"Modify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... information as to wells was unreliable, and it was desirable to see some tanks and streams, before allowing a column to plunge into the unknown dangers of the valley. After some consideration Sir Bindon Blood decided to modify the original plan and send only two battalions of the 2nd Brigade with one squadron over the pass, while the rest were to march to join him at Nawagai. We then returned, reaching camp in ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... surface again in some contorted form. When we have discovered what kinds of impulse we desire, we must not rest content with preaching, or with trying to produce the outward manifestation without the inner spring; we must try rather to alter institutions in the way that will, of itself, modify the life of ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... playing with nature. Through vacation they relax their minds, exercise mildly their bodies, and freshen the colours of their outlook on life. Such people like to live comfortably, work little, and enjoy existence lazily. Instead of modifying themselves to fit the life of the wilderness, they modify their city methods to fit open-air conditions. They do not need to strip to the contest, for contest there is none, and Indian packers are cheap at a dollar a day. But even so the problem of the greatest comfort—defining comfort as an accurate balance ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... calculate upon the accidents of disease, and temperament, and organization, and circumstance, together with the multitude of independent agencies which affect the opinions, the conduct, and the happiness of individuals, and produce determinations of the will, and modify the judgement, so as to produce effects the most opposite in natures considerably similar. These are those operations in the order of the whole of nature, tending, we are prone to believe, to some definite mighty end, to which ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... of newspapers the most independent, that they must swell the mob of sycophants. The public compels them to exaggerate the true proportions of such people as we see every hour in our own day. Those who, for the moment, modify, or may modify the national condition, become preposterous idols in the eyes of the gaping public; but with the sad necessity of being too utterly trodden under foot after they are shelved, unless they live in men's ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... World, motive power of Heaven and of the Spheres, it was held, exercises its creative energy chiefly through the medium of the Sun, during his revolution along the signs of the Zodiac, with which signs unite the paranatellons that modify their influence, and concur in furnishing the symbolic attributes of the Great Luminary that regulates Nature and is the depository of her greatest powers. The action of this Universal Soul of the World is displayed in the movements of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... exclaimed shrilly, "we are going too far. That the Blue Disease may modify the course of illness is conceivable, and seems to be supported by evidence. But to assume that it ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... the carriage is too heavy. I can only renew the representations contained in my letter of January 1, 1898, to the Adjutant General, accompanying drawing, etc., of my proposed carriage for machine guns. I would now, based on experience, modify my theory of organization as then proposed, and would make several changes in the model of carriage then proposed without departing ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... sides. One of them has now been dealt with: namely, that physical things do not influence mind (or form ideas and beliefs) except as they are implicated in action for prospective consequences. The other point is persons modify one another's dispositions only through the special use they make of physical conditions. Consider first the case of so-called expressive movements to which others are sensitive; blushing, smiling, frowning, clinching of fists, natural gestures of all kinds. ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... on the pianoforte; that his agitation is increased by a more lively movement, and that his convulsions then become more violent. Patients are seen to be absorbed in the search for one another, rushing together, smiling, talking affectionately, and endeavoring to modify their crises. They are all so submissive to the magnetizer that even when they appear to be in a stupor, his voice, a glance, or a sign will rouse them from it. It is impossible not to admit, from all these results, that some great ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... of three or four lines, this song, though marked in the Museum as an old song with additions, is the work of Burns. He often seems to have sat down to amend or modify old verses, and found it easier to make ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... surprised to see one of the missionaries' sons playing cricket with the Maori scholars. The mention of this little incident was doubtless intended to soften the impression of extreme austerity, and is not without its value to this end. But it does not go very far to modify the picture of old-fashioned gravity and severity. In modern times the missionaries would have been playing ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... what end? to procure an absolutely horizontal direction for a surface. When this measure of comparison is established in hard metal, how carefully it must be preserved to ensure that the oscillations of temperature shall not modify the length even in the most infinitesimal degree; for this would be fatal to the scientific use of the instrument in measuring horizontals. And yet how slight a thing in itself is involved! the preservation of ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... profound passage in which Maine shows the heavy debt of the various sciences to Roman law and the influence which it has exerted on the vocabulary of political science, the concepts of moral philosophy, and the doctrines of theology. I must confine myself to two questions: how far did Maine develop or modify in his subsequent writings the main thesis of Ancient Law? to what extent has this thesis stood the test of the criticism and research of others? As regards the first point, it is to be remembered that Ancient Law is but the first, though doubtless the most important, of a whole series ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... gentleness of her character was known to Stukely, so she could afford to exaggerate the expression of her anger, and she did not modify it, forgetful that a woman is the representative of the sex with cynical men, and escapes from contempt at ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... have none of their spiritual thaumaturgy—none of that unreal kind of transformation with which they had tried to modify their first teaching. There was no satisfaction in imagining mamma something different from her former self—no more the real, fervid, passionate, jealous Pepita than those pear-shaped transparent bags, so ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... Our transgression does not make Him turn away from us. It does profoundly modify the whole relation between us. It does give an aspect of antagonism ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... early Pan-American policy; it ran through his speeches in the campaign of 1916; it was in the Fourteen Points. It was his specific contribution to the covenant in Paris. Article X was the one point in the covenant which Wilson would not consent to modify or, as he expressed it, see "nullified." Just because it lay nearest Wilson's heart, it was the article against which the most virulent attacks of the ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... the wavelet works upon the waves, or as the leaf's movements work upon the sap inside the branch. The whole sea and the whole tree are registers of what has happened, and are different for the wave's and the leaf's action having occurred. A grafted twig may modify its stock to the roots:—so our outlived private experiences, impressed on the whole earth-mind as memories, lead the immortal life of ideas there, and become parts of the great system, fully distinguished from one another, just as we ourselves when alive were distinct, realizing themselves no longer ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... the tenor of Marion's fiction; but I think the work-table conversation at Smithie's did something to modify that. At Smithie's it was recognised, I think, that a "fellow" was a possession to be desired; that it was better to be engaged to a fellow than not; that fellows had to be kept—they might be mislaid, they might even be stolen. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... respect complete. In 1838, there appeared in London an edition of his writings, with a prefatory sketch of his life, by the Rev. Alfred Suckling, LL.B. The editor had access to a few private MSS., which, in our judgment, have not served to modify the previous accounts of Sir John's character, in spite of the labored efforts of his namesake—and, it may be, descendant—to that effect. The memoir and critical remarks appended are well written, though partial; and the work is the more valuable for the reason that only a few hundred copies ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... collectively, and suggesting detailed arguments in behalf of hopes and objects, which it does not need that we should incorporate with our narrative. But when he found how feeble was the influence which he exercised, and how cold was the echo to his appeal, he became impatient, and no longer strove to modify the expression of that scorn and indignation which he had for some time felt. The explosion followed ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... us even from, our own missionaries. A day is coming when, past all the temporary currents of worldly excitement, we shall, each of us, stand alone face to face with the perfect purity of our Redeemer. The thought of such a final interview ought certainly to modify all our judgments now, that we may strive to approve only what ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... sometimes spoke to her pupils on the subject. There was one who spent hours daily in her closet, but her teacher heard all she said. So, on a fitting opportunity, she suggested to her, in a gentle way, that she might modify the practice. "I will try to pray in a lower voice," was the reply; "but I never thought of anybody's hearing me." That night her voice was more subdued, but her prayer was very short; and soon after midnight her ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... slouched about the deck, letting go halliards, clewing up and hauling down; and perhaps, more than all, the aspect of the heavens, conveying a message that no man could misinterpret, caused them somewhat to modify their attitude, and by four bells the ship was as nearly ready for what might come ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... the body can, in turn, considerably modify its form, copying specially striking features found in the mother's thought; certain characteristic family traits, the Bourbon nose, for instance; those belonging to strangers in continual relationship ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... progress of this discussion I shall have occasion to use very plain, and sometimes very severe language. This would be an unpleasant task, did not duty imperiously demand its application. To give offence I am loath, but more to hide or modify the truth. I shall deal with the Society in its collective form—as one body—and not with individuals. While I shall be necessitated to marshal individual opinions in review, I protest, ab origine, against the supposition that indiscriminate censure is intended, or ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... propositions which rest for their evidence upon a balance of probabilities, or upon the weight of authority; with doctrines which every age and nation may make or unmake, which each sect may tamper with, and which even the individual may modify for himself, a second court of appeal ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... been simplified by about 30 affixes, which are used to modify the meanings of root words. The commonest ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 1 • Various
... baked meats' which have coldly set forth the breakfast table of all Great Britain for so many years. Now, what think you? Let me know; and recollect that, if we take to such an enterprise, we must do so in good earnest. Here is a hint,—do you make it a plan. We will modify it into as literary and classical a concern as you please, only let us put out our powers upon it, and it will most likely succeed. But you must live in London, and I also, to bring it to bear, and we ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... division. The second resolution, making the notes of the Bank of England a legal tender for sums of L5 and upwards was opposed still more energetically, as being both unnecessary and mischievous; but it was carried by a majority of fifty-eight. Lord Althorp, however, agreed so far to modify the proposal as to make it incumbent to pay all L5 notes in gold, if demanded. To the resolution which provided for the continuance of remuneration, a counter resolution was moved, to the effect that it was, in the opinion of the committee, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... in their love-affairs the exaggerated Platonic sentiments which young girls of twenty are wont to profess; they hold to these fixed doctrines like all who have little experience of life and no personal knowledge of how great social forces modify, impair, and bring to nought such grand and noble ideas. The mere thought of being jilted by the colonel was torture to Sylvie's brain. She lay in her bed going over and over her own desires, Pierrette's conduct, and the song which had awakened her with the ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... through transpiration and evaporation. Now, as leaves are the natural outlets for moisture thrown off by any plant, manifestly the first thing to do was either to reduce the number of branches and leaves, or to modify them into sharp spines (not surface prickles like the rose's); to cultivate a low habit of growth, not to expose unnecessary surface to sun and air; to thicken the skin until little moisture could evaporate through the leathery coat; and, finally, to utilize the material thus saved in developing ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... occur to a certain extent independently of external circumstances; appearing under all sorts of management, and being little affected by changes of locality, separation from diseased stock, or such causes as modify the ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... this, that the interviewer waited for more? Not she. Leaving him mixed up with his daydream, she took herself off before he could retract, or modify, or in any way spoil ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... unrivalled, in the triumph of individualities weak; their artisans can make a glove fit perfectly, but have yet to learn how to cut out a coat; their authors, like their soldiers, can be marshalled in groups; means are superior to ends; manners, the exponent of Nature in other lands, there color, modify, and characterize the development of intellect; the subordinate principle in government, in science, and in life, becomes paramount; drawing, the elemental language of Art, is mastered, while the standard of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... church is at present deserted. It is only quite recently that the English residents have received any sort of recognition in Batavian society. Now, however, they have succeeded in establishing two institutions—a paper-chase (on horseback) and a lawn-tennis club, which are likely to modify ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... various plant constituents. In treating of the relation of the soil to the plant, he puts forward his "mineral" theory. It cannot be doubted that, while the advance of science since Liebig's time has induced us to considerably modify his mineral theory, it contained the statement of one of the most important facts in the chemistry of plant physiology. He was the first to fully estimate the enormous importance of the mineral portion of the plant's food, ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... stated hours he must daily be present at an office, receive a bundle of letters, and then set out to deliver them at private doors, in accordance with orders which he finds written on the envelopes. Such is the case at present, and socialism would do nothing to modify it. If our author thinks that a man, under these conditions, is his own employer, our author must be easily satisfied, and we will not quarrel with his opinion. It will be enough to point out that the ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... be brought to the bar of the house, I shall not be struck mute by the previous question, before I have an opportunity to say a word or two in my own defence. But, sir, to prevent further consumption of the time of the house, I deem it my duty to ask them to modify their resolution. It may be as severe as they propose, but I ask them to change the matter of fact a little, so that when I come to the bar of the house, I may not, by a single word, put an end to it. I did not present the petition, and I appeal to the Speaker to say that I did not. I said ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... him, after receiving his letters; and it may be supposed that the bombastic style of that epistle would not efface the unfavorable impression produced by Balthazar's exterior. The representations of Haultepenne and others induced him so far to modify his views as to send his confidential councillor, d'Assonleville, to the stranger, in order to learn the details of the scheme. Assonleville had accordingly an interview with Gerard, in which he requested the young man to draw up a statement of his plan in writing, ani ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... made to the coroner forms the basis of your examination. Any misstatements or discrepancies in your evidence will be carefully inquired into, and you will make a bad impression on judge and jury if you modify, retract, or explain away your evidence as given to the coroner. You had your opportunity of making any amendments on your evidence when the coroner read over to you your deposition before you ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... adaptability of the American? He should be ready to see the effect of the inevitable mechanical changes and modify his ideas to suit. For it cannot be too often reiterated that it is a case of ideas, not of ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... sturdily still, or hesitating, doubting either the validity of the alleged truth or its uses. Between the clash of contending opinions the new ideas take shape in the awakened minds which are prepared for them. These come shortly to be the majority. The State and the Church gradually and imperceptibly modify their methods or their creeds; and so, safely and without disaster, humanity ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... to modify that rather rash statement, General Waymouth, when I tell you that I suggested ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... leaving them, they had well-nigh made up their minds to the verdict. All know it will be "Guilty," given unanimously. Woodley's temporary absence will not affect it. Neither the longer time allowed them for deliberation. If this cause change, it will not be to modify, but make more fixed their determination. Still others keep coming up. Like wildfire the news has spread that the mother of the murdered man is herself stricken down. This, acting as a fresh stimulus to sympathy, brings back such of the searchers as had gone home; ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... wavering feebleness, his own trivial duplicity, blindness, unreason, and vanity? And if it be true that some kind of predestination governs every circumstance of life, it appears to be no less true that such predestination exists in our character only; and to modify character must surely be easy to the man of unfettered will, for is it not constantly changing in the lives of the vast bulk of men? Is your own character, at thirty, the same as it was when you were ten years younger? It will be better or worse in the measure that ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... treating the matter as a joke. If a boy frequently dresses up as a girl, or a girl as a boy, and if we observe between two boys, or between two girls, an unduly intimate friendship at an age which corresponds to the period of the undifferentiated sexual impulse, it will be as well to modify the children's education accordingly. A girl with such inclinations should, for example, be thrown as much as possible into the society of lads of an appropriate age. In the case of those who are still quite young, there is no doubt that by the proper measures we can in part check the ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... which humans actually have of weather forces can be seen from the fact that at present we do not even know exactly how rain begins.[58] Learning to predict it and to modify it, through space application, might help slow down the soil erosion of arable land—that "geological inevitability * * * which man can only hasten or postpone."[59] It is noteworthy that the two leading nations in space research, the United States and the ...
— The Practical Values of Space Exploration • Committee on Science and Astronautics
... looked like a grown man; coming towards you he looked more natural. Wherever there appeared a bunch or angle that seemed out of place, Lacy endeavored to modify the over abundance by tacking on one of the ornaments taken from the old uniform of which a great number were used. The shoulders of the jacket seemed to fit to suit Lacy, therefore she used the epaulets from the shoulders of the old soldier's uniform elsewhere. The seat of the pants hanging so ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... and handed down to offspring.[237] With sufficient time, favourable conditions of life [circonstances], successive changes in the surface of the globe, and the power of new surroundings and habits to modify the organs of living bodies, all animal and vegetable forms have been imperceptibly rendered such as we now see them. It follows that species will be constant only in relation to their environments, and cannot be ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... an English ship, should be by that very fact deneutralized, and become in its turn a lawful prize. In this insensate rivalry, which ruined at the same time the commerce of England and of the world, the Cabinet of London had taken no care to modify, in favor of the United States, the rigor of its ordinances. This was for England the occasion of grave difficulties, and of a war at one time dangerous. Arbitrary interference and violence were the rule ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... in the course of a single life a man may pass through half a dozen phases of growth. Born and reared in possession of certain ideas and manners of action, he or she may, before middle life is reached, have had occasion repeatedly to modify, enlarge, and alter, or completely throw aside those traditions. Within the individuality itself of such persons, goes on, in an intensified form, that very struggle, conflict, and disco-ordination ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... to be expected, if the principles which he lays down be correct. Take the case of the races which are known to be produced by the operation of atavism and variability, and the conditions of existence which check and modify these tendencies. Take the case of the pigeons that I brought before you; there it was shown that they might be all classed as belonging to some one of five principal divisions, and that within these ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... thing about this talking, which you forget. It shapes our thoughts for us;—the waves of conversation roll them as the surf rolls the pebbles on the shore. Let me modify the image a little. I rough out my thoughts in talk as an artist models in clay. Spoken language is so plastic,—you can pat and coax, and spread and shave, and rub out, and fill up, and stick on so easily when you work that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... is waged, had led me to anticipate a war of positions. All my thoughts, all my prospective plans, all my possible alternatives of action, were concentrated upon a war of movement and manoeuvre. I knew perfectly well that modern up-to-date inventions would materially influence and modify our previous conceptions as to the employment of the three arms respectively; but I had not realised that this process would work in so drastic a manner as to render all our preconceived ideas of the method of tactical field operations comparatively ineffective and useless. Judged by the course ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... impossible that all this play atmosphere may seem incongruous and unnecessary to teachers used to more conventional methods, but I feel sure that an actual experience of it would modify that point of view conclusively. The children of the schools where story-telling and "dramatising" were practised were startlingly better in reading, in attentiveness, and in general power of expression, than the pupils of like social conditions in the same grades of other ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... modify the Epeira's talent in any essential feature. As the young worked, so do the old, the richer by a year's experience. There are no masters nor apprentices in their guild; all know their craft from the moment that the first thread is laid. We have learnt something from the ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... this question of universals had always been one of the most important questions of dialectics—so important that Porphyry, touching on it in his Preliminaries, did not dare to take the responsibility of cutting the knot, but said, "It is a very grave point,"—Champeaux, who was obliged to modify his idea and then renounce it, saw his course fall into such discredit that they hardly let him make his dialectical lectures, as though dialectics consisted entirely in ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... no doubt been the policy of the Hili-lites to prevent all strangers from returning to the outer world; but this policy was, it seems, not a firmly founded one, and many circumstances arose to modify and finally even to reverse it. They looked upon Pym almost as one of themselves. When he left them, it was with the intention of returning; and they exacted of him a promise to hide, even from Peters, ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... fulfilling its old function of serving as the tool of certain powerful individuals, latterly known as the Big Men, might be transformed into an instrument toward freedom. With the ideal of a democracy of the normals ever before him, the statesman could go on to construct and modify his social machinery. That would entail the satisfaction not alone of the animal needs, but also the highest aspirations and therefore the provision of the finest conditions of life for the normal: those most ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... life or not. The English people is accustomed, within certain limits, to repose confidence in its leaders and to suffer them in truth to lead; so that a small handful of men can within limits speak for the English people. They can voice the public sentiments, or, when they speak, the people will modify its sentiments to accord with their utterances. There is no man or set of men who can similarly speak for the American people; and no one is better aware of that fact than the American, however honoured by his countrymen, when he gives ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... arising from the relations of motion existing between the lymph, the chyle, etc. The blood would then always have to be considered as a whole, not as a part. But as there exist, as a matter of fact, very many causes which modify, in a given manner, the nature of blood, and are, in turn, modified thereby, it follows that other motions and other relations arise in the blood, springing not from the mutual relations of its parts ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... indeed, that nebulae are, in reality, vast swarms of meteors, and the light they emit results from continual collisions between the constituent particles. The French astronomer, Faye, also proposed to modify Laplace's theory by assuming that the nebula broke up into rings all at once, and not in detail, as ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... This view, though natural, not only leaves wholly out of sight those broad strategic considerations which lead nations to put fleets afloat, which direct the sphere of their action, and so have modified and will continue to modify the history of the world, but is one-sided and narrow even as to tactics. The battles of the past succeeded or failed according as they were fought in conformity with the principles of war; and the seaman who carefully studies the causes of success or failure will not only detect and gradually ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... epoch-making. Its building is of such signal and far reaching importance that it marks a point in history from which succeeding years and later progress will be counted. It is so variously significant that the future alone can determine the ways in which it will touch and modify the life ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate, its capacity for sorrowful impression; and acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... without a severe struggle on the part of the protected and favored classes to retain the unjust advantages which they have so long enjoyed. It was to be expected that a similar struggle would be made by the same classes in the United States whenever an attempt was made to modify or abolish the same unjust system here. The protective policy had been in operation in the United States for a much shorter period, and its pernicious effects were not, therefore, so clearly perceived and felt. Enough, however, was known ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... to agree with Jesson," Nigel pronounced, "inasmuch as I believe that Mademoiselle Karetsky is disposed to change or modify her views concerning us. You see, after all, this threatened blow against England is purely a private affair of Germany's. There is really no reason why Russia or any other country should be dragged into it. She ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and, as I said the other day, on these we may reasonably suppose that we are not far wrong. Now here is a point on which we shall directly counter. No doubt but this will lessen the combined weight of our arguments where they coincide. And to avoid this effect, it might seem worth while to you to modify or cancel the last paragraph of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... other extreme of austere abnegation of self for any cause however trivial. Nature is the only guide and I don't believe Nature is bad. Of course the curse of freedom will allow one for a long time to distort and vilely modify natural instincts, but at least one can fly from the too palpable artificial. Dear Poodie, don't sigh. I only let off steam in words—that is safe. I am still a slave to this disgusting civilization and always your very devoted 'Perfect One', ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... days of building the airships of the 23 class, further information was obtained relating to rigid airship construction in Germany, which caused our designers to modify their views. It was considered a wrong policy to continue the production of a fleet of ships the design of which was becoming obsolete, and accordingly within ten months of placing the order for this class a decision was reached that the last four ships ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... married couple start for their honeymoon. They were going into Cornwall, and on the return journey would manage to see Miss Madden at her Somerset retreat. For the present, Virginia was to live on at Mrs. Conisbee's, but not in the old way; henceforth she would have proper attendance, and modify her vegetarian diet—at the express bidding of the doctor, as she explained to ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... them? Many such pious expressions issued from his lips. But the true Hun character came out when he asked whether the hated Boers were coming? The most vindictive expression, that even the benevolent spectacles could only partly modify, clouded his face, and he complained to me most bitterly of the black ingratitude of the Boers toward Germany. "All my life, from boyhood," he complained, "have I not subscribed my pfennigs to provide Christmas presents for ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... business way, the action of life and accident insurance companies is interesting. Some of them are reconstructing their policies so as to include a special waiver of insurance by aviators. Anything which compels these great corporations to modify their policies cannot be looked upon as a ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... than either tempo or dynamics, and is obviously less under the control of the conductor. The vocalist may be induced to sing more loudly or the violinist to play more rapidly, but it is often impossible to get either to so modify his actual tone quality as to make his rendition more expressive. And yet, in spite of this difficulty, there are many passages in both choral and orchestral music in which the essential significance depends absolutely upon beauty ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... guard with you; one naked wretch can't do much against eight armed men. And, listen; take the young gentleman also, and let him see what goes on; the experience may modify his views, but don't touch him without telling me. I have reports to write, and ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... must be supplemented by psychoanalysis of individuals who became neurotic. Notwithstanding this these reports are valuable in more than one respect, and information of a similar nature has urged me to modify my etiological assumption as mentioned ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... from your own severity.—Francis is safe from me, unless you are altogether unreasonable.—Allow me but what you cannot deny to any friend of your brother, the power of seeing you at times—suspend at least the impetuosity of your dislike to me, and I will, on my part, modify the current of my just and ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... people like the Malays; their ships would bring over girls purchased in India, just as the ruling classes in Turkey used to obtain their wives from Circassia; and this, no doubt, has helped to modify the ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... found my predecessor (General Hovey) had issued an order permitting the departure south of all persons subject to the conscript law of the Southern Confederacy. Many applications have been made to me to modify this order, but I regarded it as a condition precedent by which I was bound in honor, and therefore I have made no changes or modifications; nor shall I determine what action I shall adopt in relation to persons ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... present state of mind this information was upsetting. It not only compelled him to modify his opinion of Rickman after having formed it, but it threw him back on the agony and responsibility of decision. On the last morning of the term allowed him for reflection he received that hurried note from Rickman, who ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... apprised of the existence of a power which I possess. I know not by what name to call it.[1] It enables me to mimic exactly the voice of another, and to modify the sound so that it shall appear to come from what quarter and be uttered at what ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... which a people is subject to its chiefs is absolutely only a commission, a service in which, as simple officers of their sovereign, they exercise in his name the power of which he has made them depositories, and which he may modify, limit and resume at pleasure."[3418] Not only does it always reserve to itself "the legislative power which belongs to it and which can belong only to it," but again, it delegates and withdraws the executive power according to its fancy. Those who exercise it are its employees. "It may ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... was the theory of Euphuism, as manifested in every age in which the literary conscience has been awakened to forgotten duties towards language, towards the instrument of expression: in fact it does but modify a little the principles of all effective expression at all times. 'Tis art's function to conceal itself: ars est celare artem:—is a saying, which, exaggerated by inexact quotation, has perhaps been oftenest and most confidently quoted by those who have had little literary ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... the new week, Emily had accepted Sir Jervis's proposal, and had so interested the bookseller to whom she had been directed to apply, that he took it on himself to modify the ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... upon these principles and recognize a great difference in the expressions of two faces,—one predominant in the lower and the other in the upper portion of the face. That there was any scientific basis for this was entirely unknown before my discoveries of the organs behind the face, which modify its development and expression. My lectures upon this subject in 1842 were attended by the physiognomical writer, Redfield, who derived from them many ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... Senor Montalvo has brought from Panama has caused me to very materially modify my plans. When you were preparing your dispatch to his Excellency the Governor of Panama, I gave you to understand that in the event of Don Silvio's refusal to entertain my proposals, I would sack and destroy the city of Nombre de Dios. But since then I ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... may make platforms and construct rings, yet none, nor all combined, can stay the hand of God. "He doeth according to His will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth." He can initiate, permit, modify, and destroy. Once we truly recognise the sovereignty of God over us, conceit will lie dead ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... exaggerations in the treatment of facts need hardly be stated, but they are few in number, not serious in import, and outbalanced by numerous cases in which it has been necessary to modify the description of incidents either too painful or horrible to be fully depicted. As a compensation for its occasional storical inaccuracy, His Natural Life is notably free of the melodramatic excesses that most young writers would have been tempted to commit. ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... forests from bare plains. There was little wind, except the fierce currents rushing upward, produced by the heat of our own conflagration. This, for the time, subdued everything to itself, and, as we approached the ground, served by its direction to modify the fury of our descent. The denser lower atmosphere also contributed to the same end; and, most fortunately, when we reached the earth, and the collision came, we struck in water instead of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... equilibrium of the brain and mental faculties and produces great modifications in the memory and in sensibility. Life is indeed a long series of habits to which we are accustomed; hypnotism changes these habits which in a normal condition we do not try to modify, and on awakening, all memory of the change is gone, although its effects ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... to the day of his death to modify his interpretation of the Constitution in the interest of his section. As a young man he avowed protectionist principles. Becoming convinced that slave labor was not suited to manufacture, he urged South Carolina to declare the protective tariff laws null and void within her limits. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... to a guilty feeling troubled Frank upon meeting his fellow-page that afternoon; but his father's promise, in conjunction with his words respecting Andrew's actions being merely those of an enthusiastic boy, helped to modify the trouble he felt, and in a few minutes it passed off. For Andrew began by asking how his friend's father was, ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... derived from villages in Bilaspur. But the caste do not strictly enforce the rule forbidding marriage within the gotra or section, and are content with avoiding three generations both on the father's and mother's side. They have probably been driven to modify the rule on account of the paucity of their numbers and the difficulty of arranging marriages. For the same reason perhaps they look with indulgence on the practice, as a rule strictly prohibited, of marriage ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... profane, it must be itself ridiculous; because their distorted minds cannot discern the beauties of truth, and their depraved feelings will not admit her claims. To secure their approbation religion must change her character, alter her doctrines, new cast her precepts, and new modify ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... incumbrances, from parents to children. Few men in the world would have a God, had not pains been taken in infancy to give them one. Each would receive from his parents and teachers the God whom they received from theirs; but each, agreeably to his disposition, would arrange, modify, and paint him in his ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... trifling space of a street's width the sun had unobstructed fall,—these from time to time diversified the way, brought to our perceptions the endearing trifles of earthiness, of humanity, befittingly to modify the austerity of the great forest. At a brookside we saw, still fresh and moist, the print of a bear's foot. From a patch of the little emerald brush, a barren doe rose to her feet, eyed us a moment, ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... epidemic disease, and all the citizens agree upon a scheme except two or three, who, in the name of personal liberty, declare that their property must not be touched, what is to be done? If the citizens, out of solicitude for the personal liberty of the objecting individuals, abandon or modify their plans, is it not clear that the liberty of the many has been sacrificed to the liberty of the few, which is the essence of tyranny? Absolute individual liberty is incompatible with social liberty. The liberty of each must, in Mill's phrase, be bounded by the like ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... the same—I think not," he said slowly; then made a clumsy attempt to modify the blank refusal. "You see, though I've taken this extra leave, I don't mean to spend it in loafing. We've had our fill of that. As soon as I get to town, I shall start reading in ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... condition (1) of paying a certain weekly or annual sum, and (2) of guaranteeing to have cabs in attendance at all hours. This system was abolished by the act of 1907, but the home secretary was empowered to suspend or modify the abolition if it should interfere with the proper ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... tone? Ah, that is difficult to describe, whether in one hour or in many hours. It is first a matter of experiment, of individuality, then of experience and memory. We listen and create the tone, modify it until it expresses our ideal, then we try to remember how ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... must modify what we have just written. In justice to our own sex, and in all truthfulness, we cannot allow the blame to be removed altogether from women themselves. They alone are responsible for one of the most fruitful causes of their wretchedness. The theme is a threadbare one. ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... great offices of the state; absolute impartiality between the rival creeds, Catholic and Arian (to the latter of which Theodoric himself was an adherent); and a determination to abstain as much as possible from all fresh legislation which might modify the rights and duties of the Roman inhabitants of Italy, the legislative power being chiefly exercised in order to provide for those new cases which arose out of the settlement of so large a number of new-comers of alien blood within the borders of ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... wine—though you yourself were the pink of good manners, not showing your consciousness of the slip by any ghost of a smile. It occurred to me to write to myself a little something in the way of comfort, and so modify the distress my blunder gave me—prove to myself that it was not absolutely unpardonable for an old man to transgress etiquette so flagrantly before so many witnesses. As to apology, there could be no occasion ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... dominant purpose to which the man has fitted himself is not to be suddenly changed, there are forces that modify it by degrees and sometimes gradually undermine and then break it down altogether. The man whose ruling purpose is crossed by a grand passion may say to himself, like the shorn Samson, "I will go ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... elements and to study the effects of each element in isolated form. To know, for instance, the effects of caffein on the psychophysical activities does not mean to know the effects of tea or coffee, which contain a variety of other substances besides the caffein, substances which may be supposed to modify the effect of the caffein. Yet the first step must in this case be the study of the effects of the isolated caffein, before the total influences of the familiar beverages can be followed up. An excellent investigation of this caffein ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... established by Schedule 2 of Part VIII of the Treaty of Versailles, is an absurd union of the conquerors (no longer allies, but reunited solely in a kind of bankruptcy procedure), who interpret the treaty in their own fashion, and can even modify the laws and regulations in the conquered countries. The existence of such an institution among civilized peoples ought to be an impossibility. Its powers must be transferred to the League of Nations in such a manner as to provide guarantees for the victors, but guarantees also for ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... the strange man; and we are obliged to modify his phraseology in order to make it admissible to ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... precautions, relative especially to the orchestra, which the conductor may also take, to avoid certain defects in performance. The instruments of percussion, placed, as I have indicated, upon one of the last rows of the orchestra, have a tendency to modify the rhythm, and slacken the time. A series of strokes on the drum struck at regular intervals in a quick movement, like ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... reasons perhaps; but still, for whatever reason, we make friends less easily. The main reason probably is that we acquire a point of view, and it is easier to keep to that, and fit people in who accommodate themselves to it, than to modify the point of view with reference to the new personalities. People who deal with life generously and large-heartedly go on multiplying ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... in which we must somewhat modify any European model is in the limited training provided for girls. A country which is frankly coeducational in its public schools, state universities and professional colleges, must continue to be so when installing a new educational department ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... whole. Each country or sea is physically and historically intelligible only as a portion of that whole. Currents and wind-systems of the oceans modify the climate of the nearby continents, and direct the first daring navigations of their peoples. The alternating monsoons of the Indian Ocean guided Arab merchantmen from ancient times back and forth between the Red Sea and the Malabar coast of India.[33] The Equatorial ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... event was sufficient to modify the ideas of these barbarians. I had come into the town one day, and was seated at table at M. Dubois Thainville's, when the English Consul, Mr. Blankley, arrived in great haste, announcing to our Consul the entrance into the port ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... of your weaker brethren. The desirability, they say, of a great or clever man acquiring fame is small compared with the desirability of a weak and broken man acquiring bread. The strong man is a man, and should modify or adapt himself to the hopes of his mates. He that would be first among you, let him be the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... no precedent entirely applicable to the case before them had ever occurred. But by this time Fox had learned that the argument which he had founded on it was in the highest degree unpalatable both to Parliament and to the nation; and for a moment he sought to modify it by an explanation that, though he had claimed for the Prince "the naked right, he had not by that expression intended to maintain that that right could be reduced into possession without the consent of Parliament;" an explanation ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... out their intended function. Such works as Unto this Last and Munera Pulveris, however keen the mental antagonism they may initially provoke, mark a period in the spiritual life of the reader: no matter what the prepossessions of a man may be, these books will modify them. He is reverent, but, like Plato, he is dynamic. You can't sit at ease as you read his pages, for they are charged as much with ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... the constitution is imperative. It declares that women over twenty-one years of age shall be eligible to any office of control or management under the school laws of the State. Can the legislature repeal or modify this mandate? Of course not. Could the absoluteness of this right be expressed in plainer or more energetic terms? No, indeed. We are told and have been made to understand that it is a right conferred by the constitution of the State, which cannot be defeated or enlarged, or even abridged ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... and was an intermediate depot of supplies in a low stage of water in the rivers. At other times steamboats could ascend the Cumberland all the way to Nashville. The exaggerated reports of the enemy's force and apparent purpose to cross the river there made Thomas think it wise to modify his plans for the moment, and he ordered Schofield to proceed at once to Johnsonville with the two brigades of the Twenty-third Corps then in hand, Moore's and Gallup's, intending to concentrate the whole corps there as fast as they should come from Georgia. [Footnote: Id., vol. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... few words, was the situation with which White was called upon to deal. He had two courses before turn; he could accommodate himself to it or he could endeavour to modify it. He attempted the latter, and failing he recurred to the former. He saw at once the insecurity of Symons' detached force, but being unable to convince the Natal Government of the necessity of withdrawing it he reluctantly allowed ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... and so on. In the Cuban's factory the operatives are allowed to smoke as many cigars as they like when at work; and to take home with them, when they leave work in the evening, five cigars each. The immigration of Chinese laborers into Cuba has modified, and must further modify, the labor market there. In the cigarette factories at Havana, Chinese workmen are almost exclusively employed. Though objectionable for many of their moral habits, these workmen are nevertheless docile, ingenious, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... radical changes would modify the course of industrial progress. Because of the importance of slavery as the underlying cause of the war, there has been a natural tendency to regard its abolition as the most striking and significant net result of the great conflict, but ...
— Outline of the development of the internal commerce of the United States - 1789-1900 • T.W. van Mettre
... being shown at once, come into contrast with one another on the background; and so his judgment of the size of the one he remembers is distorted. This, again, is a real influence in our mental lives, leading to actual illusion. An unscrupulous lawyer may gradually modify the story which his client or a witness tells by constantly adding to what is really remembered, other details so expertly contrasted with the facts, or so neatly interposed among them, that the witness gradually ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... off an appeal to his old friend, Auckland, with the result that the Cabinet soon met to consider the questions aroused by this and other curt dismissals. It being clear that Fitzwilliam was working with the Ponsonbys for a complete change of system, he was asked to modify his conduct. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... communicate. I believe this to have been because if he said that the lower animals communicate their ideas, this would be to admit that they have ideas; if so, and if, as they present every appearance of doing, they can remember, reflect upon, modify these ideas according to modified surroundings, and interchange them with one another, how is it possible to deny them the germs of thought, language, and reason—not to say a good deal more than the germs? It seems to me ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... great duration, for it lasted for between 4 and 5 thousandths of a second, within which time there was very perceptible motion of the drop and consequent blurring. It was therefore necessary to modify the apparatus so as to employ a Leyden-jar spark whose duration was probably less than 10-millionths of a second. A very slight change in the apparatus rendered it suitable for the new conditions, but time ...
— The Splash of a Drop • A. M. Worthington
... break His own righteous laws for the government of the universe; did He falsify the requirements of His own holy and pure being, by permitting any other wages for sin than death. And though, through His mercy, sin forsaken escapes sin's penalty, and every human being has it in his own power to modify, if not to conquer, any hereditary moral as well as physical disease, thereby avoiding the doom and alleviating the curse, still the original law remains in force, and ought to remain, an example and a warning. As true as that every individual sin that a man commits breeds multitudes more, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... the same with the modification of my soul which is called will, and by some philosophers volition, as with the modifications of bodies. A body does not in the least modify itself, but is modified by the sole power of God. It does not move itself, it is moved; it does not act in anything, it is only acted and actuated. Thus God is the only real and immediate cause of all the different modifications of bodies. As for spirits the case is different, for my ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon |
