"Critical point" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... words to be taken seriously—nay, his purpose was the very opposite. True: and precisely that is the reason why his words are likely to operate effectually, and why they should be feared. Here lies the critical point which most of all distinguishes this faith. Words took effect, not merely in default of a serious use, but exactly in consequence of that default. It was the chance word, the stray word, the word uttered in jest, or in trifling, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... than amusement. Hardship had only degraded Mr. Marmaduke the more, and even in trouble his memory was convenient as is that of most people in prosperity. I was of no mind to jog his recollection. But I wanted badly to ask about his Grace. Where had my fine nobleman been at the critical point of his friend's misfortunes? For I had had many a wakeful night over that same query since my talk ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Ned lay between life and death; then the fever left him, and the most critical point of his illness was reached. It was for days a question whether he had strength left to rally from his exhaustion. But youth and a good constitution triumphed at last, and six weeks from the day on which he was brought in, he started in a litter ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... that had otherwise been overlooked. In listening to the shouter, they may perceive how very entirely he is wrong; and, none the less, make the useful discovery that he is a good shouter. This then becomes the critical point. Having gained his hearing, will he condescend to moderate his views and listen to a little wisdom from older and more experienced men; or will he be obtuse enough to continue to stamp and shout on his tub, for fear people ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... apologised for the postilions, explaining that when they came to the critical point of their journey, where the road branched off to the Langdales, the snow was falling so thickly, the whole country was so hidden in all-pervading whiteness, that even he, who knew the way so well, could give no help to the drivers. He could only trust to the instinct of ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... since. I confusedly recollect delays and alarms that tried our patience and our courage. I remember our finding friends (thanks to our letters of recommendation) in a Secretary to the Embassy and in a Queen's Messenger, who assisted and protected us at a critical point in the journey. I recall to mind a long succession of men in our employment as travelers, all equally remarkable for their dirty cloaks and their clean linen, for their highly civilized courtesy to women and ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... always hit the bull's-eye. He was like a great burning-glass, concentrating the rays of the sun upon a single spot; he burned a hole wherever he went. After finding the weak place in the enemy's ranks, he would mass his men and hurl them like an avalanche upon the critical point, crowding volley upon volley, charge upon charge, till he made a breach. What a lesson of the power concentration there is ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... handicapped by his absence at the most critical point in his love affair, took advantage of it to exhibit one of his most brilliant accomplishments. He sent Eleanor a handsome tooled-leather portfolio to hold his letters, which he wrote on loose-leaf sheets and mailed unfolded. They were ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... nice girl to marry! Her faith in him, often shaken and as often renewed, had somehow taken deeper root since their talk of the night before. Charlie was beginning to tire of his riotous living. He was beginning to want the better things. But in his present mood she saw a danger. He had come to a critical point in his career, and he would either go up or down. There would be no middle course with him. Knowing him as she did, she realized that a very little pressure would incline him either way. She felt as if his very life ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... a little moved by the speciousness of the pleading. The incidental reference to that one grief of his brother's life was of a kind which could never fail to arouse generous sympathy in his heart. But Mr. Landale had not come to the critical point of his say, and he did not choose to allow the chapter of emotion ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... room where we felt sure his family was gathered, but it was evident that his thoughts did, and that most painfully. The Coroner, on the contrary, showed little or no feeling; he had brought the investigation up to this critical point and felt fully competent to ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... that my dauntless boarding-party, axe in hand and cutlass between teeth, fought their way to the pirates' deck only to be repulsed again and yet again, and that our planks were soon slippery with our own ungrudged and inexhaustible blood. At this critical point in the conflict, the bo'sun, grasping me by the arm, drew my attention to a magnificent British man-of-war, just hove to in the offing, while the signalman, his glass at his eye, reported that she was inquiring whether we wanted any assistance or preferred to go ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... snatched from her Empire by Death's cruel clutches; When to Heaven she came (for thither she went) Each Angel received her with Joy and Content. On her knees she fell down, Before the bright Throne, And begged that God's Mother would grant her one Boon: Give England a Son (at this Critical Point) To put little ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... always feel specially grateful to friends who, like you, have given me a child-friendship and a woman-friendship. About nine out of ten, I think, of my child-friendships get ship-wrecked at the critical point, "where the stream and river meet," and the child-friends, once so affectionate, become uninteresting acquaintances, whom I have no wish ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... honesty, courage and generosity he has fairly earned the happiness which he enjoys. Nor has he forgotten Nancy and the Indian maiden who rendered him so essential a service at a critical point in his fortunes. Every year he sends them a handsome present, choosing the articles which are best suited ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... moment, the sentry who always stood on guard without the door of the sick bay entered the cabin, and saluting Captain Farmer, said the first lieutenant wished to speak to him; whereupon the captain, apologising for having to absent himself at such a critical point, at once withdrew, saying that he would not ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... reprinted in Stevenson's Early Reviews, in Rossetti's Life of Keats, in Buxton Forman's edition of Keats' Poetical Works (Appendix V) and elsewhere. From a critical point of view, it is, as Forman terms it, a "curiously unimportant production." The student will at once question its power to cause distress in the mind of the poet; as for malignant severity, there are several reviews among the present reprints that put the brief ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... between virtue and vice. In simply showing us this life as it is acted out by all kinds of people, he shows perpetually the beauty of courage, truth, tenderness, purity, and the ugliness of their opposites. Measure him at the most critical point, chastity. His plays have plenty of coarseness; they have touches, though very rarely, of voluptuous description; but they always leave us with the sense that purity is noble and impurity is evil. It is striking to note the tone in this respect of his ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... a moment to consider what was Raleigh's condition and fame at this critical point in his life. He was over fifty years of age, but in health and spirits much older than his time of life suggested; his energy had shown signs of abatement, and for five years he had done nothing that had drawn public attention strongly to his gifts. ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... of Ardant du Picq take up, in a poignant way, the setting of every military drama. They envelop in a circle of invariable phenomena the apparent irregularity of combat, determining the critical point in the outcome of the battle. Whatever be the conditions, time or people, he gives a code of rules which will not perish. With the enthusiasm of Pascal, who should have been a soldier, Ardant du Picq has the preeminent gift of expressing ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... men behind the dead horse were not deceived by this excitement into rising to their knees. They realised that this was the critical point in the fight, and they shot hard and fast, concentrating all the energy of their souls into the steady glare of their eyes over the sights of the smoking rifles. In a moment the foremost warrior was trying to leap his pony ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... varying fortune. Victory, that appeared about to perch first on one banner, and then on the other, held aloof, as if disdaining to favor either. The odds, indeed, had been rather with the confederates than against them, for Stuart managed to out-number his adversary at every critical point, though Gregg forced the fighting, putting Stuart on his defense, and checkmating his plan to fight an offensive battle. But the wily confederate had kept his two choicest brigades in reserve for the supreme moment, intending then to throw them ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... no means so mysterious in reality as it appeared to me. Yet what could it have been? or, rather, how can I appropriate it for my purposes? I have it! The very situation of looking through a window shall serve as the critical point in my story, only it shall be the hero of my story, and not an idle spectator like myself, who does the looking. The young poet, Wilding in disguise, only walks out at night. He is a shy fellow, who even in public holds his hat, as it were, before his face. He keeps by himself ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... the matter of costume. The men adopt the Russian costume very gradually; the women adopt it at once. As soon as a single woman gets a gaudy Russian dress, every other woman in the village feels envious and impatient till she has done likewise. I remember once visiting a Mordva village when this critical point had been reached, and a very characteristic incident occurred. In the preceding villages through which I had passed I had tried in vain to buy a female costume, and I again made the attempt. This time the ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... this new attack, lay helpless, consumed by the fierce fever which rioted in all her veins. Fiercer and fiercer it grew, until she reached a critical point, where her condition was more perilous than that of Lord Chetwynde himself. But, in spite of all that she had suffered, her constitution was strong. Tender hands were at her service, kindly hearts sympathized ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Pani was clearing from the frequent light falls of snow. A canoe was being rowed by some Indians and in the stern sat the dearly-loved Commander. "They have come! they have come!" shouted Rose, and she ran in to spread the joyful news. Destournier and Giffard were at a critical point in a game of chess, but both sprang up. The bell pealed out, there was a salute, and every one in the fort rushed out with exclamations of joy. For the sake of the little girl he had left, the Sieur ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... to describe her whole past; and at the moment when she opens her mouth the courtroom disappears and fades into the scene in which the love adventure began. Then we pass through a long set of scenes which lead to the critical point, and at that moment we slide back into the courtroom and the woman finishes her confession. That is an external substitution of the pictures for the words, esthetically on a much lower level than the other case where the past was living only in the memory ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... a critical point in his undertaking. Lydia watched in silence the deft manipulations of his strong, brown fingers, wondering at the eager, almost sparkling, alertness with which he went from one step to another of the ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... to our reckoning, we ought to reach the depot in 83deg. S. This was the last of our depots that was not marked at right angles to the route, and therefore the last critical point. The day was not altogether suited for finding the needle in the haystack. It was calm with a thick fog, so thick that we could only see a few yards in front of us. We did not see a single beacon on the whole march. At 4 p.m. we had completed the distance, according to the sledge-meters, ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... bird of paradise rising in the sage-brush was an avatar. One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim. King, like Adams, and all their generation, was at that moment passing the critical point of his career. The one, coming from the west, saturated with the sunshine of the Sierras, met the other, drifting from the east, drenched in the fogs of London, and both had the same problems to handle — the same stock of implements — the same field to work in; above ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... life does not depend upon the existence of the material world I hold as now proved by actual evidence. That it is in some way continuous with the world of ether I can well suppose. But for our minds there must needs be a "critical point" in any such imagined continuity; so that the world where life and thought are carried on apart from matter, must certainly rank again as a new, a metetherial environment. In giving it this name I expressly imply only that from our human point of view it ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... just as I planned it," he said, "but, Captain, you helped us out at a critical point there on the right. I shall mention you in despatches. You may depend on being promoted and given a good post. You ought to have a regiment ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... news—enough to dread more. But when he heard that the girl had actually been in High March Castle, had been expelled from it, he crossed himself and thanked God for all His mercies. He became a devout Christian at this critical point in Isoult's career, whereby her neck was saved a second time from the rope. He felt a certain pity—she a handsome girl, too, though his type for choice was blonde —for her simplicity, and, as he certainly wished to obtain ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... after their arrival inflicted a disastrous defeat on the Russians at Tannenburg, driving them back practically to their own borders. But the damage had been done. The armies of the west had been weakened at a critical point, and General Joffre was given the opportunity he had been seeking since ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... in the committee had indicated that we would probably withdraw from the convention if it adopted the single gold platform as dictated by Senator Lodge of Massachusetts acting for a group of Republican leaders headed by Platt of New York, and Aldrich of Rhode Island. At the most critical point of our controversy I received a message from Church headquarters warning me that "we" had made powerful friends among the leading men of the nation and that we ought not to jeopardize their friendship by an inconsiderate insurgency. Accordingly, in bolting ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... of the widow. There was need for dispatch. The time was drawing near when it might be man's unkind privilege to put her scornfully aside as a thing spent and done with. She must bring down her bird, and that quickly. It was at this critical point in the widow's career, in the year 1873, that she met at a public ball for the first time ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... the long-legged Conway out in left field sprinting like a huge grasshopper in hopes of getting under the soaring ball in time to set himself for the catch. As if by a preconcerted signal everybody in the grandstand and the bleachers stood up, the better to see what happened, because it was a most critical point of the game. ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... now arrived at the critical point, not only of the third Austrian invasion, but of all the military operations in the Serbian theatre. If the Austrians should now again be driven back, it would be practically impossible for them to make another invasion unaided, at least so long as ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... deep water, but Toyatte, usually so cautious, determined to cross it, and after giving particular directions, with an encouraging shout every oar and paddle was strained to shoot through a narrow gap. Just at the most critical point a big wave heaved us aloft and dropped us between two huge rounded boulders, where, had the canoe been a foot or two closer to either of them, it must have been smashed. Though I had offered no objection to our experienced pilot's plan, it looked dangerous, and ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... felt that the president was now approaching the critical point, and redoubled their ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... general appreciation, he must place the blame elsewhere than with his subject, and it is a fact that by some repetitions and contradictions, as well as by a tendency to let one down at what should be the critical point of his yarns, he has done something to alienate a public—such as myself—entirely predisposed in his favour. It remains to say, all the same, that this little volume is in the main a sincere and obviously well-informed account of the doings of the men of our air ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... introduced of the siege and capture of Syene by the Ethiopians, and the victory of Hydaspes over Oroondates, which occupies the whole of the ninth book; and though in itself not ill told, is misplaced, as interrupting the narrative at the most critical point of the story. Peace is at last concluded between the belligerents; and Hydaspes, returning in triumph to his capital of Meroe, holds a grand national festival of thanksgiving, at which the victims ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... cause of General Hooker's seeming stupefaction at the critical point of the Chancellorsville battle has been much discussed but never satisfactorily explained. It has been thought that he was disabled by the shock of a cannon-ball striking a post or pillar of the house where ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... toil my way up the rugged side of the Grimsel, consumed two more hours, and glad was I to come in view of the little chill-looking sheet of water on its summit, which is called the Lake of the Dead. The path was filled with snow, at a most critical point, where, indeed, a misplaced footstep might betray the incautious to their destruction. A large party on the other side appeared fully aware of the difficulty, for it had halted, and was in earnest ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Cordova was captured, but it had almost instantly to be abandoned. At once Napoleon changed his carefully studied but futile strategy, and determined to concentrate the scattered columns on the critical point, wherever it might be. By this time Palafox and others of the Spanish leaders had shown great ability as generals. The danger now was that a Spanish army would seize Madrid, and thither the French army must betake itself. On July fourteenth Bessieres successfully overwhelmed the opposition made ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... sufficiently strong escort that the city merchant had already lost much of the profit he had looked to derive from the voyage. When at length a convoy was provided it was on the understanding that the greater part of the force should withdraw as soon as the most critical point of the voyage should be passed, leaving but barely twenty sail, under Rooke, to accompany the merchantmen through the Straits of Gibraltar. It was in vain that Rooke protested. The danger was the more hazardous ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... Birch-Hirschfield's Geschichte der Franz. Litt.) The adventure in question is a 'Gawain' adventure; we do not know whence it was derived, and it may well have been included in an early version of the romance. Apart from the purely literary question, from the strictly critical point of view the adventure is here obviously out of place, and entirely devoid of raison d'etre. If the origins of the Grail legend is really to be found in these cults, which are not a dead but a living tradition (how ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... club and, except for the brand of the poker on his forehead, a pretty good fellow. Unfortunately Mr. HASLETTE rudely slices the knot of his difficulty by making Edmund embezzle money and abscond at the critical point of the story. The telling of the yarn is a little humdrum, but gains from a comparative leniency in the matter of local colour—for I feel that Sta. Malua is the sort of place which might have been rather ruthless about this—and the suspended banns ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... have fathomed her. It never occurred to me that she was deep enough to drop a plummet in. I, the burden-bearer, the caretaker, the worrier; I, who am opprobriously called "the manager" in this family—I have failed them at this critical point in their household history. I did not foresee, I did not forecast, I did not worry, I did not manage. It did not occur to me to manage after we had got Peggy safely graduated and engaged, and now this dreadful thing has ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... his first literary efforts received, but having obtained some preferment from his patron, we now come to a critical point in his life. He retreated from the world, and, during a seclusion of near twenty years, persevered in uninterrupted studies. The force of his character placed him in the first order of thinking beings. This resolution no more to court the world for literary favours, but to ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... enough to do it; the moon is not. By simply piling atoms or stones together into a mighty mass there comes a critical point at which an atmosphere becomes possible; and directly an atmosphere exists, all manner of phenomena may spring into existence, which ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... depends on some reference to sexual relations or actions But such references are not, as a rule, coarsely put, but rather hinted at merely, often in a somewhat obscure way; E.G. such a story may terminate before the critical point is reached with some such phrase as "Well, well, what of it?" and a ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... diametrical opposition between two schools, one of which regarded the church as a simple abuse, and its doctrines as effete superstitions, while the other looked to the church and its creed as giving the sole hope for suppressing the evil principle, was a critical point in later movements, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... and dark, and going out on to my balcony only in the evening to surrender myself to the influence of the summer air. Two good horn-players gave me great pleasure by providing a performance of simple folk-songs almost regularly in a skiff on the lake. In my work, too, I had now luckily passed the critical point, and in spite of its sorrowful character, the more subdued mood of that part of my poem which I had still to master, threw me into a sincere spiritual ecstasy, during which I completed the composition of the whole work by the beginning ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Biscayan and the renowned Don Quixote with drawn swords uplifted, ready to deliver two such furious slashing blows that if they had fallen full and fair they would at least have split and cleft them asunder from top to toe and laid them open like a pomegranate; and at this so critical point the delightful history came to a stop and stood cut short without any intimation from the author where what was ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the work with an energy, an earnestness of purpose, to which the past bears no parallel, too late will they repent the folly of their own supineness, their own blindness. As in the affairs of men, so in those of nations, there is a critical point when those who hope for success must seize the winged moment as it flies and work steadily on with singleness of aim and unchangeable, unfaltering devotion of purpose. That moment, once past, will never return. Now is our golden opportunity, and according as we improve or neglect it will ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... on the crux of them—their most critical point of all. "There!" said she. "Did you hear that? I knew we should ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... her voice rather low, "which ever of us is right, I think we must be getting near rather a critical point. Don't you think you had better send off that wire ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... sweet nature and of wide experience. He taught me Latin grammar principally; but he often helped me in arithmetic, which I found as troublesome as it was uninteresting. Mr. Irons also read with me Tennyson's "In Memoriam." I had read many books before, but never from a critical point of view. I learned for the first time to know an author, to recognize his style as I recognize the clasp of ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... books, the wonder of it, the horror of it, the quick admiration for brave deeds and daring men, give place, in "The River War," to the critical point of view of the military expert, and in his two books on the Boer war to the rapid impressions of the journalist. In these latter books he tells you of battles he has seen, in the first one ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... teased me with exasperating banter; and, inheriting from some of my progenitors a vindictive temper, I once retaliated severely. We were in the sitting-room with my father and some others, while I was tortured. The chancery-suit was just then approaching its most critical point, and, to inflict the cruellest stroke I could think of, I looked him in the face, and expressed a hope that he would be beaten in the trial and have his children taken from him. I was sitting on his knee, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... a critical point in the story," said Clovis. "As soon as he had been carefully adjusted in the prescribed position over the hives, and almost before the gaolers had time to retire to a safe distance, Vespaluus gave a lusty and well-aimed kick, which sent all three hives toppling ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... unquestioned evil of over-population which exists in a great part of the civilised world—is the remedy proposed by Malthus so doubtful that probably it would lead to greater evils than the one which it is intended to remedy? Dr. Knowlton suggests—and here we come to the critical point of this inquiry—he suggests that, instead of marriage being postponed, it shall be hastened. He suggests that marriage shall take place in the hey-day of life, when the passions are at their highest, and that the evils of over-population shall be remedied by persons, ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... After the Cantigny fight they were hurried to the front. The main point to which they were sent at first was Chateau-Thierry, north of the Marne, the nearest point to Paris reached by the enemy. There, at the very critical point of the great German Drive, they not only checked the enemy but, by a ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... considered it advisable to go in person to the critical point, and ascertain by his own inspection the true facts about the guns. On his way to the front, he informed Major-General Hildyard that the attack, as originally planned, was to be given up, and instructed him to advance two of his battalions ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... increasing pressure, a gas retains all the heat evolved, its resisting force is absolutely unlimited", harmonizes with the inductively-reached result that if the temperature is not lowered to its "critical point" a gas does not liquify, however great the force applied. At the same time Prof. Andrews' experiments imply that, supposing the temperature to be lowered to the point at which liquefaction becomes possible, then liquefaction ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... repeatedly referred to in all the accounts. These may have been due, not only to the sudden explosions of steam directly produced by the ocean water coming in contact with the molten lava, but by dissociation of the vapour of water at the critical point of temperature into its elements of oxygen and hydrogen; the reunion of these elements at the required temperature would also ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... immediately beneath this projection gaped a deep fissure or donga, on the brink of which we now stood, originally dug out, no doubt, by the rush of water from the peak and cliff. This gulf beneath would be trying to the nerves of a weak-headed climber at the critical point, and so it proved in the result. The projecting angle once passed, the remainder of the ascent was very simple. At the summit, however, the brow of the cliff hung over and was pierced by a single narrow path cut through it by water, in such fashion ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... they were silent. At last he said: "I know I haven't much to recommend me. I'm a little beggar—nothing to look at; I'm pretty poor; I've had no influence to push me on; and just at the critical point in my career—when I was expecting promotion—I get this set-back, and lose your good opinion, which is more to me, though I say it bluntly like a sailor, than the praise of all the Lords of the Admiralty, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... with a frown. At this critical point in the conversation, little Fred, who was afraid that a storm was on the point of bursting forth, chanced to overturn his tin mug of tea. His mother was one of those obtuse women who regard an accident as a sin, to be visited by summary punishment. Her usual method of inflicting punishment was ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... to indicate one further application of economic principles. A critical point in the modern development of the study was marked by Mill's abandonment of the so-called "wage fund theory". That doctrine is now generally mentioned with contempt, as the most conspicuous instance of an entirely exploded theory. It is often said that ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... to make out a title to the ministry by tracing his ecclesiastical descent; for no contemporary records enable us to prove a connexion between the inspired founders of our religion, and those who were subsequently entrusted with the government of the Church. At the critical point where, had it been deemed necessary, we might have had the light of inspiration, we are left to wander in total darkness. We are thus shut up to the conclusion that the claims of those who profess to be heralds of the gospel are to be tested by some other criterion than their ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... way into crime. The victory creates an epoch in his life. He is from that hour, without a miracle of grace, a lost man. The earth is strewed with wrecks of character which were occasioned by one fatal determination at a critical point in life, when the will stood face to face with duty, and had to make its decision ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... up in the market train he was carrying a large paper parcel, and attempted a joke with Peter at a window of the third. From a critical point of view it was beneath notice, but as Lachlan's first effort it ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... of the domination of the Church in effacing all kinds of culture, by the liberal and educated Spaniard of to-day, and that there is, even now, an extreme party which would fain see the "Holy Office" re-established, with all its old powers, it is easy to understand at what a critical point the clerical question has arrived in Spain; nor need one wonder at the feeling which in all parts of the kingdom has been aroused by the recrudescence of the religious orders, more especially of the determined struggle of the Jesuits to retain ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... of the water, in consequence of that, fell altogether upon the pinnace; which thereby became so much crowded, that the crew were, in a great measure, prevented from using their fire-arms, or giving what assistance they otherwise might have done, to Captain Cook; so that he seems, at the most critical point of time, to have wanted the assistance of both boats, owing to the removal of the launch. For, notwithstanding that they kept up a fire on the crowd, from the situation to which they removed in that boat, the fatal confusion which ensued on her being withdrawn, to ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... the mental processes of two children hysterical with excitement, his magnetic taming of those fluttering little hearts, his inspired avoidance of a fatal false step at a critical point in the moral life of two human beings in the making—all this seemed as nothing to him—an incident of the day's routine already forgotten. He conceived that his real usefulness to society lay in the reform of arithmetic-teaching in the seventh grade, and he turned back to his arguments ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... a steady diminution in viscosity with increase of temperature until a certain temperature is reached, beyond which increase of heat does not markedly influence the viscosity, and it is possible that above this "critical point," as we may term it, the gum solutions once more begin to increase in viscosity. The temperature at which the viscosity becomes stationary varies somewhat with different gums, but broadly speaking it lies between 60 deg. C. and 90 deg. C., no gums showing any marked decrease in viscosity between ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... his hat in London for three or four days, and sent to Pollington for Dick Shand. Dick Shand obeyed the order, and both of them waited together upon Sir John. 'You have come back at a very critical point of time for your friend,' ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... point of criticism rested on the turning away of the battleships at the critical point of the torpedo attack at 7.20, under cover of which the German battleships wheeled to westward and disappeared. Jellicoe's reply is that if he had swung to starboard, turning toward the enemy, he would have headed into streams of approaching torpedoes ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... walked, played, or worked "enough," so we desist. That amount of fatigue is an efficacious obstruction on this side of which our usual life is cast. But if an unusual necessity forces us to press onward a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain critical point, when gradually or suddenly it passes away, and we are fresher than before. We have evidently tapped a level of new energy, masked until then by the fatigue-obstacle usually obeyed. There may be layer after layer of this experience. A third and a fourth "wind" may supervene. ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... organization at once will supply a powerful, concentrated, and controlled fire, either to repulse a counter-charge or to fire on a discomfited, retiring enemy. Being a horsed organization, it can arrive at the critical point at the vital moment when, the defender's first line having been thrust out, our line being disorganized, a counter-charge by the enemy would be most effective, or controlled fire by our own troops on him ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... the battle which we have studied will be named, but we ourselves call it the Battle of Fere Champenoise. This is, however, an unsatisfactory title, as it is too cumbersome and not comprehensive enough, for Fere Champenoise was only the most intense and critical point in a series of actions extending from Chantilly to Verdun, over a varied and winding front of about one hundred and ninety miles. We have no means of knowing how far the Germans have been driven back, but they are across the Aisne and other Attaches tell us ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... for sustained attention than any other mammals; and the higher apes are fertile in varied resources. The orang-outang and gorilla are for this reason dreaded by other animals, and roam the undisputed lords of their native forests. They have probably approached the critical point where variations in intelligence, always important, have come to be supremely important, so as to be seized by natural selection in preference to variations in physical constitution. At some remote epoch of the past—we cannot say just when or how—our half-human forefathers reached and passed ...
— The Meaning of Infancy • John Fiske
... like this man, stop at a critical point of their history; and, often, the crisis is not prolonged for them, as it ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... attention from some young gentlemen, who were glad to find her unattended by either Lord Curryfin or Mr. Falconer. Mr. Falconer continued to sit as if he had been fixed to his seat, like Theseus. The more he reflected on his conduct, in disappearing at that critical point of time and staying away so long, the more he felt that he had been guilty of an unjustifiable, and perhaps unpardonable offence. He noticed with extreme discomposure the swarm of moths, as he called them to himself, who ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... forthcoming. It has been deplored by some philosopher that custom does not sanction such little occupations for masculine hands. It would be interesting to speculate how many embarrassing or disastrous consequences might have been averted if at a critical point in a negotiation or controversy a needle had had to be threaded or a dropped stitch taken up before a reply was made, to say nothing of an excuse for averting features at times ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... had no mind to quarrel with Nostromo. At this supremely critical point of Sulaco's fortunes it was borne upon him at last that this man was really indispensable, more indispensable than ever the infatuation of Captain Mitchell, his proud discoverer, could conceive; far beyond what Decoud's best dry raillery about "my illustrious ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... reached the critical point where they were practicing signals. While doing this it was deemed wise that they should get away from all spectators; not that they feared any Chester boy would be so mean as to betray their codes to the enemy, ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... few of us were left, still worrying the unfortunate major. Then the wires began to come back from Lord Roberts saying that no licence must be granted to this man and that; that there were more than enough correspondents at the front; and at this news some of us began to quake. At this critical point, when I was wandering in the corridor of the post office, I found the Press Censor, all alone and unguarded; so I fastened upon him and drove him, the kindest and most amiable of men, into his office, and stood over him while he wrote ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... a flank and nothing more; though subsequently his admiring countrymen acclaimed the victor as the inventor of a strategic plan which was old before Alexander took the field, when the victor's genius consisted in the use of opportunities that enabled him to strike at the critical point with more men than his adversary. In flank of the Southern Confederacy Sherman swung through the South; in flank the Confederates aimed to bend back the Federal line at Kulp's Hill and Little Round Top. By the ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... parallels are of too general a character to be of much moment; and moreover the parallels stop short at the critical point, for Gilgamesh though worsted is not killed by Enkidu, whereas one of the "Heavenly Twins" is always killed by the brother, as Abel is by Cain, and Iphikles by his twin brother Herakles. Even the trait which is frequent in the earliest forms of the "Heavenly Twins," according to which one ...
— An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic • Anonymous
... have sought thee sorrowing." She was sorely perplexed. All the years before this her son had implicitly obeyed her. He had never resisted her will, never withdrawn from her guidance. Now he had done something without asking her about it—as it were, had taken his life into his own hand. It was a critical point in the friendship of this mother and her child. It is a critical moment in the friendship of any mother and her child when the child begins to think and act for himself, to do things without ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... of indomitable endurance and manifested a crude agility as they sprang about clumsily in time to the scraping of the fiddles, while their partners shuffled bouncingly or sidled mincingly according to their individual persuasion of the most apt expression of elegance. Considered from a critical point of view the dance was singularly devoid of grace—only one couple illustrating the exception to the rule. The youth it was who was obviously beautiful, of a type as old as the ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... entertainment. It was of metal, and by a skilful adjustment of jets was made to appear as if all aflame. While the others were intent on Christine's words, and she in the interest of her theme had quite forgotten him, Dennis made all his arrangements, and at the critical point narrated in the preceding chapter he turned on the gas with the most startling effect. It seemed a living, vivid refutation of Christine's words, and even she turned pale. After a moment, for the emblem to make its full impression, Dennis stepped out before them all, his face lighted ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... in their power to make a plea of any injustice being exercised upon them with respect to that critical point their servitude, it had been made a rule, three or four times in the year, to issue discharge certificates to such as were found, on consulting the proper documents, to be entitled to them; and, if desirous of being ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... Queens, and Theodosius, or The Force of Love. The rival queens of Alexander the Great—Roxana and Statira—figure in the first, which is still presented upon the stage. It has been called, with just critical point, "A great and glorious flight of a bold but frenzied imagination, having as much absurdity as sublimity, and as much extravagance as passion; the poet, the genius, the scholar are ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... paralleled in general the political and cultural revival, but, as in any mining region, the exhaustion of easily workable surface deposits marked a critical point, when the necessity of deeper mining led to the construction of supported tunnels and the introduction of machinery for removing ores and water from deep mines. On the basis of revisions of capital structure ...
— Mine Pumping in Agricola's Time and Later • Robert P. Multhauf
... causation is still open to us. The duration and amount of this attention seem within certain limits indeterminate. We feel as if we could make it really more or less, and as if our free action in this regard were a genuine critical point in nature,—a point on which our destiny and that of others might hinge. The whole question of free will concentrates itself, then, at this same small point: "Is or is not the appearance of indetermination at ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... can believe sellers!" said old Michael Mail in a carefully-cautious voice, by way of tiding-over this critical point ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... far so good. Juanna, you are the bravest and cleverest girl in the whole world. Most young women would have forgotten everything and gone into hysterics at the critical point." ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... teeth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator. And how many loves have perished because, from pride, or spite, or diffidence, or that unmanly shame which withholds a man from daring to betray emotion, a lover, at the critical point of the relation, has but hung his head and held his tongue? And, again, a lie may be told by a truth, or a truth conveyed through a lie. Truth to facts is not always truth to sentiment; and part ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... like the dinners we have eaten; of course we cannot remember the good without becoming exasperated over the bad: but"—shrugging her shoulders—"since we cannot beat the cooks, we must submit to fate," forcing a queen that she needed at the critical point of ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... deg. C., it is converted into the liquid state, the pressure needed increasing with the rise of temperature, and decreasing with the lowering of the temperature, until at—82 deg. C. it becomes liquid under ordinary atmospheric pressure. The critical point of the gas is 37 C., at which temperature a pressure of 68 atmospheres is required for liquefaction. The properties of liquid and solid acetylene have been investigated by D. Mcintosh (Jour Chem. Soc., Abs., ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the "Regular" church of the Rev. John Ellery, the young divinity student, who was to take the place of old Parson Langley, minister in the parish for over thirty years. Discussion in the village had now reached a critical point, for the Reverend John was expected by almost any coach. In those days, the days of the late fifties, the railroad down the Cape extended only as far as Sandwich; passengers made the rest of their journey by stage. Many came direct from the city by the packet, ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Berlin he has been criticised for just the opposite. It has been stated frequently that he was too aggressive. The Ambassador's position was that he must carry out Mr. Wilson's ideas. So he tried for days and weeks to impress officials with the seriousness of the situation. At the critical point in the negotiations various unofficial diplomats began to arrive and they seriously interfered with negotiations. One of these was a politician who through his credentials from Mr. Bryan met many high officials, and informed them ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... to advance at once, for the Confederate batteries on Slaughter Mountain swept the whole field, and it was some time before they could be induced to cease fire. But on the left the mass of fresh troops, directed on the critical point, exerted a decisive influence. The Federal regiments, broken and exhausted, were driven back into the wood and across the wheat-field by the charge of the Stonewall Brigade. Still they were not yet done with. Before Hill's troops could come into action, Jackson's old regiments, as ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... these three directions the progress of papal power is connected with the influence of Gregory the Great. It is of his papacy therefore that we must speak as the critical point in the upward movement. Between 574 and 590 Gregory gained experience in many ways. To a strict monastic training he added, in 579, the employment of papal apocrisiarius (or envoy) at the imperial court at Constantinople. Here he became intimate with the chief ecclesiastics, with Anastasius, ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... our proposed route, the critical point of our escape, would be the crossing of the Avens and the Salarian Highway, which we must effect somewhere near Forum Decii, between Interocrium and Falacrinum. Once in the mountains we should be able easily to continue on northwards ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... this in order to draw attention to the fact that, although the most critical point throughout this living line of battle was east of the town of Ypres, yet the battle which was given that name was fought on a front of many miles, extending from the sea at Nieuport to the Bethune—Lille canal. Continuous and heavy fighting went on for ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... menace was on the north-west along the Narew and beyond in Courland where Von Buelow was preparing to strike behind the base of the triangle. On 10 August Von Scholtz breached the line of fortresses by storming Lomza, but Kovno was a much more critical point. It was the angle of the base, and its fall would not only threaten the base running south to Brest-Litovsk and all the Russian armies west of that line, but would greatly facilitate Von Buelow's sweep round beyond it and Vilna. The bombardment began on the day ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... fortune in which the states of antiquity quite impartially have shared with the various States of the Germanic world. Political structures in general are capable of but a moderate degree of development. If the development proceeds beyond this critical point the result, sooner or later, is a historical cataclysm, whereby the old State is supplanted by a new form of social organization resting on a new foundation. As elements in this new foundation there may be comprised new religious or new ethical notions, but, in a general ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... canoe under control? I could not tell. What would happen when they reached the point where the water swings round to the north again? In an agony of suspense I watched and waited. Now they were nearing the critical point. And—now—-they had passed it, and with a wild cry of triumph turned towards the little bay below. As they drew in to where I waited for them, George waved his cap to me and shouted, "I ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... being dashed to pieces. Frequently, when rounding some projecting crag, the small treasure-box fastened on the camel literally overhung the abyss, and I held my breath and the pulsations of my heart increased as I watched horse after horse and camel after camel weather the critical point. ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... and watch the movements of the enemy in that quarter. Shortly after these movements a part of Palmer's division reported to Thomas and was placed in position on the right of Baird. Rosecrans, when he sent Thomas to the left—the critical point—told him that he was to hold the road to Rossville, and if hard pressed, that he should be ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... a very good fellow. I can say nothing more about him than that, except that your son seems to think he owes his life to his good nursing at a critical point in his illness." ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... return, made her think she ought to acquaint her with the baseness of the count de Bellfleur, in order to prevent an affection which she found she had already too much indulged from influencing her to grant him any farther favours; but this she knew was a very critical point to manage, and was not without some apprehensions, which afterward she experienced were but too well grounded; that when that lady found herself obliged to hate the man she took pleasure in loving, she would also hate the woman who was ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... shoulders of the young men that their presence might be propitious to the chances of the game. [Footnote: Ibid p. 202.] The excitement which attended one of these games of chance was intense, especially when the game reached a critical point and some particular throw was likely to terminate it. Charlevoix says the games often lasted for five or six days [Footnote: Loskiel (p. 106) saw a game between two Iroquois towns which lasted eight days. Sacrifices for luck were offered by the sides each night.] and ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis
... the perpetual menace of chastity; chastity undergoing the most surprising perils, but always saved in the nick of time, if not by an opportune shepherd, then by an equally opportune river-god or earthquake; episodes innumerable, branching off from the main stem of the narrative at the most critical point, and luxuriating in endless ramifications. Beauty, eluding unwelcome embraces, is never too hotly pressed to dally with an engaging simile or choose the most agreeable words for depicting her tribulation. Why indeed should she hurry? It is all ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the responsibility of a course which he may have prescribed and intended throughout, but from which a subordinate might shrink. It has not perhaps been commonly noted, that at Mobile the leaders, not only of one but of both columns, at the critical point of the road hesitated and doubted as to the admiral's purpose; not that they had not received it clearly, but because circumstances seemed to them to be different from what he had supposed. Not only Alden in the "Brooklyn," but Craven also in the "Tecumseh," ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... in the sun's chromosphere, or coronal atmosphere, he said, it would combine with the hydrogen which we know is there and form an obscuring envelope of water vapor. It exists, then, in a special state, uncombined with hydrogen; but let the temperature of the sun sink to a critical point and the oxygen will assume its normal properties and combine with the hydrogen, producing a mighty outburst of light and heat. This, Janssen thought, might explain the phenomena of the temporary stars. It would also, ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... out a good many invitations to the fairies for Cyril's birthday party, but Mr. Lord was at his critical point in the first volume of his text book, and forgot that he had a son. Where both parents are not interested in these little affairs, something is sure to be forgotten. Cyril's mother was weak and ill at the time, and the upshot of it was that the anger of The Fairy Who Wasn't Invited was visited on ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... After a while, when we returned to the glade, Miss Sampson had considerable color in her cheeks, and Steele was leaning against the rock, grave and sad. I saw that he had recovered and he had reached the critical point. "Hello, Russ," he said. "Sprung a surprise on me, didn't you? Miss Sampson says I've been a little flighty while she bandaged me up. I hope I wasn't bad. I certainly feel better now. ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey |
