prominent persons being not the least persistent of these. Without, however, giving currency to idle speculation, several authentic statements may be grouped into a ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... resented by Japan. The prominent leaders of national reform at that time were Sanjo and Iwakura, originally Court nobles;* Saigo and Okubo, samurai of Satsuma, and Kido, a samurai of Choshu. In the second rank were several men destined afterwards to attain great celebrity—the late Prince Ito, Marquis Inouye, Count Okuma, Count Itagaki—often spoken of as the "Rousseau of Japan"—and ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... sat opposite Mona she was obliged to look at him occasionally, whether she would or no. Thurston had a strain of obstinacy in his nature, and when he decided that Mona should not only look at him, but should talk to him as well, he set himself diligently to attain that end. He was not the man to sit down supinely and let a girl calmly ignore him; so Mona presently found herself talking to him with some degree of cordiality; and what is more to the point, listening to him when he talked. It ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... labor, feeling and reasoning should be in equal proportions, and never excessive, for excess meant disturbance of the equilibrium and, consequently, disease. Yes, yes, to begin life over again and to know how to live it, to dig the earth, to study man, to love woman, to attain to human perfection, the future city of universal happiness, through the harmonious working of the entire being, what a beautiful legacy for a philosophical physician to leave behind him would this be! And this dream of the future, this theory, ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... perfectest note That man's heart is attuned to, attain The white light of the zenith supreme, Pierce the seventh and innermost sphere; We are gods! Let us cast us adrift From the world of the flesh and its power! It is only a plunge, a quick roll Of our skiff—I will gather and fold You close, ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Leghorn, "and the cause of this is Lodovico Duke of Milan.... His pride and arrogance are beyond description. He boasts that Pope Alexander is his chaplain, the Emperor Maximilian his condottiere, the Signory of Venice his chamberlain, since they spend their money largely to attain his ends, and the King of France his courier, who comes and goes at his pleasure. Truly a fearful ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... Latin; and from her application to three several languages, we must take it for granted that she possessed a readiness, a capacity, and even a certain rank in life, that afforded time and means to attain them. It should seem that she was solicitous to be personally known only at the time she lived in. Hence we find in her works those general denominations, those vague expressions, which discourage the curious antiquary, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... west, as well as the east end, terminated apsidally. There would then have been placed, in the one apse, the high altar of St. Andrew, with the tombs of St. Paulinus, the apostle of Northumbria, and of St. Ythamar, the first Englishman to attain the episcopal dignity. Both of these died as bishops of Rochester, and they were buried in its cathedral in 644 and 655 respectively. The other apse, for this is possibly the right meaning to assign to "porticus" in the following quotation, would have contained ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... she hated poverty. Much of her reading had been of modern works of fiction, written by her own sex, which had revealed to her something of her own powers and given her indeed, an exaggerated notion of the influence, the wealth, the position a woman may attain who has beauty and talent and ambition and a little culture, and is not too scrupulous in the use of them. She wanted to be rich, she wanted luxury, she wanted men at her feet, her slaves, and she had not—thanks to some of the novels she had read—the nicest discrimination ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... independent supply be considered as such an object, how far, and by what sacrifices, are restrictions upon importation adapted to attain the end ...
— Observations on the Effects of the Corn Laws, and of a Rise or Fall in the Price of Corn on the Agriculture and General Wealth of the Country • Thomas Malthus
... you will swallow some radishes without any oil. Well, my dear friend, in accomplishing these acts, so different apparently, we are both obeying the same sentiment, the only motive for all human actions; we are both seeking our own pleasure, and striving to attain the same end—happiness, the impossible happiness. It would be folly on my part to say you were wrong, dear friend, even though I think myself ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... high elevation, my lady," answered Lady Binks, "I do not know any arts I have been under the necessity of practising to attain it. I suppose a Scotch lady of an ancient family may become the wife of an English baronet, and no very extraordinary great cause to ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... which to withstand and baffle the fierce energy of passion and the all-corroding, all-dissolving scepticism of the intellect in religious inquiries? I have no intention at all of denying, that truth is the real object of our reason, and that, if it does not attain to truth, either the premiss or the process is in fault; but I am not speaking here of right reason, but of reason as it acts in fact and concretely in fallen man. I know that even the unaided reason, when correctly exercised, leads to a belief in God, in the immortality of the ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... almost all trades, and increases the cost of merchandise by the amount of the profit exacted by the middlemen. To break down these costly partitions, that injure the sale of products, would be a magnificent enterprise, which, in its results, would attain to the height of statesmanship. In fact, industry of all kinds would gain by establishing within our borders the cheapness so essential to enable us to carry on victoriously the industrial warfare with foreign countries,—a ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... lifted to a higher level, to a clearer, purer atmosphere, to a station where better things than he had ever done before would be expected of him now; he felt, indeed, as though it were the first long reach ahead to attain to such a manhood as was Robert Burnham's. The repetition of this name in his mind brought him to himself, and he turned into the parlor just as the last one of the other boys was passing out. He hurried across the room ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... the grief without knowledge, of the courage that may not avail, Of the longing that may not attain, of the love that shall never forget, More joy than the gladness of laughter thy voice hath amidst of its wail: More hope than of pleasure fulfilled amidst of thy blindness is set; More glorious than gaining of all thine unfaltering hand that shall fail: ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... Charlotte had been neighbors, and he, being younger, was always "young John" to them, and sometimes, in excess of friendliness or exhortation, "Jack." He wondered if it had been the social idealism of Anne that had made them attain the proper title, or if, when the crust of renewed convention broke through, they would, under the stress of common activities, flounder about as they did before he went away, in an ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... may not attain to a knowledge of the truth at once, yet should we never lose an opportunity of making a vocabulary of such words as we know to be correct. This should be the case from one consideration alone; for how gratifying it is, when visiting an uncivilized people, to find that you know ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... have a custom of suckling their children for several years, and are besides exposed constantly to fatigue and often to famine; hence they are not prolific, bearing upon an average not more than four children, of whom two may attain the age of puberty. Upon these data the amount of each family may be stated at five, and the whole Indian population in the district ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... thou attain, Great the toil is, small the gain, If the King thou seekest therein Travel ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... represents the one opportunity for a "show," "something to drink," and "life" in general. Sylvia had unlocked the door of material opportunity for Austin; but she had done far more than this. She had given him the vision of the higher things that lay beyond that, and the desire to attain them. Further than that, neither she nor any other woman could help him. The future, to make or mar, lay now within his own hands. And in the same spirit of consecration with which the knights of old prayed that they might attain true chivalry during the long vigil before their accolade, ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... the pettiest and most uneventful career; but even in honestly transcribing my actual adventures, one by one,—the things I have done, and the Men and Women I have known,—I should imperceptibly swell a Narrative, which was at first meant to attain no great volume, to most deplorable dimensions. And the World will no longer tolerate Huge Chronicles in Folio, whether they relate to History, to Love or Adventure, to Voyages and Travels, or even to Philosophy, Mechanics, or the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... in letters trace The pure exactness of a wood bird's strain, And name it song; or with the brush attain The high perfection of a wildflower's face; Or mold in difficult marble all the grace We know as man; or from the wind and rain Catch elemental rapture of refrain And mark in music to due time and place: ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... realms should descend to any of the late prince's sons, being under the age of eighteen years, his mother, the princess dowager of Wales, should be guardian of his person, and regent of these kingdoms, until he should attain the age of majority, with such powers and limitations as should appear necessary and expedient for these purposes. This message produced a very affectionate address, promising to take the affair into their serious consideration; and in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... thy own race, thou hast been born as an embodiment of quarrel for the destruction of the whole world as also for the destruction of Dhritarashtra's race! From our very birth, O Uluka, that sinful father of thine hath always sought to do us injury and evil. I desire to attain the opposite shore of that hostile relation. Slaying thee first before the very eyes of Sakuni, I shall then slay Sakuni himself in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Religions of the World (5) The Historical Antiquity of Zen (6) The Denial of Scriptural Authority by Zen (7) The Practisers of Zen hold the Buddha as their Predecessor, whose Spiritual Level they Aim to Attain (8) The Iconoclastic Attitude of Zen (9) Zen Activity (10) The Physical and Mental ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... two it seemed that the worst had passed, and that the violent motion was subsiding. It increased again and became as severe as before. None expected to escape. A sudden rush was simultaneously made to endeavor to attain the open-air and fly to a place of safety; but, before the door was reached all stopped short, as by a common impulse, feeling that hope was vain—that it was only a question of death within the building or without, of being ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... part be to assert it, or obey. For as it belongs to all immodesty to defy or deny law, and assert privilege and license, according to its own pleasure (it being therefore rightly called "insolent," that is, "custom-breaking," violating some usual and appointed order to attain for itself greater forwardness or power), so it is the habit of all modesty to love the constancy and "solemnity," or, literally, "accustomedness," of law, seeking first what are the solemn, appointed, inviolable ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... be small and insignificant in the eyes of the world, but none the less does responsibility devolve upon each one of us." "Zaccheus climbed a tree. We learn from this that we should all strive to climb to the loftiest that life can attain." Elizabeth put in an occasional remark, and Martha Ellen responded. This was one of the former's grown-up moments and she reveled in it. There was none of the family there to carry home the tale ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... us next day, with Roque, brightest of all living caleseros, fixed in his boots and saddle. After a pleasant drive we attain the house, and are received by its hospitable inmates as before. The interval before dinner, a tolerably long one, is filled up by pleasant chitchat, chiefly in English. The lady of the house does not, however, profess our vernacular, and to her understanding we lay siege in French, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... God, of whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable service: Grant, we beseech thee, that we may so faithfully serve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises; which exceed all that we can desire; through the merits of Jesus ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... 'Follow me, Yasa,' and that very night he caused him to obtain the fruition of the first path, and on the following day arhatship. And fifty-four other persons, who were friends of Yasa's, he ordained with the formula, 'Follow me, priest,' and caused them to attain arhatship. Thus when there were sixty-one arhats in the world, having passed the period of seclusion during the rains and resumed active duties, he sent forth the sixty priests in all directions, saying, 'Go forth, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... all our efforts, there was one object that we were after that we never did attain. That was a first-class atrocity picture. There were atrocity stories in endless variety, but not one that the camera could authenticate. People were growing chary of verbal assurances of these horrors; they yearned for some photographic proof, ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... drinkers of spirits, spending all their earnings on it. They have almost a monopoly as to burning corpses and handling all dead bodies. They eat all animals which have died a natural death, and are particularly fond of pork of this description. "Notwithstanding profligate habits, many of them attain the age of eighty or ninety; and it is not till sixty or sixty-five that their hair begins to get white." The Domarr are a mountain race, nomads, shepherds, and robbers. Travelers speak of them as "gypsies." A specimen which we have of their language would, with the exception of ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... this; rather, she revelled in it. Her heart was in her prospective career as a violinist, and she was willing to undergo any discomfort if she could but attain her ambition. ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... of the thirteenth century the senior rank to which a barrister could attain at the Bar was that of serjeant-at-law, and from that body, which existed until 1875, the judges were selected. If a barrister below the rank of serjeant was invited to take a seat on the Bench he invariably ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... before the end of his elective term, President Roosevelt let it be known that he favored as his successor, William Howard Taft, of Ohio, his Secretary of War. To attain this end he used every shred of his powerful influence. When the Republican convention assembled, Mr. Taft easily won the nomination. Though the party platform was conservative in tone, he gave it a progressive tinge by expressing ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... that they are vividly natural. With no delicacy of expression, they are seldom intrinsically coarse. The troubadours of Europe trilled more daintily of love, but there was at times an illicit note in their lays. Eastern love songs never attain the ideal purity of Dante, but they hardly ever sink to ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... Eucla, where he had been with a survey party, the natives used such grounds in their initiation ceremonies. A youth on arriving at a certain age may become a warrior, and is then allowed to carry a shield and spear. Before he can attain this honour he must submit to some very horrible rites—which are best left undescribed. Seizing each an arm of the victim, two stalwart "bucks" (as the men are called) run him up and down the cleared ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... dropping a paper ballot into a box, has in it an element of truth. Society, therefore, has a right to prescribe, in the admission of any new class of voters, such a qualification as every one can attain and as will enable the voter to cast an ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... way of inference from the former doctrine, "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." Not they in whom there is flesh; for there are remnants of that in the most spiritual man in this life: we cannot attain here to angelic purity, though it should be the aim and endeavour of every Christian. But they that are in the flesh, or after the flesh, imports the predomination of that, and an universal thraldom ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... type of a hero. Christianity alone, whose creation he was, can comprehend him. * * * The example of Columbus shows that nobody can completely obtain here below the objects of his desires. The man who doubled the known space of the earth was not able to attain his object; he proposed to himself much more ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... missed during these hours, every second of which was by him fulfilled to its utmost extent by extremest effort that sinews and nerves could attain. Within the homestead the while, the easy moments went bright with words and looks of unwonted animation, for the kindly, hospitable instincts of the inmates were roused into cordial expression of welcome and interest by the grace and ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... upon one side of the House. The declamation of the gentlemen who oppose the bill has been abundant and vehement; but they have been reserved and even silent about the fitness or unfitness of the plan to attain the direct object it has in view. By some gentlemen it is taken up (by way of exercise, I presume) as a point of law, on a question of private property and corporate franchise; by others it is regarded ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... engraven on the heart, and evermore characterize our whole conduct. This is what we ought to strive after; this is the way to be happy; this is what our Saviour loves—entire surrender of the heart. May He enable us by his Spirit to persevere till we attain it! All comes from Him, the disposition to ask as ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... rejoice in its inmost core at hearing these things? Whose heart, on receiving so great a consolation, would not become sweet with the love of Christ, a love to which it can never attain by any laws or works? Who can injure such a heart, or make it afraid? If the consciousness of sin or the horror of death rush in upon it, it is prepared to hope in the Lord, and is fearless of such evils, and undisturbed, until it shall look down upon its enemies. For it believes that the righteousness ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... "seasons" of four hours each, of which some were lucky, while others were invariably of ill omen. "The 4th of Tybi: good, good, good. Whatsoever thou seest on this day will be fortunate. Whosoever is born on this day, will die more advanced in years than any of his family; he will attain to a greater age than his father. The 5th of Tybi: inimical, inimical, inimical. This is the day on which the goddess Sokhifc, mistress of the double white Palace, burnt the chiefs when they raised an insurrection, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... exclusion of everything else that was going on. He displayed that perfect balance of all the mental and physical faculties, that instantaneous co-ordination of eye, brain and muscle, which only an occasional phenomenon can attain to. He made no mistakes, bore himself like a dancer on a tight-rope, circled about his adversary, warded off all his thrusts, lunges and rushes, turned aside his long sword with his small round shield without a trace of effort, and at his leisure found a joint ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... and ankles so securely tied that no effort of which she was capable could set her free. Poopy lay about ten yards farther up the cliff, flat on her sable back, with her hands tied behind her, and her ankles also secured; so that she could by no means attain to a sitting position, although she made violent and extraordinary efforts to do so. We say extraordinary, because Poopy, being ingenious, hit upon many devices of an unheard of nature to accomplish her object. Among others, she attempted to turn heels over head, hoping thus to get upon her knees; ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... tangled wood, and wilderness. But all in vain: no eye has seen The robber or the Maithil queen. A dreary time has passed away, And stern is he we all obey. Come, cast your grief and sloth aside: Again be every effort tried; So haply may our toil attain The sweet success that follows pain. Laborious effort, toil, and skill, The firm resolve, the constant will Secure at last the ends we seek: Hence, O my friends, I boldly speak. Once more then, noble hearts, once more Let us to-day this wood explore, And, languor and despair subdued, Purchase ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... Paris in which a presumed signal was observed, the house whence it emanated was at once invaded by National Guards, and perfectly innocent people were often carried off and subjected to ill-treatment. To such proportions did the craze attain that some papers even proposed that the Government should forbid any kind of light whatever, after dark, in any room situated above the second floor, unless the windows of that room were "hermetically sealed"! Most victims of the mania submitted to the mob's invasion of their homes without ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... thought of No. X. If only the soul of man, infinite in its capacity, could be enamoured of God, it would at once work miracles and attain to Deity. ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... contempt never depressed him; for he always preserved a steady confidence in his own capacity, and believed nothing above his reach, which he should at any time earnestly endeavour to attain. He formed schemes of the same kind with regard to knowledge and to fortune, and flattered himself with advances to be made in science, as with riches, to be enjoyed in some distant period of his life. For the acquisition of knowledge he was, indeed, far better qualified than ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... gone, after supper, I to bed, being mightily pleased with my wife's playing so well upon the flageolet, and I am resolved she shall learn to play upon some instrument, for though her eare be bad, yet I see she will attain any thing to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... resources of statesmanship" to secure peace, he indicated that if such efforts were unavailing the responsibility for consequences would fall upon those who remained in arms against the Union. But the letter failed to attain its object. Its dissent from the dangerous and obnoxious propositions of the platform was too guarded and reserved to be satisfactory. The people felt moreover that the deliberate declarations of the Convention and not the individual expressions ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... that we could generate did not exceed three miles in a second, and to get this required our utmost efforts. In fact, it had not seemed possible that we should attain even so great a speed as that. It was far more than we could have expected, and even Mr. Edison was surprised, as well as greatly gratified, when he found that we were moving with the ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... which on curing become smaller and particularly in those kinds best adapted for cigar wrappers. The leaves from the base to the center of the plant are of about equal size but are smaller as they reach the summit, but after topping attain about the same size as the others. The color of the leaf after curing may be determined by the color of the leaf while growing—if dark green while maturing in the field, the color will be dark after curing and sweating and the reverse if of ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... at Salem Village had, by long practice, become wonderful adepts in the art of jugglery, and probably of ventriloquism. They did many extraordinary things, and were believed to have constant communications with ghosts and spectres; but they did not attain to spiritual rapping. If they had possessed that power, the credulity of judges, ministers, magistrates, and people, would have been utterly overwhelmed, and no limit could have been put to the destruction they might ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... senior clerk had protested in vain. Bets were made, some in favour of Macassar, and some in that of the hospital; but of late the odds were going much against our hero. It was well known that in three short months he would attain that disastrous age, which, if it found him a bachelor, would find him also denuded of his legacy. And then how short a margin remained for the second event! The odds were daily rising against Macassar, and as he heard the bets offered and taken at the surrounding desks, his ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... boy with his family at Clonmel from May to December of 1815. Here Borrow's elder brother, now a boy of fifteen, was promoted from Ensign to Lieutenant, gaining in a year, as Dr. Knapp reminds us, a position that it had taken his father twelve years to attain. In January 1816 the Borrows moved to Templemore, returning to England in May of that year. Borrow, we see, was less than a year in Ireland, and he was only thirteen years of age when he left the country. But it seems to have been the greatest influence that guided his career. Three of the most ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... Iceland are generally of middle stature, and strongly built, with light hair, frequently inclining to red, and blue eyes. The men are for the most part ugly; the women are better favoured, and among the girls I noticed some very sweet faces. To attain the age of seventy or eighty years is here considered an extraordinary circumstance. {29} The peasants have many children, and yet few; many are born, but few survive the first year. The mothers do not nurse them, and rear them on very bad food. Those who get over the first year look healthy ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... took heart. He was beginning to look upon her as a sorceress. A week ago he had felt sorry for her; his heart had been touched by her transparent misery. To-day he saw her in another light altogether; as the determined, resourceful, calculating woman who, having failed to attain a certain end, was now intensely, keenly interested in the development of another of a totally different nature. He could not feel sorry ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... clever man, a lawyer, possessed of vigorous practical sense, a strong will, and remarkable fluency—still young, good-natured, and cold as ice. They live in the greatest harmony together, and will live perhaps to attain complete happiness ... perhaps love. The Princess K—— is dead, forgotten the day of her death. The Kirsanovs, father and son, live at Maryino; their fortunes are beginning to mend. Arkady has ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... the two following days, so that they were compelled to abandon those positions. These vessels set fire to the parian, and burned everything, and pursued the enemy wherever they could penetrate. The Sangleys, upon beholding their cause waning, and their inability to attain the end desired, resolved to retire from the city, after having lost more than four thousand men; to advise China, so that that country would reenforce them; and for their support to divide their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... for alarm. He has no legal control over me, though by the terms of my father's will he retains charge of my property till I attain my twenty-fifth year. Before this, fourteen months must elapse. Meanwhile he is exerting all his influence to induce me to marry his son, so that the large property of which I am possessed may accrue to the benefit of ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... danger lest the beauty and appropriateness of the conception should entice us to receive it on insufficient evidence. The fact that some plants in certain adverse circumstances tend to degenerate, and in certain favourable circumstances to attain a higher type, is well known in natural history; but it seems questionable whether these changes ever take place to such an extent, and in such a uniform method, as must be assumed if we take darnel for ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... after all, was it so unlike? He, too, was aiming at an art as clean and hard and powerful as Nicky's, as naked of all blazonry and decoration, an art which would attain its objective by the simplest, most perfect adjustment ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... the service;——Britons must recoil, And shew themselves the natives of an isle Who sought for freedom, in the worst of times Produc'd her Hampdens, Fairfaxes, and Pyms. But if by carnage we should win the game, Perhaps by my abilities and fame: I might attain a splendid glitt'ring car, And mount aloft, and sail in liquid air. Like Phaeton, I'd then out-strip the wind, And leave my ...
— The Group - A Farce • Mercy Warren
... the appearance of any Federal advance in the neighborhood, as he was unaware that I had sent back a courier. The house was the very last place in which we would seek for him, and the easiest place to attain. Once inside, stowed away in some unused room, he could wait the approach of Chambers' troops, escape easily, and become a hero. The whole trick fitted in with the man's type of mind. And he could have come in the same way ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... exemption this seemed to afford me, I put no curb upon my ambition which had already carried me far beyond my deserts. Those who read these lines may know how majestic were my hopes, how imminent the honor, to attain which I have employed my best energies for years. Life was bright, the future dazzling. Though I had neither wife nor child, the promise of activity on the lines which appeal to every man of political instinct gave me ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... conversation, her projects—the whole surrounded by the freshness of spring and the laughing brightness of the season—exhibits a character of nature and of truth which very few poets have been able to attain. One is quite surprised, on reading this simple picture, to be involuntarily carried back to the most expressive poems of the ancient Greeks—to Theocritus for example—for the Marguerite of Jasmin may be compared with the Simetha of the Greek poet. This is true poetry, ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... has been explained in previous Sections that by success in Yoga one may make oneself as subtile as possible or as gross as possible. One may also attain to the fruition of all desires, extending to the very creation of worlds upon worlds peopled with all kinds of creatures. That Yogins do not create is due to their respect for the Grandsire and their wish not to disturb the ordinary course ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... them. Indeed, it is one of the highest uses of marriage for each partner to assist the other on the journey to the heavenly Canaan. But before you attempt to point out a fault in him, consider how you had best proceed so as to attain your object; for unless you adopt a judicious mode, and an affectionate as well as earnest manner, you may do as much harm as good. You must also carefully watch your opportunity; for what would be favorably received ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... following it by a hasty and cowardly retreat. They had, for the time being at least, no ulterior design. They fought and expected no substantial reward of their conflict. The sweetness of personal revenge and the blotting out a few human lives were all they hoped for or cared at this time to attain. The invading party had apparently destroyed more than they had themselves lost, and this was doubtless a suitable reward for the hazards and hardships of ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... imported from Holland, being used for polishing mahogany, ivory, metal, &c. The horse-tails for the most part grow in moist ground, in ditches and on the borders of lakes; some, however, are common in corn fields and on the roadside. In this country they do not attain a height of more than a few feet, but in tropical countries one or two species grow to the height ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... path across the fields. He was hungry and thirsty. In one of his sermons there occurred this passage: "We should habituate ourselves to hold our appetites in check. By constantly accustoming our selves to abstinence little abstinences in our daily life—we alone can attain to that true spirituality without which we cannot hope to know God." And it was well known throughout his household and the village that the Rector's temper was almost dangerously spiritual if anything detained him from his meals. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... one step further to take and the ideal germ will be created, Harden. Then we poor mortals will realize the dream that has haunted us since the beginning of time. We will attain immortality, and the fear of death, round which everything is built, will vanish. ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... you have excessive prejudices AS TO WORDS. In truth, you read, you dig, you work much more than I and a crowd of others do. You have acquired learning that I shall never attain. Therefore you are a hundred times richer than all of us; you are a rich man, and you complain like a poor man. Be charitable to a beggar who has his mattress full of gold, but who wants to be nourished only on well-turned phrases and choice words. But brute, ransack your own mattress ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... Gasteropoda, Heteropoda, Pteropoda, and dibranchiate Cephalopoda. But although such is likely enough to be the case, we do not know at present that the aquiferous chambers in any of the last named mollusks attain an extension similar to that which obtains ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... spirit, now more strongly than ever at work in a way which had, indeed, been one of the primest sources of his miserable life. It was a spirit ill at rest with itself—vexed at its own feebleness of execution—its incapacity to attain and acquire the realization of its own wild and vague conceptions. His was the ambition of one who discovers at every step that nothing can be known, yet will not give up the unprofitable pursuit, because, even while making the discovery, he still hopes vainly that he may ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... a means to an end, and the laborer cares about the rise only in that light. The end is—to give him the same quantity of corn, suppose. That end attained, he cares nothing about the means by which it is attained. Now, your ideal rise of wages does not attain this end. The corn has really risen; this is the first step. In consequence of this, an ideal rise follows in all things, which evades the absurdities of a real rise—and evades the Ricardian doctrine of profits; but, then, only by also evading ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... an expedition to Kinchinjunga on the 7th of January. It was evident that at this season I could not attain any height; but I was most anxious to reach the lower limit of that mass of perpetual snow which descends in one continuous sweep from 28,000 to 15,000 feet, and radiates from the summit of Kinchin, along every spur and shoulder for ten to ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... They are not esteemed at all. 'Why, have they not great power, and can they not do whatever they desire?' They have no power, and they only do what they think best, and never what they desire; for they never attain the true object of desire, which is the good. 'As if you, Socrates, would not envy the possessor of despotic power, who can imprison, exile, kill any one whom he pleases.' But Socrates replies that he has no wish to put ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... minuteness, if but arbitrary things, were apt to be neglected; the things forbidden, especially in the like case, were apt to become doubly tempting. It appears, the prohibition of Latin gave rise to various attempts, on the part of Friedrich, to attain that desirable Language. Secret lessons, not from Duhan, but no doubt with Duhan's connivance, were from time to time undertaken with this view: once, it is recorded, the vigilant Friedrich Wilhelm, going his rounds, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... put the last, put the finishing hand to, put the finishing touches on; crown, crown all; cap. [intransitive] ripen, culminate; come to a head, come to a crisis; come to its end; die a natural death, die of old age; run its course, run one's race; touch the goal, reach the goal, attain the goal; reach &c. (arrive) 292; get in the harvest. Adj. completing, final; concluding, conclusive; crowning &c. v.; exhaustive. done, completed &c. v.; done for, sped, wrought out; highly wrought &c. (preparation) 673; thorough &c. 52; ripe &c. (ready) 673. Adv. completely &c.(thoroughly) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus |
