"Random" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prevented Eric from hearing the exact question, so he answered at random, "He's coming, sir." The master seeing by his scared look that something was wrong, waited to see ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... evening I put out the light—the moon being now bright—placed the box on the table, washed my hands, opened it and, shutting my eyes, put my hand on one of the jars at random and took it out. As I had rather expected, I heard a little rattle as I did so, and feeling in the compartment, I found a little, a very little, spoon. All was well. Now to see which jar chance or the plant had chosen for my first experiment. I took it to the ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... and, at the risk of their lives, descend low enough to make certain of their targets before releasing their bombs. The others, however, rather than come within range of the anti-aircraft guns, remain at a safe height, drop their bombs at random as soon as they are over the city, and then clear out. Is it very surprising, then, that bombs dropped from a height of perhaps ten thousand feet, by aircraft travelling sixty miles an hour, miss ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... slept'; and that it was of a Christian Church, and not of a pagan world, that the same voice from heaven said: 'Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.' And so I beseech you, bear with me, and do not think I am scolding, or flinging about wild words at random, when I make a very earnest appeal to each individual professing, and real, Christian in this congregation, and ask them to consider, each for themselves, how much of sleep is still in their drowsy eyes, and how far it is true that the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... at random sent, Finds mark, the archer little meant! And many a word at random spoken May soothe, or ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... Everybody was there in a bunch when she came; in a minute everybody of the opposing party was everywhere else, and she and Harry had it between them again. She played out two balls, and then, accidentally, her own. After one "distant, random gun," from the discomfited foe, Harry rolled quietly up against the wand, and the game ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... shall have my child again. (Takes up the light as if to go, but stops and says musingly:) At the end? The end? To get him back? Is that all?—is there nought further? (Sets the light down on the table.) That heedless word that Nils Lykke threw forth at random—— How could he see my unborn thought? (More softly.) A king's mother? A king's mother, he said——Why not? Have not my forefathers ruled as kings, even though they bore not the kingly name? Has not my son ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen
... known the effect the fungoids would have on them, he would have told them that too. He had told them everything else, when he had been snatched from a busy city street, a random specimen of humanity to ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... manner of life, caused him at his death to be denied burial in consecrated ground. The ecclesiastical authorities were, however, induced to relent in their plan of excommunication at the dictates of a passage from the poet's writings, which was come upon by opening the book at random. The passage ran as follows: "Turn not thy feet from the bier of Hafiz, for though immersed in sin, he will be admitted into Paradise." And so he rests in the cemetery at Shiraz, where the nightingales are singing and the roses bloom the year through, and the doves gather with low ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... diverse as sheep to their shepherd, or the members of a Chinese family to their uncle; and if there is an allegation which I would 'deny with both hands', it is this: that an insipid sameness is the chief characteristic of an anthology which offers—to name almost at random seven only out of forty (oh ominous academic number!)—the work of Messrs. Abercrombie, Davies, de la Mare, Graves, Lawrence, Nichols ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... during ten days: what information are we likely to gain from a poor lunatic who does not know whether it is now day or night?" The learned man said, "There is no telling what he may say to us. But you know that the most foolish as well as the most wise have ideas, and a sentence uttered at random has sometimes furnished a clue by which the desired object may be attained." Meanwhile a little boy also came up, and perceiving the lunatic stopped to see his tricks. The two friends explained their case to the lunatic, who then seemed immersed in thought for some time, after which he said, "He ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... straightened in numberless uneasy movements from the tormenting tickling of the little pests. Presently, with a shrill bizz of rapid wings, a large, yellow-striped fly passed close to his ears. He struck down the tormenting insect with a random flip of his paws, snapped at it to complete the work of destruction, and proceeded leisurely to eat his victim. To his utter surprise, he seemed to have captured a living, angry thorn, which, despite his most ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... the fact, that his writings, as already intimated, are not so much in the nature of finished compositions, as of loose memoranda, where everything, rumor as well as fact,—even the most contradictory rumors,—are all set down at random, forming a miscellaneous heap of materials, of which the discreet historian may avail himself to rear a symmetrical fabric on foundations ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... notwithstanding, it so often lacks—the infinite capacity for taking pains. Take up any scientific treatise in any language and on almost any subject, cast your eye down the references to authorities in the footnotes on a few pages at random, and you will find probably three out of four of those cited bearing German names. They will outbalance English, American, French, Dutch, and Italian added together. If you pass from quantity to quality, if you take the leading ideas contributed to the subject, ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... correct in his reply. Carson admitted that, being with a party of Arickaras on the banks of the Missouri, and seeing a war party of Sioux on the opposite side, he had fired with his rifle across. It was a random shot, made without much expectation of effect, for the river was full half a mile in breadth. Unluckily it brought down a Sioux warrior, for whose wanton destruction threefold vengeance had been taken, as has been stated. In this way outrages are frequently ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... no more. He bowed me politely out, and I walked down the street, and realised that I was restless and wretched. I wandered at random for a while. trying to think what else I could do, for my own peace of mind, if not for Sylvia's welfare. I found myself inventing one worry after another. Dr. Overton had not said just when he was going, and suppose she were to need someone at once? Or ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... a few days after this from a station—as well as to a station—selected almost at random; such days, whatever should happen, were numbered, and he had gone forth under the impulse—artless enough, no doubt—to give the whole of one of them to that French ruralism, with its cool special green, into which he ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... symbols are explained at several random points in the text, though not in the introductory section: Those with the figure are first-class houses, with second-class. The asterisk signifies that they are especially good ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... difficulties—the Masonic Building—" murmured Aunt Victoria, apparently at random. But then, it seemed to Sylvia that they were always speaking at random. For all she could see, neither of them ever answered ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... we believe, in Mr. Cooper's "Home as Found," applied to a patriarch among the white bass of Otsego Lake, which could never be captured. We assumed at once that there was a latent reason for the term, and all at once it flashed upon us that it was a rough fisherman's random-shot at the word "doxology." This, in New England congregations, as all know, was wont to be sung, or "j'ined in," by the whole assembly, and given with particular emphasis, both because its words were familiar to all without ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... villages, yet it is four centuries old, and of stone. It seems to have shrivelled by its great age, like its oldest inhabitants. One-half of its two score of fishermen's houses lie crouched to the rambling edge of its single street; the other half might have been dropped at random, like stones from the pocket of some hurrying giant. Some of these, including the house of the ruddy little mayor and the polite, florid grocer, lie spilled along the edge of ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... whether 'Sieur Frowenfel' lives or dies. You do not care how he is or where he is this minute. I wish you had some of my too large heart. I not only have the heart, as I tell you, to think kindly of our enemies, those Grandissime, for example"—she waved her hand with the air of selecting at random—"but I am burning up to know what is the condition of that poor, sick, noble 'Sieur Frowenfel', and I am ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... spoke at last, and to me it seemed as though the fainting fit had caused her an utter loss of memory. She uttered words at random, allowing her tongue to ramble on in strange disjointed sentences, of ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... building has not been seized. The island was conquered in 1070. It was a place of heavy foolish men with random laws, pale eyes, and a slow manner; their houses were of wood: sometimes they built (but how painfully, and how childishly!) with stone. There was no height, there was no dignity, there was no sense of permanence. The Norman Government was ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... Jones" and "Pamela," "Clarissa" and "Joseph Andrews," adapted to the needs of infant minds. It was a curious enterprise, certainly, but the booksellers do not seem to have produced "Every Boy's Roderick Random," or "Peregrine Pickle for the Young." Smollett, in short, is less known than Fielding and Sterne, even Thackeray says but a word about him, in the "English Humorists," and he has no place in the series ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... the walls. The Indian reached the fort unchallenged, climbed into an embrasure, and found the whole place deserted. Vaughan followed at once; and a young volunteer, shinning up the flag-pole, made his own red coat fast to the top. This defiance was immediately answered by a random salvo from Louisbourg, less than a ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... of allusions in our rural songs and poetry, innumerable scenes in our genre pictures, speak of blissful hours of which Japan gives no sign. There is no courting; there are in the public view no "random fits of dallin'." An unmarried young man and young woman do not walk and talk together. A young man and woman who were together of an evening would be suspected of immorality. Even when married they would not think of linking arms on the road. ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... her to herself. For out beyond her lodges, where the brook Vocal, with here and there a silence, ran By sallowy rims, arose the laborers' homes, A frequent haunt of Edith, on low knolls That dimpling died into each other, huts At random scatter'd, each a nest in bloom. Her art, her hand, her counsel all had wrought About them: here was one that, summer-blanch'd, Was parcel-bearded with the traveller's-joy In Autumn, parcel ivy-clad; and here The warm-blue breathings of a hidden ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... at the rate of two miles an hour. We then pulled for her quarter in the three boats, leaving the launch behind us, and boarded. As we premised, the crew were on deck, and all on the other side of the vessel, so anxiously looking at the batteries, which were still firing occasional random shot, that they did not perceive us until we were close to them, and then they had no time to seize their arms. There were several ladies on board; some of the people protected them, others ran below. In two minutes we had possession of her, and had ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... of the gifts to the Institution selected very much at random:—One gentleman leaves it a legacy of 10,000 pounds. Some time ago a sum of 5000 pounds was sent anonymously by "a friend." There comes 100 pounds as a second donation from a sailor's daughter, and 50 pounds from a British admiral. Five shillings are sent as "the savings of a child"; ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... novel reader. I am at present, while awaiting something better, her book purveyor. She calls me her 'librarian.' Every week the New Book Store sends her, on my orders, everything new that has appeared, and I believe that she reads everything at random. It must make a strange sort of mixture ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... unlike Nancy's own, glowering first at his father and then at me. Sandy, who was, in his mind's eye, re-rigging a schooner, went on with his paper-and-pencil work, unconscious of his son's scrutiny. I dropped my eyes to the Allan Ramsay, which I had opened at random, but lost nothing of Danvers's conduct, and liked him for it. He had known but the women who needed protection, and his attitude to my mind ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... (and they are merely random selections from many hundreds) show that a certain amount of prevision is undoubtedly possible to the Ego, and such cases would evidently be much more frequent if it were not for the exceeding density and lack of response in ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... noon; and all this time Agellius was walking in his present excited mood, without covering to his head, under the burning rays of the sun, not knowing which way he went, and retracing his steps, as he wandered about at random, with a vague notion he was going homewards. The few persons whom he met, creeping about under the shadow of the lofty houses, or under the porticoes of the temples, looked at him with wonder, and thought him furious or deranged. The shafts of the sun were not ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... caused a retreat to be sounded, and his army began to march in great disorder. Night overtaking him, and his guides deserting, he was uncertain what way to go. He marched at random, along the banks of the river Metaurus,(797) and was preparing to cross it, when the three armies of the enemy came up with him. In this extremity, he saw it would be impossible for him to avoid coming to an engagement; and ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... year was required to teach the American Government the lesson that a few small vessels roughly pegged together of planks sawn from the forest, with a few hundred seamen and guns, might be far more decisive than the random operations of fifty thousand troops. This lesson, however, was at last learnt; and so, in the summer of 1813, General William Henry Harrison waited at Seneca on the Sandusky River until he received, on the 10th of September, the deathless ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... Burgundian, and there so firmly did it stick, that he was enabled to pull his antagonist to and fro at his will, while the Bastard, rendered as blind as his horse by the stoppage of the eye-hole, dealt his own blows about at random, and was placed completely at the mercy of the Englishman. And gracious as the gentle Sir Anthony was, he was still so smarting under many a bruise felt through his dinted mail, that small mercy, perchance, would the Bastard have found, for the gripe of the Woodville's left ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... climb, but a bear with the help of his long strong claws can scale it like a fly climbing up a wall. Leonard soon saw that he would be unable to get a close shot at the bear, so he resolved to fire down from where he was at random. But the experienced old brute, guessing this good idea, instantly executed one of those surprising feats which only fall within the observation of veteran hunters. While Leonard was taking aim, the bear rolled rapidly ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... readers more. They miscalculated in supposing that the proofs of so much reality of religious earnestness would carry off the offence of vehement language, which without these proofs might naturally be thought to show mere random violence. At any rate the result was much natural and genuine irritation, which they were hardly prepared for. Whether on general grounds they were wise in startling and vexing friends, and putting fresh weapons into the hands of opponents by their frank ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... now walked at random. She had made up her mind to call a cab, when she caught sight of the Seine. She then ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... there is an obscure sense, or instinct I might call it, in every one of us, of this truth. We all, whether we have given a distinct account of the matter to ourselves or not, believe that words which we use are not arbitrary and capricious signs, affixed at random to the things which they designate, for which any other might have been substituted as well, but that they stand in a real relation to these. And this sense of the significance of names, that they are, ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... for the arts, and would improve if his mind were not fettered by cold rules and mere technical ideas. I often lose patience, when, with a glowing imagination, I am giving expression to art and nature, he interferes with learned suggestions, and uses at random the technical phraseology ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... could judge by some words dropped at random, and which I reflected on afterwards, it appeared to me, that the House of Solar, wishing to run the career of embassies, and hoping perhaps in time to arrive at the ministry, wished to provide themselves with a person of merit and talents, who depending entirely on them, might obtain their ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... wood; and though the stars came out overhead and displayed the interminable order of the pine-tree pyramids, regular and dark like cypresses, their light was of small service to a traveller in such lonely paths, and from thenceforth he rode at random. The austere face of nature, the uncertain issue of his course, the open sky and the free air, delighted him like wine; and the hoarse chafing of a river on his left sounded in his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be sustained by evidence the most decisive and perspicuous. The lists of bishops, commencing with the ministry of the apostles, and extending over the latter half of the first century, are little better than a mass of contradictions. The compilers seem to have set down, almost at random, the names of some distinguished men whom they found connected with the different churches, and thus the discrepancies are nearly as numerous ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... at in that cousin of yours. I once lived in the same house with the near relative of a very distinguished person, whose name is still honored and revered among us. His brain was an active one, like that of his famous relative, but it was full of random ideas, unconnected trains of thought, whims, crotchets, erratic suggestions. Knowing him, I could interpret the mental characteristics of the whole family connection in the light of its exaggerated peculiarities as exhibited in my odd fellow-boarder. Squinting ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... no opinion; yet he advised the sacrifice of the annuities. Then she withdrew another package and, from it, she took a paper at random. It proved to be a three-per-cent annuity worth two thousand francs. Ludovic placed the package of bonds in his pocket. That afternoon, accompanied by his secretary, he sold the annuities to a stock-broker and realized ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... away; his dogs had forsaken him; the solitude seemed to threaten him with unknown perils. Impelled by a sense of sickening terror, he ran across the fields, and choosing a path at random, found himself almost immediately at the gates ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... the uneven way in which prize-money was distributed. It was a common saying among sailors, that when the pay-clerk went on board ships to pay prize-money, he clambered with his money-bags into the main-top and showered down the money at random; all which remained upon the splinter-netting (a coarse rope netting spread as a kind of awning) was for the men, and all that went through for the officers. The captain of a ship not under the admiral's flag received ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... dishes, would be flung back and forth, especially between Sophomores and Freshmen; and you were never sure, in raising a cup to your lips, that it would not be dashed out of your hands, and the contents spilt upon your clothes, by one of these flying articles slyly sent at random. Whatever damage was done was averaged on our term-bills; and I remember a charge of six hundred tumblers, thirty coffee-pots, and I know not how many other articles of table furniture, destroyed or carried off in ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... be read by any one who cares to undertake the task. They will at least give some idea of the enormous labour undergone by Froude in his several sojourns at Simancas. I cannot profess to have instituted a systematic comparison, but a few specimens selected at random show that Froude summarised fairly the documents with which he dealt. That there should be some discrepancies ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... enough, Archie could never master the catechism. A random question was his doom. Catechise him straight through, and his response was swift and accurate. No thrust availed against him, a knight invincible in his well-pieced coat of mail, a very dragon of orthodoxy ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... rapidly and at random almost all over the habitable globe, he had returned to his home in New York with some thought of settling down there, but the old family mansion was empty excepting for the servants, and his sense of loneliness and sorrow for the loved ones who were no ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... be conceived without this affirmation, therefore, this affirmation belongs to the essence of the idea of a triangle, and is nothing besides. What we have said of this volition (inasmuch as we have selected it at random) may be said of any other volition, namely, that it is nothing but ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... one else," she said, at random. "If Mr. Fairfax wants to wait in the wings, I'll see ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... started. If we could outstrip that marksman, if we could even hold our distance until night had fallen, all might yet be well. A little longer, and even an Indian must fire at random; moreover, we might reach some stream and manage to break our trail. The ground was smooth before us,—too smooth, and slippery with pine needles; the pines themselves stood in grim brown rows, and we ran between them lightly and easily, husbanding our ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... places where we could establish a school, I have thought of Burlington, or rather of the neighbourhood of Burlington. Do you remember whether there was any other school there besides that of Miss —-? This is, of course, a perfectly crude and random idea. There are a hundred reasons why it should be an impracticable one. We have no connections, no acquaintances there; it is far from home, &c. Still, I fancy the ground in the East Riding is less fully occupied than in the West. Much inquiry and consideration ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... strengthened since the last assault, and through the loopholes in the walls the archers did their best to answer the storm of missiles poured into the fort. Edmund and Egbert went among them, begging them not to fire at random, but to choose moments when the movements of the assailants opened a space in the roof of ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... up a mathematical pattern with these keys," Hawkes said, pointing to a row of enamelled studs along the side of the machine. "Then the lights start flashing, and as soon as they flash—at random, of course—into the pattern you've previously set up, you're the winner. The skill of the game comes in predicting the kind of pattern that will be the winning one. You've got to keep listening to the numbers that the croupier calls off, and ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... successful politician must know people and their wants. He must know conditions in order to direct the course of his activities. Otherwise, he will find himself moving at random, and this may prove disastrous to his purposes. Much misdirected effort has been expended in disparaging the politician and his methods. If the man and his methods were better understood, they would often be found worthy of close ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... hill and forest, river and brook, with much the same eyes as those with which Henry and Paul had beheld them not so very long before, but they were not seeking at random in the wilderness as the Wareville people had done. No, they moved forward now to a certain mark. They were to join their brethren at Wareville and Marlowe, and double the strength of the settlements. Word ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... or two more questions rather at random, then suddenly came back to earth. "What are you doing here, anyway?" he demanded. "Seems to me this is a pretty easy way to earn thirty cents ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... of Vienna and Warsaw, of her distant neighbors, and last year's visitors, it was evident that her mind was elsewhere; her eye wandered, she lost the thread of her discourse, answered me at random, and ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... the next instant; a few random shots replied, and another impetus of fear spurred the ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... was a little green book, with detachable leaves; each leaf contained some motto or text; and when the Count was in a difficulty, he pulled out one of these leaves at random. ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... on one side as the other," Charley declared. "We might as well start in at random and dig a circle around the tree until ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... to the Congress a fair and impartial random selection system for the draft. I submit it again tonight for your most ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... the news, and the terms of the news Reeled random round my brain Like the senseless, tedious buzzle and boom Of ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... that shots had been fired at the troops, the latter entered ten or twelve houses, at random, and despatched with their bayonets every one they found. In all the houses on the boulevard, there are metal pipes by which the dirty water runs out into the gutter. The soldiers, with no idea why it was so, conceived ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... "You are talking at random, Mr. Grant. The levying of blackmail connotes that the person bled desires that some discreditable, or ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... Long doubting, singles yet once more the best. Who is it that can make such shafts as Fate? What archer of his arrows is so choice, Or hits the white so surely? They are men, The chosen of her quiver; nor for her Will every reed suffice, or cross-grained stick At random from life's vulgar fagot plucked: Such answer household ends; but she will have Souls straight and clear, of toughest fibre, sound Down to the heart of heat; from these she strips All needless stuff, all sapwood; hardens them, ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... large tarpaulin, we found filibustero's pantry amply provided with butter, onions, spices, salt-fish, bacon, lard, rice, coffee, wines, and all the requisites of comfortable living. In the corners, strewn at random on the ground, I observed spy-glasses, compasses, sea-charts, books, and a quantity of choice cabin-furniture. We obtained a sufficiency of water for cookery and drinking from holes dug in the sand, and we managed to cool the beverage ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... and especially of those who, in an affected and forced manner, bring in religion, and talk much of duty on all occasions; of all smooth and fawning people; of those who are very talkative, and who, in dealing with you, endeavor to draw off your attention from the point in hand by incoherent or random expressions. ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... after her, 'An open-hearted maiden, true and pure. If I could love, why this were she: how pretty Her blushing was, and how she blushed again, As if to close with Cyril's random wish: Not like your Princess crammed with erring pride, Nor like poor Psyche ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Parliament, nor does the last volume conclude in the most satisfactory and unobjectionable manner, by his marrying a dowager countess, as that wise man Addison did, or by his settling down as a great country gentleman, perfectly happy and contented, like the very moral Roderick Random, or the equally estimable Peregrine Pickle; he is hack author, gypsy, tinker, and postillion, yet, upon the whole, he seems to be quite as happy as the younger sons of most earls, to have as high feelings of honour; and when the reader loses sight of ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... temptations the innocent girl would be exposed to in the metropolis. After tea, when Archie had gone outside to smoke his pipe, and Selina was busy in the kitchen washing the dishes, she spoke to Vandeloup on the subject. The young Frenchman was seated at the piano in the darkness, striking a few random chords, while Madame was by the fire in the arm-chair. It was quite dark, with only the rosy glow of the fire shining through the room. Mrs Villiers felt uneasy; was it likely that Vandeloup could have any ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... something to say to this, but there wasn't anything. He shifted on the bunk, scratched at his nose with his left foot, and grinned spastically. "Sure," he said at random. "And, by the way, I'm sorry about before, professor. But the ...
— Charley de Milo • Laurence Mark Janifer AKA Larry M. Harris
... alter the case, sure enough," returned Gardiner, laughing; "though I should not think of looking into this chest for any such riches. Most of our masters navigate too much at random to make their charts of any great value. They can find the places they look for themselves, but don't seem to know how to tell other people the road. I have known my old man lay down a shoal that he fancied ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Spaniards subsist almost entirely upon fruit, the produce of the country. The chief articles of exportation are grapes, figs, raisins, oranges, anchovies, wines, &c. Their streets are very narrow, running at random in every direction. Their houses are mostly built of marble, four stories high, different families occupying different stories of the same house. They have two or three forts, built on eminences adjacent to the city for its protection, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the above, several large and small trees of the Weschcke variety are located in orchard and random locations, some having been grafted in 1926 and later. Also, there is a sprinkling of Bridgewater variety, grafted in 1936 and later, all ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... Cochise County were short mountain ranges set down, apparently at random, like a child's blocks. In and out between them flowed the broad, plain-like valleys. On the valleys were the various ranges, great or small, controlled by the different individuals of the Cattlemen's Association. During the year ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... this argument must certainly be in the habit of very random shooting with a smoothbore. How can he possibly get a correct aim with "ball" out of a smoothbore, without squinting along the barrel and taking the muzzle-sight accurately? The fact is, that many persons fire so hastily at game that they take no sight at all, as though they were snipe-shooting ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Wells, editor of the Christian Endeavor World, wrote to twenty-five ministers of several different denominations, choosing their names at random among his subscribers in the equal suffrage States, and asking them whether equal suffrage was working well, fairly well or badly. One answered that it worked badly, three that it worked fairly well, and the twenty-one others were all positive and explicit in saying ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... the primal, eternal forces of life, and is conscious of other needs and another destiny. This time had come to Gilbert Potter, forcing him to look upon the circumstances of his life from a loftier point of view. He had struggled, passionately but at random, for light,—but, fortunately, every earnest struggle is towards the light, and it now began ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... the morning was spent in snipe-shooting at random, trusting to luck to hit some one, and trusting in vain. At noon Cranky Joe could stand the strain no longer and opened the door just a little to relive the monotony. He succeeded, being blessed with a smashed shoulder, and immediately ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... principles, which has over a hundred employees; and at Lough Glynn, in Connacht, a carpet and cheese making industry has been built up solely through the efforts of a religious order of nuns. These are random examples, and I do not claim that they are typical. They are, on the other hand, ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... and small. She sometimes includes her good deeds in the list, lest, I suppose, they should be forgotten in the record of the day. All the self-righteousness latent in human nature comes out, or used to, in her earlier days, in the evening revelations. Here is a specimen, taken at random from the first month's sheaf. She and the Imp had come to my room for their devotions, preternaturally pious, both of them, though quite unregenerate. It was the Elf's turn to begin. She settled herself circumspectly, sighed deeply, and ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... and sitting down to the piano, began strumming a valse, banging on the keys almost with his fists, at random. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... last, striking back at random, and then sitting up he rubbed his eyes. There was Louie sitting opposite to him, crying great tears of rage and pain, now rocking her ankle as if it hurt her, and now ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... we dashed through the forest with the turkeys running ahead of us. Never did they come out clear in the open. I halted to shoot, but just as I was about to press the trigger, my moving target vanished. This happened again. No use to shoot at random! I had a third fleeting chance, but absolutely could not grasp it. Then the big flock of turkeys eluded us in an ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... in the breath of the woods, They talk in the shaken pine, And fill the long reach of the old seashore With dialogue divine; And the poet who overhears Some random word they say Is the fated man of men Whom the ages must obey: One who having nectar drank Into blissful orgies sank; He takes no mark of night or day, He cannot go, he cannot stay, He would, yet ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... incredulous. "You chose a tube at random?" he demanded. "Good Lord, it might have contained a counteragent that could have ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... moment or two, the blur over his eyes and the confusion of his mind began to pass away, and he was perplexed beyond measure at the way she was receiving the open declaration of his love. She was painting through it all, not with the nervous, random stroke of one who sought to hide excitement and embarrassment in occupation. She was working earnestly, consciously, with precision, and, what was strangest of all, she seemed so intent upon his face that ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... on the pedestal is broken and half fallen away. Farther up the vale a farmer showed us an old mansion in the midst of a group of trees on the banks of the Leven which he said belonged to Smollett—or Roderick Random, as he called him. Two or three old pear trees were still standing where the garden had formerly been, under which he was accustomed to ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... like sails of a windmill, never hitting straight out, but with semicircular blows, which descended on or about his ears. On the contrary, his blows were all received straightforward, and my nose and face were soon covered with blood. As I warmed with pain and rage I flung out my arms at random, and Barnaby gave me a knock-down blow. I was picked up and sat upon my second's knee, who whispered to me as I spat the blood out of my mouth, "Take it coolly, and ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... converted the threatening fight into a scene of jovial good nature. The money was swept up at random, as though none of them had the slightest care what ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... woman went apart. The mistress, alone, fell into a long weeping. When she had sobbed herself into quiet once more, she sought a volume of the Gospels, inserted her forefinger between the pages at random, and anxiously regarded ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... and exerted his talents to make himself agreeable. He had seen life on an extended scale, young as he was, and his anecdotes of London and the court, if a little wild, were still interesting. Elfric and Alfred listened to his somewhat random talk, with that respect boys ever pay to those who have seen more of the wide world than themselves—a respect perhaps heightened by the high rank of their princely guest, who was, however, only a month or ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... ball-players, but as the season advanced the lane became infested by showmen on their way to Tiberias: mummers, acrobats, jugglers, fortune-tellers, star-mongers, dealers in charms and amulets, and Joseph was tempted more than once to stop and speak with these random folk, but the promise he had given Azariah was sufficiently powerful to inspire a dread and a dislike of these, and to avoid them he sought for a third way to Tiberias and found one: a path through an orchard ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... ivory ball? I do not say yes, but will you say no? I watched the ball with the eye of an eagle, but without straining; I played with the precision of a man with an unerring system, though my selections were really made quite at random; and I handled my bets with the sureness and swift dexterity with which a chess-master places his pawn or piece in ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... These characteristics taken at random from among a thousand others are not found amongst those beings whose hands are as black as those of apes and their skin tanned like the ancient parchments of an olim; whose complexion is burnt brown by the sun and whose neck is wrinkled like that of a turkey; who are covered ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... passed over Douglas's face, made the page aware that he had alighted on a truth, when he was, in fact, speaking at random; and the feeling that he had done so, was like striking a dagger into his own heart. His companion, without farther answer, resumed the oars, and pulled lustily till they arrived at the island and the castle. The servants received the produce of their spoil, and the ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... counsel of the statement from his previous speech by showing that circumstances alter cases, and that two or three years make a great difference. These latter particulars, however, I only give as conversational. To prevent any adverse impressions which might be given by such random talk, I would remark in passing, that a case like the foregoing is not a question of right or wrong, truth or falsehood, but of a balance of expediency, which it is a counsel's business in each instance to state, though certainly not to overstate. ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... was deeply impressed with the power and designing faculty displayed by Madox Brown’s cartoons exhibited in Westminster Hall. When Rossetti began serious work as a painter he thought of Madox Brown as the one man from whom he would willingly receive practical guidance, and wrote to him at random. From this time Madox Brown became his intimate friend ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... rejoinder. He trod heavily to the bookshelves, took up two or three random volumes, and tossed them ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... last letter at hand I would answer it. But I have not and therefore write you a very hasty and random letter, simply to let you know that I believe you still remember me. Whilst writing I am carrying on a conversation ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... Then came a dull splash; as of some heavy body plunged in the water. With a cry the man hastened forward. Not a sign of anything could be seen. In this rural place no help was to be had, and he was little inclined to plunge at random into the foul stream. In haste he turned back to where a crowd was gathering around the prostrate Mobei, the groaning harlots to whom punishment ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... only the fourth. Only one of those really meant business. Oh, hang it! There they go again!" he burst out, as a distant line of rocks crackled explosively and, a moment later, a random bullet opened up the ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... had been done for the improvement of the village itself, there had been a perceptible advance in these descriptions of industry. Ottilie had given what assistance was in her power, but she had given it at random, as opportunity or inclination prompted her; now she thought she—would go to work more satisfactorily and methodically. But a company is not to be formed out of a number of girls, as easily as out of a number of boys. She followed ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... regulars came up the quiet street, 200 strong. What followed was not a battle, but a butchery. The minute-men refused to surrender to Major Pitcairn's haughty demand, and a volley of musketry, close and deadly, was poured on this devoted band. In response only a few random shots were fired, which did absolutely no harm, and then, seeing the hopelessness of resistance, the commander of the minute-men ordered them to disperse. The British, elated with their easy victory, pushed on toward Concord, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... walked the floor, carrying a baby, a pale, sticky baby with blotches, which had inherited from its maternal parent a conspicuous lack of buttons. Mrs. Sand's room was also ornamented with texts, but they had apparently been selected at random, and they certainly hung that way. The piety of the place seemed at the control of an older infant, who sat on the floor and played with his father's regimental cap. On the other side of the curtain Captain Sand audibly washed himself and ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... club life at White's as they crop up in Selwyn's letters it is difficult to pick and choose, but a few taken almost at random will revive scenes of a long-past time. Here is one of a supper-party in 1781: "We had a pretty group of Papists—Lord Petres at the head of them—some Papists reformed, and one Jew. A club that used to be quite intolerable ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... the time of a vivida vis, of flashes of beauty in prose and verse, which hardly any other period can show. Let us open one of the songbooks of the time, Dowland's Second Book of Airs, published in the central year of our period, 1600, and reprinted by Mr Arber. Here almost at random we hit upon ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... living profit by selling them by the single hat; and in buying his goods by auction, as the merchant often does, he has not time to make the calculation before the goods are bid off. He therefore loses the chance of making good bargains by being afraid to bid at random, or if he bids, and the goods are cried off, he may have made a poor bargain by bidding thus at a venture. It then becomes a useful and practical problem to determine instantly what per cent. he would gain if he retailed the hat at ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... makes them start from points one above another, and because equal distances are improper, therefore they shall start at unequal distances. When they are fairly started, he knows they must undulate or go backwards and forwards, which accordingly he makes them do at random; and because he knows that all forms ought to be contrasted, therefore he makes one bend down while the other three go up. The three that go up he knows must not go up without interfering with each other, and so he makes two of them ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... program for tomorrow?" I once asked him. "Waal, I callerlate, if they rig up the callerlation they callerlate on, we'll go to the Boreas." Starting out for a day's tramp in the woods, he would ask whether we wanted to take a "reg'lar walk, or a random scoot,"—the latter being a plunge into the pathless forest. When he was on such an expedition, and became entangled in dense brush, and maybe a network of "slash" and swamp, he was like an old wizard, as he looked here and there, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... lies in's throat, it was but eight when we set out of Chesson. Sir John and his Sexton are at ale to night, the clock runs at random. ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... you to find one that isn't improved and finished and rounded off by an Amen at the end." He selected a hymn at random, and sang a stanza in his rich voice that poured itself out gloriously on the ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... distinguished but a dark mass of human forms tossed and involved in inexplicable confusion. Arms, gleaming knives, and formidable clubs appeared, above them, but the blows were evidently given at random. The awful effect was heightened by the piercing shrieks of the women and the fierce yells of the warriors. Now and then Duncan caught a glimpse of a light form cleaving the air in some desperate ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... sake of the school of art there, I seemed to go into the Middle Ages. We landed from the Rhine steamer in the night, finding the streets deserted even by the police, and dimly lighted by oil lamps hung across them at wide intervals, and I wandered a long time at random with my valise in hand, searching for a hotel, and not meeting a living person to ask guidance of. I blundered at length on a little inn in whose drinking-room still burned a light, and in which I found a night's lodging. Such a primitive state of civilization was to me, fresh ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... among the pine-tops had died down; only at long intervals a soft, random rustle swept through them. It was nearly midday. The camp-fire was almost dead, quenched by the dazzling sunlight which fell in patches on the camping-ground, and flooded the clearing beyond the ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... n. What a {guru} does when you ask him or her to run a particular program and type at it because it never works for anyone else; esp. used when nobody can ever see what the guru is doing different from what J. Random Luser does. Compare {incantation}, {runes}, {examining the entrails}; also see the AI koan about Tom Knight in "{A Selection of AI Koans}" ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... secretary, and immediately proceeded to a summary interrogation of the innkeeper; but, in the presence of Aunt Palmyra, it was impossible to do any serious work. This insupportable old woman could not make head or tail of the questions, and answered at random. ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... pounds. Well, let him. I shall look on that person as the agent of a living man, not the heir of a dead one; and I shall tell him I don't believe in arms, and shoulders, and tweed suits, and plain gold rings—(why, wedding-rings are the very things conjurors take from the public at random to play hanky-panky with; they are so like one another). I shall demand to see the man's face; and the mother who bore him must identify that face before I will pay one shilling to his heirs or assigns. I am ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... I do not wholly fare Even as ye do, thoughtless pair! [11] 110 And I will have my careless season Spite of melancholy reason, [12] Will walk through life in such a way That, when time brings on decay, Now and then I may possess 115 Hours of perfect gladsomeness. [13] —Pleased by any random toy; By a kitten's busy joy, Or an infant's laughing eye Sharing in the ecstasy; 120 I would fare like that or this, Find my wisdom in my bliss; Keep the sprightly soul awake, And have faculties to take, Even from things [14] by sorrow ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... apposite to the subject as most random reflections are—passed through the mind of a young man who came out of the front door of the Patesville Hotel about nine o'clock one fine morning in spring, a few years after the Civil War, and started down Front Street toward the market-house. ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Avenue, turning east. Now all plans concerning Broadway were given up; also, he felt no anxiety about getting lost. For he went at random. ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... met a blind girl, blind from birth, who could discuss the peculiarities of the Barbizon school with just Flavia's glibness and enthusiasm. Ordinarily Flavia knows how to get what she wants from people, and her memory is wonderful. One evening I heard her giving Frau Lichtenfeld some random impressions about Hedda Gabler which she extracted from me five years ago; giving them with an impassioned conviction of which I was never guilty. But I have known other people who could appropriate your stories and opinions; Flavia is infinitely more subtle than that; she ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... at these obstacles Benvenuto roamed about at random, cursing his bad luck, when suddenly he hit his foot against a long pole which lay hidden in the straw. With a good deal of effort he managed to raise it against the wall and to scramble up to the top. Here he found a sharply sloping coping stone which made it impossible to draw the ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... eight or ten years, and were promoted and maintain their position solely on the ground of ability and faithfulness. They go rapidly from one to another, noting whether they are picking the rows clean. They also take from each tray a basket at random, and empty it into another, thus discovering who are gathering green or imperfect berries. If the fruit falls much below the accepted standard, the baskets are confiscated and no tickets given for them, and if the picker continues careless ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... didn't find out, not even with the ingenious little random-firing device that Dakin designed for the study. With this gadget, neither Lambertson nor I know what impulse the box is going to throw at him. He just throws a switch and it starts coming. He catches it, reacts, I catch it from him and react, ...
— Second Sight • Alan Edward Nourse
... powerful, the sensible man picks himself up and totes himself far from the neighborhood wherein he is unwelcome and never says a word. Of my twenty congressmen but one offered a translation. That was the dead William H. Crane, of Texas. The men were taken at random, and I may say that I did not expect any translations when I started out. Most frequently a man gets to congress through a practically acquired knowledge of dirty politics backed by the ability to make a stump speech, to tell a smutty story, and to plead for his job with a slavish lickspittleism ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... mast, and had every experience that falls to the lot of the sailor before the mast of our day. His sailor-talk flows from his pen with the sure touch and the ease and confidence of a person who has lived what he is talking about, not gathered it from books and random ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... produce in it a belief of the existence of one great cause, which is not visible among men. Thus, for example, I find that the planets perform a certain round! They perform it with a certain velocity. They do not wander at random, but they are kept to their orbits. I find the forces which act upon them for this purpose. I find, in short, that they are subject to certain laws. Now, if the planets were living agents, they might have prescribed these laws to themselves. But I know that this, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... tongue but their own. He related one tale to illustrate their ignorance: An old burgher and his vrow were sitting at home one Sunday afternoon. Seeing the "predicant"[28] coming, the old man hastily opened his Bible and began to read at random. The clergyman came in, and, looking over his shoulder, said: "Ah! I see you are reading in the Holy Book—the death of Christ." "Alle machter!" said the old lady. "Is He dead indeed? You see, Jan" (to her ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... her random desire with her accustomed amiability. Life consisted mainly in giving up things, she had found; but being cheerful, withal, served to cast a mellow glow over the severest denials; in fact, it often turned them into something ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... heaven, Theodote, a very fine property indeed, and far better worth possessing than a multitude of sheep or goats or cattle. A flock of friends!... But (he added) do you leave it to fortune whether a friend lights like a fly on your hand at random, or do you use any artifice (6) ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... minds; at first they have no principles laid down within them as a foundation for the intellect to build upon: they have no discriminating convictions, and no grasp of consequences. And therefore they talk at random, if they talk much, and cannot help being flippant, or what is emphatically called "young." They are merely dazzled by phenomena, instead of ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... Mongol, for Remusat has Tosiyal "Veille." (Mel. As. I. 231.) Such an example of Polo's correctness both in the form and meaning of a Turki word is worthy of especial note, and shows how little he merits the wild and random treatment which has been often applied to the solution of like phrases in ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... was enabled to preserve his mind So free from care that, when he felt inclined, He could with ease bring all his thoughts to bear On Scripture truths, and each with each compare, Or let his fancy take her random flight To bring from Dreamland some new-coined delight. At other times would raise his tuneful voice And sing sweet hymns which long had been his choice, Or else recite some charming poetry With touch of skill and much of energy. At times his spouse, too, did her sewing bring, And ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... me of the way-back-hard-shell preacher whose hymn book had been stuffed with profane poems by some lewd fellows of the baser sort. He always opened at random and, trusting to divine guidance, read the first hymn that presented itself; he commenced: "We will sing together the one thousand three hundred and ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... gaoler, and beg a little time—a short hour or so—to plan and arrange their affairs. He thought her won and grew very tender; he kissed her hands many times, called her his dear heart, became, in a word, the clumsy gallant he claimed to be. All this too she endured: she began to gabble at random, sprightly as a minion, with all the shifts of a girl in a strait place ready at command. Her fear was double now: she must learn the trend of the singer and his horse, and prevent Galors from ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... which they are established. It must be remembered that, in these collections, all specimens of architecture and architectural carving are invariably seen in false positions. All have been wrenched from their proper settings, and placed, more or less at random, in lights and relationships never contemplated by their designers. To the environment of a piece of architecture, and the position and surroundings of carved decorations, are due quite half of their interest as works of art. Deprive ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... early in 1914. Now for the random way in which chance weaves her skein. Mr. Moore went out of the Department and left the office of Counselor vacant, an office, up to that time, so little known that the public, if it gave the matter any thought, believed its occupant was the legal adviser of the Department, while, as a matter ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... entirely, and finding a great force going to Long Island, he sent over Putnam, who had been over occasionally; this gave some disgust, so that Putnam was directed to soothe and soften as much as possible." (Sedgwick's Life of Livingston, p. 201.) What movements were referred to, unless it was the random firing of the skirmishers and the burning of houses at Flatbush by some of our men, or how Putnam was to reconcile Sullivan to the change, as he was directed (this evidently being the meaning of Reed's ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... has built itself a rough faubourg; the fragments with which the soil was covered having been, i suppose, a quarry of material. There are no streets; the small, shabby houses, almost hovels, straggle at random over the uneven ground. The only important feature is a convent of cloistered nuns, who have a large garden (always within the walls) behind their house, and whose doleful establishment you look down into, or down at simply, from the battlements of the citadel. One or two of ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... read the book? But the words would not keep their places, and the page yielded forth no coherent thought. He could endure the tension no longer. He became a whirlwind—slamming the book upon the table, kicking off the slippers, throwing the smoking-jacket at random, and rushing to the closet for his gear. At ten o'clock he was ready—hip-boots, slouch-hat, rubber coat, and lantern, and ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... paper to Parkinson, he added: "There's something else that will interest you; the results of some assays made by the United States Assay Office on some samples taken at random from a new strike we made last week. I'll show you some of ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... to idleness; Pour gold into the squanderer's purse, and suck The wealth, which is a power, from their control Who would have turned it unto noble use. And oftentimes a man will strike his friend, By random verbiage, with sharper pain Than could a foe, yet scarcely mean him wrong; For none can strip this complex masquerade And know who languishes with secret wounds. They whom the brunt of war has maimed in limb, Who lean on crutches to sustain ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... many a hard place in my life by your work. At times when I have felt myself worn out with my business, or face to face with some knotty problem in my career, I have found much relief in picking up and reading your books at random. They have helped me to forget my weariness or my knotty problems for the time being; and to-day, finding myself in this town, I resolved to call upon you this evening and thank you for all that you have ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... done, what word had she spoken, whereby the world might pretend to believe that she controlled this man's actions? "Fulfilling his engagements," the letter said, too. It must have been written by an ignorant person—by some one who had no idea of what was passing, and who wrote at random, hoping to touch a sensitive chord, to do some harm, to inflict some pain, in petty vengeance for a fancied slight. But in her heart, though she crushed down the instinct, she would have believed the ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the young nerves of the letter-writer must tremble when he takes up his pen. Besides, he is told that "he should be extremely reserved on the head of pleasantry," and that "as to sallies of wit, it is still more dangerous to let them fly at random; but he may repeat the smart sayings of others if he will, or relate part of some droll adventure, to enliven ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... slapped my face she could not have startled me more. I had no notion if her words were uttered at random, but they came so near the truth they held me breathless. It was a fact that only during the last few minutes had I really realised how things were with me,—only since the end of that first waltz that the flame had burst out in my soul which was ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... commanded, and ought to do, is another. Many ask and have not, because they ask amiss; and so are never the nearer the enjoying of those things they petition for (James 4:3). It is not to pray at random that will put off God, or cause him to answer. While prayer is making, God is searching the heart, to see from what root and spirit it doth arise (I John 5:14). "And he that searcheth the heart knoweth," that is, approveth only, the meaning "of the Spirit, because ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... though!" cried Yorke, looking puzzled. "Bywater's a cautious fellow with his money; he never bets at random. I say, sir, what ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... are an entertaining soliloquy on every random topic that comes into his head; treating everything without ceremony, yet with masculine sense. There have been men with deeper insight; but, one would say, never a man with such abundance of thoughts; he is never dull, never insincere, and has the genius to make the reader care ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... dances of the fairest damsels of the world, and richest arrayed. And after they make to come in other damsels bringing cups of gold full of milk of diverse beasts, and give drink to lords and to ladies. And then they make knights to joust in arms full lustily; and they run together a great random, and they frussch together full fiercely, and they break their spears so rudely that the truncheons fly in sprouts and pieces all about the hall. And then they make to come in hunting for the hart and for the ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... of his wealth in the dingy hole that serves him for a shop, where a Double-Bass, a couple of Violoncellos, a Tenor or two hanging on the walls, and half-a-dozen Fiddles lying among a random collection of bows, bridges, coils of catgut, packets of purified resin, and tangled horsehair in skeins, serve for the insignia of his profession. But Borax never does business in his shop, which is a dusty desert from one week's ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... downhill. Following some random counsel, he changed the name of it and advanced the price—two blunders. Then he was compelled to reduce the subscription, also the advertising rates. He was obliged to adopt a descending scale of charges and expenditures to keep pace with his declining ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Teutonic, and practically all uncivilized languages, begin their direct numeral combinations as soon as they have passed their number base, whatever that may be. To give an illustration, selected quite at random from among the barbarous tribes of Africa, the Ki-Swahili numeral scale runs ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... an island off a certain part of the coast of Maine,—a little rocky island, heaped and tumbled together as if Dame Nature had shaken down a heap of stones at random from her apron, when she had finished making the larger islands which lie between it and the mainland. At one end, the shoreward end, there is a tiny cove, and a bit of silver-sand beach, with a green meadow beyond it, and ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... anything save a desire to show ingenuity, no matter whether just or unjust.—Most deeply, too, do I feel the honor of having a suggestion such as mine adopted,—I thought when my letter had gone that I had written in a strange, random humor, and that had I got a "Mind your own business" sort of answer, it was no more than such unasked-for meddling might expect. I am glad with all my heart at what you tell me about the success of the tale. But we really will not wait so ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... of depression rested on the faces and the voices of Clan Ratcliffe that evening, as is not unusual with forces on the eve of battle. Their remarks came at longer intervals, and were more pointless and random than usual. There was a want of elasticity in their bearing and tone, partly coming from sympathy with the evident depression of their chief; partly from the portents of the time. The President was to arrive within forty-eight hours, and as ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... Adams reached the opposite bank in safety. The paths leading from the ford into the swamp that lay between the Indian village and the river were so numerous that the stout-hearted scout hardly knew which one to take. He chose one almost at random, and, after following it through the thick underbrush, he found that it had led him some distance below the village. He followed the margin of the swamp back again, and soon found himself in the outskirts of the village. There he paused ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris |
