"Random" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... swop umbrellas, or forget to return a book, or take a rise out of the railway company. In fact he is a thoroughly honest man who allows his honesty the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he takes your umbrella at random from the barber's stand. He knows he can't get a worse one than his own. He may get a better. He doesn't look at it very closely until he is well on his way. Then, "Dear me! I've taken the wrong umbrella," ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... stories of adventure during the lifetime of Fielding. He made ferociously unqualified attacks on the statesmen of his day, and in spite of much power, the coarseness of his works renders them now almost unreadable. But he performed one definite service; in 'Roderick Random,' drawing on his early experiences as a ship's surgeon, he inaugurated the out-and-out sea story, that is the story which takes place not, like 'Robinson Crusoe,' in small part, but mainly, on board ship. Prominent, on the other hand, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... and elsewhere, of his setting of Verlaine's Il pleure dans mon coeur (1889), the second of the "Ariettes." Five years later, in Pelleas et Melisande, the trait is omnipresent—too extensive and obvious, indeed, to require detailed indication. One might point out, at random, the derivation from the seventh of the ecclesiastical modes (the Mixolydian) of the phrase in the accompaniment to Arkel's words in the final scene, "L'ame humaine aime a s'en aller seule;" or the relationship ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... principles which Coleridge with some vagueness had projected. To analyze in cold blood such living criticism as Hazlitt's may expose one to unflattering imputations, but the attempt may serve to bring to light what is so often overlooked, that Hazlitt's criticism is no random, irresponsible discharge of his sensibilities, but has an implicit ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... arrived just in time to catch sight of the tetel as it passed over an open space below me; this time the little Fletcher bagged him. On examination I found that I had struck it four times. I had fired five shots, but as three of those had been fired almost at random, when the animal was in full speed through the bushes, one had missed, and ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... so as the country had no industry which could compete with agriculture in the labour market. An investigation undertaken by the Home Office showed that out of 1,265 labour contracts for 1906, chosen at random, only 39.7 per cent, were concluded at customary wages; the others were lower in varying degrees, 13.2 per cent. of the cases showing wages upwards of 75 per cent. ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... the field of action. They withdrew into their fort, which was completely hidden from sight in the dark and tangled wood. Most of their women and children had retreated to the mountains. The trappers now sallied out and approached the swamp, firing into the thickets at random. The Blackfeet had a better sight of their adversaries, who were in the open field, and a half-breed was wounded ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... human being he met on Weald wanted to talk about blueskins. Blueskins and the idea of blueskins obsessed everyone. Calhoun listened without asking questions until he had the picture of what blueskins meant to the people who talked of them. Then he knew there would be no use asking questions at random. Nobody mentioned ever having seen a blueskin. Nobody mentioned a specific event in which a blueskin had at any named time taken part. But everybody was afraid of blueskins. It was a patterned, an inculcated, a stage-directed fixed ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... the terrible punishment endured by these regiments, chosen at random from the head of the list which shows the slaughter-roll of the Civil War. Yet the shattered remnants of each regiment preserved their organization, and many of the severest losses were incurred in the hour of triumph, and not of disaster. ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... consoled myself under my small troubles (which were great troubles to me), by impersonating my favorite characters in them. . . . I have been Tom Jones (a child's Tom Jones, a harmless creature) for a week together. I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I verily believe. I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of voyages and travels—I forget what, now—that were on those shelves; and for days and days I can remember to have gone about my ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... that no one else should share the spoil! Or shall we transfer our attention to Mexico, where the severe struggle between the two rival Oil Companies—the Cowdray group and the American group—threw into the shade the quarrel between Huerta and Carranza? These are only a few instances taken at random to illustrate the dealings of modern finance. Relatively small harm would be done if financiers were allowed to fight out their own quarrels. Unfortunately, however, diplomacy is brought in to support this side or that: and ambassadors have to speak in severe terms if ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... the screen, at random, he got a view, from close up, of the great fires that were raging where the Company people were burning off the dead forests on what used to be Big Blackwater Swamp. Little Fuzzy cried out in alarm, flung his arms around Pappy Jack's ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... invaluable art, which can serve so many valuable purposes in life, he was careful to educate my eye, so that I might perceive the relative proportions of the objects placed before me. He would throw down at random a number of bricks, or pieces of wood representing them, and set me to copy their forms, their proportions, their lights ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... resisted the curiosity to know what that ballad was: so my worthy friend has done me a mischief, which I dare say he never intended; and reduced me to the unfortunate alternative of leaving your curiosity ungratified, or else disgusting you with foolish verses, the unfinished production of a random moment, and never meant to have met your ear. I have heard or read somewhere of a gentleman who had some genius, much eccentricity, and very considerable dexterity with his pencil. In the accidental group of life into which one is thrown, wherever this gentleman met with ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... to hay in the front yard, we now see fine, smoothly-cut lawns of refreshing greenness; and fences of pickets, wire, and rustic iron, have supplanted the ancient board fences. In place of the tall-growing Sunflower and Hollyhock that sprung up here and there at random, we now see beds of choice and beautiful flowers artistically arranged and carefully cultivated ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... seemed to have other nominations to offer. Some minutes were consumed by random suggestions and unprogressive recommendations. Busy directors began to look ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... beside the three or four H-bombs that had fallen on the Pittsburgh area, mentioned in the transcripts of the last news to reach the Fort from outside, the whole district had been pelted, more or less at random, with fission bombs. West of the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela, it would ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... what 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 her own good sense, and,—without ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the Latins, not only between combatants who had been trained scientifically, whom he used often to match with the Greek champions; but even between mobs of the lower classes fighting in streets, and tilting at random, without any knowledge of the art. In short, he honoured with his patronage all sorts of people who contributed in any way to the success of the public entertainments. He not only maintained, but enlarged, the privileges of the wrestlers. He prohibited combats of gladiators ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... made clear that something besides the mere number and kind of atoms is important in the architecture of a molecule. It became certain that atoms are not thrown together haphazard to build a molecule, any more than bricks are thrown together at random to form ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... about at random, and fell trees where we like,' said he. 'We've got a double tax to pay: first, ground rent per acre per annum for a licence, and then a duty of a cent for every cubic foot of timber we bring to market. Then, lest we should take land and not work it, we are compelled to produce a certain ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... he says. "I'm not asking for volunteers now. You'll go to your cabins in four hours' time and those who want to will volunteer, secretly. To a computer hookup, Computer will select on a random basis and notify the one chosen. Give him his final instructions, too. No one need know who it was till it's all over. He can tell anyone he ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... pervert the right; Set up the weakling in the strong man's place; And yoke the great one's strength 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 their weight, Are manifest to all; and reverence ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... in his "Random Records," describes an amateur dramatic performance in the year 1780, at Wynnstay, in North Wales, the seat of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn. The theatre had formerly been the kitchen of the mansion—a large, long, rather low-pitched room. One advantage of these characteristics, according ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... discern: that a man but partly chooses, he also partly forms, his help-mate; and he must in part deserve her, or the treasure is but won for a moment to be lost. Fleeming chanced if you will (and indeed all these opportunities are as 'random as blind man's buff') upon a wife who was worthy of him; but he had the wit to know it, the courage to wait and labour for his prize, and the tenderness and chivalry that are required to keep such prizes precious. Upon this point he has ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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
... may be asked of me, "Well, why should not Mr. Kingsley take a course such as this? It was his original assertion that Dr. Newman was a professed liar, and a patron of lies; he spoke somewhat at random, granted; but now he has got up his references and he is proving, not perhaps the very thing which he said at first, but something very like it, and to say the least quite as bad. He is now only ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... derived their foreknowledge from words spoken by the dead, others predicted by leaves of tobacco or the grains and juice of cocoa, while to still other classes, the shapes of grains of maize taken at random, the appearance of animal excrement, the forms assumed by the smoke rising from burning victims, the entrails and viscera of animals, the course taken by a certain species of spider, the visions seen in ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... use of 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 ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... stood; and, taking a guess aim—for he could not see the sight at the end of the barrel—he was about to draw trigger, when, at almost one and the same moment, Duke uttered a frightened snarl: there was a rush, and the boy fired now at random, fully aware of the fact that a lion must have crept up within a few yards, and been about to spring either at him or the dog, when the fierce, snarling growls made ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... us try these truths with closer eyes, And trace them through the prospect as it lies: 100 Here for a while my proper cares[12] resigned, Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind; Like yon neglected shrub at random cast, That shades the steep, ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... sprinkled with it every part of the printing-office. They also scattered the sand and ashes all over the room upon the paved floor; and being provided with swords, the whole party began to strike at random right and left in every part of the room, to see if they could hit the ghost, and to observe if he left any foot-marks upon the sand or ashes which covered the floor. They perceived at last that he had perched himself on the top of the stove or furnace, and they remarked ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... thought was that the rioters had flung some heavy piece of camp equipage into the bushes at random, and then the blood grew cold in my veins as I felt two hands clutching ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... with its works, was finished, my uncle Toby and the Corporal began to run their first parallel,—not at random, or anyhow,—but from the same points and distances the allies had begun to run {78} theirs; and regulating their approaches and attacks by the accounts my uncle Toby received from the daily papers,—they went on, during the whole siege, step by ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... odor, not unpleasant, of drugs and disinfectants, tobacco and leather. Wade made himself comfortable in a big padded armchair, one of those genuinely comfortable chairs which modern furnishers have thrust into oblivion, picked up a magazine at random, slapped the dust off it and filled his pipe. He was disturbed by the sound of brisk footsteps on the bricks outside. Then a key was inserted in the lock and the Doctor entered from the ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the plate, which in the middle is bent. Sad is the poor tin-plate's lot, when the blows are but given at random: ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... perfect the cure. I thought the prolonged stay in the strange, quiet house worse than all the rest. That feeling wore off; we grow reconciled to most conditions; and things became more tolerable as I grew better and joined the household. There was a wild, clever, random young man staying there, the doctor's assistant—George Gordon; and there was also a young girl, Agnes Waterlow. I used to wonder what this Agnes did there, and one day asked the old housekeeper; she said the young lady ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... secure it. There are two things obviously necessary for success in any enterprise. One is, that there shall be the most definite and clear conception of what is aimed at; and the other, that there shall be a wisely considered plan to get at it. Unless there be these, if you go at random, running a little way for a moment in this direction, and then heading about and going in the other, you cannot expect to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... a wretch in Bedlam knows How to distinguish friends from foes; And though perhaps among the rout He wildly flings his filth about, He still has gratitude and sap'ence, To spare the folks that give him ha'pence; Nor in their eyes at random pisses, But turns aside, like mad Ulysses; While Traulus all his ordure scatters To foul the man he chiefly flatters. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... all in a flutter to see where I was and what would happen next. There were so many of us, I could hardly hope to go first, for I was in the third row, and most people take us in order. But Cora was a hasty, careless soul, and pulled us out at random, so I soon found myself stuck up in a big untidy cushion, with every sort of pin you can imagine. Such a gay and giddy set I never saw, and really, my dear, their ways and conversation were quite startling to an ignorant young thing like ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... and to change something that is not wrong. If, on the other hand, the fault is obvious, the exercise has no value in the formation of habit. Take, for example, two "sentences for correction" which I select at random from one of the most widely used books of its class: "I knew it was him," and "Sit the plates on the table." A pupil of any wit will at once see that the mistakes must be in "him" and "sit," and knowing that the alternatives are "he" and "set," he will at once correct the ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... flowers our gardens yield, High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield. But thou beneath the random bield[9-4] O' clod or stane, Adorns ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... history of the case of Madame Hauffe, the famous magnetic woman, "Seer" or "Prophetess of Prevorst," Will give a more complete and melancholy proof of the sad wanderings of these German "men of science," than any random selections we might make from their voluminous works. This work was published in two volumes, and the authenticity of its details supported by Gorres, Eschenmeyer, and other men of character and reputation in Germany: it is said to have had an immense sale. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... went along the Rue Duphot, and reached the quays. Where was he going? He did not know, and did not even ask himself. He walked at random, enjoying the physical content which follows a good meal, happy to find himself still in the land of the living, ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... he said. Arrived at this point Miss Tarlton felt she need no longer listen, she simply noted with pitying tolerance the random utterance. "A camera costs very nearly as much to keep as a horse, what with films and bottles of stuff, and all the other accessories. And as for a bicycle, I am quite sure that you have to count as much for mending it as you do ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... crisis. It was most obvious to every statesman in the realm that this was not the time—when the gauntlet had been thrown full in the face of Philip and Sixtus and all Catholicism, by the condemnation of Mary—to leave the Netherland cause "at random," and these outer bulwarks of her own ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was a random one and meant nothing at all, except that he had been conscious of her close attention, but something in the way her gaze was withdrawn showed that whatever she had been thinking she wished to conceal it, ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... bravery of a holiday suit, came the perjured Clarence. Conflict now it could scarce be called: as well might the Dane have rolled back the sea from his footstool, as Warwick and his disordered troop (often and aye, dazzled here by Oxford's star, there by Edward's sun, dealing random blows against each other) have resisted the general whirl and torrent of the surrounding foe. To add to the rout, Somerset and the on-guard of his wing had been marching towards the earl at the very time that the cry of ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... disposed to tax your patience for a moment, though there is nothing new to be said. In the outset, let me say that it is conceded by all, that the right of self-government, in America at any rate, is a natural right. You may select with care or at random, any one of the forty or fifty American constitutions that have been prepared with more or less pains, and promulgated with solemnity, and you will find there is not one that has assumed to create and confer this right ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... course, but human beings used them only under very special conditions. Their operation involved the building-up of terrific static charges. Unless a tractor-beam generator could be grounded to the object it was to pull, it tended to emit lightning-bolts at unpredictable intervals and in entirely random directions. So men didn't use them. ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... God is not a Lombard usurer. I may have killed people good and bad at random in my time, but I am not ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... 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 wrought, 125 ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... and the natives, driven back by contrary winds, having made vain efforts to reach the island of St. Helena, where they had hoped to obtain the provisions of which they were in the most pressing want, the Dutchmen, deprived of their pilot, toss at random upon the ocean. They land upon the desert islands of Martin Vaz, again reach the coast of Brazil at Rio Doce, which they mistake for Ascension Island, and are finally obliged to winter in the desert island of Santa Clara. The ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... Tom were still very much like young animals, and so she could rub her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in a random, sobbing way; and there were tender fibers in the lad that had been used to answer to Maggie's fondling; so that he behaved with a weakness quite inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much as she deserved; he actually began to kiss ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... her side, interested in her novel, yet glancing up from time to time to see what her friends were doing, and perhaps make a random guess at their thoughts, these weeks of country and seaside life with those she loved had added a new brightness to her refined and delicate face. The autumn sunshine had not embrowned the transparent skin, but the red of the lips seemed deeper, and the ethereal almond-blossom tint ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... with grape," said a voice, followed by a blinding flash, a swish in the water, the roar of a cannon. It had been fired at random, and he was unharmed. Once more he used the paddle, wondering what next ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... random from a list too long to quote completely; but no one need be impressed by them. Boys perform wonderful feats of this kind in England too. However, I once heard a German professor say that the English boy outdid the German in gesunder ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... invited Rios. The Mexican's slim brown fingers drew one of the dice toward him, choosing at random. ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... kind of Trade? Know you the Principles by which it prospers, And how to make it lucrative and safe? If not, you're like a Ship without a Rudder, That drives at random, and ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... them, and, sick at heart, turned away from Heath Hill, and strolled out of the lower part of the town, and wandered almost at random, and sad as death. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... takes us, apparently at random, through the whole range of his sense impressions. But the main difficulty with having no more than such scattered and promiscuous impressionability is that it is likely to result in poetry that is a mere confusion of color without design, unless the ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... healthy children, that the greatly preponderating majority of the sounds the child makes use of after learning verbal language, and many other sounds besides these, are correctly formed by him within the first eight months, not intentionally, but just as much at random as any other utterance of sound not to be used later in speech, not appearing in any civilized language. I will only mention as an example the labio-lingual explosive sound, in which the tip of the tongue comes ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... number of visitors to Holland taken at random were asked to name the best of Rembrandt's pictures they would probably say the "Night Watch". But I fancy that a finer quality went to the making of the "School of Anatomy". I fancy that the "School ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... words at random, or yielding to passion, but was laying the black heart bare to the man's own eyes, that the seeing himself as God saw him might startle him into penitence. 'The corruption of the best is the worst.' The bitterest enemies ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desperate now approve Desire is death, which physic did except. Past cure I am, now Reason is past care, And frantic-mad with evermore unrest; My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, At random from the truth vainly express'd; For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... directly influence the movements of a little 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 position ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... must be consequent on the members of the same family inheriting something in common in their constitution. Let it be assumed that, in a large population, a particular affection occurs on an average in one out of a million, so that the a priori chance that an individual taken at random will be so affected is only one in a million. Let the population consist of sixty millions, composed, we will assume, of ten million families, each containing six members. On these data, Professor Stokes has calculated for me that the odds will be no less than 8333 millions to ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... random out of his annoyance to have failed in immediately disgusting the hermit of the responsibilities his return home might entail, here succeeded by chance ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... many of them, tattered or ill-fitting clothing, taken at random when the first supply of this character arrived, their heads covered with thin shawls or calico sun shades. They stand there in the chilly morning wind that blows through the valley along the mountains, patiently waiting their turn at the provision table, making no ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... memory in solitude?" hazarded Sara flippantly. She was still nervous and talking rather at random, scarcely ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... you come to be made of quicksilver?" said Tatiana Markovna, affectionately. "Your late father was serious, never talked at random, and even disaccustomed ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... Mammon, thou shalt have thine own blood to drink, while I show my general how proudly I am avenged!" As he spoke, he dashed amongst the victorious ranks, and reached Wallace at the very moment he was freeing himself from his fallen horse, which a random arrow had shot under him. Murray, at the same instant, was bringing up the wounded Montgomery, who came to surrender his sword, and to beg quarter for his men. The earl turned deadly pale; for the first object that struck his sight was the fierce knight of Torthorald, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... a hard five minutes for Tom, for his antagonist, finding that he was rapidly getting blind, rushed with fury upon him, trying to end the fight. Tom had less difficulty in guarding the blows, given wildly and almost at random, but he was knocked down time after time by the mere force and weight of the rush. He felt himself getting weak, and could hardly get up from his second's knee upon the call of time. He was not afraid of being made to give in, but he was afraid of fainting, and of so being unable to ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... were only good and bad in this world it would not matter so much," said Correze a little recklessly and at random. "Life would not be such a disheartening affair as it is. Unfortunately the majority of people are neither one nor the other, and have little inclination for either crime or virtue. It would be almost as absurd ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... holiday by touring in the north of his country, forced to admire, but still pugnaciously asseverating that no garden equalled his city park and no main street his Cannebiere. He seemed to have no destination in particular; he stopped here and there at random, and used a large and powerful field-glass, slung by a patent leather strap over his brawny shoulders, to study the points in the wide landscape. Now and then he made notes in his guide-book, but ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... Carlyle had no word; no word for Shelley, no word for Coleridge, no word for Wordsworth. For Keats he had a word in the paper on Burns, and here it is: "Poetry, except in such cases as that of Keats, where the whole consists in a weak-eyed, maudlin sensibility and a certain vague, random timefulness of nature, is no separate faculty." A parenthesis, short and contemptuous, is all he gives to one of whom it has been truly said, that of no poet who has lived, not of Shakespeare, is the poetry written before the twenty-fifth year so good ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... not have that meaning which is obvious in their essential denotation, every one who uses them supplies according to his inclination, and status the "deeper and richer sense.'' As a matter of fact many more words are used pictorially than we are inclined to think. Choose at random, and you find surprisingly numerous words with exaggerated denotations. If I say, "I posit the case, I press through, I jump over, the proposition, etc.,'' these phrases are all pictures, for I have posited nothing, I have pressed through no obstacle, and have jumped over no object. My ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... "The random poppy of paradox grows too often in the golden cornfield of your conversation," Harry went on, ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... grey and sombre, When clouds lie low and dark with rain, A random bell strikes a chord familiar And I hear the Oxford chimes again. Never I see a swift stream running Cold and full from shore to shore, But I think of Isis, and remember The leaping boat ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... and they say 'By all means'— and there is your Gothic—a thing dreamt of and done! It suddenly veers south again and blows from the Mediterranean. The jolly little fellows are equal to the strain, and up goes Amboise, and Anet, and the Louvre, and all the Renaissance. It blows everyhow and at random as though in anger at seeing them so ready. They care not at all! They build the Eiffel Tower, the Queen Anne house, the Mary Jane house, the Modern-Style house, the Carlton, the Ritz, the Grand Palais, the Trocadero, Olympia, Euston, the ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... brilliant field before you, and a start such that no one is likely to catch you. Sit deliberately down over against the city, conquer it and make it your own, and don't be wasting powder in knocking down odd bastions with random shells. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... stops, with a large hole near one end, which latter is held just beneath the left nostril. The other nostril being closed by a peculiar movement of the muscles about the nose, the breath is forced into the tube, and produces a soft dulcet sound which is varied by the fingers running at random over the stops. This is a favourite recreation with the females and one in which Fayaway greatly excelled. Awkward as such an instrument may appear, it was, in Fayaway's delicate little hands, one of the most graceful I have ever seen. A young lady, in the act of tormenting a guitar ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Mississippi. It does not belong to the narrative; but, we may surely say to those in whom his appearance may have provoked some interest, that subsequently he got into fine practice—was notorious for his stump-speeches; and a random sheet of the "Republican Star and Banner of Independence" which we now have before us, published in the town of "Modern Ilium," under the head of the "Triumph of Liberty and Principle," records, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... reference, taken at random, are all adapted to the places at which they are found—the narrative leads to them by regular approximation, or they are suggested by the subject and occasion which it draws forth. To introduce a given story ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... as if speaking at random, "that one of your clever professional writers would be able, for instance, to give the reader quite an inside view even ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... one of these things has a certain quality—of suitability or unsuitability, of proportion or disproportion. Let me take a few quite random instances. Look at a spade, for instance. The sensible man proceeds to call it a spade, and thinks he has done all that is necessary; the wise man considers what length of experience and practice has gone to make it perfectly adapted for its purpose, its length and size, the ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... from nimbleness with notions of literal correctness, and with habits of mind contracted from long intercourse with parsing writers. I mean that Shakespeare often sorts and places his words in what seems to us an arbitrary manner, throwing them out, so to speak, almost at random. Here is a small instance: "At our more consider'd time, we'll read, answer, and think upon this business." Of course, our more consider'd time means, when we have taken time for further consideration. So too when the ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... flash of a musket; then another and another; but no shots came near me, and from this I was convinced that the third mate, or some one else, was firing at random. Had the captain or the other mates been in their right senses the ship would probably have been hove-to and two boats, at least, have been sent in chase of me. The third mate was, I suspect, afraid of heaving to on account ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... the evening been so calm. Everything seems folded in rest and silence. There lies a majesty on sky and earth. I wandered at random in the woods and fields, and scarcely seemed to feel the ground beneath my feet. The flowers smell so sweet, and ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... They were walking at random through the orchard. They came to a field full of big pumpkins that gleamed in the moonlight and cast shadows black as holes. In the distance they could see ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... which is dear to us all, and which the Muse has kissed, attracted your easily moved poet's soul and it fluttered off at random. Let it fly! My friend's true womanly nature was never carried away by it. She stands on a rock, that ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the eye of a monk a ruined temple is somewhat of an insult to God. There is no fond antiquarianism; all the old Latin inscriptions and bas-reliefs that have been found have been mortared together at random into one wall; all the human bones that have been unearthed, and they are many, have been thrown unceremoniously into an open box. Even on the bare white ribs and ancient crumbling skulls, bourgeois visitors have written their twentieth-century names. Some ancient skeletons ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... which it lacked, need not of course spoil it for us. The stamp of Congreve is clearly marked on the dialogue, though not on every page. You may see its essentials in two passages taken absolutely at random. 'Come, come,' says Bellmour in the very first scene, 'leave business to idlers and wisdom to fools; they have need of 'em: wit be my faculty and pleasure my occupation, and let Father Time shake his glass.' Or Fondlewife ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... Sherlock, Smalridge, Waterland, Seed, Ogden, Atterbury, Mudge, Hare, Bentley, and last but not least, Butler himself, whose practical sermons might be preached with advantage before a village congregation at this day. Too much stress has been laid upon a somewhat random observation of Sir William Blackstone, who 'had the curiosity, early in the reign of George III., to go from church to church and hear every clergyman of note in London. He says that he did not hear a single discourse which had more Christianity in it ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... tax-collection and turned the annual deficit in the revenues into a surplus. One of Colbert's innovations, now adopted by all European states, was the budget system. Before his time expenditures had been made at random, without consulting the treasury receipts. Colbert drew up careful estimates, one year in advance, of the probable revenues and expenditures, so that outlay would ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... babbling of a busy world, Where praise and censure are at random hurl'd, Which can the meanest of my thoughts control, one settled purpose of my soul; Free and at large might their wild curses roam, If all, if all, alas! were well at home. No; 'tis the tale which angry conscience tells, When she, with more than tragic horror, swells Each circumstance ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... worse than shoot, I shan't come to much grief," he said, with a laugh. "Master Haines is not as wise a man as I have supposed him to be if he thinks it is possible to bring his game down by firing at random, for ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... since they show an equal amount of variability when the numbers compared are sufficient, which, however, is not often the case. The accompanying diagram exhibits the actual differences of size in five organs which occur in five species taken almost at random from this catalogue. Here, again, we perceive that the variation is decidedly large, even among a very small number of specimens; while the facts all show that there is no ground whatever for the common assumption that natural species ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... had preferred it to another pit sunk a little distance from the centre by a man named Jones, whose venture yielded the poorest results. Cameron drew my attention to the necessity of 'hydraulicking' this hill-side; and from three pounds of its yellow clay, gathered at random, we washed about fourpence worth of gold-dust, upwards of 8l. a ton. Other specimens assayed 1 oz. 13 dwts. and 13 grains. The quartz at a little lower than a fathom had yielded poorly, [Footnote: Messieurs Johnson and Matthey found only 0.650 oz. gold and 0.225 silver.] but better results ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... ribs. He picked up the gun and fired it nearly at random. He saw Smithers moving feebly, and Tommy had a vast compassion for Smithers, but— He shuddered suddenly. Something had struck him a heavy blow in the shoulder. And something else battered at his leg. There was no sound that could be heard above the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... sorrowful meaning, he speaks of the very day on which he is then writing as his own birthday; and indeed what else could give any propriety to the passage? Now the date of this letter is January 1, 1733. Surely Pope knew his own birthday better than those who have adopted a random ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... the accent has been carelessly recorded in the text—in places added in an almost random fashion by either the author, his helpers, or the printer—we have not included its marking ...
— Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language • Diego Collado
... he seemed not to know it. His needle worked swiftly on the red one he was making for the madam, and his aimless, random phrases seemed to flow as before; but I knew now where to apply for the details that had been too many for his ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Cross, sixty—just one-half—passed the same standard. But out of seventy-two Australian soldiers, fifty-four, or three-quarters, passed, and several had real beauty. Out of 120 men, women, and children taken at random in a remote country village (five miles from any town, and eleven miles from any town of 10,000 inhabitants) ninety—or just three-quarters also—pass this same standard of looks. It is significant that the average here is the same as the average ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... was her own enemy, to be fought and cajoled. Mary slipped to his side, dropping her head on his shoulder and patting his cheek. But this magic which had so frequently rallied him brought only a transient, hazy smile and in its company what seemed a random thought. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Frenchwoman had a gift for psychological observation, and though her style is neither poetic nor philosophical, I may be pardoned for quoting at some length her naive and lucid revelations. The following passages, beginning with an early religious experience, are taken almost at random from ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... no!" said Solomon Longways, smiling grimly. "That's only his random way o' speaking. 'A was always such a man of underthoughts." (And reprovingly towards Christopher): "Don't ye be so over-familiar with a gentleman that ye know nothing of—and that's travelled a'most ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... then something heavy smashed against the shutter and it collapsed in the room. As it did so a gun barrel was thrust in the opening, and a shot was fired apparently at random. The bullet struck the cabin wall a full two yards from where Helen was standing. Stane turned to ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... particularly salutary. The younger Holiday could not help comparing his own weak-willed irresponsibility of conduct with the older one's quiet self-control and firmness of principle. Larry's love for Ruth was the real thing. Ted could see that, and it made his own random, ill-judged attraction to Madeline Taylor look crude and cheap if nothing worse. He hated to remember that affair in Cousin Emma's garden. He made up his mind there would be no more things like that ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... In which full plainly I can trace Benignity, and home-bred sense, Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress And maidenly shamefacedness. Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer. A face with gladness overspread, Soft smiles, by human kindness bred, And ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... are an experienced judge of precious stones, it is almost impossible to buy a diamond at random and be certain of getting value for your money. But you need not take chances. Our best expert has written a booklet telling just how to determine diamond value, how to detect flaws, and explaining the choicest cuttings. ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... for far different and yet unborn poets. But it is only fair to Shelley to remember that the moral being of mankind is as yet in its childhood; all poets play with images not understood; they touch on emotions sharply, at random, as in a dream; they suffer each successive vision, each poignant sentiment, to evaporate into nothing, or to leave behind only a heart vaguely softened and fatigued, a gentle languor, or a tearful hope. Every modern school of poets, once ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... deduction. To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history and the many races of men, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts, and then their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; their enterprises, their aimless courses, their random achievements and acquirements, the impotent conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and broken of a superintending design, the blind evolution (!) of what turn out to be great powers or truths, the progress of things as if from unreasoning ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... despondency I was inclined to be reckless, and after merely writing a brief note to my editorial chief, saying that I had broken down and was going to the country, I started almost at random. After a few hours' riding I wearied of the cars, and left them at a small village whose name I did not care to inquire. The mountains and scenery pleased me, although the day was overcast like my mind and fortunes. Having found a quiet inn and gone through the form ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... invitation thy very own. God summons all, because He summons each. He does not cast His invitations out at random over the heads of a crowd, as some rich man might fling coins to a mob, but He addresses every one of us singly and separately, as if there were not another soul in the universe to hear His voice but our very own selves. It is for us not to lose ourselves in the crowd, since He has not lost us ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Baden-Durlach (Johanna Elizabeth) upwards of thirty years ago; and he duly produced one Son in consequence, with other good results to himself and her. But in course of time Duke Eberhard Ludwig took to consorting with bad creatures; took, in fact, to swashing about at random in the pool of amatory iniquity, as if there had been no law known, or of the least validity, in ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... immoderate and extravagant; and fall into sharp sicknesses. This is an emblem of their 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 perceiving things ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... the Elevated station, and then up the steps, and as near as she could judge purposed entering the train with her. He revealed no urgent business. He merely talked at random, ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... removed, and, when he had passed through them, as deliberately replaced. He then proceeded along an obscure path, which led across stubble-fields, to a wood. The path continued through the wood, but he quickly struck out of it, and made his way, seemingly at random, through a most perplexing ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... back to bedrock, to things Betsy absolutely knew, to the 2x2's and the 3x3's. And then, very cautiously, a step at a time, they had advanced, stopping short whenever Betsy felt a beginning of that bewildered "guessing" impulse which made her answer wildly at random. ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... him in his hunger. He would study it, as he lay with tightened belt on the floor of the old calaboose, seeking favourite passages and finding new ones only less beautiful because they lacked the consecration of remembrance. Or he would pause on random country walks; sit on the path side, gazing over the sea on the mountains of Eimeo; and dip into the Aeneid, seeking sortes. And if the oracle (as is the way of oracles) replied with no very certain ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... on the great paved road to Lille, 3 miles short of Bailleul. Here long lines of lorries attested the importance of this main artery of the Army; while the effects of war were plainly seen in the bullet-riddled houses, the random little trenches and crosses dotted around, which recalled the successful fighting of the 4th Division on October 14th. The chateau which Headquarters occupied was said to have been similarly used for eight days by General von Kluck. Here for three days we ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... insects hovered over the noiseless water. Tufts of reeds and rushes bordered it unevenly; all kinds of plants which happened to spring up there bloomed out in buttercups, caused yellow clusters to hang down, raised trees in distaff-shape with amaranth-blossoms, and made green rockets spring up at random. In an inlet of the river white water-lilies displayed themselves; and a row of ancient willows, in which wolf-traps were hidden, formed, on that side of the island, the sole protection of ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... even as they brightened, faded and dislimned. But Markheim did not pause to watch or understand the transformation. He opened the door and went downstairs very slowly, thinking to himself. His past went soberly before him; he beheld it as it was, ugly and strenuous like a dream, random as chance medley—a scene of defeat. Life, as he thus reviewed it, tempted him no longer; but on the further side he perceived a quiet haven for his bark. He paused in the passage, and looked into the shop, ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... at random. She wanted to move, to do something, anything. She felt as if she must occupy herself in some way, or begin ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... for an instant, lest they should sin against it. What they were droning about it was impossible to guess; for if one stationed oneself close to any particular rapt young woman, she seemed to utter no sound, but simply and without ceasing to peg and unpeg holes at random among the thousands of holes before her, apparently in obedience to the signaling of faint, tiny lights that in thousands continually expired and were rekindled. (It was so that these tiny lights should be distinguishable that the illumination of the secret and finely appointed chamber was kept ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... autou.] The first part of this quotation comes from Dan. vii. 10; the second, from [Greek: kai ekekragon], which is part of the quotation, from Is. vi. 3. These examples have been taken almost at random; the others are blended ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... the false augury, hastened to communicate it to his father. 'Do thy part well,' was his reply, 'and let the deceit of the augur fall on himself. The "tripudium" has been announced to me, and no omen could be better for the Roman army and people!' As the troops advanced, a javelin thrown at random struck the 'pullatius' dead. 'The hand of heaven is in the battle,' cried Papirius; 'the guilty is punished!' and he advanced and conquered."(1b) A coincidence of this sort, if it really occurred, would very greatly strengthen the popular belief ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... many a shaft, at random sent, Finds mark the archer little meant; And many a word, at random spoken, May soothe or wound a heart that's broken. ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... silence, and with an air of absence and abstraction which could not give Miss Bradwardine a favourable opinion of his talents for conversation. He answered at random one or two observations which she ventured to make upon ordinary topics; so that, feeling herself almost repulsed in her efforts at entertaining him, and secretly wondering that a scarlet coat should cover no better breeding, she left him to his mental amusement of cursing Doctor Doubleit's ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... I said, speaking at random, but gravely, and as though some special meaning lurked in my words, "that this young lady comes of a race who do not readily change. She has made her choice, and her answer to you is my answer. ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... so enormous, so chaotic, one is so aware of the strength underlying its calm, submissive exterior, that one feels that some day this latent strength will break through and disclose itself. In trying to describe all these feelings at random, day by day as they come, I am not trying to sort them out and classify them and present them in an orderly manner. You must see them with me, and feel them with me from day to day, and do your own thinking later. That English boy on the boat coming over to China ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... the cul-de-sacs and enclosed squares, hurrying over the bridges of the canals, turning in and out of the calles, or coming to rest at the church doors. Lawrence drifted tranquilly on. He had slipped a cable; he was free and ready for the open sea. Following at random any turning that offered, he came out suddenly upon Verocchio's black horseman against the black sky. The San Zanipolo square was deserted; the cavernous San Zanipolo tenanted by tombs. Stone figures, seated, a-horse, lying ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... and gallop into the fields at random, merely taking care not to quit the paths. By the latter, one can go in almost any direction; and as they are very winding there is a certain pleasure in following their sinuosities, doubtful whither they tend. Much of the plain is in ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... aware of all this, answered Laura's pleasant remarks at random. She was not going to have him tell about the red dress in his own way—since he had evidently never thought again of it or her—making a funny tale to amuse Miss Laura—she'd tell it in her way! "Miss Temple, I wanted ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... eloquence is too studied to rise to the greatest heights, and his speculation, though curious and discursive, never really results in deep thinking. He is content to embroider his pattern out of the stray fancies of an imaginative nature. His best known work, the Religio Medici, is a random confession of belief and thoughts, full of the inconsequent speculations of a man with some knowledge of science but not deeply or earnestly interested about it, content rather to follow the wayward imaginations of ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... transports of grief, without finding ease or patience, till night darkened upon him, when his yearning and love-longing redoubled. Thereupon, by way of concealment, he disguised himself in the ragged garb of a Fakir,[FN42] and set out wandering at random through the glooms of night, distracted and knowing not whither he went. So he wandered on all that night and next day, till the heat of the sun waxed fierce and the mountains flamed like fire and thirst was grievous ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... all risks, as it was the nearest point where they could obtain supplies, and it was useless to think of going back without them. Unhappily, Forrest was unprovided with a map of the line, which led to his having to strike at random; and, as it happened in the end, resulted in his turning north instead of south, which brought about needless pain and suffering. Forrest's account of their terrible ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... country, far from all his resources, or relinquish it and retreat to a safe position. Finding his soldiers divided in their wishes, he trusted the decision to chance, and opening the Gospel at random settled the doubt by applying the first passage that met his eye to its solution. The passage suggested retreat; and Heraclius, retracing his steps, recrossed the Araxes, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... To pour into the ears of listeners the sacred revelations of Christian Science indiscriminately, or without characterizing their origin and thus distinguishing them from the writings of authors who think at random on this subject, is to lose some weight in the scale of right thinking. Therefore it is the duty of every member of this Church, when publicly reading or quoting from the books or poems of our Pastor Emeritus, first to announce the name of ...
— Manual of the Mother Church - The First Church of Christ Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts • Mary Baker Eddy
... our ancestors have raised this state to the highest eminence. Now, as if we had no need of the favour of the gods, we violate all religious ceremonies. Wherefore let pontiffs, augurs, kings of the sacrifices be appointed at random. Let us place the tiara of Jupiter's flamen on any person, provided he be a man. Let us hand over the ancilia, the shrines, the gods, and the charge of the worship of the gods, to those to whom it is impious to commit them. Let not laws be enacted, nor magistrates elected under auspices. ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... that I must be quick, since he was expecting a visitor. He spoke quickly and rather restlessly. He seemed to be labouring under some excitement. He barely listened to what I had to say, and he answered me at random. It was quite evident that he was moved, and rather deeply moved, by some unusual feeling, though at the nature of the feeling I could not guess. For at one moment it seemed certainly to be anger, and the next moment he relaxed into a laugh, as though in spite of himself ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... subtle charm of the country between land and wave, as it would present itself to a receptive summer visitor rather than the returned native. Mr. SYMONS' similes are essentially urban; the sea (to take an example at random) has for him "something of the colour of absinthe." In fine, though he can and does get into his pages much of the exhilaration of a tramp over heathery cliffs "smelling of honey and sea wind," one retains throughout a not unpleasing consciousness of Paddington. I have left myself ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... 1647, and the "Captain Kid" house, so called, on Conanicut Island. These houses show all the peculiarities of the constructive science of their day, which aimed simply to attain solidity and protection from the elements. The chimneys and end-walls were generally built of stone, laid up as random rubble, with mortar composed of shell lime, sand, and gravel, and flakes of broken slate pounded fine. The sides of these buildings, and the ends above the line of roof-plate, were of frame construction, made of heavy oak timber, rudely squared, put together ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... be 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 bound, and he rather hoped than believed ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... might not stand that, Casaubon. But you must unbend, you know. Why, you might take to some light study: conchology, now: it always think that must be a light study. Or get Dorothea to read you light things, Smollett—'Roderick Random,' 'Humphrey Clinker:' they are a little broad, but she may read anything now she's married, you know. I remember they made me laugh uncommonly—there's a droll bit about a postilion's breeches. We have no such humor now. I have gone through all these ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... as the same Dante said, depended on our pleasure—that was our work. To imagine, therefore, that as a matter of necessity, or as a matter of fact, dolichocephalic skulls had anything to do with Aryan, mesophalic with Semitic, or brachycephalic with Turanian speech, was nothing but the wildest random thought. It could convey no rational meaning whatever; we might as well say that all painters were dolichocephalic, and all musicians brachycephalic, or that all lophocomic tribes worked in gold, and all lisocomic tribes in silver. If anything must be ascribed to prehistoric times, surely the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... of failing. No wonder if they did, with this spell of drought—but why mix up a plain thing with a lot of nonsense about a black cross down a hole? Genesmere was critically struck with the words of the tune he now noticed steadily running in his head again, beneath the random surface of ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... satisfied with this want of eagerness, sent again to hurry him. Just then the Marechale d'Estrees, hair-brained and light, and free to say just what came into her head, began to attack Monseigneur for waiting so tranquilly for his son, instead of going himself to embrace him. This random expression did not succeed. Monseigneur replied stiffly that it was not for him to seek the Duc de Bourgogne; but the duty of the Duc de Bourgogne to seek him. He came at last. The reception was pretty good, but did not by any means equal that of the King. Almost ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of all happened that night at the drawing, when, according to the slips taken at random from a hat, it was declared that on the following Wednesday, Comet, the pointer, was to ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... on at random, dear Sophy, hoping to give you one and a half hour's occupation on a sick bed or couch, and because, as you say, this is the only converse we are ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... together, hand in hand through the moonlight, Small Porges talked very fast, and very much at random, while his eyes, bright, and eager, glanced expectantly towards every patch of shadow,—doubtless in ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol |
