"Existence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... child in an elegant though small cottage in one of the romantic marine villages of beautiful Devonshire. Her child! What a gush of consolation filled the widow's heart as she pressed him to it! How faithfully did she instil into his young bosom those principles which had been the pole-star of the existence of ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as they had the afternoon before them, why they should not have taken some of the by-paths that the girl perceived to lead out from the subject into breathless wonder. She had ways, which were maidenly and good, of opening up to Peter comfortable little garden plots of existence which, though they lay far this side of the House and the Lovely Lady, had in the monotony of the long climb up the scale of Siegel Brothers, moments of ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... the wreck of the Undine gave me many matters to ponder over. But the one practical thing that I learnt was this existence of a cave in the North Gaulton cliffs. I had not known that there was such a cave at that spot, although, indeed, I prided myself upon my knowledge of the whole coastline from Rora to Birsay. I accordingly determined to explore the cliff ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... the world to be in this self-being, the first conception of them to be in the womb of God's everlasting purpose and decree, which, in due time, according to his appointment, brings forth the child of the creature to the light of actual existence and being. It is certain that his majesty might have endured for ever, and possessed himself without any of these things. If he had never resolved to create any thing without himself, he had been blessed then, as now, because of his ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... slept in our hotel, and that night we never ceased conjunctions in every variety, with pauses for refreshment, purification, pleasant bawdy talk, fun, and frolic. For a month longer this delicious existence lasted, and then it was time for us to proceed southward. We parted from the Grandvits with much regret, but promised to return in the spring and visit them at their country house. I may here add that we did so, and enjoyed ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... government; but all this Schwaermerey evaporates literally in smoke: they take to their pipe, and by degrees the fumes of tobacco cause all these lofty ideas to dissipate: the pipe becomes more and more necessary to their existence, and consoles them for their wrongs real or imaginary; and in three or four years they sit down contentedly to their several occupations, as strait-forward, painstaking, plodding men, quite satisfied to follow the routine chalked out ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... Bell had just given his word of honor that he wasn't a member of the Secret Service. He wasn't. But he was in the Trade—which has no official existence anywhere. And the use of the word in his first ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... to undertake the most careful investigation of anything that promises to lead to certainty. It will be admitted by every honest disbeliever that no writer has ever made it certain that there is no future existence; that there is no Heaven; that there is no Hell; that Jesus was not the Saviour. The most that such writers have been able to produce is doubts. If, now, there is the possibility of reaching certainty on the other side, surely the reader should be willing and anxious to undertake a calm, ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... were repairing a break in the barricade—the place where one of New Earth's giant saurians had come stamping and whistling through last night to kill three colonists before it could be blasted out of existence. ...
— Where There's Hope • Jerome Bixby
... the truth. Professor Morris was a changed man. For the first time in all his orderly humdrum student existence, he had had to face war and death and murder, and all the crimes that stalk through a land at ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... child, had he with any appearance of contrition, or, indeed, of humanity, endeavoured to become less unworthy such a blessing;-but he is a stranger to all parental feelings, and has with a savage insensibility, forborne to enquire even into the existence of this sweet orphan, though the situation of his injured wife was but too well known ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... limit, in the geometrical sense, must be total separation from Him. Though all spirits, we are told, live forever, it occurs to me that in God's mercy there may be a gradual end; for though to the happy souls in heaven a thousand years may seem as nothing, existence in hell must drag along with leaden limbs, and a single hour seem like a lifetime of regret. Since it is dreadful to think that such unsoothed anguish should continue forever, I have often pondered whether it might not be that, by a form of involution ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... mainly indebted for its existence to the late Mr. Inglis, who resided there for upwards of sixty years, and opened a most important trade between the Khasia and Calcutta in oranges, potatos, coal, lime, and timber. We were kindly received ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... shield with a red cross in the center was riding toward Carbonek to challenge a twenty-second century "felon paynim" in imitation Age-of-Chivalry armor. In the valley Mallory had just left behind him there were two castles named Yore, and soon, a third would pop into existence and yet another Mallory come riding out. Mallory grinned. It was a little bit like ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... things, without which he must have absolutely perished. He was gradually irritated by his misfortunes into a rancorous resentment against mankind in general, and his heart so alienated from the enjoyments of life, that he did not care how soon he quitted his miserable existence. Though he had shocking examples of the vicissitudes of fortune continually before his eyes, he could never be reconciled to the idea of living like his fellow-sufferers, in the most abject degree of dependence. If he refused to accept of favours from his own allies and intimate friends, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... number of ships lost is no determining factor in figuring the actual victory—the important thing being the existence or nonexistence of the grand fleets of the combatants after the fighting is finished. Viewed from such an angle, the fact that the Allies had left no German ships at large other than those in the North Sea, cannot entitle them to victory at the end of the first six months of war. So ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... Roger found the new freedom from discipline enjoyable at first, but now the novelty had worn off. Having visited all of the interesting places on the Row, existence there had become boring. His one attempt to leave Spaceman's Row had nearly met with disaster. Running into a squad of Solar Guard MP's, he had made a hurried escape into a near-by jet taxi. Back on the Row, Roger had lounged around the cafes, feeling ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... hour Doris sat by the cot watching the faintly flickering life that, bereft of conscious will, fought for existence with each deep-drawn breath. About two in the morning Pete's breathing seemed to stop. Doris felt the hesitant throb of the pulse and, rising, stepped to the hall ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... evidence to my mind, that Walter knew nothing of the existence of the skull at the time he left the message, and yet, singular as it may seem, both the skull and Walter's message point ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... on his control machine the equation of a hyperboloid of two branches, and changed the constants gradually till the two branches came close. Then he forced them against each other. Instantly they fought, fought terribly for existence. A tremendous blast of light and heat exploded into being. The energy of two tons of lead attempted to maintain those two branches. It was not, fortunately, explosive, and it took place over a relux floor. Most of ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... thrills as they read the Court Circular. The two courts have the same ethical code and the same manners; their Sovereigns are jealous, greedy of attention, self-conscious and profoundly serious, punctilious and precise; their existence consisting of an endless round of ceremonies, and they being incapable of boredom. No member of the Royal Family can escape this regime even if he wishes; and no more can any member of the Holy Family—not even the meek ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... which our country shall secure an adequate and permanent advantage. When the great heart of England is stirred by quick cupidity to profitable crime, far be it from us to lift our palms in deprecation. In the wrangle for existence nations, equally with individuals, work by diverse means to a common end—the spoiling of the weak; and when by whatever of outrage we have pushed a feeble competitor to the wall, in Heaven's name let us pin him fast and relieve his pockets of the material good to which, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... there were thousands of winged insects, whose tiny voices one could hear by straining one's ears. Listening intently for such murmurs, he thought: "Perhaps really and truly one has not any right to kill the smallest of these gnats. All that stuff about self-protection, an' struggle for existence, is just fiddle-de-dee in so far's God's concerned. He never meant it, an' never will approve of it. It's just nature's hatefulness and cruelty—not permitted or intended, an' to ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... shower,' both literally and figuratively; and I think you'll find she lives up to the same principle now—though perhaps not quite in the same way. Poor child, I fear she'll need some kind of game to make existence endurable, for a while, ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... shadow-like pain drowned deep in her dark eyes. Natalie's own eyes filled at the sight of her stubbornness; in the days of her suffering she had grown very fond of her dark-skinned nurse; and it was she who had insisted throughout on the existence of Rina's better nature, and had never given up hope of reclaiming the worser part. And now it seemed, ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... dialect poetry dates, not from the seventeenth, but from the seventh century, and that the first Yorkshire dialect poet was Caedmon, the neat-herd of Whitby Abbey. But to the ordinary person the reference to a dialect implies the existence of a standard mode of speech almost as certainly as odd implies even. Accordingly, this is not the place to speak of that great heritage of song which Yorkshire bequeathed to the nation between the seventh century and the fifteenth. After the Caedmonic poems, its chief glories are ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... was at the Bar and addressing the Court of Exchequer in an insurance case, he was interrupted by Mr. Baron Alderson observing: "Mr. Martin, do you think any office would insure your life? Remember, yours is a brief existence." ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... passage like himself, who happened to be passing through London. Being a man of modest needs, save need of mere bulk of simple food, he found his small patrimony and the savings from his professional earnings quite adequate for amenable existence. When he wanted healthy, fresh air he came down to us to see Susan; when he wanted anything else he went to see Doria, which ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... and his figures, which are either playing cards, smoking or drinking, or engaged in the transaction of some household duty,—with faces that say but little—have generally only the interest of a peaceful or jovial existence. If Maes takes the lead in warm lighting, Peter de Hoogh may be considered par excellence the painter of full and clear sunlight. If, again, Maes shows us his figures almost exclusively in interiors, ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... abode with them, it positively developed and deepened, after this talk, that the luxurious side of his personal existence was now again furnished, socially speaking, with the thing classed and stamped as "real"—just as he had been able to think of it as not otherwise enriched in consequence of his daughter's marriage. ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... evermore—no, this self-control is a training, so that we may reap the fruits of a larger joy in the time to come. A man will toil day and night to make himself an orator, yet oratory is not the one aim of his existence: his hope is to influence men by his eloquence and thus achieve some noble end. So too with us, and those like us, who are drilled in the arts of war: we do not give our labours in order to fight for ever, endlessly and hopelessly, ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... simultaneous sensations, is that of single vision, or the deeply organized habit of combining the sensations of what are called the corresponding points of the two retinas. This coalescence of two sensations is so far erroneous since it makes us overlook the existence of two distinct external agencies acting on different parts of the sensitive surface of the body. And this is the more striking in the case of looking at solid objects, since here it is demonstrable that the ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... you were just where I am, to see the trees laden at the same time with golden oranges and white blossoms! I should so like to cut off a golden cluster, leaves and all, for you. Well, Boston seems very far away and dreamy, like some previous state of existence, as I sit on the veranda and gaze on the receding shores of the St. John's, which at this point is five ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... to exist between the object and our own heart. It is, however, more lively when the object lives in our time, and when his actions are the subject of daily conversation in our hearing, or when we have ourselves been witnesses of them; and still more so, when the person being still in existence has found means by the force of his talents to agitate a whole people, to rouse general curiosity and admiration, and to form, as it were, a landmark in any interesting department ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... settled the existence, the date of birth, and the nationality of Saint Pat-rick, you are still only upon the threshold of your inquiries; for you next find before you for examination a vast variety of miracles, accredited to him, which you must examine, weeding out such as are puerile and are manifestly ...
— Saint Patrick - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... Abyssinia, and that the weapons by which the Italians were defeated at Adowa had been mainly supplied through French channels. A small quick-firing gun of continental manufacture and of recent make which was found in the possession of the Khalifa seems to point to the existence or contemplation of similar relations with the Dervishes. But how far these operations were designed to assist the Marchand Mission is known only to those who initiated them, and to a few others who have so far ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... his battles.[44] We find allusions to him in Welsh poetry which may be as old as the sixth century—allusions, it is true, of the vaguest and most meagre kind, and touching no point of his received story except his mysterious death or no-death, but fairly corroborative of his actual existence. Nennius—the much-debated Nennius, whom general opinion attributes to the ninth century, but who may be as early as the eighth, and cannot well be later than the tenth—gives us the catalogue of the twelve battles, and the exploits of Arthur against the Saxons, in a single paragraph ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... turns the wheel. If you can find incense, in the vase, afterwards,—well: but it is curious how far mere form will carry you ahead of the philosophers. For instance, with regard to the most interesting of all their modes of force— light;—they never consider how far the existence of it depends on the putting of certain vitreous and nervous substances into the formal arrangement which we call an eye. The German philosophers began the attack, long ago, on the other side, by telling ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... disposing of it until after his famous rush across the Rio Grande had been safely accomplished. When he returned and could get back to his own tent, his first thought must have been of the document whose existence he meant to deny. To empty his pocket and find the paper gone must have been a frightful blow, and Sidney could hardly have known a peaceful moment until after the court-martial, when all danger of the lost message coming to light seemed to be ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... that is fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement "Malthus on Population," and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... existence till 1835. This third church stood near what is now called the Bowling Green. The inscription, though susceptible of misconstruction, is not really ambiguous. Its proper interpretation is: "1642, Willem Kieft being Director General, ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... for my virgin wilderness, I saw many spots that bore no trace of human existence, wild enough, remote enough, calm enough, to justify ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... delightful little old woman without gaining good from the association. Instead of being friends with the old nurse, and loving her and being loved by her, the Starkweather girls tucked her away in the attic and tried to ignore her existence. ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... a larger supply from a spring may be obtained by collecting into one basin a number of separate and smaller springs. A swampy or boggy piece of ground is often the result of the existence of a number of springs, and if drains are laid to some convenient corner of the field, and a well dug there, into which the drains will discharge, not only will the swamp be drained, but an ample supply of water in this way be obtained. ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... effected through the medium of arts and literature and modes of life, found in Bruno an impassioned metaphysical supporter. He divinized Nature, not by degrading the Deity to matter, but by lifting matter to participation in the divine existence. The Renaissance had proclaimed the dignity of man considered as a mundane creature, and not in his relation to a hypothetical other-world. It abundantly manifested the beauty and the joy afforded by existence ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... of the face remained quite smilingly placid as usual, but even the will could not control tears. They came freely. Then everybody laughed, and said kind things to him, till he began to laugh too. Yet that delicate sensitiveness no one like me could have guessed the existence of. ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... he said or did after that. Certain it is, Mary made no further objections, and Mary and he were regularly betrothed, which is a very pleasant state of existence, provided people may hope to marry before very long, and expect, when they do marry, to have something to ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... the contrary, here I have everything that disappointed me without anything that I have not already tried and found wanting. I tell you that as long as I can conceive something better than myself I cannot be easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence or clearing the way for it. That is the law of my life. That is the working within me of Life's incessant aspiration to higher organization, wider, deeper, intenser self-consciousness, and clearer self-understanding. It was the supremacy of this purpose that reduced love for me to ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... oppress'd demands Aid of the God who formed me with his hands. Sons of the God supreme to suffer all Fated alike, we on our Father call.... Sad is the present if no future state, No blissful retribution mortals wait, If fate's decrees the thinking being doom To lose existence in the silent tomb. All may be well; that hope can man sustain. All now is well; 'tis an illusion vain. The sages held me forth delusive light, Divine instructions only can be right. Humbly I sigh, submissive suffer pain, Nor more the ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... all his life in cities found that his existence on the Pactolus claim was likely to be very dreary. Day after day he arose in the morning, did his office work, ate his meals, and after a talk with Madame Midas in the evening went to bed at ten o'clock. Such Arcadian ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... animal to the camper-out in this region, and the one he needs to be most on the lookout for, is the cow. Backwoods cows and young cattle seem always to be famished for salt, and they will fairly lick the fisherman's clothes off his back, and his tent and equipage out of existence, if you give them a chance. On one occasion some wood-ranging heifers and steers that had been hovering around our camp for some days made a raid upon it when we were absent. The tent was shut and everything ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... was throughout the United States a general disintegration of political parties. [175] Federalists and nascent Anti-Federalists were alike seeking some basis for a safe national existence. The Constitution once established, political parties differentiated themselves as the party in power and the "out-party" developed their respective interpretations of the Constitution and of measures permitted under it. The Anti-Federalist ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... that are flinging their arms around the windows, nor will he dwell for an instant upon the thrifty cotton-woods that guard the door, or bestow more than a casual glance on the artistically arranged garden-beds, wherein I have anxiously watched tulips and radishes sprouting into existence. Anxiously—for winter has been writing a somewhat lengthy postscript to his annual message, and the modest, gentle-mannered spring retreats in lady-like fright ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... felt an uneasy consciousness that it was not the right one, and that she should have gone farther before leaving the railway. However, there was no certainty about it in her mind, so after asking at two houses half a mile apart, and finding that the inmates had never heard of Professor Salazar's existence, she walked down a shady road, hoping to find another household where his name and fame ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... sole only lonely thought in which lay no blackness of burning darkness. Oh, for one eternal unconscious sleep!—the nearest likeness we can cherish of that inconceivable nothingness—ever denied by the very thinking of it—by the vain attempt to realize that whose very existence is the knowing nothing of itself! Could that dagger have insured me such repose, or had there been any draught of Lethe, utter Lethe, whose blessed poison would have assuredly dissipated like a fume this conscious self-tormenting me, I should ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... any greater curse happen to a nation than such a prince on the throne, advised, and solely advised by such a minister, and that minister supported by such a parliament? The nature of mankind cannot be altered by human laws; the existence of such a prince or such a minister we cannot prevent by act of parliament; but the existence of such a parliament I think we may prevent; as it is much more likely to exist, and may do more mischief, while the septennial law remains in force than ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... raised its head to my knowledge to any alarming extent, was when Colonel Hankey asked me, one day early in December 1914, to go across to Treasury Buildings to meet Sir E. Grey and Mr. Lloyd George. There is not a more depressing structure in existence than Treasury Buildings. The arrangement of the interior is a miracle of inconvenience, on the most cloudless of days its apartments are wrapped in gloom, and no decorator has been permitted to pass its portals since it was declared fit for occupation in some forgotten age. But Mr. ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... formerly in a state of vassalage to that country; Russia once saw its capital and throne possessed by Poles; and Austria was indebted to a sovereign of this country for the preservation of its metropolis, if not for its very existence. Stanislaus could scarcely be persuaded that this dismemberment was intended to be perpetual; and when he was convinced of it, he addressed prayers and protests to France, Spain, and England, and to all the powers of Europe. These prayers and protests were useless; and yet it was the wisdom of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... crossing the Black Sea to Poland, and the Mediterranean to Lombardy. It is as numerous in its species as it is wide in its range of territory. Brood follows brood, with a sort of family likeness, yet with distinct attributes. It wakens into existence and activity as early as the month of March; but instances are not wanting, as in our present history, of its appearance as late as June. Even one flight comprises myriads upon myriads passing imagination, to which the drops of rain or the ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... "is really a military institution. Take Germany, now. She's got thousands of aristocrats whose only means of existence is the army. They're deadly poor, and life's deadly slow. So they hope for a war. They look for war as a chance of getting on. Till there's a war they are idle good-for-nothings. When there's a war, ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... know good wine—you don't have anything else. I believe in your theory as much as I believe in my existence. It stands to reason. I'm all broken up and run down. Not much left of me, you see. Bad liquor is killing me, and I can't stop. If I do, I ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... "I think I see," he said slowly. "You mean, they're here and they know all they need to know. But instead of coming out into the open, they're making governments recognize their existence. They're letting the rulers of Earth know they can't be resisted. But we did knock off one ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... meals a day, sleeping from nine at night until nine in the morning and reading all the romances he is able to procure. He corresponds with no one save his banker in America and sees no one but the servants and me. But to me the monotony of our existence is fast becoming unbearable and I often wonder if I can stand it for three years longer—until I'm eighteen. Then I shall be my own mistress and entitled to handle my own money, and you may rest assured I shall make ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... authorities have always been good enough, when they recognise my existence at all, to look down upon me with amused condescension. If today you ask Spenser Hale, of Scotland Yard, what he thinks of Eugene Valmont, that complacent man will put on the superior smile which so ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... awoke, nor spirit nor existence was left him, because of the maiden whom he had seen in his sleep, for the love of the maiden pervaded his whole frame. Then his household spake unto him. "Lord," said they, "is it not past the time for ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... made, and since a very complete set of soundings were also taken, the daily determination of the ship's position was a matter of some importance. The drift of the ship throws considerable light on at least one geographical problem, that of the existence of Morrell Land. The remainder of this appendix will therefore be devoted to a discussion of the methods used to determine the positions of the ship ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... equally well in a practical sense. But the young men—the flower of the French nation—whose lives have been offered on the altar of national defense—these cannot be replaced. Generations must pass before the terrific price of national existence will be fully paid in ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... myriads working with never-tiring mandibles on leaves, and stalks, and beneath the soil. They are all brimful of enjoyment. Indeed, the universality of organic life may be called a mantle of happy existence encircling the world, and imparts the idea of its being caused by the consciousness of our benignant Father's smile on all the works of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... patiently and fruitlessly over his "inventions." They came to naught, but they lightened his otherwise barren existence. There was not a day or night in which his mind was wholly free from thoughts ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... is unexpected as it is melancholy; for who had better reason to look forward to a protracted existence upon earth, than he who has written more than any other man except Voltaire—than Robert Southey, perfectly proportioned in person, just in mind, regular in his way of living, and ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... are driven into cynicism, by sad experience. I started in life with the rosiest faith in my fellow-man. If I've lost it, it's because he's always behaved shabbily to me, soon or late; always taking some advantage. The struggle for existence! We're all beasts, who take part in it; we must be, or we're devoured. Women for the most part are out of it. Anyhow, plus je vois les ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... the Himalaya, where he sees a damsel of brilliant beauty, but in ascetic garb, of whom he straightway becomes enamoured. He tells her that such an austere life is unsuited to her youth and attractions, and asks who she is and why she is leading an ascetic existence. She answers that she is called Vedavati, and is the vocal daughter of Vrihaspati's son, the rishi Kusadhwaja, sprung from him during his constant study of the Veda. The gods, gandharvas, etc., she says, wished that she should choose a husband, but her father would give her to no one else than to ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... will, and must, get the better of all difficulties of that kind. It is to acquire them that you still continue abroad, and go from court to court; they are personal, local, and temporal; they are modes which vary, and owe their existence to accidents, whim, and humour. All the sense and reason in the world would never point them out; nothing but experience, observation, and what is called knowledge of the world can possibly ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... manifestations. It is only from its outward manifestations that we can know anything of that marvellous inward nature which is given to animals. We cannot know anything of the essential constitution of mind, but can know only its properties. This is all we know even of matter. "If material existence," says Sir William Hamilton, "could exhibit ten thousand phenomena, and if we possessed ten thousand senses to apprehend these ten thousand phenomena of material existence, of existence absolutely and in itself we should ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... object, the unrestrained development of the physical powers. This is the ultimate and highest aim of society, identical with the direction implanted by nature in the mind of man toward the indefinite extension of his existence. He regards the earth in all its limits, and the heavens as far as his eye can scan their bright and starry depths, as inwardly his own, given to him as the objects of his contemplation, and as a field for the development of his energies. ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... which it was discovered. As I may be telling you what you know already, I will merely state, that from observed perturbations in the course of the planet Uranus, it was supposed that another planet was in existence beyond it; and two competitors set to work to calculate its size, situation, etc. The result was, the discovery of this other planet within a few minutes of the place pointed out by them, and its size, etc., not very different from what they estimated it at. But besides this, astronomy includes ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... when hunting, in the forests of Anarajapoora, intimated to him that he was then in the immediate vicinity of the spot "to which the elephants come to die," but that it was so mysteriously concealed, that although every one believed in its existence, no one had ever succeeded in penetrating to it. At the corral which I have described at Kornegalle, in 1847, Dehigame, one of the Kandyan chiefs, assured me it was the universal belief of his countrymen, that the elephants, when about to die, resorted to a valley in Saffragam, among the mountains ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... born about 1340, was the first great English poet. The immense popularity of the Canterbury Tales is shown by the number of manuscript copies still in existence. It was one of the first ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... Eastern Colossus had precipitated the war by its causeless mobilisation (a falsehood which ranged nearly all German Socialists on the side of the Government); that Russia and Servia had planned the dismemberment of Austria; that, consequently, Teutons (and Turks) must fight desperately for national existence in a conflict forced upon them by Russia, Servia, and France, England perfidiously appearing as a renegade to ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... a company was at length formed to work the copper mountain, a Portuguese merchant of Singapore supplying most of the capital. So confident were they of the existence of the copper, that they thought it would be waste of time and money to have any exploration made first; and accordingly, sent to England for a mining engineer, who was to bring out all necessary tools, machinery, laboratory, utensils, a number of mechanics, and ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... to gather over them both; and, especially, this image of the spider dangles down to us from the dusky ceiling of the Past, swollen into somewhat uglier and huger monstrosity than he actually possessed. Nevertheless, the creature had a real existence, and has left kindred like himself; but as for the Doctor, nothing could exceed the value which he seemed to put upon him, the sacrifices he made for the creature's convenience, or the readiness with which he adapted his whole mode of life, apparently, so that the spider might enjoy ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... them no more than a very feeble presumption that the like result will hold in all other cases. That a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, we do not doubt to be true even in the region of the fixed stars.(112) When a chemist announces the existence and properties of a newly-discovered substance, if we confide in his accuracy, we feel assured that the conclusions he has arrived at will hold universally, though the induction be founded but on a single instance. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... the very moment she placed her icy hand upon it, the action of the cold was such that De Guiche opened his eyes, and by a look in which revived intelligence was dawning, seemed as though struggling back again into existence. The first thing upon which he fixed his gaze was this phantom standing erect by his bedside. At that sight, his eyes became dilated, but without any appearance of consciousness in them. The lady thereupon made a sign to her companion, who had remained at the door; and ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the Panjab plains is determined by their distance from the sea and the existence of formidable mountain barriers to the north and west. The factor of elevation makes the climate of the Himalayan tracts very different from that of the plains. Still more striking is the contrast between the Indian Himalayan ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... or less success on almost any kind of soil possessed of a reasonable amount of fertility and moisture, it is much better adapted to soils alluvial in character and moist, as, for instance, the deposit soils in the bottom of rivers. Its power to fight the battle of existence on poor lands is much less than that of Japan clover, but on soils that grow crops, such as corn or cotton, it may be made to render a service which the other cannot, since it grows chiefly in winter and early spring, whereas Japan clover grows in the summer and early autumn, when cultivated ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... the son, but the words which he had spoken helped to create a doubt which already had almost an existence of its own. Anton Trendellsohn was prone to suspicions, and now was beginning to suspect Nina, although he strove hard to keep his mind free from such taint. His better nature told him that it was ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... bridge. It was a cloudy evening and the marsh-mists swallowed up the blinking windows as soon as the train gained the other shore. Junior loved his mother, but his father seemed to take most of the life and cheer out of the room when he went. Existence stagnated for the boy who had no mates of ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... from his bed to a midnight ramble. My primary mistake consists in transposing the date of the doctor's residence in Bolt Court, and introducing Savage at the era of Boswell's acquaintance with Johnson; whereas the wayward poet finished his miserable existence in a prison, at Bristol, 21 years prior to that event. Here I may be allowed a remark or two on the animadversion which has been heaped on Johnson for that beautiful piece of biography, "The Life of Richard Savage." It has hitherto been somewhat of a mystery that the stern critic whose ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 372, Saturday, May 30, 1829 • Various
... Africa smoldered and flamed during the second period from February to August, 1915. The fight for the colonial possessions became a struggle for existence. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... fifty times over," said Mr. O'Connor, after hearing the story. "Your spirit is too martial for a pacific life. If you follow my advice, I will teach you how to ripple the calm current of your existence to some purpose. Marry a wife. For twenty-five years I have given instructions in three branches, viz.—philosophy, knowledge, and mathematics—I am also well versed in matrimony, and I declare that, upon my misery, and by the contents of all my afflictions, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... many a reader of the most familiar histories of England, in saying, "Hengist and Horsa, Vortigern and Rowena, Arthur and Mordred, are mythical persons, whose very existence may be questioned, and whose adventures must be classed with those of Hercules and Romulus." It is difficult to write of a period of which the same writer has said, "an age of fable completely separates two ages of truth." Yet no one knew better than this accomplished historian himself that an ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... methinks I can see Lovecraft poring over these time-stained bits o' bookish lore as the monks of old followed the printed lines with quivering fingers in the taper's uncertain, flickering light. For Lovecraft appeals to me as a bookworm—one of those lovable mortals whose very existence seems to hang on the numbered pages of ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... myself. Indeed, I'm not responsible in these days. My nerves are like live wires. But this situation is beyond me. What I want to know, in the first place, Mr. Holmes, is, how in the world you came to hear of my existence at all." ...
— The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the same: Whereupon, it is necessary, that, at a ringing of a belle, our tounsmen, headed by our Mayor, and directed by the warlike genius of Captain Wallace, should proceed to the said Newmilne, and give battle in defence of the said dike, which is indispensable to the existence of the toun's property. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... for as Krishna teaches Arjuna in the Dayanishvari: "on this Path to whatever place one would go that place one's self becomes!" The last word of this wisdom is unity. Underneath all phenomena and surviving all changes, a great principle endures for ever. At the great white dawn of existence, from this principle stream spirit and primordial matter; as they flow away further from their divine source, they become broken up, the one life into countless lives, matter into countless forms, which enshrine these lives; spirit involves ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... impending departure from the land of his birth—at his airy theory that the life of the Canadian farmer was largely occupied with riding, hunting, dancing and tennis, she found to her dismay that her own mental picture of her brother's existence had been nearly ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... not think that Suzee loved me deeply, deep emotion not being within her range of powers, it was difficult to see how I could find for her an existence as pleasant as she led ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... these projects M. Foulon expressed himself without reserve respecting the criminal views of the Duc d'Orleans; said that he ought to be put under arrest, and that no time should be lost in commencing a prosecution against him, while the criminal tribunals were still in existence; he likewise pointed out such deputies as should be apprehended, and advised the King not to separate himself from his army until order ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... mother and friend?" she said. "Do you not want me to leave you to-day? If so, indeed I will not. What are you telling me with those beautiful, sad eyes? That something is coming into my existence that you promised me always, and that it will cause me sorrow, and I must pause?"—and she shivered slightly and laid her cheek against the marble cheek. "I am not afraid, and I want whatever it must be, since it is life." ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... throughout the neighborhood where Charles and Margaret had lived and breathed, and had their existence, was heavily oppressed with slavery. No education for the freeman of color, much less for the slave. The order of the day was literally, as far as colored men were concerned: "No rights which white men were bound ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... my speculations you answer by an allegory—Does not the sun make instinct with life not only man, but the meanest insect, the lowest form of vegetable existence? He shines. His light at once revivifies a blade of grass and illumines a world. If thus it is with the created, may not it be also with the Creator? There is something within me that answers ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the case with Madeline. There was no second thought in her mind when she first declined the ghosting, and afterwards undertook the part. No wish to look beautiful in the eyes of Felix Graham had come to her—at any rate as yet; and as to Peregrine Orme, she had hardly thought of his existence. "By heavens!" said Peregrine to himself, "she is the most beautiful creature that I ever saw;" and then he began to speculate within his own mind how the idea might be received ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... the youngest son, had little money, but he happened to have brains. He began existence delicate and precocious. Culture, with him, set in almost with what he would have termed the "consciousness of his own identity," and the process never intermitted: in fact, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, his ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... rather sublime in thus floating on a single spar in the wide sea of a populous, busy, fuming, fussy world like this. At any rate it is consonant to both our tastes. You may suppose, however, that I find it rather difficult to amuse my friends out of the incidents of so isolated an existence. Our daily career is very regular and monotonous. Our life is as stagnant as a Dutch canal. Not that I complain of it,—on the contrary, the canal may be richly freighted with merchandise and be a short ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... bent over some dish which stood upon the table his ear was not far from the aperture through which Tarzan looked. Apparently from a solid wall, for the Negro had no knowledge of the existence of the niche, came to him in the tongue of his own people, the whispered words: "If you would return to the land of the Wamabo say nothing, but ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Other, like Lhar and her robot, had been cast adrift by a time-slip, and thus marooned here. There was no way for it to return to its normal Time-sector. It had created the fog-wall to protect itself from the direct rays of the sun, which threatened its existence. ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner
... but thanking them as I do now, I think that you will yourselves, when you are calm, also thank them for having prevented you from committing an act which would have loaded you with remorse and embittered your future existence. Gentlemen, you are free to depart: you, Don Silvio, have indeed disappointed me; your gratitude should have rendered you incapable of such conduct: as for you, Don Scipio, you have been misled; but you both have, in one point, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... unsatisfactory, no doubt. All her rights were not hers even now—no, not by a long way. But oh, how much better was this than the drab and shabby and barren existence for ever left behind! She was bound, indeed; yet she was free—freer than another might have been in her place, and far, far less bound. One must expect to pay some tax to Fortune for such extraordinary ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... morning, actually before it was light, I felt the indefatigable Admiral tugging at my ear, and bidding me get up, to accompany him on a shooting excursion, and as he said, "Mayhap we shall get sight of some of those elephants, the existence of which you presumed to doubt last night. Come, Mr. Officer, show a leg! I know you are a bit of a philosopher, and curious in natural history; so rouse up and come along ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... think, to view this matter in the light in which I have placed it; and it is deeply to be regretted that a weaker people struggling against a stronger for very existence should have so much cause to complain of the unfriendly disposition of a Government from which, if it represents truly the instincts of Englishmen, it had the right to expect at least sympathy and kindness in the place of ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... have studied mankind; I am not made like any one I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not better, I at least claim originality, and whether Nature did wisely in breaking the mould with which she formed me, can only be determined after having read ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... by Adamnan, we get a clear and complete view of everyday existence in the Highlands during that age. We are among the red deer, and the salmon, and the cattle in the hills, among the second- sighted men, too, of whom Columba was far the foremost. We see the saint's inkpot upset by a clumsy but enthusiastic convert; we even make acquaintance with the old white pony ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... and affirms itself to be a translation out of the 'original Greek,' together with former translations compared, &c. Now permit me to ask, is not this as good evidence of the existence of the original Greek, as the original Greek is of the facts intended to be proved thereby? I should consider the translation of any work, which was generally known at the time of its translation, better evidence of the existence of such a work, though the original should be entirely lost, than ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... sound, and no cause for uneasiness. I thought you meant that she was coming here as a guest, and so I made the very natural mistake of saying she hadn't come at all, at all. The young woman in question is Mrs. Van Dyke's maid. But bless me soul, how was I to know she was even in existence, much less expected by train or motor or Shanks' mare? Well, she's here, so there's the end of our mystery. We sha'n't have to follow your gay plan of searching the wilderness for beauty in distress. Our romance is spoiled, and I am sorry to say ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... first to express the satisfaction that I feel in the existence of this convention. The process of discussion, consideration, mutual information, and comparison of opinion among the people who are not in office, is the process that puts under the forms of representative ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... act independently of the lungs. The man and woman who compose the new unit are not only flesh of one flesh, but they are one soul, one life; they are a complete organism. And the life of this organism must be persistent to realize its own aims. In all the higher forms of existence, processes move slowly. For nine months a woman carries her baby as a part of her own body; then for three years the father and mother carry the child in their arms; for a score of years they must support, protect and train it before they let it go to seek its own. Hence sexual love must be persistent ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... artist. The youth has led the happy, careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American, and he cannot, with his meagre past, express the love, the longing, the passion and the tragedies of life and its happy phases as can the master who has lived life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his existence, a beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heart and home; and through his passionate love for her, he learns the lessons that life has to give—and his ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... stinking tavern, for instance, here, they meet and sit down in a corner. They've never met in their lives before and, when they go out of the tavern, they won't meet again for forty years. And what do they talk about in that momentary halt in the tavern? Of the eternal questions, of the existence of God and immortality. And those who do not believe in God talk of socialism or anarchism, of the transformation of all humanity on a new pattern, so that it all comes to the same, they're the same questions ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in the Naval Prize Bill may perhaps be thought a sufficient excuse for the few remarks which I am about to make upon it. The Bill owes its existence to a suggestion made by me, just ten years ago, while engaged in bringing up to date for the Admiralty my Manual of Naval Prise Law of 1888. It was drafted by me, after prolonged communications with ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... can happen. Always such creatures are destroyed after their first psychotests, but my case was different. The Controller who bred me was only a dabbler in such things. I was a failure, but he took a fancy to me. I was allowed to mature secretly—few people knew of my existence. When I reached my majority my presence became dangerous and I was sent back into time to try and find the proper place for myself. And ...
— Field Trip • Gene Hunter
... aright, their purpose in all this talk about lists, is to hurry me into marriage, irrespective of my own inclinations. Now, my Lord Lyga, before we proceed farther into this matter, I wish to ask you, as Keeper of Statutes: Is there in existence a law compelling me to wed at the bidding of my ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... will receive that experience and will seriously attend to it, that will prove to you the true apologetic for the theism of the Holy Scriptures and for the soul-saving faith of Jesus Christ. What is it about which you are in such debate and doubt? Is it about the most fundamental of all facts—the existence, and the nature, and the grace, and the government of Almighty God? Well, if you are really in earnest to know the truth, take this way of it: this way that has brought light and peace of mind to so many men. Turn away at ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... their neighbour. All that the creature needs to see or know, all that the creature can see or know, is the face of him from whom he came. Not seeing and knowing it, he will never be at rest; seeing and knowing it, his existence will yet indeed be a mystery to him and an awe, but no more a dismay. To know that it is, and that it has power neither to continue nor to cease, must to any soul alive enough to appreciate the fact, be merest terror, save also ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... whose existence had suddenly been revealed by the drawing back of some beautiful brocaded curtains. Supper was a delightful meal, charmingly served. Peter, putting everything else out of his head for the moment, thoroughly enjoyed himself, and, remembering his duty as a guest, contributed in no small degree ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... If it had occurred to me before it would have perhaps done away with the existence of this Author's Note; for, indeed, the same remark applies to every story in this volume. None of them are stories of experience in the absolute sense of the word. Experience in them is but the canvas of the attempted picture. Each of them has its more than one intention. With each the ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... Marlowe, still our firm and devoted friend, is as full of good-humoured philosophy as ever, and frequently our visitor. He still leads his careless existence, and is often to be seen idling in the window of White's, smoking and watching the passers-by in St. ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... she had her sex-pride in the Synthesis, too, because she had read that women had borne an important part in founding it; the strictest technical training and the freest spirit of artistic endeavor prevailed in a school that owed its existence so largely to them. That was a great point, even if every one of the instructors was a man. She supposed that Mr. Ludlow would have sheltered himself behind this fact if she had used the other to justify herself in going on ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... with the air of a man uttering something of the deepest significance, "it involves matters happening before June, 1896, and Brassfield was not in existence until the twenty-seventh of June! I've promised Edgington that you will get him the ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... passion for his wife was equally absorbing—she had become the very moving-spring of his existence. His eyes delighted in her beauty,—but more than this, he revelled in and reverenced the crystal-clear parity and exquisite refinement of her soul. Life assumed for him a new form,—studied by the light of Thelma's straightforward simplicity ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... partly in verse and partly in prose, and was entitled, "The Rules and Regulations of the Henpecked Club." This club was connected with the Agricultural Society's Show, and made its existence felt on the Show Day only. At the time of which I write, the Keighley Agricultural Show was about one of the finest shows in the country. The townspeople, then, took some pride in their show. The public thoroughfare from Church Green along Skipton-road ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... the repeller who, at the moment the great shot struck her, with a ringing and clangour of steel springs, such as never was heard before, wished that in her former state of existence she had been some ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... less formal, more elastic since the War, kept all misgiving underground. As one looks on some American river, quiet and pleasant, knowing that an alligator perhaps is lying in the mud with his snout just raised and indistinguishable from a snag of wood—so Soames looked on the river of his own existence, subconscious of Monsieur Profond, refusing to see more than the suspicion of his snout. He had at this epoch in his life practically all he wanted, and was as nearly happy as his nature would permit. His senses were at rest; his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... family from the papers; but he did not look like a lunatic. On the other hand, he certainly did not look as one would have expected a brother of Rodgers Warren's to look. Oddest of all, if he was such a brother, why had neither Caroline or Stephen mentioned his existence? According to his story, Graves, the Warren lawyer, had warned the children of his coming. Caroline had been very reticent concerning her father's will, the amount of his estate, and the like. And Mrs. Dunn had repeatedly, though discreetly, endeavored to find out ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... upholstered; the dressing-table, a construction of pine boards covered and frilled with cretonne. Clover had plaited the chintz round the looking-glass and on the edges of the book-shelves, while the picture-frames, the corner-brackets, and the impromptu washstand owed their existence to Geoff's cleverness with tools. But the whole effect was pretty and tasteful, and Imogen, as she went on with her dressing, looked about her with a somewhat reluctant admiration, which was slightly ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... dealing with the rough existence of cowboys, so charming in the telling, abounding as it does with the freshest ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with her at this time a certain Miss Macnulty, who was related, after some distant fashion, to old Lady Linlithgow, and who was as utterly destitute of possessions or means of existence as any unfortunate, well-born, and moderately-educated, middle-aged woman in London. To live upon her friends, such as they might be, was the only mode of life within her reach. It was not that she had chosen such dependence; nor, indeed, had she endeavoured to reject ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... greatness is a figment of the brain, men who with their vile and degraded reason will never recognise the power over human passions which is wielded by the very madness of virtue. You can only teach such men by examples; if they persist in denying their existence, so much the worse for them. If I told them that Sophy is no imaginary person, that her name alone is my invention, that her education, her conduct, her character, her very features, really existed, and that her loss is still mourned by a very worthy family, they would, no doubt, refuse to ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... same manner. At one period he found the native, or subject, was certainly alive; at another that he was unquestionably dead; but a space of two years extended between these two terms, during which he could find no certainty as to his death or existence. ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... cities of the coast, Los Angeles owes its origin to the proselyting enthusiasm of the Spanish priesthood. The Mission of San Gabriel had been in existence ten years, and it had gathered several thousand Indians under its guardianship when it was proposed to establish a pueblo in that vicinity in order that a temporal development might proceed together with the spiritual. ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... are the particles of that organism, and each one of them has his own special task for the service of others. In the same manner, the cells united in an organism share among them the labor of fight for existence of the whole organism; they magnify the power of one capacity, and weaken another, and unite in one organ, in order the better to supply the requirements of the whole organism. And exactly in the same manner as with gregarious animals,—ants or bees,—the separate ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... enormous act of authority, although the measure may be advisable. There is also a question raised of the hereditary quality of the peerage, and I dare say that for the future at least peerages will not be hereditary, not that I think this signifies as to the existence of an aristocracy, for the constant subdivision of property must deprive the Chamber of all the qualities belonging to an English House of Lords, and it would perhaps be better to establish another principle, such as ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... Tamasjo. He found the Indian standing there calmly watching the floating columns of smoke that were interrupted frequently, as those responsible for their existence manipulated the ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... not know whether the burden was made lighter to him or heavier, by the fact that the immediate pecuniary result was certainly very comfortable. The Company had not yet been in existence quite six weeks,—or at any rate Melmotte had not been connected with it above that time,—and it had already been suggested to him twice that he should sell fifty shares at L112 10s. He did not even yet know how many shares he possessed, but ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... thing it had been, at best! How feverish, vapory and unsatisfying! What a wretched fiasco his marriage had proved! And yet he had loved his wife! Her beauty was of a type that insures its possessor love of a certain sort—not the best, but strong enough to stand the wear and tear of well-to-do existence, if only it is returned. If Ethel had loved him, Thorne would have held to his lot, and munched his husks, if not with relish, certainly with decency and endurance. But Ethel did ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... beyond a doubt that this was an island. The men thought they had done enough. But Cook, with the true instinct of an explorer, turned a deaf ear to the murmurings of his crew for roast beef and Old England, and directed his course again south. From the natives he had learned of the existence of two islands, and he must needs sail round the southern as he had sailed round the northern isle. Storms and gales harassed the navigators through the month of February as they made their way slowly southwards. Indeed, ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... the rich, dry soil is occupied by a coarse grass, three or four feet high, growing in large tussocks, and all the year round of a deep green; a few slender herbs and trefoils, with long, twining stems, maintain a frail existence among the tussocks; but the strong grass crowds out most plants, and scarcely a flower relieves its uniform everlasting verdure. There are patches, sometimes large areas, where it does not grow, and these are carpeted by ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... glint of eagerness showed in her eyes. She could see what an advantage it would be to herself to have Marcia removed from the situation. It would break one more cord of honor that bound David to a code which was hateful to her now, because its existence shamed her. Nevertheless, unscrupulous as she was she could not see how this was ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... orderly government has been established in the northern part. In May 1991, the elders of clans in former British Somaliland established the independent Republic of Somaliland, which, although not recognized by any government, maintains a stable existence, aided by the overwhelming dominance of the ruling clan and the economic infrastructure left behind by British, Russian and American military assistance programs. The economy has been growing and in February 1996 the EU agreed to finance the reconstruction ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... round world is bottled with contagion. A strong man who, in his time, might have slain the Sofi, is as fearful of his health as though the plague were up the street. Calamities beset him. The slightest sniffling in his nose is the trumpet for a deep disorder. Existence is but a moving hazard. Life for him, poor fellow, is but a room with a window on the night and a storm beating on the casement. God knows, it is better to grow giddy on a ladder than to think that this majestic earth is such ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... else. The inference is that our friend is not connected with any of these cases, but that he believes me to possess some exclusive information concerning him—believes me to be the one person in the world who suspects and can convict him. Let us assume the existence of such a person—a person of whose guilt I alone have evidence. Now this person, being unaware that I have communicated my knowledge to a third party, would reasonably suppose that by making away with me he had put himself in ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... it follows that the 'notions we annex to the words Matter and Mind are merely relative.'[169] We know that mind exists as we know that matter exists; or, if anything, we know the existence of mind more certainly because more directly. The mind is suggested by 'the subjects of our consciousness'; the body by the objects 'of our perception.' But, on the other hand, we are totally 'ignorant of the essence of either.'[170] We can discover the laws either of mental or moral phenomena; but ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... club, with experienced guides to attend him, and the very best points for shooting reserved, doubtless Paul Singleton had forgotten that there was such a boy as Darry in existence. ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... way from the castle," Cuthbert said, "for my dear lord told me of it one day when we were riding together in the Holy Land. He said then that it might be that he should never return, and that it were well that I should know of the existence of this passage, which few besides the earl himself knew of. It is approached by a very heavy slab of stone in the great hall. This is bolted down, and as it stands under the great table passes unnoticed, and appears part of the ordinary floor. ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... grasped the counter to prevent himself from falling to the ground. It was the first harsh literary criticism the poor poet had to submit to in his life. The blood rushed to his face; his hands clinched the fatal letter, as if to annihilate its existence. After a while, he could not contain himself any longer, but bursting into tears, ran out of the shop. Good-natured Mr. Drury saw that he had made a mistake—perhaps a great, and certainly a cruel mistake. He rushed after his humble friend, and brought him back to the shop, and into the parlour ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... name for their execution. Sushuen was executed on the public ground set apart for that purpose; but to the others, as a special favor from their connection with the imperial family, was sent the silken cord, with which they were permitted to put an end to their existence. In the fate of Prince Tsai may be seen a well merited retribution for his treachery and cruelty to Sir ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... replied Rashid, as usual eager to explain, 'is that term into which all things visible and invisible are resolved and subdivided secretly, or may be subdivided at a person's pleasure. A kirat is that which has no real existence unless a group of men agree together saying: "It is here or there." ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall |
