"Vital" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hands that had carried off three sentinels, would, it was reasonable to believe, make no attempt to spirit away a whole company of men. And for future action as well as to put an end to the superstitious terror of the soldiery, the vital necessity was to clear up the mystery. He had no belief in the theory that these men deserted. He knew them too well. He prided himself mat he was thoroughly acquainted with his own regiment, and had well-grounded reasons for pride in his men. For this reason he was the more chary of exposing ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... It evidently never occurred to you, Jay, that it's an inconvenience to us—that all this vital knowledge should lie, purely by accident, in the hands of the one man who's too damned ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... own inconsistencies in dwelling upon accidents in Tess's life as if they were vital features. It was for herself that he loved Tess; her soul, her heart, her substance—not for her skill in the dairy, her aptness as his scholar, and certainly not for her simple formal faith-professions. ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... lamp, The mountains, woods, and streams, the rolling globe, And Wisdom's mien celestial. From the first Of days, on them his love divine he fix'd, 70 His admiration: till in time complete What he admired and loved, his vital smile Unfolded into being. Hence the breath Of life informing each organic frame; Hence the green earth, and wild resounding wares; Hence light and shade alternate, warmth and cold, And clear autumnal skies and vernal showers, And all the fair variety of things. But not alike ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... of Taking Food is not a matter of indifference; very young infants make an exception; for, as their consumption of vital power is more rapid, they may be more ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... tortuous snies, to be groped along dexterously with the poles, but dropped at last into better water, ending at a portage, where we dined. This portage led to the farmhouse of a Mr. Houle, a native of Red River, who had left St. Vital fifty-eight years before, and was now settled at a beautiful spot on the right bank of the river, and had horses, cows and other cattle, a garden, and raised wheat and other grain, which he said did well, and was evidently prosperous. After a regale of milk we embarked for the first Wahpooskow ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... particularly was the queer trick of my memory that had never recalled anything vital of Beatrice whatever when I met Garvell again that had, indeed, recalled nothing except a boyish antagonism and our fight. Now when my senses were full of her, it seemed incredible that I could ever ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... human aims, human relations in the business of life, such as hardly another can possess. Even the poet, greatly wise in virtue of his sympathy, will scarcely understand a given human condition so well as the man whose vital tentacles have been in contact with ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... the telephone bell rang, sharply, insistently in the hall. It went on ringing, again and again, a curiously vital sound in the quiet house; but Anstice did not hear it, and at length the ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... weight from one leg to the other, as he stood at a shop entrance with his lady's mantle over his arm; twice have I seen one stroke his chin, and several times have I observed others, during the month of July, conduct themselves in many respects like animate objects with vital organs. Lest this incendiary statement be challenged, levelled as it is at an institution whose stability and order are but feebly represented by the eternal march of the stars in their courses, I hasten to explain that ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... almost constant enemy to disclose. Enough, however, was known to leave no doubt of the greatness of the risks, and it was the master's part to represent them. The occasion, however, was not one of a mere diversion, of a secondary operation, but of one vital to the nation's cause; and Hawke's reply, stamped with the firmness of a great officer, showed how little professional timidity had to do with his laudable care of his fleet in Basque Roads two years before. "You have done your duty in warning me," he replied; ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... from various sources receives careful thought in connection with its use in gunpowder; so, too, the sulphur used for this particular purpose, and there is recommended as a source of this ingredient, the common pyrites so abundant throughout the States. Among other topics, of vital interest in these days, discussed in the continuing articles, is the manufacture of spirit from potatoes. The method employed in Germany is presented in detail after which it ...
— James Cutbush - An American Chemist, 1788-1823 • Edgar F. Smith
... was projected high into the air. Mr Falconer's boat was being hauled rapidly towards it. A long lance with which he was armed was quickly buried in the side of the huge creature, going deep down into a vital part. The other boats gathered round it, from each a lance was darted forth, the whale rolling over and over in his agony, and coiling the rope round him, when suddenly, with open jaws, he darted at one of the boats, and then attacked another. Kitty shrieked out with fear, for it was ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... lived—and, the beautiful steps went up at the back to the 'pantry and to the side was the smoke house', she jumped up and illustrated—'the smoke come up from here, and the meat was hangin' all here', she showed vital interest in everything she told, and was absorbed in her subject, as when we relate experiences which ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... may be readily exhausted; for a time the bite would then be harmless. Contrary to the general impression, snake-venom when swallowed is a deadly poison, as proved by the experiments of Fayrer, Mitchell, and Reichert. Death is most likely caused by paralysis of the vital centers through the circulation. In this country the wounds invariably are on the extremities, while in India the cobra sometimes strikes ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... forward and picked up the little boy, who, although fearfully bitten about the leg, was still alive. It had not before uttered a sound, but now it began to cry as it saw the blood streaming from the wounded limb. As far as I could judge, no vital part had been touched, and I told Aboh to say to the mother, that if she would let us doctor it we would do so, as I had hopes of its recovery. Having washed it then and there in cold water, we stopped the blood, bound ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... in the duties of secret devotion is a mark of religious declension. It is well said that prayer is the Christian's vital breath. A devout spirit is truly the life and soul of godliness. The soul can not but delight in communion with what it loves with warm affection. The disciple, when his graces are in exercise, does not enter into his closet and shut ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... said. He understood the instrument, certainly, for if there is one characteristic more than another which should distinguish pen methods it is Directness. The nature of the pen seems to mark as its peculiar function that of picking out the really vital features of a subject. Pen drawing has been aptly termed the "shorthand of Art;" the genius of ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis
... containing literally nothing whatever but one old silver coin. But the coin, to those who knew, was more solitary and splendid than the Koh-i-noor. It was Roman, and was said to bear the head of St. Paul; and round it raged the most vital controversies about the ancient British Church. It could hardly be denied, however, that the controversies left ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... road to and from the church. He recognized them all, and knew them by their horses when some distance away. As clothes betray a person when his face is not observable, so do horses and sleighs on a country road. They seem to be vital parts of the owners, and to separate them would be fatal. No one could imagine Mrs. Stickles seated in a finely-upholstered sleigh and driving a high-mettled horse. She and Sammy, the home-made pung and the old lean mare plodding onward, ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... resolved to resist to the end, and would brook no parleying with the enemy. They were in fact political nationalists of a different school and leaning from the aristocrats and the priests. The latter regarded political life and the Temple service as vital parts of the national life, and believing that the legions were invincible were anxious to keep peace with Rome. The Zealots regarded personal liberty and national independence as vital, and, to vindicate them, fought ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... harder one than the council's. The moral shock of the atomic bombs had been a profound one, and for a while the cunning side of the human animal was overpowered by its sincere realisation of the vital necessity for reconstruction. The litigious and trading spirits cowered together, scared at their own consequences; men thought twice before they sought mean advantages in the face of the unusual eagerness to realise new aspirations, and ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... smallest orb That circles through the sky; He would not give A meteor to my guidance; would not leave The coloring of a cloudlet to my hand; He locks my beating heart beneath its bars And keeps the key himself; He measures out The draughts of vital breath that warm my blood, Winds up the springs of instinct which uncoil, Each in its season; ties me to my home, My race, my time, my nation, and my creed So closely that if I but slip my wrist Out of the band that cuts ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... once broken, his return to strength was rapid. Although accompanied by delirium, and though running its full course of weeks, the "mountain fever" is not as intense as typhoid. The exhaustion of the vital forces is not as great, and recuperation is easier. In two days Bennington was sitting up in bed, possessed of an appetite that threatened to depopulate entirely the little log chicken coop. He found that the tenancy ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... far, to her, he continued to remain the same familiar baby she had always known—the same and utterly vital part of her soul and body. No sudden fulfilment of an apocalypse had yet wrought any occult metamorphosis in ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... common cause with Dr. Dollinger, "looking more to points where they agree, and not to points where they differ." Why should not the same rule be adopted towards brethren who differ from ourselves so little on points that are vital and eternal? The principle which I would apply to the circumstances, I think, may be thus stated: I would join with fellow-Christians in any good works or offices, either of charity or religion, where I could do so without compromise ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... is shown to be dependent upon and concurrent with the vegetative processes of the demonstrated organisms characterizing these ferments; so it can be shown with equal clearness and certainty that the entire process of what is known as putrescence is equally and as absolutely dependent on the vital processes of a given and discoverable ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... of disease is removed, will of herself, restore health to the body. Reduce the strength of the patient, and you reduce the patient's power to get well. Do bleeding, blistering, starving and drastic purges strengthen the vital forces, or add power to the recuperative system? No! All these tend to reduce the restorative forces by weakening the alimentary, respiratory, circulatory and nervous systems of the body; the only powers upon which the physician may rely, and to ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... off to the northwest with a bold, large, and dignified movement. The coloring, blue and silver, purple-brown and bronze-green, was harmonious with the grouping of lines. It was all fresh and vital, wholesome ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... highest moment ought not to be overlooked. In view of our increasing population, social complexities, and industrial and commercial engagements of all kinds, time is of vital importance for the purposes of domestic legislation and internal improvements. Is the time and brainpower of our legislators, and of those of our colonies too, to be diverted perpetually from their own special concerns ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 9: The Expansion of England • John Morley
... blending of the eclogue with the mythological tale. The drama was developing on independent lines. Thus although, like the other romances of the late Greek school, it supplied many incidents and descriptions to be found in later works, it played no vital part in the history of pastoral, and left no mark either on the general form or on the spirit that animated the kind. Longus' romance finds its true descendant, as well as its closest imitation, in a work that achieved celebrity on the eve of the French ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Nonentitarians of vulgar mould, he tenants it with Soul or Spirit, or Mind, which Soul, or Spirit, or Mind, according to his own showing, is nothing but body in action; in other terms, organised matter performing vital functions. Idle declamation against 'facts mongers' well becomes such self-stultifying dealers in fiction. Abuse of 'experimentarians' is quite in keeping with the philosophy of those who maintain the reality of mind in face of their own strange statement, that magnetism is the ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... Carson appeared on the next morning. Living at some distance from Mrs. Wykoff's, she did not come until after breakfast. The excellent lady had thought over the incident of the day before, and was satisfied that, from lack of nutritious food at the right time, Mary's vital forces were steadily wasting, and that she would, in a ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... fret and fume, And thus in strife themselves consume; Or from each other wildly start, And with a noise forever part. But see the happy, happy pair, Of genuine love and truth sincere; With mutual fondness while they burn, Still to each other kindly turn; And as the vital sparks decay, Together gently sink away; Till life's fierce trials being past, Their ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... have a fleet for every harbor, it would be impossible to depend upon this kind of defense, as the enemy would select whichever harbor he found least prepared to receive him. It would be of vital importance that we defend every harbor of importance, as a neglect to do so would be like locking some of our doors and leaving the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... fattened by being fed, out of the water, if their gills are wet from time to time with humid moss, to prevent them from becoming dry. Fish separate their gill-covers wider in oxygen gas than in water. Their temperature however, does not rise; and they live the same length of time in pure vital air, and in a mixture of ninety parts nitrogen and ten oxygen. We found that tench placed under inverted jars filled with air, absorb half a cubic centimetre of oxygen in an hour. This action takes place in the gills only; for fishes on which a collar of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... For this beneficent vital-spark every body, but a lawyer, is in search; and it is what every body, but a lawyer, is delighted to find. No wonder therefore that a lawyer should meet discomfiture, and confusion, when he pretends to discuss the abstract nature ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... to New York to investigate various business interests of her late husband, and finds herself face to face at the outset with the two most vital ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... and when we should have to sustain the onslaught of an entire army. Would the people, that great revolutionary populace of the faubourgs of Paris, abandon their Representatives? Would they abandon themselves? Or, awakened and enlightened, would they at length arise? A question more and more vital, and which we repeated to ourselves ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... Sixth Reader, were presented to us samples of the best English ever written. If you can find, up in the garret, a worn and frayed old Reader, take it down and turn its pages over. See if anything in these degenerate days compares in vital strength and beauty with the story of the boy that climbed the Natural Bridge, carving his steps in the soft limestone with his pocket knife. You cannot read it without a thrill. The same inspired hand wrote "The Blind Preacher," and who that ever can read it can forget the ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... your eyes in the black-blue gloom, and watch the weird gush of lights that follow your every motion: each luminous point, as seen through the flood, like the opening and closing of an eye! At such a moment, one feels indeed as if enveloped by some monstrous sentiency,—suspended within some vital substance that feels and sees and wills alike in every part, an infinite ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... was fortunate that we found you at liberty and able to assist us in a matter which is of vital importance to us both. This is Miss Anita Lawton, daughter of the late Pennington Lawton, who desires your aid on a most ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... most) houses I have visited, I see in the bookcase large publications in six or seven well-bound parts and as good as new, dealing with subjects of little interest to anyone who breathes the vital air of heaven. Such titles as Science for All, The Thames from its Source to the Sea, The Queens of England are among the commonest on the boards of the books I allude to. The presence of these editions indicates ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... cheerfully and as though it were really not a matter of vital importance, that there is no doubt that I have got IT. He remarks that IT is all over the place, and that he has a couple of hundred other cases at the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... the union of soul and body. Thus the movement of heavy and light things results from their substantial form: for which reason they are said to be moved by their generator, as the Philosopher states (Phys. viii, 4). Wherefore this movement is called "vital." For which reason Gregory of Nyssa (Nemesius, De Nat. Hom. xxii) says that, just as the movement of generation and nutrition does not obey reason, so neither does the pulse which is a vital movement. By the pulse he means the movement of the heart which is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... brother, who had taken up his quarters again, after the war, in his mansion in the Avenue of the Bois de Boulogne, where he was consuming the fortune left him by his wife, Louise de Mareuil, become prudent, with the wisdom of a man struck in a vital part, and trying to cheat the paralysis which ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... seems to have been as natural to the man as his amiable manner) is sometimes made his reproach, as if it were his sole merit, and as if he had concealed under this charming form a want of substance. In literature form is vital. But his case does not rest upon that. As an illustration his "Life of Washington" may be put in evidence. Probably this work lost something in incisiveness and brilliancy by being postponed till the writer's old age. But whatever ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Ocean as the capricious and tyrannical god of the poets. Everything in his depths was working with a vital regularity, subject to the general laws of existence. Even the tempests roared ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... room. I looked at her bare neck, lithe and perfumed, on which rested her knotted hair confined by a jewelled comb; that neck, the seat of vital force, was blacker than hell; two shining tresses had fallen there and some light silvern hairs balanced above it. Her shoulders and neck, whiter than milk, displayed a heavy growth of down. There was in that knotted mass of hair something ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... which they will call illness. You see, the Jivros are our doctors. Much of the wisdom of our race is in their hands. They are our priests and our administrators. They leave to us only useless occupations which will not allow us to be dangerous. For centuries they have been taking over every vital function of our life. I am allowed to live only so long as I am a willing tool, and foolish enough to wreak their evil will upon my people. It is a part I cannot continue to play. Every instinct of my being shrinks from what I am forced to order done daily, from ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... like the evil genius in the fairy tale, now dwindling to a mere seed, now bursting into a devouring fire. When, with an honest purpose, we probe it and pluck at it, still we may detect it in the lowest socket of the heart. Often it is most vital when we feel most sure that it is vanquished. It delights in the garb of humility, and finds its food in the profession of self-renunciation. See its grossest expression in the desire for physical superiority—the glory of the ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... Pacific, by way of Baffin's or Hudson's Bay, several expeditions were organized to complete the discoveries of Mackenzie, and survey the North American coast. These expeditions were not fraught with any great danger, and the results might be of the most vital importance alike to geographical and nautical science. The command of the first was entrusted to Franklin afterwards so justly celebrated, with whom were associated Dr. Richardson, George Back, then a midshipman in the royal navy, and two ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... of circulatory process into which mental excitements and physiological changes enter, and these are so subtly related to each other that one always increases the other, until the maximum desire is reached, to which the will must surrender. Nature needs this automatic function; otherwise the vital needs of individual and race might be suppressed by other interests, and neglected. In the case of the sexual instinct, the mutual relations between the various parts of this circulatory process are especially complicated. Here it must be sufficient to say that the idea of sexual ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... good book and great, that too often we fail to observe or understand the influence for good of a boy's recreational reading. Such books may influence him for good or ill as profoundly as his play activities, of which they are a vital part. The needful thing is to find stories in which the heroes have the characteristics boys so much admire—unquenchable courage, immense resourcefulness, absolute fidelity, conspicuous greatness. We believe the books of EVERY BOY'S LIBRARY ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... from a very early period any aggressive policy of absorption in regard to the Hawaiian group, a long series of declarations through three-quarters of a century has proclaimed the vital interest of the United States in the independent life of the Islands and their intimate commercial dependence upon this country. At the same time it has been repeatedly asserted that in no event could the entity of Hawaiian statehood cease by the passage of the Islands ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... people. From the want of this arose unjust wars, unjust legislation, unjust monopoly, of which the existing Corn Laws were the most grievous instance. There was no danger in confiding the suffrage to the working classes, who had a vital interest in the public prosperity, and had evinced the truest ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... would suggest, that as each brick in a magnificent structure might have had no special value alone on the road-side, yet, in combination with many others, its size, position, quality, becomes of vital consequence; so with the actors in any great reform, though they may be of little value in themselves; as a part of a great movement they may be worthy of mention—even important to the completion ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... thing, by dying, ceases to have vital operations: for which reason, by a kind of metaphor, a thing is said to be deadened when it is hindered from producing ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... quarter, from being merely an odd piece of loose change, took on a vital, tangible character of its own. Translated into smokes, it gave a smoke a new value. He had started in to make a box of cigarettes last a day; but he was now resolved to make them last two days. This allowed him one after each meal ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... remembered the golden rule: "Do unto others as ye would that men should do to you." Possessing absolute power over the bodies and souls of their slaves, and grown rich from their unrequited toil, they became possessed by the demon of avarice and pride, and lost sight of the most vital ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... in quiet, decorous talk, touching on nothing vital, but holding a smoldering fire underneath. The young men said nothing about the fact that the regiment had been called to duty, and soon the camp on the bluff would be breaking up. They dared not touch on the past, and they as little ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... exultation of the past and with confidence of the future of the Original Democratic Party, we can think of nothing like it but Charles II. taking the Solemn League and Covenant, with an unctuous allusion to the persecutions WE Covenanters have undergone, and the triumphs of vital piety to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... moment and narrowed his eyes. "Now," he said "it is of vital importance to you to know who gave that order ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... Roman Empire. The municipal system, which from the names and duties of its officers would seem to represent a surprising amount of local independence in matters of administration, even a collection of small almost free republics, had lost all its strength and all its vital power by the grinding exactions of a centralized despotism, which was compelled to support its declining power by strengthening the very forces which were working its destruction, at the expense of destroying those from which it ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... things in the right perspective.... She had made friends with him because he was one of the few private soldiers who could speak her language. It was but natural that she should tell him of the sunken packet. It was one of the most vital facts of her life. But just an outside fact: nothing to do with any shy mysterious workings of her woman's soul. She might have told the story to any man in the company without derogation from her womanly dignity. And any man Jack of them, having Jeanne's confidence, having the knowledge ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... her old tone with him. For the moment both forgot the possible issue of this errand upon which they were going; only the vital relations at ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... who was present told his majesty that the only thing that saved your life was your threat to aim at Branicki's head. This frightened him, and to keep your ball from his head he stood in such an awkward position that he missed your vital parts. Otherwise he would undoubtedly have shot you through the heart, for he can split a bullet into two halves by firing against the blade of a knife. It was also a lucky thing for you that you escaped ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and to an extent which he little suspected. That Upper Dam trout was to her like the first taste of blood to the tiger. It seemed to change, at once, not so much her character as the direction of her vital energy. She yielded to the lunacy of angling, not by slow degrees, (as first a transient delusion, then a fixed idea, then a chronic infirmity, finally a mild insanity,) but by a sudden plunge into the most violent mania. So far from being ready to die at Upper Dam, her desire now was to live there—and ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... our vital organs, and of the cessation to be, so that we move no longer upon the face of the earth, and that our places know us no more, or the idea of being swept away suddenly into eternal oblivion, and of being ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... important questions. Every effort was made to suppress these reports, but again the press gained the day. Henceforth the nation could learn how far its representatives really represented the will of the people, and so could hold them strictly accountable,—a matter of vital importance in ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... and the following Sunday Dr. Hoffman marched into the parlor with a vital at-home step. Margaret was up-stairs. Hanny sat in her little rocker reading her Sunday-school book. He smiled and came over to her, took away her book, and clasping both hands drew her up, seated himself, and her on his knee before ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Lutheranism wanted. The latter had, indeed, in its favor, the liberty of inquiry, which is also a want of the human mind; and had proclaimed the authority of individual reason: but it had so lost that which is the necessary basis and vital condition of all revealed religion—the principle of infallibility; because nothing can live except in virtue of the laws that presided at its birth; and, in consequence, one revelation cannot be continued and confirmed without another. Now, infallibility is nothing ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have it, he met in full flight one of the two dingoes that had escaped him on the day of the attack upon wounded Jess. It was an evil chance for that dingo. A fanged whirlwind smote him, and rended him limb from limb before he realized that the devastating thing had come, scattering his vital parts among the scrub and tearing wildly at his mangled remains. A mother kangaroo was surprised by the ghostly grey fury, at some distance from the rest of her small mob, and, though she fought with the fury of ten males of her species (bitterly conscious of the young thing ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... that ever did, or did not, "buckle to." Then would come a happy cure to aching bones—made whole with honourable bruises, oblivious of pain, the "bruchia livida," lithesome and triumphant. Your devotion to the sex has been seasoned under burning sun and winter frost, and has yet vital heat against icy age, come on fast as it will. You would not chill, Eusebius, though you were hours under a pump in a November night, and lusty arms at work ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... will see what I mean. The Trentino is, you will note, nothing but a prolongation of the valleys of Lombardy and Venetia. Held by Austria, it is like a great intrenched camp in the heart of northern Italy, menacing the valley of the Po, which is one of the kingdom's most vital arteries, and the link between her richest and most productive cities. From the Trentino, with its ring of forts, Austria can always threaten and invade her neighbor. She lies in the mountains, with the plains ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... allay. The affair of Lord A- and Mrs. B- is too well known to need repetition—it could not succeed a second time. Abelard F- having paid the debt of nature, there was no impediment but a visit to the temple of Hymen, on which point the lady was determined; and the yielding suitor, wounded to the vital part, most readily complied. It is due to the countess to admit, that since her present elevation, her conduct has been exemplary and ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... is rendered by him who, with fearlessness and honesty, with sanity and disinterestedness, does his life work as a member of such a body. Especially is this the case when the legislature in which the service is rendered is a vital part in the governmental machinery of one of those world powers to whose hands, in the course of the ages, is intrusted a leading part in shaping the destinies of mankind. For weal or for woe, for good ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt
... that the enjoyment of it might be restored to him—it was possible. Whether that possibility ever came off or not, he literally dared not regard it just then. To put himself in safety was the one, the vital consideration. And his Highmarket property and his share in the business only represented a part of Mallalieu's wealth. He could afford to do without all that he left behind him; it was a lot to leave, he ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... transmitted the letter from France to Captain Jones, with directions that he endeavor to intercept and capture this transport. The destitution of the American army at this period of the war was frightful: devoid of clothes, arms, provisions, powder,—everything, in fact, which is apparently vital to the existence of an army; continually beaten, menaced by a confident, well-equipped, and disciplined enemy in overwhelming force, and before whom they had been habitually retreating, they were only held together by the ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... ghost's command, and has the same origin. For there is no apathy like that of an over-mastering passion, whether it be love or jealousy, or a new faith, or a terrible doubt. It draws away the life from other duties and interests, and leaves them pale and semi-vital. Men thus possessed acknowledge the duties they evade, let slip occasion, are "lapsed in time and passion," and are surprised at their ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... Irishman as that rude person I told you about at the outset and I want to see everyone, concluded he, all creeds and classes pro rata having a comfortable tidysized income, in no niggard fashion either, something in the neighbourhood of 300 pounds per annum. That's the vital issue at stake and it's feasible and would be provocative of friendlier intercourse between man and man. At least that's my idea for what it's worth. I call that patriotism. Ubi patria, as we learned a smattering of in our classical days in Alma Mater, vita bene. Where you can live ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... different tones and with a different gospel. Yet my words should have a sweetness his had not, my gospel a power that should draw where his repelled. For my love, shaken not yet shattered, wounded not dead, springing again to full life and force, should breathe its vital energy into her soul and impart of its endless abundance till her heart was full. Entranced by this golden vision, I rose and looked from the window at the dawning day, praying that mine might be the task, ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... living creatures now on the earth must, therefore, have had some origin. That origin is not due to spontaneous generation, according to the testimony of the most enlightened scientists, Professor Haeckel to the contrary notwithstanding. The various vital manifestations and exhibitions of force in the universe are due to some cause. The intuitions of mankind, as well as the teachings of science, declare there must be a cause lying behind the universe which ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various
... getting away from Dartymoor, because the place had used her bad, and she hated the sight of it; but Jonathan, a proud chap even then, got the lawyers to look into the matter, and they told him that 'twasn't vital for Dunnabridge to be sold, though it might ease his pocket, and smooth his future to do so, 'specially as Duchy wanted the place rather bad, and had offered the value of it. And Jonathan's mother was on the side of Duchy, too, and went ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... to tell another to calm himself, but who among us can compass such a frame of mind when he is hit in a vital spot? The ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... conception. The king and his court were surrounded by pimps, panders, courtesans, and flatterers. The example of the court spread throughout the country—religion became a jest and laughing-stock; and those who were not to be cajoled out of their soul's eternal happiness—whose vital godliness preserved them in the midst of such evil examples and allurements, were persecuted with unrelenting rigour. The virtuous Lord William Russel, and the illustrious Sydney, fell by the hands ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the first quarter of the eighteenth century had very little rest. Until long past midnight a noisy, lawless, drunken rabble made the streets hideous. It was quite three o'clock, when as physiologists tell us the vital forces are at their lowest, before it could be said that the city was asleep. And that sleep did not last long. Soon the creaking of market cart and waggon wheels, the shouts of drovers and waggoners, tramping horses, bellowing ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... in the navy knew, Captain Vince was a most dangerous swordsman. In duel or in warfare, no man yet had been able to stand before him. With skilled arm and eye and with every muscle of his body trained, his sword sought a vital spot in his opponent. There was no thought now in the mind of Vince about disarming the pirate and taking him prisoner; this terrible wild beast, this hairy monster must be killed or he himself must die. Through the whirl and clash and hot breath of battle he had ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... of the most able and learned of ecclesiastical writers, and possessed also a mind most vigorous and original. His discoveries in pneumatic chemistry have exceeded those of any other philosopher. He discovered vital air, many new acids, chemical substances, paints, and dyes. He separated nitrous and oxygenous airs, and first exhibited acids and alkalies in a gaseous form. He ascertained that air could be purified by the process of vegetation, and that light evolved pure air from vegetables. He detected ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... exaltation which in the dramatic experience usurps the place of definite feeling. We have met this phenomenon before. Aesthetic emotion in general, we have heard, consists just in the union of a kind of stimulation or enhanced life, with repose; a heightening of the vital energies unaccompanied by any tendency to movement,—in short, that gathering of forces which we connect with action, and which is felt the more because action is checked. Just such a repose through equilibrium of impulses is given by the dramatic conflict. Introspection makes assurance ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... to discover the women who were living on homesteads and who, in their own way, played so vital a part in developing the West. One of our nearest neighbors—by straining our eyes we could see her little shack perched up against the horizon—put on her starched calico dress and gingham apron and came right over to call. The Widow Fergus, she ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... duty to promote their advancement in the world. To promote, such is the perversity of unprincipled prejudices, the future welfare of the very beings whose present existence they imbitter by the most despotic stretch of power. Power, in fact, is ever true to its vital principle, for in every shape it would reign without controul or inquiry. Its throne is built across a dark abyss, which no eye must dare to explore, lest the baseless fabric should totter under investigation. ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... surprising, and at that particular moment so inconsequent. Was his daughter not weighing—with prayer, he hoped, and certainly with all her senses—the prospect of an alliance with the Duke of Marshire? How, then, could she pause in a meditation of such vital interest to make capricious remarks ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... is, to take care of that vital principle of every state, its revenue. The next is, to preserve the magistracy and legal authorities in honor, respect, and force. And the third, to preserve the property, movable and immovable, of all the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... have no reason to believe that any such is at present contemplated; but that the principle of the "sliding scale," as it is called, will be firmly adhered to, we entertain no doubt whatever. The conduct of the agricultural interest, with reference to subjects of such vital importance to them as the Corn-Law Bill and the Tariff, has been characterized by signal forbearance and fortitude; nor, let them rest assured, will it be lost upon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... knife with which he had so often threatened, and with which he yet seemed destined to take, though in the last gasp of his own, the soldier's life. With one hand he felt along the prisoner's body, as if seeking a vital part, and sustained his own weight, while with the other he made repeated, though feeble and ineffectual, strokes with the knife, all the time rolling, and staggering, and shaking his gory head in a manner most horrible to behold. But vengeance was denied the dying ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... Mr. Cabell's stories, read his Beyond Life, which explains his theory of romance. He maintains that art should be based on the dream of life as it should be, not as it is; that enduring literature is not "reportorial work"; that there is vital falsity in being true to life because "facts out of relation to the rest of life become lies," and that art therefore "must become more or ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert
... tranquillity, cheerfulness, and courage, whether we are distinctly conscious of it or not, lies in the ultimate conviction, that God is good,—that his providence, his order of things in the world, is good; and theology, in the largest sense of the term, is as vital to us as the ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... not claim to set any particular merit on his own action, and went on to claim it. By which time his train was ready. It was indeed vital that he should be in London to meet a commission which had shown such reluctance to trade with foreign devils, and had been, moreover, so punctilious in its demand for ceremonious receptions, but he had not the slightest doubt about his ability to reach London before the boat ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... he lives day and night. Knock at that door and you will find him at home. Touch upon some vital need in his business— some defect or tangle that is worrying him—some weak spot that he wants to remedy—some cherished ambition that haunts him—and you will have rung the bell of his interest. A few openings that are designed ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... will not sprout; while, not being above one or two degrees below the freezing-point, the tubers will not be frostbitten. Another mode is to scoop out the eyes with a very small scoop, and keep the roots buried in earth; a third mode is to destroy the vital principle, by kiln-drying, steaming, or scalding; a fourth is to bury them so deep in dry soil, that no change of temperature will reach them; and thus, being without air, they will remain upwards of a ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... moment, When the pangs of death already touch me, Firmly my mind against injustice strives, And the last impulse to my vital powers Is given by anxious wishes to redeem My fellowmen from pain; surely my end, Howe'er accomplished, is not ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... of the bear, he counselled them to adopt a different plan. He said—what was true enough—that at such a height they might miss the bear; or, even if they should hit him, a bullet would scarce bring him down—unless it should strike him in a vital part. In the contingency of their missing, or only slightly wounding him, the animal would at once ascend further up into the tapang; and, hidden behind the leaves and branches, might defy them. He ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... evident than that the same measure of life or of vital energy—power of growth, power of resistance, power of reproduction—is not meted out equally to all the individuals of a species, or to all species, so it is evident that this power of progressive development is not meted ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... or wavering. A single concession to the arbitrary tendencies of Lincoln's Cabinet, so as to allow interference with the free expression of Maryland's will when the crisis shall arrive, would not only, I believe, crush the hopes of the vast majority of this State's inhabitants, but also betray the vital interest of the Southern Confederacy ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... with circumspection. So far, beyond seeing the main entrance and the guard-room cells, Rasul Khan had not done much towards securing that full information about the fort, its garrison, and its defences, which it was of such vital importance to gain. He had, however, secured a footing, and, while with apparent readiness he prepared to rejoin his men outside, he politely insisted that he must leave his own sentry to guard the prisoners; "for," ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... heaven, with the rare unreserve bred of tobacco, and the communicative influence of midnight. Talk of this kind draws men very close together; and in the course of it Lenox discovered—as others had done before him—that this man who had become so intimately linked with the vital issues of his life was no mere good comrade, but a dynamic force, challenging and evoking ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... and subsequent vital statistics as to Baker's university and clerical career are from the account of him in J. and J.A. Venn, ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... dedication that Mr. Bok has prepared for this little volume is addressed to American schoolboys and schoolgirls, but its message is just as vital for the older reader. In the prime of life and on the threshold of his Third Period, Mr. Bok has begun to give practical demonstration of the kind of service that is possible for those who are sincerely ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... modes of social and intellectual activity, and the progress of every nation is bound up with an international progress of which they are now the natural pioneers. It cannot be too often repeated that the day has gone by when any progress worthy of the name can be purely national. All the most vital questions of national progress tend to merge themselves into international questions. But before any question of international progress can result in anything but noisy confusion, we need a recognized mode of international intelligence and communication. That ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... of our bodies cherish hope not light, That they shall have a happier fate when dead; Together to entomb them, may some wight, Haply by pity moved, be hither led." She the poor remnants of his vital sprite Went on collecting, as these words she said; And while yet aught remains, with mournful lips, The last faint breath of ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... walk upon it. Was it the gallant Raleigh who threw down 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 rough, ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... to the nervous centres (the spine, the cerebellum and the brain), and, in fact, to the whole nervous system, and the reaction is almost immediate; the vascular system, participating in it, sends the blood from the larger vessels and the vital parts, to the capillaries of the skin; and when, through repeated applications of the sheet, the system is relieved and harmony restored, in a sufficient degree, in and among the different parts of the organism, to enable them to resume their partly impeded ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... were years and whose scenes were continually passing before her. It gave a new zest to life, made this world more real, and diminished her longings for the next. In narrowing her friendships it made them more vital and satisfactory; and being in communion with hundreds of other minds in the country, reading their thoughts became almost like personal intercourse with them, and was a new happiness to her. Studying daily a subject of such vast complications, her mind perceptibly grew, and from year to year she ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... months, and become so much exhausted as to be obliged to keep her bed most of the time. The task of providing for the wants of both fell, consequently, upon Ellen. Increased exertion was more than her delicate frame could well endure. Daily were the vital energies of her system becoming more and more exhausted, a fact of which she was painfully conscious, and which she, with studious care, sought to conceal ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... in Literature," announced Thomasina, solemnly, "and I am deeply pained by the exhibition! I will give you one more chance in Arithmetic before going on to the higher branches, because, as you are aware, this is a most vital and important subject. Write down, please: A and B each inherited thirty thousand pounds. A invested his capital in gold-mine shares to bring in eighteen per cent, interest. B put his money into the Post Office Savings Bank, and received two and a half per cent. State ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to character. He was a remarkable personality, who interpreted an era of unusual interest, vital and picturesque, with a result unparalleled in literary annals. When he died in England in 1902 the English papers paid him very high tribute. The London Spectator said of him: "No writer of the present day has struck so powerful and original a note as ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... that's what makes the whole thing so perfectly ridiculous. Just think of two children, one of twenty and the other of twenty-three, proposing to decide their lifelong destiny in such a vital matter! Should we trust their judgment in regard to the smallest business affair? Of course not. They're babes in arms, morally and mentally speaking. People haven't the data for being wisely in love till they've reached the age when they ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... virulent poison. From a spirit of boyishness he then vigorously pierced his father in the breast with a whetted shaft equipt with excellent wings. That shaft, O king, penetrated the body of Pandu's son and reaching his very vital caused him great pain. The delighter of the Kurus, Dhananjaya, deeply pierced therewith by his son, then fell down in a swoon on the Earth, O king. When that hero, that bearer of the burthens of the Kuru's fell down, the son of Chitrangada also became deprived of his senses. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... made its mark on his view of the relations of a young man of spirit with parents and pastors. He mixed his colours, as might have been said, with the general sense of France, but his early American immunities and serenities could still swell his sail in any "vital" discussion with a friend in whose life the principle of authority played so large a part. He accused Probert of being afraid of his sisters, which was an effective way—and he knew it—of alluding to the rigidity of the ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... eighteenth century at one of those periods of revision when it has become absolutely necessary to examine the foundations of its teaching, at any risk of temporary disturbance to the faith of individuals. The advantage ultimately gained was twofold. It was not only that the vital doctrines of Christian faith had been scrutinised both by friends and enemies, and were felt to have stood the proof. But also defenders of received doctrine learnt, almost insensibly, very much from its opponents. They became aware—or if not they, at all events their successors ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... cosmogony of Chutsz was dualistic. All nature owed its existence to the Ri and Ki, the determining principle and the vital force of primordial aura that produces and modifies motion. Wang held that these two were inseparable. His ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... smile often accompanies what is called "the white voice." This is a voice production where a head resonance alone is employed, without sufficient of the apoggio or enough of the mouth resonance to give the tone a vital quality. This "white voice" should be thoroughly understood and is one of the many shades of tone a singer can use at times, just as the impressionist uses various unusual colors ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... seemed to be invulnerable in their vital parts. It is true that the Satsuma had lost a funnel, and that both masts of the Kashima were broken off, but except for a few holes above the armor-belt and one or two guns that had been put out of action and the barrels of which pointed helplessly into ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... that's the point that pierceth to the quick. Would Atropos would cut my vital thread, And so make lavish of my loathed life: Or gentle heav'ns would smile with fair aspect, And so give better fortunes to my love! Why, is't not a plague to be a ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... his face uplifted to the scattering drops, moving with a free and faun-like spring that seemed to mark him as a being closely allied to Nature, curiously vital ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... great many of the older and more illiterate ones among them are very superstitious, being implicit believers in signs, charms, apparitions, etc.; and most of them, also, entertain the opinion that the moon exerts an occult influence over many things of vital importance to the residents of this mundane sphere; and no power that could be brought to bear could induce some of them to plant corn, make soap, kill pigs, or perform many other important duties in certain phases of the moon, for ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... not investigated the subject of dietetics very much, but I have no doubt that the inhabitants of our whole land make too much use of animal food. No doubt it obstructs the vital powers, and tends to unbalance the healthful play and harmony of the various organs and their functions. There is too much nutriment in a small space. An unexpected quantity is taken; for with most people a sense of fullness is the test of a ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... grave a guilty passion; But I have been unable to withstand Tears and entreaties, I have told you all; Content, if only, as my end draws near, You do not vex me with unjust reproaches, Nor with vain efforts seek to snatch from death The last faint lingering sparks of vital breath. ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... upon other and still more desperate schemes. The Topeka Constitution was never received nor legalized; its officers never became clothed with official authority; its scrip was never redeemed; yet in the fate of Kansas and in the annals of the Union at large it was a vital and pivotal transaction, without which the great conflict between freedom and slavery, though perhaps neither avoided nor delayed, might have assumed altogether different ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... from his spiritual songs. They are more objective in form and less fiery in spirit. Most of them follow their themes quite closely, reproducing in many instances even the words of their text. Kingo is too vital, however, to confine himself wholly to an objective presentation. Usually the last stanzas of his hymns are devoted to a brief and often striking application of their text. He possessed to a singular degree the ability to express a thought tersely, as for instance in the following stanza, ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... have designed to narrate the life of Christ four times over, and to communicate it thus to mankind. (54) For though there are some details related in one Gospel which are not in another, and one often helps us to understand another, we cannot thence conclude that all that is set down is of vital importance to us, and that God chose the four Evangelists in order that the life of Christ might be better understood; for each one preached his Gospel in a separate locality, each wrote it down as he preached it, in simple language, in order that the history of Christ might ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III] • Benedict de Spinoza
... himself or on me. My health is irretrievably ruined. I should have utterly sunk under it; but, by God's good providence, the malady of my husband took a new direction. It appeared to prey less upon the brain, and more upon other vital parts of the constitution. He wasted away and died. I indeed live; but I, too, have wasted away, body and soul, for I have no health and no joy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... vital to know more: Lanyard had neither hope nor fear of ever seeing that harbour. It was the approach alone that interested him; and when he had puzzled out that there were only two practicable courses for the Sybarite to take—both ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... faculty of working for the public good, of which he felt himself utterly devoid, was possibly not so much a quality as a lack of something —not a lack of good, honest, noble desires and tastes, but a lack of vital force, of what is called heart, of that impulse which drives a man to choose someone out of the innumerable paths of life, and to care only for that one. The better he knew his brother, the more he noticed that Sergey Ivanovitch, and many other people ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... East (and the youthful reader does not have to study Lane's learned foot-notes to imbibe all this), but beyond and above the knowledge of history and geography thus gained, there comes something finer and subtler as well as something more vital. The scene is Indian, Egyptian, Arabian, Persian; but Bagdad and Balsora, Grand Cairo, the silver Tigris, and the blooming gardens of Damascus, though they can be found indeed on the map, live much more truly in that enchanted realm that rises o'er "the foam of perilous seas in ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... coming nearer and nearer, right into the tent place now, while his hot breath fanned the dreamer's cheek, and his hands were resting upon his chest as if feeling for a vital spot to strike. With a tremendous effort, Dallas sprang up and struck at him, when there was a loud snarling yelp, and Abel cried in alarm, "What ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... where it was carried up to the upper deck, forming a "citadel," inside which her ten 18-ton and 12-ton guns were well protected. In this way her guns, waterline, and engines—or "vitals," as these are known for short—were fully protected at the expense of less vital parts of the ship. Though smaller and less expensive than the Minotaur she was a far more efficient ship. Her broadside was 1818 pounds. The Sultan, another ship of much the same type, had a broadside of 1964 pounds. During the early sixties another type of vessel came ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... two larvae which eat live prey: that of the Sphex and that of the Hydrophilus.[5] Uric acid, the inevitable product of the vital transformations, or at all events one of its analogues, must be formed in both. But the Hydrophilus' larva shows no accumulation of it in its adipose layer, whereas the Sphex' ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... retires when it is upon active service, there are sure to be spiteful stories getting about, often without the slightest foundation. But even if it had been true, it would hardly be to Bathurst's disadvantage now he is no longer in the army, and courage is not a vital necessity on the part ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... desirable that we should retain a distinction in regard to which Galen and the ancient physicians were very definite. They used pathos as the wider term involving affection (affectio) in general, not necessarily impairment of vital tissue; when that was involved there was nosos, disease. We have to recognize the distinction even ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... had been performed, and Dr. Warren had said either wound might have caused death; for the skull was badly fractured, and vital organs had been pierced by the dagger, which the papers called it, though it really was a paper ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... "Paradise Lost" among the great epics of the world; not rendered obsolete by changes in belief; the inevitable defects of its plan compensated by the poet's vital relation to the religion of his age; Milton's conception of the physical universe; his theology; magnificence of his poetry; his similes; his descriptions of Paradise; inevitable falling off of the later books; minor ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... we have made an advance in the definition of Force, and have come to consider Force as a kind of energy; the application of Force being the application of energy. Such terms as Mechanical Force, Chemical Force, Vital Force, are therefore out of date, and in their place the more definite ideas of energy are substituted. Instead, therefore, of getting such terms as Transformation of Forces, we now get Transformations of Energy. In the chapter on Energy, I hope to show that even that is not a satisfactory solution ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper |
