"Positive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... confidence. Throughout his life he kept his {20} feet firmly based on the solid ground of fact. Human life, as it is actually and visibly lived, was the subject of his study and conversation from first to last. He always put fine-spun theories to mercilessly positive tests such as the ordinary man understands and trusts at once, though ordinary men have not the quickness or clearness of mind to apply them. When people preached a theory to him he was apt to confute them simply by applying it to practice. He supposed ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... uncertain; in my belief, they are such as he does not think of; but they cannot fail to be for good. For my part, I shall always rejoice to have been here in his time. The working of his influence confirms my theories, and it is a positive treasure to me to have seen him. I have never been presented, not wishing to approach, so real a presence in the path of mere etiquette; I am quite content to see him standing amid the crowd, while the band plays ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Joe, shaking a positive head. "Peden was the guts of this town; it can't never be what it was without him. So you're goin' to leave the country, ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... sides from which positive laws may be attacked:—either from the side of nature, which rises up and rebels against them in the spirit of Callicles in the Gorgias; or from the side of idealism, which attempts to soar above them,—and this is the spirit of Plato in the ...
— Statesman • Plato
... of a strong current of air. The opening of that door on the right-hand side of the body supplied that current, and supplied it with such strength and violence that the paper was, as one might say, absolutely sucked round the man's leg. That is a positive proof that the train was moving at the time it happened, for the day, as you know, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... get the exact minute Clayte arrived?" Anson stopped me at this point, "and the positive knowledge that he had the suitcase ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... wandering electrons which are affected when a battery is connected to a copper wire. Every single electron which is away from its home group, and wandering around, is sent scampering along toward the end of the wire which is connected to the positive plate or terminal of the battery and away from the negative plate. That's what the battery does to them for being away from home; it drives them along the wire. There's a regular stream or procession of them from the negative end of the wire toward the positive. When we ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... was readily reconciled to my change of circumstances; and indeed that sum which seemed poverty to me appeared positive wealth to her. But perhaps few men are by nature and inclination more luxurious and costly than myself; always accustomed to a profuse expenditure at my uncle's, I fell insensibly and con amore, on my debut in London, into all the extravagances of the age. Sir William, pleased rather ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... puts her ancient Commonwealth across the path of the Government, if she stands between the administration and the enforcement of the laws, the execution of its official duty, its positive obligations—if this is the manner in which she proposes to mediate, her mediation will be accepted nowhere. Such I understand to be the position she assumes. It is ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... be the baby your name implies," says he, placing her firmly back in her seat. "I didn't marry that heiress, you know, which is proof positive that I loved you, ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... the king's name, it and its territorium. As long as the empire of Charlemagne retained its integrity, and as long as the reins of central government were held by a strong hand and the control it exercised was felt to be positive and real, the change in the character of the local governor was of little moment; but as soon as the power of the central government weakened—during the inglorious reigns of the immediate successors of ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... obscure.[1723] In the literature she appears first in the sixth century B.C. along with the Pythia, but she was then thought of as well established and ancient. She is not mentioned by Homer or Hesiod, but their silence is not proof positive that the conception of the character did not exist in their time; they may have had no occasion to mention her, or the figure may have been so vague and unimportant as not to call for special mention. For such a figure it is natural to assume a long development, the beginnings of which ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... dramatic sympathy for her sorrow, Professor Marshall's greater vivacity of temperament made it harder for him than for his wife to keep a straight face when Cousin Parnelia proposed to be the medium whereby he might converse with Milton or Homer. Indeed, his fatigued tolerance for her had been a positive distaste ever since the day when he found her showing Sylvia, aged ten, how to write with planchette. With an outbreak of temper, for which he had afterwards apologized to his wife, he had forbidden ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... many other and better ways of letting Elmendorf know that in the coming conference his presence could be dispensed with, that Sloan spoke of it the moment they reached the library; but Allison was imperious and positive. "You don't begin to know the man," said he. "Anything less than unmistakable prohibition he would consider as invitation, and he'd turn our talk into a lecture on the relations of capital to labor. You saw how he got in the instant ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... all well," answered John to my inquiries, as he took my load of venison and slung it over his more sturdy shoulders. "The canoe is finished, and we were only waiting for your return to set out. No positive news about our parents; but the Indians describe having seen a canoe with white people, women among them, pass down the river several weeks ago Ellen feels sure it was they who were seen; though, as is sometimes the case with her, dear girl, she can give no other reason than her ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... down to the fact that the greatest feat of the submarine was in its success in slowing up oversea freight traffic and in keeping neutral freighters in port. In this respect the submarine most certainly was dangerously pernicious. But as a positive agency, as said, the undersea craft was not a decisive factor in ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... parentage of its languages with America? This cannot be positively asserted. But while there is but little analogy in the sounds of the lexicography, so far as known, it is in this quarter of the globe, that we perceive resemblances in some words of the Shemitic group of languages, positive coincidences in the features of its syntax, and in its unwieldy personal and polysyllabical and aggregated forms; and the inquiry is one, which may be expected to produce auspicious results. On the assumption of their Asiatic origin, therefore, it is ...
— Incentives to the Study of the Ancient Period of American History • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... crowning virtue,—integrity is the pervading principle which ought to regulate, guide, control, and vivify every impulse, device, and action. Honesty is sometimes spoken of as a vulgar virtue; and perhaps, that honesty which barely refrains from outraging the positive rules ordained by society for the protection of property, and which ordinarily pays its debts and performs its engagements, however useful and commendable a quality, is not to be numbered among the highest efforts of human virtue. But that integrity which, however ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... resort dances, and all those events which gather together the youth of our prosperous classes. Of the medium height, with a strong look about the shoulders, with sufficiently, though not aggressively, positive features and a clear skin, with gray-green eyes, good teeth, and a pleasing expression, he had an excellent natural basis on which to build himself into a particularly engaging and plausible type of fashionable ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... as lighthearted as his words would seem to indicate. He knew that the charge against him was a serious one, and he saw no way of clearing himself. The finding of the box with his name on it seemed to be proof positive against him. ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... memes signalemens que les premiers; mais j'aurois, pour avancer que ceux-la ont ete pris egalement, tant de probabilites, tant de conjectures vraisemblables, qu'elles equivalent pour moi a une preuve positive. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... was naturally a solitary animal. Misled by his respect for the goodness of God, who certainly for what man of sense and feeling can doubt it! gave life only to communicate happiness, he considers evil as positive, and the work of man; not aware that he was exalting one attribute at the expense of another, equally necessary ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... his thoughts turned in another direction, for he came upon the two gipsy lads, seated under the hedge, with their legs in the ditch, proof positive that the people of their tribe were somewhere ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... When one shoots with a decoy, a dog is worse than useless—it is a positive nuisance. I was obliged, therefore, to beat the bushes myself. The thrush had run along the ground, and rose behind me when I thought I still had him in front. At the sound of his wings I turned and fired in a hurry. A shot thrown away, as you may suppose. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... Sylvia, and his going to see her might be deferred; and, after all, he felt that the wishes of his masters ought to be attended to, and the honour of an invitation to the private house of Jeremiah not to be slighted for anything short of a positive engagement. Besides, the ambitious man of business existed strongly in Philip. It would never do to slight advances towards the second great earthly object in his life; one also on ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of the strange charm of these naively beautiful beings springs from their isolation. That detachment from the bonds of home and kindred which was noticed above in its negative aspect, appears now as a source of positive expressiveness. They start into unexplained existence like the sudden beauty of flames from straw. Browning is no poet of the home, but he is peculiarly the poet of a kind of spirituality which subsists independently of earthly ties without disdaining them, lonely but ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... splints and plaster like Fluffy, Mrs. MacGlowrie," he said, "but I can forbid you to go into the garden unless you're looking better. It's a positive reflection on my professional skill, and Laurel Spring will be shocked, and ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of the modern ghost-seer, whose imagination passes on such slight excitement into positive hallucination, is rather the rule than the exception among uncultured and intensely imaginative tribes, whose minds may be thrown off their balance by a touch, a word, a gesture, an ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... to the more positive virtues of his race. Benham suddenly had that uncomfortable feeling of the Gentile who finds a bill being made against him. Did the world owe Israel nothing for Philo, Aron ben Asher, Solomon Gabriol, Halevy, Mendelssohn, Heine, Meyerbeer, Rubinstein, Joachim, Zangwill? ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... Ethics will have a brief article on the subject from the conscientious and able pen of Dr. Henry Malter, but of books there is none. But while this is due to several causes, chief among them perhaps being that English speaking people in general and Americans in particular are more interested in positive facts than in tentative speculations, in concrete researches than in abstract theorizing—there are ample signs that here too a change is coming, and in many spheres we are called upon to examine our foundations with ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... had become converted, he made the journey to take out of his brother's heart the false teaching which he had imbibed. He pitied his brother, thinking that Marciano's mind had become unbalanced. When Captain Egydio arrived at his brother's in Vargem Grande, being a very positive man, he set about the business of straightening out his brother with dispatch and determination. He failed in his purpose, and then called in a priest. When he returned with the priest Marciano asked the two to be ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... fact and give all the essential details first. These details are generally summarized in the questions who, what, when, where, why, and how. If the writer sees that his lead answers these questions, he may be positive that, so far as context is concerned, ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... silence? Not half so much as I quarrel with myself, I know; but if you could read half the letters I write to you in imagination, you would swear by me for the best of correspondents. The truth is, that when I have done my morning's work, down goes my pen, and from that minute I feel it a positive impossibility to take it up again, until imaginary butchers and bakers wave me to my desk. I walk about brimful of letters, facetious descriptions, touching morsels, and pathetic friendships, but can't for the soul of me uncork myself. The post-office is my rock ahead. My average number of ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... judged it un-Christian, and never practised it. The old Roman canon law of Purgation, a similar ordeal, he used not rarely. It was designed to meet cases of slander in which there was no direct and positive evidence. If a good woman had been accused of unchastity in that vague way of rumour which is always more damaging and devilish than open accusation, she might of her own free choice, or by compulsion of the Bishop, put to silence her false accusers by appearing ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... and gratitude demand that we should pray for the souls in Purgatory, but it is also for us a positive duty, which we are in justice bound to fulfill. Perhaps some of these poor souls are suffering on our account. Perhaps they are relatives or friends who have loved us too much, or who have been induced to commit sin by our words or example. We are also ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... suggested by his own coarse and savage nature. He abused him in presence of the class as ignorant and stupid; ridiculed him as awkward and ugly, and at times in the transports of his temper indulged in personal violence. The effect was to aggravate a passive distaste into a positive aversion. Goldsmith was loud in expressing his contempt for mathematics and his dislike of ethics and logic; and the prejudices thus imbibed continued through life. Mathematics he always pronounced a science to which the meanest intellects ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... have I done to any of you that you should want to burn me alive?" asked Tugendheim; and that time I was positive his voice was forced. ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... this seemed a fair definition of intuition, but there was something in the unctuous roll of Mr. Monroe's words that made me positive he was quoting his somewhat erudite speech, and had not himself a perfectly clear comprehension ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... india-rubber. The insect, being made fast by hooks and teeth to its victim, all efforts to remove it only increase the pain it causes; and animals that know it well do not attempt to rub, scratch, or bite it off, therefore the great size and the conspicuous colour of the tick are positive advantages to it. The flea, without the subtlety and highly-specialized organs of the Ornithomyia, or the stick-fast powers and leathery body of the Ixodes, can only escape its vigilant enemies by making itself invisible; hence every variation, i.e. increase in jumping-power and diminished ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... to be very pronounced in his language. A gambler! Monsieur no doubt means to say that madame has not the appearance of being under the intoxication of the play." Then with a positive tone, still flicking the pebbles, "The ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... hard at him. Evidently Puss had not yet entirely recovered after his close call. At any rate it was positive that he could not understand how he actually owed his very life to the speedy action of this boy whom he hated ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... sudden resolve she noiselessly closed the door, lit the lamp, and began to put on her wraps, stealing about on tiptoe that she might not awaken her mother. She was quite positive that, by this time, her father must be almost home. As her little brain dwelt upon this idea, she presently brought herself to see him, striding swiftly along in the moonlight just beyond the turn of the trail. If she hurried, she could meet him before he came out upon the clearing. ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... did not inform my father that I had written to you. He doesn't like strangers; he doesn't like scientists. I did not dare tell him that I had asked you to come out here. It was entirely my own idea. I felt that I must write you because I am positive that what is happening in this wilderness is ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... Colonel Whitefoord applied to the Duke of Cumberland in person. From him, also, he received a positive refusal. He then limited his request, for the present, to a protection for Stewart's house, wife, children, and property. This was also refused by the Duke; on which Colonel Whitefoord, taking his commission from his bosom, laid it on the table ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... ash-grey earth, without a vestige of vegetation, furrowed by rain, and desolately breaking into gullies, swallows up variety and charm. It is difficult to believe that this creta of Southern Tuscany, which has all the appearance of barrenness, and is a positive deformity in the landscape, can be really fruitful. Yet we are frequently being told that it only needs assiduous labour to ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... was embarked upon a moral vacation. She was out of the Bastile of right and wrong. She had a vision of what freedom from entangling responsibilities is secured by traveling. She understood her aunt's classing it as among the positive goods of life. ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... other of a more absolute affection than the most positive words could express! Ralph sat silent for a moment, as was his wont when under the influence of strong feeling. His head inclined downwards, and his eyes were fixed on the floor. A great struggle was going on within him. Should he forthwith ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... herdsman: the buffaloes observing it, attacked the tiger, and rescued the poor man; they tossed him about from one to the other, and, to the best of my recollection, killed him; but of that I am not quite positive. Both of the wounded men were brought to me. The Biparie recovered, and ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... information. Anonymous charges the emperor rejects, as too repugnant to the equity of his government; and he strictly requires, for the conviction of those to whom the guilt of Christianity is imputed, the positive evidence of a fair and open accuser. It is likewise probable, that the persons who assumed so invidiuous an office, were obliged to declare the grounds of their suspicions, to specify (both in respect ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... than yesterday afternoon did he give me most positive proof of his obsession. It was four o'clock, the beginning of the first dog-watch, and he had just relieved me. So careless have we grown, that we now stand in broad daylight at the exposed break of the poop. Nobody shoots at us, and, occasionally, ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... an entity apart from herself, to be a passive witness of events as in a dream; presently, she would awake and find that she was back in her pleasant room at the Morrisons' hacienda, or tucked up in her own comfortable cabin. Yet here was proof positive that the terror which environed her was real. Bound up with the thunder of the gale were the words, "Your loving sister, Madge"—evidently the sister Captain Courtenay had spoken of—"matron of a hospital in the suburbs of London," he said. Would he ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... risen, since it was quite positive that the note was not lost, now seized Miss Parrott's hand and hopped and skipped by her side across the green grass on their return to the mansion. Simmons came out of his retirement, his chamois skin with which he had been ostensibly polishing up a carriage, ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... individual hardship. The system of equity, devised to supply the insufficiencies of law, deals with cases "to which the law by reason of its universality can not apply." "Equity, then, ... is the soul and spirit of all law; positive law is construed and rational law is made by it." BLACKSTONE bk. iii, ch. 27, p. 429. In personal and social relations justice is the rendering to every one what is due or merited, whether in act, word, or thought; in matters of reasoning, or ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... with a fine, slender body, two years younger than himself. Her colouring was far lighter than Howat's; she had sympathetic hazel eyes, an inviting mouth, an illusive depression in one cheek that alone saved her from positive ugliness, and tobacco brown hair worn low with a long, turned strand. She had on a pewter-coloured, informal wrap over a black silk petticoat, lacking hoops, with a cut border of violet and silver brocade; and above low, green kid stays with coral tulip blossoms worked ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... I confess that the necessity of always reserving for this young person, thrust upon us by the force of circumstances, a place at table, a seat in the carriage, room upon every party of pleasure, makes her presence an inconvenience, if not a positive burden. And will you allow me to speak with great candor? May I venture to say that I have seen you, my dear mother, chafed by the infliction, and irritated by beholding Bertha lose through contrast ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... always abstain from noise or foul language, and, if they sing, sing nothing but hymns. It is easy to sneer at such a fashion as formalism. It would be wiser to consider whether the first step in religious training must not be obedience to some such external positive law; whether the savage must not be taught that there are certain things which he ought never to do, by being taught that there is one day at least on which he shall not do them. How else is man to learn ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... I could be positive about this. The codes of Terra had made some superficial impress on Rakhal, but down deep his own world held sway. If these men were at blood-feud with Rakhal and he stood here where I stood, he would have let himself be beaten into bloody rags before ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... you of opinion that cases of hardship are not likely to occur in consequence of the want of money?-I could not give a positive answer to that question. I have heard the women complain more of there being two prices than of any ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... think this job was spoiled by the actions of the Officers in Philadelphia. I am quite positive we were not suspected, as we were at all times current with these ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... just the spot where a piccaninny might be easily rounded up, if it were detected in a preoccupied mood. I suggested that I might be at hand to encounter any untoward results in case of a bungle, but was met with the positive assertion that no "debil-debil," however young and unsophisticated, would "come out" if it smelt ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... kept the lanterns trimmed—this was a positive order. The lights were now moving to and fro, and having seen all the poisoned under the full effect of a large dose of tartarised antimony, with an accompaniment of strong brine and mustard, I returned to the divan, where I found Umbogo had just arrived ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... respect to oxygen and nitrogen singular contrasts were presented when spark and brush discharge were made to take place in these gases, as may be seen by reference to the Table in paragraph 1518 of the Thirteenth Series; for with nitrogen, when the small, negative or the large positive ball was rendered inductric, the effects corresponded with those which in oxygen were produced when the small positive or the large negative ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... rage seized Harietta. Her rival reigned now indeed! This was positive proof to her, not of spiritual meaning—not of the mystic, abstract aloofness of worship which lay deep in Stepan's nature and had caused him to have Amaryllis transfigured into the symbol of purity, a daily reminder that she must always ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... mysterious persons. His secret passion for that woman grew by reason of all these obstacles. Madame Jules was ever there, erect, in the midst of his thoughts, in the centre of his heart, more seductive by her presumable vices than by the positive virtues for which he ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... drawing-room, however, there, to his equal annoyance, he saw in the light of one expiring candle the dim figure of a lady; he could not offer HER the keys of the wine-cellar! What was he to do? What could she be there for? He drew nearer, and, with a positive pang of relief, discovered that it was Dorothy. A word was enough between them. But the good doctor was just a little annoyed that a second should share in the secret ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... millions of gorgeous hues to a scarcity of neutral tints; yet the pictures that are painted in sombre semi-tones and have no one positive colour in them are always pronounced the nearest to nature. When a painter sets his palette, he dares not approach the gold of the sunset and dawn, or the flame of the pomegranate ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... tube is used as a detector, the wire filament is heated red-hot and the metal plate is charged with positive electricity though it remains cold. The wire filament is formed into a loop like that of an incandescent lamp and its outside ends are connected with a 6-volt storage battery, which is called the A battery; then the or positive terminal of a 22-1/2 ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins
... tidings which henceforth render such discussions superfluous. Listen to me, both of you. My father has sent me a bit of news which, coming direct from the Marquis do Villars—that is, from Munich—is positive ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... of the girl's mother and wondered if her intercession would avail aught with the old autocrat. But he had not yet ventured upon this. There was nothing certain about Mrs. Mivane but her uncertainty. She never gave a positive opinion. Her attitude of mind was only to be divined by inference. She never gave a categorical answer. And indeed he would not have been encouraged to learn that Richard Mivane himself had already consulted his daughter-in-law, as in this highhanded ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... suppressing the other particulars of her life, Mrs. Haywood may have consigned to oblivion a year or two of her age, but in her numerous writings I have not found any allusion that could lead to her positive identification with the daughter of ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... familiar quality in his voice! She was positive she had heard it before—that crisp, unslurred enunciation, with its keen perception of syllabic values, so unlike the average Englishman's ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... to grow older still. You do not look a bit older or feebler than you did ten years ago, and there is no positive reason why you should not live for ten years longer, or even more, provided you do not change your course of living in the least degree. The slightest change of habits, of diet, or of dress, may prove fatal at ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... had left him without insisting any longer; but before going home, he had dropped in at his club, and there, in the presence of twenty people he had declared that he had positive proof of a plot formed against M. de Boiscoran, whom the Monarchists had never forgiven for having left them; and that the Jesuits were certainly mixed ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... though proceeding from a sudden unweighed suggestion rather than a deliberate purpose, yet, certainly, as our church has well determined, proves "the infection of our nature, and has in it the nature of sin." Convinced that positive evil may not be committed to procure problematical good, and that no uninspired person should presume to think himself God's champion, unless placed in that station which visibly arms him with his authority, Evellin had often lamented this rash letter, as one ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... going down with the 4:15 express on the afternoon in question, that he remembered me, and that, there being one or two empty first-class compartments on that especial afternoon, he had, in compliance with my request, placed me in a carriage by myself. He was positive that I remained alone in that compartment all the way from London to Clayborough. He was ready to take his oath that Dwerrihouse was neither in that carriage with me nor in any compartment of that train. He remembered distinctly to have examined my ticket to Blackwater; was certain ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... the subject before, and I was a little startled at Bessie's positive manner, for I thought even this matter would not be free from her mother's dictation. The old lady seemed surprised and vexed. "George is a much better name, I think," she said very quietly, keeping down her vexation, "but I thought perhaps ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... will now go for the mail; and do take care that no one pots you on the way. Your death would be a positive loss to me, Oscar. And if any one asks how My Majesty is—mark, My Majesty—pray say that I am quite well and equal to ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... foundation of art, or the policy which has contributed to its power, if I offend one, I shall offend all; for I shall take no note of any separations in creeds, or antagonisms in parties: neither do I fear that ultimately I shall offend any, by proving—or at least stating as capable of positive proof—the connection of all that is best in the crafts and arts of man, with the simplicity of his faith, and ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... zeal for whose religious welfare impels the good man to such earnest vociferation and toilsome gesture that his perspiring face is quickly in a stew. His inward flame conspires with the too fervid sun and makes a positive martyr of him, even in the very exercise of his pious labor; insomuch that he purchases every atom of spiritual increment to his hearers by loss of his own corporeal solidity, and, should his discourse last long enough, must finally exhale before their eyes. If I smile at him, be it understood, it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... have done for him, has not improbably been blessed with some years of previous intercourse with the said John. Taking, then, the above advertisement to be true, or nearly so, down to the words "left leg" inclusive, (though I have some doubt if the blemish there implied amount to a positive lameness, or be perceivable by any but the nearest friends of John,) I would ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... have become possessed of Philip's watch in far-off latitudes; in which case, Philip would be dead. That might be. She tried to think that this was the most probable way of accounting for the watch. She could be certain as to the positive identity of the watch—being in William Darley's possession. Again, it might be that Philip himself was near at hand—was here in this very place—starving, as too many were, for insufficiency of means to buy the high-priced food. And then her heart burnt within her ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... protection, and from the parapet of the fort looked helplessly on while the people burnt before his eyes his own coach, containing images of himself and the devil. But before this happened, Boston, first of all the capitals to take a positive stand, began to draw upon itself the ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... Lady Jane was tall and slim, And Lady Jane was fair. And a good many years the junior of him, There are some might be found entertaining a notion, That such an entire, and exclusive devotion, To that part of science, folks style entomology, Was a positive shame, And, to such a fair dame, Really demanded some sort of apology; Ever poking his nose into this, and to that— At a gnat, or a bat, or a cat, or a rat, At great ugly things, all legs and wings, With nasty long tails, armed with nasty long stings And eternally thinking, and blinking, and winking, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... seemed credible enough, and my informant was positive; he saw you together at a picnic in Switzerland. It was looked upon as a settled ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... confirmation of the laws of St. Edward. The King, alarmed with their zeal and unanimity, as well as with their power, required a delay; promised that, at the festival of Easter, he would give them a positive answer to their petition; and offered them the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Ely, and the Earl of Pembroke as sureties for his fulfilling this engagement. The barons accepted of the terms, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... applicability was discovered, so that had we and all others postponed our great undertaking on the pretext of waiting for a new force, apergy might have continued to lie dormant for centuries. With this force, obtained by simply blending negative and positive electricity with electricity of the third element or state, and charging a body sufficiently with this fluid, gravitation is nullified or partly reversed, and the earth repels the body with the same or greater power than that with which it still attracts or attracted it, so that it may be ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... enemy, and before dawn withdraw to the appointed ground. These arrangements made, a dispatch was sent to General Kirby Smith at Shreveport, informing him that I had returned from the front, found the enemy advancing in force, and would give battle on the following day, April 8, 1864, unless positive orders to the contrary were sent to me. This was about 9 P.M. of ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... devalued and floated at world market rates. In addition, the scope for private sector activity has been expanded, primarily through decollectivization of the agricultural sector and introduction of laws giving legal recognition to private business. Despite such positive indicators, the country's economic turnaround remains tenuous. Nearly three-quarters of export earnings are generated by only two commodities, rice and crude oil. Meanwhile, industrial production stagnates, burdened by uncompetitive state-owned enterprises the government ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Jerome Company were obliged to assume. The great difference in the real and supposed amount of their indebtedness and the unsaleable property turned in as stock were enough to ruin any company. It is a positive fact that the stock of the Jerome Company was not worth half as much, three months after Barnum came into the concern as it was before that time. Some of the stock-holders did not like to have Terry own stock, ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... doubt," said I, "the value of phosphoric acid when applied in connection with nitrogen to old pasture lands, but I contend that the experience of the Cheshire dairymen with bone-dust is no positive proof that their soils were particularly deficient in phosphoric acid. There are many instances given where the gelatine of the bones, alone, proved of great value to the grass. And I think it will be found that the ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... successively compose the bodies of all animals, the same spiritual substance may compose their minds: Their consciousness, or that system of thought which they formed during life, may be continually dissolved by death, and nothing interests them in the new modification. The most positive assertors of the mortality of the soul never denied the immortality of its substance; and that an immaterial substance, as well as a material, may lose its memory or consciousness, appears in part from experience, if the ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... in the provincial diets. The Viennese Act of 1820 contains closer definitions of the Federative Act, of which the more essential object was the exclusion of the various provincial diets from all positive interference in the general affairs of Germany, and the increase of the power of the different princes vis-a-vis to their provincial diets by a guarantee of aid on the part of ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... the ship's company belonged to the indefinite, undecided class, floating more or less distant from the positive elements of good or evil. They were not bad boys, for, with proper influences, they could be, and were, kept from evil ways. They were not good boys on principle, for they could be led ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... render the other's forces inefficient by producing disunion. Ascertaining the beginning, the middle and the end of his foes,[309] a king should in secret cherish feelings of hostility towards them. He should corrupt the forces of his foe, ascertaining everything by positive proof, using the arts of producing disunion, making gifts, and applying poison. A king should never live in companionship with his foes. A king should wait long and then slay his foes. Indeed, he should wait, expecting ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... alone on the road,—all had run away before,—so I thought it was for our especial entertainment, this little affair. I cannot remember how long it lasted; I am positive that the clock struck ten before I left home, but I had been up so long, I know not what time it began, though I am told it was between eight and nine. We passed the graveyard, we did not even stop, and about a mile and a half from home, when mother was perfectly exhausted ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... punctiliousness that it almost drilled one to witness. He would have completely spoiled Jackanapes if Miss Jessamine's conscience would have let him; otherwise he somewhat dragooned his neighbors, and was as positive about parish matters as a rate-payer about the army. A stormy-tempered, tender-hearted soldier, irritable with the suffering of wounds of which he never spoke, whom all the village followed to ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... authority of historians, the earliest of whom wrote a century and a half after Arcadius's death. Modern criticism has, in general, rejected the entire story, on this account, regarding the silence of the earlier writers as outweighing the positive statements of the later ones. It should, however, be borne in mind, first that the earlier writers are few in number, and that their histories are very meagre and scanty; secondly, that the fact, if fact ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... Not less positive are the expressions of Father Diego Duran, contemporary of Sahagun, and himself well versed in the native tongue. "All their songs," he observes, "were composed in such obscure metaphors that scarcely any one can understand them unless he give especial attention to their construction."[36] The ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... A baptized member of the Church, not being an ecclesiastic. The term "layman" denotes a positive rank, not the mere lack ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... Dutch woman, told a long story. She declared, on honor, that it was a black dog like a Chinese pug, that has no hair. However, she had only seen its back, but she was positive the creature talked English, for she heard it ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... territories which, experience does not forbid us to hope, may be as vast as have ever been grasped by the iron gripe of a despotic conqueror. The origin of so happy an innovation is one of the most interesting objects of inquiry which occurs in human affairs; but we have scarcely any positive information on the subject; for our ancient historians, though they are not wanting in diligently recording the number and the acts of national assemblies, describe their composition in a manner too general to be instructive, and take little note of novelty or peculiarity in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... see, Mr Macallan, in two scrummages only two men were killed out of hundreds, and they were the two who had killed the cat! Now, that's what I calls proof positive, for I seed it all with my own eyes; and I should like to know whether you could do the same, with regard to that ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... necessary assistance, and proceeded to land the body. It came up unusually heavy, and when at last brought to the surface, was found to be made fast by a rope around the waist to the missing barrel of pitch. There was a gag securely fastened in the mouth, and these two circumstances were positive evidence that ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... prop. 8, schol. I: absoluta affirmatio) everything which contains a limitation or negation, and this includes every particular determination, must be kept at a distance: determinatio negatio est (Epist. 50 and 41: a determination denotes nothing positive, but a deprivation, a lack of existence; relates not to the being but to the non-being of the thing). A determination states that which distinguishes one thing from another, hence what it is not, expresses a limitation ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... the catastrophic loss of their great armies was not all the enemy had to endure. As the grass had stood our ally and swallowed the attackers, helping us in a negative fashion as it were, it now turned and became a positive force in our relief. Unnoticed for months, it had crept northwestward, filching precious mile after mile of the hostile foothold. Now it spurted ahead as it had sometimes done before, at a furious ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... worse, so they began by bursting into tears, and begging Mrs. Crabtree for this once to excuse them and to give some cakes and tea to their little visitors; but they might as well have spoken to one of the Chinese mandarins, for she only shook her head with a positive look, declaring over and over again that nothing should appear upon the table except what was always brought up for their own supper—two biscuits ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... fix'd unguarded eyes; And her he married: Edward at the view Bade to his cheerful visits long adieu; But haply err'd, for this engaging bride No mirth suppress'd, but rather cause supplied: And when she saw the friends, by reasoning long, Confused if right, and positive if wrong, With playful speech, and smile that spoke delight, She made them careless both of wrong and right. This gentle damsel gave consent to wed, With school and school-day dinners in her head: She now was promised choice of daintiest food, And costly dress, that made her ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... all, A leathern one—typed by a new cricket-ball. Young girls think a "Ball" of another guess sort Is the sphere in which woman may find truest sport. To harmonise all these opinions, 'tis clear, Is hard; but, whatever be woman's true sphere, Whether found in the dictum of "Positive" HARRISON, And what ladies call his "degrading comparison," Or otherwhere,—this will be certainly found, If you'll let angry women ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... much latitude for explanations and diversions along the way. Nor is it possible for any one to describe this conflict satisfactorily even to all historians, to say nothing of the participants who still live and entertain the most positive and contradictory convictions. Hence one must present one's own narrative and be content if open-mindedness and honesty of purpose ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... it pleasant. In the first place, I believed absolutely in my cause. I was not, as Sydney Smith said, "stricken by the palsy of candour." There were no doubts or questionings or ambiguities in my mind. My creed with regard both to foreign and to domestic politics was clear, positive, and deliberate. I was received with the most extraordinary kindness and enthusiasm by people who really longed to have a hand in the dethronement of Lord Beaconsfield, and who believed in their politics ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... Nazareth are reliable history, or how far they are merely imaginative pictures of the kind of man the Saviour might be expected to be, (2) is a question which, as I have already said, is a difficult one for skilled critics to answer, and one on which I certainly have no intention of giving a positive verdict. Personally I must say I think the 'legendary' solution quite likely, and in some ways more satisfactory than the opposite one—for the simple reason that it seems much more encouraging to suppose that the story of Jesus, (gracious and beautiful as it is) is a myth which gradually formed ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... grandfather, breaking in mind and body, developed those eccentricities which became the marked feature of his latter days. The animosity of the old man was aroused, and once an enemy was always an enemy with him. He cared nothing for his daughter. Indeed, he cherished a positive hatred of her at times; and never lost an opportunity of humiliating the rector and making him feel that he gained nothing by marrying the daughter against ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... a naturally contented nature and a naturally discontented one is one of the marked differences of innate temperament, but we can do much to cultivate that habit of dwelling on the benefits of our lot which converts acquiescence into a more positive enjoyment." ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... noted the beauty and sprightliness of Maraquita, and the admiration with which Harold had first beheld her; and it seemed to him that this rather powerful method of attempting to gratify the Portuguese girl was proof positive that Harold had lost his heart ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... always seeking to have private interviews with him; it seems as profitable as any other end that I can imagine to such an interview. Now, it is possible that the Government of the day might go in for a positive policy of painting Mr. Asquith green; might give that reform a prominent place in their programme. Then the party in opposition would adopt another policy, not a policy of leaving Mr. Asquith alone (which would be considered dangerously revolutionary), ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... Park had a still more serious cause of alarm arising from the repeated delays which had taken place before the expedition was sent out, which rendered it scarcely possible for them to reach the Niger before the rainy season set in. There was besides, the positive certainty of encountering the great tropical heats and tornadoes, which invariably precede and follow that time, and prove a source of the greatest inconvenience, and sometimes even of danger, to caravans. ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... in three vivid figures, and leave the reader to imagine that the rest of the world has been wiped out of existence," said Harley, as he talked it over with me. "That is not art. There should be three types of character in every book—the positive, the average, and the negative. In that way you grade your story off into the rest of the world, and your reader feels that while he may never have met the positive characters, he has met the average or the negative, or both, and is therefore by one of these links connected with the others, and ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... The only thing is to tell him something positive, something he'll believe, that's not too bad—like my having been a lady clerk with those people who came here, and having been dismissed on suspicion of taking money. I could get him ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... been within immediate call, those ladies would have died ere they would have asked for it before his return. He had said he would be home to tea, and they would have waited for him, had it been till four o'clock in the morning! Let the female married victim ever make the most of such positive wrongs as Providence may vouchsafe to her. Had Mrs. Furnival ordered tea on this evening before her husband's return, she would have been a woman blind to the advantages of her own position. At ten the wheels of Mr. Furnival's cab were heard, and the faces ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... who was said to have been a witness of the marriage, is not positive that it occurred, having only seen the priest at the altar in his vestments. The record of the marriage has been stated to be in the Manila Cathedral, but it is not there, and as the Jesuit in officiating would have ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... true, darling. I never go home for the holidays that I don't hear father grumble about his poverty. The rents are so slow to come in; the tenants are always wanting drain-pipes and barns and things. Last Christmas his howls were awful. We are positive paupers. Mother has to ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... impressed by an external object, sensation is sudden, precise, and involuntary. The whole organ is in motion. When on the contrary, the same impression is received in sleep, the posterior portion of the nerves only is in motion, and the sensation is in consequence, less distinct and positive. To make ourselves more easily understood, we will say that when the man is awake, the whole system is impressed, while in sleep, only that portion near ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... perpetual ridicule, perhaps with more than was deserved. Silence is, indeed, mere privation; and, so considered, cannot invade; but privation, likewise, certainly is darkness, and probably cold; yet poetry has never been refused the right of ascribing effects or agency to them as to positive powers. No man scruples to say that darkness hinders him from his work; or that cold has killed the plants. Death is also privation; yet who has made any difficulty of assigning to death a dart, and the ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... with facts, scenes, events, and characters, which he has learned by conversation with other men and through books. Webster laid great emphasis on conversation as one of the most important sources of imagery as well as of positive knowledge. "In my education," he once remarked to Charles Sumner, "I have found that conversation with the intelligent men I have had the good fortune to meet has done more for me than books ever did; for I learn more ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... himself fighting like a cat at bay. He had no positive assurance that friends were near, and with so many eager hands striving to reach his face and body, he had to retaliate, giving ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... enumerated many hundred individuals, the lame, the blind, the infirm, the rheumatic, and those afflicted with bad temper, who had been perfectly cured by either drinking of the water or being immersed in the fountain itself. She would not be positive which mode was the best, but certain she was that the cure was perfect and permanent; she herself had been ugly and cross-tempered, and now she left her audience to judge of her character and appearance. ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... ruined, to the reconstructed, however splendid. What is left is more precious than what is added; the one is history, the other is fiction; and I like the former the better of the two—it is so much more romantic. One is positive, so far as it goes; the other fills up the void with things more dead than the void itself, inasmuch as they have never had life. After that I am free to say that the restoration of Carcassonne is a splendid achievement. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... have preferred the truth, such as their own experience testified, to the vague, false, conventional notions current in circulating libraries. Whatever of weakness may be pointed out in their works will, we are positive, be mostly in those parts where experience is deserted, and the supposed requirements of fiction have been listened to; whatever has really affected the public mind is, we are equally, certain, the transcript of some actual incident, character or emotion. Note, moreover, that beyond ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... Is that the most you can say of it? I understood that it was supposed to be an amusement of a much more positive character." ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of the marriage tie. The divorce business of certain courts in Illinois, Iowa, Utah, and some of the territories, enjoy an infamous notoriety all over the world; while even staid old Connecticut offers a positive reward to connubial infidelity by at once granting a full or absolute divorce upon comparatively slight pretexts, leaving both parties legally free to marry again as their altered fancies ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... of doing, an original thing. The fact is that originality (unless in minds of very unusual force) is by no means a matter, as some suppose, of impulse or intuition. In general, to be found, it must be elaborately sought and, although a positive merit of the highest class, demands in its attainment less ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... the arms of a man who openly avowed the most mercenary motives, and who took gods and men to witness that his heart was sacred to another. Only in Vargrave's presence were these scruples overmastered; but the moment he was gone they returned in full force. She had yielded, from positive fear, to his commands that she should convey Evelyn to Paris; but she trembled to think of the vague hints and dark menaces that Vargrave had let fall as to ulterior proceedings, and was distracted at the thought of being implicated in some villanous ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VII • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... predominate in the dress; and if another is adopted, it should be in a limited quantity and only by way of contrast or harmony. Some colors may never, under any circumstances, be worn together, because they produce positive discord to the eye. If the dress be blue, red should never be introduced by way of trimming, or vice versa. Red and blue, red and yellow, blue and yellow, and scarlet and crimson may never be united in the ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... out with it," interrupted the other, with an impatient gesture, that his cockswain knew signified a positive determination. Heaving a sigh at what he deemed his commander's prejudice, Tom applied himself without further delay to the execution of the orders. Barnstable laid his hand familiarly on the shoulder of the boy, and led him to the stern of his little ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the habitual altitude of Mr. Russell's thought, so preoccupied his mood with spiritual things, that the human reader must feel lonely at times, must feel the regions of the poet's thought alien to him. At such times it is a positive relief to find the poet yearning for the concrete sweet things of earth. It is perhaps only in "Weariness" that Mr. Russell's high mood does fail, but I rejoice when that ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... thus made up of patricians and nobles, had at this time the monopoly of power. Legally, however, it had no positive authority. The right of the people to govern was still valid, and there was only wanting a magistrate with the courage to remind them of their legal rights, and urge the exercise ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... shall live forever, in splendor and happiness; your every wish shall be gratified; no more scorching suns, no more dark and gloomy days for you—all shall be joy, unvaried pleasure, eternal youth and health. One solitary restriction I must lay upon you, but that is positive; on no account shed a tear, for on that day when you weep, you must return to earth—even my power could not keep you here. Tears must never sully the palace of the Fairy Queen. But why should you weep? I myself will take care of you, teach ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... divested itself of all previous inner and outer experiences. The experiences of intuition are, however, subtle, delicate and intimate, in comparison with which the physical body, at its present stage of development, is coarse. For this reason, it offers a positive hindrance to the success of any exercises for attaining intuition. Nevertheless, should these be pursued with energy and perseverance, and with the requisite inner calm, they will ultimately overcome those powerful ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... obvious necessities of life, such as a spare sail, a coil or two of line, a few nails, a hammer, a saw, a trifle of crockery, some cooking utensils, and, above all, our fowling-pieces and some ammunition. Miss Merrivale, however, was positive that they would not; and as the time dragged slowly by without any sign of the reappearance of the boat, I began at last to fear that she would ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... overtake him as to the captain's competency to navigate his ship. The ignoramus must have lost his way, and drifted into the outer confines of creation, the region of the everlasting lull, introductory to a positive vacuity. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... time rebelled. The standards of the English in personal morality, temperance, amusements, and manners at the beginning of the eighteenth century were not especially high, and in the reaction from Puritan control and strict religious observances the great mass of the people degenerated into positive irreligion and gross immorality. Drunkenness, rowdyism, robbery, blasphemy, brutality, lewdness, and prostitution became very common. This moral decline of the people the Church of England seemed powerless ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... they are ever on our lips, and pass current in conversation at a conventional value. Of these phrases is the 'poetry of life'—words that never fail to excite an agreeable though dreamy emotion, which it is impossible to refer to any positive ideas. They are generally used, however, to indicate something gone by. The poetry of life, we say, with sentimental regret, has passed away with the old forms of society; the world is disenchanted of its talismans; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... undecided whether the Persians admitted their matrons to their public banquets and private parties;—but if we can believe the positive testimony of Herodotus, such was the case: and the summons of Vashti to the annual festival, and the admission of Haman to the queen's table, are facts which support the affirmation of that historian. The doubts upon ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various
... owner to transfer the thing upon some just ground; and secondly, the actual delivery of the thing to the person who is to acquire it. Movables were presumed to be the property of the possessors, until positive evidence was produced to the contrary. A prescriptive title to movables was acquired by possession for one year, and to immovables by possession for two years. Undisturbed possession for thirty ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... men are therefore of great weight, and go far to fix the status of the phenomena examined. We may say here that several of them have become acknowledged converts to the spiritual theory. More generally, however, they have declined to express positive opinions as to the cause of these phenomena, while positively testifying that they are not the result of trickery, but that they indicate the existence of some power or energy in nature which is able to suspend or overcome ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... the most pathetic products of Greek idyllic poetry; and the transmutation of their material into the substance of highly spiritualized modern thought, reveals the potency of a Prospero's wand. It is a metamorphosis whereby the art of excellent but positive poets has been translated into the sphere of metaphysical imagination. Urania takes the place of Aphrodite; the thoughts and fancies and desires of the dead singer are substituted for Bion's cupids; and instead of mountain shepherds, the living bards of England are summoned ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... eyes which had lost their gentleness. "You will pardon me for telling you that I have no intention of admitting it now. That you should be so readily prejudiced against me is not gratifying, but, you see, nobody could take any steps without positive proof of the story, and my word is at least as credible as that of the interloper who told ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... harm, auntie; the burglars did not leave a trace; I am positive of that." Then turning to the new comer, "I am very glad you came just now, Doctor Heath; you may help me with your advice. I have sent for my lawyer, Mr. O'Meara; but, for some reason ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... most part belong to the poorer classes because of their thoughtlessness. In prosperous times they are not accustomed to make provision for adverse times; and when a period of social pressure occurs, they are rarely found more than a few weeks ahead of positive want. ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... Postponed a decision. Practically refused to give it to us, knowing we wanted it! Other things came up in the meantime, so we did not press them, and the matter dropped for a number of years. However, we took it up again in 1914, two years ago. It was the same thing—procrastination: delay; no positive answer. Then we pressed them a little harder. What did they do? Asked for more time to think it over, more time after all these years, knowing we wanted it! Knowing that we had asked for it fourteen ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... one would choose to drink, but the Admiral was convinced that it was the habitual beverage of all English people, and had actually sent his steward ashore to procure the precious liquid. It was a delicate attention, but it so happened that both ladies had a positive aversion to stout; they drank it bravely notwithstanding, and we all assumed expressions of intense delight, to ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... "It's a positive fact," smiled Pao-y. "This prescription of mine is unlike all others. Besides, the very names of those drugs are quaint, and couldn't be enumerated in a moment; suffice it to mention the placenta of the first child; three hundred and sixty ginseng roots, shaped like human beings and studded ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... victorious? Consider well the superior light and advantages which we enjoy, and then appreciate the superior obligations which are imposed on us. Consider in how many cases our evil propensities are now kept from breaking forth, by the superior restraints under which vice is laid among us by positive laws, and by the amended standard of public opinion; and we may be assisted in conjecturing what force is to be assigned to these motives, by the dreadful proofs which have been lately exhibited in a neighbouring country, that when their ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... the habit of aiding nature by eating predigested food is bad, so too rigid a habit, too great a need of cleanliness is a positive disadvantage in the struggle for existence. Harry Stidston says fleas are loveable little creatures. I have had to learn to put up with one or two sometimes. Tommy makes his mother undress him in the middle of dinner to find one. In other words, Harry Stidston can do his work and ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... of an hour together, insomuch that every one looked upon me as a dead man. But, God be praised, I recovered merely by my former regular course of life, though then in my seventy-eighth year, and in the coldest season of a very cold year, and reduced to a mere skeleton; and I am positive that it was the great regularity I had observed for so many years, and that only, which rescued me from the jaws of death. In all that time I never knew what sickness was, unless I may call by that same name some slight indispositions ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... there's mother at it again," observed Abel to himself with a frown—for it was Sarah's fate that an excess of virtue should have wrought all the evil of a positive vice. From the days of her infancy, when she had displayed in the cradle a power of self-denial at which her pastor had marvelled, she had continued to sacrifice her inclinations in a manner which had ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... me, it is quite a luxury to be able to move about for a minute or two. I purpose, in fact, to go through a course of calisthenics. The trapeze is said to stand in high favor amongst State counselors—counselors in office, even amongst privy counselors. Nowadays, in fact, gymnastics have become a positive science. As for these duties of our office, these examinations, all this formality—you yourself, you will remember, touched upon the topic just now, batuchka—these examinations, and so forth, sometimes perplex the magistrate ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... with these narrative details are outbursts of feeling, which are provoked by passing political and ecclesiastical events, in which he took a profound interest, though he never appears to have committed himself with positive openness to the party of reform. His sympathies are, however, clearly shown by his writings, as well as by his works of art, to have been with the Reformers, and he lived on terms of intimacy with Erasmus and Melancthon, of both of whom ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... vigorous examinations are made to determine the exact status of the disease, don't be surprised if rupture of the pus sac takes place! This then demands an immediate operation which if performed will show a gangrenous appendix that had ruptured! This is quite common and is looked upon as proof positive that an operation was justified; in fact, the proper and only thing to be done, and it should have ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D. |
