"Transient" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... find From heavenly joys, that interval afford To thy sad children, and thy mourning lord. See how they grieve, mistaken in their love, 350 And shed a beam of comfort from above; Give them, as much as mortal eyes can bear, A transient view of thy full glories there; That they with moderate sorrow may sustain And mollify their losses in thy gain: Or else divide the grief; for such thou wert, That should not all relations bear a part, It were enough to break a ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... for by the strong, grave Adam, as if he had been a delicate-handed youth of eighteen; for we are all very much alike when we are in our first love; and Adam had hardly ever touched Hetty's hand for more than a transient greeting—had never danced with her but once before. His eyes had followed her eagerly to-night in spite of himself, and had taken in deeper draughts of love. He thought she behaved so prettily, so quietly; she did not seem to be flirting ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... suggest it only in caricature, or, more often, in fiendish mockery. The Gorgons, Sirens, and Harpies of the ancients are scarcely myths, for their fabled forms only too accurately portray, not the superficial and transient outward appearance, but the enduring ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... all times other qualities which were splendidly royal. She never betrayed, never disowned, never forgot a faithful servant or a loyal friend. If she bewitched the men who came in contact with her, she was the object of a no less passionate devotion on the part of all her women; not that transient if vehement emotion which a fascinating fiend can arouse when she wills, but a devotion persistent and enduring. And withal she dreed her weird with a lofty courage, faced it full front with a high defiance, which ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... see again, of all the girls that I had loved, who were now married to other fellows, while I did not even know their present addresses. I pondered upon our earthly existence, upon how hollow, false, and transient it is, and how full of sorrow. I mused upon the wickedness of the world and of everybody in it, and the ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... and its gold behind to go out and starve together. Literally we did that in the days that followed. I had taken to peddling books, an illustrated Dickens issued by the Harpers, but I barely earned enough by it to keep life in us and a transient roof over our heads. I call it transient because it was rarely the same two nights together, for causes which I have explained. In the day Bob made out rather better than I. He could always coax a supper out of the servant at the basement gate by his ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... drift back towards the land. Then, just as her case seemed hopeless, another puff would come, and once more her sails would fill, and all on board hoped that she would make a good offing. Had they possessed sweeps, with the help of the transient breeze, they might have got to a safe distance from the land. As to anchoring, that was out of the question. Even had there been bottom to be found with such an inset, their cable would not have held them for an instant. When the ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... between the hazel stems; and there he remained musing till, like a vision of May herself, she reappeared on the bank, the nut-bushes making a bower around her, her hands filled with flowers, her cheek glowing like her wild roses, and the youthful delicacy of her form, and the transient brightness of her sweet face, suiting with the fresh tender colouring of the ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... countrymen. They have heard the distant echo of his fame as they have that of the exploits of Timour, of Bajazet, and of Genghis Khan; the names of Blenheim and Ramillies, of Malplaquet and Oudenarde, awaken a transient feeling of exultation in their bosoms; but as to the particulars of these events, the difficulties with which their general had to struggle, the objects for which he contended, even the places where they occurred, they are, for the most part, as ignorant as they are of similar details ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... of these events were lamentable. The losses of the natives, in their ordinary warfare, rarely extended beyond two or three; but the havock of their new enemy awakened irremediable distrust. The sorrows of a savage are transient: not so, his resentment. Every wrong is new, until it is revenged; and there is no reason to suppose these ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... endeavored to conceal—such tears as angels shed over the derelictions of the souls they are appointed to guard. Helen did not observe them; giddy and selfish, she derived amusement from that which was luring her soul further away from God; and, while May wept over her peril, she thought only of the transient and fleeting enjoyments of the present. Gayly humming the Tarantula, she ran down to the kitchen, where she got breakfast, or, rather claimed the reputation of getting it, by assisting May, who was really the practical cause of its being made at ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... Blessing it never brings, nor peace; And still in evil hours the form Of the chance-murder'd man appears To fill the unwilling murderer's soul With horrible and gloomy fears. For fondly the Immortals view Man's widely-scatter'd, simple race; And the poor mortal's transient life Gladly prolong, that he may raise Awhile to their eternal ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... the only difference between the marked tics and the lesser manifestations is one of degree.[*] Now, these slighter impulsive tendencies to which we have here referred are very frequent in all children and by no means infrequent in grown-ups. They are habitual movements, which may be of transient duration only or may, by repeated performance, develop into more or less fixed habits. If, then, these habits are of sexual significance, it must follow that all other habits, especially if associated with a ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... whirling round the room passed close to where Carlos sat. It was a waltz. Catalina was waltzing with the beau Echevarria. At each circle her face was towards Carlos, and then their eyes met. In these transient but oft-recurring glances the eyes of a Spanish maid will speak volumes, and Carlos was reading in those of Catalina a pleasant tale. As she came round the room for the third time, he noticed something ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... gone he had had an ungovernable desire to kill both Bignold and Marcile if he ever met them—a primitive, savage desire to blot them out of life and being. His fingers had ached for Marcile's neck, that neck in which he had lain his face so often in the transient, unforgettable days of their happiness. If she was alive now!—if ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... sanguine temperament and overheated imagination. The other, a sacred flame kindled at God's altar, and burning in God's shrine."—(Vaughan.) Such was the holy, heavenly zeal of our Great Exemplar! His were no transient outbursts of ardor, which time cooled and difficulties impeded. His life was one indignant protest against sin;—one ceaseless current of undying love for souls, which all the malignity of foes, and unkindness of friends, could not for one moment ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... khaki, band playing, flags flying; huge dredgers, sombre, oxlike-looking things, with lines of incredibly dirty men in fluttering rags running up the gang-planks with bags of coal on their backs; rowboats shuttling to and fro between the ships and the huddled, transient, modern town, which is made up of curiosity shops, hotels, business houses and dens of iniquity; a row of Egyptian sail boats, with high prows, low sides, long lateen yards, ranged along the entrance to the canal. At sunset we steam past the big statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps, ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... Delphine would go nowhere but to her home. Olive she would not allow to go with her. Then they wanted to send a servant or two to sleep in the house with her for aid and protection; but all she would accept was the transient service of a messenger to invite two of her kinspeople—man and wife—to come and make their ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... and their well-trained, gallant manners were such as to make them interesting visitors now as at all times. For it was a period when romance had not so greatly faded out of military life as it has done in these days of short service, heterogeneous mixing, and transient campaigns; when the esprit de corps was strong, and long experience stamped noteworthy professional characteristics even on rank and file; while the miller's visitors had the additional advantage of ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... little while this excitement and glory softened the pain in the heart of the man who believed himself to be a murderer and encouraged him to hope that it might eventually pass away. He played recklessly but successfully, for he was a transient favorite of the fickle goddess. When gambling lost its power to drown the voice of conscience, there was the race, the play and the wine cup! To each of them appealing in turn, he went whirling madly around the outer circles of the great ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... your life—ah! change the word— Life is as transient as th' inconstant's sigh; Say rather I'm your soul, more just that name, For, like the soul, my love can ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... of the present," returned Mr. Lavender, with intense earnestness; "forget the past entirely, wrap yourselves wholly in the future. Do nothing which will give you immediate satisfaction. Do not consider your families, or any of those transient considerations such as pleasure, your homes, your condition of health, or your economic position; but place yourselves unreservedly in the hands of those who by hard thinking on this subject are alone in the condition to appreciate the individual ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... aberration, especially in this form, we may certainly call it. No man of Sterling's veracity, had he clearly consulted his own heart, or had his own heart been capable of clearly responding, and not been dazzled and bewildered by transient fantasies and theosophic moonshine, could have undertaken this function. His heart would have answered: "No, thou canst not. What is incredible to thee, thou shalt not, at thy soul's peril, attempt to believe!—Elsewhither for a refuge, or die here. Go to Perdition if thou must,—but not with a ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... have anticipated all that the most ardent industry could collect, and gratified all that the most inquisitive curiosity could desire. To you, my friends, every occurrence of that momentous period is already familiar. A transient allusion to a few characteristic instances, which mark the peculiar history of the Plymouth settlers, may properly supply the place of a narrative, which, to this auditory, ...
— Orations • John Quincy Adams
... Keppel Cavendish, Earl of Lambeth! 'Sho', that was what he was! Sho'!" and some transient feeling of awe stamped itself upon their small faces as they viewed the long and limber figure ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... narrowly scrutinised the countenance of the fair Frenchwoman, as she glanced at the direction of that which he had just placed in her hand, he might have seen certain transient, but very unmistakable evidences of excitement and agitation. She quickly concealed the letter, however, and with a sigh, the momentary flush which it had called to her cheek subsided, and she was tranquil ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... a consecrated life, and she embellished it with wonderful instances of devotion, interspersed with touching anecdotes of heroism and self-sacrifice. The impression upon her audience was as remarkable as it was certain to be transient. Women wept at the ravishing vision of a life wholly given to noble ends, and then went their ways to live as before, after the predispositions of their natures, the habits of their lives, and the ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... nature of so fresh a buoyancy that she was able, as a rule, to extract diversion from any environment. Her mind took impressions with the vivid clearness of a mirror, and also, it should be owned, with a mirror's transient objectivity. To-day, however, the mirror was clouded. She looked out of the window; a level row of grey houses frowned at her across the street. She looked upwards; a grey pall of cloud swung over the rooftops. The interior of the room appeared to her even less inviting than the street. ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... were accordingly announced with an encomium from the priest, which never failed to excite a warm-hearted murmur of approbation. Nor was this feeling transient, for, we will venture to say, that had political excitement flamed up even to rebellion and mutual slaughter, the persons and property of those individuals would have been ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... swiftly death smote in that society. I did not wait long before the name of Madame de Chasserades succeeded to that of my mother on the list. She passed me on to Madame de Noytot; she, in her turn, to Mademoiselle de Braye; and there were others. I was the one thing permanent; they were all transient as clouds; a day or two of their care, and then came the last farewell and—somewhere far off in that roaring Paris that surrounded us—the bloody scene. I was the cherished one, the last comfort, of these dying women. I have been in ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... very important to note that ideas may be conveyed in this way as well as by words, the author of the Advancement of Learning remarks, in speaking of the tradition of the principal and supreme sciences. He takes pains to notice, also, that a representation, by means of these 'transient hieroglyphics,' is much more moving to the sensibilities, and leaves a more vivid and durable impression on the memory, than the most eloquent statement in mere words. 'What is sensible always strikes the memory more strongly, and sooner impresses itself, than what is intellectual. ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... Mohammed unto man, * A just successor for Imm[FN112] assigned. His ruth and justice all mankind embrace, * To daunt the bad and stablish well-designed. Verily now I look to present good, * For man hath ever-transient weal in mind." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... annals of our country:—No, Lorenzo: a complete account, or a perfect description, of these illustrious characters would engage a conversation, not for one day—but one week. Yet I have made the most of the transient hour, and, by my enthusiasm, have perhaps atoned for ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... late that night when I dragged my feet up the hotel stairs to our quarters; and as I had fed on nothing that day save prickly pears (which have but a transient effect on the stomach) and oranges (which are not much more filling), I told Haigh to order a big dinner, at the same time mentioning that I hadn't ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... your feelings, padre, but Catholicism is the only religion. A faith is only justified if it carries conviction. What's the use of a creed or a dogma which is as transient as a philosophy? Being condemned by my profession to study beings whose moral balance is unstable, I am in a position to assert that the Roman Church has a complete understanding of human nature. As a psychologist and a doctor, I admire the uncompromising attitude of the Councils. ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... scarcely tell why, to look at the dying girl. A transient flush had again lit up her pale wasted face. She was evidently greatly excited. "Can you read me that riddle, Mr Cringle? Does no analogy present itself to you between what you have seen, between the mysterious power possessed by these subtle reptiles, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... power; for this will would have been followed by perseverance. Still, after he had received so much, there is no excuse for his having spontaneously brought death upon himself. No necessity was laid upon God to give him more than that intermediate and even transient will, that out of man's fall he might extract materials for ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... Pan-Germanism. An English or American banker visiting a foreign country attends to his affairs and departs. A German in a similar position is a sort of human ferret. An hotel with us is a place of residence for transient strangers. The Hotel Adlon and others in Berlin are excellent hotels as such, but mixed up with spying upon strangers; Herr Adlon, senior, a friend of the Kaiser's, assists the Government spies when any important or suspicious visitor registers. The ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... process of being shaved. Indeed there is something restful and soothing to the average male adult in the feel of a sharp razor being guided over a bristly jowl by a deft and skillful hand, to the accompaniment of a gentle grating sound and followed by a sensation of transient silken smoothness. Nor do I refer to the barber's habit of conversation. After all, a barber is human—he has to talk to somebody, and it might as well be you. If he didn't have you to talk to he'd have to talk to another barber, and that would ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... chair, covered with haircloth, stood primly against the wall. Miss Evelina had always hated the chair, and here, after twenty-five years, it confronted her again. She mused, ironically, upon the permanence of things usually considered transient and temporary. Her mother's sewing was still upon the marble-topped table, but the hands that held it were long since mingled with the dust. Her own embroidery had apparently but just fallen from the chair, and the dream that had led to its fashioning—was only a dream, ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... too, the poker used to such good purpose by Geoffrey Crayon. The muse had fled, the fire was out, and the poker rusty, yet a pleasant influence lingered even in that cold little room, and seemed to lend a transient glow to the poker under the influence ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... The transient gleam of sunshine that had shone forth while we were there was the only intermission vouchsafed by the rain, which afterwards poured down with a steady vehemence and pertinacity seldom seen on the Ligurian Riviera. The effects of this rare continuance of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... view of Nature. But this special interest in us is rare, for we are seldom in the blessed mood of unselfconscious joy and love. When we are, on the other hand, self-conscious, or in doubt, or out of harmony with love and joy, or anxious for the transient things of the world—Nature, unsympathetic wholly, mocks and plays with us like a faun. When Sordello climbs the ravine, thinking of himself as Apollo, the wood, "proud of its observer," a mocking phrase, "tried surprises on him, ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... and he was soon swallowed up, although the cheerful snap of his whip could yet be heard. Then that became inaudible and the boniface who had stood for a brief space in the doorway, empty tankard in hand, re-entered the house satisfied that no more transient patronage would be forthcoming ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... acquiescing in the evil tempers in question, under the idea that they are the ordinary imperfections of the best of men; that they shew themselves only in little instances; that they are only occasional, hasty, and transient effusions, when you are taken off your guard; the passing shade of your mind, and not the settled colour. Beware of excusing or allowing them in yourself, under the notion of warm zeal for the cause of Religion and virtue, which you perhaps own is now and then apt ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... knees, and producing our store, with a few earthen plates, discussed our short meal without further ceremony. This was followed by a dessert of grapes and other fruit, which we had also provided. I must own I found these transient refreshments much more agreeable than any regular meal I ate upon the road. The wine commonly used in Burgundy is so weak and thin, that you would not drink it in England. The very best which they sell at Dijon, the capital of the province, for three livres a bottle, is in strength, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... lay down law and enforce it. Being all enlisted men we were on a dead level as far as rank was concerned—the highest being only Sergeants, whose stripes carried no weight of authority. The time of our stay was—it was hoped—too transient to make it worth while bothering about organizing any form of government. The great bulk of the boys were recent comers, who hoped that in another week or so they would be out again. There were no fat salaries to tempt any one to take upon himself the duty of ruling ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... another sense in which an officer, or a man, may be accurately called a type; a sense no less significant, but of more limited and transient application. The tendency of a period,—especially when one of marked transition,—its activities and its results, not infrequently find expression in one or more historical characters. Such types may perhaps more accurately be called personifications; ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... pathway guides, See where our sires laid down Their smiling babes, their cherished brides, The patriarchs of the town; Hast thou a tear for buried love? A sigh for transient power? All that a century left above, Go, read ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... or climate, wax flower modelling perpetuates the transient glories of the floral seasons; places all the tender varieties under the immediate glance of the ever gratified eye of the artist, who can thus in the depth of winter exhibit to an admiring foreign guest the exotics ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... and Forty-fourth Street swarmed with the noon crowd. The wealthy, happy sun glittered in transient gold through the thick windows of the smart shops, lighting upon mesh bags and purses and strings of pearls in gray velvet cases; upon gaudy feather fans of many colors; upon the laces and silks of expensive dresses; ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... a smile As beaming as the sun; But who supposes all the while It shines for only one? Though azure skies are fair to see, A transient cloudy spot In yours would promise more to me— Justine, you love ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... found, then, to be in a direction exactly opposed to that of the current that would itself produce the same movement of the magnet pole. If the north pole, instead of being moved toward or into the circuit, were moved away from the circuit, this motion will also induce a transient current to flow round the wire, but this time the current will be in the same sense as that in Fig. 10, in the opposite sense to that in Fig. 12. Pulling the magnet pole away sets up a current in the reverse direction to that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... and to provide such little necessaries, as were esteemed essential to his comfort. But he permitted the young man to remain only a short time. "Go," he said, "the world is bright before thee; enjoy its transient sunshine. The time may come when even thou, with hope and confidence in thy heart, and heaven in thine eyes, shalt say, 'I have no pleasure therein.'" Pownal therefore returned to Hillsdale, without reluctance it may be supposed, when we add, that the same evening found ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... no fit of transient enthusiasm, but from a sober conviction of the need of such a step. "There are hardly any residents in the East rich enough to give much money, or with enough leisure to give much time," he says. "This is the evil. Even the ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... to Captain Hamilton. The captain caused strict inquiries to be made, and it came out that my lord had gone among the men, with money in both pockets, and bought a little of one man's grog, and a little of another, and had been sipping the furtive but transient ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... a spongy soil of black vegetable matter, so oozy, that it was difficult to keep the feet dry. The rain poured in torrents all the evening, and with the calm, and the wetness of the wood, prevented our enjoying a fire. Except a transient view into Nepal, a few miles west of us, nothing was to be seen, the whole mountain being wrapped in dense masses of vapour. Gusts of wind, not felt in the forest, whistled through the gnarled and naked tree-tops; and though the temperature was 50 degrees, this ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... beyond this transient world in all you think, or try, or do. Remember, delightful as this existence may appear, and undoubtedly is to those who know how to employ it properly, it is but a passage which leads to eternity. May Heaven guide you, my boy!" He took me in his arms, and then ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... at Government House, without waiting for a reply. It was already in type, and during the next day was widely read and commented upon. The Lieutenant-Governor was not insensible to its cutting irony, but it did not admit of any sur-rejoinder, and after the first transient ebullition of his wrath, the matter, so far as he was concerned, was quietly permitted to drop out of sight. The document, however, acted as an additional stimulus to the public excitement, and it continued to be quoted against Sir Francis from time to ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... transient—scarce seen ere gone; but its electric passage left her veins kindled, her soul insurgent. It found her despairing, it left ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... added, that since the time of the original reports respecting Park's death in 1806, no circumstance has occurred to bring that fact into doubt; if we except a few transient rumours relative to white men stated to be in remote parts of the interior of Africa, which have led some persons to suppose that Park may be still in existence. Several surmises of this kind (for they are entitled to no higher appellation) have from time to time been ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... to perfection. As she lay back in the big chair but one thing disturbed her serenity—and that one thing was within. She had everything that she wanted, and for the hour, at least, she was tired of it all. The mood was transient, she knew. It would pass because it was alien to the clear bracing air of her mind; but while it lasted she told herself that the present had palled on her because she had looked beneath the vivid surface of illusion ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... us, should introduce us into the freer, tranquiller, and more spacious world of noble and everlasting thought. The greener and lonelier precincts of our minds are now trampled upon by the hurrying feet of daily events and transient interests. If we would keep that spiritual region unpolluted, we need to acquaint ourselves with some other literature than that of newspapers and magazines, and to entertain as familiars the men long dead, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... retained its hereditary dominions, and preserved its strength when it had lost its dignity. They well knew that armies were equally formidable, whether commanded by an emperour or an inferiour sovereign; and that a mere alteration of names, though it might afford a slight and transient gratification to vanity, would produce no real increase ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... Orientals, transient as it was, was of far greater duration than that of most individual impressions from the London crowd. London is a flood of life, from which in a powerful light you may catch the shimmering facet of a specific ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... view, A Spirit, yet a Woman too! Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin-liberty; A countenance in which did meet Sweet records, promises as sweet; A Creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... 