"Magnitude" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the recipient of a comfortable salary as a lecturer in the institution and had no fear of not living well, and I was greatly interested in providing that the expedition should be perfectly equipped. Expeditions of the magnitude of that which I had planned are expensive, I should, perhaps, inform you, and this one was to carry on investigations regarding several important points, very elaborately; and I am still convinced it would have settled conclusively many ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... Stannum stood on the Cliff of the World, saw and heard the travailing and groaning of light and sound in the epochal and reverberating Void. A pedal bass, a diapasonic tone, that came from the bowels of the firmament struck fear to his heart; the tone was of such magnitude as might be overheard by the gods. No mortal ear could have held it without cracking and dying. This gigantic flood, this overwhelming and cataclysmic roar, filled every pore of Stannum's body. It blew him as a blade of grass is blown in a boreal blast; yet he sensed the ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... though she had lived with the deacon for nearly a dozen years, he had never known her to so far forget her propriety as to indulge in anything more hearty and hilarious than the most decorous of smiles, which smile was such a kind of illumination to her face as a star of inconceivably small magnitude makes to the sky in trailing ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... This power in full magnitude may spring instantaneously into action; and it may, too, as instantaneously cease. It may suddenly drive a body of air at the rate of one hundred miles per hour, and as suddenly arrest its progress. The air ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... moment the efficient service rendered by the Y. W. C. A. in its hostess-house work in the American camps; that work alone would have entitled it to the support of the American people. That of the Y. M. C. A. was on so large a scale that naturally its inefficiency was often in proportion to its magnitude. ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... of gigantic stature to a tower: not that he is anything like so large, but because the excess of his size beyond what we are accustomed to expect, or the usual size of things of the same class, produces by contrast a greater feeling of magnitude and ponderous strength than another object of ten times the same dimensions. The intensity of the feeling makes up for the disproportion of the objects. Things are equal to the imagination, which have the power of affecting the mind with an equal degree of terror, admiration, ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... the altar but a large globe, upon which the heavenly bodies are painted, and another globe upon which there is a representation of the earth. Furthermore, in the vault of the dome there can be discerned representations of all the stars of heaven from the first to the sixth magnitude, with their proper names and power to influence terrestrial things marked in three little verses for each. There are the poles and greater and lesser circles according to the right latitude of the place, but these are not perfect because there is no ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... guilty of murder."[34] The law of God punished the crime with death, and any one would rather be hanged than be enslaved.[35] It was a peculiarly deliberate crime, in which the offender did not act in sudden passion, but had ample time for reflection.[36] Then, too, crimes of much less magnitude are punished with death. Shall we punish the stealer of $50 with death, and the man-stealer with imprisonment only?[37] Piracy, forgery, and fraudulent sinking of vessels are punishable with death, "yet these are ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... a natural object of enquiry to what a future increase and elevation of magnitude and grandeur the spreading empire of America might attain, when a country had thus suddenly risen from an uninhabited wild, to the quantum of population necessary to govern and regulate its ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... application for an adjournment, and the arbitration was allowed to proceed. The discussion turned mainly on the question of the measure of "due diligence.'' The United States contended that it must be a diligence commensurate with the emergency or with the magnitude of the results of negligence. The British government maintained that while the measure of care which a government is bound to use in such cases must be dependent more or less upon circumstances, it would be unreasonable to require that ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... easily discovered. I reconnoitred the court and gate through which I had passed. The mansion was of the first order in magnitude and decoration. This was not the bound of my present discovery, for I was gifted with that confidence which would make me set on foot inquiries in the neighbourhood. I looked around for a suitable medium of intelligence. The opposite and adjoining houses were small, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... history and philosophy, continually fitting itself more and more to become an instrument in the ordinary affairs of life, so it was needful that English lettered discourse should become popular and pliant, a power in the State as well as in the study. The magnitude of the change, from the time when the palm of popularity decorated Sidney's "Arcadia" to that when it adorned Defoe and Bunyan, would impress us even more powerfully if the interval were not engrossed by a colossal figure, the last of the old school in the erudite ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... would make a very good Chancellor of the Exchequer," replied Gascoigne, smiling; "one thing is certain, that if they gave the subject half the consideration they have others of less magnitude, an arrangement might be made by which his Majesty's navy would ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... petrified. His eyes opened wide with horror, his limbs grew rigid, his very hair seemed to rise up, in the intense agony of the moment. The pistol dropped from his extended hand, and he fell upon his knees beside his victim, completely sobered, and awakened to the full magnitude of the crime he ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... sometimes communicate with lakes or pools, at higher levels. In such cases, the quantity of water discharged is generally so great, as to form at once a brook or stream of some magnitude. These, therefore, hardly come under the ordinary cognizance of the land-drainer, and are, ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... to fall in ruins. There would be the most violent transitions from foreign or intestine war to periods of profound peace, and the works effected during the years of disorder or tranquillity would appear alike superhuman in magnitude. ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... Union, was a problem of immeasurable importance. The President, who had been obliged to take the responsibility of precipitating the crisis in these States, appreciated more accurately than any one else the magnitude of the stake involved in their allegiance. He watched them with the deepest anxiety, and brought the utmost care and tact of his nature to the task of influencing them. The geographical position of Maryland, separating the District of Columbia from the loyal ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... wrong? Is it not obvious that it only makes two evils, where but one existed before? And can two wrongs ever make one right action? Which is the most rational, when the choice is in our power, to add to one existing evil, another of similar or greater magnitude; or to keep quiet, and let the world have but one cup ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... more ridiculous than the appearance of these people, squatting down in their places, tottering under the weight and magnitude of their turbans and their bellies, while the thin legs that appeared underneath but ill accorded with the bulk of the ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... to be an eclipse on his birthday, through fear of a disturbance, as there had been other prodigies, he put forth a public notice, not only that the obscuration would take place, and about the time and magnitude of it, but also about the causes that produce ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... have left some ruins of temples behind them, although these are not of the same magnitude as the Inca edifices. They were an agricultural people, and, in addition, were skilled in weaving and in the manufacture of pottery; they were, moreover, supposed to have been clever workers in gold. The costume of the race showed very ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... right, though not entirely so, I think. But it is certain that, in the case of Father Hinton, the dramatic personality of the man did nothing to lessen the magnitude of his office in the minds of such members of his flock as Sylvia. I gathered that belief in the celibacy of the clergy was, if not an article of faith, at least a part ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... cling to here. The land is barren and naked; and, moreover, no effort is made to relieve the future from the want which the present feels so keenly. With wealth ample enough for undertakings of any magnitude,—with intelligence, more boasted than real, but still sufficient for the conception of improvement, we exhibit in our civilization neither the taste nor the capacity for any noble works of Art. The value of beauty is disregarded, and the cultivation of the sense of beauty is treated as of little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... herein engrossed? As it is a matter of magnitude, and the foundation of extensive and permanent family arrangements, pray let the greatest care be taken to secure accuracy. Please take special ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... Athens had been preceded and caused by the contagion from the East; and the scene of havoc and death continued to be acted there, on a scale of fearful magnitude. A hope that the visitation of the present year would prove the last, kept up the spirits of the merchants connected with these countries; but the inhabitants were driven to despair, or to a resignation which, arising from fanaticism, assumed the same dark hue. America had also ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... equalling in rapidity, and far surpassing in magnitude, those of Cortes and Pizarro, had been achieved in the East. In the space of three years the English had founded a mighty empire. The French had been defeated in every part of India. Chandernagore had surrendered to Clive, Pondicherry to Coote. Throughout Bengal, Bahar, Orissa, and the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... this the enemy were very quiet; no attempt was made with their fire-ships, nor were we aware that their boats ever came near us. We therefore began to suspect that they meditated an attack of greater magnitude than heretofore. We therefore looked somewhat anxiously for the information which we hoped our spies would be able to supply. Nothing was done, however, till the evening of the 20th, when Captain ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... for the other acts to cease, that the attention of all might be centered on Joe. This is always done in a circus in the case of "stars," and Joe was certainly a star of the first magnitude. ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... for we have been only out of an evening Monday and Tuesday in this week. But if you think you have, your thought shall go for the deed. We did pray for you on Wednesday night. Oysters unusually luscious—pearls of extraordinary magnitude found in them. I have made bracelets of them—given them in clusters to ladies. Last night we went out in despite, because you were not come ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... white skins, which is likely to give us more immediate trouble, politically, than the ignorance of the negro, for that latter is not as yet armed with the suffrage. Of course there is not much enthusiasm about sending teachers South to teach the poor whites, so the negro suffers from the magnitude of the undertaking, from his remoteness from view, and the general disposition among mankind to let everybody hoe their own weeds so long as they don't ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... equality or inequality of unapplicable quantities, is that which has carried them so far, and produced such wonderful and unexpected discoveries: but whether something like this, in respect of other ideas, as well as those of magnitude, may not in time be found out, I will not determine. This, I think, I may say, that if other ideas that are the real as well as nominal essences of their species, were pursued in the way familiar to mathematicians, ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... Addison, we believe, who observed of the schoolmen, that they had not genius enough to write a small book, and therefore took refuge in folios of the largest magnitude. We are getting as fast as possible into the predicament of the schoolmen. No one knows when he has written enough; but, like a player at chess, still goes on with the self-same ideas, merely altering their position. This must arise from early habits ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... in the soberer mode of the French Renaissance, was of Caen stone, the effect of which has been reproduced in the present construction. The erection of this pavilion marks a record in work of such magnitude. On the outbreak of the war, all thought of participating in the Exposition was dropped; but later the American ambassador, Mr. Herrick, succeeded in persuading the French Government to reconsider its decision. The plans were cabled from Paris, at a cost of $10,000, and the ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... said, in a dead voice, to Lucilla van Tromp. "Help me! Take me away! I can't bear any more!" Leaning on Miss Lucilla's arm, she advanced a step and paused before Diane, who stood wide-eyed, and awe-struck rather than amazed, at the magnitude of this desertion. "May God forgive you, Diane," she said, quietly, passing on again. "I try to do ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... maintain his claim to the crown of England (A.D. 1066), he fitted out a numerous fleet, with which he was able to defeat his rivals. Now, as we are elsewhere told that one of these rivals alone had a navy of three hundred sail, his must have been of considerable magnitude. After his death, at the battle of Hastings, his sons and several of his chief nobility escaped in the remnant of their fleet to the coasts of Norway, and gave no little annoyance to ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... rose higher than a man's head, and the roofs of the deck-houses were jammed with fishing-boats nested, one inside the other, like pots in a kitchen. Every available inch was crowded with cases of gasoline, of groceries, and of the varied provisions required on an expedition of this magnitude. Aft, on rows of hooks, were suspended the carcasses of sheep and bullocks and hogs; there seemed to be nowhere another foot of available room. The red water-line of the ship was already submerged, yet notwithstanding this fact her derricks clanged noisily, her booms swung ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... that the two contending forces waged for it; and from the two Admirals in command to the boys employed on the most insignificant duties about the ships, every one of the combatants seemed equally impressed with the magnitude of the ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... king hath greatly honored his unworthy servant by entering under his roof," said the old Hebrew. "This condescension of the great Persian conqueror is a favor of such a magnitude that it shall never ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... to him. He asked concerning the particular fate of Bertha and her mother, among the miserable creatures who yet hovered about the neighbourhood of the convent, like a few half-scorched bees about their smothered hive. But, in the magnitude of their own terrors, none had retained eyes for their neighbours, and all that they could say was, that the wife and daughter of Engelred were certainly lost; and their imaginations suggested so many heart-rending details ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... truth, the little man—I mean Mr. Tubbs—at first rather enjoyed his new magnitude. He had experienced mortification so long on account of his diminutive stature, that he felt a little exhilarated at the idea of being able to look down on those to whom he had hitherto felt compelled ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the first country meeting of the Society was held at Oxford, and its 247 entries of live stock and 54 of implements were described as constituting a show of unprecedented magnitude. According to Bell's Weekly Messenger for July 22, 1839, the show for some time had been the all-absorbing topic of conversation not only among agriculturists, but among the community at large, and the first day 20,000 people attended the show, many having come great distances by road. Everybody ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... being expressly adapted to their tastes and wishes. The tailor displayed in his window a Lilliputian pair of leather gaiters, and a diminutive round frock, while each doorpost was appropriately garnished with a model of a coal-sack. The two eating-house keepers exhibited joints of a magnitude, and puddings of a solidity, which coalheavers alone could appreciate; and the fruit-pie maker displayed on his well-scrubbed window-board large white compositions of flour and dripping, ornamented with pink stains, giving rich promise of the fruit within, which made their huge mouths ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... orders, men," he announced. Suddenly he laughed. He couldn't help it. At first he had been completely overcome by the responsibility, and the magnitude of the job, but now he was getting used to the idea and he could see the adventure in it. Ten wild Planeteers riding an asteroid! Sunny space, what a great big ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... consciously awake to the curious weaknesses which disfigure even the finest conceptions of this extraordinary musician than on those earlier occasions, when I only had a sense of general discomfort adequate to the magnitude of ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... gentleman in whose services I sail his steam-yacht, and the commander of your larger steam-yacht, Captain Ringgold, there is a difficulty of very great magnitude;" and Captain Mazagan paused as if to note the effect of this announcement upon ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... Moestlin, Kepler's professor, the rare faculty of distinguishing the satellites of Jupiter with the naked eye, and of counting fourteen of the stars in the group of Pleiades, the remotest of them being only of the ninth magnitude. He presumed none the more for that; on the contrary, he made his bow to you, at a distance, and when occasion arose he bravely knew ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... masterpiece of modern fiction—and really he could not see the good of such works. Miss Hague and he had disagreed on this subject before. She was an inveterate novel-reader, and claimed kindred with a star of chief magnitude in the profession, and to speak lightly of light literature in her presence always brought her out warmly and vigorously in defence and praise ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... is one full order of magnitude beyond anything previously known to your science. Eleventh, it could not have been developed by the science of Terra, nor by that of any other world whose population I ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... negotiation, but to unite a separated one; always imagining that you knew of, but did not resist, the intended commission to Mr. Oswald, and therefore hinting the expediency of superseding it, by giving to another person an appointment of such rank and magnitude as should include a power which it seems neither for the public interest, nor for yours and your friends' interests, ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... the king to execute the Herculean labour of restoring the castle of Pau, first arrived, and saw the state of dilapidation into which it had fallen, he must have been appalled at the magnitude of his undertaking. Seeing it, as I do now,[29] grim, damp, rugged, ruined, and desolate, even in its state of transition, after several years of toil have been spent upon its long-deserted walls; ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... mentioned thus far have invariably used a tightly stretched rope or wire; but there are a number of persons who perform feats, of course not of such magnitude, on a slack wire, in which they have to defy not only the force of gravity, but the to-and-fro motion of the cable as well. It is particularly with the Oriental performers that we see this exhibition. Some use open parasols, which, with their Chinese or Japanese costumes, render the performance ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... that there are only two noblemen who have estates of any magnitude in Norway. One of these has a house near Tonsberg, at which he has not resided for some years, having been at court, or on embassies. He is now the Danish Ambassador in London. The house is pleasantly situated, and the grounds about it fine; but their neglected appearance plainly tells ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... New Journey. Magnitude of the Enterprise. Affecting Leave-taking. The Journey Commenced. Adventures by the Way. Friendly Character of the Indians. Vast Realms of Fertility and Beauty. The Joys and the Sorrows of such a Pilgrimage. The Assassination of La Salle and of ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... through the creative word, of the perfection of his works, of man bearing the image of God. We should even see that idea of God which presents itself to us out of all other characteristics of that record in such spotless purity and sublime magnitude, sink down to a decided insignificance through the identification of the divine days of creation with our earthly days of twenty-four hours. All this certainly brings near to us the question: do we make a correct exegesis, do we correctly read that record, when we ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... demand a boon. He who for years has suffered the ignominy of the motley is at last revealed to us as a poet of such magnitude of soul and richness of expression that he would not suffer by comparison with the great Bojardo or tim greater Virgil. Let him be stripped for ever of that hideous garb he wears, and let him be treated, hereafter, ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... iron works were erected, at Clyde Cleugh, Muirkirk, and Devon—the managers and overseers of which, as well as the workmen, had mostly received their training and experience at Carron—until at length the iron trade of Scotland has assumed such a magnitude that its manufacturers are enabled to export to England and other countries upwards of 500,000 tons a-year. How different this state of things from the time when raids were made across the Border for the purpose of obtaining ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... which the Minster has sustained is not, perhaps, of so great a magnitude as, from the first appearance of the fire, might have been anticipated. The destruction is principally confined to the choir, the roof of which is entirely consumed. The beautiful and elaborately carved screen,[1] which divides the choir from the nave, and forms a support ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... light appeared again, and I resolved, though little strength was left to me, to seek out its source. I stood up and staggered towards it, and as I drew nearer observed that the illumination came from nothing more nor less than an elevator at the bottom of a shaft, the magnitude of which I could not, of course, at ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... the great river, were hundreds of thousands of acres equal in richness of the soil to the famous delta lands of the Nile. The bringing of the water from the river and its distribution through a system of canals and ditches, while a work of great magnitude requiring the expenditure of large sums of money, was, as an ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... all his life to wrestling with that one thing, and attach to it an importance which would make his neighbours think him a monomaniac. If you think long and deeply upon any subject, it grows in apparent magnitude and weight; if you think of it too long, it may grow big enough to exclude the thought of all things besides. If it be an existing and prevalent evil you are thinking of, you may come to fancy that if that one thing were done away, ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... the Territorials dwindled after taking the field — Lord K. inclined at first to pile up divisions without providing them with the requisite reservoirs of reserves — His feat in organizing five regular divisions in addition to those in the Expeditionary Force — His immediate recognition of the magnitude of the contest — He makes things hum in the War Office — His differences of opinion with G.H.Q. — The inability of G.H.Q. to realize that a vast expansion of the military forces was the matter of ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... different. Our ideas of greatness, then, are much less dependent on actual area than on what painters term aerial perspective. The dimness of distance, and the diminution of parts, are essential to right conceptions of great magnitude. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... cultivate a little wheat and ghusub. The houses are huts of sticks, date-leaves, and dried grass. Near the great spring is a large tree, with prickly thorny leaves, not unlike the tholh. It is called Ahatas, اهتس, and was brought from Soudan, where its species grows to an enormous magnitude. Its wood makes excellent bowls, spoons, and several useful domestic utensils. This tree measures at least twelve feet round its trunk; its principal branch is prostrate, bent beneath the burden of many a Saharan summer's heat and winter's cold. From the old paralyzed arm, however, shoot ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... name. I think this matter might be arranged to our mutual satisfaction, Dr. Etherington, and the intention of poor Betsey most completely executed; she, poor woman, knew little of business, as was best for her sex; and when women undertake affairs of magnitude, they are very apt to ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... would die in the House for its privileges, and the liberty of the press. But come, don't be alarmed: this will have no Consequences. I don't think your brother is going into opposition; and for me, if I may name myself to your affection after him, nothing but a question of such magnitude can carry me to the House at all. I am sick of parties and factions, and leave them to buy and sell one another. Bless me! I had forgot the numbers; they were 300, we 111. We then went upon the King's message; heard ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... sections together, we could make a bridge of eighteen hundred feet, enough for any river we had to traverse; but habitually the leading brigade would, out of the abundant timber, improvise a bridge before the pontoon-train could come up, unless in the cases of rivers of considerable magnitude, such as the Ocmulgee, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... brilliant and daring strokes ever effected in the history of licensed liquor. When I say that it was out of the agitation of this situation that Smith's Ladies' and Gent's Cafe originated, anybody who knows Mariposa will understand the magnitude of the moment. ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... with its range of three open-sided and deeply recessed doorways, has unmistakably debased tendencies, but is filled with sculptured statuary of more than ordinarily effective disposition, more remarkable for magnitude and ornateness than for finesse of skill and workmanship, or even as ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... friends in 1814. Such letters have gone out of fashion now, when it is more frequent to sum up the characters of our visitors in epigrams than in long essays, as Mr. Ticknor has here done. This first star, who in comparison with many of Mr. Ticknor's later acquaintances was one of very modest magnitude, made his unexpected, comet-like appearance in Boston on his way to New York to marry an American woman. It is easy to believe what Mr. Ticknor says in his long account of him, that "while he flatters ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... this polite tranquillity came, I blush to say, from the descendant of John de Fonte. He exploded in a yawn of magnitude; to cover this, the young lady began hastily to play her old game of setting people astride their topic, and she selected David Dodd for the experiment. She put on a warm curiosity about the sea, and ships, and the countries men visit in them. ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... impose by its magnitude. It is about one-eighth the size of a London daily journal; but if it is not great by quantity it is by quality. Over the three columns of the opening page figure the three watchwords of the Royal cause, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... his schoolmates, who were, one and all, regarding him with suspicion and unconcealed scorn. The most careless and reckless among them were shocked at the enormity of the offence with which he stood charged, a theft of such magnitude, and then the scoundrelly attempt to make it appear that another had ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... could not hear Luigi's organ or any sound whatever. The truth was that the way seemed endless from the entrance to the house upon the terrace; and that having reached it at last, both Luigi and Glory were dismayed by the magnitude of the mansion and confused by its apparently countless doorways. Before which they should take their stand, required time to decide; but unobserved, they finally settled this point. Luigi rested his instrument upon its ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... now supposed he had sat the bronze horse as a statue in public view exactly thirty-seven minutes and a quarter. Tubs full of colouring liquid to soak the garments of the prince, pots of paint, and paint and plaster brushes, hinted the magnitude ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not observe that the scrape of his boyhood over the drowned Stingo had hardly been of the magnitude that besought for twenty pounds. He waived the personal appeal, and asked, ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the bridge to lead the student to the actress, and the means employed were of no less magnitude than a conflagration, the rescue of a life, and a wound, as well as the somewhat improbable combined action of a student and a prompter. True, more simple methods would scarcely have brought the youth with the examination in his head and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... think things better or worse than they were, will silence neither. We give our honest praise to the organisers of the food supply for their effectual performance of a very heavy, vexatious, and precarious task, the scale of which we have been brought by inquiry to estimate at its true magnitude. At the same time we will spare such sympathy as the dignity of the matter demands for the sufferers from tough beef, tub butter, smoked puddings, cold potatoes, and congealed gravy, and not mislead any refugee schoolmaster of the future ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... great admirer of large books with gilt edges and very expensive bindings. They show to best advantage in the southern parlour library, where books are rarely opened. To say the Elder is not a man of great parts, is to circulate a libel of the first magnitude. Indeed, he liked big books for their solidity; they reminded him of great thoughts well preserved, and sound principles more firmly established. At times he had thought they were like modern democratic rights, linked ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... Miss Sinclair, the magnitude of the undertaking. At first I thought that I had been made the victim of a madman, and was tempted to return to England at once, and have nothing to do with the affair. But the amount of money placed at my disposal in the bank settled all scruples and started me forth upon ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... and when I compare it with these systems with which it is and ever must be in conflict, those things which seem as defects in her polity are the very things which make me tremble. The states of the Christian world have grown up to their present magnitude in a great length of time and by a great variety of accidents. They have been improved to what we see them with greater or less degrees of felicity and skill. Not one of them has been formed upon a regular plan or with any unity of design. As their constitutions are not systematical, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... we should have to make our way as best we could across the moors to Helmsdale. They showed us the best way to reach the foot of the mountain, but we found the going much worse than we anticipated, since the storm had now developed into one of great magnitude. Fortunately the wind was behind us, but the higher we ascended the stronger it became, and it fairly took our breath away even when we turned our heads towards it sideways, which made us realise how impossible it was for ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... or the foibles of some noted politician or rich man were things of magnitude and were much expatiated upon, while the common man, singly or in mass, was of absolutely no importance. The finely turned rhetoric of the orators, pleasing as it was to that generation, is, judged ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... has aimed at conciseness, so far as the nature of the argument would allow, not employing "those arts by which a big book is made." But if the smallness of the work does not seem to accord with the magnitude of the subject, it is not to be inferred that the sentiments have been hastily formed or rashly vindicated. For many years they have been taking deep root in the mind of the writer; nor would he have engaged in the ministry of the Church, but on the conviction, ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... expense of preparing a work of such magnitude for the press, must have been a considerable deduction from the price stipulated to be paid for the copy-right. I understand that nothing was allowed by the booksellers on that account; and I remember his telling ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... and joined to the city by the bridge; he also dug a trench round the newly erected buildings, for their greater security, and called it the ditch of the Quirites. 9. The public works erected by the kings were of stupendous magnitude, but the private buildings were wretched, the streets narrow, and the houses mean. It was not until after the burning of the city by the Gauls that the city was laid out on a better plan; after the Punic wars wealth flowed in abundantly, and private persons began to erect magnificent ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... the critic into a devotee. At this time he undoubtedly stood at the head of his party in the North. He was still young, having just entered his forties, still ambitious to shine as a statesman of the first magnitude. An extraordinary power of application had equipped him with the varied information that would make him an authority in the national life. Even his enemies admitted his capacity as a great executive. He had sometimes been compelled, for the sake of his own career, to regulate his course by ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... proper idea of the magnitude of the work involved in painting a huge decoration, and Mr. Gurin can hardly be blamed for his choice of the men of experience who finally did the work, although not all of them justified the confidence placed in them. The work of painting such huge decorations is necessarily ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... commerce; as a colony that would form the germ of a wide civilization; that would, in fact, carry the American population across the Rocky Mountains and spread it along the shores of the Pacific, as it already animated the shores of the Atlantic. As Mr. Astor, by the magnitude of his commercial and financial relations, and the vigor and scope of his self-taught mind, had elevated himself into the consideration of government and the communion and correspondence with leading statesmen, he, at an early period, communicated his schemes to ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... special instruments to ascertain the existence of a considerable number of stars which we could not see without the help of our telescopes; they could perceive with the naked eye stars of the fifth magnitude, and note them upon their catalogues.[*] It entailed, it is true, a long training and uninterrupted practice to bring their sight up to its maximum keenness; but from very early times it was a function of the priestly colleges to found and maintain ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Union, the abolition of slavery, the establishment of the principle of universal religious toleration; the loss of one great collection of colonies, the plantation of and grant of constitutions to others of not inferior magnitude, which had not even come into existence at its commencement; the growth of our wondrous dominion in India, with its eventual transfer of all authority in that country to the crown; with a host of minor transactions and enactments, which must all ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... side, close to the water, and affords an almost impenetrable shelter to a concealed foe. I tell you this that you may know what we have to encounter, but at the same time I am sure that the gallantry of British officers and men will overcome difficulties of far greater magnitude. Why I wished to accompany you was that I might render all the services ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... in the course and near the banks of which there always is a chain of fruitful meadows and rich pastures, and those interspersed with innumerable pleasant towns, villages, and houses, and among them many of considerable magnitude. So that, while you view the downs, and think the country wild and uninhabited, yet when you come to descend into these vales you are surprised with the most pleasant and ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... sward, upwards of sixty feet in circumference; the Himalayan white pine, with its deep fringe-like foliage, twenty-five feet in height; the Cephalonian fir, with leaves as pungent as an Auricaria, twenty feet high, and many specimens of the same kind of nearly equal magnitude; yews, of more than half a century's growth; a purple beech, of thirty feet in height, its branches as many in circumference, contrasting with the green around; numerous specimens of balm of Gilead, silver firs, and Norway ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... received much help from divers persons, and I trust, dis faventibus, to acknowledge this and more at the end of my journey, in (to use a word for which a great writer of French fought hard) a "postface." In a work of magnitude such as the present, which can only be proceeded with pedetentim, the proverb about the relations of beginner and finisher is peculiarly applicable. For the present I shall confine myself to mentioning with the utmost thankfulness the kindness of Mr. E.W. Gosse, who ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... description, and the available observations of earlier dates were extremely scanty. We can but look with astonishment on the genius of the man who, in spite of such difficulties, was able to detect such a phenomenon as the precession, and to exhibit its actual magnitude. I shall endeavour to explain the nature of this singular celestial movement, for it may be said to offer the first instance in the history of science in which we find that combination of accurate observation with skilful interpretation, of which, ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... on the Somme, an operation without parallel in character and magnitude unless it be the German offensive at Verdun which had failed, could not be too complete. There must be a continuous flow of munitions which would allow the continuation of the battle with blow upon blow once it had begun. Adequate realization of his task would not hasten a ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... ancient Rome, on a number of hills or slight rises. To the north of the city, on the summit of a lofty eminence, appeared the still dark and frowning fortress of Cyclopean architecture, composed of stones of vast magnitude. When I afterwards visited it, I was surprised to find the extraordinary nicety with which, without any cement, they were joined together; and I cannot tell with what machinery the Peruvians could have raised blocks so enormous to such heights, ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... that they would immolate themselves. They employed the Druids as their ministers at those sacrifices. It was thought the divine nature of the immortal gods could not be propitiated but by human life being substituted for human life. There were, Caesar continues, effigies of immense magnitude, interwoven with osiers, filled with living men. Then these former being ignited, the latter perished in the flames. The people thought that the sacrifices of guilty human victims, apprehended in the act of theft, robbery, or any other crime, were more agreeable ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... tree, you were struck with the number of shrubs and young plants, ashes, etc., which had found a bed upon the decayed trunk and grew to no inconsiderable height, forming, as it were, a part of the hedgerow. In no part of England, or of Europe, have I ever seen a yew-tree at all approaching this in magnitude, as it must have stood. By the bye, Hutton, the old guide, of Keswick, had been so impressed with the remains of this tree, that he used gravely to tell strangers that there could be no doubt of its having been in existence before ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... lawless life, and more than once been engaged in dishonest transactions, but never in one of such magnitude as the present. He calculated that, even if they surrendered the box in consideration of a reward, he would not receive less than a thousand dollars, and he was planning how he would dispose ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... care of the American consul. Murphy's native shrewdness had made him suspicious of von Staden the instant the latter had so nonchalantly offered him a bribe of five thousand dollars, for the proffer of a bribe of that magnitude, without any preliminary bargaining, did not co-ordinate with Michael's idea of business. Certainly if the charterers had his owners "fixed," five thousand dollars was too much money to give their captain, particularly since there were available any number of ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... significance of an event is measured neither by its material magnitude, nor by its immediate success. Thermopylae was a defeat; but to the Greek imagination, Leonidas and his few Spartans stood for the whole worth of Grecian life. Bunker Hill was a defeat; but for our people, the fight over that breastwork has always seemed to show as well as any ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... century were styled "the sons of Ben Jonson." There are no doubt "sons of Tennyson" at this present date. With these we have now no concern. They are but satellites, while that for which we are scanning the poetical horizon is a rising star of a magnitude in some degree comparable with the stars which have set with the deaths of Matthew Arnold, Browning and Tennyson. There is, I believe, more than one such star already well advanced into the firmament. I am one of those who believe that this is an age unusually rich in genuine ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... to me he is distinctly a continental type. His sense of space, of magnitude, his processional pages, his unloosedness, his wide horizons, his vanishing boundaries,—always something unconfined and unconfinable, always the deferring and undemonstrable. The bad as well as the good traits of his country and his ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... reforms, but political expediency carried both measures. Women, on the contrary, have fought their own battles; and in their rebellion against existing conditions have inaugurated the most fundamental revolution the world has ever witnessed. The magnitude and multiplicity of the changes involved make the obstacles in the way of success seem ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... were forms of awe and magnitude proportionate to the woes they dealt out, to the destiny they wove. But the very littleness of the daily chances that actually shape fate is, in its discordance and its mockery, more truly terrible and most hideously solemn—it is the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... in its becoming a Maroon war of plunderers and banditti, rather than continuing to be a formal array regularly opposed to the regular army in the country; because though it may be true that the danger of a large army of rebels may be a danger of greater magnitude, as well as more immediate, yet it furnishes at least the opportunity of meeting that danger, and of grappling with it; whereas this plundering, robbing, and burning war, carried on by an infinite number of small parties, associated together and hiding together like the thieves in the ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... over, and its decisions if important were unanimous, even Elder Brewster, converted perhaps by Standish's Biblical references, giving his voice for the stringent measures rendered necessary by the growth and magnitude of the conspiracy. ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... houses; in time of war they commanded each his own household force, and in peace they dispensed justice each within his own circle. But this obviously imperfect and inefficient form of government showed a growing tendency to break down just in proportion to the magnitude of the tasks which the nation in the course of its history was called upon to undertake. Appeal to Jehovah was always in these circumstances resorted to; His court was properly that of last resort, but the ordinary authorities ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... Highlanders that the great and arduous undertaking was accomplished of bringing into a state of cultivation Kincardine Moss, in Perthshire. At that time, 1767, the task to be undertaken was one of stupendous magnitude; but was so successfully carried out that two thousand acres were reclaimed which for centuries had rested under seven feet of heath and vegetable matter. Similarly many other spots were brought into a state of cultivation. But this, and other ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... intention to betray. However strong may be my present purpose to realize the expectations of a magnanimous and confiding people, I too well understand the dangerous temptations to which I shall be exposed from the magnitude of the power which it has been the pleasure of the people to commit to my hands not to place my chief confidence upon the aid of that Almighty Power which has hitherto protected me and enabled me to bring to favorable issues other important but still greatly ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Harrison • James D. Richardson |
