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Absolute   /ˈæbsəlˌut/   Listen
Absolute

noun
1.
Something that is conceived or that exists independently and not in relation to other things; something that does not depend on anything else and is beyond human control; something that is not relative.



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"Absolute" Quotes from Famous Books



... absolute and profound silence which succeeded I had much time to reflect. I judged myself to be in an unused chamber, which, if square, would be about thirty feet across—calculating by the distance from the diagonal corner—if in fact Broussard lay in the ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... children who went to that school feast there was no happier than Netty. She forgot her own wrong-doing in thinking of the delightful scenes she had so lately witnessed, and fell asleep that night holding the baby in her arms in a state of absolute bliss; but alas! clouds were already coming ...
— A Big Temptation • L. T. Meade

... author to make personal reflections? He may extol the ancients, but he has reason to thank the gods that he was born a modern; for had he been born of Grecian parents, and his father, consequently, had, by law, had the absolute disposal of him, his life had been no longer than that of one of his poems, the life of half a day. Let the person of a gentleman of his parts be never so contemptible, his inward man is ten times more ridiculous; it being impossible that his outward form, though ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... interpretation of plastic stage music such as Richard Wagner has imagined. At the present day this music is not interpreted at all, for dramatic singers, stage managers and conductors do not understand the relation existing between gesture and music, and the absolute ignorance regarding plastic expression which characterizes the lyric actors of our day is a real profanation of scenic musical art. Not only are singers allowed to walk and gesticulate on the stage without paying any attention to the time, but ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze

... not to affirm that knowledge on all subjects is impossible, and consequently to have the attitude of still seeking. The standpoint of Pyrrhonism was materialistic. We find from the teachings of Sextus that he affirmed the non-existence of the soul,[1] or the ego, and denied absolute existence altogether.[2] The introductory statements of Diogenes regarding Pyrrhonism would agree with ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick

... to be active to a noteworthy degree. Although the numerals are already well known to the child, he still confounds them on all occasions, and in view of the absolute failure of the many attempts to teach the child the significance of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, one might infer that he has not yet perceived the difference between, e. g., 3 matches and 4 matches; yet counting is already ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... are enabled with great difficulty to obtain a livelihood; and that every man is thus helpless, overcome by misery and illusion, and again and again tossed and overpowered by the powerful current of his own actions (karma). If there were absolute freedom of action, no creature would die, none would be subject to decay, or await his evil doom, and everybody would attain the object of his desire. All persons desire to out distance their neighbours (in the race of life), and they strive to do so to the utmost of their power; but the result ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... opinion of contemporary writers is certainly to the effect that the King of Sweden was murdered by Franz Albert; but the absolute facts ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... me, then! I was going to plead for an extra sovereign to carry me to the end of the quarter, for I've spent my last cent, and there are one or two absolute necessities which I shall have to get by hook or by crook, or stay in bed until the next allowance is due. Well; something will turn up, I suppose! It's always the darkest the hour before the dawn, and, financially speaking, it's pitch black at the present moment. Let's pretend ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... told me, that whereas it was usually a difficult thing to decide upon the three best theses to be read publicly at the commencement, since all were more or less indifferently written, this year the theses were all so good, that it was necessary, to avoid doing absolute injustice, to select thirteen from which parts should be read. Does not this prove that the stimulus of the one sex upon the other would act rather favorably than otherwise upon the profession? and would not the very best tonic that could be given to the individual be to ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska

... equilibrium of the atmosphere" which Laplace assumed always maintained; that is to say an equal difference of pressure does not always correspond to an equal difference of altitude. There is, in point of fact, no absolute way to determine altitude save by running an actual line of levels; all other methods are approximations at best. But there had never been a barometric determination of the height of this mountain made, and it was resolved to attempt ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck

... pretty considerable degree, slept, and had my stomach again.... What I did, I can assure you was not for life, but ease; for I am at present in the case of a man that was almost in harbour, and then blown back to sea—who has a reasonable hope of going to a good place, and an absolute certainty of leaving a very bad one. Not that I have any particular disgust at the world; for I have as great comfort in my own family and from the kindness of my friends as any man; but the world, in the main, displeases me, and I have too true a presentiment ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... although President Wilson was to address the convention that evening. Party feeling ran high but still stronger was the determination of the convention that the association should not depart from its policy of absolute non-partisanship. Motions were made and amendments offered and the discussion raged for two hours. Dr. Shaw spoke strongly against the resolution and finally it was defeated by a large majority. Later Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Chicago offered a resolution which after several ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... certainly should have been clear to a young man brought up in Colorado. The fall round-up was the most important time of the year, and during the strenuous drive the appointed foreman should have absolute control. Jack gave in finally with ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey

... niece fit for marriage, thought he could not dispose of her hand better than by bestowing it on one of his sons. He proposed this to the Princess, leaving her, however, absolute mistress of her choice. ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... kaleidoscope, which, when viewed naked, have neither order nor beauty, but when seen through our own mistaken impressions, appear to have properties which they do not possess, and to produce results that are deceptive, and which would mislead us if we drew any absolute inference from them. Here the priest advances, kaleidoscope in hand, and desires you to look at his tinsel and observe its order. Well, you do so, and imagine that the beauty and order you see lie in the things themselves, and not in the prism through ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... without a motive; whether that motive can in the last analysis be other than the strongest pleasure. The illusion of free will, he maintains, is only due to the conflict of our motives. Under many forms and disguises pleasure and pain have an absolute empire over conduct. The will is nothing more than the last and strongest desire; or it is like a piece of iron surrounded by magnets and necessarily drawn by the most powerful; or (as has been ingeniously imagined) ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... Moreover, the name of our farm was pure proof; a plover being a wild bird, just the same as a raven is. Upon this chain of reasoning, and without any weak misgivings, they charged my growing escutcheon with a black raven on a ground of red. And the next thing which I mentioned possessing absolute certainty, to wit, that a pig with two heads had been born upon our farm, not more than two hundred years agone (although he died within a week), my third quarter was made at once, by a two-headed boar ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... length as the agent's—two hundred and fifty miles. He sat with the driver, and (when necessary) rode that fearful distance, night and day, without other rest or sleep than what he could get perched thus on top of the flying vehicle. Think of it! He had absolute charge of the mails, express matter, passengers and stage, coach, until he delivered them to the next conductor, and got his receipt ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... required in the way of draining will be to lead away the sources of wet-weather springs, which break through the road-bed and cause deep sloughs. Where incomplete or partial artificial under-draining is needed, the need is absolute; and whether we consider the durability of the road, or the degree to which its traffic is interfered with by its wet condition, we may be confident that every dollar spent in well-directed under-draining will be invested to the very ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring

... also those we employed with the Jersey troops. This only proves, however, that human patience has its limits, as no European army would endure the tenth part of such sufferings, that citizens alone can support nudity, hunger, cold, labour, and the absolute want of that pay which is necessary to soldiers, who are more hardy and more patient, I believe, than any others ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... forty-nine States and Territories, and they offer a striking illustration of the attempts of law-makers, during the last few decades, to rectify in a measure the legal outrages of the past, and of their inability in the present state of their development to grant absolute justice. That must await the lawmakers of the future, and probably the time when women shall have ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... moment might lead him to favor these young people with his society, but he was far from considering himself under obligation to do so. He had not the least idea that he was in any way a snob, he would have hotly resented being called one, but he accepted his estimate of his own worth as something absolute and certain, to be taken ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... to court most what is prohibited, and to set light by what is in its own power; I am half doubtful (only that Mr. Locke says it, and it may not be so very important as other points, in which I have ventured to differ from that gentleman), whether the child's absolute possession of his own playthings in some little repository, of which he may be permitted to keep the key, especially if he makes no bad use of the privilege, would not make him more indifferent to them: while the contrary conduct might possibly enhance his value of them. And if, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... fragments of what they were saying, fragments of the usual prattle, the same nothings that they said every day, accompanied by the same vague laughs. How strange it was, and how awful, the tremendousness of life, the nearness of death, the absolute relentlessness of suffering, and ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... of business ability, and to ill fortune combined, poor Crompton did not get out of this money what he might have done. Several ventures turned out altogether very differently than he expected. He became poorer and poorer, and was only protected from absolute want by subscriptions and assistance provided by his true friends in the trade, notably Mr. Kennedy, ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson

... thereto entreated by his father, slew his own mother), not to lose piety, pitiless became. On this point, I wish thee to think that the violence is mingled with the will, and they so act that the offences cannot be excused. Absolute will consents not to the wrong; but the will in so far consents thereto, as it fears, if it draw back, to fall into greater trouble. Therefore when Piccarda says that, she means it of the absolute will; and I of the other so that we both ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri

... "I suppose absolute perfection is rare—in women, poor wretches," she said in the old ironic tone she had always used toward him while he was ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... according to official reports, the soldiers of our nation have rarely had to brave. It was soon apparent that they need fear no "Mormon" attack; orders had been issued to the territorial militia to take no life except in cases of absolute necessity; but General Johnston and his staff had more than their match in battling with the elements. Communications between Governor Young and the commandant were frequent; safe conduct was assured any and all officers who chose to enter the city; and if necessary hostages were to ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage

... to remedy this defect. In some southern states it is the practice to require an absolute majority for election. If no aspirant receives a majority, a second ballot is taken on the two candidates standing highest on the list. In a number of northern cities, the evil of plurality voting has been attacked through the preferential voting device. This system of ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... more politic than those of Espanola and warlike, and there are handsome houses. If the Admiral had seen the kingdom of Xaragua as did his brother the Adelantado and the court of the King Behechio[345-1] he would not have made so absolute a statement. ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... so—those, I mean, who have acquired no habit of reading—believing the work to be, of all works, the easiest. It may be work, they think, but of all works it must be the easiest of achievement. Given the absolute faculty of reading, the task of going through the pages of a book must be, of all tasks, the most certainly within the grasp of the man or woman who attempts it. Alas! no; if the habit be not there, of all tasks it is the ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... disappointment. In the first place, there seems to be no grand leading feature of simplicity; add to which, darkness reigns everywhere. You look up, and discern no roof—not so much from its extreme height, as from the absolute want of windows. Everything not only looks dreary, but is dingy and black—from the mere dirt and dust which seem to have covered the great pillars of the nave—and especially the figures and ornaments upon it—for the last four centuries. This is the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various

... author of the Declaration of Independence, urged that, if men were left free to declare the truth the effect of its great positive forces would overcome the negative forces of error, he seems to have hit the central fact of civilization. Without freedom of thought and absolute freedom to speak out the truth as one sees it, there can be no advancement, no high civilization. To the orator who has heard the call of humanity, what nobler aspiration than to enlarge and extend the freedom we have inherited from our Anglo-Saxon ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... absolute obligation to retry the case out of court, as you know, Mr. Kent. Neither was he obliged to give you an unofficial notice of the day upon which he would hear your motion for the discharge of the receiver and the vacation ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... nothing, they must lose much. But by this time the question must be already decided, and therefore it is useless to pursue it If the Committee is appointed, and if you do attend it, I am sure you will in that case feel the absolute necessity of your declining any confidential communication, either on foot or on horseback, with any person not upon that Commission, in reference to the business of it. Even the conversation of the table, and the ears of those ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... International Trade. 1. Cost of Production not a regulator of international values. Extension of the word "international." 2. Interchange of commodities between distance places determined by differences not in their absolute, but in the comparative, costs of production. 3. The direct benefits of commerce consist in increased Efficiency of the productive powers of the World. 4. —Not in a Vent for exports, nor in the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... lived in great comfort. He was absolute master in his own house, but the household was directed or ruled by his wife. Everything was made in the house: the flour was ground, the bread was baked, the meat and fish were salted; the linen was woven, the garments were made by the wife, the daughters, and the women servants. ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... interest in her stories. In fact she goes out of her way in the Preface to "The Injur'd Husband" to defend herself and at the same time to suggest the possibility that her novel might contain references to English contemporaries. The defence is carefully worded so that it does not constitute an absolute denial, but rather ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... bag; not that the carpet bag was of much value, for it was an old one, nor the articles which it contained, for they were neither new nor of much worth; but we lost in that carpet bag an invaluable quantity of comfort, for it contained a variety of little absolute necessaries, the loss of which we could not replace until our arrival at Cologne, to which town all our trunks had been despatched. The children could not be brushed, for the brushes were in the carpet bag; they could not be combed, for the combs were in the carpet bag; they were put ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... had outgrown the accommodation of the common rooms, a daring scheme had been conceived between mother and son,—no less than that he should have a small room set apart for himself as a study. When first broached to the father, this scheme had met with an absolute denial that seemed to promise no hope of further consideration; but the mother, accepting defeat at the time, had tried again and again, with patient dexterity at favourable moments, till at last one proud day ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... robbers. At the outskirts of the town he again divided his forces. One party hastened to the banks and another looted the cathedral. Within an hour the town had been stripped clean of its gold and jewels and the scoundrels had again joined forces at the wharves. Only the need of absolute silence saved the town from a carnival of ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... trying to look through the dazzling haze of joy so as to see his situation clearly. It was impossible for him not to perceive that there had been an absolute declaration of affection, and that he had established a private understanding with his cousin. It was not, however, an engagement, nor did he at present desire to make it so. It was impossible for him as yet to marry, and he was content to wait without a promise, since that could ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of those who do not believe that the Established Church of Ireland—of which I am not a member—would go to absolute ruin, in the manner of which many of its friends are now so fearful. There was a paper sent to me this morning, called 'An Address from the Protestants of Ireland to their Protestant Brethren of Great Britain.' It is dated "5, Dawson ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... page, etc. Scott says: "A Highland chief, being as absolute in his patriarchal authority as any prince, had a corresponding number of officers attached to his person. He had his body-guards, called Luichttach, picked from his clan for strength, activity, and entire devotion ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... never read or heard of Mahomet or the Koran. He couldn't tell. The same queries and objections are, nevertheless, applicable to our own and to nearly all religions, which make the condition of believing one thing, and one class of doctrines, absolute for salvation. The Touatee gold-merchant, who was close by at the time, interposed, "You are near jinnah (Paradise), Yâkob, one word only, 'There is no God but God, and Mahomet is the prophet of God.'" I returned, "If this be not uttered ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... army of the north at Antwerp, now placed under the command of Marshal Oudinot, lay ready to enforce the demands of the emperor should the Dutch government prove recalcitrant. Those demands included the absolute suppression of smuggling, the strictest enforcement of the decrees against trading with England, conscription, and a repudiation of a portion of the State debt. Napoleon overwhelmed his brother with bitter gibes ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... the result of one of the best pieces of acting I had ever seen in my life, or due to absolute unconsciousness of my meaning. It made me remember that though there were undoubtedly suspicious circumstances connecting him with the Motor Pirate, yet so far there was not one iota of direct evidence. I ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster

... he who is incapacitated to enjoy the benefits of nature; that is, he who suffers others to think for him; who neglects the absolute good he possesses, in a fruitless search after ideal benefits; who vainly sighs after that which ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... Priest (printed 1533), contains only the three characters mentioned, but possesses a theme more nearly deserving the name of plot than do the other two, namely, the contriving and carrying out of a plan by Tyb for exposing her boastful husband's real and absolute subjection to her rule. Yet, even so, it is extremely simple. Johan Johan is first heard alone, declaring how he will beat his wife for not being at home. The tuggings of fear and valour in his heart, however, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... costly than the population and wealth of the country justify. The rest of his account is devoted to "the power and influence enjoyed by the religious in the Philippines." He says: "Masters of the provinces, they govern there, as one might say, as sovereigns; they are so absolute that no Spaniard dares go to establish himself there.... They are more absolute in the Philippines than is the king himself." They ignore the royal decrees that the Indian children must be taught the Castilian language; thus the friars keep the Indians in bondage, and prevent the Spaniards ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... Rightly and of Seeking Scientific Truth, he pointed out the way of seeking after truth. His central idea in this was to emphasize the importance of DOUBT, and avoidance of accepting as truth anything that does not admit of absolute and unqualified proof. In reaching these conclusions he had before him the striking examples of scientific deductions by Galileo, and more recently the discovery of the circulation of the blood ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... them, even in the theater or at the concert. A sighing habit developed. It had been growing for years into an air- hunger, and finally all physical, and much of mental, effort developed a sense of suffocation which demanded short periods of absolute rest. Associations were then formed between certain foods and disturbing digestive sensations. Tea alone seemed to help, and she became dependent upon increasingly numerous cups of this beverage. Knowing her history as we do, we can easily see how she had become abnormally ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... the airship and aeroplane may have for independent action. A captain who is going to fight his ship successfully must have practised in time of peace with all the weapons he will employ in action, and he must have absolute control over all the elements constituting the fighting power of his ship. In a larger sense, the same may be said of an admiral in command of a fleet; divided control may mean disaster. The advent of aircraft has introduced new and, at present, ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe

... office opened, Perkins, whose principal characteristic was that of absolute noiselessness, glided smoothly into Brookings' office. Taking a small bottle about half full of a greenish-yellow liquid from his pocket, he furtively placed it under some papers upon ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... space, and more of technical detail, than the scope of these papers permits. As with most conclusions of a concrete character dealing with contradictory elements, the result reached will inevitably be rather an approximation than an absolute demonstrable certainty; a broad general statement, not a narrow formula. All rules of War, which is not an exact science, but an art, have this characteristic. They do not tell one exactly how to do right, but they give warning when a step ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... study of Mr. Henley, which way best to address himself to a heart and understanding so capable of generous sensations, and noble energies. There is an attachment to consistency in the human mind, which will not admit of any sudden and absolute change; it must be gradual: but thus much may with certainty be said, Mr. Clifton does not at present, and I hope will never again, treat with complacency those vindictive but erroneous notions which had so nearly proved destructive to all. He makes no professions; ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... the conception of a being that may be admitted, without inconsistency, to be worthy of the attribute of absolute necessity, not for the purpose of inferring a priori, from the conception of such a being, its objective existence (for if reason allowed itself to take this course, it would not require a basis in given and actual existence, but merely the support of pure conceptions), ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... rock to rock with menacing reiteration, had ceased, the stillness was absolute. Even the song-bird remained frightened into silence by those awful echoes. Then the sun rested like a benediction on the land and the white cross of Cortez was distinctly outlined against the blue sky. But soon the long roll of drums followed this ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... consequence of his disappointments. He was now prepared to meet the wishes of his venerable and wise preceptor—to grapple stoutly with the masters of the law; and, keeping his heart in restraint, if not absolute abeyance, to do that justice to his head, which, according to the opinion of Mr. Calvert, it well-deserved if hitherto it had not demanded it. But to pursue his studies as well as his practice, he was to leave Charlemont. How was ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... the Bone will never come out of the Flesh" XLIV Anecdotes of Poverty, and Experiments for the Benefit of those whom it may concern XLV Renaldo's Distress deepens, and Fathom's Plot thickens XLVI Our Adventurer becomes absolute in his Power over the Passions of his Friend, and effects one half of his Aim XLVII The Art of Borrowing further explained, and an Account of a Strange Phenomenon XLVIII Count Fathom unmasks his Battery; is repulsed; and varies his Operations without effect ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... barbarians, but in piety, in friendship, in hospitality, in sagacity, in severe morality, in the high estimation in which women were held, in the very magnificence of superstitions, we see the traits of a noble national character. It would be difficult to show absolute degradation at any time among these people. How they came to have these grand traits in their primeval forests it is difficult to show. Certainly they were never such a people as the Africans or the Malay races, or even the Slavonic ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... long magnificence of Italian culture has left us only I Quattro Poeti, the Four Poets. The difference between Shakspeare and his contemporaries is not that he is read twice, ten times, a hundred times as much as they: it is an absolute difference; he is read, and they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... rest of the assembly stood still, without a word. Only in one particular was the severity of the etiquette allowed to lapse. Throughout the greater part of the reign the rule that ministers must stand during their audiences with the Queen had been absolute. When Lord Derby, the Prime Minister, had an audience of Her Majesty after a serious illness, he mentioned it afterwards, as a proof of the royal favour, that the Queen had remarked "How sorry she was she could not ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... first impression of Lake Colder, perfectly embosomed among the gigantic mountains which rise it all their wild and savage grandeur around it. What absolute freedom and absence of conventional forms are found here by him who loves Nature ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... happened there. Therefore you can fancy how much I'm in the dark. Until you came out, that way, this morning, you had, since the first hour I saw you, scarce even made a reference to anything in your previous life. You seemed so perfectly to accept the present." It was extraordinary how my absolute conviction of his secret precocity (or whatever I might call the poison of an influence that I dared but half to phrase) made him, in spite of the faint breath of his inward trouble, appear as accessible as an older person—imposed him almost as an intellectual equal. ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James

... difficult for him to close the conversation. Most men like to leave a favorable impression, and a bashful man is always waiting with the forlorn hope that some favorable turn in the talk may let him out without absolute discomfiture. And so Bud stayed a long time, and how he ever did get away he never ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston

... Every white key on the piano represents an "absolute pitch." By what names are these pitches known? How are the black ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer

... public positions than their associates from the north. Besides, they had in slavery a bond of union that did not tolerate any difference of opinion when its interests were involved. This compact power needed the assistance only of a few scattered members from the north to give it absolute control. But now the south was to meet a different class of opponents. There had been growing all over the north, especially in the minds of religious people, a conviction that slavery was wrong. The literature of the day promoted this tendency. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... will, I think, give some indication of the estimation in which the various classes of society were held. It is too early yet in the development of the feudal system to say that the derivation lines show the course of an absolute feudal tenure, and they are not meant for that purpose, but simply to indicate the succession of the ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams

... Wentworth says that she was "an exquisite bit of womanhood learned in the fine arts of speech and dress and manner." He spoke also of her humor and originality and of her gift for business "which amounted to absolute genius." ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... able to discern that four of her suitors gazed at her with unwinking eyes, exuded no perspiration, and cast no shadow, while the fifth betrayed all these infallible signs of mortality. She, therefore, selected the real Nala, upon whom the four gods bestowed invaluable gifts, including absolute control ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... Charles Claudius Phillips, Whose absolute contempt of riches and inimitable performances upon the violin made him the admiration of all that knew him. He was born in Wales, made the tour of Europe, and, after the experience of both kinds ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... conscious feeling is meant, this can be affirmed only of the higher animals. What appears to remain true is, that the difference is one of successive addition. That the increment in the organic world is of many steps; that in the long series no absolute lines separate, or have always separated, organisms which barely respond to impressions from those which more actively and variously respond, and even from those that consciously so respond—this, as we ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... stares you in the face, and now your blood runs cold, and all your courage fails you? For half a century it has disturbed the peace of this Republic; it has arrogated to itself your national domain; it has attempted to establish its absolute rule, and to absorb even your future development; it has disgraced you in the eyes of mankind, and now it endeavors to ruin you if it cannot rule you; it raises its murderous hand against the institutions most dear to you; it attempts ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... ginger and other preserves; then he uttered a sigh, and his eye dwelt on some candied pineapple he had respited too long. Putting the pineapple's escape and the sigh together, Mr. Bazalgette judged that absolute repletion had been attained. "Come, Reginald," said he, "run away now, and let Mr. Dodd and me have our talk." Before the words were even out of his mouth a howl broke from the terrible infant. He had evidently feared the proposal, and got ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... finished 'man of the world,' had gradually penetrated them unawares, he held (or at least he had held for so long that he had fallen into the habit of saying) that the objects which we admire have no absolute value in themselves, that the whole thing is a matter of dates and castes, and consists in a series of fashions, the most vulgar of which are worth just as much as those which are regarded as the most refined. And as he had decided that the importance which Odette attached ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... clashes with theological dogmas formulated at a much later date for the behoof of a very different social organism. In any case the original work, as it appears to have issued from the hand of "Koheleth," was composed in a spirit as conducive to true morality as the sublime eloquence of Isaiah or the absolute resignation of the author of the 73rd Psalm. Critics who succeeded in satisfactorily solving many of the philological, philosophical, and historical problems suggested by Koheleth utterly failed to find therein any traces of an intelligible plan. ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... of Oman conventional short form: Oman local long form: Saltanat Uman local short form: Uman Digraph: MU Type: absolute monarchy with residual UK influence Capital: Muscat Administrative divisions: there are no first-order administrative divisions as defined by the US Government, but there are 3 governorates (muhafazah, ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... to the sixth day of the week. While Daniel beheld the little horn, (popery) he said, among other things, he would think to change times and laws. Now this could not mean of men, because it ever has been the prerogative of absolute rulers like himself, to change [42]manmade laws. Then to make the prophecy harmonize with the scripture, he must have meant times and laws established by God, because he might think and pass decrees ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, from the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the Commandment • Joseph Bates

... hold its own and that he has no fears for the result. The French cavalry has been destroyed, two of their divisions of infantry have ceased to exist, and only the Guard is in reserve. If you give us a vigorous support the defeat will be changed to absolute rout and—" His knees gave way under him and he fell in a heap upon ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... only person in the room with the deeper knowledge to divine the drift of these questions, realized with something of a shock that Merrington, with fewer facts to guide him, had reached his absolute conclusion about the events of the last half-hour while he had wandered perplexedly in a cloud of suspicions. The mental jump had been too great for him, but Merrington had not hesitated to take it. Caldew waited eagerly for the next question. It was some time in coming, and when it did come it ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... anything intellectual.... In our study of the proportions of the head, therefore, we are measuring merely race, and not intelligence in any sense.... Equally unimportant to the anthropologist is the absolute size of the head. It is grievous to contemplate the waste of energy when, during our civil war, over one million of soldiers had their heads measured in respect to this absolute size, in view of the fact that today anthropologists deny any considerable significance attaching to this characteristic. ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller

... as finite action does, the conditions of an external material of given means from which it may obtain its support and the objects of its activity. It supplies its own nourishment and is the object of its own operations. While it is exclusively its own basis of existence and absolute final aim, it is also the energizing power realizing this aim, developing it not only in the phenomena of the natural, but also of the spiritual universe—the history of the world. That this "Idea" or "Reason" is the true, the eternal, the absolutely powerful essence; that it ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... for factore, whom, once more, you must also authorise to confirme y^e conditions. If M^r. Winslow could be spared, I could wish he came againe. This ship carpenter is thought to be the fittest man for you in the land, and will no doubte doe you much good. Let him have an absolute comand over his servants & such as you put to him. Let him build you 2. catches, a lighter, and some 6. or 7. shalops, as soone as you can. The salt-man is a skillfull & industrious man, put some to him, that may quickly apprehende y^e misterie of it. The preacher we have sent ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... all, affected toward him the manner of a superior to a dependent. Whatever were Philip's feelings regarding this attitude of the elder son, he kept them locked within, and had no more to say to Master Ned than absolute civility required. With the two girls and little Tom, and with me, he was, evenings and Sundays, the pleasantest playfellow ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... themselves from their lethargy and anxiously awaited the turn which events should take at Nineveh and Babylon. Sennacherib did not consider it to his interest to assume the crown of Chaldaea, and to treat on a footing of absolute equality a country which had been subdued by force of arms: he relegated it to the rank of a vassal state, and while reserving the suzerainty for himself, sent thither one of his brothers to rule ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... asked for was a full day's pay for eight hours and "time and a half" pay for all in excess of that amount; that is, they demanded an increase in wages. President Wilson, having failed in his attempt to settle the difficulty by arbitration, compelled a Democratic Congress over which his sway was absolute to pass a law-sponsored by Chairman Adamson of the House Committee on Interstate Commerce—which granted practically what the unions demanded. In passing this law, Congress asserted an entirely new ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody

... in the high & weighty concernments of the body of Mankinde: or perfect Rules derived from the experiences and writings, not onely of our English, but the most accomplisht and absolute practices of the French, Spanish, Italians, and other Nations; so fitted for the weakest capacities, that they may in a short time attain to the knowledge of the whole art; by Dr. T.C. with the advice of others, ...
— The Compleat Cook • Anonymous, given as "W. M."

... eleven years of age in May; by the death of her revered father when she was but eight months old, her sole care and charge devolved to me. Stranger as I then was, I became deeply impressed with the absolute necessity of bringing her up entirely in this country, that every feeling should be that of Her native land, and proving thereby my devotion to duty by rejecting all those feelings of home and kindred that ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... and no idols, there were no priests; but the want of a priesthood was fully compensated by the presence of wizards; for among the Kafirs, as among other primitive peoples, there was and is an absolute belief in the power of spells, and of sorcery generally. These wizards, like the medicine men among the Red Indians, were an important class, second only to the chiefs. They were not a caste, though very often the son of a ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... greedily devoured all the worthless moths he had amassed in a night's "sugaring," yet one after another seized and rejected a single white moth which happened to be among them. Young pheasants and partridges which eat many kinds of caterpillars seem to have an absolute dread of that of the common currant moth, which they will never touch, and tomtits as well as other small birds appear never to eat the same species. In the case of the Heliconidae, however, we have some direct evidence to the same effect. In ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... future state; but, certainly I had thought, no good Englishman ever went there—except, maybe, on behalf of the Vigilance Society. Well, it may sound an odd thing to say, but what impressed me most of all was the absolute innocence of the place. ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... with herself for feeling a just perceptible response to his virile personality and his absolute sureness. Anything he wanted—— Then she bent her mind resolutely upon ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose

... the road from Guigue to the Llanos, by the table-land of La Villa de Cura, I found, to the south of the dividing ridge, and on its southern declivity, no point of level corresponding to the 182 toises, except near San Juan. The absolute height of this village is 194 toises. But, I repeat that, farther towards the west, in the country between the Cano de Cambury and the sources of the Rio Pao, which I was not able to visit, the point of level of the bottom of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... opinions (or appealing to them) of a few men whose critical abilities might be biassed by a thousand personal matters with which he could not interfere. He felt that there was a broad, general injustice in the situation, but absolute right as to facts. These were men to whom was given the power to accept or refuse. No one could question their right to use that power. Horace said to himself that he was probably a fool to entertain for a moment any hope ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... "Absolute fact, Tubbs," responded Spud, earnestly. "Come with me, some day, and I'll show you where the pies made a dent in the street when the flying machine struck 'em." And then a general laugh went up, and the dudish student stepped back in ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield

... Her absolute secrecy also won her the confidence of their seniors; for, like Ninon, she had certain manly qualities. As a rule, our confidence is given to those below rather than above us. We employ our inferiors rather than our betters in secret transactions, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... persons retain their original delusions, although they have acquired the habit of arresting the impulses which these delusions prompted. It may therefore be inferred, that a lucid interval is equivalent to the complete recovery of the patient, and implies the absolute departure of all those delusions from his mind, that constituted his lunacy:—leaving him in a condition to sustain a thorough examination, not shrinking from particular subjects, nor "blenching," ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam

... reports, this boat having many times taken part in bombarding the Dardanelles Forts has a good idea of what awaits us. They say the whole of Gallipoli swarms with Turks, and the whole coast is covered with trenches and barbed wire entanglements 6 feet high. They talk as if it meant absolute annihilation of our small covering force of about 5000. The whole remainder of the Expeditionary Force, I presume, will lie out at sea till the coast is clear—should we succeed in clearing it, but it is very evident ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... and persecute the Puritans, not, I think, so much because they made war on the surplice, liturgy, and divine right of bishops, as because they were at heart opposed to all absolute authority both in State and Church, and when goaded by persecution would hurl even kings from their thrones. It is to be regretted that Elizabeth was so severe on those who differed from her; she had no right ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... political forces are thoroughly disciplined, and the principle of authority, which Richelieu had developed to its fullest extent, reigns uncontested. Polite society—the only one to be considered—believes itself to be in possession of absolute rules, and, in the court as in the city, the heart abdicates in favor of reason." "When one speaks of the seventeenth century in France," says M. Louis Farges, "it appears, to those who are neither historians nor ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... also invented for the people the notion of another world, in which their God is to punish with eternal torture (not a Bible term) those who have refused to obey their degrading laws here on earth. This God is nothing but the personification of absolute tyranny, and has been invented with a view of either frightening or alluring nine-tenths of the human race into submission to the remaining tenth. If there were really a God, surely he would use that lightning which ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880

... Humber. They went ashore at Dimlington on the coast of Holderness, or at the Spurn. The homing sailors of Leith, as of the ports on the upper reaches of the Firth of Forth, enjoyed an immunity from the press scarcely less absolute than that of the Orkney Islanders, who for upwards of forty years contributed not a single man to the Navy. Having on either hand an easily accessible coast, inhabited by a people upon whose hospitality the gangs were chary of intruding, and abounding ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... the loveliest, most friendly creature whom he had ever met. Madame knows a great deal more of military details than most male civilians, but when she talked to Captain Rust at the Savoy, her ignorance of the Flying Corps was absolute. She asked questions, quite intelligent questions, and he bubbled over with eagerness to answer them. Poor Rust; I can picture the humbling scene. He made an ass of himself, of course, but not a greater ass than I always make of myself—and ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... occasion to remind Madame de Tecle, that while respecting her projects for the future, which she did him the honor to form, he had not pledged himself to their realization; and that both reason and honor compelled him in this matter to preserve his absolute independence. ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... The attempt to preserve absolute truth in every detail of the life-story of John Redgrave, the hero of The Squatter's Dream, seems distinctly a case in point. In no other novel is there so complete a description of Australian squatting life—its varying success and failure, its solid comforts ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... important feature in connection with our subject; innumerable and interesting instances of this may be found in the monastic registers, and the private letters of the times. The cheapness of literary productions of the present age render it an absolute waste of time to transcribe a whole volume, and except with books of great scarcity we seldom think of borrowing or lending one; having finished its perusal we place it on the shelf and in future regard it as a book of reference; ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather

... in particular, that I have imploy'd a special Messenger to deliver it you. I hope you will enable me to send them a satisfactory Answer. It would be impertinent in me to say more to one so well informed as you are of these Nations, and of their absolute Authority over all the Indians bordering upon us, or of the Advantages of maintaining a strict Friendship with them at all Times, but more ...
— The Treaty Held with the Indians of the Six Nations at Philadelphia, in July 1742 • Various

... There was absolute silence in the room till they heard him turn on the tap in the bathroom; then Beatrice began to breathe spasmodically, catching her breath as if she would sob. But she restrained herself. The faces of the two children set ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... neither manage its affairs improperly, nor abuse his authority therein. This conduct procured from the nation to Antipater such respect as is due to kings, and such honors as he might partake of if he were an absolute lord of the country. Yet did not this splendor of his, as frequently happens, in the least diminish in him that kindness and fidelity which he ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... Arhat whom he had ordered to be buried alive, and became a most zealous supporter of the new faith. Dr. Rhys Davids (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xi, p. xlvi) says that "Asoka's coronation can be fixed with absolute certainty within a year or two either ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... afterwards to that of Pedraza—took an active part in the political changes of '33 and '34; detests the Spaniards, and during his presidency endeavoured to abolish the privileges of the clergy and troops—suppressed monastic institutions—granted absolute liberty of opinion—abolished the laws against the liberty of the press—created many literary institutions; and whatever were his political errors, and the ruthlessness with which in the name of liberty and reform he marched to the attainment of his object, without respect for the ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... in well with the bent of Louis's mind. For, though no statesman, he had in this matter a sound instinct that an absolute monarch aiding rebels to erect a free republic was an anomaly, and a hazardous contradiction in the natural order of things. But de Vergennes was the coming man in France, and Turgot no longer had the influence or the popularity to ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... proof of such labour on the part of negroes, in any part of the world. In one quarter of the globe, in which I have some knowledge, I am certainly aware that men do labour very hard for hire in low grounds within the tropics; but those men are in a condition but little removed from absolute slavery, because they are the lowest in a state of society, which from them upwards is divided into the strictest castes. But in our West India possessions the case is very different; there, this difficulty from the moment of their first discovery, to the ...
— 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

... enjoyed the society and friendship of Bentham and Godwin; but the latter could not alleviate his pecuniary distress, and the former was probably never fully aware of it. The diary contains a protracted record of privations, sometimes threatening absolute and hopeless want, but endured throughout with undisturbed and characteristic fortitude and gayety. He seems to have missed the attentions and society which he found on his first visit to London, and the following extract from his journal of 26th ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... with all the deep passion of first love—first love in an ardent and romantic and forceful nature. His dreams did not change; Julia changed to fit them. She was everything for which he had ever longed, she was perfection absolute. She became his music, his business, his life. Every little girl, every old woman that he passed in the street, made him think of Julia, and when he passed a young man and woman full of concern for, and of shy pride in, their lumpy baby in its embroidered coat, ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... Days Journey down the River. But I was no sooner gone, than the Governor taking Trefry, about some pretended earnest Business, a Day's Journey up the River, having communicated his Design to one Banister, a wild Irish Man, one of the Council, a Fellow of absolute Barbarity, and fit to execute any Villany, but rich; he came up to Parham, and forcibly took Caesar, and had him carried to the same Post where he was whipp'd; and causing him to be ty'd to it, and a great Fire made before him, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... to the last degree wonderful! Are you not ashamed of your weakness? How can a man be so poor-spirited as to let his wife have absolute power over him, and never dare to oppose anything she has ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)

... probability exceed twenty-six millions, or six millions less than it was last year. With a determination, so far as depends on me, to continue this reduction, I have directed the estimates for 1840 to be subjected to the severest scrutiny and to be limited to the absolute requirements of the public service. They will be found less than the expenditures of 1839 by ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... visit, about three hundred and forty male, and thirty-five female prisoners. In this celebrated prison, hard labor is combined with solitary confinement, an arrangement which is technically known as the "separate system." Silence and seclusion are so strictly enforced as to be almost absolute and uninterrupted; even the minister who addresses the prisoners on the Sabbath is known to them only by his voice. A marked feature of this institution is security without the aid of any deadly weapon, none being allowed in the possession of the attendants, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... advantage to him in their business. The receipt of Edgar's first letter, and of a heavy budget containing the account of his doings in Egypt from the day on which he was left behind to that on which he sailed, had been an immense relief to them all, for hitherto they had been in absolute ignorance of what had taken place. His father, however, thought that he had, even according to his own account, run a very needless risk in taking part in the rising at Cairo, although he saw that, having for the time become ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty

... "Absolute quiet," was Doc Swartz's answer. "There's a chance that clot will dwindle, erode, and harden up. But obviously we want to keep him as quiet as possible to ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp

... with their religion. They are continually asking for evidence. They are asking it in every imaginable way. The sects are continually dividing. There is no real religious serenity in the world. All religions are opponents of intellectual liberty. I believe in absolute mental freedom. Real religion with me is a thing not of the head, but of the heart; not a theory, not a creed, but ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... justification in the judgment was by the declaration of the deceased that he had not done various crimes; and to this day the Egyptian will rely on justifying himself by sheer assertion that he has not done wrong, in face of absolute proofs to the contrary. The main fault of character that was condemned was covetousness, and it is the feeling which wrecks the possibility of Egyptian independence at present. The intrusion of scheming underlings between the master ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie

... produce his authority for voting the Bradford block of stock—all of these factors Mr. Nickleby set forth with a lucidity and frankness which aimed to convince his two auditors that when they and their associates assumed "control" it would be absolute, with no possibility of failure in swinging the annual meeting to ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... him kind should think him led; If to his bosom fear a visit paid, It was, lest he should be supposed afraid: Hence sprang his orders; not that he desired The things when done: obedience he required; And thus, to prove his absolute command, Ruled every heart, and moved each subject hand; Assent he ask'd for every word and whim, To prove that he alone was king of him. The still Rebecca, who her station knew, With ease resign'd the honours not her due: Well pleased she saw that men her ...
— Tales • George Crabbe

... come.) He behaved with great discretion, and so continued. After a week or ten days of courtship, she could hardly believe that their relations had ever been interrupted. His reliance upon her was absolute, his confidence no less so. He babbled of himself and his concerns in the old vein of mocking soliloquy, careless whether she heard him or not. Now that he had her promise, he seemed in no hurry for possession. His kisses ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... her own apartment. In the deaconess houses that are so rapidly springing up in different parts of the United States this provision ought to be guarded with care, for a life that is so constantly drawn out in ministrations to others should have some moments of absolute privacy upon which no one ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft

... strictly the same point as they ought to be; for the white marks on the ocelli of the feathers which are held almost horizontally, are placed rather too much towards the further end; that is, they are not sufficiently lateral. We have, however, no right to expect absolute perfection in a part rendered ornamental through sexual selection, any more than we have in a part modified through natural selection for real use; for instance, in that wondrous organ the human eye. And we know what ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... weeks' siege in a narrow fortress, then the two miles of subterranean struggle—these might well make the grass beneath the wild sycamore, the cork-tree, the long reeds, the willows, above all, the sound of the flowing water, absolute ecstasy. There was an instant rush for the river, impeded by many a thorn-bush and creeper; but almost anything green was welcome at the moment, and the only disappointment was at the height and steepness ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... bottom with a resounding thump, and broke an axle clean across. The wheel flew off, and the buckboard came to the ground, and Chichester and the driver tumbled out. The Black Cock gave a couple of leaps and then stood still, looking back with an expression of absolute dismay. ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... may be used independently in the dative absolute construction (animitation of the Latin ablative absolute), usually for the expression of time:[8] Him gy:t sprecendum, While he was yet speaking; gefylledum dagum, the ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith

... required of the student of philosophy is not a preliminary and absolute, but a gradual and progressive, abrogation of prejudices.—SIR W. HAMILTON, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... seen righteous before me." These words, before me, are inserted on purpose to shew us, that Noah was no feigned worshipper, but one who did all things in the sight of God. Indeed, there are two things which are of absolute necessity for the obtaining of this approbation of God. 1. All things must be done as to manner according to the word. 2. All things must be done as to the matter of them also according to the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... him. At that critical moment a friend of his heard of Miss Kuenzel's miraculous cure, and told him of it. He at once sent for Mr. Ritter, who thought that a cure was in his reach, and on January 11 Thress commenced a fast that has been absolute up to yesterday, the only things passing his lips being water, a little lemonade, and rarely the juice of an orange. Learning through the Chester County Times that we were interested in Dr. Dewey's discovery, he invited ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... life: kindness and the reluctance to inflict pain. It was such breeding that enabled the oddly assorted company at that Christmas dinner table to pass the hours of their intercourse not only in peace, but with absolute enjoyment. ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... advance was stopped, which fact undoubtedly was partly due to the renewed activity of the Franco-English forces on the west front, as well as to the absolute necessity of giving a chance to recuperate to the armies on the east front, which had been fighting now incessantly for months. September 28, 1915, may be considered approximately as the date at which the Battle of Vilna ended. After ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... interpreted these rights, at least it had established a tradition hostile to that policy of mere ruthless exploitation of which such an ugly illustration was being given in German South-West Africa. An absolute parity of treatment between white and black must be not only impracticable, but harmful to both sides. But between the two extremes of a visionary equality and a white ascendancy ruthlessly employed for exploitation, a third term is possible—the ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir

... borrowed the cash at ten per cent. interest, from an old farmer named Johnson who lived five miles out of town. Then he reduced the subscription price of the paper from two dollars to one dollar. He reduced the rates for advertising in about the same proportion, and thus he created one absolute and unassailable certainty—to wit: that the business would never pay him a single cent of profit. He took me out of the "Courier" office and engaged my services in his own at three dollars and a half a week, which was an extravagant wage, but Orion was ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... my letter, if I knew that scandal had not been carried to the hut." Michael paused. "I wished to be the first to tell him that Madam was a member of our camp, that I met her unexpectedly, that fear sent her away. My happiness depended upon his answer, upon his absolute belief in ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... that if his honour and all law and rule had been wounded by the dispositions of the will, still more violated were they by those of the codicil, which left neither his life nor his liberty in safety, and placed the person of the King in the absolute dependence of those who had dared to profit by the feeble state of a dying monarch, to draw from him conditions he did not understand. He concluded by declaring that the regency was impossible under such conditions, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... of this place is wonderful. I don't know what it is, but it is just life to everything in one. I have absolute peace of mind and I have no mental worries or torments. Nothing seems complicated, nothing seems involved and everything that I can help is satisfactory. I want to lose myself in my work and I have every ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff

... tube which is found attached to the bark of trees, and which has the external surface dark and covered with sand. The trap-doors which close the nest of some of the Territelariae are wonderful examples of protective industry. They fit with such absolute accuracy into the openings of the nests and are so covered on the upper side with moss, earth, lichens, etc., as to be indistinguishable from ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... been written since 1882, are now incorporated with those previously re-published. There are seven of them; namely—"Morals and Moral Sentiments," "The Factors of Organic Evolution," "Professor Green's Explanations," "The Ethics of Kant," "Absolute Political Ethics," "From Freedom to Bondage," and "The Americans." As well as these large additions there are small additions, in the shape of postscripts to various essays—one to "The Constitution of the Sun," one to ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... physical development of the gross "outer shell" proceeds on parallel lines and at an equal rate with that of the will, it stands to reason that no advantage for the purpose of overcoming it, is attained by the latter. The acquisition of improved breechloaders by one modern army confers no absolute superiority if the enemy also becomes possessed of them. Consequently it will be at once apparent, to those who think on the subject, that much of the training by which what is known as "a powerful and determined nature," perfects itself for its own purpose on the stage ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... prediction; both politicians soon came to form a better estimate of her judgement and public spirit. It was some years before this could be fairly tested. The Tories, while improving their position, failed to gain an absolute majority in the elections, and Peel's want of tact in insisting on the Queen changing all the ladies of her household delayed his triumph from 1839 to 1841. Meanwhile he spent his energies in training his ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... Bolingbroke, they had been looking out for an opportunity to secede from the House of Commons on the ground that it was vain for patriotic men to try to do their duty to their country in a House of which the majority, narrow though it was, was yet the absolute slave of such a minister as Walpole. They hoped that such a step would have two effects. It would, they believed, create an immense sensation all over England and make them the heroes of the hour; and they fondly ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... was most indignant at the attempt which had been made upon his follower, but he said to General Leslie, "I doubt not, Sir David, that your thoughts and mine go toward the same person. But we have no evidence that he had an absolute hand in it, although the fact that this ship was commanded by a Campbell, and that the hold of Kilbeg belongs to one of his kinsmen, point to his complicity in the affair. Still, that is no proof. Already the earl is no friend of mine. When the day comes I will have a bitter reckoning with ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... resorted once more to the shovel, and a look of disquiet stole into his face. He opened a wider surface, thinking he had missed the spot. He dug deeper, but no chest appeared, and his look changed to one of absolute fear. ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum

... a society in which, as another of its members, Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, said, there was on the one hand the most insulting despotism and on the other the most degrading submission. The Virginian landowners were more absolute masters than the proudest lords of medieval England. These feudal lords had serfs on their land. The serfs were attached to the soil and were sold to a new master with the soil. They were not, however, property, without human ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... affect to conceal the laxity of his morals; but towards the numerous and powerful party to which he belonged, he was able to disguise them by a seeming gravity of exterior, which he never laid aside. Indeed, so wide and absolute was then the distinction betwixt the Court and the city, that a man might have for some time played two several parts, as in two different spheres, without its being discovered in the one that he exhibited himself in a different light in the other. Besides, when a man of talent shows himself an ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... the second pole and the other end of the net. Both meet at the opposite large hole. The net, which is sunk to the bottom with lead weights, while its top edge is held up by ropes over the ice, forms an absolute prison for all the fish within the square, which usually swarm at this season. The fogasch and sheath fish leave their miry bed and come up to breathe at the ice-holes; they have their family festivals in the winter, when cold-blooded animals make ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... the establishment at St. Germain been in a more flourishing condition than in 1802-3. What more could Madame Campan wish? For ten years absolute in her own house, she seemed also safe from the caprice of power. But the man who then disposed of the fate of France and Europe ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Malcolm went out to meet his brother-in-law. He had absolute confidence in Mackinnon's faithfulness and loyalty, but he feared that his warm-hearted feelings might lead him into indiscretions which would betray the Prince; and in spite of all warnings Mackinnon could not restrain his tears when he saw his Prince under ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang



Words linked to "Absolute" :   unalienable, unequivocal, unquestioning, direct, abstract, unambiguous, living, arbitrary, univocal, implicit, abstraction, bar absolute, relative, inalienable, complete, infinite



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