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 ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... to the transient population of the village which gave rise to some speculation. The new-comer was a young fellow, rather careless in his exterior, but apparently as much at home as if he owned Arrowhead Village and everything in it. He commonly had a cigar in his mouth, carried a pocket pistol, of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of twenty. She was now a hideous old woman of eighty, and the house was managed by her married daughter, Mrs. Crumpleton. There were three floors and there should have been three clergymen, but for some time the bottom floor had been empty and the middle apartments were let to transient tenants. They were at this moment inhabited by a retired ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... and seemed sorry for rather than angry with him. By the time the meal was finished there was probably not a boy but had taken an inward resolution that there was nothing he would not do for his master, and although such resolutions are generally but transient, Mr. Porson found that the good effect of his treatment of Mather was considerable and permanent. Lessons were more carefully learned, obedience was not perhaps more prompt, but it was more willing, and the boys lost no opportunity of showing how anxious ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... we were in danger of a collision, Addison snatched the reins and turned our horse clean out into the alders; and the off hind wheel coming violently in contact with an old log, the transient bolt of the wagon broke. The forward wheels parted from the wagon body, and we were all pitched out into the brush, in a heap together. The bags of meal came on top ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... disturbed. In some strange, indefinable way it seemed to him that Mary Stella was different from her usual self. The impression was vague and evanescent—gone before he could decide wherein the difference lay. He told himself that he was foolish, yet the vexing, transient feeling ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... they were listening, Otway did not at once go on. Sammy had spoken in his usual light way and yet with something of a pang in his voice, and something of a transient cloud still rested on the boy's face. Otway noted it, and understood. When the war broke out, Sammy had been on the point of going up to ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in New York had its effect on the settlements to the west and south. Eastward of the Delaware Bay and River (so called in honor of Lord De la Warr) lies New Jersey. Its domain was included in the New Netherland charter. So early as 1622, transient trading settlements were made on its soil, at Bergen and on the banks of the Delaware. The following year, Director May, moved by the attempt of a French sea-captain to set up the arms of France in Delaware, built the fort called Fort Nassau at the mouth of ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... of the electric bath may be qualified on the one hand as either "immediate," or "remote," on the other as either "transient" or "permanent." Strictly to classify these is impracticable, and I will therefore be influenced in the order of their enumeration principally by their importance in ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... the other end of the table was Marston, evidently giving vent to his impatience about something, and his wife, with fierce eyes, telling him, in manner if not in words, not to make a fool of himself. The rest of the company was made up either of transient visitors or of persons with whom this story has ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... when with Piron there, boys together, they all swam on the beach of that fine harbor. The old school-house, too, with the tipsy old master, who whacked them soundly, drunk or sober; their frolics at the fandangoes in Spanish Town; their transient separations in after life on visits to France or the Old Country; the hearty joy to meet again and drink Jamaica forever. And now their companion in tropical heat and mountain shade was going to part with them, and sail away ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... stress of the thirty years which followed Alexander's death, two Macedonians emerged to divide the Eastern Empire between them. The rest—transient embarrassed phantoms of the Royal House, regents of the Empire hardly less transient, upstart satraps, and even one-eyed Antigonus, who for a brief moment claimed jurisdiction over all the East—never mattered long to the world at large and matter not at ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... fully and frequently of your progress. I have ordered the quartermaster to send down as many boats as he can get, to facilitate your movements. Mules, wagons, etc., can come up afterward by transient boats. I am truly ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... man's, as with bent head she listened intently, for the first time amazed at what she had been to a man whose ideals were of the highest and his ways beyond reproach. A coy upward lift of the proudly carried head—a mere glance of transient reply—too brief for the man to read—might have meant, "Have not I too been careful of ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... time, wearies them excessively. After they have endured, as the consequence of any actions, this species of punishment, they will long remember their sufferings, and will carefully avoid incurring, in future, similar penalties. Sudden and transient pain appears to be most effectual with ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... service of the King, have strongly at heart to maintain the Republic in sentiments favorable to the allies of his Majesty. It is in conformity with these views, and for the good of the common cause, and only for this transient object, that the commission, for the origin of which you imagine a thousand ill-natured motives, and which, finally, you refuse to accept, has ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... called on Clement the day after his arrival. He had already met the Deacon in the street, and asked some questions about his transient boarder. ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... he and the Traveling Salesman were forging their way ahead through the crowded aisle. Like the transient, impersonal, altogether mysterious stimulant of a strain of martial music, the Young Electrician vanished into space. But just at the edge of the car steps the Traveling Salesman dallied a second to ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... scale, like an observer from some distant Planet; all then seems to me so infinitely small, and I could almost pity my enemies for giving themselves such trouble about so very little. What would become of us without philosophy, without this reasonable contempt of things frivolous, transient and fugitive, about which the greedy and ambitious make such a pother, fancying them to be solid! This is to become wise by stripes, you will tell me; well, if one do become wise, what matters it how?—I read ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... bright Queen who rules the tide Now forward thrown, now bridled back, Smile o'er each answering smile, then hide Her grandeur in the transient rack, And yield her power, and veil her pride, And move along ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... represented not material interests,—not commerce, not manufactures, not stocks, not capital, not railways, not trade, not industrial exhibitions, not armies and navies, but ideas, those invisible agencies which shake thrones and make revolutions, and lift the soul above that which is transient to that which is permanent,—to religion, to philosophy, to art, to poetry, to the glories of home, to the certitudes of friendship, to the benedictions of heaven; which may exist in all their benign beauty and power whatever ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... Colonial Affairs is naturally, to some extent, discouraged by the knowledge that the subject is an unattractive one to a large proportion of the reading public. It is difficult to get up anything beyond a transient interest in the affairs of our Colonial dependencies; indeed, I believe that the mind of the British public was more profoundly moved by the exodus of Jumbo, than it would be were one of them to become the scene of some startling catastrophe. This is the more curious, ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... transient charm is fled, And when the little week is o'er, To cheerless, friendless, solitude When I return, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... sameness of the general conditions in which life has evolved, and that these permanent outer conditions may have imposed the same direction on the forces constructing this or that apparatus, in spite of the diversity of transient outer influences and accidental inner changes. We are not, of course, blind to the role which the concept of adaptation plays in the science of to-day. Biologists certainly do not all make the same use of it. Some think the outer conditions capable of causing ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... exists an evil in the principle of population; an evil, not accidental, but inherent; not of occasional occurrence, but in perpetual operation; not light, transient, or mitigated, but productive of miseries, compared with which all those inflicted by human institutions, that is to say, by the weakness and wickedness of man, however instigated, are 'light;' an evil, finally, for which there is no remedy save one, which had been long overlooked, and which is ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... joys which spite of fate remain To cheer life's darkness with a transient ray, And oft in vivid fancy roam again Through these blest regions ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... doth not every passing day, From youth to manhood, bear away Its own peculiar load of grief Upon its back, and such relief As transient joy may seem to bring, Is it ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... madam, that Sir Charles's regard for Miss Byron (his more than regard for her, why should I not say? since every body sees it) is founded upon her piety, and upon the amiable qualities of her mind. Beauty, madam, is an accidental and transient good. No man better knows how to distinguish between admiration and love, than my patron. His virtue is virtue upon full proof, and against sensibilities, that it is heroic to overcome. Lady Olivia knows this: and here I must acknowledge myself ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... love!—the most selfish and yet the most disinterested of the passions; the gentlest and yet the most terrible of impulses that can agitate the human bosom; the most ennobling and the most humble; the most enduring and the most transient; slow as the most subtle venom to its work, yet impetuous in its career as the tornado or the whirlwind; sportive as the smile of infancy, and appalling as the maniac's shriek, or the laugh of his tormentor. 'Tis a joy nursed in the warm glow of hope; but who shall reveal ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... had observed, with much pity, the depression which had fastened on Kenrick like a disease. He was not surprised to see him come back deeply affected; but if "the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts," its sorrows are usually short and transient, and he looked upon it as unnatural that Kenrick's grief should seem thus incurable, and that a young boy like him should thus refuse to be comforted. It was not long before he introduced the subject, while talking to Power after looking ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... of system. It was more strongly and evidently the interest of the new court faction, to get rid of the great Whig connections, than to destroy Mr. Pitt. The power of that gentleman was vast indeed and merited; but it was in a great degree personal, and therefore transient. Theirs was rooted in the country. For, with a good deal less of popularity, they possessed a far more natural and fixed influence. Long possession of government; vast property; obligations of favors ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... embroidered with colored chenilles and quilted lining, of masculine size and shape, reposed upon the floor. A cane and umbrella were secured neatly in a small corner rack. There were no traces, I saw, of feminine occupancy beyond the transient ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... departed, while those who knew a little thought they knew everything and brooked no direction. And all were insolent. With or without notice the dusky procession passed through the house, each out-goer taking with her some memento of her transient stay. ...
— Mam' Lyddy's Recognition - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... ends life's transient dream, When death's cold, sullen stream Shall o'er me roll; Blest Saviour, then, in love, Fear and distrust remove; Oh, bear me safe above, ...
— The Three Comrades • Kristina Roy
... and mournfully reverberated the sonorous sounds: "Holy God, Holy Almighty, Holy Everliving, have mercy upon us!" And with what flaming thirst for life, not to be satiated by aught; with what longing for the momentary—transient like unto a dream—joy and beauty of being; with what horror before the eternal silence of death, sounded the ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... constitutions. So far has this feeling gone that a large number of people seem to fancy that there is some magic in the very word constitution. As a consequence state constitutions are usually too long; they contain too many miscellaneous provisions. Most of these relate to transient or petty matters which, if made affairs for public action at all, should be left to legislation. Changes in the constitution weaken our respect for it. Rarely should anything go into that great charter which has not stood the test of time, unless it has ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... she came back to the empty apartment, knowing that it would be empty. During Bill's transient absence of the spring she had missed him scarcely at all. She ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... confession of aristocratic prejudices might turn friendship into enmity. But his passionate antagonism to the communistic theory, all the more intense through suppression, strengthened his fantastic faith. Still, the transient smile of a marchioness and the political economy of a sour-avised operative are not enough to keep alive the romance of underfed, ill-clad, overdriven childhood. And after a while he was deprived even ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... lower down, and the Washington Hotel, which occupied the site of the Stewart building above the Park, were the principal public houses. The Boston stages stopped at Hall's North American Hotel, at the corner of Bayard Street and the Bowery, and there were many boarding-houses where transient guests were accommodated. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... sentence, adjourned the Court till October.[629] "By the mass!" burst out Suffolk, giving the table (p. 223) a great blow with his hand, "now I see that the old-said saw is true, that there was never a legate nor cardinal that did good in England." The Court never met again; and except during the transient reaction, under Mary, it was the last legatine Court ever held in England. They might assure the Pope, Wolsey had written to the English envoys at Rome a month before, that if he granted the revocation he would lose the devotion ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... gentle gales and vernal serenity. But winter returns with redoubled horrors; the clouds condense more formidably than before, and those tender buds and early blossoms which were called forth by the transient gleam of a temporary sunshine, are nipped by frosts and torn by tempests.' These sentences are, after all, rather pompous, and express, in the most verbose style of the Rambler, the simple fact, that after ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... still receives from this man, on parade-fields and battle-fields, its word of command; out of his rough head proceeded the essential of all that the innumerable Drill-sergeants, in various languages, daily repeat and enforce. Such a man is worth some transient glance from his fellow-creatures,—especially with a little Fritz trotting at his foot, and drawing ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... There are passions, transient, fleeting, Loves in hostelries declar'd, Sunrise loves, with sunset ended, When the guest hath gone ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... had thought of the pleasure of being one's own master in one's own boat; but the reality far exceeded the imagination of it, and it was not a transient pleasure. Next day it was stronger, and so to the end, until at last, only duty forced me reluctantly from my floating freehold to another home founded on London clay, sternly immovable, and with the quarter's rent ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... who adored Gladys, sometimes observed, with a smile of approval, the grateful, pathetic look in Teen's large solemn eyes when they followed the sweet young creature who had shown her a glimpse of the sunny side of life. It was not a glimpse, however, which Gladys intended to be merely transient. She had in view a scheme which was to be of permanent value to ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... sorted her beads she amused herself by fitting together the scraps of conversation which floated her way, and making guesses as to the personality of the speakers. Twice her open door brought the reward of a transient visitor. Once a jolly Sophomore glanced in to say "I just wanted to see who has the American Beauty room. That's what we called it last term when Kitty Walton ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the crowd. Of the temporary effects produced by these preachers there can be no question. The changes which they wrought in states and cities prove that the enthusiasm they aroused was more than merely hysterical. Savonarola, the greatest of his class, founded not only a transient commonwealth in Florence, but also a political party of importance, and left his lasting impress on the greatest soul of the sixteenth century in Italy—Michael Angelo Buonarroti. There was a real religious vigor in the people corresponding to the preacher's zeal. But the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... whole frame was transfigured into an anvil, on which a thousand tiny hammers seemed to ring. Yet I could not move, nor speak, nor weep—no wretchedness was ever more supreme than this cataleptic seizure. Evelyn was the first to break the transient silence. ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... supineness, yet many others are frequently mentioned by authors as a careful, industrious, and even laborious people. But nothing shews more clearly how unsafe it is to form a judgment of distant people from the accounts given of them by travellers, who have taken but a transient view of things, than the case of the Hottentots, viz. those several nations of Negroes who inhabit the most southern part of Africa: these people are represented by several authors, who appear to have very much copied their relations ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... Crusade,' 1189-1193, is the subject of this poem. Richard Coeur de Lion carried his followers by way of Sicily and Cyprus: making a transient conquest of the latter. In the Holy Land the siege of Acre consumed the time and strength of the Crusaders. They suffered terribly in the wilderness of Mount Carmel, and when at last preparing to march on Jerusalem (1192) were recalled to Ascalon. Richard ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... force was numerous and well armed, and a moment, a single moment, deeply wounded by these bitter taunts, they looked as if they would fight and die to resent the insult; but it was only a transient feeling; for they had their orders, and they went away, scorned and humiliated. Perhaps, too, an inward voice whispered to them that they deserved their shame and humiliation; perhaps the contrast of their conduct with that of the savages awakened in them some better feeling, which had a long ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... sarcastically, "your sudden departure, and the summons of our mutual friend Count de Urena, might have held us in some little anxiety. Moreover, other small circumstances have contributed to cause a transient uneasiness." ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... distance, but surely I am surrounded by happiness.' Paul and Virginia did not understand this reflection; but, when they saw that she was calm, they smiled, and continued to caress her. Thus tranquillity was restored, and what had passed proved but a transient storm, which serves to give fresh verdure to a ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... there is something very pretty in that Circumstance of this Ode, wherein Venus is described as sending away her Chariot upon her Arrival at Sappho's Lodgings, to denote that it was not a short transient Visit which she intended to make her. This Ode was preserved by an eminent Greek Critick, [3] who inserted it intire in his Works, as a Pattern of Perfection ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... by his men, he again fell speechless. Bernard, seizing the opportunity, called to his side one of the deposed bishops, and on the count's recovery ordered that the kiss of reconciliation should be bestowed, and the exile restored. The effect of this scene was not transient, for the proud spirit had been subdued in the count's heart, and he performed penance for his offences ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE have much general importance, or, except as precursors of 1789, are worth dwelling on in History. From us here, so far as Friedrich is concerned with them, they may deserve some transient mention, more or less: but World-History, eager to be at the general Funeral-pile and ultimate Burning-up of Shams in this poor World, will have less and less to say of small tragedies ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... an architectural triumph and glory which we could not have except on condition that it should vanish with the swiftness of an aurora. Even so, there would have been little poetry in its evanescence if, through bad workmanship or any obvious folly, it had failed to fulfil the transient purpose for which it was erected. The only poetic evanescence is the evanescence that is inevitable. An unnecessary evanescence in things we make is bad art. If I remember the story correctly, it was to a Roman lady that Benvenuto Cellini took the exquisite waxen ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... young Trevannion declared himself, there was something in his manner that arrested the attention of his uncle. While pronouncing his hypothetical forecast of a storm, he had turned his glance towards the sky, and kept it fixed there, as if making something more than a transient observation. The fog had evaporated, and the moon was now coursing across the heavens, not against a field of cloudy blue, but in the midst of black, cumulous clouds, that every now and then shrouded her effulgence. A dweller in the tropics of the Western hemisphere would have pronounced this ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... have been irretrievably lost. Thus M. de Bossuet was of those who say, "Hate me, but fear me," rather than of those who strive to be loved. Such people know that friendships are generally frail and transient, and that esteem lasts longer and leads further. He never interfered again with my affairs, nor did I with his; I got my way, and he is still ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... same liberal and humanizing temper into his practice. The man whose skeleton was now before us had ranked amongst the most chivalrous of his order, and was regarded by some people as vindicating the national honor in a point where not very long before it had suffered a transient eclipse. In the preceding generation, it had been felt as throwing a shade of disgrace over the public honor, that the championship of England upon the high road fell for a time into French hands; upon French prowess rested the burden of English honor, or, in Gallic phrase, of English glory. Claude ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... ringlets, waved to the zephyrs as he passed along. There was something so delicate and enchanting in his whole figure, as to tempt you to compare it to the unspotted beauty of the hyacinth; at the same time that you rejoiced, that it was not a beauty, frail and transient, as the tender flower, but which promised a manly ripeness ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... difference in two distinct lives between constant victory and frequent victory. But that one little difference constitutes a world of success or failure. The one is the Divine, the other is the human; the one is the everlasting way, the other the transient and the imperfect. God wants to lead us to the way everlasting, and to establish us and make us immovable as He. We little know the seriousness of the slightest surrender. It is but the first step in a downward progression, and God only knows where ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... Transient and re-mailed Papers and Periodicals will pass by Post if prepaid by Postage stamp—one halfpenny if not exceeding 3 oz. in weight, and 2d ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... invariably to be accepted as evidences of his general nature. Much of the difficulty in the interpretation of the tragedy arises from the oversight of accepting his soliloquies as continuous illustrations of his character, instead of being, as they mostly are, transient emanations of his subtle irritability. Even in the midst of his impetuosity the current of violent thought was subject to a controlling interruption by a sudden reaction arising from the influence of reason; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... of the cross, because in the cross is salvation. Meditations on the cross always lift heavenward. 'Tis the royal way, I want to keep it always in view, want it to be the last I see. We who bear the cross continually in this transient life, will wear the crown continually in the eternal. I love a picture of the cross or a crucifix. I am debtor both to the Jew and the Greek. I do not feel the dislike to the Catholic church that some Protestants do. I believe there are as many honest priests ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... sharp turn in the trail, magically, in a pale, transient flicker of light, loomed little Eve Edgarton's boyish figure, drenched to the skin apparently, wind-driven, rain-battered, but with hands in her pockets, slouch hat rakishly askew, strolling as nonchalantly down that ghastly trail as a child might come ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... derelict populations of the cities. However important the problems of urban society may be, they do not have fundamental significance from the standpoint of eugenics, because urban populations are essentially transient. The city performs the function of elimination, while agriculture represents the constructive eugenic condition which must be maintained and improved if the development of the ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... were, whistling to keep up its courage. It is a period of doubt: what it will result in remains to be seen; but analogy leads us to infer that this doubt, like all others, will be succeeded by a comparatively definite belief in something—no matter what. It is a transient state—the interval between one creed and another. The agnostic no longer holds to what is behind him, nor knows what lies before, so he contents himself with feeling the ground beneath his feet. That, at least, though the heavens fall, is likely to remain; meanwhile, let the heavens take ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... certain that in my physical construction, were an analysis practicable, small would be the amount of heroic proportions which the most astute operator would detect. I may confess the truth, and say, that in "lang syne," any transient ebullition of military ardor vanished at a glance from Constance's black eye. The stream of time swept on, and those that were, united their dust with those that had been. In a short time my letter of readiness ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... has contributed so largely to your entertainment, and furnished such a delectable theme for your secret and cowardly mockery, will shoot a bolt of a graver cast when you least expect it, and think yourself most secure. Mark me—note me well. These are not words of rage, or transient passion: remember them, be wise, and look to your safety. See Astraea no more. With this I leave you. Our next meeting ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... the hue, it vibrates to the note suggested by her lover. The pungent flavor of coquettish spice is far indeed from spurring affection so much as this gentle sympathy of tenderness. The smartness of a coquette too clearly marks opposition; however transient it is displeasing; but this intimate comprehension shows a perfect fusion of souls. The hapless Emilio was touched by the unspoken divination which led the Duchess to pity a fault unknown ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... fast did Erwin go that the transient aid afforded by casting over the still living observer was soon more than neutralized. The boy was almost within ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... poor, among the cherished or castaways. It fell as thickly upon the gravestones in Trinity's ancient churchyard as upon the freshly turned earth in a corner of the paupers' burying ground; and it set upon black corruption wherever it was in evidence the seal of a transient stainlessness. ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... waned into autumn, the long, bewildering days drew in, the transient nights, only a few breaths of shadow between noon and noon, deepened and strengthened. A restlessness came over everybody. There was another short strike among the miners. James Houghton, like an excited beetle, scurried to and fro, ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... perpetuated in another world; no father's misery so enforced upon us as Ugolino's, who, for hundreds of years, has not grown tired of the revenge to which it wrought him. Dante even puts this weight and continuity of feeling into passages of mere transient emotion or illustration, unconnected with the next world; as in the famous instance of the verses about evening, and many others which the reader will meet with in this volume. Indeed, if pathos and the most ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt |
