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noun
Origin  n.  
1.
The first existence or beginning of anything; the birth. "This mixed system of opinion and sentiment had its origin in the ancient chivalry."
2.
That from which anything primarily proceeds; the fountain; the spring; the cause; the occasion.
3.
(Anat.) The point of attachment or end of a muscle which is fixed during contraction; in contradistinction to insertion.
Origin of coordinate axes (Math.), the point where the axes intersect. See Note under Ordinate.
Synonyms: Commencement; rise; source; spring; fountain; derivation; cause; root; foundation. Origin, Source. Origin denotes the rise or commencement of a thing; source presents itself under the image of a fountain flowing forth in a continuous stream of influences. The origin of moral evil has been much disputed, but no one can doubt that it is the source of most of the calamities of our race. "I think he would have set out just as he did, with the origin of ideas the proper starting point of a grammarian, who is to treat of their signs." "Famous Greece, That source of art and cultivated thought Which they to Rome, and Romans hither, brought."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Origin" Quotes from Famous Books



... various and dangerous temptations that call us from rectitude and virtue, but as it limits the indulgences which are termed virtuous, yet which, extended beyond a certain boundary, are vicious, for their consequence is evil. All excess is vicious; even that sorrow, which is amiable in its origin, becomes a selfish and unjust passion, if indulged at the expence of our duties—by our duties I mean what we owe to ourselves, as well as to others. The indulgence of excessive grief enervates the mind, and almost incapacitates it for again partaking of those various innocent enjoyments ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... of the Epistle. The purpose of the epistle was to root out the errors of doctrine introduced by the Judaizers and to hold the Galatians to their earlier faith. To do this it was necessary to establish his apostolic authority and the divine origin of his gospel. He also desired to show the practical value or application of his teaching. He especially shows the value of Christian freedom and at the same time shows that it is not license. In fulfilling these purposes ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... to become an altercation (a "scrap" they would call it here) some one found a way out. The goods were forwarded in bond to the traveller's place of residence (Hartford, I think) where he declared that he could produce proof of their American origin. For myself, I had to pay two dollars and a half on some magic-lantern slides. I could have imported the lantern, had I owned one, free of charge, as a philosophical instrument used in my profession; but the courts have held, it appears, that though the lantern ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... The origin of the winter's epidemic, according to contemporaries, lay in the infectious conditions of numbers of the immigrants who had been poisoned during the ocean voyage "with stinking beer" supplied to the ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes

... that, during this delay, several messages passed between his lordship's house, Savernake Lodge, and Tottenham Park, the seat of his father, the Earl of Aylesbury. Before I proceed, it may not, perhaps, be amiss to make the reader acquainted with the origin of this business. It turned out that Lord Bruce had been induced to write the aforesaid letters to me and Mr. Hancock at the earnest suggestion of his father, Lord Aylesbury, who had prevailed upon him, much against his ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... that a formal compact was concluded between Dubois and the musician, which granted the violinist considerable emoluments, but bound him and his family by oath to maintain the most absolute secrecy concerning the child's origin. Moreover, Massi himself knew nothing about the boy's parents except that they belonged to the most aristocratic circles, and he was inclined to believe little John to be ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... considered as the best treatise on the subject, is that by Coxe in his Account of Switzerland. A gentleman there lent me a French edition of this valuable work, from which I extracted the following account of the origin of the Goitres, (or extraordinary swellings about the glands of the throat,) which in Switzerland is considered as ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard

... Inductions and their interpretation make up the whole of logic; and to induction accordingly Mr. Mill devoted his chief attention. For the first time induction was treated as the opus magnum of logic, and the fundamental principles of science traced to their inductive origin. It was this, taken with his theory of the syllogism, which worked the great change. Both his "System of Logic" and his "Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy" are for the most part devoted to fortifying this position, and demolishing beliefs inconsistent with ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other

... the metaphor of youth about America or the colonies, if we use it strictly as implying only a recent origin. But if we use it (as we do use it) as implying vigour, or vivacity, or crudity, or inexperience, or hope, or a long life before them or any of the romantic attributes of youth, then it is surely as clear as daylight that we are ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... confirms this, for the measurement of angles is by degrees, and degrees are divided into sixty seconds, just as minutes are. Now this division into sixty is certainly derived from Babylonia in the case of time measurement, and is therefore of the same origin as regards the ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs

... of them. Men may differ widely regarding them, and not only be equally honest, but equally sharers of the mind of Christ. And this is peculiarly the case with many questions of the present day, such as the antiquity of man, the age and genesis of the earth, the origin and authority of the several books of Scripture. Not one of these questions, first of all, can be answered without an amount of special knowledge which few possess; and secondly, the answer to all of them must be sought in the line of pure scientific and literary inquiry. Mere authority, if ...
— Religion and Theology: A Sermon for the Times • John Tulloch

... Rome. Pope Nicholas I. brought about a reconciliation; and Charles not only pardoned his son-in-law, but appointed him ruler of Flanders under the title of Marquis, which was afterwards changed into that of Count. It is to the steel-clad Baldwin Bras-de-Fer that the Counts of Flanders trace the origin of their title; and he was, moreover, the real founder of that Bruges which rose to such glory in the Middle Ages, and is still, though fallen from its high estate, the picturesque capital of West Flanders, whither artists flock to wander about amidst the canals and bridges, the dismantled ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond

... separate lodge at peculiar seasons, and forbidding her to touch any articles in common use, which bear a strong resemblance to the laws of uncleanness, and separation commanded to be observed towards Jewish females. These strongly corroborate the idea, that they are of Asiatic origin; descended from some of the scattered tribes of the children of Israel: and through some ancient transmigration, came over by Kamtchatka into these wild and extensive territories. When they name their children, it is common for them to make a feast, smoke ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West

... queen. Miraculous circumstances were freely interwoven with these narratives, and a result was produced which staggered the faith even of such a writer as Moses of Chorene, who, desiring to confine himself to what was strictly true and certain, could find no more to say of Artaxerxes's birth and origin than that he was the son of a certain Sasan, and a native ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... in fitting her restless and encroaching nature into what was merely one of a number of jealously frontiered interstices in a large family—all this forbade tame acceptance on her part of so ordinary and humble an origin as ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... ungrateful would not love a life so filled with blandishments and crowned with blessings? Who could see all these receding without a sigh, or feel the pressure of that kiss of love as pure as if it had its origin in Heaven? But with the finest organization of intellectual mind, he had been accustomed to look at all things in the light of poetry. For one so constituted the pleasures which are in store are as inexhaustible as the works or mercies of his God. Not an hour which did not present some new phase ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... work of inspecting the new house was going on. Everywhere appeared fresh cause for delighted wonder, but still the origin of the raising ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... word: to Monsieur le President Charles de Brosses we owe the name "Australasia."* (* De Brosses, Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes 1 426 and 2 367. Max Muller, in his Lectures on the Origin of Religion page 59, stated that De Brosses coined three valuable words, "fetishism," "Polynesia," and "Australia." He certainly did not originate the word Australia, which does not occur anywhere in ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... ceiling formed of slabs of slate sculptured with an exquisite pattern of rosettes and spirals, which shows very distinct traces of Egyptian artistic influence (unless, as Mr. H. R. Hall has now come to believe, we are to trace the origin of the spiral as a decorative motive, not to Egypt, but to the Minoans of Crete). At Tiryns, Schliemann began in 1884 another series of excavations which laid bare the whole ground-plan of the citadel palace of that ancient fortress town ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie

... the apes at an unknown period of time, that is as comprehensible as that they were made from a handful of earth at a certain period of time (in the first case the unknown quantity is the time, in the second case it is the origin); and the question of how man's consciousness of freedom is to be reconciled with the law of necessity to which he is subject cannot be solved by comparative physiology and zoology, for in a frog, a rabbit, or an ape, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... invent or embellish an interesting story and put it into a form which others may easily retain in their recollection will always be highly esteemed by a people eager for amusement and information, but destitute of libraries. Such is the origin of ballad poetry, a species of composition which scarcely ever fails to spring up and flourish in every society at a certain point in the progress towards ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson

... The origin of "prohibited degrees" is only conjectural. The Christian Church apparently borrowed its prohibitory canons from the Roman Law,[3] and a dispensation is still necessary before a Catholic can marry his first cousin. However, such dispensations have always been easy to obtain, especially by royal ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner

... mention the creature, we should both have been dead before morning. He would have stabbed you as you came down the steps after leaving me and then he would have walked up to me and planted the same knife between my ribs. He has no prejudices. The viler the origin, the greater the freedom of ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... look beneath the superficial phenomena and ask what is the nature of the structure itself: what is the driving force or the mainspring which works the whole mechanism. We seem, indeed, to be inquiring into the very origin of industrial organisation. The foundation of a sound doctrine comes from Adam Smith. Smith had said that in a primitive society the only rule would be that things should exchange in proportion to the labour of getting them. If it cost ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... The 'Drei Treffen Taktik' owes its origin to the study of the Wars of Frederick the Great, and claims to have again brought to life the fundamental principles to which our Cavalry successes in those days were due. Against this view I would point out that Frederick's ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi

... happy and poetical manner, acquaints us with the high descent of Agamemnon, and traces the origin of his power to the highest source, by saying, that the sceptre had descended to him from the hand ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... the few friends who knew her intimately. But it was not in her nature to open her heart to any one; her large organ of "secretiveness" was her bane; she knew it and deplored it; it was the origin of that misconception which embittered her whole life, the mainspring of that calumny which made fame a mockery and glory a deceit. But I may say, that, when slander was busiest with her reputation, we had the best means to confute it,—and did. For some years there was not a single week ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... of Dutch origin, taken from the word boomken, meaning "a sprout," "a fool." It signifies a loutish person, and is applied to a country clown, not ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various

... one of those cataclysms frequent in Chili, and in this very region where Copiapo had been twice destroyed, and Santiago four times laid in ruins in fourteen years. This region of the globe is so underlaid with volcanic fires and the volcanoes of recent origin are such insufficient safety valves for the subterranean vapors, that shocks are of frequent occurrence, and are called by ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... are many arts among mankind which are experimental, and have their origin in experience, for experience makes the days of men to proceed according to art, and inexperience according to chance, and different persons in different ways are proficient in different arts, and the best persons in the ...
— Gorgias • Plato

... connexion of the royal line. It may have been for the purpose of checking the national contagion of the intercourse, that rebellion was suffered to grow up in his kingdom. But whatever might be the origin, the effect was, to break off the intercourse with France and her corruptions, and to exhibit a new energy and purity in the people. Cromwell raised a sudden barrier against France by his political system, and the nation recovered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... II—Pietro Barbo, Cardinal of Venice—had succeeded Pius II in 1464, and in 1471 the latter was in his turn succeeded by the formidable Sixtus IV—Cardinal Francesco Maria della Rovere—a Franciscan of the lowest origin, who by his energy and talents had become general of his order and had afterwards been raised to the ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... the great silence. Do you know that Sulla and Mithridates have gone slaying and pillaging over Hellas, so that science and art have fled to the Egyptian Alexandria or the growing Byzantium? Do you know that pirates, whose origin is unknown, from the East, have recently plundered every temple in Hellas, so that hardly any religious service can be held there? The oracles are dumb, the poets are silent like song-birds in a storm, the great tragedies are no longer performed; people rather go to see farces and ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... name, but at least it is possible to give it an ugly name with more interesting associations. "Staunch" is an older name that reminds us that the flower was, a few generations ago, used to staunch wounds. The other name, it is suggested, had its origin in the supposed excellence of the plant in curing ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... word, when they reached Edelweiss late that afternoon Sitzky, their friend of uncertain origin, hurriedly finished his work and joined the travelers in the station. Lorry and Anguish were deeply interested in all they saw, the strange people, the queer buildings, the odd costumes and the air of antiquity that prevailed. Once upon the narrow, clean street they saw that Edelweiss was truly ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... temporary absence as an opportunity to look about him. Only one table was occupied. This occupant was a priest who was gravely dining off black bread and milk served in a wooden bowl. But for the extreme pallor of his skin, which doubtless had its origin in the constant mortification of the flesh, he would have been a singularly handsome man. His features were elegantly designed, but it was evident that melancholy had recast them in a serious mold. His face was clean-shaven, ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... people these, so wedded to their restless life. I should like to trace them back and find out their origin. It would be a curious experience to stay with them for a year or two," continued the doctor, after a long silence, "and so find out exactly how they live. I'm afraid that they do a little stealing ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... obscured in cloud, they are all clothed with various forests, all abound in food, and are all remarkable for picturesque and solemn scenery. On the other hand, we have the atoll; a thing of problematic origin and history, the reputed creature of an insect apparently unidentified; rudely annular in shape; enclosing a lagoon; rarely extending beyond a quarter of a mile at its chief width; often rising at its highest point to less than the stature of a man—man himself, the rat and the land crab, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... from their birth. Their origin is not known, because their fathers, grandfathers, and ancestors were also slaves. But although the reason for their slavery is not known, we may believe that it was for some one of the causes here named. Some are captives in wars that different villages wage against each other, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair

... was a negro of apparently twenty years of age. His face, which Nature had colored with a glistening black, was now mottled with the cold, and his large shining eyes filled with tears; a tribute to its power, that the keen frosts of those regions always extracted from one of his African origin. Still, there was a smiling expression of good humor in his happy countenance, that was created by the thoughts of home, and a Christmas fireside, with ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... men are like those of way-side plants, springing up without other apparent cause than the caprice of nature, developing without any apparent aim, yielding no perfected fruit, and finally, dying, leaving scarcely a trace of their existence. Thus it is with institutions which have their origin only in man's caprice. To be enduring, they must be founded upon the needs and necessities of humanity. Many of the great men of the world owe their greatness more to surrounding circumstances than to the genius within them. The highest genius can be dwarfed or deformed by the ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... antiquities. Hard stones, such as basalt, green jasper, burnt serpentine, green feldspar, chalcedony, cornelian, etc., upon which the rude tools of the fellahs would not have worked, would have become, for the amateurs in antiquities, the only pieces of authentic origin; but the Jews of Cairo, also as rapacious and more able than the Arabs, have engraved with the wheel, scarabs and amulets denuded of legends; and finally have entirely counterfeited them, so that all these little ...
— Scarabs • Isaac Myer

... human interest in the origin of Squaw Gulch, though it tickled no humor. It was Dimmick's squaw from Aurora way. If Dimmick had been anything except New Englander he would have called her a mahala, but that would not have bettered his behavior. Dimmick made a strike, went East, and the squaw who had ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... been, not rumours unfavourable to Lady Clavering's reputation, but unpleasant impressions regarding her ladyship. The best English people abroad were shy of making her acquaintance; her manners were not the most refined; her origin was lamentably low and doubtful. The retired East Indians, who are to be found in considerable force in most of the continental towns frequented by English, spoke with much scorn of the disreputable old lawyer and indigo-smuggler her ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of a literature as an order less play of incalculable forces; out of a seething chaos forms more or less definite arose, and then, one day, behold! the literary earth was there, with sun and moon, water and mountains, animals and men. This conception was intimately connected with that of the origin of individual literary compositions. These likewise—since the new "theory of genius," spreading from England, had gained recognition throughout the whole of Europe, especially in those countries speaking the Germanic languages—were imagined to be a mere succession of inspirations ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... we call 'formulas' are not in their origin bad; they are indisputably good. Formula is method, habitude; found wherever man is found. Formulas fashion themselves as paths do, as beaten highways leading toward some sacred, high object, whither many men are bent. Consider it: ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... on the lips of another, is not meant, we are told, to describe himself. But it does describe one side of him very well, and the origin and conduct of a number of his earlier poems. But now, having changed his manner, even the principles of his poetry, he describes himself as different from that—as a sterner, more iron poet, and the work he now does ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... understanding with Luther by offering an explanation which the latter deemed satisfactory, but he then proceeded to revert to his peculiar tenets in a new publication. Luther now launched a sharp reply against these antinomian theses, as well as against others, which went much further, and whose origin is unknown. He found wanting in Agricola that earnest moral appreciation of the law, and of the moral demands made of us by God, whereby the heart of the sinner, as he himself had experienced, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... the Jewish references in the Seleucid history of Nicholas by an account of the intrigues of the Tobiades and Oniades, which reveals a Hellenistic-Jewish origin.[1] Possibly he found it in a special chronicle of the high-priestly family, which was written by one friendly to it, for Joseph ben Tobias is praised as "a good man and of great magnanimity, who brought the Jews out of poverty and low condition to ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich

... an inextricable labyrinth of laws and customs, mainly Roman and Frankish in origin, hopelessly tangled by feudal customs, provincial privileges, ecclesiastical rights, and the later undergrowth of royal decrees; and no part of the legislation of the revolutionists met with so little resistance as their root and branch destruction ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... test of solitude, excepting only the thought that finds its origin in hopeless self-reproach. The soft mystery of twilight, the solemn silence of the slowly-coming night, daunted Catherine in that lonely place. She rose to return to light and human beings. As she set her face toward the house, ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins

... different facts and doubts were canvassed in the kitchen, upstairs they settled the Bulgarian question, the origin of the natives of Tasmania, and the last ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... of Venice stands on a cluster of low sandy islands. It is probable that the country which lies nearest to the gulf, if not the whole of the immense plain of Lombardy itself, is of alluvial formation. Whatever may have been the origin of that wide and fertile kingdom, the causes which have given to the Lagunes their existence, and to Venice its unique and picturesque foundation, are too apparent to be mistaken. Several torrents which flow from the valleys of the Alps pour their tribute into the Adriatic ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... ecclesiastical purposes, and was looked upon in England till the dissolution of the monasteries as a church secret. The open-work embroidery, which went under the general name of cut-work, is the origin of lace. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... people—not the people for the Government. To them it owes allegiance; from them it must derive its courage, strength, and wisdom. But while the Government is thus bound to defer to the people, from whom it derives its existence, it should, from the very consideration of its origin, be strong in its power of resistance to the establishment of inequalities. Monopolies, perpetuities, and class legislation are contrary to the genius of free government, and ought not to be allowed. Here there is no room for favored classes or monopolies; the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson

... it's a mistake. You'll find when you come to consult the unofficial Briton that our fault, as a class—I speak of the civilian now—is rather to magnify the progress that has been made toward liberal institutions. It is of English origin, such as it is, and the stress of our work since the Mutiny—only thirty years ago—has been in that direction. No, I think you will get no fairer or more dispassionate view of the Congress business than such men as I can give you. But I may as well say at once that those who know most of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... ii., p. 440, states briefly the reasons why he does not credit the production to Adams. See also, against its authenticity, Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society, 1st ser., vol. xiii., p. 451. The text has been published, with no allusion to its doubtful origin, as recently as 1900, in The World's Orators, edited by Guy C. Lee, vol. viii., pp. 239-265. John Eliot of Boston apparently had the matter in mind when he wrote to Jeremy Belknap, June 17, 1777: "Mr S. Adams is a gentleman who hath sacrificed an immense fortune in the service of his ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... and parts of heaven are the societies of which it consists, which are also heavens in lesser form (see 51-58). This likeness is perpetual because in the heavens the goods of all are from a single love, that is, from a single origin. The single love, which is the origin of the good of all in heaven, is love to the Lord from the Lord. It is from this that the entire heaven in general, each society less generally, and each angel in particular, ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg

... night with me And you shall possess the origin of all poems; You shall no longer take things at second or third hand Nor look through the eyes of the dead, Nor through my eyes either, But through your own eyes.... You shall listen to all sides, And ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... propagates itself by runners, which it throws out from the base of the flower-stem; this runner is always found directing itself towards the nearest Tillandsia, when it inserts its point into the water and gives origin to a new plant, which in its turn sends out another shoot. In this manner I have seen not less than six plants united." The bladders resemble those of Utricularia montana in all essential respects, even to the presence of a few minute two-armed glands on the valve. Within one bladder ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... elsewhere embodied into a number of stories. The derivation of the word "goopher" I do not know, nor whether any other writer than myself has recognized its existence, though it is in frequent use in certain parts of the South. The origin of this curious superstition itself is perhaps more easily traceable. It probably grew, in the first place, out of African fetichism which was brought over from the dark continent along with the dark people. Certain features, ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt

... London hospital for nine months out of the twelve, who was visiting the Wentworths this winter. Of course it had begun with the Crimean War, and the eclat with which lady nurses went out to attend on the wounded soldiers in the exceptional hospital at Scutari. But whatever was its origin, the rule was established that nursing even day-labourers and mechanics with their wives and children, was something very different from being a drudging governess or broken-down companion. It was like being a member of the Kyrle Society, with which one of the princes had to do, ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... were the origin of all his epoch-making views as to the development of life and the work of natural ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various

... the lake, however, relate to the treasures that are supposed to lie buried in its bosom. These may have taken their origin in a fact which actually occurred. There was one time fished up from the deep part of the lake a great eagle of molten brass, with expanded wings, standing on a pedestal or perch of the same metal. It had doubtless served as a stand or reading-desk, ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... that the Earth actually had plunged into an interstellar dust cloud coincidentally with the start of the Last War (the dust cloud used as a cover for the first attacks, some said) or did she still hold with the majority that the dust was solely of atomic origin with a little help from volcanoes and dry spells? How many green sunsets had she seen in ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... into existence about the middle of the eighteenth century. It is found in Vocal Music, or the Songster's Companion, 1775, and it was claimed by Moore to be an Irish melody, but some authorities deny this. It has also been claimed as Scotch, but the balance of opinion is in favour of its English origin (F. Kidson). ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood

... she is supposed to belong to the more ancient divinities, and, whilst those of later date are represented as having descended one from another, and all more or less from Zeus, Aphrodite has a variously-accounted-for, yet independent origin. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... the locality its infelicitous reputation. Vague rumors were bruited of a supernatural influence that had been exercised on the tenants. Strange stories were circulated of the origin of the diabolical title by which the promontory was known. By some it was believed to be haunted by the spirit of one of Sir Francis Drake's sailors who had deserted his ship in consequence of stories told by the Indians of gold discoveries, but who had perished by starvation on ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte

... more, for it was well known the cavern extended to Cabul!!! Finding it useless endeavouring to revive the broken spirits of these cravens, we reluctantly commenced a retrograde movement, and I was obliged to remain in lasting ignorance of the nature of the mysterious origin of the footprint. ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... might be supposed, from a desire for accurate topographical knowledge of the Seine, but from the idea, that all the world was a great river, and that the different places he had heard of must lie on one shore or the other. The fact of the Amazons being a limited stream, having its origin in narrow rivulets, its beginning and its ending, has never entered the heads of most of the people who have passed their whole ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... England an equal interest in the history of America, whose origin and development constitute one of the most dramatic and significant dramas ever played upon the stage of this "wide and universal theatre of man"? It is true that Thackeray, in his Virginians, gave us in fiction the finest picture of our colonial life, and the late and deeply lamented Lord Bryce ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck

... sonnets in question make manifest; but we are not aware that there is in English literature any other instance of friendship as a passion until we get to ‘In Memoriam.’ So profound was the effect of Hallam’s death upon Tennyson that it was the origin, his son tells us, of ‘The Two Voices; or, Thoughts of a Suicide.’ What was the secret of Hallam’s influence over Tennyson can never be guessed from anything that he has left behind either in prose or verse. But besides the creative genius of the artist there ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... most to be suspected is the hastening corruption in the character and morals, not of the soldiery,—that has been noted,—but of the generals. One diarist of the time saw four marshals at Anspach. He sketches Bernadotte as "a very tall dark man with fiery eyes under thick brows." Humble as was his origin, his ambitions were lofty and he was beginning to make ventures on his own account, not for the master who had made him. There was also Mortier, fairly tall, "with a stupid sentinel look"; considering his career, he was probably ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... family of astronomers of the 17th and 18th centuries, of Italian origin; distinguished for their observations and discoveries affecting the comets, the planets, and the moon; they settled, father and son and grandson, in Paris, and became in succession directors of the observatory of Paris, the last ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... this doctrine of the diabolical origin of storms went on gathering strength. Bede had full faith in it, and narrates various anecdotes in support of it. St. Thomas Aquinas gave it his sanction, saying in his all authoritative Summa, "Rains and winds, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... defeat of the Portuguese fleet at Chaul, Almeyda received a letter from Malek Azz. This man was born in slavery, being descended of heretic Christian parents of Russia, and had risen by degrees to the rank he now held. The origin of his advancement was owing to the following trivial incident. One day a kite flying over the king of Cambaya, muted on his head, on which the king was so enraged that he declared he would give ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... lad going a few months anyhow," he said to himself, as he tramped downstairs, glad that he'd been able to think of something; for, while the scheme was admirable as an advertisement, and would more than repay Messrs. Owens' outlay, its origin had been pure philanthropy. Such good angels do walk this world in the guise of ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... Testament while a degree of advance on the Old by reason of the progress of the times and the more cultivated environment of its origin is not a whit more divinely inspired. The three Synoptic Gospels are witnesses summoned to court where their success is the contradiction and confusion of the story they attempt to tell. The book of Acts is a combination pamphlet put together by the followers ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman

... several persons of both nations, and professed he could find no such difference between them as those ill-disposed people allege. On the contrary, he assured me, that much the greater number of narrow cavities were of Hibernian origin. This I only mention to shew how ready the Jacobites are to lay hold of any handle to express their malice against the government. I had almost forgot to add, that my friend the physician could, by smelling each finger, distinguish the Hibernian excrement from the British, and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... Particular Baptism? Certain followers of a man belonging the great Smith family constituted the first congregation of English Baptists. These were of the General type. The Particular Baptists trace their origin to a coterie of men and women who had an idea that their grace was of a special type, and who met in London as far back as 1616. The doctrines of the Particular Baptists are of the Calvinistic hue. They believe in eternal election, free justification, ultimate glorification; they have a ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... for a frolic when he had a guinea, and, when he had none, could turn a sentence on the humorous side of starvation; and certainly never attributed to the injustice or neglect of society misfortunes the origin ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black

... commonly called CHLORUS (the Pale), an epithet due to the Byzantine historians, Roman emperor and father of Constantine the Great, was born about A.D. 250. He was of Illyrian origin; a fictitious connexion with the family of Claudius Gothicus was attributed to him by Constantine. Having distinguished himself by his military ability and his able and gentle rule of Dalmatia, he was, on the 1st of March ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... that if he were to go with us to Manyuema, the whole party would be cut off. He came here, bought a slave-boy, and allowed him to escape; then browbeat Chapi's man about him (and he says, three others); and caught ten in lieu of him, of which Mohamad restored six: this was the origin of the war. Now that we are in the middle of it, I must do as Mohamad does in going off either by day or by night. It is unreasonable to ask my advice now, but it is felt that they have very unjustifiably placed me in a false position, and they fear that Syed Majid will impute blame ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... upon; and probably their works contributed by far the larger part of the volume after the 114th page (Philadelphia ed. 1796), which concludes the "Journal." I think it questionable whether some literary hack was not employed, by the booksellers, to draw up the part of the work "On the origin, manners, customs, religion, and language of the Indians." Considerable portions of the matter are nearly verbatim in the language of Charlevoix, La Hontan, and other authors of previous date. The "vocabulary of Chippewa," so far as it is Chippewa ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... authorities must be noticed in an article which aims at the presentation of a comprehensive view of this subject. These are based on certain variations between Mr. Collier's statements as to the readings of his manuscript authorities and a certain supposed "philological" proof of the modern origin of one of those authorities, the folio of 1632. Upon all these points the case of Mr. Collier's accusers breaks down. It is found, for instance, that in the folio an interpolated line in "Coriolanus," Act ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... supply me so liberally. Hold, prithee! take care what you say, especially to poets like me, who when I do sing, sing at the invitation of the Muses and under their inspiration.' One of his compositions did not owe its origin to 'the imperative breath of song'; it was an ode to the King, written on the advice of friends, in the hope that such an appeal to his better nature might lead James to grant him his liberty. The ode failed of its purpose; and ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... armies of Hatshopsitu already included Libyan auxiliaries, some of which are represented at Deir el- Bahari; others of Asiatic origin are found under Amenothes IV., but they are not represented on the monuments among the regular troops until the reign of Ramses II., when the Shardana appear for the first time among the king's ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... elsewhere. Had I not previously made myself acquainted with the history of this pious sect, the circumstance of their total extirpation would have much surprised me; because the error of the name which has somehow been applied to them, reaches also to our conception of their origin and fortunes. But the truth is, that they were never a numerous body in the land after which they are now called. It was but in the natural course of events that branches should have struck out from Mount Tabor in Bohemia, as well into Moravia as into ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... more forceful truth than Frederika Bremer when she said in speaking to Americans: "The fate of the Negro is the romance of your history." The sketches of heroes showing the life of those once exploited by Christian men must ever be interesting to those who would know the origin and the development of a civilization distinctly American. In no case is this more striking than in that of Josiah Henson, the man who probably was present to Harriet Beecher Stowe's mind when she graphically portrayed slavery ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... and he slept at last, and he dreamt such visions as only can be conjured up by those who have in anticipation every wish of their heart gratified. The next day he replied to Mr Small's, acknowledging, with frankness, his feelings towards his niece, which a sense of his own humble origin and unworthiness had prevented him from venturing to disclose, and requesting him to use his influence in his favour, as he dared not speak himself; until he had received such assurance of his unmerited good fortune as might ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... upon Ravenna in the pages of Strabo, its origin is already obscured; but this at least seems certain, that it was never a Gaulish city. Strabo tells us that "Ravenna is reputed to have been founded by Thessalians, who, not being able to sustain the violence of the Tyrrheni, welcomed into their city some of the Umbri who ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... to the family of Napoleon's mother are given in full detail by M. Masson in his "Napoleon Inconnu," ch. i. They correct the statement often made as to her "lowly," "peasant" origin. Masson also proves that the house at Ajaccio, which is shown as Napoleon's birthplace, is of later construction, though on the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... opposed by Christian employers, backed by Christian clergymen. It was interfering with freedom of contract, and therefore with the will of Providence; it was anathema to an established Church, whose function was in 1819, as it is in 1918, and was in 1918 B.C., to teach the divine origin and sanction of the prevailing economic order. "Anu and Baal called me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, worshipper of the gods" ... so begins the oldest legal code which has come down to us, from 2250 B.C.; and the coronation service of the English church is made whole out ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... busy years which Handel passed at Cannons. Amongst the numerous compositions for the harpsichord belonging to this period is the suite of pieces which includes the air, with variations, popularly known as 'The Harmonious Blacksmith,' The origin of this title has for long been a matter of discussion; it is quite certain that Handel himself did not so name the piece, for the manuscript bears the title only of 'Air et Doubles,' nor was it ever ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... black with respect to the origin of this cry; but he said to trace it to its origin would require a long history; that, at any rate, such a cry was in existence, the chief raisers of it being certain of the nobility, called Whigs, who hoped by means of it to get into power, and to turn ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow

... this retrospective glance the less dogmatic the philosophy. A primordial constitution or tendency, however, must always remain, having structure and involving a definite life; for if we thought to reach some wholly vacant and indeterminate point of origin, we should have reached something wholly impotent and indifferent, a blank pregnant with nothing that we wished to explain or that actual experience presented. When, starting with the inevitable preformation and constitutional bias, we sought to build up a simpler and nobler edifice of thought, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... confession" in the writing of Werther when he was led to make another "confession" in a work of less resounding notoriety, but equally interesting as a revelation of himself. In his Autobiography he has related the origin of the piece. In the spring of 1774 there fell into his hands the recently published Memoires[166] of the French playwright Beaumarchais, which told a story that reawakened painful memories of his own past. Beaumarchais had two sisters in Madrid, one married to an architect; the other, ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... the father may have been either a recognition of paternity (as in the sham birth whereby Hera adopted Heracles) or may have been caused by the belief that the health of the father at the time of the child's birth affected that of the child. Either origin of the Couvade is consistent ...
— Aucassin and Nicolete • Andrew Lang

... Cape The Cape Photographic Durchmusterung (C. P. D.). As the first of these catalogues has long been—and is to some extent even now—our principal source for the study of the sky and is moreover the first enterprise of this kind, I shall give a somewhat detailed account of its origin and contents, as related by ARGELANDER in the ...
— Lectures on Stellar Statistics • Carl Vilhelm Ludvig Charlier

... to which Philip went when he was thirteen, prided itself on its antiquity. It traced its origin to an abbey school, founded before the Conquest, where the rudiments of learning were taught by Augustine monks; and, like many another establishment of this sort, on the destruction of the monasteries it had been reorganised by the officers of King Henry VIII and thus acquired its name. Since ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... uncommon eloquence in scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson

... unfathomable mystery in the history of mediaeval Rome than the origin and power of Theodora, whose name first appears in the year 914, as Lady Senatress and absolute mistress of the city. The chronicler Luitprand, who is almost the only authority for this period, heaps abuse upon Theodora ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... in a state in which wealth and ancient ancestry were highly rated, he was never ashamed of his birth or poverty. Once when taunted by the aristocratic John Randolph with his lowly origin, he proudly exclaimed, "I was born to no proud paternal estate. I inherited only ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden



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