"Characteristic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... energetic will. She knew that all was in vain, and had accepted her fate. Since she could not live as a queen, she would at least die as one. She made her preparations for this calmly and with characteristic decision. "They will kill me, I know," she said to her maids. "I have only one duty left me, to ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... also provided, for some reason or other, eight small glass cups, into which he placed the legs of the two tables, and in a business-like manner he set out on the large stand a piece of white paper, a pencil, and a spool of black thread. It is characteristic of Miss Jeremy, and of her own ignorance of the methods employed in professional seances, that she was as much interested and puzzled ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... In the second cab Georgiana's hand again found Stuart's and stayed there. His face was set now; he spoke not a word, and even through his glove his hand was cold to the touch. Then, presently, they were at the big, grim-looking hospital with the characteristic odour, so suggestive to the senses of the tragedies which take place there night and day, meeting them at ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... of his face I have no memory. There is no picture of him. They told me that he was tall and strong, and ruddy of face; that my beak nose is like his, my square forehead, my firm chin. After he reached America he wrote to me. I have the letters yet, written in a large open hand, characteristic of an adventurous nature. Though he was my father, he was only a person in the world after all. I was surrounded by my mother's people. They spoke of him infrequently. What had he done? Did they disapprove his leaving England? ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... to recess the first day. He had some things to do affecting the organization of the school, and so he remained at his desk. Several of the pupils came up to consult him on one point or another, and he received them all with that pleasant manner which throughout his life was characteristic of him. To one and another he gave a hint or a suggestion, based upon his knowledge of their character and abilities. One of the boys said: "Do you think I'd better study grammar, ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... and the invisible grace of the Christian community such will be its outward and visible form. Those regulative ideas and characteristic emotions which determine in any age the quality of its religious experience will be certain to shape the nature and conduct of its ecclesiastical assemblies. Their influence will show, both in the ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... Scotchman, but he had spent most of his life in the Canadian bush, and while there was a distinct "burr" in his manner of speech, he very seldom used any of that broad dialect so characteristic of his race; and ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... characteristic blue sky April unfolded its myriad leaves beneath which robins ran over shaven lawns and purple grackle bustled busily about, and the water fowl quacked and whistled and rushed through the water nipping and chasing one another or, sidling ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... the adventures and deeds of Sir Launcelot, fully and beautifully illustrated in Mr. Pyle's characteristic style, and uniform with his other two books, "The Story of King Arthur and His Knights" and "The Story of the Champions of the Round Table." This book takes up the adventures of the greatest of the Arthurian heroes, from the very beginning, and also ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... professional appearance as a platform exponent of his own pages. That event took place at the old Broad Street Music Hall in Birmingham, a building which was superseded by the Prince of Wales' Theatre. It was not easy to mistake so characteristic a figure for that of any ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... morning; and he learnt to know her more truly in these hours of familiar converse than in the four years of her liaison with Jules Sandeau. He summed her up as a tomboy, an artist, a mind great, generous, devoted and chaste (this last term would need explanation); her characteristic traits were those of a man, not a woman. She had, so he opined, neither force of conception, nor gift of constructing plots, nor faculty of reaching the true, nor the art of the pathetic. The French language she used she did not thoroughly know, but she had style. ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... This characteristic anecdote perfectly agrees with what we have heard from other persons. When the Neapolitan Princess di——- was at the Tuileries as 'dame d'honneur' to Bonaparte's sister Caroline Murat, then Queen of Naples, on the grand occasion of the marriage with ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... objections, however, hardly affect the brilliance and substantial excellence of all this part of the book. It is when he proceeds to estimate these great men, not as writers but as social forces, not as stylists but as apostles, that M. Taine discloses the characteristic weaknesses of the bookman in dealing with the facts of concrete sociology. He shows none of this weakness in what he says of the remote past. On the contrary, he blames, as we have all blamed, Voltaire, Rousseau, and the rest of the group, for their failure to recognise ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 8: France in the Eighteenth Century • John Morley
... doubting element is represented by Ivan Karamazoff, who is tortured by a constant conflict with anxious questions. In "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor," which the author puts into Ivan's mouth, Dostoevsky's famous and characteristic power of ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... a million," said Bonaparte. "But even then they'd be cheap, especially to a man like yourself who could perform miracles. If I could have performed miracles with the ease which was so characteristic of all your efforts, I'd never have died ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... look thoroughly into the whole thing, you know." And Sir Claude, with characteristic kindness, gave her a nod of assurance ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... curtains, the python devoured a guinea pig, the last I gave him; the great white cat came to me. I said all this must go, must henceforth be to me an abandoned dream, a something, not more real than a summer meditation. So be it, and, as was characteristic of me, I broke with Paris suddenly, without warning anyone. I knew in my heart of hearts that I should never return, but no word was spoken, and I continued a pleasant delusion with myself; I told my concierge that I would return in a month, and I left all to be sold, brutally ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... be excluded from the category of rational men. The term at once calls up images of stunted figures with ill-developed brains, half-witted creatures, hardly distinguishable from the admittedly insane. And this way of thinking of illusion and its subjects is strengthened by one of the characteristic sentiments of our age. The nineteenth century intelligence plumes itself on having got at the bottom of mediaeval visions and church miracles, and it is wont to commiserate the feeble minds that are ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... merely to look after the royal domain. They had become the servants of the nobility for hire. There was not a lord within the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Bordeaux but had his own chancellor in the court to look after his interests.[37] It was sufficiently characteristic that the same judicial body of which such things were said to its face (and which neither denied their truth nor grew indignant), should have been so solicitous for its dignity as to send the monarch, upon ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... and early experiences as have been indicated Champlain entered upon his career in the New World. It is {8} characteristic that he did not leave the army until his services were no longer needed. At the age of thirty-one he was fortunate enough to be freed from fighting against his own countrymen. In 1598 was signed the Peace of Vervins by which the enemies of Henry IV, both Leaguers and Spaniards, acknowledged ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... pretty of Carpaccio to make her dream out the angel's dress so particularly, and notice the slashed sleeves; and to dream so little an angel—very nearly a doll angel,—bringing her the branch of palm, and message. But the lovely characteristic of all is the evident delight of her continual life. Royal power over herself, and happiness in her flowers, her books, her sleeping and waking, her prayers, her dreams, her ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... apparently being exhausted, the two alley-farers lapsed into characteristic silence. Mr. Spratt leaned rather wearily against his own back fence, while Mr. Crow accepted the support of a telephone pole. Presently the former started to say something about the weather, but got no farther than the first two or ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... very touching, and characteristic of the two persons. Mrs. Woodward was sad enough, but her sadness was accompanied by a strength of affection that carried before it every obstacle. Norman was also sad; but he was at first stern and cold, and would have remained so to the last, had not his manly ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... where glistening bamboo and red geraniums screened the chest-weights along the walls, and feathery branches of pepper climbed luxuriantly over the inclined ladders, she found the crowd characteristic of this occasion,—the Freshman men at one end, the Freshman girls at the other, and between them a neutral zone of old students chatting gayly, oblivious of the purpose of the affair. Oh, but the reception committee! Save for ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... he walked out to St. Riquier in the afternoon, had tea there, and got back to dinner. A note was waiting for Peter, a characteristic one. ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... of Professor Craig, characteristic of that of the scientist, was marked by simplicity and directness of manner, impatience with error due to carelessness or intent, but unlimited benign tolerance of all men who honestly expressed views opposing his own or who made conscientious mistakes. Professor Craig possessed that broad humanity ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... beholders as "the author of a book you have probably not seen." (The work was a humorous romance, unique in its kind, and I am told is much tasted in a Cherokee translation, where the jokes are rendered with all the serious eloquence characteristic of the Red races.) This sort of distinction, as a writer nobody is likely to have read, can hardly counteract an indistinctness in my articulation, which the best-intentioned loudness will not remedy. Then, in some quarters my awkward ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... most lovable qualities is just that when I do attach myself I find it awful hard to pull loose again. Now, that's just what you don't like in me; but if you come to think of it, it's a real nice characteristic. And then, again, I'm not cranky; I'm real amiable; and you can't find a much nicer looking fellow than me. You'll be sorry, you may believe, if you don't cast a more ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... I paddled to the other end of the little lake to pick up the trail while the others broke camp. In a little while he located it, a well-defined path, and we walked across it half a mile to another and considerably larger lake in which was a small, round, moundlike, spruce-covered island so characteristic of the ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... stranger, old Mr. Lonner was seated near the side of his bed in his private apartment. Although weighed down by age and the grief that had oppressed his early life, he nevertheless possessed that gentleness and sociability, which had ever been the characteristic traits of his life. His flowing white locks fell around his countenance, from which the traces of manly beauty had not been entirely eradicated, and as he smoked his pipe with an air of dignified pleasure, he would occasionally ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... healthy, plump little man, with a plump little wife, and three plump little daughters. Plumpness was not only a characteristic of the Gambarts, but also of their surroundings, for the cottage in which they dwelt had a certain air of plumpness about it, and the spot on which it stood was a round ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... "I've been searching the house since eight o'clock and I can find no others. Those on the right are all from Milburgh. You'll find they're simply signed with an initial—a characteristic of his—but ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... but a casual examination on the part of one who had done considerable experimenting with explosives to disclose the fact that it had every characteristic of a dangerous bomb. Only the pulling out of the fuse had ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... this is sometimes a characteristic of fog. Fortunately he had already selected a keg upon which to sit, so with a patient fatalism, product of a brief but lurid career in Flemish trenches, he resigned himself to wait. The keg was dry, that was something, and if he spread the ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... do perceive very grave trouble there," said de Marmont with characteristic insouciance, "but one which need not greatly worry the Emperor. I am rich, thank God! and ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... comparatively small defense allocation (1% of GDP) helped Japan advance with extraordinary rapidity to the rank of second-most-technologically-powerful economy in the world after the US and third-largest economy after the US and China. One notable characteristic of the economy is the working together of manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors in closely-knit groups called keiretsu. A second basic feature has been the guarantee of lifetime employment for a substantial portion ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... and she soon won my youthful affections. "Gross flattery," as a friend of mine says, "is good enough for me!" Madame de Rhona was, moreover, very kind-hearted and generous. To her generosity I owed the first piece of jewelery I ever possessed—a pretty little brooch, which, with characteristic carelessness, I promptly lost! Besides being flattered by her praise and grateful for her kindness, I was filled with great admiration for her. She was a wee thing—like a toy, and her dancing was really exquisite. ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... proposal was not mine more than it was everybody's. The point in it which had the appearance of cruelty was that the penalty extended to the children who did not deserve any. But that is a thing of long standing and characteristic of all states. For instance, the children of Themistocles were in poverty. And if the same penalty attaches to citizens legally condemned in court, how could we be more indulgent to public enemies? What, moreover, can anyone say against me ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... basking in the sun-light, or toiling in the deadly Campagna plains, there must be some, who, if they knew it, descend in direct lineage from the ancient "Plebs." It may be so, or rather it must be so; but of the fact there is little outward evidence. You look in vain for the characteristic features of the old Roman face, such as you behold them when portrayed in ancient statues. The broad low brow, the depressed skull, the protruding under-jaw, and the thin compressed lips, are to be seen no longer. Indeed, though I make the remark with the fear of the ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... see is so characteristic of Holland, even the sunrises and sunsets. Nothing that you find in Holland could be in its right place anywhere else on earth; but perhaps one can hardly say that Holland is on earth. Now I've ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... inert, and timid, it never can be safe from the invasions of ability, unless it be, out of all proportion, predominant in the representation. It must be represented too in great masses of accumulation, or it is not rightly protected. The characteristic essence of property, formed out of the combined principles of its acquisition and conservation, is to be UNEQUAL. The great masses, therefore, which excite envy, and tempt rapacity, must be put out of the possibility of danger. Then they form a natural rampart about the lesser properties in ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... single Greyle characteristic," replied Mrs. Greyle, readily enough, "I ought to know—I married Valentine Greyle, and I knew Stephen John, and I saw plenty of both, and something of their father, too, and a little of Marcus before he emigrated. ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... fragments of heavy-element fission which are of greatest concern are those radioactive atoms (also called radionuclides) which decay by emitting energetic electrons or gamma particles. (See "Radioactivity" note.) An important characteristic here is the rate of decay. This is measured in terms of "half-life"—the time required for one-half of the original substance to decay—which ranges from days to thousands of years for the bomb-produced radionuclides of principal interest. (See "Nuclear Half-Life" note.) Another ...
— Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War: Some Perspectives • United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
... occasionally in windows during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But about the beginning of the thirteenth century[171] it began to be employed much more extensively, and in an incredibly short time practically superseded the round arch and became the characteristic feature of a new style, called Gothic. The adoption of the pointed arch had very important results. It enabled the builder to make arches of the same height but various widths, and of varying height and the same width. A round arch of a given span can be only half as high as it is wide, but the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... up to her knees Miss Minerva stepped gingerly along the wet and muddy street till she got to her gate, where her nephew met her, looking a little guilty, but still holding his head up with that characteristic, manly ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... and power of appreciating the results of historical research. Fitzjames 'combined these requirements in a wonderful way.' Sir F. Jeune makes reservations similar to those which I have had to notice in other applications, as to Fitzjames's want of the subtlety and closeness of reasoning characteristic of the greatest lawyers. He saw things 'rather broadly,' and his literary habits tended to distract him from the precise legal point. 'I always thought of his mind,' says Sir Francis, 'as of a very powerful telescope pulled out just a little too much.' The sharp definitions, perceptible ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... of that energy of which we have already treated two manifestations—heat and electricity. The distinguishing characteristic of ether light-waves is their extreme rapidity of vibration, which has been calculated to range from 700 billion movements per second for violet rays to 400 billion for ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... he re-entered the vestibule. Ida, who was going away much disturbed in mind, saw him come, and knew from the expression of his face that there would be trouble. With characteristic courage she turned, determined to brave ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... action,' murmured the Owl, falling unconsciously into his old habit of parsing. 'The English,' he added, 'are very generous with their abstract nouns, and will sacrifice or give away any quantity of them. It is a national characteristic, of which ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... rather frivolous if you did. No. What I have always admired in your character, Lucy, is a firm, logical consistency; a clearness of mental vision that leaves no side of a subject unsearched; and an unwavering constancy of purpose. You may say that these traits are characteristic of ALL women; but they are pre-eminently characteristic of you, Lucy." Miss Galbraith looks askance at him, to make out whether he is in earnest or not; he continues, with a perfectly serious air. "And I know now that if you're offended with me, it's for no trivial cause." She stirs uncomfortably ...
— The Parlor-Car • William D. Howells
... that the monk Gottschalk revived the question of predestination, which had slumbered since the time of Saint Augustine. Although the Bishop of Hippo was the oracle of the Church, and no one disputed his authority, it would seem that his characteristic doctrine,—that of grace; the essential doctrine of Luther also,—was never a favorite one with the great churchmen of the Middle Ages. They did not dispute Saint Augustine, but they adhered to penances and expiations, which entered so largely into ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... on the other hand, or manifest disapprobation in any way whatever, he being present at least in spirit, would, in the case of some of the incidents related, have been but little becoming. In view of these facts, the reverend dean, with the discretion which was characteristic of him, may possibly have composed the paralipomena, without disclosing his identity to the reader. This much is certain, however—he added notes and comments of an edifying and profitable character, where such or such a passage seemed to require them. But these I have suppressed, ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... more impersonal in his attitude toward government, and that very impersonality was the characteristic which most baffled the American people. Mr. Wilson had a genius for the advocacy of great principles, but he had no talent whatever for advocating himself, and to a country that is accustomed to think in headlines about political ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... they walked slowly up and down the moss-grown terrace—alone in this wonderful tropic night—while he told her the little tragedy of his life. He told the story simply, with characteristic gaps in the sequence, which she was left to ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... pretend a languid interest in the new ambitions of his fellow-prefects, and at Ainger's request entered his name for one of the events in the sports list. Railsford observed with some relief that he appeared to recognise the force of the rebuke which had been administered him, and with characteristic hopefulness was tempted to look ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... above, the following narrative is highly characteristic, and serves at once to a clear exposition of the savage and relentless feelings of the uncivilized negro. In a warlike excursion towards the Mahee or Ashantee borders, an enemy's town was surprised, and a great number of the inhabitants ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... thousand odd lines of this inspired poem are liberally enlivened with those characteristic flashes which Mr. Geek's previous efforts have led us to expect. Nothing could be happier than the following, descriptive of the hero's early days ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... Say something to me! A shrill, soft, throaty, harsh, murmuring, screaming voice that had one basic characteristic. It ...
— A Spaceship Named McGuire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... his art, the character of an art belonging to no distinctive school and having no definite relation to the time and country in which it is produced. But it is not Mr. Vedder's art alone that is home-made. It is precisely the characteristic note of our modern art that all of it that is good for anything is home-made or self-made. Each artist has had to create his art as best he could out of his own temperament and his own experience—has ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... yellowed sheets of paper—small sheets, written close, and in a peculiar hand. He had often studied the handwriting, and believed if he had seen it again he should know it. It was small but strong and characteristic, though that was not what ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... each Jarmuthian clearly betrayed his Hebraic origin in huge, fleshy nose and pendulous lower lip, so characteristic of the Semitic race. They were fierce, shaggy fellows, naked from the waist up save for a kind of jointed body armor, reminiscent of a Roman legionnaire's. Their long abundant blue-black hair was either plaited or flowed uncut over splendidly muscled shoulders. Their beards ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... enim est fam angusti animi, tamque parvi, quam amare divitias nihil honestius, magnifi entrusque, quam pecuniam contemnere, si non habeas si habeas, ad beneficentiam liberalitem que conferre. "There is no surer characteristic of a narrow and little mind than to love riches, nothing more amiable and noble than to despise money if you possess it not—if you possess it, to be beneficent and liberal in the use of it." Cic. De ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... cares with the characteristic indifference of youth for the attentions of age. She was not at the back of the motives which prompted him, and thought him tiresome with his mild way of getting to know so many things that were no concern of his. The shrewd guesses ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... sort of internal cloud peculiar to many organizations, and which, in paroxysms of passion and sorrow, dilates as the temperature of the soul changes, and invades the entire man, to such a degree as to render him nothing more than a conscience bathed in a mist. We have more than once indicated this characteristic element ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... temper like that of steel, makes him unfit for nothing so much as to sit still. Men have indeed written like human beings in the midst of great cities, but not often when they have shared the city's characteristic life, its struggle for place and for gain. There are not many places that belong to a city's life to which you can "invite your soul." Its haste, its preoccupations, its anxieties, its rushing noise ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson
... my son," said the author of my being, with characteristic pomposity, which age had not withered, "there is sufficient for but two. I am not, I hope, insensible to the hunger-light ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... shrinking soul stood forth at the last, telling all the world that he died in the faith of Christ, "trusting to be saved by His blood only, and by no other trumpery." Strange words from one of the weakest men that ever lived!—yet it is the special characteristic of Christ's strength that it is "made perfect in weakness." It may be chiefly when His children come to die that they understand the full meaning of that passage, "He hath abolished death." For our faith, as it has been said, is ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... less a moral philosopher than a preacher of virtue. Self-ordained as a censor and reformer, he directed his invective and irony principally against the Sophists, whose chief characteristic as to philosophy seems to have been the denial of objective truth, and thus, of absolute and determinate right. Socrates, in contrast with them, seeks to elicit duty from the occasions for its exercise, making his collocutors define ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... or contradictory evidence, at all times so necessary to a traveller, and indispensably so at the period when he travelled, and in most of the countries where his enquiries and his researches were carried on. His great and characteristic merit consists in freeing his mind from the opinions which must have previously occupied it;—in trusting entirely either to what e himself saw, or to what he learned from the best authority;—always, however, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... Matt. iii. 15 ([Greek: houtos gar prepon estin haemin plaerosai pasan dikaiosynaen]), which also has no parallel in the other Gospels. The use of the phrase [Greek: plaerosai pasan dikaiosynaen] is so peculiar, and falls in so entirely with the characteristic Christian Judaizing of our first Evangelist, that it seems especially unreasonable to refer it to any one else. There is not the smallest particle of evidence to connect it with the Gospel according to the Hebrews to which our author seems to hint that it may belong; indeed all that ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... been here a moment or two ago and must have gone in a hurry. That could only mean he was aware of Rupert's return and was warned and suspicious. It is perhaps characteristic of Rupert's passionate and eager temperament that only now did it occur to him that he was quite unarmed and that without a weapon of any kind he was matching himself against as reckless and as formidable a ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... honest pride and complacency which her alliance with the present and future proprietor could fairly warrant, as she viewed the respectable size and style of the building, its suitable, becoming, characteristic situation, low and sheltered—its ample gardens stretching down to meadows washed by a stream, of which the Abbey, with all the old neglect of prospect, had scarcely a sight—and its abundance of timber in rows and avenues, which neither fashion nor extravagance had rooted up.—The ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... invitation at night, sat on the floor with their backs to the wall, with nothing in the center of the room but a regulation football. There they got together, talked things over, made suggestions and comparisons. And it is said of Camp that he would do more listening by far than talking. This was characteristic, for although he knew so much of the game he was willing to get every point of view ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... It is characteristic of the social and political condition of this time that the postal service was not carried on by the state, but was in the hands of the various municipalities, convents and universities. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries national power and national life made ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... hurrying to and fro in those little flying corricoli which are peculiar to Naples. As we approached, the explosions became more and more vivid, and at every tremendous burst of fire our friend L** jumped half off his seat, making most loud and characteristic exclamations,—"By Jove! a magnificent fellow! now for it, whizz! there he goes, sky high, by George!" The rest of the party were equally enthusiastic in a different style; and I sat silent and quiet from absolute inability to express what I felt. ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... compensation more of the sun, more places for birds and their nests, more beauty, and so on. I told him that Balzac expressed the same idea in fewer words, and for a moment he looked worried. Balzac said, "Our children are our hostages to Fate." And each way of expressing the similar idea is characteristic of the man. In many ways Father was like a wide-spreading tree—his intense nature was one that caught all the sun and beauty of life, enough and more to compensate for the sorrow and pain he knew. ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... with you all the days." Just draw the folds closer round you, of that robe of light with which Christ would array you. Just come and acknowledge that Christ is with you, on you, in you. Oh, put Him on! And when you look at one characteristic of His after another; and you hear God's word, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Jesus Christ," and it tells you He was obedient unto the death; and then you answer, Christ the obedient one, Christ whose whole life was obedience, ...
— 'Jesus Himself' • Andrew Murray
... an even greater change; she had now attained her full height, her figure had filled out, and she stood on the threshold of womanhood and bid fair to attain a high degree of beauty of the type characteristic of her nationality. Her hair was dark, her eyes gray, her expression changing rapidly from grave to gay, the latter ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... of Dr. Harris, on the 11th, and were received by him with the characteristic kindness with which friends or strangers are ever welcomed by that gentleman, He had accompanied Mr. Oxley as a volunteer in 1818, and his name was then given to the mount which formed the extreme point to which the main body of the first expedition down the banks of the ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... lover, with a mute obedience characteristic of impassioned natures at times, and when they had wrapped themselves up over head and ears in the sailcloth again, they plunged back into the now thick night. Tess was so receptive that the few minutes of contact with the whirl of material ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... substituted for massive, and the sense of weight of wall was lost in a wilderness of upright or undulating rods. Of the richest and most delicate wall veil decoration by inlaid work, as practised in Italy from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, I have given the reader two characteristic examples in Plates ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... he loved can never be forgotten by its people, an amnesty was promised to those who had taken part in the insurrection, and the troubles would have come to an end had not Riel, in a moment of recklessness, characteristic of his real nature, tried {391} one Thomas Scott by the veriest mockery of a court-martial on account of some severe words he had uttered against the rebels' government, and had him mercilessly shot outside the fort. As Scott was a native of Ontario, and an Orangeman, his murder aroused a widespread ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... yards and not discern them. In one of the huts acorns and dried salmon had been stored; the other was their habitation. There was a small hearth for indoor cooking; bows, arrows, fishing tackle, a few aboriginal utensils and a fur robe were found. These were confiscated in the white man's characteristic manner. They then left the place and ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... produces a disagreeable glare. The city is distinguished by its somewhat deceptive air of cleanliness, its quiet streets, where no wheeled traffic passes, and its lavish use of white Italian marble. But the most characteristic feature of Cadiz is the marine promenades, fringing the city all round between the ramparts and the sea, especially that called the Alameda, on the eastern side, commanding a view of the shipping ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Rome.... A state too large in itself, or together with its dependent territories, finally decays and its free form reverts to a tyrannical one, the principles which should conserve it relax, and at last it evolves into despotism. The characteristic of the small republics is permanency; that of the large ones is varied, but always tends to an empire. Almost all of the former have been of long duration; among the latter Rome alone lived for some centuries, but this was because the capital was a republic, and the rest ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... beautiful view, with the sun striking the wide Pacific, with a blazing glare of silver and below the wooded slope of the mountains, stretched an apparently level plain, where roamed countless cattle, and innumerable sheep. It had all the breadth characteristic of the ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... themselves down on a bench in the walk, and though I did not seem to notice them, I hastened home; and the next day, in talking with our kind Madame Savarin, and alluding to these quiet walks of mine, she hinted, with the delicacy which is her characteristic, that the customs of Paris did not allow demoiselles comme il faut to walk alone even in the most sequestered paths ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the altar and with the tabernacle. He is not satisfied with being our daily sacrifice and our abiding friend, not satisfied until He enters into our very bosom and unites us to Himself. Union with the beloved object and delight in its presence are characteristic of all true friendship, whether human or divine. That which we really love we desire to have, to possess, to be united with; and hence it is that Christ, the lover of our souls, has not only given His life to purchase us for Himself and Heaven, but ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... possesses the whole. The Catholicity of the Church is but the expansion of its Unity. It stands therefore as its permanent and outward manifestation. Should we now wonder why the Church of Christ is called Catholic? We name things and persons by that characteristic feature which conveys to our mind the most accurate concept of them. The very name of the Church is, as you see, an ever living proof of her divinity. And of that name, we may well say what is said of the name of Jesus . . . signum cui contradicetur . . . ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... recognized the duke, bent his knee in reverence. They mounted a heavy flight of stairs, and, traversing an arched gallery, were ushered into the principal hall. This large room was hung with solemn tapestry, reaching from the ceiling to the floor. The characteristic piety of these ages displayed itself in the beautiful recesses in the walls, adapted to the reception of holy water, and in the devices upon the floor and ceiling, which always conveyed some pious meaning. The walls were covered with paintings chiefly relating to the exploits of the lords ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... domain. These forty intendants were the men who really bridged the great administrative gulf which lay between the royal court and the people. They were the most conspicuous, the most important, and the most characteristic officials of the old regime. Without them the royal authority would have tumbled over by its own sheer top-heaviness. They were the eyes and ears of the monarchy; they provided the monarch with fourscore ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... look at several possibilities which I had hitherto put aside as impracticable because they had to be taken for a term of three to five years. Bridget would go with me—dear, lawless, laughter-loving Bridget, who entered into the play with refreshing zest. Bridget had the real characteristic Irish faculty of looking upon life as an amusing game, and the more novel and unorthodox the game was, the better she was pleased. "Sure it's your own face! It's for you to do what you please with it!" was the easy comment with which she accepted my proposed disguise. ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Troitsa is of solid gold with the exception of Judas, which is of brass. Another is in the sacristy of the church of the Assumption at Moscow. From its inscription we learn that it was made for the grand duke Ivan Vassilievitch in 1486, and it is a characteristic specimen of Russian art of ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... what reasons I cannot say positively, but I suspect they are determined not to assist me, although they were lavish of their offers when they supposed I never would be reduced to the necessity of accepting them. Such conduct is characteristic of excessive meanness of spirit, and I confess I am deceived in my opinion of them most egregiously. True it is, that instances of this kind of behaviour often occur in our intercourse with mankind; but, from the fortunes ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... blush. For it strikes me as so intimately characteristic of our whole relation—in that earlier stage, at least—that I should have written all this on the subject of Heber Pogson without making one solitary mention of his wife. She existed. Was permanently in ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... large looking-glass in the corner of the room trying to improve the shape of his tie; and it was characteristic of him that, although he had not seen his father for eighteen years, he was thinking a great deal more about his tie than about ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... It was characteristic of Colonel Winchester, a man of the finest feelings, that he should have Shepard instead of himself carry the map to General Sheridan. He wanted the spy to have the full measure of credit, including the outward show, for the triumph he had achieved with the aid of his sister. And ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... interests of his Gascon subjects, and an attempt to protect the Bordeaux wine-merchants from the exactions of the royal officers aroused the jealousy of Henry, who declared that the days of Henry II. had come again, when the king's sons rose in revolt against their father. Despite this characteristic wail, Edward gained his point. Yet his efforts to secure the well-being of Gascony had not produced much result. The hold of the English duke on Aquitaine was as precarious under Edward as it had been in the days ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... that old wornout machine!" And for a brief moment he watched, with a glance in which there was at least as much admiration as pity, the Marquis, who was disappearing down the Rue de la Propagande, and who walked at the rapid pace characteristic of monomaniacs. They follow their thoughts instead of heeding objects. However, the care he exercised in avoiding the sun's line for the shade attested the instincts of an old Roman, who knew the danger of the first rays of spring beneath that blue sky. ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... not destroy the primal instinct which leads men to the soil nor does a handsome dividend from stocks give the unalloyed pleasure awakened by a basket of fresh eggs or fruit. This love of the earth is not earthiness, but has been the characteristic of the best and greatest minds. Washington would turn from the anxieties of a campaign and the burdens of state to read, with absorbing interest, the reports of the agent who managed his plantation, and to write out the minutest details for the ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... importance, that it seems neglectful, and a strong instance of that want of coherent philosophic method for which Mr. Frederic Harrison blames me, to leave the aristocratic class so much without notice and denomination. It may be thought that the characteristic which I have occasionally mentioned as proper to aristocracies,—their natural inaccessibility, as children of the established fact, to ideas,—points to our extending to this class also the designation of Philistines; ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... natural and artificial pigments and colours so called. It was the fertility and abundance of browns that caused our great landscape-colourist Wilson, when a friend went exultingly to tell him that he had discovered a new brown, to check him in his characteristic way, with—"I'm sorry for it: we have gotten too many of them already." Nevertheless, fine transparent browns are obviously ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... voice which he had heard at the hospital. Captain Cronin was anxious to speak to Mr. Williams, who was calling on Mr. Hepburn! With the biggest jolt of this day of surprises Shirley disconnected and whistled. Again he laughed—with that grim chuckle which was so characteristic of his supreme battling mood! They had found the trail even quicker than he had expected. Fortunate it was that he had not mentioned his own name in telephoning from the hospital to Howard. Not a wire was safe from these mysterious eaves-droppers now. He hurried into a business suit, and left ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball |
