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Nature   Listen
noun
Nature  n.  
1.
The existing system of things; the universe of matter, energy, time and space; the physical world; all of creation. Contrasted with the world of mankind, with its mental and social phenomena. "But looks through nature up to nature's God." "When, in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bonds which have connected them with another, ans to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal Station which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to the Separation." "Nature has caprices which art can not imitate."
2.
The personified sum and order of causes and effects; the powers which produce existing phenomena, whether in the total or in detail; the agencies which carry on the processes of creation or of being; often conceived of as a single and separate entity, embodying the total of all finite agencies and forces as disconnected from a creating or ordering intelligence; as, produced by nature; the forces of nature. "I oft admire How Nature, wise and frugal, could commit Such disproportions."
3.
The established or regular course of things; usual order of events; connection of cause and effect.
4.
Conformity to that which is natural, as distinguished from that which is artificial, or forced, or remote from actual experience. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."
5.
The sum of qualities and attributes which make a person or thing what it is, as distinct from others; native character; inherent or essential qualities or attributes; peculiar constitution or quality of being. "Thou, therefore, whom thou only canst redeem, Their nature also to thy nature join, And be thyself man among men on earth."
6.
Hence: Kind, sort; character; quality. "A dispute of this nature caused mischief."
7.
Physical constitution or existence; the vital powers; the natural life. "My days of nature." "Oppressed nature sleeps."
8.
Natural affection or reverence. "Have we not seen The murdering son ascend his parent's bed, Through violated nature force his way?"
9.
Constitution or quality of mind or character. "A born devil, on whose nature Nurture can never stick." "That reverence which is due to a superior nature."
Good nature, Ill nature. see under Good and Ill.
In a state of nature.
(a)
Naked as when born; nude.
(b)
In a condition of sin; unregenerate.
(c)
Untamed; uncivilized.
Nature printing, a process of printing from metallic or other plates which have received an impression, as by heavy pressure, of an object such as a leaf, lace, or the like.
Nature worship, the worship of the personified powers of nature.
To pay the debt of nature, to die.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Nature" Quotes from Famous Books



... very pretty and romantic. Such men as Uncle Peter are not very common in the world. The story is not too true to Nature." ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald

... river as far as it may be practicable to do, with the view of tracing its course; of ascertaining, if possible, the nature of the bar at the mouth of it, and the question of its being practicable for boats, to what distance from the bar, and the nature of the soil in the vicinity of ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory

... ween; But on the mountain's elephantine height, Where thunder-drums are beat on bassy key, And lightning-flashes glisten through the night; And forests groan with storm-chang'd melody, There let my home, 'mid lofty nature be— That, near the stars, and near the sun and moon, My eyes may gaze upon the book of space, And learn the lyrics that are sung in tune As rolling ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... the mountain. An hour of stern climbing lay behind him, but it was not sympathy for his tired horse that made him draw rein. Sympathy was not readily on tap in Riley's nature. "Hossflesh" to Riley was purely and simply a means to an end. Neither had he paused to enjoy that mystery of change which comes over mountains between late afternoon and early evening. His keen eyes answered all his purposes, ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... him were suddenly thrust aside. A woman stood there looking at him. She was of middle height, fair, with a complexion which even in that indistinct light he could see owed little of its smoothness to nature. She wore a loose gown which seemed to hang from her shoulders, of some soft green material, drawn around her waist with a girdle. Her eyes were ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... before the Corsican Attila was let loose upon the world. His face wears the peaceful and wise expression which belongs peculiarly to his profession. Other callings make a man look peaceful, but not all other callings make him look wise. Mr. Emblem was born by nature of a calm temperament,—otherwise he would not have been happy in his business; a smile lies generally upon his lips, and his eyes are soft and benign; his hair is white, and his face, once ruddy, is pale, ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... of your absence to ourselves," said Mr. Hardy. "We did not raise any alarm, believing that you would return, a belief due in large measure to the faith of Tayoga, and we'll explain that you were called away suddenly on a mission of a somewhat secret nature to the numerous friends who have been ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler

... his services to philology, I need not speak in detail. He prepared a lexicon, in seven volumes, of the German and Onondaga languages, an Onondaga Grammar, a Delaware Grammar, a German-Delaware Dictionary, and other works of a similar nature. As these contributions to science were never published, they may not seem of much importance; but his manuscripts have been carefully preserved, some in the library of the Philosophical Society at ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... damnation," replied Jack, "that's when he's tried above; but according to the nature and ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... do this christianly scientific work? By intrenching ourselves in the knowledge that our true temple is no human fabrication, but the superstructure of Truth, reared on the foundation of Love, and pinnacled in Life. Such being its nature, how can our godly temple possibly be demolished, or even disturbed? Can eternity end? Can Life die? Can Truth be uncertain? Can Love be less than boundless? Referring to this temple our Master ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy

... often a direct consequence of the belief in immortality, 468 sq.; economic loss involved in sacrifices to the dead, 469; how does the savage belief in immortality bear on the truth or falsehood of that belief in general? 469; the answer depends to some extent on the view we take of human nature, 469-471; the conclusion left ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... column of infantry. Smith's followed, headed by Steele, the Captain from particular causes being absent. Hendrick's company succeeded and the eastern men so far as known to me, followed in due order. The snow was deeper than in the fields, because of the nature of the ground. The path made by Arnold, Lamb, and Morgan was almost imperceptible, because of the falling snow. Covering the locks of our guns, with the lappets of our coats, holding down our heads (for it was impossible to bear up ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... dimension; disputes which are carried on even at the present day by the most eminent mathematicians, physicists, and philosophers. So much as this is certain, that mathematics as little constitute an absolutely objective science as any other, but by the very nature of man are subjectively conditioned. A man's subjective power of knowing can only discern the objective facts of the outer world in general so far as his organs of sense and his brain admit in his own individual degree ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel

... of bad habits in children. The weak may be strengthened by the stronger nature, and hypnotism may come in as an effective aid to moral influence. Here again character ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus

... nobody is going to fall. You are fancying troubles. I know. I have not led strangers up the mountains for twenty years without studying their faces as well as the face of Nature. I can read yours. You are scarcely yourself, and feeling fear where there is no need. Come now, take a long breath. Make an effort, and be calm. I'll draw up the rope and fasten one end round you, and ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... door should have been opened by a 'bringer-of-fortune,' and the deformed servant smiled gently at her touch, quite understanding. As he led the way in, after shutting the outer door, Pina saw that nature had meant him for a man of large proportions, and that his short stature was chiefly due to the terrible deformity of his back and chest, for his slightly bowed legs looked as sturdy as a street porter's, and his powerful arms were so long that his hands swung well below his knees when he walked. ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... perfect manner—and it is this that has gained for him his distinctive eminence. Jefferson, however, is not simply and exclusively an actor. His mind is many sided. He has painted landscape pictures of a high order of merit,—pictures in which elusive moods and subtle sentiments of nature are grasped with imaginative insight and denoted and interpreted with a free, delicate, and luminous touch. He has also addressed the public as an author. He has written an easy, colloquial account of his own life, and that breezy, off-hand, expeditious work,—after passing ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... told them I would follow After all the fuss was through, But instead, all night I wandered, Thinking all the time of you; For when we were last together You cast over me a spell That just seemed to change my nature, In a way that words can't tell; For it left a fire a-burning Like a live and glowing coal, That at length blazed into longing Till I craved with all my soul To be back, somehow, where you were, And to hear you ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker

... John," and suddenly he did a thing incredible for his undemonstrative, unsentimental, immovable granite nature. He knelt down beside Dundee, and seizing his hand, kissed it, while tears rolled down his cheeks. "My laddie, and my lord, baith o' them, this is the best day o' my life, for ye've forgiven me my terrible mistake, and my sin against my mistress. It's sore against my grain to confess that ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... family, without seeing any of his neighbors. The peasants detest him. As his partners and helpers, he always engages nonentities, without power of initiative, who blindly follow his orders. Intellectual and energetic men cannot get along with him. Men, beasts, and nature in its entirety, are considered by this man as having been especially created for his service. The one end of his life is wealth and power. The only beings he loves are his wife and his three sons; but even they have to ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... occasion, contrary to the usual rule, Nature appears to have been more careful of the individual than ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various

... as at his time of life we are all too apt to be impatient under any restraint, tho' never so mild and reasonable, he did not consider it in that light; and therefore less lamented his loss, than his good nature would have made him do, had he been the companion of his travels in any other station than that of governor, the very name of which implied a right of direction over his behaviour, and a power ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... prisoner of its colours, its genial warmth, its struggle for life, its selfish and crafty love, was but a transient perturbation of the one absolute mind; of which, indeed, all finite things whatever, time itself, the most durable achievements of nature and man, and all that seems most like independent energy, are no more than petty accidents or affections. Theorem and corollary! ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater

... to Sattwa. Tejas is identical with Buddhi, because Buddhi, like Light, discovers all things. Sattwa, again, being of the nature of space, or rather being space itself, is of universal form; ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... man's position in life is marked out for him by others, and he is left no voice in the matter, in nine cases out of ten, he is totally unfitted by nature and inclination for the post he is called to fill. So it was with my father, Edward Moncton. A person less adapted to fill an important place in the mercantile world, could scarcely have been found. He had a genius for spending, not for making money; and was so easy and credulous ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... principles of his etymology are both of them contradicted by this rule of his syntax, and one of them by his rule as it now stands? It is manifest, that no two words can possibly agree in any property which belongs not to both. Else what is agreement? Nay, no two things in nature, can in any wise agree, accord, or be alike, but by having some quality or accident in common. How strange a contradiction then is this! And what a compliment to learning, that it is still found in ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... Cartier Islands These uninhabited islands came under Australian authority in 1931; formal administration began two years later. Ashmore Reef supports a rich and diverse avian and marine habitat; in 1983, it became a National Nature Reserve. Cartier Island, a former bombing range, is ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... has caused his name to become as eponym for an entire series of phenomena at one end of the psycho-sexual scale. This gives his productions a peculiar psychological value, though it cannot be denied also a morbid tinge that makes them often repellent. However, it is well to remember that nature is neither good nor bad, neither altruistic nor egoistic, and that it operates through the human psyche as well as through crystals and plants and animals with the ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

... of government, as the end of all conduct, must be the increase of human happiness. The province of government is limited by another consideration. It has to deal with one class of happiness, that is, with the pains and pleasures 'which men derive from one another.' By a 'law of nature' labour is requisite for procuring the means of happiness. Now, if 'nature' produced all that any man desired, there would be no need of government, for there would be no conflict of interest. But, as the material produced is finite, and can be appropriated ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... baronet, "because I wished to tell you, without passion, that the tie which has hitherto bound us has been completely broken. Heaven knows I have been patient; I have endured your misdoings, hoping that they were the thoughtless errors of youth, and not the deliberate sins of a hardened and wicked nature. I have trusted till I can trust no longer; I have hoped till I can hope no more. Within the past week I have learned to know you. An old friend, whose word I cannot doubt, whose honour is beyond all ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... refusal of the assembly, "his majesty will find himself under the necessity of laying the undutiful behaviour of the province before the legislature of Great Britain, not only in this single instance, but in many others of the same nature and tendency, whereby it manifestly appears that this assembly, for some years last past, have attempted, by unwarrantable practices, to weaken, if not cast off, the obedience they owe to ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... the tomb in the power-house when Bruce stood up and walked toward Smaltz. Grimy streaks of perspiration showed on his colorless face, from which every drop of blood seemed to have fled, and his black eyes, that shone always with the soft brilliancy of a warm, impulsive nature and an imaginative ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... Constitution of Germany. Above a host of minor difficulties two great problems confronted it at the outset. The first was the relation of the Austrian Empire, with its partly German and partly foreign territory, to the German national State; the other was the nature of the headship to be established. As it was clear that the Austrian Government could not apply the public law of Germany to its Slavic and Hungarian provinces, it was enacted in the second article of the Frankfort Constitution that where a German and a non-German territory had the same ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... eavesdropper by nature, but he found himself getting interested in the fate of this anonymous failure, and wondered if he was going to hear the cause ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... used to be a constant visitor at her father's house. It was a second home to me—indeed, more of a home than I have ever known elsewhere, before or since. And that is my little friend and playmate! I congratulate you, Claude. If she has inherited anything of her father's nature and her mother's sweetness she will be indeed ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis

... you to take a hand in it. The scheme is going to eventuate—I've taken time to think it over and make up my mind—and the question now is: Will you take a hand in it? Stop a bit, I don't want you to answer off-hand. Let me just tell you the nature of ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... Durward, saying, "it was not often that she allowed herself to speak against her cousin, and that she should not have done so now, were not John so much blinded, that her mother, knowing Lena's ambitious nature, sometimes seriously feared the consequence. I know," said she, "that John fancies Nellie, but 'Lena's influence over ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... have given up all hopes of making him happy, or of finding myself easy in my situation, and live with him at present to avoid a greater inconvenience. Not that his ill-nature is all the grievance of which I complain; exclusive of the personal disgust I entertain for him, his folly is of that species which disobliges rather than diverts, and his vanity and affectation ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... the return of the prodigal to Mother Earth along a piked highway. The road back to Nature is full of her own secrets, and few who have trod the streets of the city remember the brambled return, ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... the Colonel. "Nature! that's it; nothing like it! When I was a lad, young men were sent abroad, after their school or college course; the grand tour, Paris, Vienna, that sort of thing: very good thing in its way, too, monstrous good thing. But before he sees the world, sir, a lad should know how to live, as you say, ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards

... of the woman's life—Nature's reason for her—is the child, his bearing and rearing. There is no escape from the divine order that her life must be built around this constraint, duty, or privilege, as she may please to consider it."[1] It ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson

... must go back to the reign of Elizabeth to comprehend an event which occurred in that of Charles I." A sanctimonious sect urged extravagant reforms—at first, perhaps, in all simplicity—founding their opinions upon cramped and literal interpretations of divine precepts, and forming views of human nature "more practicable in a desert than a city, and rather suited to a monastic order than to a polished people." Still, these fanatics could scarcely have dreamed that power would ever be given them to carry their peculiar theories into practice, and to govern ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... neglected,—for who am I? Ah! why have you called me to life? I felt for a moment as though the heavy burden of the flesh was leaving me; my soul had broken the crystal which held it captive; it pervaded my whole being; the cold silence of material things had ceased; all things in nature had a voice and spoke to me. The old church was luminous. It's arched roof, brilliant with gold and azure like those of an Italian cathedral, sparkled above my head. Melodies such as the angels sang to martyrs, quieting their pains, sounded from the organ. The rough ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... But Pamela's undeveloped powers, the flashes of daring, of romance, in the awkward reserved girl, the suggestion in her of a big and splendid flowering, fascinated Beryl, and in her humility she never dreamt that she, with her delicate pensiveness, the mingled subtlety and purity of her nature, was no less exceptional. She had been brought up very much alone. Her mother was no companion for her, and the brother nearest her own age and nearest her heart had been killed at the opening of the war. Arthur and she were very good friends, but not altogether congenial. She was rather ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... nature of your errand, Sir Richard?" she asks, in a low voice. "Though I am afraid I cannot be of any service as regards any business of ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... thing unheard of in that community—and to meet overdue payments upon the various implements which he had purchased from the National Machine Company. It was not until after the money had been drawn and actually paid that Mr. Martin came fully to realise the extraordinary nature of his act. ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... 50 In the pride of his might, Then 'twas sport for the strong To embrace him in fight; To go forth, with a pine For a spear, 'gainst the mammoth, Or strike through the ravine[du] At the foaming behemoth; While man was in stature As towers in our time, The first born of Nature, 60 And, like ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... necessity to the individual to enjoy absolute personal freedom in love as in all else in life. All my previous ideas and prejudices appeared to me monstrous and iniquitous. I saw the falseness of all our ideas of morality, the absurdity of placing conventions before nature and the detestable character of our dealings with women and of our attitude in such matters. And with this suddenly awakened vision I looked anew on life, and it seemed to me that till then I had ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... was so sorry for Grizel. There never was a more sympathetic nature than Tommy's. At every time of his life his pity was easily roused for persons in distress, and he sought to comfort them by shutting their eyes to the truth as long as possible. This sometimes brought relief to them, but ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... indisputable grip of nature's humorous hand. One evidently stands on Ca Pue in such cases. Having finished, panting with stink, I tumble on the bed and ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... still should have thought better, had I never seen you, my dear. I have talked to my lord about it: you know I am very desirous to have him married. His answer was; I never can think of any proposal of this nature, while I have any hope that I can make myself acceptable to ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... The smile of the polished beauty is the wave of the lake, where the breeze plays gently over it, and her movement is the gentle stream which drains it; but the laugh of the log-cabin is the gush of nature's fountain, and ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley

... comfortable. These omnibuses were wooden boxes, placed each upon a pair of wheels, and supposed to be capable of carrying six passengers. I was thrust into one with Robinson, his wife and five children, and immediately began to repent of my good-nature in accompanying them. To each vehicle were attached four horses or mules, and I must acknowledge that as on the railway they went as slow as possible, so now in these conveyances, dragged through the sand, they went as fast as the beasts could be made to gallop. ...
— George Walker At Suez • Anthony Trollope

... as he did? Why live apart from her, having married her? And the child? It was all a mystery in which he did not see clear. He pitied the ineffectuality of Septimus with the kind yet half-contemptuous pity of the strong man with a fine nature. But as for his denial of Zora's faith, he laughed it away. Egotistical, yes. Zora had posed the same question as Septimus and he had answered it. But her faith in the Cure itself, his mission to spread it far and wide over the earth, and ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... "Historical and Critical Dictionary," in which the lives of men were associated with a comment that suggested, from the ills of life, the absence of divine care in the shaping of the world. Doubt was born of the corruption of society; Nature and Man were said to be against faith in the rule of a God, wise, just, and merciful. In 1710, after Bayle's death, Leibnitz, a German philosopher then resident in Paris, wrote in French a book, with a title formed from Greek words meaning Justice of God, Theodicee, in which he met Bayle's argument ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... experience with human nature, and close observations of life, have led me to that conclusion. Our own, and a few happy exceptions beside, are but feeble offsets to the countless cases ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... there he saw Annie, leaning against the white wall, with her white face turned up to the frozen ceiling. She might have been the frost-queen, the spirit that made the snow, and built the hut, and dwelt in it; for all the powers that vivify nature must be children. The popular imagination seems to have caught this truth, for all the fairies and gnomes and goblins, yes, the great giants too, are only different sizes, shapes, and characters of children. But I have wandered from Alec's thoughts into my ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... Lord Balmerino was tried for treason because he possessed a supplication or petition which the Lords of the minority, in the late Parliament, had drawn up but had not presented. He was found guilty, but spared: the proceeding showed of what nature the bishops were, and alienated and alarmed the populace and the nobles and gentry. A remonstrance in a manly spirit by Drummond of Hawthornden, the ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... union; above all, daring them to dispossess Don Pedro of the authority of Regent conferred by his august father. This address was conveyed to the Prince by Bonifacio himself, and was shortly afterwards followed by others of a similar nature from the Southern provinces, and from the municipality of Rio de Janeiro—all begging him to remain and avert the consequences of the late decrees of the Cortes. On more deliberate reflection Don Pedro consented, and was shortly ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... the contrary, rags, mean huts, poverty, and inanition, are the inevitable lot of every nation which seeks and finds in iron, fire, wind, electricity, magnetism, the laws of chemistry and mechanics, in a word, in the powers of nature, an assistance to its natural powers. We might as well say with Rousseau—"Every man that ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... his master; for in that hour, when he had poured forth his prayer into the bosom of his Father, he had found an answer of quietness and assurance springing up within himself. In the depths of his own affectionate nature, he felt able to perceive something of the fulness of Divine love; for an old oracle hath thus written,—"He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." Tom hoped and trusted, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... resumed the Admiral, "you must know that relations between Great Britain and the United States are, and for some time have been, of an especially cordial nature. Throughout the great war Great Britain has been compelled to buy a large part of her food and munitions in the United States. Except for her being able to do so she would have been forced out of the war ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock

... not seem to notice. "Besides, there are so many murderers in the world," he said, "though it's only the few who get punished. I'm sorry for the few myself. Its damned bad luck, human nature being ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... into a sort of stupor. I felt sure I should die soon, and that nothing really mattered. A sane person shut up in a lunatic asylum often ends by becoming insane, they say. I guess I was like that. Playing my part had become second nature to me. I wasn't even unhappy in the end—just apathetic. Nothing seemed to matter. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie

... that the true is necessarily that which suits us best. The identification of the true and the good is but a pious wish. In his Etudes sur Blaise Pascal, A. Vinet says: "Of the two needs that unceasingly belabour human nature, that of happiness is not only the more universally felt and the more constantly experienced, but it is also the more imperious. And this need is not only of the senses; it is intellectual. It is not only for the soul; it is for the mind that happiness is a necessity. Happiness ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... examined, and proved to be of a most formidable nature. On the south face of the hill the trenches were in tiers, line behind line. Most of them were fully six feet deep, and in many cases provided with shelter from the weather by sheets of corrugated ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty

... States that he danced with joy. About the first of November, Tecumseh himself arrived at Malden on a visit to the British agency. He remained there until some time after the twenty-fourth of December. The nature of his conferences with Elliott may be inferentially arrived at from the following. An Indian council had, during the preceding autumn, been convened at Brownstown, near Detroit. A resolution had there been entered into to prevent the sale of any more lands ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... like Lady Marchmont; the assertion of his own certainty that Gerald would never give in nor own that poor unfortunate had spoken the truth, and Gerald felt triumphant, as if his self-will had been something heroic, and his imprisonment and going to school a martyrdom. It did not last, Gerald's nature was gentle and retiring; he dreaded strangers, and his heart sank when he thought of school. He wanted his sister to comfort him, but he would soon be out of her reach. No Marian—all boys—all strange, and there was no help for it now. Gerald rested his forehead ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... telling his wife for more than one reason: he dreaded the effect on her emotional nature, and, above all things, he hated a scene. But for once he was agreeably disappointed. Mrs. Ross received the news more quietly than he expected; the very suddenness and force of the shock made her summon up all her womanly fortitude to bear such an overwhelming misfortune. Her first thought ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... making the most of every fragment of flower or leaf, repaired with a selection of delicate sprays, to the room where Esther, having put her little sister to bed, was dressing for dinner. She was eager to tell of her alarm at the invasion, and of Captain Evelyn's good nature when she had expected him to ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of success; we should be free from the many alarms, mischiefs, and murders, that now attend us; we should inspirit the hearts of our few Indian friends, and gain more esteem with them. In short, could Pennsylvania and Maryland be induced to join us in an expedition of this nature, and to petition his Excellency Lord Loudoun for a small train of artillery, with some engineers, we should then be able, in all human probability, to subdue the terror of fort Du Quesne; retrieve our character with the Indians; and restore ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... latest specimen," he said, his voice eager with enthusiasm. "It is perfect. Jean secured it for me while I was away. It is the skull of a beaver, and shows in three distinct and remarkable gradations how nature replaces the soft enamel as it is worn from the beaver's teeth. You see, I am a hobbyist. For twenty years I have been studying ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... have happened if any other constable than Collins had been put on point duty at Blackfriars Bridge that morning. For Collins was young, good-looking, and knew it. Nature had gifted him with a susceptible heart and a fond eye for the beauties of femininity. So when he looked round and saw the woman threading her way through the maze of vehicles at "Dead Man's Corner," with her skirt held up just enough to show two twinkling little ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... shall be enjoy'd, Though he left all mankind to be destroy'd. So cat transform'd sat gravely and demure, Till mouse appear'd, and thought himself secure; But soon the lady had him in her eye, And from her friend did just as oddly fly. Reaching above our nature does no good; 100 We must fall back to our old flesh and blood; As by our little Machiavel we find That nimblest creature of the busy kind, His limbs are crippled, and his body shakes; Yet his hard mind ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... chapter of Betteredge's Narrative, an allusion will be found to the arrival of a foreigner and a stranger at my aunt's house, who came to see me on business. The nature of his ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... Conscience. I will not go. You have tried it with a desperate sincerity for three years—and it's a failure. You have fought splendidly to vindicate the whole monstrous travesty, but it can't be vindicated. It was doomed by every law of nature from the start. We have now not only the right but the duty to rectify it, and to rectify it together. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... foreground and wide background, since that is most in conformity with our experience. He adduces Titian's "Sacred and Profane Love" as an example. But of the general principle it may be said that not the reproduction of nature, but the production of beauty, is the aim of composition, and that this aim is best reached by focusing the eye by a narrow background, i.e. vista. No matter how much it wanders, it returns to that central spot and is held there, keeping hold on all the other elements. Of Hildebrand's example ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... men's shapes in the ground. They grew solid; ponderable. But the space they now claimed was not empty! Solid rock was here, yielding no space to anything! Like the little materialization bombs, this was nature outraged. The ground and the solid rock heaved up, broken and torn, invisibly permeated and strewn with the infinitesimal atomic particles of what a moment before had been ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings

... upon the skirts of the retiring autumn, always seems to me to be most deeply fraught with sorrowful associations. A few short weeks before, one has beheld the year in stately pride, loaded with blessings, and adorned in nature's most luxurious garb, waters in silvery streams have lightly leaped and bounded in the shadow of the waving ferns,—and little flowers have nodded on the brink and peered into the crystal depths, as though in love with their reflected loveliness;—the little hills have decked their verdant breasts ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley

... the nude was, for instance, quite natural for the people of countries still under Oriental influence are accustomed to remove the hair from the body. If, however, under quite different conditions, we perpetuate that artistic convention to-day, we put ourselves into a perverse relation to nature. There is ample evidence of this. "There is one convention so ancient, so necessary, so universal," writes Mr. Frederic Harrison (Nineteenth Century and After, Aug., 1907), "that its deliberate defiance to-day may arouse the bile ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... occasion, on the charms of nature, of which he was an enthusiastic admirer, the subject having been suggested by the beauty of the sunset which we had both been watching, and I was thoroughly enjoying the rugged eloquence with which the scene had ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... one likeness which is ours and thine, By that one nature which doth hold us kin, By that high heaven where sinless thou dost shine, To ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... it not that I my thoughts uplifted, When I the passage heard where thou exclaimest, As if indignant, unto human nature, ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante

... thee, mark me. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated To closeness and the bettering of my mind With that, which, but by being so retir'd, O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother Awak'd an evil nature; and my trust, Like a good parent, did beget of him A falsehood, in its contrary as great As my trust was; which had indeed no limit, A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded, Not only with what my revenue yielded, ...
— The Tempest • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... doctrine; a bull might as well say, I have this grass and this cow,—and what can a creature want more?' No, I am sure that the Christian or any other religionist—inconsistent though he is—appeals in this point deeper analogies of our nature ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... chief inquisitor drew aside that other whom Alexander knew only as Number Thirteen, and, apart, they conferred in lowered voices. In the manner of these two, the captive recognized indications of anxiety. Palpably some detail of their plans had gone awry and that miscarriage, whatever its nature, was troubling their peace of mind. Had she understood more fully it ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... nothing that would contribute to it, and her conception of our cherished author's independence became at last as fine as his very own. "Read him, read him—THAT will be an education in decency," I constantly repeated; while, seeking him in his works even as God in nature, she represented herself as convinced that, according to my assurance, this was the system that had, as she expressed it, weaned her. We read him together when I could find time, and the generous creature's sacrifice was fed by our communion. There were ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James

... Gardenstown had entertained as to whether his poetry was actually his own; and, besides, Lord Monboddo, a remarkable man, alike in talent and eccentricity; and both vied with each other in their patronage of the poetical dominie when he had undisturbed leisure for study and solitary communion with nature. On the whole, perhaps, the future "Minstrel" was happier as a parish schoolmaster than in any part of his after life; and perhaps often, in more brilliant but less easy days, would revert with a sigh to the simple school and the stream which ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... he could not have spoken to him in a kinder or more carelessly familiar way. He questioned him about all his experiences, and an acute listener might have gathered that he paid more attention to Ned's political information than to anything of a strictly military nature. ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard

... fact do practically nothing. Fruits of a variety ample to sustain life, grow wild in abundance. Vegetables planted are harvested seemingly without blight or hazard of any kind. No destructive insects have ever impeded agriculture; no wild animals have ever existed to harass humanity. Nature in fact, offers every help and no obstacle towards making a simple, primitive life ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... calmly and coldly, feeling no passion, feeling nothing. For in that strange hour I was no longer Thomas Wingfield, I was no longer human, I was a force, an instrument; I could think of my dead son without sorrow, he did not seem dead to me, for I partook of the nature that he had put on in this change of death. I could even think of de Garcia without hate, as though he also were nothing but a tool in some other hand. Moreover, I KNEW that he was mine, body and mind, and that he must answer and truly, so surely as he must die ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... the deity whom the preacher invokes, what stupidity, what frivolity, what insincerity, what incapacity of realizing what is truly great, when he descends from the lofty themes of salvation and moral accountability, to dwell on the platitudes of aesthetic culture, the beauties and glories of Nature, or the wonders of a material civilization, and then with not half the force of those books and periodicals which are scattered in every hamlet of civilized Europe ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... the woods, drawing into their young veins the scents and hues of the June day. They were at that stage in love, when love has everything to learn, and learns it through ways as old and sweet as life. Each lover is discovering the other, and over the process, Nature, with her own ends in view, ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... that the Augustus knew well enough that those figs were poisoned, at any rate from the moment that I dashed one of them from your lips, Olaf. Well, I have made a bitterer enemy than before, that's all. They say that by Nature's rule mother and child must love each other, but it is a lie. I tell you it's a lie. From the time he was tiny I hated that boy, though not half as much as he has hated me. You are thinking to yourself that ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard

... abilities on this question, except as hosts, guests, or fellow-guests; and in any of those characters, a gentleman, one would suppose, must feel himself degraded by directing his attention to a point of that nature. However, the merits of the case stand thus between the parlies: Kant, it is agreed by all his biographers, ate only once a day; for as to his breakfast, it was nothing more than a very weak infusion of tea, (vide Jachmann's Letters, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... possible that some readers may wish that it had been less realistically painted; but as the scenes are strictly representative, and I neither made them nor went in search of them, I offer them in the interests of truth, for they illustrate the nature of a large portion of the material with which the Japanese Government has to work in ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... blame. But the more that is known about this unfortunate affair the more clearly it will be seen that Lord Methuen neglected no precaution and spared no pains. The rain and pitch darkness were the act of God, and no general in the world can prevail when Nature is so completely in league with the enemy as she was on the night ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young

... forced to admit that he had paid Gottlieb and me thirty-five thousand dollars to get him an annulment so that he could marry the woman with whom he was now living. The court-room was jammed to the doors with a curious crowd, anxious to see Gottlieb and me on trial and to learn the nature of the evidence against us; and when our client left the stand—a pitiful, wilted human creature—and crawled out of the room, a jeering throng followed him downstairs ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... the matter, dwelling now upon the rough good nature of the sheepmen and this almost miraculous demonstration of their good will; then remembered with vague misgivings their protestations against the unlawful violence which presumed to deny them what was their legal right—free grazing on all government lands. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... Executive and the Irish Parliament was mainly based on the fact that Dublin had not been consulted in the arrangement of the business. The ministers in London {242} settled the whole affair, and then simply communicated the nature of the arrangement to Dublin. Wood himself was unpopular, so far as anything could be known of him, in Ireland. He was a stranger to Ireland, and he was represented to be a boastful, arrogant man, who went ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... difficulties and perplexities with which we found ourselves confronted; but there is no need to continue the story further in quite so detailed a form, since the progress of our researches was unaccompanied by anything in the nature of adventure. Let it suffice, therefore, to say that we traversed the multitudinous canal-like channels of that labyrinthine reef continuously for ten days longer before we found a passage of sufficient width, and ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... projected in 1875, when a Royal Decree of that year, dated August 6, determined the legislative basis for works of that nature. The Inspector of Public Works was instructed to form a general plan of a railway system in Luzon Island. The projected system included (1) a line running north from Manila through the Provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga, and Pangasinan. (2) ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... shall by word, writing, or action endeavour to disturb our peace, directly or indirectly, by drawing a party under pretence that he is for the King of England, and such as join with him against the Parliament, shall be accounted as an offender of a high nature against this Commonwealth, and to be proceeded with, either capitally or otherwise, according to the quality and degree of his offence." (Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I., ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... of these notes, Catherine comforts her brother very sweetly, probably for the loss of his wealth. But if we may judge from the nature of the reflections addressed to him, the spiritual instruction by which Benincasa was capable of profiting ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... at the Embassy. His temper seemed to crave the bleak wet air of the cold streets, and he did not hurry himself. He intended to dine at home that evening, and he anticipated some kind of disagreement with his father. The two men were too much alike not to be congenial, but too combative by nature to care for eternal peace. On the present occasion it was likely that there would be a struggle, for Giovanni had made up his mind not to marry Madame Mayer, and his father was equally determined that he should marry her at once: ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... the human race! In a fit of fanciful misanthropy, we may envy the fate of the savage, and prefer that of the bird to such as he; but impartial observation soon does justice to such paradoxes. We find, on examination, that in the mixed good and evil of human nature, the good so far abounds that we are not in the habit of noticing it, while the evil strikes us precisely on account of its being the exception. If nothing is perfect, nothing is so bad as to be without its compensation or its remedy. What spiritual riches are there ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre

... the region of Johnsonian autobiography (or pseudo-autobiography) even at the increased risk of committing a scholarly sin against which I have myself protested. In my own defense I can say that I know the highly conjectural nature of what I am doing. Johnson's pride may have suffered when he was arrested for debt in the presence of unsympathetic onlookers. This is sheer hypothesizing. But when, in Henry IV, Worcester ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... caste had not entered men's minds. Offences against "the gods" or "the spirits," in a vague sense, were often spoken of; but, on the other hand, too much belief in their power was regarded as superstition. "Sin" was only conceivable in the sense of infraction of nature's general laws, as symbolized and specialized by imperial commands; direct, or delegated to vassal princes; in both cases as representatives, supreme or local, of Heaven, or of the Emperor Above, whose Son the dynastic central ruler for the time being was figuratively supposed to ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... of human suffering, sorrow, and sin. Why they need to be at all, has been often asked, but no one has furnished a reply which satisfies many people. With the old insistent and pathetic earnestness millions are still "knocking at nature's door" and asking wherefore they were born. Hosts of others are looking out on desolation and grief, thinking of the tears which have fallen and the sobs which are sure to sound in the future, and asking with eager and pleading intensity, ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford

... means; there is nothing supernatural in a whirlwind, and the effect of a whirlwind is to twist everything round. Why should the heroine and the Honourable Augustus Bouverie not be submitted to the laws of nature? besides, we are writing a fashionable novel. Wild and improbable as this whirlwind may appear, it is within the range of probability; whereas, that is not at all adhered to in many novels—witness the drinking-scene in ——, and others ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... and himself, he goes straight to heaven; if he have not discharged them, or have neglected any of those which are essential, he goes straight to hell; but if he have only to reproach himself with those trifling faults which are inseparable from our frail nature, he spends some time in Purgatory." At these words the listener smiled with evident relief and satisfaction; he felt consoled. "Sir," cried he, "I will become a Catholic, and for this reason: Protestants only admit of heaven and hell; but, in order to get to Paradise, one must have nothing wherewith ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... attain to this happy condition without enduring for several years more trouble of body and mind than can well be imagined. Yes, gentlemen," he added, speaking to the whole company, "I assure you that my sufferings have been of a nature so extraordinary as would deprive the greatest miser of his love of riches; and as an opportunity now offers, I will, with your leave, relate the dangers I have encountered, which I think will not be ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... enjoyment of music was of the kind that indicates a great specific talent; it was rather that her sensibility to the supreme excitement of music was only one form of that passionate sensibility which belonged to her whole nature, and made her faults and virtues all merge in each other; made her affections sometimes an impatient demand, but also prevented her vanity from taking the form of mere feminine coquetry and device, and gave it the poetry of ambition. But you have known Maggie a long while, and ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... unheard-of Inconstancy of Women! All that they have is feign'd; their Teeth, their Hair, their Blushes, and their Smiles; nay their very Conscience (if any such they have) is feign'd; all counterfeit and false: Let them wash, patch and daub themselves with all the Helps for Nature that Art cou'd e're invent, still they are Women: And let 'em rob all India of its store to adorn themselves therewith, still are they not all that thing call'd Woman: I know not what to do, for I love and hate ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris

... this catastrophe. No matter what they believe about it, the effect is the same. The effect is to reduce a man from the swaggering braggart—the vainglorious lord of what he sees—the self-made master of fate, of nature, of time, of space, of everything—to his true microscopic stature in the cosmos. He goes in tears to put together again the fragments of the few, small, pitiful things that belonged ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... Rennes, fightin' th' other corryspondints, or, if he was an English journalist, defindin' th' honor iv Fr-rance again hersilf. 'Tis a good thing for Fr-rance that there ar-re silf-sacrificin' men that don't undherstand her language, to presint her vicious nature to th' English an' American public. Otherwise, Hinnissy, she might think she was as good ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne

... passengers had not emerged, and only an occasional wayfarer, devoid of baggage as himself, had fared forth into the gloom. Outside, the artificial light of the station ceased to do battle with nature, and only an occasional street lamp gave challenge to the gloomy dawn. The damp mist that all night had enshrouded Paris still clung about the streets like ragged grave-clothes, and at the edge of the pavement half a dozen fiacres were ranged in a melancholy ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... Department can I deduce much support for the doctrines of the class of politicians called Civil Service Reformers. From their statements it would appear that every member of Congress was the recipient of an amount of patronage in the nature of clerkships that he could and did control. I can say for myself that as a member I never asserted any such right and as the head of the Treasury I can say that no such claim was ever made upon me by any member of Congress. The nearest approach to it was by George ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... shape; but since no shore was found safe for them to ride at anchor,—the majority of the coast land being still in those days without harbors,—he conceived and executed a magnificent enterprise which I shall describe at some length, showing its nature and the present characteristics of the locality ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio

... her old "Ma" again. Much to Mary's sorrow she was still a heathen, and a very zealous one, as she sacrificed daily to the spirits in the crudest way, with food and blood, in abasement and fear. So strong was superstition rooted in her nature that she would not touch the twins, although she confessed it was marvellous that they had ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... nature, rock-crystal may be classed, known as the false topaz when yellow, the morion when black, and the smoky quartz when brown. The colourless kinds are often called Bristol or Irish diamonds, and the violet the amethyst. Some few years ago, a party of tourists, ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston

... in the next few minutes, of similar nature. Quillan rebuffed them cheerfully. It was rather flattering in a way. She wondered how so many people in the cocktail lounge happened ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... brought to light in 1892 the remains of a small early Christian basilica dating from the 4th century of which fig. 21 gives the plan (Archaeologia, vol. liii.). It will be [v.03 p.0477] noted that the apse is flanked by two chambers, of the nature of sacristies, cut off from the rest of the church, and known in ecclesiastical terminology as prothesis and diaconicon. These features, rare in Italy, are almost universal in the churches of North Africa and Syria. Another existing English basilica of early date is that of Brixworth in Northamptonshire, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... saw that there was no shirking, no mismanagement here. He seemed to be everywhere at once during those busy days which followed the entrance into the town. But outraged nature would have her revenge at last, and for three days he had lain helpless and suffering in the room assigned to him in the Governor's house, watched over and tended by Julian, who had by this time come to have a very adequate idea ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Cotton, appointing an interview with the founder of the Bodleian Library, cautions Sir Robert, that "If he held any book so dear as that he would be loath to lose it, he should not let Sir Thomas out of his sight, but set 'the boke' aside beforehand." A surprise and detection of this nature has been revealed in a piece of secret history by Amelot de la Houssaie, which terminated in very important political consequences. He assures us that the personal dislike which Pope Innocent X. bore to the French had originated in his ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... apparently a task for demigods, but it is no unusual thing for the men who come to grips with nature unsubdued in the frozen North to attempt, and accomplish, more than flesh and blood seem capable of, and all night long they fought their grim battle, hewing until sight and breathing failed them, and ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... in Brabant, you sought by redoubling your coquetry and fascinations to allure La Valliere's lover. You managed to succeed; he became fond of you. Knowing my husband's ambitious nature, he easily got him to make me favour this intrigue, and lend my ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... late, Directing crude and random Nature, 'T is joy to see my small estate Grow fairer in the slightest feature. If but a single wild-rose blow, Or fruit-tree bend with April snow, That day am I the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... patriarch. He exhibits no profuse gratitude towards the officious persons who have come to help him, thinking probably that he would have been nearly as well without them. Thanks to his obstructive assistants, he is almost overwhelmed with sympathisers gifted by nature with tremendous appetites. Keen-eyed officers detect the mutton-bones which tell of unauthorised ovicide, and "clutches" of geese and chickens vanish as if by magic. There will be a fearful bill for somebody ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... of these subterranean refuges are of comparatively late date; but this does not apply to all. At every period of danger, instinctively the peasants would take advantage of the nature of the chalk to form in it suitable hiding-places, and although some of the finds in these labyrinths are of recent date, others go back to the Gallo-Roman period. In the Arras and Cambrai Chronicle of Balderic (1051), we are told that in the fifth ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... The object, nature, and scope of the attack and the instructions for the conduct of the operations were communicated by me to Sir Douglas Haig in a ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... unsatisfactory, and she seemed to be settling into a confirmed state of ill health, and almost of hypochondriacism. So many shocks, following each other in such quick succession, on a person entirely unprepared by nature, experience or self-regulation, had entirely broken her down, and shattered her nerves and spirits in a manner which she seemed less and less like to recover. She was only able to rise late in the day, take a short drive, and after dining in her own room, come down in the evening, ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... man to say why the second attracts. So Dorothy liked Peter. She admired many qualities in him which she would not have tolerated in other men. It is true that she laughed at him, too, for many things, but it was the laughter of that peculiar nature which implies admiration and approval, rather than the lower feelings. When the spring separation came, Miss De Voe was really ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... years I had a longing for the sea—perhaps not so much to be a sailor, as to travel over the great ocean, and behold its wonders. This longing seemed to be part of my nature, for my parents gave no encouragement to such a disposition. On the contrary, they did all in their power to beget within me a dislike for a sea life, as my father had designed for me a far different ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... in no hurry to open his tale until he had eaten and drunk, and it was with the greatest patience that the thane, who was one of nature's gentlemen, awaited his leisure. ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... personally. He was dying—in a dirty hut on the outskirts of Manipur, up in the hills. When I arrived I say at a glance that the man was a Tibetan monk. He must have crossed the river and come down through Assam; but the nature of his message I never knew. He had lost the power of speech! He was gurgling, inarticulate, just like poor Hale. A few moments after my arrival he breathed his last. The fellow who had guided me to the place bent over him—I shall ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... the other to check luxury and extravagance. Conspicuous among the statesmen who sought to restore the economical habit of former days was Mizuno Echizen no Kami, who, in 1826 and the immediately subsequent years, promulgated decree after decree vetoing everything in the nature of needless expenditures. It fared with his attempt as it always does with such legislation. People admired the vetoes in theory but paid little attention to ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... Vice-President of the Republic of Cuba were formally elected February 24, 1902. There are at the present writing some slight evidences of dissatisfaction with the present administration, but they are of the ordinary political nature. ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt

... six days without having been molested by any one. It was late in August, and all nature seemed bathed in peace. They had not met a single Indian, but found the villages deserted. This had somewhat surprised them, yet as nothing happened, they had not attached ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller

... condemning lynching in general, the Avalanche wanted to go on record as saying that if ever it was justifiable this was the occasion. Unfortunately, the prisoner, giving thus further evidence of his desperate nature, had cut his way out of prison with a pocketknife and escaped from town by means of a horse he found saddled and did not hesitate to steal. At the time of going to press he had not yet been recaptured, ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... Beauce through the endless corn. He entered, with a relish for the pleasant cleanliness of the place, expressed in a shrill strain of half-religious oaths, like flashes of hell-fire to Gaston's suddenly- awakened sense. It was the invincible nature of the royal lad to speak, and feel, on these mad, alto notes, and not unbecoming in a good catholic; for Huguenots never swore, and these were subtly theological oaths. Well! the grandparents repressed as best they could their apprehensions as to what other hunters, what other disconcerting ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater

... harmonious lines of her body, in the ethereal lightness of her footsteps, even in her bare arms, to which invisible wings seemed attached, and, finally, in her ardent and magnetic personality, I felt an indescribable something foreign to the nature of humanity; an indescribable something inferior and yet superior to the woman God has created in his formidable goodness, so that she should be our companion in this earthly exile. From the moment I saw ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France

... numerous, whose wool, short, thin and scant, is maintained only by day-wages, the petty gains of manual labor.—Compensation is to come when the exchequer, resuming its scissors, shears the second time: it is the indirect tax which, although properly levied and properly collected, is, in its nature, more burdensome for the poor than for ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... The Spanish name is tauromaquia (Gr. [Greek: tauros], bull, and [Greek: mache], combat). Combats with bulls were common in ancient Thessaly as well as in the amphitheatres of imperial Rome, but probably partook more of the nature of worrying than fighting, like the bull-baiting formerly common in England. The Moors of Africa also possessed a sport of this kind, and it is probable that they introduced it into Andalusia when they conquered that province. It is certain that they held bull-fights in the half-ruined Roman ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... bridge, was not that of the mountain, But only felt at night its shadowy presence. "Where is your village? Very far from here?" "There is no village—only scattered farms. We were but sixty voters last election. We can't in nature grow to many more: That thing takes all the room!" He moved his goad. The mountain stood there to be pointed at. Pasture ran up the side a little way, And then there was a wall of trees with trunks: ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost

... evening spent in the Via del Giardino he made no allusion of any kind, nor did I for my part wish to renew memories of so unpleasant a nature. His only reference occurred one Sunday evening as we were passing a small graveyard near Genoa. The scene apparently turned his thoughts to that subject, and he told me that he had taken measures before leaving Naples to ensure ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner

... a speech that marks his apogee. It was a high-flown rhapsody on civic morality and purism. Voltaire and the Encyclopedists were bitterly attacked; Jean Jacques Rousseau was deified. The State should adopt his religious attitude, his universal church of nature. In that church, nature herself is the chief priest and there is no need of an infamous priesthood. Its ritual is virtue; its festivals the joy of a great people. Therefore let the Convention decree that the Cult of the Supreme Being be established, that the duty of every citizen is to ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... of science who spend whole months in gnawing at the bone of an antediluvian monster, in calculating the laws of nature, when there is an opportunity to peer into her secrets, the Grecians and Latinists who dine on a thought of Tacitus, sup on a phrase of Thucydides, spend their life in brushing the dust from library shelves, in keeping guard over a commonplace ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac

... emotion, the old horizons of her mind gave way and widened; her gentle nature, which had known nothing but smiles, admitted the meaning of a frown. Did she not ride under the very shadow of that frown with her two horses? Was she not armed? She touched the holster at her hip, and smiled. To be sure, she could never hit a mark with that ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... to realise that it was the language of a poetic race. The early generations of a people are often poetic. They are child-like, and to be like a child is the best half of being like a poet. They name their places by help of their observatory powers. These are fresh and full of wonder, and Nature herself is beautiful or strange ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine



Words linked to "Nature" :   nature worship, ill nature, second nature, state of nature, characteristic, world, quality, causal agent, animality, causal agency, by nature, good-natured, type, temperament, disposition, good nature, personality, nature study, cause, animal nature, human nature



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