"Vital" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of sense because the spiritual things were ever present, and as clear as day. Yet did they not forget that spiritual things are symbolised by things of sense; and so the smallest herb of grass was vital to their tranquil contemplations. We who have lost sight of the invisible world, who set our affections more on things of earth, fancy that because these monks despised the world, and did not write about its landscapes, therefore they were dead to its beauty. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... us; all dungings and other sordid temperings being but the vicars succedaneous to this improvement." Moreover, this being one of those "worn-out and exhausted lay fields which enjoy their sabbath," had perchance, as Sir Kenelm Digby thinks likely, attracted "vital spirits" from the air. I harvested twelve bushels ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... vital division of the religious part of our Protestant communities is into Christian optimists and Christian pessimists. The Christian optimist in his fullest development is characterized by a cheerful countenance, a voice in the major key, an undisguised enjoyment of earthly comforts, and a short ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and stage of development when the raising of a decided issue between right and wrong was a matter of vital consequence. Although he had little more than rounded out a dozen years of life, his natural bent of mind and the influences surrounding him had been such as to make him seem at least two years older ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... should not take either the biggest or the most picturesque tree to illustrate it. Here is one of my favorites now before me, a fine yellow poplar, quite straight, perhaps 90 feet high, and four thick at the butt. How strong, vital, enduring! how dumbly eloquent! What suggestions of imperturbability and being, as against the human trait of mere seeming. Then the qualities, almost emotional, palpably artistic, heroic, of a tree; so innocent and harmless, yet so savage. It is, yet says nothing. How it rebukes by its ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... a secret ambition to read as he read, to make the dead lines of print glow with color and throb with music. There was something magical in his interpretation of the drama's printed page. With voice and face and hand he restored for duller minds the visions of the poet, making Hamlet's sorrows as vital as ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... exposed to the blast, a thick coating of bark, designed to protect, and which effectually does protect, the sap-vessels and the process of circulation to which they are adapted, from the injury which necessarily must otherwise ensue. Now, if an animal is in danger of suffocation from want of vital air, instead of starving by being exposed to its unqualified rigour, instinct or reason directs the sufferer to approach those apertures through which any supply of that necessary of human life can be attained, and induces man, at the same time, to free himself ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various
... of things must necessarily be as subsisting in a universal here and an everlasting now. This is, no doubt, a highly abstract conception, but I would ask the student to endeavour to grasp it thoroughly, since it is of vital importance in the practical application of Mental Science, as ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... by his brother and as he now sat on a pile of cloaks within the marquee, the rapid discoloration of the white skin, could be distinctly traced, marking as it did the progress of the deadly poison towards the vital portion of the system. In this trying emergency all eyes were turned with anxiety on the slightest movement of her who had undertaken the cure, and none more eagerly than those of Henry Grantham and Gertrude D'Egville, the latter of whom, gentle even ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... gloomy contemplation of futurity, to a juster sense of good and evil The peculiarity of her religious persuasion afforded an introduction to frequent discussions of the real opinions of that church, to which Julia had hitherto belonged, although ignorant of all its essential and vital truths. These conversations, which were renewed repeatedly in their intercourse while under the protection of his sister in London, laid the foundations of a faith which left her nothing to hope for but the happy termination of ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... his poem a very marked contrast between the death of Adonais (Keats) as a mortal man succumbing to 'the common fate,' and the immortality of his spirit as a vital immaterial essence surviving the death of the body: he uses terms such as might be adopted by any believer in the doctrine of 'the immortality of the soul,' in the ordinary sense of that phrase. It would not however be safe to infer that Shelley, at the precise ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... beside Vivier and examining the wound in the dog's scalp. "The bullet only creased his skull! It didn't go through! It's just put him out for a few hours, like I've seen it do to men. Get the surgeon! If that bullet in his body didn't hit something vital, we'll pull ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... crazed them. It is truly a marvel that their physical constitutions did not break down under the exhausting excitements, the contortions of frame, the force to which the bodily functions were subjected in trances and fits, and the strain upon all the vital energies, protracted through many months. The wonder, however, would have been greater, if the mental and moral balance had not thereby ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... robbery of the bank, had, equally unknown to himself, been cleared of any complicity in that affair—and yet, as witness the conversation of a moment ago, it was still the topic of New York, still the vital issue that filled the maw of the newspapers with ravings, threats, and execrations against the Gray Seal, snarling virulently the while at the police for the latter's ineptitude, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... opposite of this. The more points of contact there are, the more danger of friction there is, and the more carefully should people guard against it. If you see a man only once a month, it is not of so vital importance that you do not trench on his rights, tastes, or whims. He can bear to be crossed or annoyed occasionally. If he does not have a very high regard for you, it is comparatively unimportant, because your paths are generally so diverse. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... ever to have looked at the history of religion in any state, or at any period, and not to feel that the test laws have been the weakest ground upon which any faith could stand. Were tests any security for the heathen religion against the vital spirit of the heaven-descended energy of Christianity? Yet we are aware that every act of the life of a heathen was in itself a test. He could not sit to his meat, he could not retire to rest, he could not go through the most simple transactions of ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... had at last built up a firm and powerful support. With this assured, his policy, both domestic and foreign—the key to which was still the blockade—might be considered victorious at all points. There remains to be noticed, however, one event of the year 1864 which was of vital importance in maintaining ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... temperatures; that spores of bacteria can survive high temperature; that seeds of plants and germs of animals in a state of "latent life" can survive prolonged drought and absence of oxygen. It is possible, according to Berthelot, that as long as there is not molecular disintegration vital activities may be suspended for a time, and may afterwards recommence when appropriate conditions are restored. Therefore, one should be slow to say that a long journey through space is impossible. The obvious limitation of Lord Kelvin's theory is that it ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... of my own king, George III., were amongst the first destined victims to this dreadful contest, and that neither the chief, nor the greater part of his warlike associates, would within a few short hours, breathe again the vital air ! ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... this double audience in my mind, I have used to a very large extent, in my description of the people's life, the documents they have left behind themselves, so that the best expression may be given of the vital fact that a town is built and fashioned and inspired not by a few great men, but by the many persistent citizens who dwell in it, working their will from age to age without shadow ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... national necessity is as vital and even more pressing than the Panama Canal. It is worthy of the great Republic and of the great engineer—an achievement if successful which would twin with Panama and make Colonel Goethals immortal and our country's beneficence and ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... the political terminology of the present day, the whole western movement of our people was simply the most vital part of that great movement of expansion which has been the central and all-important feature of our history—a feature far more important than any other since we became a nation, save only the preservation of the Union itself. It was ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... description in Chapter III, a clear idea will have been obtained of the power house building and its adjuncts, as well as of the features which not only go to make it an architectural landmark, but which adapt it specifically for the vital function that it is called upon to perform. We now come to a review and detailed description of the power plant equipment in its general relation to the building, and "follow the power through" from the coal pile to the shafts of the ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... had been found. But the picture of Daggett's situation that occurred to his mind, urged him on, and he proceeded. Every precaution had been taken to exclude the cold, as it is usually termed, which, as it respects the body, means little else than keeping the vital heat in, and very useful were these provisions found to be. Skins formed the principal defence, though the men had long adopted the very simple but excellent expedient of wearing two shirts. Owing to this, and to the other measures taken, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of questions. At nearly every page of Mr. Gladstone's active career the vital problem stares us in the face, of the correspondence between the rule of private morals and of public. Is the rule one and the same for individual and for state? From these early years onwards, Mr. Gladstone's ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... his Belgians, on the other hand, knew full well that, in barring the invader's road, they were inevitably sacrificing their homes, their wives and their children. Unlike the heroes of Sparta, instead of possessing an imperative and vital interest in fighting, they had everything to gain by not fighting and nothing to lose—save honour. In the one scale were fire and the sword, ruin, massacre, the infinite disaster which we see; in the other was that little word honour, which also represents infinite things, but things ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... propagandism and some centuries of political rule and religious oppression, this religion is still an exotic, and finds, on the whole, small place in the affection of the people. This is owing in part to its want of adaptation and inherent lack of vital power. As Sir Monier William has said: "There is a finality and a want of elasticity about Mohammedanism which precludes its expanding beyond a certain fixed line of demarcation. Having once reached this line, it appears to lapse backwards—to ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... emendation, however specious, is mistaken. The original reading is, not a spendthrift's sigh, but a spendthrift sigh; a sigh that makes an unnecessary waste of the vital flame. It is a notion very prevalent, that sighs impair the strength, and wear out the ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... and had gold or embroidered bags in their hands, like those she had seen at Nice station. They went in looking straight ahead, and men ran up the steps quickly. Surely this was more than a mere building. There was something alive and vital and mysteriously attractive about it, though it was not beautiful at all architecturally, only rich looking and extraordinary, with its bronze youths sitting on the cornice and plaster figures starting out of the ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... close to the right side of the nearest buffalo, and drawing his bow at the moment of passing, buried the arrow to the feather. In an instant the horse wheeled to avoid the thrust which the wounded buffalo often makes; but Blackwolf's victim was stricken in a vital part, and he rolled over struggling and bleeding in the throes of deadly agony. Right and left the Indians scoured the plain in hot pursuit of the doomed and frightened animals, and never halting in the chase, but rushing from one to another as the huge beasts shouldered along in their ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... bunk-house he wondered vaguely what purchase he had to make that was so important as to induce him to make a special trip to Prouty. But since Pinkey had not chosen to tell him and Wallie had a talent for minding his own business, he dismissed it; besides, he had more vital things to think ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... a horse is death," said I, "if it touches a vital part. I am not, however, of your lordship's opinion with respect to mules: a good ginete may retain his seat on a horse however vicious, but a mule—vaya! when a false mule tira por detras, I do not believe that the Father of the Church himself could keep ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... him to Brussels, Dorothy, and he has learned something that will be of vital interest to you," Philip went on, idly leaning against the gate as if fate itself had sent him there to ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... the time, as she whirled, she was conscious also of some strange dim need. A sense of discomfort oppressed her arms. She hadn't everything she required for this solitary orgy. Something more was lacking her. Something essential, vital. But what on earth it could be she ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... his cloak for Queen Elizabeth to walk upon? See what a robe the maples have thrown down for you and me to walk upon! How one hesitates to soil it! The summer robes of the groves and the forests—more than robes, a vital part of themselves, the myriad living nets with which they have captured, and through which they have absorbed, the energy of the solar rays. What a change when the leaves are gone, and what a change when they come again! A naked tree may be a dead tree. The dry, inert bark, the ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... conversation which prompted her, unconsciously, to leave him. She had, without any special indication of herself, included herself among that company of old maids who are born and live and die without that vital interest in the affairs of life which nothing but family duties, the care of children, or at least of a husband, will give to a woman. If she had not meant this she had felt it. He had understood her meaning, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... have all been traceable to some working of the principle of monopoly, and it is important to know whether any established policy of governments lends force to this evil influence. Import duties were established in America for the purpose of protecting industries as such, and a vital question now is whether they have now begun to protect ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... Cabinet ministers disagreed with the majority on a vital question, and rose with a threat to resign. One of his friends advised the chairman to do anything to recover his aid, whereupon he ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... of nations on the other side the Atlantic. Party feeling, unless it be of a very enlightened, patriotic, and unselfish kind, is apt to breed the worst types of mental perversity, and give birth to paradoxes of the most startling character. And when a great national document, discussing matters vital to the well-being, prosperity and political advancement of the republic is declared by one influential paper to contain "no pregnant thought of statesmanship, no conspicuously original idea, no new issue to inspire discussion in Congress and among the people," and ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... to make the likeness complete he disdains those "fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies' favours ... a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad." But if Shakespeare had had any vital sympathy for soldiers and men of action he would not have degraded Henry V. in this fashion, into a feeble replica of the traditional Hotspur. In those narrow London streets by the river he must have ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... as a new way of validating their meaning for the individual. Faith, in our common use of the term, has hardened down into an intellectual acceptance of Protestant theologies, but certainly for St. Paul and probably for Luther it was far more vital than this and far more simple. It was rather a resting upon a delivering power, the assurance of whose desire and willingness to deliver was found in the New Testament. It was an end to struggle, a spiritual victory won ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... for many hundreds of years Christianity should have been received, generation after generation should have lived under its vital action, upon no sufficient argument, and suddenly such an argument should turn up as a reward to a man in a country not Christian for being more incredulous than his ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... vital question was, what had become of Zalu Zako? There were two alternatives: if the visions had been genuine ghosts, then undoubtedly Zalu Zako was dead; but if they had been produced through the magic of a white man, then, Bakahenzie argued, Zalu Zako and Marufa must be in ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... or "vital fluid" theory of disease which ruled during the Middle Ages. According to this, all disease was due to the undue predominance in the body of one of the four great vital fluids,—the bile, the blood, the nervous ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... dips, a hearth fire, and a loving heart! Earth had nothing more to give, and my spirit seemed glorified within me. I had a curious feeling of melting within me, which was by no means a desire to weep, but rather as if all the vital parts of the man I was had been suddenly turned to warm water. I cannot tell if any one has ever felt the like before, but certainly I did that night, and "warm water" comes as near to the real thing as I can ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... Culture and Christianity are so interwoven that we may never expect either, separate from the other, as a blessing to the world. The very fact that the Protestant nations of the earth, where God is honored by a free Bible, are the chief exponents of true culture, attests this connection. So vital is this relation that, "United they stand; ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... immediate neighbors and give proof of the friendship we really feel? I hope that the members of the Senate will permit me to speak once more of the unratified treaty of friendship and adjustment with the Republic of Colombia. I very earnestly urge upon them an early and favorable action upon that vital matter. I believe that they will feel, with me, that the stage of affairs is now set for such action as will be not only just but generous and in the spirit of the new age upon which ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... unobtrusively, and the grave dug out of sight of Gosshawk. But of course it could not long escape observation; that is to say, it was seen by the clerks; but the directors and manager were all seated round a great table upstairs absorbed in a vital question, viz., whether or not the Gosshawk should imitate some other companies, and insure against fire as well as death. It was the third and last discussion; the minority against this new operation was small, but obstinate and warm, and the majority ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... vitality, but the traits are all there. John A. Logan was a magnificent type of this temperament. Abraham Lincoln personified it in all its angularity and simplicity. Governor Ross, of this State, is strongly marked with it; while, to come nearer home, your own Barney Gibbs is as good an example of the vital phase of it as Lincoln was of the motive. Nearly all the Presidents of the United States were strongly endowed with this temperament, except Rutherford B. Hayes, who, on the contrary, was a fine example of the magnetic. You will remember that he was ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... lecturer; but one's attention to him depended on two things - a primary interest in the subject, and some elementary acquaintance with it. If, for example, his subject were the comparative anatomy of the cycloid and ganoid fishes, the difference in their scales was scarcely of vital importance to one's general culture. But if he were lecturing on fish, he would stick to fish; it would be essentially a ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... in the yard close by, and two professional bakers, with their assistants, were kept busy baking for the whole post. There happened to be a back entrance to this kitchen, and although the convalescents were not allowed inside, many were the interviews held at said door upon subjects of vital importance to the poor fellows who had walked far into the country to obtain coveted dainties which they wanted to have cooked "like my folks at home fix it up." They were never refused, and sometimes a dozen different "messes" were set off to await claimants,—potato-pones, cracklin bread, ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... of a part of the original draft. Had the Commission had the entire code revised they could not have shown greater wisdom. For the parts incomplete were those dealing with the Family Law and Successions, and the Commission remembered that these were the parts that occasioned the most vital objections to the old code. The Parliament referred the revised draft code to a Committee of their own, of which Mr. Hatoyama, the present Speaker, was made the chairman. After making a careful examination and some important modifications, Mr. Hatoyama reported favorably to its adoption. ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... conscience and sense of duty to be a party to it, when, at the same time, with the great increase of crime, I saw the extreme physical distress of the people of Ireland, arising from a deficiency of that which they had been accustomed to make their principal food. I felt, I say, that it was of vital importance that provision should first be made, by an effort on the part of the government, to relieve the physical wants of the people before this measure should be brought forward; and I resolved that I could ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... excellent as a daily conventional rule, but it should yield when there is a great natural question at issue. Modesty! a fictitious, artificial, inculcated shame to intrude itself between two people considering gravely the vital matter of their love, their union, ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... what capacity?' he persisted. 'Will ye risk your crowns in defence of King James's one, or will ye strike in, hit or miss, with these rogues of Devon and Somerset? Stop my vital breath, if I would not as soon side with the clown as with the crown, with all due ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... religion," he continued gently, "hasn't proved much of a vital force in your life, has it? Didn't it go to pieces at the first ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... bastion of welfare capitalism. The economy consists of a combination of free market activity and government intervention. The government controls key areas, such as the vital petroleum sector (through large-scale state enterprises), and extensively subsidizes agriculture, fishing, and areas with sparse resources. Norway maintains an extensive welfare system that helps propel public sector expenditures to more than 50% of GDP and results in one ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... was now far spent, She kneeled upon the floor. Her head she leant Down on the cold stone of the window-seat. God knows if there were any vital heat In those pale brows, or if they chilled the stone. And as she knelt, she made a bitter moan, With words that issued from a bitter soul,— 'O Mary, Mother, and is this thy goal, Thy peace which waiteth for the world-worn heart? Is it for this I live and ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... had changed. Indubitably Milly regarded him with a mixture of wonder and of awe. He had taken command of the situation in the house and developed it rationally. The house itself had become a converging point for all medical science could do for a man hit in a vital spot and having little chance of recovery. But what Raven knew to be the common sense of the measures he brought to pass, Milly, in her wildness of anxiety, looked upon as the miracles of genius. She even conciliated ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... later conflicts with Holland, while England was still able to live on its own products, the Dutch were in the position in which we are now, for the command of the sea was vital to their daily life. Their whole wealth depended on their great fishing fleets in the North Sea; their Indiamen which brought the produce of the East to Northern Europe through the Straits of Dover; and the carrying trade, in which they were the carriers ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... smoulder; and even Macedonia, formerly so tranquil, consumed its strength in the intestine strife that arose out of its new democratic constitutions. It was the fault of the rulers as well as the ruled, that the last vital energies and the last prosperity of the nations were expended in these aimless feuds. The client states ought to have perceived that a state which cannot wage war against every one cannot wage war at all, and that, as the possessions and power enjoyed by all ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... that such vast interests are involved,—the instruction of over twenty million pupils, requiring the service of more than half a million teachers, involving the expenditure of nearly three hundred million dollars per annum, and of vital interest to the whole population,—many educators believe that the bureau should be elevated to the dignity of a department of the government with a ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... of the adventure he said nothing. As secrecy seemed to be a vital element in his fifteen-cent scheme, I showed no embarrassing curiosity. Indeed, I felt but little, though I was certain that the adventure was connected with the world-cracking revelations of Monsieur Saupiquet, and was undertaken in the interest ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... words would be immortalized in print! and she would soar up and up... Some day, in the big magazines... Everybody would read her name there—all Cherryvale—and, perhaps, Ridgeley Holman Dobson would chance a brilliant, authoritative article on some deep, vital subject and wish to meet ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... . . . Something in her—that no fever or poison or death could take away—something for him! The thing was vivid to him for moments afterward; it lingered in dimmer outlines for hours; but as the days passed, he could only hold the vital essence of what he had learned ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... dramatic series from King John to Henry VIII, another series of equal rank, from Edward VI to the Landing of William of Orange. This is the only historical development of Europe which unites in itself all vital elements, and which we might look upon without overpowering pain. The tragedy of St. Elizabeth shows that Kingsley can grapple, not only with the novel, but with the more severe rules of dramatic art. And Hypatia proves, on the largest scale, that ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... belief that she had committed no sacrilege but enriched herself, perhaps immeasurably, perhaps eternally. She hardly dared steep herself in the infinite bliss. But his glance seemed to ask for some assurance upon another point of vital interest to him. It beseeched her mutely to tell him whether what she had read upon his confused sheet had any meaning or truth to her. She bent her head once more to the ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... he saw his master, he testified his joy by wagging his tail. He could do no more; he tried to rise, but his strength was gone. The vital tide was ebbing fast; and even the caresses of his master could not prolong his life for a few moments. He stretched out his tongue to lick the hand that was now fondling him in the agonies of regret, as ...
— Minnie's Pet Dog • Madeline Leslie
... if we do not take another method. Delolme on the British Constitution will not save us; deaf will the Parcae be to votes of the House, to leading articles, constitutional philosophies. The other method—alas, it involves a stopping short, or vital change of direction, in the glorious career which all Europe, with shouts heaven-high, is now galloping along: and that, happen when it may, will, to many of us, be probably a rather ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... between life and death. Miller's knife-thrust, although it had made a deep and dangerous wound, had not pierced any vital part; the amount of blood lost made Alfred's condition precarious. Indeed, he would not have lived through that first day but for a wonderful vitality. Col. Zane's wife, to whom had been consigned the delicate task of dressing the wound, ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... I can think of,' he responded, 'is for der next man—you hear me all, you men—to stick your knife at the end of the blood—where it collects in a lump. Dere is der creature's stomach, and a vital spot.' ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... obtained, while their approbation will form the greatest incentive and most gratifying reward for virtuous actions, and the dread of their censure the best security against the abuse of their confidence. Their interests in all vital questions are the same, and the bond, by sentiment as well as by interest, will be proportionably strengthened as they are better informed of the real state of public affairs, especially in difficult conjunctures. It is by such knowledge that local prejudices and jealousies are ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... with Craven she realized painfully how much she had missed him. Among all these people, many of them talented, clever, even fascinating, she was only concerned about him. To her he seemed almost like a vital human being in the midst of a crowd of dummies endowed by some magic with the power of speech. She only felt him at this moment, though she was conscious of the baron, Mrs. Ackroyde, Bobbie Syng, the duchess, and others who were near her. This ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... sight of the curious eyes of visitors. He was also glad that he had no other prisoner for company. His situation was one in which he wanted to be alone. To the plan that was forming itself in his mind, solitude was as vital as the cooperation of ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... important, the occupation of a captured line by this organization at once will supply a powerful, concentrated, and controlled fire, either to repulse a counter-charge or to fire on a discomfited, retiring enemy. Being a horsed organization, it can arrive at the critical point at the vital moment when, the defender's first line having been thrust out, our line being disorganized, a counter-charge by the enemy would be most effective, or controlled fire by our own troops on him ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... Many languages go incredibly far in this respect, it is true, but linguistic history shows conclusively that sooner or later the less frequently occurring associations are ironed out at the expense of the more vital ones. In other words, all languages have an inherent tendency to economy of expression. Were this tendency entirely inoperative, there would be no grammar. The fact of grammar, a universal trait of language, is simply a generalized expression ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... island,—recently gleaned from guide-books;—and when, presently, the whole party went for a stroll in a flower-strewn meadow, he took such decided possession of her, that the two were allowed to fall back, and discuss at their leisure one and another question of vital interest which he ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... past, nor despair of his future success."—Duncan's Cicero, p. 121. "Her monuments and temples had long been shattered or crumbled into dust."—Lit. Conv., p. 15. "Competition is excellent, and the vital principle in all these things."—DR. LIEBER: ib., p. 64. "Whether provision should or not be made to meet this exigency."—Ib., p. 128. "That our Saviour was divinely inspired, and endued with supernatural ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... strong man, but I staggered as I spoke. All creation was exaggerated. Colour grew more vivid, motion more rapid, life itself more vital. I hardly saw her for a moment, but I heard her voice—pitilessly sweet. She would not subdue one of her charms in compassion. Perhaps she did not know ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... familiar ease of manner, and a light off-hand vein of talk, which made the philosophy less sensible to the taste than any other ingredient in his pharmacopoeia. Turning everybody else out of the room, he examined his patient alone—sounded the old man's vital organs, with ear and with stethoscope—talked to him now on his feelings, now on the news of the day, and ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... soul. The struggle for freedom of every living thing has no conscience. Throughout the living world, from ameba to man, parasitism and slavery together with their by-products, physical and spiritual degeneracy, appear as the after effects of the more vital individual's efforts to remain alive and free. The origins of slavery may be seen in the parasitisms of the infectious diseases which kill man. The change from parasitism to slavery was an inevitable step of creative intelligence. In the transition evolution made one of those breaks ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... grasps the offered gift, the mouth that feeds upon the bread of God, the voice that says to Christ, 'Come in, Thou blessed of the Lord; why standest Thou without?' Such a faith alone brings us into vital connection with Jesus. Without it, you will be none the richer for all His fulness, and may perish of famine in the midst of plenty, like a man dying of hunger outside the door of a granary. They who believe take the Saviour who is given, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... all the vital functions are performed as in the waking state. She is fed with milk, broth and wine, which is given her in a spoon. Her mouth even sometimes opens of itself at the contact of the spoon, and she swallows without the slightest difficulty. At other ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... incessant coquetries of attire, its panoramic beauty of mountain and cape and sea-front, its parade of corporeal and egotistic pleasures, its primordial and undisguised appeal to the carnival spirit, its frank, exotic festivity, its volatile and almost too vital atmosphere, and, above all, its glowing and over-odorous gardens and flowerbeds, its overcrowded and grimly Dionysian Promenade, its murmurous and alluring restaurants on steep little boulevards—it was all a blind, Durkin argued with ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... Railways. The only difference of opinion has arisen from the anxiety of the parties to obtain a Railway of some description or other, which has led them to support different competing schemes; but all parties have united in the strongest representations of the vital importance to the district of obtaining a good Railway communication, in addition to those afforded by the Canals. A memorial signed by the representatives of 46 iron-works, 57 furnaces, and 98 collieries, ...
— Report of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade on the • Samuel Laing
... having failed in this attempt to infuse energy and decision into the counsels of his Chief, he turned him out and formed a Ministry with Carson in the office of First Lord of the Admiralty, at that time one of the most vital in the Government. Colonel James Craig also joined the Ministry as ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... been returned with the writing. Neither was there any word to him concerning his prayer to Pharaoh for the liberty of Rachel. It began to dawn on him that he had been released only after he had been sufficiently punished; that he had failed in the most vital aims of his mission; that the signet, having been found, seemed now to be lost irretrievably. For a space his relief at his freedom was overshadowed by chagrin, but after a little he recovered himself. "At least I am free to care ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... to be an interesting and valuable one. The topics discussed are of vital importance to the work, and the addresses will be worthy of the topics. Lowell is accessible, and its ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 48, No. 10, October, 1894 • Various
... quickly,—"I know them now. They have great absurdities, great vices even, but they have virtues, or, at the least, estimable qualities; in them lies the vital force of ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... Asiatic problem, however, is the political relation of the United States and the Asiatic Powers, especially in the Pacific. This is less intimately vital, but is important in view of the rapidly growing tendency of both China and Japan to expand in trade and political ambitions. This is a problem of political rather than social science, but since the welfare of both races is concerned, ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... marking signs of good or evil in the dispositions of our fellow-beings; just as in the beating of a single artery under the touch, we discover an indication of the strength or weakness of the whole vital frame. ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... assigned for the phenomenal ill-luck of the theater, but undoubtedly the vital objection to it as a Temple of Drama lay in the fact that nobody could ever find the place where it was hidden. Cabmen shook their heads on the rare occasions when they were asked to take a fare there. Explorers to whom a stroll through the Australian ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... it is vital to adopt the right frame of mind in your attempt to achieve self-hypnosis, particularly a deep state. If you approach hypnosis with a "prove-it-to-me" attitude, nothing is going to happen. Self-hypnosis requires practicing a set of mental exercises or mental gymnastics. ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... been organized into subdivisions; the Executive Committee shall have power to call, when they shall so determine, upon a Board of Delegates, to consist of three representatives from each division to confer with them upon matters of vital importance. ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... effective beyond a few thousand miles range at most—and the dark star could span millions. If the invader passed on, its havoc would be only a trifle smaller, for it had already destroyed two members of the solar system and was now striking at its most vital part. Without the sun, life would die, but even with the sun the planets must rearrange themselves because ...
— Raiders of the Universes • Donald Wandrei
... formed the vital flaw in the general defence; and it was upon these that Dick turned, charging at the head of his men. So vigorous was the attack that the Lancastrian archers gave ground and staggered, and, at last, breaking their ranks, began to crowd back into the houses from which they had so recently ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... schools disagree widely on this subject, and there are remedies employed with success the effect of which the most intelligent are unable to account for. So long as there is a single one of this character to be found, and while the operations of the vital functions are so concealed from us that we are unable fully to comprehend the process by which any specific operates, so long it is impossible to prescribe as a conditon of patentability, a full explanation of the mode ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... came upon her; she wept; and I desisted. It was my soul that she desired with the fire of her mighty love, and not my body.... And again, since it is to myself and to you alone I tell it, I would add this vital fact: it was this "new beauty which my finest dreams have left unmentioned" that made it somehow possible for me to desist, both against my animal ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... lady, you are perfectly right! I subscribe unreservedly to the rule, and try to follow it; but you have overlooked another rule—the most vital of the code." ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... Lord God was dealing with him as with a son, educating him, chastening him, purifying him and teaching him, by the chances and changes of his mortal life; whosoever, I say, has had any real taste of vital experimental religion—to David's Psalms he has gone, as to a treasure house, to find there his own feelings, his own doubts, his own joys, his own thoughts of God and His providence—reflected as in a glass; everything ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... passion for clap-trap, only wanting to be left alone to push trade and make money; so ignorant as to believe that feudalism can be abated without any heroic Stein, by providing that in one insignificant case out of a hundred thousand, land shall not follow the feudal law of descent; without a single vital idea or sentiment or feeling for beauty or appropriateness; well persuaded that if more trade is done in England than anywhere else, if personal independence is without a check, and newspaper publicity unbounded, that is, by the nature of things, to be great; misled every morning by the magnificent ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... our friends, the populists, have enacted rather peculiar divorce laws. And without some vital cause, the application must be signed by both parties. It's in the nature ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... responsive to each other meet, and they at once strike the chord of ardent social enjoyment in their companionship, and the note of prelude to an enthusiastic friendship. Let a sudden separation come in the external world, and the mutual spiritual experience is strangely full of color, of vital sympathy, of vivid perceptions. Evidently, the spirits of each meet and mingle, independent of the fact that a thousand miles of distance lie between the individuals. What is distance to the spiritual being? It is not an element which bears ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... which "is not of the Father, but is of the world"? Life itself we know is of the Father. In whatever sense we take that much-meaning word, life is God's gift. The mere physical being, if that be life, is the creation of His mighty word. The continuance, the prolongation of the vital function, if that be life, that too is the result of His never-sleeping care. The surrounding circumstances, the scenery of our experience, if that be life, is also of His arranging. The spiritual vitality, all the higher powers as we call them, ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... joy had he known how carefully Randall Clayton had already entered the accidentally found address in the little silver-clasped address book, in which he had recorded, with judicious cabalistic cloudiness, the combinations of his safes and certain vital private ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... was a clear green light. The sky gave it out, and there seemed to be also a green glow from the earth. Charlotte went down the hill with the evening air fresh and damp in her face. Lilacs were in blossom all about, and their fragrance was so vital and intense that it seemed almost like a wide presence in the ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... intoxication, is certainly one of fumigation. The face of a German is composed invariably of the following features: two eyes, a nose, a mouth, and a pipe. Whichever of these features is movable, the pipe at least is a fixture. Fortified by this vital organ, he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... never had been robust, began to show the effects of sedentary life, but the warning of a long siege of nervous dyspepsia was suffered to pass unheeded, and for five or six years he labored prodigiously, his mind expanding and his intellect growing more brilliant as the vital powers decayed. ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... Sometimes hasty, unjust, or even ungenerous, he was indifferent to the enemies he too needlessly created, and was hated by many and not loved even by those who respected his devotion and competence. He spared neither his subordinates nor, least of all, Edwin Stanton, and spendthrift of vital force and energy went his way, one of the great war ministers like Carnot and Pitt. Now, as they stood about to part, he showed feeling with which few would have given him credit, and for which ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... Bill had been near the point of utter exhaustion from his day's toil in the snow and his labor of building the fire. The vital nervous fluids no longer sprang forth to his muscles at the command of his brain: they came tardily, if at all. The fountain of his nervous energy had simply run down as the battery runs down in a motor, and it could ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... eloquence to move and persuade men is universally recognized. To-day the public speaker plays a vital part in the solution of every great question and problem. Oratory, in the true sense, is not a lost art, but a potent means of imparting information, instruction, ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... to be done? There is but one way—the Cross of Christ, "by which," as Paul says, "the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." It is only through death to the world that we can be freed from its spirit. The separation must be vital and entire. It is only through the acceptance of our crucifixion with Christ that we can live out this confession, and, as crucified to the world, maintain the position of irreconcilable hostility to whatever is of its spirit and not of the Spirit of God; ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... health and strength must be preserved intact; therefore during the remainder of that day an abundant supply of food was provided for them, and they were urged with the utmost solicitude to partake of it freely. Which they did; for as Phil remarked to Dick, their strength was never of such vital importance to them as now; since it was not to be supposed that they were going to submit to be slowly tortured to death without at least making an effort to escape; and for that effort to be successful they must ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... prosperous bastion of welfare capitalism, featuring a combination of free market activity and government intervention. The government controls key areas, such as the vital petroleum sector, through large-scale state enterprises. The country is richly endowed with natural resources - petroleum, hydropower, fish, forests, and minerals - and is highly dependent on its oil production and international oil prices, with oil and gas accounting ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... grew as he played with it. As his spin took on a more complicated character, his zest rose. He went forth on Sunday feeling as if some vital change was impending. His little cruise loomed up large, important, epochal. He laughed at himself and thought, with his customary optimism, that a vacation was worth waiting twelve years for, if waiting endowed it with such a flavor. ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... vigils, in which case he is denounced as a Ritualist. Or he may be either a Unitarian Deist like Voltaire or Tom Paine, or the more modern sort of Anglican Theosophist to whom the Holy Ghost is the Elan Vital of Bergson, and the Father and Son are an expression of the fact that our functions and aspects are manifold, and that we are all sons and all either potential or actual parents, in which case he is strongly suspected by the straiter Salvationists of being little better than ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... thick, black moustache, and Anthony liked her less than he could have wished. But she had been Jan's nurse, and was faithful and trustworthy beyond words. He would never let Jan go to the country ahead of him, for without her he always left behind everything most vital to his happiness, so she was to join him next day and see that ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... of man, there exists a wide difference of opinion on some of the most vital questions respecting his nature and origin. Anthropologists are now, indeed, pretty well agreed that man is not a recent introduction into the earth. All who have studied the question, now admit that his antiquity is very ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace |
